Stolen Vengeance: Slye Temp book 6 (21 page)

Chapter 25

A behemoth guard carved with muscle and with straight black hair was protecting the entrance to the Satan’s Garden Club building. It was only two blocks from where Garcia had run the first one on Skid Row.

Since Dingo couldn’t just walk past the guard, he had gained entry to a building next door to the one where Valene’s car still dinged on his tracking software. Getting in was no trouble, but it had taken ten minutes to find enough rope and wire to make a line he could use to rappel down three stories from a window on this building to the roof on the four-story one he’d come to get into.

At the moment, he hung from the window, getting battered by the storm off the ocean. Maybe going through Godzilla next door would have been easier.

When Dingo’s feet touched the roof, he whipped the rope-wire combination twice and it fell to his feet. He wiped water off his face. In the distance, the city glowed in a steamy mist, but not much light fell across this area.

It took only another minute to pick the lock on the roof access door and he was in.

Pitch black everywhere.

He dug out his headgear and popped his night vision monocular in place. Bam. Everything came to life in shades of gray-green. He moved carefully across the concrete floor that led to a stairwell, which should enter somewhere on the top floor of the building.

His boots were waterlogged and squishing. He took them off and carried them down the stairs, pausing in a room encased in concrete. He kept his distance from the breaker panel for the power that had been jury-rigged with half the guts hanging out. Just past that was the entrance door to what would be office area in most buildings.

A quarter rotation of the doorknob confirmed ... unlocked.

He noted the carpet, put his shoes back on and leaned in to listen.

Muffled voices.

Easing the door a fraction open, he snuck into the dark hallway.

Garcia had always remodeled everywhere he went, no matter what the building looked like. He’d have had a gold-plated trough in a pigpen if he declared that to be his current office.

Dingo’s brain still refused to believe that Garcia was back, but his eyes kept picking up evidence.

He slipped down the hall until the voices became louder.

“Look, I do know what Aram was looking for, but I was forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement. That’s why I didn’t volunteer anything, but I don’t know that man,” a female said.

Valene. She was in negotiating mode.

The sound of a hand slapping a face reached him right before Valene’s gasp of pain.

Dingo felt the strike through every muscle in his body. She clearly wasn’t here by choice. He was going to kill the scum who hit her right after he cut the bastard’s hand off.

Forcing himself to stand still and figure out a plan of attack was killing Dingo. But rushing in and getting holes blown through him would make the bad guy’s day and leave Valene alone.

Dingo struggled to gain control of his emotions and locked them down tight. Now was the time for ice in his veins.

“I will not tolerate any more lying,” her interrogator snarled.

“I’m trying to answer your questions.”  Her voice shook. “M-Maybe if you explain who he is I’ll recognize something and tell you. I meet a lot of people. I’m not good at remembering everyone I meet.”

“You want to know who he is? He killed my father. He is a dead man.”

Dingo couldn’t have heard that right. First of all, it sounded like a bad version of Inigo Montoya’s famous line from
The Princess Bride.

You killed my father. Prepare to die.

This man couldn’t be Garcia’s son, because Garcia had said he had no family.

Then again, Garcia had been a lying rat bastard.

“The man in the picture,” she said as if trying to clarify. “Do you have a name?”

“Dingo Paddock.”

The walls rushed in on Dingo.

He’d never given Garcia his real name and Bergman had never known it the whole time he’d been Dingo’s contact.

Who was this guy abusing Valene?

Needing to get a look at him, Dingo maneuvered to a closer vantage point. He risked being discovered, but moving another step closer to Valene was worth it, plus he had to get a look at who had come after Bergman, Dingo and Valene.

“Dingo Paddock,” she said quietly. “That’s an odd name. I’d normally remember that. Did he have a middle name? Something else he went by?”

That was his Valene. She’d still be asking questions to ferret out information at the pearly gates, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not on his watch.

“Did all that about your father happen here?” Valene asked then added, “Please. I’m really trying to understand. Did that happen recently?”

“No. This man Paddock saved my father’s life seven years ago, then stabbed him in the back a year later.”

Technically, Dingo had cut Garcia’s throat.

He leaned near the edge of the doorway to see Valene sitting in the middle of the room with her right side to him.

Three men stood in front of her.

He couldn’t see the face of the one in the middle who had curly black hair, but the old guy on the other side of him looked too much like Garcia not to be his brother.

Son of a bitch.

Garcia’s son had Valene and she was doing her best to talk her way out, but there was no way out except dead.

The old guy said, “Enough of this, Navarro. We are losing time.”

“This will only take ten minutes, Tío. She knows something about this man Paddock and she is going to tell.”

Tío
. Spanish for uncle. That confirmed Dingo’s guess.

Navarro’s uncle scratched the stubble on his cheek. “We have not eaten. Get what you can out of her and put her in the box while we have dinner.”

Shit.
Dingo backtracked fast to the panel inside the concrete room shielding access to the roof. He scanned the panel, trying to figure out the squiggly Spanish writing and hoped he didn’t fry himself with what he had in mind. Two breakers were marked with big asterisk-type stars.

That had to be important, right?

He pulled his wet sleeves back and grabbed two breaker switches, flipping them off, on, then paused. Off again for five seconds then back on. Another pause, then he flipped them off permanently. A buddy at the power company had once explained how the system worked, and that if the lights didn’t come back on the third time, then no power until the service personnel figured out what had caused the outage.

Now, to see if that had convinced Navarro and crew.

“Fix the lights, Dominic!” someone in the room with Valene yelled.

Dingo was hurrying back down the hallway when the man he assumed was Dominic turned the corner heading Dingo’s way. Adrenaline slammed through his veins.

That was one way to get rid of a crushing headache.

But Dominic was brushing a hand along the wall, because he didn’t have night vision gear.

Dingo ducked into an empty room, then stepped back out behind Dominic, who had probably made this walk in the dark too many times to count. That explained why the door to this floor had been left open for easy access to the gutshot breaker panel. Just as Dominic stepped into the concrete utility room and flicked on a tiny LED light from a key ring, Dingo followed him in and used his weapon to bash the guy at the base of his skull.

Dominic uttered a groan and slid down.

Dingo relieved him of his keys and the Colt .38 Super on his hip. He pulled off the guy’s belt and tied his hands behind his back, then yanked his boots and socks off to shove a sock in his mouth.

If Dingo got word to Sabrina before this group disappeared, she could take this one in alive.

Another quick trip down the hall allowed Dingo to hear Tío grumbling, “Dominic is an idiot.”

Navarro said, “Agreed, but we’ll discuss this later when we have privacy.”

That translated into, “We’ll decide who replaces him and how to dispose of the body later.” Dingo had done Dominic a favor.

“While we’re waiting, you should start talking,” Navarro said. He had to be addressing Valene.

Dingo slipped around the corner and flipped up his monocular, because Navarro had a flashlight on Valene, whose cheek was already bruising.

She said, “I’ve been thinking hard and I don’t recall–”

Navarro slapped her so hard she fell sideways in the chair.

Navarro would beg for death when Dingo was through with him. He pulled out his knife and took a step, heading for the uncle first, then Navarro.

He’d kill the uncle, but Dingo needed Navarro alive to find out how Navarro had gotten Dingo’s name and picture. Without that, Dingo had no way to kill the snake this time from head to tail.

Shots erupted down the hall toward the elevator and stairs. What the hell was going on now?

Tío cursed and yelled into a radio, probably calling his goon downstairs, but if someone was up here shooting, that meant the doorman was already down.

Navarro and Tío turned away from Valene, palming weapons and fanning the flashlight toward the hall. Tío gave Navarro a hand signal and as Dingo sucked backward into the room next door, they both snuck down the hallway toward the noise.

More shots popped. Deep voices shouted.

Navarro yelled, “He’s getting away. Catch him and don’t kill him. I want that bastard!”  Abrupt shouts in Spanish then more shots.

Dingo made it to Valene’s chair where her head leaned over the arm. He gently cupped her mouth and whispered, “It’s me. I’m getting you out of here.”

Liquid ran down his hand from where tears pooled on her cheeks. He released her face to cut her ankles free first then her wrists, grabbing her arm and turning toward the hallway and the roof access.

Navarro was shouting, “How dare they try to hit us. That gang has not learned my name, but will by tomorrow morning.”

Dingo hurried Valene down the hall.

Tío shouted, “Dominic! Get the lights on!”

When Dingo reached the access door, he pulled Valene up the stairs with him. They opened the door onto the roof that was still under attack from the storm, and Valene said, “How are we getting out of here?”

“Hold on.”  Dingo pulled out his lock picks and set about relocking the door from the outside. The last thing he did was pull out a special tool he’d had made just for jamming the tumblers. He latched onto her fingers and hooked them into the waistband of his pants. “Keep your fingers there and follow in my steps.”

“Got it.” The words had come out through chattering teeth. Probably shock more than cold.

He lifted his makeshift rappelling rope and led her to the back of the building, then freed her hand so she could stand by herself while he tied a lead on the rope around a steel vent structure. This building was from an era when every part of the roof was built to be heavy-duty.

Valene waited silently in the pitch dark, a trooper all the way.

He stepped up to her, wanting to pull her into his arms, but pounding started on the access door. Shit. He tugged Valene over. “We’re going to the next floor, Val.”

“How?”

“I’ve got a rope tied off. I’m going to climb off first, then you follow me so that I’m beneath you.”

She couldn’t see his face, but he could see the doubt in hers.

The door pounding changed tone.

Then Dingo heard a crack. They were using an axe.

She asked, “Will it hold both of us?”

“Yes.” Unless they delayed any longer and that axe blade got a shot at his rope.

“Okay.” 

He got her to the edge and put her hands on the rope then dropped below her. She’d just climbed over the edge when Dingo heard shouting getting more distinct. They’d have the door hacked all the way through any minute.

“Keep coming down, babe,” he encouraged.

When his feet touched a window ledge, he stepped onto it and bumped his boot against what was left of the glass. He stomped it down, all the while keeping his hand on the rope then on Valene’s leg, guiding her foot to the ledge  “Stop right there and hold the rope.”

He climbed into the room and found clothes scattered around, probably rags someone had slept on, but they’d cover any glass edges that might slice Valene’s back or legs.

When he had that set, he leaned out to hear Valene say, “They’re coming.”

Chapter 26

Valene squatted on the six-inch-wide brick window ledge, hanging onto the rope that Navarro’s man would chop any minute now. She could hear them yelling and pounding around the roof, searching for her, because they didn’t know about Dingo.

And she wasn’t going to let them find out he’d been here if she could help it.

Dingo hooked an arm around her and said, “I’ve got you. Let go.”

She did and banged her arm, but she was inside the room as lights beamed down from the roof, shining outside the window. She stood still, listening to them shout at each other in Spanish. She translated it in a whisper for Dingo.

“Navarro is yelling for the guards to come around back when they get down to street level. Tío is arguing that I couldn’t have made that last drop. That it had to be ten feet to the ground. Navarro said I could have fallen on the garbage piled back there and gotten lucky...”

She listened then added, “Tío is shouting at Dominic, demanding to know how I got loose and where I found a rope.”

The light outside disappeared and the voices withdrew.

Dingo said, “Time to go.”

“Where?”

“If I said I knew, I’d be lying.”

“Good enough for me.”  And it was.

She could hate him for leaving her broken in half.

She could curse him for coming back without a word of explanation.

But she would never fool herself into believing she didn’t trust Dingo one hundred percent in this moment. She had no question that he’d find a way out of here, because this was what he did for a living. She didn’t know who he did it for, but everything about him told her that he was a skilled operative of some sort.

So why did you always blow him off when he was worried for your safety?

Okay, she’d face that music. But this was not the time.

He wound his way through the building and found the stairwell going down.

They didn’t encounter anyone until Dingo had led her out of the stairwell and past the door to the garage she’d originally entered through. He cracked open a door to the street running in front of the building and pulled back, saying, “One bloke outside.”

She leaned close and smelled the warm musk of Dingo’s exertions, a scent she remembered waking to in the middle of the night when he’d appear like her fantasy come to life. Her mind was a scary place right now if she could think about being naked with Dingo.

She said, “They brought me in through the garage. Last door we passed on our right.”

“Good.”

They backtracked to the garage that opened to the cavernous room she remembered as stretching the length and width of the building. There was only the elevator shaft and a small office structure at one end.

She whispered, “My car is here.”

“We can’t get it out. They’d gun us down first.”

“Just show me my car,” she demanded in hushed voice.

Dingo muttered something unintelligible, but towed her over and put her hand on the car. She carefully opened the door and the light inside came on.

Dingo cursed lividly.

But thank God, the guy who’d carjacked her hadn’t been the sharpest tool in Navarro’s shed, because her purse was still there on the seat. She snatched it and closed the door just enough to kill the light, but without making a noise.

“You didn’t get your matching shoes,” he grumbled.

“I needed my purse,” she hissed low at him. “It has my phone and gun dammit.”

“Shh.”

She wouldn’t have let him shush her but their lives were at risk after all.

Dingo towed her along, guiding her away from anything she’d fall over. When he stopped again, he said, “Pull out your Walther. I need both hands to open this overhead door slowly.”

“They’ll hear you.”

“Only if they’re standing on this side of the building.”

“That’s a big only.”

He kissed her cheek gently. “That’s why you’re holding the gun so you can cover me while I handle the overhead door. Just be ready, and if I don’t take down whoever might be out there once my hands are free, you get the second shot at him.”

“I might shoot you. I can’t see shit.” She fished out her gun and held it at her side.

“Don’t shoot unless I tell you. If it comes to that, I’ll hit the ground before I tell you to shoot.”

No he wouldn’t.

Dingo would stand between her and a wall of bullets. How had she ever convinced herself that she’d stopped loving him? Being with Henri had been a Band-Aid on a deep wound, a cosmetic attempt at patching up her emotions.

Dingo positioned her exactly the way he wanted her standing and trusted her not to kill him.

Or maybe it wasn’t trust, because Dingo didn’t trust.

He probably thought allowing her to cover him gave her a comfort level, but she’d bet his first concern was making sure she was in a position to defend herself in case he died.

Oh, God, don’t let him die.

She had to stop thinking and just pay attention.

This overhead door sounded smaller than the one she’d driven her car through, but it still made a soft metallic whine as he pulled it up slowly. Sounded like he’d only moved it maybe a foot, not high enough to get a vehicle through.

She could hear him moving and then he was up against her ear, talking so low someone standing on the other side of her wouldn’t hear. “The door is up two feet. I see a man seventy feet away toward the rear of the building and facing the back corner. The street access is ten steps away on our right. We need to get out of here fast and silently.”

She hoped he had some plan once they were outside this building or Navarro would catch them before they made a mile.

Rolling under the door when he told her, Valene pushed up on her knees, one palm in squishy stuff. She hoped it was only mud that she wiped on her pants.

She’d been moving blind until they reached the street where light fought its way down through the rain driving sideways.

Looking over to the right, she saw men crowded around the entrance to Navarro’s building. More men than she’d seen when she first arrived.

Navarro was calling in reinforcements.

How did Dingo expect to get past that?

Dingo tugged her to the left and they were off again, hugging the front of the next building and sidestepping to minimize their profiles. Then Dingo dropped out of sight, yanking her with him into an empty parking lot.

She squinted to make out the hulking silhouette of some vehicle.

Dingo opened the unlocked passenger door, tucked her in and ran around to climb in behind the steering wheel.

The inside smelled old, really old, and a smoker had owned it, but she’d had to clean that smell out of her T-bird when she bought it. “What is this?”

“’68 GTO.” He said it with pride. Men.

The car was almost fifty years old. “Are we stealing it?”

“I did that earlier.” He cranked it and the old engine rumbled to life.

“That’s just wrong.”

“I’m not keeping it, Val. I won’t screw the people who owned it.”  Then he made her day when he said, “No one will question this car driving through the hood. Lie down so there’s only one silhouette.”

She eased her way down onto her left side, since that side hadn’t hit a hardwood floor with nothing to block her fall. For the first time since getting carjacked, relief flooded her, and her tight muscles started griping from the abuse her body had been through.

Dingo drove slowly down the street.

She wanted to see where they were going, but not enough to struggle back up to a sitting position. His hand came down on her arm and he started stroking her, soothing the tremors that still hadn’t stopped. Her eyelids fluttered once, twice, then she was gone.

~*~*~*~

Dingo watched for headlights running up behind him, but none came.

Valene’s chest rose and fell with gentle breaths. She no longer shook like a leaf in a hurricane. He couldn’t take his hand off her. Needed that connection of knowing she was here with him. Alive. Safe.

What the hell had she gotten herself into?

He should have been here to help her with money and figuring out how to deal with her dad. Hard to do that when he’d avoided the very person who needed his help, too afraid that seeing her happy without him would have stomped on the last pieces of his heart.

Still, coming back around with no intention of staying would have given her false hope. He’d done that before and then sworn he wouldn’t do it to her again. Bad enough that she’d married some bloke less than a year after Dingo had left. The time they’d spent together before that had been ... hell, he didn’t know how to label that time since he’d never stayed around anyone else that long, but he hadn’t expected her to grab the next guy she met and marry him.

He wasn’t bailing on her this time. Not without making sure she was in a better place than she was right now.

She needed someone to depend on.

He was going to be that man and damn the consequences.

She slept for the next seventy minutes while he drove northeast to the only place he knew would be safe for both of them.

He was yawning by the time he pulled off the main highway, drove another ten minutes to a gravel road and grimaced when the GTO bottomed out as the road climbed for a quarter mile.

When it ended, he lifted his phone and entered a code into a text then hit send. In six seconds, what appeared to be an old fence gate with a rusted chain fanned open. Vines and weeds hid the machinery.

As soon as Dingo passed through, the gate returned to its nondescript position.

He drove a twisted path through trees until he reached a hill camouflaged with overgrowth that would make it pretty impossible to detect from the air. The garage door opened the minute a sensor picked up his approach.

He’d written the computer security programs for these buried safe houses, and the garage door would rise at this point only if the gate code had been entered correctly one time. He’d intended to talk Valene into hiding out here the minute he arrived in LA this week, so he’d rewritten the program during his flight. If he hadn’t, opening the gate would have alerted Josh or someone else at Slye keeping an eye on their assets.

Sabrina had four safe houses closer inside LA, all better equipped for missions. This was one of ten special ones she’d set up during the two years she’d gone underground after the busted UK job. She wanted to know she had places her people could hide that were fully stocked and hidden from the air if things got too hot.

When Dingo parked the car in the garage and turned it off, the quiet jarred Valene awake.

She sat up as the garage door was closing. “Where are we?”

Here came the questions.

He’d disengaged the interior light on his way to find Valene, so it was dark as a tar pit. “Sit still and I’ll come around to get you.”

On his way around the car, he flipped on a light that hung over a worktable and turned to see her door open.

He met her at the car door when she pushed to her feet. Right as her knees buckled. He caught her and she hooked her arms around his neck.

Finally, he could pull her close and hold her next to his chest, feel her heart pounding. Very much alive.

After a couple of long breaths, she eased away and stood on her own. “Back to my first question.”

“We’re safe.”  He tried not to be stung when she pushed away from him. He still wanted to hold her. Instead, he opened the door to a contemporary kitchen with white cabinets and stainless steel. With a couple of switches flipped, lights came on under cabinets and into the great room on the other side of the kitchen. Big overstuffed sofas and chairs covered in tan leather were strewn around with an eye to decorating that Dingo had never had.

Not a lot of call for it when there was no one place he called home.

Valene strode past him and entered the big room. “How many people live here? This is huge. You could easily seat fifteen with everyone slouching.”

Four big-screen TV monitors hung in different places and the ceiling peaked, held up by thick teak beams. Dingo said, “It sleeps twelve comfortably in six bedrooms.”  Three large bedrooms with two oversized single beds in each one plus three master bedrooms with king-size beds.

Taking in every nuance of the room as she turned in the center, Valene said, “I don’t understand.”

“It’s built into the ground, we’re on the top floor...”

She shook her head. “No, I mean you. This. Everything.” She followed that up with a look that waited for an answer.

His voice held a gentle warning. “Val–”

“Never mind. We’ll never get past your secret life. I don’t know why I do this to myself. Are we still in LA?”

“Pretty much. We’re on the outskirts.”

She smiled with a look of someone who just realized she’d been fooled. “But you’re not going to tell me exactly where, are you? I’m surprised you didn’t put a sack over my head.”