Page 82 of Crowe
“He’s not wrong,” Gator said quietly.
I glared at him.
He shrugged like a man who wasn’t going to apologize for being right.
I looked at Noah. He had the same expression he’d had in the corridor at The Hargrove before he slipped away from me to follow Imogen Corvane into the hallway. The one that saidI’ve thought this through and I’m certain of my conclusion.
I’d been furious about that. I’d also understood it completely.
“You stay in the vehicle,” I said. “The armored SUV. You don’t get out until Hawk tells me it’s clear, and I mean fully clear, and then if you go in, you go in because I walk you in myself.”
He held my gaze for a moment. “Okay.”
“I mean it, Noah.”
“I know you do.”
Wolfe looked between us, but he didn’t argue. “Crowe and Noah in the second vehicle,” he said. “Crowe, you’re primary on extraction with Gator. Hawk runs the gate and the guards.” He looked at Hawk. “How do you want to handle them?”
“Depends on what Kat gives us,” Hawk said. “If she can kill the cameras on approach, we go in quiet. If there’s one guard at the gate, I can manage one man quietly. If it’s more, things could get messy.”
“I’d rather not leave anyone injured on Corvane’s property if we can avoid it,” Wolfe said. “It gives him something to point at.”
“Then we need Kat to kill the cameras, and we walk up like we belong there,” Gator said. “If a guard sees a couple of people in appropriate clothing coming through the service entrance, he’s going to ask questions before he escalates. Then it at least starts out as a conversation, not a confrontation.”
“I can make that work,” Hawk said.
“What about the target?” Gator asked. “She needs to be ready when we get there.”
“She’ll be ready,” Wolfe said. “Noah’s going to call her back with the details before we move.”
Noah nodded, thinking it through. “She’ll want to bring the documents herself. She won’t hand them over.”
“She doesn’t have to,” Wolfe said. “The documents come with her. Chance gets them when she’s somewhere safe.” He looked at the room. “We move tomorrow night. Kat, I need that security system access, the camera feeds, and the guard rotation confirmed. By tonight.”
“Done,” Kat said, already typing.
“Chance needs to know we’re moving,” Hawk said.
“I’m calling him when you leave this room. He may insist on coming with us or be here in the office at the very least,” Wolfesaid. He looked at Noah. “When we get her out, she comes here first. Not a hotel, not a safe house we don’t control.Here.”
Noah looked at him. “Thank you,” he said.
Wolfe gave the small nod that meantyou’re welcomewithout requiring him to say it. “She’s going to need the same things you needed when you got here,” he said. “We don’t know what she has or hasn’t been through, but from what we’ve learned about Corvane, it couldn’t be good.” He held Noah’s gaze. “You’re going to be important to her.”
The room held that for a moment.
Noah looked at his hands. At the watch on his wrist, he hadn’t taken it off since the day I gave it to him. Then he looked up.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go get her.”
Chapter twenty-seven
Noah
It was hard to believe that Ashford Grove sat in the middle of the fourth-largest city in the US. With wide streets and houses that sat back from the road behind gates and hedges, it had the kind of peace and quiet that only money could buy in a city the size of Houston.
About a half a block before the house, Jackson killed the lights, and we slowly crept along the road trailing the other vehicle driven by Hawk. After what felt like forever, Jackson pulled the SUV to a stop behind Hawk in the service entrance to the property.
