Ready For All (The Warrior Book 9), page 5
“Uh-huh.” Offstetter didn’t look particularly pleased by even that much information.
“Sounds like we have a bit of a challenge on our hands.” Richard flashed the whole team a quick, tight, closed-lipped smile, then it quickly disappeared. “I know I don’t have to spell out the facts for any of you, but it still needs to be said. Bravo Team’s mission is incomplete and will remain the sole focus of your efforts until that changes. Any questions?”
No one said a thing.
“Anything else you’d like to add, Colonel?”
Offstetter closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh.
Clicking his tongue, Richard nodded at Briggs. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Yes, sir.”
The team waited for the officers to stand so they could do the same and clear the room. When none of the three indicated that they intended to leave, Richard pointed at the door. “You’re dismissed, Bravo.”
Briggs was on his feet in an instant, and the rest of the team quickly followed.
Nobody said a thing as they left the meeting room and headed down Main’s labyrinthine hallways. Bravo Team’s casual, joking mood that frequently carried them through even the most grueling training exercises was temporarily gone.
Once they reached the front lobby, empty because the official workday hadn’t yet started for anyone else, Briggs paused at the front doors and turned back to look at them with his lips pressed grimly together. “Everyone’s taking the day off. Go home. Get some sleep. Check your messages.”
For a moment, it looked like he was about to say something else, but he sighed instead and shoved open the front door.
Idina and her team didn’t need to hear it twice.
CHAPTER SIX
The physical toll that Idina’s first Hellion mission had taken on her body hit her all at once the second she stepped through the front door of her apartment. Exhausted, she grabbed two protein bars from the pantry and practically inhaled them before stripping down to take a shower. She should have had no problem falling asleep after being awake for over twenty-four hours, but as she lay in her ridiculously comfortable bed, sleep wouldn’t come.
The horrible images of what she and Grossman had found in that little girl’s room refused to leave her alone. They replayed in her mind until she finally had to get up and do something—anything—that would take her mind off what she’d seen.
That turned out to be an eight-mile run along the nature trails behind the Buckhide Riverview Apartment complex’s already enormous property. While civilians who lived in the area started their day on the trails, walked their dogs, sipped their coffee, and moved through their normal routines to wake up and energize themselves, Idina ran those trails to exhaust herself to the point of not being able to think once she got home.
It worked.
Unfortunately, she only managed to get four hours of sleep before she lurched bolt upright in her bed, sweaty and breathing heavily without immediately knowing why. Her dreams about and from the Olc had stopped because the Olc was gone. That didn’t necessarily explain why her dreams and visions from Gavina Muirden and the mid-1700s had also stopped, but those had been far more helpful and less ominous.
Idina couldn’t remember dreaming during those four hours, but the sinking heaviness in her gut and her pounding heart told a different story.
Great. There’s no way I’m going back to sleep now.
She took another shower and toasted a pair of frozen waffles for breakfast at almost fourteen hundred. Through all of it, she tried so hard to keep her mind from returning to this morning’s failed mission—what they’d seen, what they’d done, how Hellion Command had no idea what they were up against before sending Bravo in to handle something completely new and unexpected.
How Richard hadn’t known.
As soon as she’d finished her waffles and her first cup of coffee, she got a call from Sergeant Briggs.
“How you doing, Moorfield?”
“Just peachy, Sergeant.”
He snorted. “Yeah, me too. Got a full night’s sleep and everything. Then I got a call from Colonel MacBlair.”
Idina stared at the bottom of her empty mug, then forced herself away from the kitchen table to get a refill of caffeine. “That was fast.”
“That’s what happens when we still have a job to do. Right now, that starts with packing a bag like a normal fucking person would pack their bag for a week. We report to Main by eighteen hundred. Got it?”
“I’ll see you there.”
Briggs hung up without an official end to the conversation, which was completely understandable. Idina wasn’t interested in small talk right now either. After the kind of night and morning Bravo Team had, short and to the point was best.
After packing and putting everything together for the second phase of this incomplete mission, she still had three hours to burn before she’d have to get in her car and head out to Riot. Somehow, the idea of sitting around in her apartment by herself doing absolutely nothing felt a lot worse than driving around through the middle of nowhere doing absolutely nothing. After filling a giant coffee thermos to the brim, she hopped in her car and spent the next three hours doing that instead.
By seventeen forty-nine, every member of Bravo Team had shown up at Riot to receive their next orders for this mission after their phone calls from Sergeant Briggs. Instead of ushering them through Main's front doors, their team leader nodded at a large, nondescript black van parked at the far edge of the dirt lot. “That’s our ride.”
“To where?” Edgars raised a skeptical eyebrow at the vehicle.
“To Fayetteville Regional. Like regular fucking people. ‘Cause that’s what we are for the next few days. And that’s all I know until we get where we’re going.”
The operators tossed their small carry-on suitcases and civilian duffel bags in the back before piling into their non-military ride to the airport. Every single member of Idina’s team looked as terrible as she felt—foggy-eyed, blank-faced, staring out windows or blankly ahead of them at nothing during the drive. They were tired, a little discouraged after their failed attempt to capture this new mob, and still dealing with what had happened in Charles Thwinton’s house. Nobody said much of anything, and the flight from Fayetteville Regional Airport to Philadelphia International Airport was the same.
Another contracted driver was waiting for them when they landed, and the drive out to their next destination didn’t take nearly as much time as their drive from Riot. It made sense because the unofficial official base of operations for Hellion Squadron was out in the middle of nowhere. Bravo Team was continuing its mission inside a modest-sized family home in a suburban neighborhood outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
When their second van rolled up to the curb in front of the two-story house and parked, Wilson leaned forward to get a better look at the entire building through the passenger window. “Sergeant, I hope you’re about to tell us this is some kinda team-building retreat for morale or whatever.”
Trigger snorted. “Keep dreaming, dude.”
Briggs didn’t say anything as he got out of the van and went around the back to open the cargo area.
Tired, weary, and unsure of what to expect, Bravo Team grabbed their gear and followed their team leader up the paved driveway toward the front door, shuffling along like zombies.
Idina glanced at her watch in the darkness and wrinkled her nose.
Just after eighteen hundred. Looks like four hours of sleep is as much as I’m gonna get for a while. We still haven’t been briefed on what the hell we’re doing here.
Briggs stepped onto the porch, knocked on the front door, and waited with slightly hunched shoulders for whoever was supposed to meet them here to answer.
Standing at the back of her team gathered off the front porch, Idina couldn’t see who had answered the door or even a glimpse of what was waiting for them inside. No one said anything, but Briggs disappeared through the front door, and the rest of her weary team filtered in after him.
As soon as she stepped into the foyer behind everyone else, a part of her knew she should have expected to see what the house’s main floor had become. After all, Hellion was Richard MacBlair’s brainchild. This particular house had her uncle written all over it.
“Holy shit,” Bam whispered as he took the first step out of the foyer and into the large living room. Everyone else looked around in surprise and wonder with him. Then the front door shut with a click and broke the spell.
Idina spun to find an average-looking man without any real defining features standing inside the door. He couldn’t have been much older than twenty-nine or thirty. In a pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt with “I’m With Stupid” printed on the front, and bare feet—not to mention the head of messy, light-brown curls falling over his forehead and ears—he didn’t look the military part.
That’s the whole point, isn’t it? This is an undercover mission now.
She didn’t have much information or proof that was the case, but she knew Bravo’s incomplete mission had turned into something a little different. She turned out to be right.
The other operators also turned to see who had closed the door, swaying groggily or trying to blink themselves out of a heavy daze.
Their host offered a tired smile and spread his arms. “Welcome to the Philadelphia safehouse. We call it Harbor Four.”
Bam snickered. “What happened to one, two, and three?”
The man fixed him with a blank look. “They pay me to know everything there is to know about this one. That’s it.” Then he looked down at Idina, who stood closest to the door, and gave her a quick nod of acknowledgment before brushing past her and making his way through the group of eight travel-weary operators. “Come on. I’ll give you guys the tour.”
Briggs half-heartedly checked his watch, then immediately stuck another piece of gum in his mouth and followed the guy responsible for Harbor Four. Idina’s unit had no other option but to keep following the person in front of them as he led them through the building that might at one time have looked like a real house on the inside.
The main living room, however, had been converted into an operations center that looked remarkably like The Brain on Riot. Rows of tables took up most of the space, all covered in monitors and keyboards, radios, and stacks of reference binders.
The computer towers and servers took up most of the available space under the tables, but there was clear legroom in front of the three rolling desk chairs set up at regular intervals behind every table. On the right-hand side of the room by the windows—covered in thick, dark curtains that blocked out the light during the day and hid the massive assembly of electronics at night—was a long, sturdy table surrounded by ten chairs.
The team’s host hardly gave any of it a second glance as he skirted along the lefthand wall and gestured toward the setup in the living room with a flippant wave. “Intel, surveillance, comms, and meetings only in this room. If you’re not doing one of those four things, you shouldn’t be in here. That includes multi-tasking, so keep your food in the fucking kitchen.”
“And flat-out off-limits for Moorfield, right?” Trigger muttered.
Wilson and Edgars snickered. Idina rolled her eyes and kept walking at the back of the group, although a small smile flickered across her lips.
Four months ago, I would’ve been concerned about that too. Good thing accidental tech frying’s off the list now.
“That leads us to the kitchen. Whatever you need, it’s probably here. If it’s not, ask yourself how much you need it before making a request. I’m telling you right now it’ll probably get denied. I’m not a cook or a personal assistant.”
At the front of the unit, Grossman looked over his shoulder with an exaggerated grimace. It was harder not to laugh, but Bravo kept it together. Despite the late hour and the fact that none of them had eaten or slept much in almost forty-eight hours, they were still a team sharing the same humor that had gotten them this far in the first place.
On the other side of the kitchen was a combination dining room and lounge area, with two smaller banquet tables and chairs crammed together on one side and a collection of mismatched couches, armchairs, and benches filling up the other.
“Guess you could call this the Mess,” their host continued. “Free time here. You may or may not have a shitload of it, but either way, expect to get bored, ’cause that happens too.” Then he stopped at the base of a stairwell climbing up to the second story and pointed. “Stairs.”
“Have any helpful tips about those?” Briggs sported a crooked smile.
The fact that their sergeant had made a joke to someone they’d just met—someone who technically hadn’t introduced himself yet—almost broke the last of Bravo Team’s composure.
Trigger barked a laugh that quickly turned into a series of forced coughs. Chandler shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked forward on his toes with his head bowed low to hide his smile. Edgars and Wilson looked at each other with wide eyes, and Bam somehow managed not to make an overeager remark about their team leader having a little fun outside normal working hours.
The man acting as their safehouse contact stared at Briggs, then he broke into a grin. “I can’t hold your team’s hand through everything, Sergeant. That’s your job. Lieutenant Fitch.”
Oh shit. What did a lieutenant have to do to get shipped out here and spend every day in a safehouse all on his own?
Laughing, Fitch stuck out his hand, and Briggs grasped it for a firm shake. “Thanks for the tour, Lieutenant.”
“Just keep it to Fitch while you’re here, huh?” He nodded at the rest of the team crowding around the base of the stairs. “And no salutes. I’m your support team, but if you guys fuck around, I have no problem pulling rank.”
“Got it.”
Still smirking, Fitch gestured toward the stairs again. “Figure out your beds, and I’ll brief you at oh five hundred tomorrow. You guys look like shit.”
The man skirted around the exhausted Bravo Team to let them settle in. Before he’d disappeared around the corner into the kitchen, Briggs was already leading the way up the stairs to the second floor.
“Nice place, right?” Bam muttered, his palm squeaking against the wooden handrail bolted to the wall as he climbed. “I mean, it’s not Home…”
“Hell of a lot more space, though,” Chandler added.
Trigger snorted. “Yeah, that’s a hard fucking thing for you to find anywhere, isn’t it?”
The others chuckled softly over the clop of their footsteps up the stairs. When Briggs reached the top landing, he immediately opened the first door on his right and dragged his single bag inside with him.
“Doesn’t look like there are seven other rooms up here,” Wilson joked.
Their sergeant paused in the bedroom doorway he’d claimed, tossed his bag on the floor, then poked his head back into the hall to eye the other closed doors to other rooms. “You heard the man. Figure it out.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
After only catching a little over five hours of sleep, Idina woke at oh four forty-five to her phone’s alarm blaring from the dresser on the other side of the room. For those first few groggy moments of being pulled from much-needed sleep, she didn’t immediately remember that she wasn’t in her private room in her apartment right outside Fayetteville.
So when Trigger groaned angrily in the other twin-sized bed and shouted something incoherent, Idina was jolted fully awake and leapt out of her bed. “How the hell did you get in here?”
Only after shouting the question did she realize that she was in one of the shared rooms in the Harbor Four safehouse in Philadelphia instead.
“Jesus, Moorfield. I get it,” Trigger grumbled as she tossed the covers off herself and slowly sat up. “You still have personal space issues. Relax.”
Idina sighed, sat on the edge of her bed, and rubbed her face. “Sorry.”
“For the alarm or screaming at me first thing in the morning?” The other woman smirked and held up her index finger. “’Cause you only need one of those, or it’s overkill.”
“Either or,” Idina murmured into her hands. Then she sat fully upright, smoothed her hair away from her head, and yawned. “I forgot where we were.”
“Yeah, get used to that too.” Trigger snatched her watch off the nightstand by her bed, strapped it on, then stood to rifle through her duffel bag. “Cutting it a little close, though, don’t you think?”
Idina dropped her hands into her lap, looked at her team member across the room, then glanced at the door. “We only have to go down a flight of stairs to get to work. Why? Did you need extra time to do your hair and makeup first?”
After tugging on a fresh, plain t-shirt, Trigger snorted and flipped Idina the bird. “Smartass.”
Laughing groggily, Idina forced herself out of bed so she could change out of her pajama shorts and tank top. Before she’d picked a random shirt and pair of pants from her bag, the hallway outside their shared room filled with a loud, desperate pounding.
“Hey!” Bam shouted as he kept pounding. “Dude, you’ve been in there for twenty fucking minutes. Time’s up!”
“Yeah, I’m gonna be in for a while…” Wilson’s echoing voice filtered out from under the bathroom door.
“Goddammit, Wilson!”
The creak of two different doors opening in succession joined the hallway noise, followed by Edgars’ mocking call of, “Wilson!”
“Wilson… Wilson…”
Chandler and Grossman took up the chant, and Wilson joined in from the bathroom. Then Bam growled in frustration and stomped down the hall toward the stairs.
Idina laughed, finished changing her clothes, and mockingly grimaced at Trigger. “I thought guys were supposed to be easier to deal with first thing in the morning. Even with only one bathroom upstairs.”
“Right?” Trigger ran a hand through her short hair and scoffed. “Too bad we can’t all be high-maintenance.”
