King and Maxwell (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 6)

“Little details?”

“Focus, Dwayne. The kids?”

“I can send in HRT. They got firepower like nobody else.”

“No, we’re not going to do it that way. You fight fire with fire, everybody ends up getting burned.”

“Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?” snapped Littlefield.

“The former president’s niece was kidnapped. Remember that?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, my partner and I were the ones who got her back safe and sound, so we’re not exactly thumb suckers on this. We can help.”

“This is way out of protocol.”

“This whole damn thing is way out of protocol.”

“So how do you want to do this then?” asked Littlefield.

“Me and Wingo. You and McKinney. We go in fast and with no warning and we get the kids.”

“What about your partner, Maxwell? I hear she can kick ass like nobody’s business.”

“I tried to get hold of her. But we need to move fast.”

“I’d rather go in at night.”

“And that’s right when they would be expecting something. We go in while it’s still light, we catch them off guard.”

“I don’t like this.”

Sean looked at Wingo. “We got a guy here who’s Special Forces. We got you, me, and McKinney. Not one of us is an amateur. These guys have to be running out of manpower by now, so I think the guns on their side might be a little light. We can do this, Dwayne. I’m getting floor plans of the cabin sent to me right now. We’ll walk through it, do our recon, and then hit it.”

“If you’re wrong—”

“Then my ass is yours. But for now, we do it my way.”

“Okay. Tell me where and when.”

Sean did and then put his phone away.

Wingo looked over at him. “You as confident as you sound?”

“Not even close.” Sean put the car in gear and tore off.

CHAPTER

75

TWO HOURS LATER THE SKIES opened up and Sean looked to the heavens and thanked the man upstairs. It was a quick thunderstorm but it was making a lot of racket. It would be over and done in about thirty minutes; the skies would clear to a spectacular, cleansed blue, and the winds would calm. But right now bucketing rain, heavy, howling winds, and booms of thunder were covering every sound of their approach to the cabin.

He and Wingo had hooked up with Agents Littlefield and McKinney. The man from DHS had been even more skeptical than his FBI counterpart but came around when Sean pointed out the likely scenarios for him. They rescue the kids, they’re heroes. If the kids weren’t there, then they had Wingo, and Sean as an aider and abettor.

But as Sean made his way slowly up the hillside to where the cabin stood in its tiny footprint, his gut was screaming at him that the kids were inside its walls.

Wingo was on his right flank. They had their guns inside their rain jackets to keep them dry. McKinney and Littlefield were approaching from the other side.