Page 69 of Flash and Bang
Sarah chuckled.
“Hey, since when am I the one who needs reminding?”
“Since forever,” the rest of the group said in unison. They all walked out of the conference room laughing.
Chapter Sixteen
The ATF group took Sarah and Tim’s large black SUV out to Chatsworth. They arrived at the Amtrak station about thirty-five minutes later and piled out, walking over to a massive tent that had been set up in the parking lot. Thayne was surprised to see so many people there. Besides the six of them, there must have been another ten FBI agents judging by the vests they wore. Thayne shivered when he saw a S.W.A.T. truck pull up, remembering his broken nose and concussion at the hands of an overzealous S.W.A.T. officer. Not knowing who he was, he’d bounced Thayne’s face off the concrete floor when he’d busted into the warehouse where he’d been undercover with Mills Lang and his crew. Thayne’s nose was still slightly crooked. He hadn’t really blamed the guy, but he’d had a hell of a headache for a week or so. Thayne was slightly surprised by the expression on Jarrett’s face when he came around the SUV and took him by the elbow, pulling him away from the others.
“It’s gonna get crazy in there, Thayne. I just… please stay close to me,” he said with great hesitation in his voice.
Thayne frowned, a little offended that his partner didn’t seem to have faith in him being able to do his job. He lowered his voice and leaned close to Jarrett. “I know how to do my job, Jarrett. I promiseI’ll cover you.”
“That’s not what I mean…” His silver eyes pleaded and Thayne watched him swallow hard. “I just want you to be careful, Thayne.” Jarrett was practically growling.
When Thayne met his gaze he knew he’d misinterpreted what Jarrett meant and his gaze softened. “I want you to be careful too, Jarrett.” He reached out and squeezed Jarrett’s forearm, feeling the taut muscle beneath the skin.
“Things can just get ugly really fast. I’m not questioning your abilities, Thayne. I’d trust you to have my back in a firefight any day—in fact, I have.”
Thayne felt whatever anger he’d been feeling completely bleed away as all the air was suddenly sucked out of his lungs. “I do—I will—always have your back, Marine.” He patted Jarrett’s chest over the Kevlar vest he wore.
Jarrett’s features softened instantly and a tiny smirk appeared to lift the corners of his mouth in a smile. “We say six… you’ll always have my six.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“And I’ll have yours, Thayne. Always.” Jarrett smiled at him and then glanced quickly around the area. Thayne just knew Jarrett was aboutto hug him and was only a little surprised when his partner reached up and squeezed his shoulder before patting him on the back.
Sarah, Tim, Craig, and Jose were checking their weapons when Jarrett and Thayne rejoined them where they stood at the back of a truck loaded with an assortment of arms. An officer was handing out weapons and Thayne grabbed an M4 carbine when the officer held it out to him. Thayne was always reassured when he felt how solid one of the powerful assault rifles felt in his hands. He accepted a second magazine and stuffed it down into the pocket of his tac pants. Next came the helmet and Thayne slipped it on watching as Jarrett’s short white hair disappeared under one of his own. The helmet had a face mask but Thayne left it up for the time being. Armed this way it was easy to feel invincible, but he knew that kind of thinking could be dangerous, so he concentrated on making certain he was buttoned up and ready for whatever and whomever they had to face once they entered the building. Thayne was only slightly surprised when Special Agent Lincoln Snow walked up to them and turned to speak to Jarrett.
“Evans?”
“Yes, Special Agent,” Jarrett replied.
Snow turned and nodded at the FBI agentstanding inside the truck. The agent gave him a sniper rifle and Snow turned and handed it to Jarrett.
“You won’t need that helmet. You won’t be going in with us.”
Jarrett frowned. “Okay, Snow. What then?”
“You’ll have the sniper position in case any of them get outside. We want these folks stopped. You know what I mean and you know what to do.”
Thayne watched as Jarrett took the M24 and grinned.Damn. It looks good in his hands.
“Roger that,” Jarrett said, hefting the sniper rifle and checking to see that it was fully loaded. He held it with such ease it sent a shiver down Thayne’s spine. Jarrett turned and glanced at him. He was grinning like an idiot. “You take care, Partner.”
The words washed over Thayne and warmed him from the inside out. If Jarrett had told him he loved him at that moment, it wouldn’t have had any different impact than that simple statement. In that instant he knew how Jarrett felt about him and he realized how desperately he wanted to say it back because it was true. He was in love with the brilliant, wisecracking, reckless bastard and he’d never been happier in his whole life. Being separated from him was getting harder and harder and even this simpleseparation had Thayne’s stomach swarming with butterflies.
“You too, Jarrett.”
Jarrett followed Thayne into the SUV along with the rest of the team and they drove behind the FBI out to the storage facility. Located near the Amtrak rail lines that ran north and south through the San Fernando Valley, the storage facility wasn’t terribly large but it consisted of several buildings. Once they got to the parking lot, they unloaded and began jogging toward Mary Mason’s unit.
Thayne and Jarrett were trained the same way the bomb units of most major metropolitan areas were. They both had a vast knowledge of various kinds of explosives and bomb making and had spent the months of their training learning all about different kinds of ordinance and devices they might come up against in the field. The danger in any situation, like the one they were about to walk into, was that they could become complacent, thinking that they had the upper hand just because they had the knowledge. The fact was, they had no idea what Reverend James Elroy or Mary Mason were capable of or what they’d do to escape justice and continue to preach their hate and blow up innocent citizens.
Snow divided the groups up. Thayne, Sarah,and Jose were tasked with joining the LAPD when they breached the front door of the storage facility which was nothing more than a large square cement box with a twenty-foot-high roof. There was also a back door to the unit which was where Chief White sent Tim Darcy and Craig Baldwin. Thayne didn’t like the idea that he and Jarrett were being separated but there was nothing he could do about it. He knew his teammates were well-trained and he trusted them.
The FBI was divided up in a similar fashion and S.W.A.T. was given the breach and point position. The idea was to try to catch them by surprise so that they had no time to set off a bomb. They had no idea what all they’d find in the unit and though Mary Mason didn’t impress any of them as suicidal, when cornered, she could decide to take herself, her father, and the whole lot of them out with one press of the button.
Thayne watched Jarrett jog away to take up a sniper position two buildings over from their location, about fifty yards away. He had a perfect clear shot from the top of the two-story building and he was just far enough away that he wouldn’t be blown up if Mason or Elroy decided to take them out. That gave Thayne some comfort, but the fact that there was no cover on the top of the building that Evans was scaling, made Thayne nervous. Still, watching himwith the rifle slung over his shoulder, dressed like S.W.A.T. in all black, was like watching a big cat climbing a tree where he could deal out death from his position and not think twice about it. Thayne forced himself to drag his eyes away from his partner and focus on his own task. When he looked back, he caught Sarah watching him with a knowing smirk on her face.