Preacher moved around the building to find each security guard. He went to the left and Ink went to the right. If they encountered a guard, they killed him quietly and hid the body carefully so it wouldn’t be easily found. There were four stationary guards and one roving. Neither had much time to take the guards out and hide the bodies. Fortunately, when they ran the plan repeatedly, they knew the position of the guards, even the roving one. They had established ahead of time where to hide each body. That was due to Steele’s meticulous planning. When he ran a mission, no detail was too small, which was why their missions tended to run smoothly.
The most important guard was the one stationed at the entrance to the private hallway marked For Employees Only. If Billows came into the building via the clubs, he would use that route. A guard had to be present at that door, and one had to be sitting at the desk where Bobby Aspen usually was on duty. His replacement during the daylight hours was a man named Alex Right. It didn’t matter which guard sat at the desk, he had to be replaced with a team member. Preacher had that role.
Once he disposed of the security guards outside the building, Ink would remain dressed as one of the outside guards on roving patrol. Preacher would take Bobby Aspen’s place. He was adept at adapting his body image to appear however he needed to look. They had taken the precaution of making masks of both guards to be on the safe side.
As a precaution against being recognizable, every member wore a silicone mask. They were used to wearing them, changing their appearances and even their walks, with the roles they played, when necessary.
“Guard is down,” Ink reported. “In place.”
Preacher made his approach with Maestro toward the employees-only door. A guard stepped in front of the door, one hand on his gun, his chest out. He looked impressive, his features set in lines of command.
“You can’t…”
Maestro threw his favorite small throwing knife with deadly accuracy. It didn’t take a huge blade to kill a man. One needed to know precisely where on a body to hit, have the training and do so without hesitation. They were on him before his body went down. Maestro dragged him behind a wall of hydrangea bushes, concealing the body. Very little blood seeped down the neck to soak into the shirt and jacket.
Preacher wore a jacket with the security emblem on it in preparation for his role. He removed the keys and small radio as well as a cell phone from the guard’s pockets. Maestro opened the door and stepped inside as if he owned the place. The entrance was mostly dark, lit only by a single bulb. Much farther down the hall, he could see the desk was manned by Bobby Aspen.
Maestro stopped just inside the door to lay his hand on the wooden panels that made up the wall. Immediately, he felt the connection in the way he did, the gift he’d been born with. The knot was only inches from his fingers. He felt Azelie’s presence strongly, as if she stood right there in that hall with him. The wood remembered her, felt her connection with it.
He found the necklace in the knot, scooping it out with one finger, his body covering the movement from Bobby. He suspected the guard’s desk was too far away to see what he was doing. That was why Azelie had chosen—or been given—that particular spot to conceal her key. She was adept at putting it in the hole and retrieving it, which meant she’d practiced somewhere else until she was extremely fast at it.
“Who the hell are you?” Bobby demanded, belligerence in his voice. He stood, gun locked in his fist, aiming at Preacher.
Preacher kept walking toward him, a friendly smile on his face. “New security guard. Weird you didn’t get the memo that I’d be introducing myself to you.”
Preacher was nearly at the desk by the time Maestro had the key in his possession. Bobby’s attention was centered solely on Preacher. It was clear he believed him to be the real threat. He thought Maestro was too far away, Preacher blocking any access to Bobby’s body. Neither Preacher nor Maestro had a gun out.
“Stop right where you are. I need to see your ID and scan your prints. This is a restricted area,” Bobby continued.
Maestro used Preacher’s body as a shield, coming up behind his Torpedo Ink brother in a deliberately slow stalk. Movement attracts attention. Preacher deliberately shuffled his feet, threw his hands up and out while he talked, spoke rapidly and interjected laughter into his monologue to keep Bobby off-balance.
“Isn’t it just like Billows to forget to send an important memo? Guess if he loses one security guard, especially a new one, he won’t lose any sleep over it.” He laughed as if he’d told a huge joke.
Preacher no longer moved forward toward Bobby, but he was the epitome of a very young man with ADHD, unable to stay still. He threw his arms around and punched his fist into his palm and turned this way and that. Bobby’s attention was riveted on him.
Maestro stepped around Preacher, putting him to the left side of Bobby. Almost simultaneously, he threw his favorite knife, the same one he’d retrieved from the outside guard. He didn’t ever leave his weapons behind if it was at all possible to recover them. Bobby reeled back under the impact, gurgling and choking. One hand came up to his neck as if he didn’t quite know what happened. The gun in his hand fell to the floor.
Preacher was on him, snapping Bobby’s neck, not waiting for him to bleed out. With the ease of long practice, he dragged the dead guard into the darkest part of the hallway. Billows kept the hallway dimly lit so there would be no chance of an employee seeing where the door was seamlessly woven into the woodwork. Even knowing it was there, the members of Torpedo Ink would have had a difficult time finding it. Fortunately, Lana had counted the steps Azelie had taken from the guard desk to where the opening of the door was.
Maestro measured out the steps while Preacher dragged Bobby out of sight and retrieved Maestro’s knife. Maestro placed his hand on the ornate wooden panel, feeling the instant connection. The lock was inches from his palm. He had Azelie’s fingerprints on his fingers using silicone, and he mimicked the way she palmed the tiny chip. His hand was much larger than hers. It took a moment to get the chip centered before he placed his fingers carefully on the pad woven into the wood. In all the years they had run missions and encountered heavy security, he’d never seen such a clever device.
“Keys, I’m in,” he announced. “Building’s as secure as it’s going to be.”
“Right behind you,” Keys assured him. He entered quickly, saluted Preacher, who had pulled on the silicone mask of Bobby’s face and a ball cap and sank into the chair Bobby had vacated. He was their first line of defense so no one could come up behind Maestro and Keys as they descended into the lower floors.
Maestro waited for Keys, allowing him to go first. The stairway was narrow, lit only by LED lights. Before stepping onto each stair, Keys patiently crouched low and ran his palms just above the next stair down. Both were aware of time passing, but they didn’t attempt to hurry the process. They knew how many stairs they had to descend to reach the floor where the offices and potential prison for the women were. Knowing there were bombs in the floor, both realized bombs could be placed beneath the stairs as well. It was entirely possible Billows activated the bombs when he wasn’t there, but if he knew Azelie was coming, he’d have made certain there was no chance of them going off.
“Player said he’ll have a main switch in the office he uses,” Key said. “And he’ll most likely always carry a manual switch on his person. When he’s taken, we’ll have to strip him to ensure he can’t blow us all up.”
Maestro wasn’t worried about Billows’ chances of killing them, not when Savage and Destroyer would be there to take care of the interrogation. No matter what self-preservation instincts Billows had, the two men were guaranteed to get around them. They’d been trained in every aspect of interrogation from the time they were young boys. Both had exceeded the expectations of every instructor.
Keys found four bombs beneath the floorboards in the maze of seemingly dead-end hallways, but none of the four were live. They’d simply been placed there.
“While you find an entrance to the other rooms, I’ll check Billows’ office for a switch for the bombs and also to see if he has the same kind of chip to unlock the door in the wall.”
That was the one thing Maestro was most worried about. If Billows had rested on his laurels and programmed the lock to be the same as the one for the door leading down to the underground floor, it was possible Azelie had access to every lock without realizing it. Billows had her so intimidated she hadn’t tried to explore the environment. That was smart on her part. Billows had been lulled into a false sense of security by Azelie’s compliance.
Maestro followed the same path Azelie had taken when she had tried to locate the woman screaming. She’d told him how the hallways narrowed and would dead-end straight into a wall. The floor was dimly lit with LED lights along the ceiling in places, but they hung down in a rope, causing shadows to move ominously. It was disorienting and gave off the illusion that the walls crept in, closing in on him as his hand whispered along the wood. It would be a terrifying experience for a young woman alone.
Torpedo Ink had a member, Player, who was a master of illusion. He could create entrances and exits or throw up false walls they could hide behind. The toll was tremendous on him for using that talent, but he’d developed it into a real weapon that had saved their lives on many occasions. Maestro wasn’t thrown by illusions. He was good at telling the difference between reality and tricks.
The swaying ropes of light had been set up deliberately to give the illusion of the walls closing in on anyone walking around. It was a good trick and required a professional to manage it. Billows most likely had done it knowing Azelie worked in an office below the clubs. He didn’t want her exploring. The illusion hadn’t stopped Azelie when she believed another woman was hurt and needed help. Billows didn’t know Azelie nearly as well as he thought he did.
The wood panel whispered to him as he made his way steadily toward the wall solidly in front of him. He felt Azelie’s presence, although the incident had taken place months earlier. Her fear and determination were impressed into the grains in the wood. That made Maestro love her all the more. She’d been unwavering in her resolve to find the unknown woman even though she was terrified. Azelie was courageous, even if a little foolhardy.
He located the lock in the carvings along the wall. Keys came up behind him just as he was trying Azelie’s chip and prints. He did so smoothly, as if just by believing, the chip would work—and it did. Billows hadn’t gone to the trouble of removing Azelie’s prints and key from the lock. He’d just used the same one.
“He has all this elaborate security, and yet he reused the same door lock,” Keys muttered. “Sometimes people make no sense to me, Maestro. None at all.”
“It goes with Billows’ personality. He believes he’s too intelligent for anyone to catch him. Ego tends to be the downfall of men like him. His device is so secret he doesn’t need more than one.”
The door opened silently. Maestro peered into the darkened corridor. This hall was much wider than the one they had followed to get to the door. Reluctantly, he stepped back to allow Keys to precede him.
We’re in, he reported to Steele. They had the small radio earpieces in their ears, but because they had been unable to get audio when they were following Azelie’s progress into the underground rooms, they thought it would be better to try to communicate using telepathy. Some were better at it than others, and distance could screw things up. The radios were for backup if telepathy didn’t work.
Steele responded, It’s quiet out here so far, but clock is ticking.
Maestro knew they were taking a little longer than anticipated, searching for bombs beneath the floor and in the walls. They couldn’t afford to take any chances, especially if women were being held captive.
