I opened the email as the boys went back to work, giving the words a quick scan.
They were interesting words for damn sure—words like, “Europe”, “royalty” and “multi-million-dollar payout.” I was feeling all kinds of excitement just reading them. There was other stuff, too, like how we had thirty minutes to accept the job and if we did, we’d be leavingthat night.
“I’m taking it!” I shouted.
“What?”
Before I had a chance to respond, my phone buzzed. I yanked it out and saw the text we’d been waiting for from Hud.
Exfil in five minutes. Sorry to keep you boys waiting, traffic was a right bitch.Oh, and keep away from the eastern doors. Trust me.
I gave a thumbs-up reaction to the text before turning my attention back to the screen.
“The Scotsman’s going to be here in five!” I shouted. “And if I’m going to take this job, it needs to be now!”
Pyke fired off the rest of his clip, swapping in a new one with trained fluidity, the spent clip dropping onto the concrete with a clatter.
“No, you’re not!” Pyke yelled back. “You know the rules!”
I groaned. “Are you serious?”
“I’m with Pyke!” Kid called out. “We’re an equal partnership, remember? No job gets taken unless the four of us agree.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know the freaking policy. But I’m thinking we ought to give an exception this one time on account of the little details that there’s a thirty-minute window left to take it, and that we’re in the middle of a damn firefight!”
“Rules are rules!” Pyke shouted! “Now get your ass over here and give us some cover!”
I grumbled a few choice swears as I closed up the laptop, shoved it into my backpack, and pushed off the ground. Moments later I burst out of one of the front entrances of the warehouse, pistol raised in front of me as I fired shot after shot, a battle cry bursting from the deepest reaches of my throat.
I grinned as the men scattered, my move having the intended effect of scaring the hell out of them. When the clip emptied, I swapped it for another, draining that one too. A couple of the gang members took pot shots at me, but their form was so piss-poor that I wasn’t worried in the slightest about one coming near me.
“I love how you can tell when some jackass is using TV as his gun training,” Kid said as I took position next to him.
Pyke chuckled. “Yeah, when they hold it sideways like that. Idiots.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted an armored truck coming around the bend. Before any of us had a chance to react, it barreled through the side entrance of the warehouse, smashing through the metal door as if were made of paper.
“Oh,” I said. “That’s why Hud wanted us to stay away from that side of the warehouse.”
Pyke grinned. “Looks like our ride’s here.”
“Finally,” Kid added.
We laid down one more barrage of suppressing fire, the gang members running here and there, appearing more concerned with saving their own skin than securing the stuff they’d come for. The boys and I headed back into the warehouse just in time to see Hud hop out of the driver’s seat of the big, steel tank-like truck.
“There you boys are,” he spoke in his thick, Scottish accent. “I was worried I’d be waiting around for you three to finish up.”
Hudson Gregoire was as tall and well-built as the rest of us, though with his red hair and matching beard there was no mistaking him for any other member of the team. He grinned, his usual smart-ass expression on his face.
“Come on now, lads,” he said. “Let’s load this gear up and get moving.”
“Nice ride,” Pyke commented as he slung his rifle over his shoulder and dusted his hands. “Pick it up used?”
Hud stepped over to one of the big barrels of chemicals, effortlessly hoisting one off the ground.
“A little perk from the client. Figure it’ll be damn useful in, you know, not getting blown to hell by gangbangers taking potshots at us.”
Kid lifted a barrel of his own. “Don’t think we need to worry about that. With the way these idiots shoot, we could park this thing in front of them and split a six-pack without worrying about getting hit.”