In Hot Pursuit Read online

  Snowden on their hands. The two men and three women were all decorated military officers who had served their country with honor. They loved American, and were highly committed to protecting its values and the safety of its citizens.

  “Agents Bowles and Earnes.” He turned back to Bowles and Earnes. “Walk out with me.” Dr. Bailey reached for his gear and headed to the door. Earnes and Bowles followed close behind. “We are clearly racing against time here. This new development has put us in a completely different direction. We need to step up our game, and we need do it fast.”

  “Do you know who’s behind this?” Earnes paused to asked.

  Dr. Bailey spun around to look at him. “I have an idea, Agent Earnes. Have you

  ever heard of Gilles Raybourne?”

  Earnes took a second to think. “I don’t think I have. The name doesn’t ring a

  bell.”

  “What about you Agent Bowles?” Dr. Bailey looked over his shoulder to inquire

  of Agent Bowles. “Anything? You were with the CIA briefly. You must have heard

  about him.”

  “No. The name doesn’t sound like one I’ve heard before. I would remember if it had,” Bowles told him with great certainty. “Who is he?”

  Dr. Bailey chuckled and stepped outside into the cold mid-morning air. The icy,

  strong breeze whipped against his flushed face. He held his face skywards and took

  in several deep breaths, happy to be outside in the fresh air.

  “Let’s say Gilles Raybourne is America’s answer to Osama bin Laden. He’s wealthy, ruthless, and as heartless and cunning as they come. He was a former CIA agent who was caught selling sensitive US secrets to terrorists, and to Iran. We had to abort several of our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan because of it. He endangered the lives of our service men. There are talks that he might have contacted Russia and China to sell them secrets as well, but we are still out on that one. We still haven’t found proof of that.”

  Earnes let out a loud whistle. “He’s that dangerous!”

  “He’s a homegrown terrorist, Agent Earnes!” Dr. Bailey told him in a heightened

  voice. “The man has absolutely no scruples or conscious when it comes to doing the right thing. He has made millions of dollars betraying his country and putting us in danger for further attacks. Homeland Security has been trying to capture him for the last three years. And they hadn’t succeeded. He evaded them every step of the

  way. He’s never in one place for long. We suspect he has people on the inside

  helping him, that’s why he has been able to stay a step ahead of us.”

  “Do you think he did this?” Bowles was eager to know.

  “There’s no doubt about it, Agent Bowles. This entire thing reeked of him. He

  has been wreaking havoc on his unsuspecting victims for the last three years. He has no problem getting rid of the threat, even his own people. Looks like he just upped

  his sick game. We have to find a way to stop him before he does anymore harm.”

  Dr. Bailey gave them a tentative look. He opened the door and tossed his bag carelessly onto the back seat. “I will see you back at headquarters. You will get a more detailed briefing there.” He got into the vehicle, and poked his head out the window to inform them.

  He put the SUV into reverse and backed out of the driveway. Earnes and Bowles stood side by side in the cold and watched him go. There was a bewildered look on their faces when they turned to look at each other. They got into the SUV without saying a word to each other, and drove away, with Earnes at the wheel.

  They caught up with Dr. Bailey about two blocks away. He had pulled over at

  the side of the road, and there were three men in the SUV with him—one sitting at the front, and the other two at the back. Earnes slowed down to see if they knew who the men were. They had never seen them before. Earnes pulled up alongside the SUV and honked his horn to get Dr. Bailey’s attention.

  “Is everything okay here, Doc?” He eyed the men suspiciously, his hand resting on the gun.

  The men didn’t look like federal agents, neither FBI nor CIA. They were large and scruffy looking, with black leather jackets that didn’t quite fit their large, beefy frames. It was the type of men who acted as enforcers for the mob.

  “It’s okay, Agent Earnes.” Dr. Bailey rolled down the window and poked his

  head out to tell them. “I’ve been detained here briefly. I will join you and Agent

  Bowles shortly.” He waved them off.

  Earnes hesitated. “Are you sure?” He tried to get a better look of the men. It was hard because they had their large bodies turned to him. They clearly didn’t want to be recognized.

  “I will see you back at headquarters.” Dr. Bailey reiterated in a firm voice, and waved them off a second time. He seemed agitated.

  “He wants us to go,” Earnes whispered to Bowles.

  “Then we should go,” Bowles told him.

  “Okay, Doc.” Earnes gave the men another once over, and took off down the

  street. “That’s strange,” he said to Bowles, as they approached a red light. “I’ve never known the doctor to be evasive about anything. He’s an open book, for a

  British guy! But he seemed pretty tongue tied and flustered back there, as if he’s hiding something.”

  Earnes scratched the side of his head.

  “Do you think we should circle back?”

  “Nah,” Earnes told her. “Bailey can take care of himself—if he said it’s okay,

  then I guess it is. He was with Scotland Yard, remember. He wouldn’t have let those men into his car if he had felt that his life was in danger.”

  Bowles sighed. “I hope you are right. It didn’t look like they were having such a

  friendly conversation to me.”

  “They could be undercover agents, or informants.”

  “I doubt it. You know we don’t meet informants out in the open like that. And

  three undercover agents together? Not very likely!”

  Bowles gave him a skeptical look. She reached for her phone to call her contact, to see if she could shed any light on what was going on with Baily. The SUV jolted forward and the phone fell abruptly from her hand and onto her boots as Earnes swerved to the right to avoid landing in the ditch.

  “What was that?” She glanced back over her shoulders to the road behind them.

  “I don’t know.” Earnes put the van in reverse and got back in the lane. “We came

  this way and those speed bumps weren’t there before.” His eyes went up to the front view mirror.

  “At least they weren’t spikes. Someone deliberately installed them there to slow

  us down,” Bowles told him. “And I know why. Over your shoulder—to your right.”

  She warned him and reached for her gun.

  They took cover, and returned fire as three men approached the SUV, and took

  aim at them.

  Chapter 1

  “Abort and move out! Mission aborted! Mission aborted! Stand down and move out, now! Take cover and move out! We are surrounded. Raybourne’s men are everywhere! We’ve walked into a trap! Retreat! Retreat, now!”

  Agent Bowles had her head up long enough to shout the warning to the other agents across the large space, before a barrage of bullets sent her diving for cover behind the large metal crates. She wasn’t certain the other agents had heard her. She waited for the shooting to subsided before poking her head around the side and trying again.

  “Everyone get out of here now! Take cover and move out! Move out!”

  Earnes was right behind her. “We are outnumbered. The bastard called in his minions to take us out,” he told her. “He caught us completely by surprise!”

  Bowles cast a fleeting sideways glance at Earnes. He was crouched down behind the stack of metal crates not far from where she was hiding. They had taken cover there when Raybourne’s men had started shooting at them.

>   “Tell me something I don’t know! There are more than twenty of them out there,

  waiting to take us out, one by one. There’s going to be a bloodbath if we don’t get

  everyone out of here,” Bowles’ voice was harrowed.

  She was done being optimistic about the outcome. They were up against an army of men, who from the sound of it appeared to be better armed than they were. And they were hugely outnumbered too. It seemed like Raybourne had rounded every known crook in the city and beyond to come here to fight his battle for him. They were ten of them, herself included. She didn’t think they would need more. And the last intel they’d had of the place, about an hour ago, had no more than six men, including Raybourne himself coming in here. So this was a huge surprise for them.

  “We should have known that Raybourne wouldn’t go down without a fight,”

  Earnes told her. There was a worried edge to his mostly calm voice. “The bastard set a trap for us—he had every intention of ambushing us the second we bust through that door.”

  Bowles sighed loudly. “We have been sitting on the place for months, and we didn’t see those men coming in here. There is no way we could have missed them sneaking in, either. There has hardly been any activity at the warehouse for over two weeks, just the mundane coming and going of a couple of his men—they were the same five men we have seen in the last three weeks.”

  “He must have smuggled them in.”

  “We had eyes on the front and back entrances the whole time. There weren’t any

  big crates or trucks coming in or going out, either.”

  “Well, they got in here somehow,” Earnes told her in a frustrated voice. “Probably not from the front or back door, but they made it in here somehow. And they couldn’t have been let down from the roof either. We had our guys checked the roof when they weren’t here—it’s solid concrete—no skylight to burst through from.”

  The men started shooting at them again.

  Bowles and Earnes got into position and exchanged caged glances.

  “We have to fight our way out of here until back up arrives.” Bowles gave him a determined look. “Start shooting on three. One—two—three!”

  They moved quickly together, turning around the side of the large crate and firing in the direction where they had last heard the gun shots coming from. The men responded by returning fire on them. A steady deluge of bullets rained down on the crates above their heads, bouncing off to land at their feet.

  They slipped back between the large crates, and took the time to reload their weapons.

  Earnes gave her a nervous look. “Shit! They have seen us! They know where we are. We have to try to slip out of here before they come looking for us.”

  “They are shooting at us from every angle it’s going to be hard to go anywhere. We have to find a way to hold them off.”

  “We can’t keep up with them, Gab. At this rate we will definitely run out of

  bullets.”

  Bowles paused for a moment. She knew there were about four men perched right above them. They were heavily armed with AK-47s. She knew she could take them out before they knew what hit them. She crawled around the long side of the pile of crates where she could have a better view of them from the back. She aimed for their heads and fired quickly. The bullets entered the back of their heads, sending three of them tumbling to the ground below, their skulls smashing open on the hard concrete.

  She got back down on her elbows and crawled back to where Earnes was. “I got three of them,” she told him. “At least those ones won’t be shooting at us anymore.”

  “They aren’t letting up. Do you think they got any of our men?”

  “I hope not! I’m going to try to warn them again. Raybourne is a ruthless

  psychopath. He’s hell bent on getting revenge on us. He will have no problem blowing the place to smithereens with us inside it, if that’s what he has to do.”

  “I agree. He wants us gone so badly that he wouldn’t mind taking out some of his men with us.”

  Bowles got down on her stomach and poked her head around the side.

  “Everyone, move out! We’ve got a seven-fifty! Code-black! Code-black! Move

  out, now!” Bowles sounded the unit’s special warning, and fell back next to Earnes.

  She hoped the men were able to hear her this time. She didn’t want to be

  responsible for any of them going out in body bags. And from the way things were going, it seemed very likely. They had been in a fierce gun battle with Raybourne and his men ever since they burst into the warehouse, about eight minutes ago, and it wasn’t letting up. Raybourne and his thugs had been waiting for them. And this wasn’t the usual deadly, tit-for-tat fiery exchange they sometimes encountered on take downs. This one was relentless, willful, and deadly. There was no doubt that Raybourne wanted them out of the way. And he was going to do everything in his power to make it happen.

  She took a deep breath and glanced at Earnes. She was frustrated that they hadn’t seen any of this coming. They had spent weeks and months planning this, down to the very last detail. They had watched and waited for the right moment to raid the place, hoping to catch Raybourne before he slipped away again.

  She was angry that they hadn’t been sharp enough to know that he wouldn’t go easy, and that he would have a death trap waiting to ensnare them. They had underestimated him in a big way. There wasn’t much they could do right now, well, except to hope that they could shoot their way out of there, or keep Raybourne and his men at bay until back up arrived.

  The bullets started raining down on them again. This time they were coming at them from all sides. She pulled back and waited for them to hold their fire. The team wouldn’t be able to keep up with the men for much longer. She wished she had taken one of the semi-automatics, instead of her service revolver. It would have been more practical, considering the circumstances they had found themselves in. But she hadn’t anticipated any or even imagined half of this going down.

  Every indication had pointed to an easy take down and arrest. They thought

  they would burst through the door, surprise Raybourne and his men, and have them on the floor and in handcuffs in no time. Raybourne had had other plans for them. He had outsmarted them in the worst possible way. He had upped his sick game a few notches.

  She eased her way between one of the large crates and fired indiscriminately across the wide space. She wouldn’t like anything better than to see Gilles Raybourne’s dead body at her feet in a pool of his own blood. She fired a third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh time, and waited. Nothing. It was hard to see anything in her immediate vicinity, but she had heard enough, and had seen the gun sparks to know where a few of the men were hiding.

  “It sounds like a fucking firing range inside here, if not Armageddon!” Earnes leaned back against the crate and told her in a breathless voice. He didn’t sound too good, probably exhausted from all the back and forth shootings. “They are every fucking where! The bastard made sure he was good and ready for us!”

  “He may have rounded up this bunch of lowlifes and bring them here to shoot at us, but I’m not going to sit back and let them take us, Earnes. We left out some sensitive details about the takedown during the briefing to the other agents, because we didn’t want any part of it compromised. Those men have no idea what they are up against. We have to get them out of here. Most of them are rookies who have only been on board for a year or less. Raybourne probably has the goddamn place booby trap for all we know. He’s sick enough to pull something like that!”

  “I will give him this,” Earnes told her in a hurried voice. “He’s a master at what he does—he is the scum of the earth, but a smart son of a bitch! He knew enough to slip under the fucking radar for an entire year, and then he ambushed us with this!”

  Earnes pressed his body back against the large crate, and took a deep breath. He should have waited this one out. He wished he had too. He still didn’t feel one hundred percent
. And he was having a hard time keeping up with Bowles. He had been battling the flu for over a week now, and he was exhausted. But he had been in on the operation with Bowles from the very start, and didn’t want to miss out on any part of it. He wanted to be there when they capture Raybourne. They weren’t going to let him slip away again this time.

  They had spent the last eighteen months, following every possible lead and tracking Raybourne’s whereabouts. They had gotten a few leads from the guy they

  had found in the house in Queens. He wanted a front row seat when they slapped the handcuffs on the bastard’s wrists and drag him off to jail where he belonged. But unfortunately, Raybourne had proven them wrong—again! The guy was cunning as he was slippery and nefarious.

  He felt a nasty fit of cough coming on, and he took a deep breath, and slipped a

  couple of lemon lozenges he had in his pocket into his mouth and waited for them to melt. He glanced at Bowles, and sighed. The situation was much, much more dangerous than she thought. He knew she was counting on them taking down Raybourne once and for all, but he wasn’t certain they could do that now—they didn’t have the man power. Raybourne wanted them off his ass for good, and it looked like he was going to get his wish after all.

  “Cover me.”

  “What! Are you crazy, Gabb! You can’t go out there! They will take a shot at you the second they lay eyes on you. They are shooting to kill!”

  “I have to do something, Earnes! I can’t just sit here and do nothing!”

  “We should, until back up arrives.” Earnes tried to talk her out of it. “It’s better if we wait. We can’t go up against those men alone.”

  “Every second counts here.” Bowles turned and gave him a hard look. “It could mean a difference between life and death.”

  “This is no time to be a hero, Gabb.”

  “It’s too late for that, Earnes. I have to see if I can get the men out of here before

  Raybourne blows this whole goddamn place up. And I have a feeling that’s exactly what he’s planning to do, when he’s done shooting at us. We have to stop him before he gets to that point.”