In Too Deep: A Romantic Suspense Novel (37 page)

"And the ammunition?" I asked, looking at the deep brown wooden stock. It was a beautiful weapon, and deadly in its intent. "I'm expecting armor."

"You have armor problems, I have armor solutions," he said, opening a small bag in the truck beside the rifle. "M61 Armor-Piercing Rounds. This will punch through up to a half inch of steel plating like it's nothing. It can defeat any ballistic vest material in use today. You wanna get more, you're going to have to upgrade to a fifty cal, or maybe a Winchester 300 Magnum."

I nodded and pulled out a thick envelope of cash, all twenties, and handed it over to the man. "You do good work."

"Pleasure doing business with you," the man replied. He took the bag of ammo and set it inside the case the rifle was in, which to the outside looked and was marked like one used for electric pianos. I pulled the case out and carried it over to my car and set it in the back seat. The dealer, an out-of-towner I'd only known through the Internet for a few months, got into his car and drove off. I waited two minutes before taking a circuitous route back to the warehouse. Once there, I dropped off the package before quickly driving my car to a paid parking lot on the other side of town, and hopped on a bus back to the warehouse area. It is one of the frustrating side effects of trying to be circumspect; you waste a lot of time.

Arriving at the warehouse, I took the elevator up to the third floor, where Sophie and Tabby were waiting. Sophie already had the rifle out, and had stripped it down to its parts. Considering I'd never covered the M-14 with her, I was impressed. "This is powerful enough?" she asked as she looked the receiver over with a careful eye. "I thought we were going for something higher caliber."

"It's more than powerful enough with the rounds he sold us," I said, indicating the black tipped armor piercing rounds. "It also has the advantage that I can put it on full auto if I need to. With two or more guys coming in, that could be useful."

"So what's the plan?" Tabby asked, carrying a briefcase with more business documents. It seemed out of place in the still barely cleaned room. We'd moved a table and some chairs from the second floor up to the third, and swept up, but the concrete was still raw, and the walls bare. "By the way, four more potential investments here."

"The plan is simple. They won't attack Mount Zion, the building is too identifiable, and they'll assume that if Marcus Smiley is Mark Snow, that I'd have already prepared. Also, it's in a rich area of town, which causes difficulties for Owen Lynch if there are suddenly a bunch of bodies found. So he'll want his men to hit us here. Besides, with Sophie's book delivery coming here, he won't want to pass up the opportunity to get two birds with one stone."

"I don't know, it sounds risky," Tabby said, flinching as Sophie slapped the bolt back into the upper receiver of the rifle with a loud metallic
*schnick*
.

"Tabby, both of you have had your homes invaded. I was lucky enough to be there for Sophie the last time. We basically have three choices. We can either let them come to our home, we can let them come to another place of our choosing, or we can take the fight to them and attack them where they live. There will come a time for us to attack. But this time, we'll let them come to us."

A
fter Tabby left
, I turned to Mark, letting my inner nerves out. "The delivery is scheduled for tomorrow," I said, "you think he'll use that as the opening?"

"He'd be foolish not to," Mark replied. "Owen Lynch controls the shipping company that we're using for this delivery. You put it on Sophie White's credit card, and we scheduled it for a mid-afternoon delivery. It's in Sophie White's name. He'll bite if its only for curiosity sake."

We spent the rest of the afternoon setting up and checking out our sight lines and planning out angles of our ambush. With the sun going down, we locked up the warehouse and headed back to Mount Zion. "So after this," I said as I drove, Mark relaxing in the passenger seat, "I was thinking we need to go car shopping. This rental is nice, but I want something different."

"I agree. Besides, we need to set up our other facilities. That won't be done through Tabby by the way."

I pulled off the intercity parkway and started to break off towards Mount Zion, glad to see the gated driveway. Workers had been busy, and most of the work was now complete, so we could at least use our living areas. A lot of the other parts of the building were taking more time however, but it added to our security in a way. With workers going late, and lights on all over the property, there was less chance of things going down.

Still, we sealed the living quarters area with a steel core door that was about as strong as your average bank vault, turning the two thousand square foot living space into a giant panic room. While technically the windows could be penetrated, the construction of the Mount Zion building itself added to the safety factor. With the Neo-Gothic impressions, the old living quarters had only narrow, tall windows that let in light, but were barely a foot wide. Perhaps a six-year-old kid could get through, or a really narrow-headed contortionist, but that's about it.

We made dinner together, a simple mushroom risotto with grilled slices of duck breast and a kale salad. Among his other talents, Mark was a talented home cook, and even when we were overseas he would often spend some time learning bits and pieces of the local cuisine. Since coming home, he'd combined some of those spices into American favorites to let us both enjoy great home cooked meals. As we sat down, I grinned and took a drink of lemon water. "You know, it's going to be interesting."

"What's that?" Mark asked as he took a bit of the risotto. "Tomorrow?"

"No, I'm not worried about anything. Either we do it right or we don't. I was just thinking though that our married life is going to be very interesting." I tried some of the duck breast, which Mark had prepared using some Korean spices. It practically melted in my mouth, and I sighed happily. "I mean, not that it wasn't going to be anyway."

"I think that would be an understatement," Mark replied. "But what exactly do you mean?"

"Well, business owners by day, taking out the criminal underworld by night, and let's not forget getting married and maybe having a family somewhere in the mix. We're going to have a lot on our hands."

Mark thought about it, then smiled. He reached across the small table we were sitting at and took my hand. "There'd be nobody else in the world I would rather do it with," he said. "And as much as I'd enjoy making love to you for the rest of the night, we probably should get some sleep. Tomorrow's going to be very stressful."

W
e woke
up before dawn the next day, after I had tossed and turned most of the night. Preparing for this ambush was different than when we'd rescued Tabby from the Confederation men at the club. Then, we'd been going off of three hours of preparation. Our entire plan was basically on the fly, and my role was to mostly try and keep myself from being blown away. Mark had been the one strapped up and responsible for dealing with the bad guys. Until I'd pulled the shotgun pistol and blasted the guy who was sneaking up on Mark from behind, I'd never expected to have to do anything.

This time was different. The two Russians we were expecting were seasoned pros. Mark was pretty sure he was better than either of them alone, but two working together would be dangerous. Therefore, he needed my help, and it was a great feeling. It was a different mental process, knowing that I was expected to try to kill someone.

Every time I closed my eyes, I could see in my mind the fight in the night club, and the feeling as I pulled the trigger on the shotgun pistol. The recoil hammered through my arms and sent my hands flying up and back, almost hitting me in the face as the unmuffled roar deafened me. My eyes would fly open, I'd be panting, and it would take me another ten minutes to try and close my eyes and get to sleep again.

Finally, around one in the morning, I dropped off into what could best be called a disturbed sleep. I won't even go into the dreams I had, full of death and violence and blood. I sat up with a scream barely contained behind my lips, and sweat dripping down my face. I glanced at the digital clock and saw that it was three fifty-eight in the morning. "Fuck," I muttered, running my hand down my face.

Mark, who I thought had been sleeping but had been lying quietly on his side of our bed, turned and looked at me with concern in his eyes. "If it's any consolation, I know how you feel."

I thought back to the first time he'd told me about what his job was, and how he'd killed seventy-six people so far. He had told me that for every single one of them, he had nightmares and regrets. It was one of the things that had helped me realize that despite the bloodiness of his profession, I felt that Mark was, in his heart, still a decent man; someone I could love. Now I was to join the brotherhood, it seemed. It was what I chose to do, but I had to admit I was scared that I was moving a little too fast, getting in over my head. "Does it get any easier?"

"For some of the men I used to call coworkers, yes," Mark said quietly, sitting up next to me. "They were the scary ones, and the ones that we knew once they reached a certain level, they couldn't be trusted any more. They were the ones who came to not only tolerate but even enjoy or need the violence and the blood. They were the ones we sometimes had to take out because they'd gone fully over the edge."

"Did you ever...?" I asked fearfully. Mark nodded his head.

"Number forty-seven. His name was Bob, probably not his real name, but he also worked for the Confederation. I had to hunt him down and put him out after he'd taken out not just his target, but the target's entire family just because he wanted to."

I shivered and leaned into Mark, who held me close. We lay back down on the bed, and for the first time all night I felt some comfort. Having his arms around me reassured me that I was still normal for feeling the way I did. "How many more will we need to kill?"

Mark shook his head. "Not as many as you fear, I think. The bigger weapon will be the use of information, spying, and media exposure. If we do those right, it'll be much cleaner. But yes, some will have to die."

I decided to change the subject, all the talk of killing started to bring me down a little. "How is it you get any rest beforehand? You don't sound exhausted or blurry in the least. I thought you were asleep."

"Meditation," Mark said, squeezing me in his arms and kissing my neck. "And one other thing, at least with this idea."

"What's that?"

Mark kissed the top of my head, and I could hear him inhale the scent of my hair deeply. "I think of you. The rest is easy."

W
e got
to the warehouse just after six in the morning. While I didn't think I'd be able to eat or drink anything, Mark insisted we have something on hand, so after leaving Mount Zion, we stopped at a convenience store to pick up some easy to digest groceries.

Mark didn't allow us to get anything with caffeine in it or anything overly greasy or dense. This, of course, eliminated about seventy percent of the store, and another fifteen percent was eliminated because it was cat food, motor oil, playing cards and the like. Still, we were able to find some juices, light fruits and packages of sliced chicken breasts that filled our needs. "I know you're cruising on nerves now," Mark said as we entered the warehouse, "but that's going to fade. You're going to start feeling hungry and thirsty eventually."

He was right, and by ten, I'd already drank one of the bottles of fruit juice. I kept glancing at the clock on the wall, while Mark made sure our video feed of the outside was clear. He'd installed obscure video cameras around the building to monitor everything. He'd even set up cameras on the inside of the building just in case the Russians tried something unexpected.

Around noon we were as set up as we could be. "The tough part is going to be if this delivery is legit," Mark said. "I wish I could just say
Hey, are you the two Russian hitmen
and shoot them, but we're going to need to be sure. It's one thing killing bad men, but it's something else entirely killing an innocent. I've went this long without doing that, and I'm not about to start now. Let's hope they are stupid and show guns outside."

We went down to the first floor, and I set up the M-14, which was my responsibility. Mark had originally thought to use the rifle himself, but he wanted me as far away as possible. By having me set up in a dim corner of the warehouse under some netting that from the outside looked like a pile of boxes, I could be safe. Or at least, as safe as I could be.

The beauty of the M-14 lies in its relative heaviness. The thick steel barrel and the wooden stock gave the rifle a lot of stability. Once I set the front part of the stock on the foam block I was using as a rest, it would fire straight and true. Since I only had to shoot less than a hundred feet, worrying about drop or anything like that was moot. Which was good, because while Mark had taught me about it, I was still a novice when it came to stuff like that.

I just had to aim at the belt line, hope that I could keep my nerve, and let the rifle take care of the rest. I took a quick view through the peep sight towards the cargo door, and nodded. If the delivery came when we asked, the interior of the warehouse would be in mostly darkness while the cargo door would be in relative shade. I wouldn't be blinded by glare.

"I'm ready," I said, coming out from behind the concealed position. "How're you looking?"

Mark's role was much simpler, but also much more dangerous. Answering the door, he carried with him a Desert Eagle pistol with Teflon coated armor piercing rounds. If he had to answer the door, he'd have the pistol with him next to his thigh underneath a long jacket. We were hoping, however, that we could use the intercom system attached to the door to bring them in without it.