Page 9 of Red Zone Awakened

“You know we can’t tell you what he has,” Striker said.“That’s his secret to tell.”

“It won’t be a secret at all if he can’t control it and stop it from getting free while he’s in there.Can we fly some drones in close to see if we can spot him?That would give us a better idea of what we can do to get him out.”

Hunter answered.“The signal’s jammed for at least a one-block radius of the building.It wouldn’t work.”

“We might have another problem,” Gray said.“You notice anyone else missing from that little show?”

“Keiko.”Sandi groaned.“My dumbass brother must have snatched her when the shooting started.I told him to stop thinking with his dick.It’s going to get him killed.”

Striker pinched the bridge of his nose.“We can’t know for sure he took her.She might be hiding somewhere.”

“We know,” Gray said.“We all know he nabbed her.She’s a woman in danger, one he knows personally—no way he’d leave her to fend for herself.Keiko’s his kryptonite.”

“What does that mean?”Friday asked, again missing the reference from a culture that ended long before she was born.She was a child of the new world.Born as a foundling, raised by the charities run by the government, and educated by CommTECH to join their stable of pet scientists.Now she wasStriker’spet scientist.

“It means that Mace has a history of this.”He hesitated, drawing his sensitive wife close, knowing how she’d react to Mace’s story.“His dad killed his mom when he was a kid, and his granddaddy made sure Mace believed he was evil, jus’ like his father.”

Friday gasped.“That’s awful.”

“Yeah, bébé, it’s awful.It also makes him feel like he has to save every woman who crosses his path.”Something that’d gotten the team into trouble a time or two in the past.

“Especially the ones he’s been balls-deep in,” Gray added.“Makes him feel extra responsible.”

“Not helping.”Striker frowned at his teammate.

Friday tugged at his arm.“You’re allowed to tell me about his childhood, but not what his animal is?”

“Well,” Sandi said, “not knowing about his past wouldn’t irritate you nearly as much as not knowing his animal.Mace is a complicated man.”

“Yeah,” Hunter snorted.“That’s another word for annoying.”

“We need to plan this operation with the assumption Mace and Keiko are together,” Striker said.“And we have to get both of them out of there.”

“If he’s with Keiko,” Hunter said, “he’s screwed.Everybody will be hunting for her.Terrorists and Enforcement alike.This is one huge game of capture the flag.”

There was silence.

“You all get that Keiko’s the flag, right?”Hunter said, making Sandi smack him upside the head.

“Get the building specs and have Ignacio go over them,” Striker told him.“And contact the rest of the team.We’ll need all hands on deck if this thing goes south.Sandi, get in touch with our CommTECH contacts, find out what’s going on with them.I want to know what their response to the attack is going to be.Gray, you check out Freedom.I want to know everything there is to know about Susan Neal.And you,bébé”—he looked down at his serious wife—“I need you to rack your brain and come up with a way out for our boy.Nobody else on the team knows that building like you do.You spent years working there.Give us every option you can think of, no matter how far-fetched.Let’s bring Mace home.”

Friday wrapped her hand around his arm.“What about Keiko’s friend Abigail?”

He shared a look with his team, knowing full well that the chances of getting three people out of that building alive were minuscule.As soon as Enforcement arrived, the place would turn into a war zone, and neither Enforcement nor Freedom would care who survived.

“We can’t leave her,” Friday said.“We got Keiko into this, and she loves Abigail.”

The soft pleading in her eyes broke Striker’s heart.“We’ll do our best,” he promised.

Their best was all any of them could do.