THIRTY-ONE

Zarek

My vision was engulfed in red, and as I opened my eyes, the chandelier above the bed cast a pulsating red glow, bathing the entire room. My eyes widened at the silent code red. The lack of sound indicated that the alarm was meant to alert us without notifying the intruders.

Leora was draped against me, still in deep sleep. I slowly put my palm over her mouth and whispered in her ear, "Get up and don't scream, baby."

She moved a bit and my hold tightened on her mouth. Arms flailing, she panicked and then immediately relaxed as her gaze found mine. I looked at the clock on the nightstand. 3:24 AM .

"Something is happening. Get yourself armed."

She nodded and we both silently climbed out of the bed. Once armed, I slowly turned the knob of our door and as the lock made a click sound, I hissed.

Fuck it.

I swung the door open and peered out. The lobby was clear. As we passed other rooms, I saw their doors open slowly. After a few false alarms and some curses, my squad gathered and trooped through the lobby and towards the elevator. I kept a close eye on Leora as we walked forward in the darkness. Using the watch that Zane had thankfully programmed for me, I opened the elevator, and we descended to the command center.

The ‘-4' floor was a flurry of noise as opposed to the top floors. It seemed the danger hadn't reached this floor yet. We all concealed our guns and headed towards the command center.

Zane was hammering on his keyboard, Sebastian was standing beside him with his fingers pinching the top of his nose, and Booth was standing next to him cursing at her phone.

"What's our six?" I asked.

Sebastian stepped towards us, "Our comms have been obliterated—"

"Intercepted," Zane corrected him, holding his index finger up.

Sebastian continued, "While trying to infiltrate their comms, we led them right to us. This is a disaster—"

"Eh…barely an obstacle," Zane interjected calmly.

"Are they physically here?" I asked.

"Not yet," Zane responded, "But they've narrowed down our location to anywhere between Toronto and Boston. I threw them off their kilter a bit," he then looked at Sebastian, "Not Brooklyn. Not Flatbush. Not Blackthorn. They have an estimated range of us being anywhere inside some 10% of US landmass. We're fine!"

"It's a fucking code red," Sebastian bellowed.

"I'm a paranoid person. Even the slightest insurgence will trigger a code red," Zane said.

"How the fuck are you so calm?" Kabir's voice belied his irritation and Zane simply shrugged.

"Then what code tells us that the enemy is breathing down our necks?" Leora asked, her eyes wide.

"Uh, that'd be code black. The building will sound an alarm and all passages will lock down except for floors below ‘-3'. It's simple really," Zane shrugged and I had the sudden urge to roll my eyes.

"So, we're fine?" Logan asked, rubbing his eyes.

Sebastian gave him a disgusted glance, "Maybe."

"Oh, fuck yes!" Zane jumped in his chair and pumped both his fists up.

"What?" Sebastian asked.

"Don't be mad, bossman," Zane laughed, "But I sort of planned this. I mean, I didn't expect it to trigger a code red and disturb your beauty sleep, but I had left something traceable for their team to find. Think of it like a fishhook. Yes, it could lead them right to us, but if they grab it, we can trace that signal. Or fish, whatever."

"So, you found the holding location?" I sighed.

"Warehouse unit 67, Port of Brooklyn," Zane smiled.

Tension rolled off of me and I breathed a sigh of relief .

"Fucking hell, Specter!" Sebastian mumbled.

Leora looked up at me, "Call sign?"

I nodded. Leora's eyes sparkled with excitement. "What's going to be my call sign?" she bounced on her heels, her voice tinged with anticipation.

I wrapped my arms around her waist, a smile playing on my lips. "I'm not sure yet, Mi Corazón . What do you think suits you?"

Before Leora could answer, Booth chimed in with a smirk, "How about ‘Doc'?"

I expected Leora to scoff at the suggestion, especially coming from Booth. But to my surprise, a genuine smile spread across her face. "I like ‘Doc'," she declared, looping her arms around my neck.

"Well then, Leora ‘Doc' Mateez it is," I said, sealing the new title with a kiss.

"Get a fucking room," Logan yawned.

"Seriously," Zane chimed in.

"We were just in there until you dragged us out," Leora snapped and a fit of laughter erupted.

"Since I'm already up, I'll work with you, Zane," Kabir trudged towards the chair next to Zane and plopped down yawning.

"Rest of you, get some sleep," Sebastian said, "We'll meet at 0700 hours with schematics and start the brainstorming."

We all nodded and headed back to our rooms. I saw Amelia stay behind and curiously look at the screens in front of Zane and Kabir.

As we collapsed on the bed in our room again, I heard Leora whisper something to me.

"What was that, baby?"

Then she grumbled angrily, "Argh! I said I love you, Zarek ‘Ghost' Rivera. "

I laughed and hugged her close, "I love you too, Leora ‘Doc' Mateez."

I kissed her temple and we both slowly drifted off to sleep with our arms wrapped around each other.

???

"How about—" Amelia started.

"Wouldn't work, dammit!" Kabir raised his voice and Amelia uncharacteristically flinched.

"Stand down, Kabir," I glared at him.

The team was gathered in the command center conference room. We had spent almost two hours detailing the schematics and assuming Jerome had full-scale security, we hadn't figured out a way to penetrate the warehouse undetected.

The rectangular structure, spanning two blocks, had four large entry gates on each side and eight loading docks on the east wall. We were going to wait 12 hours for all the shipments to be secured in the warehouse.

"There has to be a way to sneak in without alarming the external guards," Sebastian mumbled.

Leora was no longer looking at the schematics projected on the wall. She had her head down and was staring at the tablet in front of her, lazily tapping away.

"I have a feeling that we may need to take the abrupt approach," I started, "How about we land on the roof and enter? Zane can take us on the bird."

"The roof…" Leora muttered under her breath and then aggressively tapped on the tablet.

"That could work. But we would just alarm their team. Who is to say they're not using RPGs to protect their grounds?" Zane responded.

"And I won't have a safe sneaky place to operate my drones from," Amelia added.

Sebastian rounded the corner of the table and said, "We surely can't extract Jerome this way."

Leora finally let the tablet go and sank back into her chair, her arms crossed. She had a small smile on her face and looked awfully pleased.

"Spit it out, Leo," Logan said.

She connected her tablet to the projector and pulled a map of something I couldn't fully understand. She zoomed in on an area that was labeled ‘Channel 415' and the blank space above it was labeled ‘East River'.

"So this," she declared, "Is the map of underground tunnels that were closed off in 1961. A few entries and exits span throughout the Port, that some warehouses now use for secondary storage. There's a manhole in Warehouse 67. We just need to find a way to enter from it. Sneakily."

"Damn!" Logan whispered.

"Thank fuck," Kabir ran his fingers through his hair.

"Zane," Sebastian commanded.

"Yeah, I'm checking which ones are closest and whether they're obstructed or not," he tapped away, "Got it. There's one entrance approximately a mile from the warehouse. We can trek through and enter Warehouse 67…" he tapped some more, "From the manhole situated near the south wall."

"Good work, Doc," I said and kissed Leora on the cheek.

"So, now we know how to enter the warehouse," Booth started, "Which walls and pillars we need to place the demolition charges on, and how we're splitting the team. Any progress on locating where Jerome could be?"

"He could be," Zane responded, "Wait, let me pull the schematics again," he tapped away, "Here we go. He could be in the offices situated on the west wall, one floor up. Or he could be on patrol. The biggest office according to this map is Room 4. Looks like a conference room. I could be wrong."

I studied the schematics, "It's right next to the stairs. Should make things easier."

"Zane, load this into our VR locomotive. I need at least 5 different guard rotation scenarios," Sebastian demanded, "and plan surprise attacks."

"On it, bossman!"

"And go get a shower, Zane," Sebastian added as he walked out the door.

Leaning towards Leora, I whispered, "I'll be right back, okay?"

I followed Sebastian out the door and when he saw me behind him, he signaled me into his office. I sat across from him, a massive wooden desk between us.

"You think we will succeed?" I asked.

"I think we have a very good chance of getting Jerome…alive."

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the desk, "I think we should focus on getting the team back…alive."

"You're in love," he nodded speculatively, "Don't let that blur your vision, Ghost."

"I love my squad too, as I'm sure you do too, your team. We have bigger fish to fry and I don't want us to make mistakes. "

He leaned back in his chair, his head thrown back, and stared at the ceiling, "I think we're missing something. I'm not saying this is all too easy. But I feel like there's something we're overlooking," he abruptly straightened himself and narrowed his gaze, "Did anything unusual or unexplainable happen since you started this assignment?"

I processed back to the time I was shot behind the second safehouse.

"We had a lone visitor at one of the safehouses," I frowned, "He had a sniper gun and didn't approach the safehouse. Logan said he was a hired gun. Logan, Leora and I had been out at that time. Any one of us could have been the target."

"You think it was Casteel targeting Leora again?"

I shook my head because I didn't really believe it. Casteel's aim was to eliminate the squad using Leora. He wouldn't gain anything from having Leora shot. Plus he liked to do his dirty work himself.

"No. That's not it."

Sebastian nodded slowly and I continued, "Well, we had the mercenary questioned. He mentioned a target. Didn't say who it was. At the time I thought it was Leora. But, now I think it wasn't."

Sebastian sighed, "Anything else happen?"

I shook my head, "We can look into this after the mission. We haven't had any problems since then," I said.

"Okay."

"I'll see you at lunch," I got up.

"You won't. I have a meeting with the NYPD."

"Later, then," I said as I stalked off and joined the rest of the team in the conference room.