Page 72 of Shadows Relived
He didn’t blink, didn’t even breathe, as he twisted his hands along the wheel. “Hold on, girl,” he whispered. “Almost there.”
The red dot kept blinking, steady as a heartbeat.
And this time, it wasn’t just a signal.
It was a promise.
Behind them, twin headlights from Gage and Elvis’s SUV sliced through the dark, while Sage and Abbie split behind them, going in opposite directions, setting up their positions. And then he saw the last set of headlights, Hawk and Grim. He was called Grim because he had a deathlike stare about him, and really didn’t joke around much. They pulled off to the side of the road, waiting for the go signal.
Blaze’s voice crackled in Callen’s earpiece. “You’re coming up on it now. Looks like an old farmhouse, single story. Forest to the north, swamp at the back. No heat signatures anywhere close other than what you’ve seen. They blacked out the windows for the most part. My guess? They know you’re coming.”
“Copy,” Callen muttered.
In the passenger seat, Harrington shifted. “This is crazy. There’s no way you’re going to get her out of there.” He pointed to the screen. “Look how fortified the place is.”
Callen didn’t look at him. “You’re the reason she’s in there, remember? You dragged her into this the moment you signed your soul to Marris.”
“I was trying to fix it,” the senator snapped. “I had people cleaning the documents, purging the accounts. But Everett must have seen what I was doing. He somehow managed to lock me out. I didn’t know that they’d go after her.”
Callen scoffed. “You know, with everything you say you were doing to make it right, the one thing you didn’t do was give back the money.” He turned to face the older man, anger twisting his features. “And that’s what Everett wanted in the beginning. That could have stopped all this from happening.”
The senator simply stared at him for a few moments. Then, “I didn’t intend to put her in danger.”
Callen finally turned, fury glinting like steel in his eyes. “But you did. She almost died because of you. She’s been hunted, kidnapped, and god knows what else because you got greedy and trusted a man like Everett Marris.”
“Yeah, I trusted him,” the senator whispered. “At first, anyway. I didn’t know what I was getting into in the beginning when he first showed up, offering solutions, making promises. I thought he believed in our mission, that he was a partner we needed. But then thenumbers got bigger, and the doors got darker, and the lines got wider. And by the time I realized the trap, he had her name on everything. Everything I was trying to build, he turned it into blackmail, keeping me in hiding, keeping me as his patsy.”
Callen shook his head. “And now you’re going to help us fix it. Because if you don’t, I’ll use you as bait.”
Silence followed, thick and final. As he glanced over, he noticed the senator’s hands trembling. It was about time something scared the hell out of him.
The SUV crawled to a halt at the edge of a clearing. In the distance, nestled among trees like a rotted tooth, stood the house. It looked abandoned, its paint peeling, porch sagging, but the air was wrong. Stale and alert.
Off to the side, he spotted Hawk and Grim emerging from the trees, rifles held in front of them and eyes sharp.
“I see the four men Blaze and Tex warned us about,” Hawk reported, voice low. “One stationed on the roof, walking around like an extra from an old western. There are two pacing the front of the house and one on the back porch, smoking. Basement access looks sealed. Do you want to breach from the front or storm the sides?”
“Both,” Callen said. “Sage, Abbie loop wide. Cover the left flank. Elvis and Gage, take the right. Hawk, Grim, you two are with me and the senator here. We’re going through the front.”
“Me?” Harrington almost squealed. “Go in there with you? But?—”
Callen handed him a sidearm. “You want redemption? It starts here.”
He slipped the earpiece back in and gave the silentsignal to move out, index finger up, a quick flick forward. Go.
No hesitation. No chatter.
The rest of the team snapped into motion like wolves unleashed. Gage was first, melting into the treeline with the low, loping crouch of someone born in the field, his SIG drawn and angled low, eyes scanning. A shadow in motion.
Elvis followed, taking the far left flank, his limp gone now, adrenaline overriding pain. He moved with practiced fluidity, one hand steady on the grip of his carbine, the other brushing branches aside like smoke. Every step deliberate. Every sound accounted for.
From the opposite side, Hawk and Grim took up the rear triangle, sweeping wide and low to secure the perimeter. Hawk, ever the bulldog, muttered something under his breath that the wind snatched away. Grim didn’t respond. He never did. Just adjusted the suppressor on his rifle and scanned the windows of the old house with a sniper’s intuition.
Callen moved center, with the senator right behind him.
Boots sank into pine needles, weapons raised in sync, and fingers hovered just outside trigger guards, ready but not rushed. The silence between them wasn’t absence; it was intent.
This was the difference between operatives and soldiers. His team didn’t stumble through the woods like grunts. They floated, sliding through the terrain with quiet ease.
