Chapter 5

Twelve hours after stealing an Expedition from a parking lot at the University of Florida, Nick pulled into a parking garage in Arlington County just outside of D.C. He pulled into a space on the third floor next to a janitor's closet. 'We're here.' He said.

I climbed out and walked to the door as everyone waited, guns hidden. I looked around and flipped up a panel, typing in my safe house code and waiting for the door to click open. Five seconds after I entered my code, the LCD panel above flickered into existence saying, 'Accepted. House locked to team Omega.'

I pushed the door open with my shoulder as I waved everyone else over. They quickly climbed out and slipped in the room with me. Nick closed the door as I typed my code again to activate the elevator inside. It opened for us and we stepped inside quickly.

After the doors closed, an LCD screen lit up and said, 'Confirm retinal scans.' We each stepped up and let it scan our eye before the elevator moved upward, taking us to a floor above the parking structure.

As the doors opened to the safe house, we all smoothly exited, guns up as we diligently searched the safe house room to room. I finished sweeping the kitchen and shouted a final, 'Clear!' as I walked back to the living room.

Nick was searching the cabinets on the wall, pulling out weapons and computers as Caroline and Emily got the servers online. Katie stood by the windows and commented to me, 'Nice view we've got.'

I stopped next to her and looked out. I smiled, 'Oh yeah, I love the way the shadow hits the concrete.' I shook my head, trust the CIA to find a safe house that stares at a wall. At least it was nice inside.

Caroline turned to us, 'Servers are up. Just logged into the system and am pulling up what I can on today.'

We clustered around the rack of monitors and watched as she looked through the different reports and news bulletins about the hijacking. She finished scanning them and said, 'So no one has really cared to look into us very much yet. They've been heralding Agent Jenkins sacrificing his life so far. They reported that we made a move on the terrorist though and that sadly we were all pulled out of the airlock as we waited outside the President's office. Thankfully it's government policy to not give out minor's names also. Those identities are going to have to be canned, but we already knew that.'

I pointed to a report on one of the side monitors, 'Pull this up on the main screen.' She did and I scanned through it, reading the high level internal CIA bulletin that the six teenagers had been CIA assets that were presumed to have gone to ground. We only had access to the memo since it concerned our team.

I leaned back as everyone finished reading, 'Will we show up on internal CIA logs since we logged in here?'

Emily responded, 'No we're still classified as Black Ops assets. We'd have to make contact first and then declare that we're here. If anyone tries to come in here now, it'll just refuse entry. Well refuse them or maybe take them to another floor. They could have different levels here.'

We all relaxed a little at that. Katie said, 'Well I guess we sit around for now. Anyone check the kitchen for food?'

I shook my head, 'No sorry. Just cleared it.' Emily got up and dragged Katie to the kitchen.

Nick smiled, 'It's not like you were thinking about cooking anything. The only meal options we know of are take-out, delivery, and fast foodÉ... '

Corbin and I laughed at that as we all dropped down to sit on the couch. Nick said, 'Went through the guns, we've got a dozen or so M4s, a few FN SCARs, a Barrett, and a few FN P90s. Twenty or so Glock 19s, about the same amount of Glock 26s, a dozen M&P Shield compacts, and ten FN 5.7s. Also enough ammo, flash bangs, and grenades to effectively take down a small country.'

Corbin smiled, 'Any C4?'

Nick shook his head, 'Nope. Even if there were I'd have hid that shit from you. Otherwise you'd most likely drop the building on our heads.' Corbin shrugged. Heck, he prob would have!

I smiled, 'I'd like to enjoy this little bit of downtime if possible. So no playing with the toys, got it Corbin?'

Katie stuck her head back in the room. 'Yeah don't blow us up please.' Corbin flicked her off quickly but just got smacked in the head by Nick for it. 'Also, we have absolutely no food. We found a cash stash though so we're going shopping. Get your butts up and let's go.'

Caroline and Emily joined us as Katie made the shopping announcement. I literally saw their eyes light up. Nick groaned, 'You saw that right?'

Corbin nodded, 'Yep. They literally lit up at the thought of shopping. It's going to be a long day.'

I laughed, 'I'm going this time though. I refuse to eat kale everyday for the next week like last time.' Katie just smiled and winked at us as we got up. I grabbed an M&P Shield from the open cabinet on the way by as everyone else did the same. The elevator opened as I waited for them, 'So Wal-Mart then?'

The girls nodded, 'There's one a few blocks away. Saw it on the way in.' Katie said.

The doors slid closed and then took us back down to the garage as Corbin bickered with Katie about what type of food to buy. I rolled my eyes at Caroline as they fought. Katie normally let it drop but she was pushing his buttons today. Caroline merely smiled and stepped out as the elevator opened, pulling me along. Emily zipped by heading for the driver's door.

Caroline grabbed her, 'Oh hell no. I'm not going to die from your driving today.'

Emily bitched, 'I'm not that bad!'

Katie walked past, 'Giving you the keys is as bad as giving Corbin explosives.'

Corbin even nodded at that as we climbed in, Nick jumping in the driver's seat as I climbed in the passenger. He zipped down the ramps and out into traffic as Emily bitched out Corbin. Nick made a few turns and pulled into the parking lot of Wal-Mart, dropping us off and going to park.

We walked inside as the sound of several gunshots echoed in the air. Corbin and I took off back out the door, our hands drifting towards our weapons as we scanned the parking lot. We saw a body on the ground down one of the lanes and took off running that way as Caroline and Katie took cover at the door, Emily keeping people inside.

I drew my weapon as two more gunshots sounded in the air. I peeked from behind the first SUV and then fired twice at a gunman as he fired into a car. As he dropped, I stepped out, Corbin moving with me. One last gunshot echoed and a body fell from behind another SUV into the lane in front of me.

I moved closer as Nick stepped from the other side of the SUV, reloading as he did. He yelled, 'All clear!' I raced forward to him making sure to kick the guns away from the assailants as I did.

'You alright? What the fuck happened?' Corbin asked.

Nick groaned and held his hand to his shoulder 'Got clipped in the shoulder by the first shot. It'll be fine though. Two more dead behind the SUV.'

Caroline and Katie appeared next to us. Katie saw the blood and moved to Nick, pulling his shirt off and checking the wound. I asked, 'What happened?'

Nick grunted in pain as Katie checked his wound, 'Bastards appeared at my window, one holding a gun up to my window and tapping on it. I started getting out and drew as I did. I got the first one with two shots, but the one on the passenger managed to hit me with a round before I got him. You got the third before I dropped the last one under the SUV.'

I sighed, 'Fuck okay. We need to get out of here now.'

Emily ran up as I shrugged off my jacket and slipped it on Nick. 'We need out of here now. Emily and Corbin, head north. Katie, get Nick somewhere away from here. Back to the safe house if you can. Caroline and I will head south. Meet back at the safe house as soon as you can make sure you aren't tracked.'

Everyone nodded and we all moved off, Katie making sure to not leave a blood trail. I got a block away with Caroline before finding a dumpster. I found a towel and wiped down the weapon as Caroline watched for anyone following us. I dropped the weapon in the dumpster and wrapped my arm around Caroline's waist walking back out onto the street.

I slowly walked down the street as police cars zipped by. Caroline sighed, 'Can't have an easy time can we?'

I shook my head, 'I don't think easy is in our vocabulary babe. We'll have to report in for this one too. They'll probably start pulling facial recognition on that car from traffic cams and once they run us, it'll throw up huge flags at the CIA. They'll know we're here.'

As cops came around the corner, Caroline smoothly pulled me into a coffee shop to avoid them. Snuggling up against me, she watched the cops run by as we pretended to read the menu. Caroline frowned and then mumbled something a little loudly about vegan options before we walked back out.

I said, 'I think we're good but let's slip into the garage next door and then jump across to the safe house at the top level. Should be easy enough and that way we won't be seen entering that garage.'

She smiled, 'You call a ten foot drop easy?'

I nodded, 'Better than the twenty or so we've had to do before.' I opened the door for her and let her in slapping her butt as she walked in. She rolled her eyes at me over her shoulder and then grabbed my butt as we waited for the elevator. We rode up the elevator to the top floor and looked over at our building, measuring the gap at around 11 feet across and down about ten.