Operation: Midnight Tango. Linda Castillo

through the open door. No doubt the prison SORT team and tower guards were assessing the situation. It was only a matter of minutes before they stormed the place.

      Somewhere in the distance an engine fired. She watched Zack pull a small bundle from the satchel and set it on the floor beneath one of the trucks.

      “Give me that gas can,” he ordered.

      Emily spotted the red can next to the workbench, picked it up and handed it to Zack. “What are you doing?”

      “Just taking out a little insurance.” He placed the can next to the bundle, then dashed to the snowmobile, picked up two helmets and slid onto the seat. “Come here.”

      She met him at the snowmobile. Her arm was burning and throbbing. Light-headed, she wondered if the wound was more than just a graze.

      “You okay?” Eyeing her intently, he lifted one of the helmets and slid it gently onto her head.

      “Oh, I’m just peachy. In the last half hour I’ve been taken hostage, shot at, lied to by people I thought were the good guys. No, I’m not okay! I want to know what the hell is going on.”

      His eyes met hers as he fastened the strap beneath her chin. “Look, I didn’t mean to involve you. But I can’t leave you here. And there’s no time for me to explain right now, okay?”

      It wasn’t okay, but she didn’t think it would help the situation if she started demanding answers now. She looked down at the hole that had been torn in her coat. Her stomach clenched when she saw the blood seeping through the sleeve.

      As if reading her thoughts, Zack reached out and touched her arm. “As soon as we get out of here, I’ll find a place to stop and take care of your arm. I’m an EMT. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

      It was ridiculous, but looking into his eyes, she believed him. “I can’t believe they shot me.” Of all the things that had happened, that was the one that bothered her the most. She’d been a member of the Lockdown, Inc. corrections team for three years. Her teammates were her friends. Her family. Surely the prison marksman had been aiming for Zack.

      Hadn’t he?

      His eyes darkened as he slid his own helmet over his head and fastened the strap. “I’m going to drive this thing like a bat out of hell. Put your arms around my waist and don’t let go. You got that?”

      The motor purred like a big, wild cat as she slid onto the seat behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

      An instant later the snowmobile’s steel shoes dug into the concrete. Sparks flew as the machine shot out the open door like a cannonball.

      Once outside, Zack looked behind him toward the utility garage, holding what looked like a tiny television channel-changer in his hand. He depressed a button, then dropped the device into his coat pocket. “Hang on!”

      The snowmobile took off like a racehorse out of the gate. Emily tightened her arms around Zack’s waist. She heard gunshots and shouting over the roar of wind coming through her helmet. Zack veered sharply, barely missing a light pole. They were heading toward a line of trees that would take them to the foothills of Idaho’s Bitterroot Mountain range when the garage exploded.

      Even from a hundred yards away Emily felt the hot breath of the explosion. She glanced over her shoulder to see a ball of flames billow like a giant orange mushroom into the early-morning sky.

      “I take it that wasn’t a concussion grenade,” she shouted to be heard over the whine of the engine, the roar of wind around her helmet.

      “No,” he shouted over his shoulder. “But it might buy us some time if we’re lucky.”

      “If we’re lucky?”

      “Yeah.” He muttered a curse. “We’re about to run out of gas.”

      “HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?” Marcus Underwood furiously paced the briefing room.

      Standing a few feet away, Lieutenant Riley Cooper looked everywhere but into his superior’s livid eyes. “We didn’t anticipate an inmate getting inside help,” he said.

      “Didn’t anticipate? It is your job to anticipate!”

      The other man swallowed hard. “I understand.”

      “I want them caught or dead—and I want it done yesterday!”

      “Y-yes, sir.”

      The seven men who comprised the prison SORT team shifted uncomfortably in their chairs while their team leader was grilled to a crisp.

      “The woman, too?” one of the men asked after a moment.

      “She is an accomplice and is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. For God’s sake, she smuggled a firearm into the prison for him.” Underwood’s gaze scanned the faces of the team he’d gathered to hunt down and kill Zack Devlin and Emily Monroe. “All of you saw the security-camera video. She and Devlin have evidently been planning his escape for quite some time. He is armed with explosives, antipersonnel devices and at least one semiautomatic weapon. I don’t need to remind any of you what this man is capable of.”

      Nobody had anything to say about that. Underwood had made certain each man on this handpicked team had seen the file he’d built on the infamous Irish terrorist, Zack Devlin. As far as they knew, Devlin had spent the last ten years murdering indiscriminately. Men. Women. Children.

      “This is a race against time, gentlemen,” Underwood said. “It is your responsibility to stop this murderer and his accomplice before they kill again. It is your responsibility to bring them back to me dead or alive. Am I clear?”

      Silence shrilled for the span of a full minute.

      “This briefing is over,” Underwood snapped.

      The team members rose quickly, gathered their weapons and gear and filed out the door.

      Dr. Lionel was in the process of gathering his notes when Underwood approached him. “Were you able to locate and remove the GPS device before he got away?” Underwood asked.

      “It had been implanted just under the skin.” The doctor pulled a sealed plastic bag from the file and held it up. “I extracted it just a few minutes before he overpowered me.”

      Underwood took the bag and studied the tiny device. “Looks to be state of the art.”

      “It is. But without it, whatever agency he’s working for won’t be able to locate him.”

      The lieutenant approached the two men. “Devlin doesn’t stand a chance in a storm like this with seven of my best men tracking him.”

      “You had better be right.” Underwood looked at Dr. Lionel. “I do not want our progress on RZ-902 interrupted.”

      The doctor nodded. “We’re moving on to the next phase as planned.”

      “Excellent. You know how I feel about delays.” Dropping the GPS device on the floor, Marcus Underwood crushed it with his shoe. “I hate waiting almost as much as I hate loose ends.”