Page 71 of Fury

The tango reached for a gun he must have dropped when Fury took him down.

Not today.Davis eased back the trigger.

Crack!

The tango’s body went slack.Fury whipped his head side to side a couple more times.

“Out,” he directed the shepherd.

Fury kept his grip for another few seconds before he decided to release.

“Seek-seek!” Davis gave the command.

The RMWD took off down the hall. Davis and Nazari checked the doors—all locked—as they hustled. When Fury skidded to a stop in front of a door on the right, Davis slowed to a stop, reading the shepherd’s body language. “D’you find something, buddy?” he asked, more in hope than with proof.

After dragging in some deep draughts of air at the threshold, Fury clawed at the door.

Davis stalked forward, waiting for Fury to settle back. He flicked the handle with his nondominant hand and eased the door open. Angling for a better view, he traced the interior with his reticle. A small office. Empty. A desk sat in the middle, papers and file folders piled high all over it. A whiteboard on one wall had a hand-drawn schematic of . . . a missile? Half of it had been wiped off.

Fury dropped his nose to the ground, tail up. Beelined to a bookshelf at the back of the room. Pawed at one of the shelves before looking back at him.

“Give me a hand,” Davis said. Slid his M4 behind his back.

“Yep.” Nazari joined him and they each took an end.

At first, the bookshelf didn’t budge, then something clicked, and it easily slid aside.

Nazari took point and entered. “He’s here.”

There, in the middle, Archie sat tied to a chair—unconscious. A dozen discordant elements pinged in Davis’s head as he put Fury in a “down” and moved in to assist with the twerp. Not exactly how he’d expected to find this leader of a terrorist group.

This guy had supposedly been tortured, yet there was no blood on his clothes. Just dirt. Not how you’d expect to find a hostage. Was it a setup?

He assessed the twerp for a minute. Always had bugged him. But this . . . it wasn’t right. Something was off. It hadn’t been difficult to find him or breech the room. No one was standing guard, and if the twerp really were a liability—and not in on things—why not waste him before they engaged Damocles? It was sloppy work to leave him alone where anyone could capture him.

He eyed Nazari, whose furrowed brow suggested he was having the same thoughts. “Doesn’t add up,” Davis muttered. Sliding a pocketknife from his tactical pants, he looked around the room. Didn’t see any cameras, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. They’d need to be quick about this.

“Hey, man.” Nazari nudged the twerp.

The kid moaned but didn’t come to. The knot on his forehead said he’d probably been knocked out cold.

Davis slid the knife blade through the zip ties like butter.

The twerp pitched forward. Davis and Nazari grabbed him before he fell off the chair.

Another groan and this time Twerp’s head lifted. “What do you want?” His reply was weak as he slowly lifted a hand in defense, and Davis noted one of his fingers was jutting out at an unnatural angle.

Okay, so maybe Archie being the mastermind behind all of this was off base. A curse rattled through Davis. Which meant they were back at ground zero. They’d better get hands on Germaine again, or it was his backside up a pole.

“Get off me,” Twerp growled.

“Take it easy,” Davis said to him. He keyed his mic. “Alpha Actual, package secure.”

“Good copy,” Chapel comm’d. Gunfire crowded his words. “Suggest you clear out. More unfriendlies inbound.”

“We need to get Germaine back.”

“We will. But not now. Head back.”

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