Page 32 of Strike Fast

At Tuck’s quiet command, one of his men blew the locks off the door. A couple flashbangs lit up the stygian doorway a moment later, for a brief instant making it bright as daylight inside. The point man rushed inside, followed by the rest of the HRT.

“Go,” Hamilton ordered FAST Bravo, just as shouts and shots rang out from inside.

Reid and three of his teammates rushed out of the trees to cover the east and south sides of the target house, while another four took the north and west sides and Hamilton stayed in between to monitor the situation.

Charging into position, Reid sighted down the barrel of his weapon and swept the side of the house, watching for anyone who might try and make a run for it.

It only took ninety seconds for the HRT to clear the house.

“House secure. Moving to outbuildings now.”

“Move in,” Hamilton ordered.

Reid led the way into the dilapidated house, his NVGs allowing him to see clearly in the darkness. The stench of the place was like a slap in the face—urine, garbage, pot and body odor all mixing with the sickly-sweet smell of rancid booze.

Inside the room on the left, a male body lay facedown on the floor. In the kitchen, two more lay sprawled out near the table. The HRT guys had already stripped them of weapons.

Reid motioned at Maka, Khan and Colebrook, and together they continued through the rear of the house and out into the backyard. They found the HRT boys already heading back from the rear of the property with three prisoners in tow.

Hamilton joined them on the damp overgrown grass. “Find what we were looking for?” he asked Tucker, who was in the lead.

“Nope, but we got one prisoner and two female hostages. The females need medical attention.”

Reid took in the two half-naked women, who were hunched over with their arms crossed over their bare breasts, both of them crying softly. He turned his angry stare to the male prisoner who had his chin up, his expression one of defiance.

Hamilton nodded and spoke to Reid and the others. “Get started in there.”

Reid and his teammates made short work of searching the place. “Small stash here,” he called out from one of the bedrooms, the restraints still fastened to the bed turning his stomach. No way the females tied down in here had been restrained by choice.

Khan stuck his head in, noted the pile of pistols and rifles Reid had just found under a floorboard that had been thinly disguised beneath an old rug.

“Wad of cash, too,” Reid added.

“Granger and Lockhart got a bunch of coke in the kitchen,” Khan said, hunkering down to pry the board free and toss it aside.

By the time they finished they’d found another two caches of weapons, along with enough weed and coke to meet the arrest threshold for the prisoner the HRT had taken.

Hamilton stopped in the doorway. “Forensics team’s here. You guys go check out the outbuildings while we process all this.”

Reid got up and stepped out into the hallway. Beyond the open front door, FBI agents and some of the HRT guys were talking with the two female hostages, who now had blankets draped around them. Both were standing up on their own power and seemed to be moving okay, but neither were the reporter, Victoria Gomez. Had she even been here?

He turned sideways to let a few support personnel past him, and strode back through the kitchen and living room to the back door. From the sagging rear porch, he could just make out the shadowy shape of the shed near the back fence.

The boards creaked as Khan joined him on the stoop. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” Together they crossed the yard. As he neared the fence, Reid noticed a gap where some of the old boards had been broken, as though someone had smashed through it in their haste to escape. A K9 unit was already back there checking it out.

Reid aimed the high-powered beam of his tactical flashlight through the shed’s open doorway. A thin, badly stained bare mattress lay on the wood floor, along with a short, rusty length of chain attached to a bolt in the floorboards.

Reid’s jaw tightened, knowing what it signified. They’d kept one of the female hostages chained up out here like a fucking animal.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered under his breath, and stepped inside.

Khan stopped next to him, taking it all in. “Damn.”

Reid pushed out a breath and glanced around. “I’ll look at the back, you check the front.” He searched the floors and walls of the dismal prison, shifted the mattress aside to search beneath it, but there was nothing except that goddamn rusty chain and bolt. “Nothin’.”

“Front’s clear too,” Khan said. “I’ll start checking outside.”

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