Page 118 of Beneath the Surface

Dax strained to hear the response, but the phone wasn’t on speaker. Just a tinny voice too distorted to make out.

A pause. Then, “Got it. We’ll be here.”

He hung up and looked at his partner, who took another drag on his cigarette and tapped ash onto the floor.

“Wheeler’s on his way,” the nervous one said. “ETA twenty minutes.”

Twenty minutes.

Dax’s mind raced, calculating. Running scenarios.

He could wait for SWAT. They’d be here in...what? Thirty minutes? Forty? Captain Holloway would have mobilized them by now, had them staging somewhere nearby.

But Wheeler would be here in twenty minutes. Would arrive before backup. Would question Quinn, hurt Quinn, maybe kill Quinn before SWAT could breach.

Or Dax could go in now. Take out these two. Get Quinn out before Wheeler arrived.

Two armed men. Two on one. Not great odds, but not impossible either.

And Dax had surprise on his side. They weren’t expecting him. Didn’t know he was here. Were relaxed, unprepared, talking and smoking instead of watching the door.

No contest.

Dax pulled back from the doorway and took a moment to center himself. To become the soldier he’d been in Afghanistan. To shut down the emotional part of his brain that was screaming Quinn’s name and let the tactical part take over.

Breathe. Focus. Move.

He checked his weapon one more time. Sixteen shots. More than enough for two targets.

He said a silent prayer—to God, to the universe, to Charlie and all the others he’d lost. To Quinn’s father and grandmother.

Please. Let me save her. Let me be fast enough, good enough. Let me not fail her the way I’ve failed everyone else.

Then Dax took a breath, gripped his weapon with both hands, and exploded through the door. It flew open with a bang as Dax’s shoulder hit it, the metal crashing against the concrete wall. Dax was through in an instant, his weapon up, his body already moving into the room with the fluid grace of years of training and muscle memory.

The two men looked up—eyes widening in shock, hands reaching for weapons they hadn’t expected to need—and found themselves staring straight down the barrel of Dax’s Glock.

Time slowed as Dax’s finger found the trigger.

The smoking man was still holding his cigarette, his mouth opening to shout a warning.

The nervous one’s hand was halfway to his holster.

Too slow. Both of them too slow.

Dax aimed center mass on the closest target and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 21

The gunshot was deafening in the confined space.

The Glock’s report cracked through the air like a thunderclap, the sound waves bouncing off concrete walls and metal surfaces, amplifying and echoing until Dax’s ears rang with a high-pitched whine that drowned out everything else. The muzzle flash lit up the room for a split second—bright white, stark as lightning—casting harsh shadows that danced and flickered.

Dax’s whole body absorbed the recoil—the familiar kick against his palms, the way his shoulders tensed automatically to compensate, the slight upward jerk of the barrel that years of training had taught him to control instantly.

The man with the cigarette—the one who’d been sitting so casually on the workbench—saw Dax coming. His mouth was opening to shout a warning, his eyes widening in shock and recognition, his hand dropping the cigarette as he reached for his weapon—

But Dax was faster.