A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire #1)(116)

Before Garrett even got into the trunk of Margarita’s car, Brady was on his way to the hospital to pick up Austin and Cole. A rushed phone call to Austin while Garrett attached a listening device to Margarita’s bra strap gave Brady a tiny inkling of hope that they might actually be able to pull off this half-assed plan. Brady had no intention of asking either one of the men to help them, considering what happened to them earlier in the night. He had called to get an update and to try and find out if their attackers had given away any information that could be useful. Upon hearing about Garrett’s plan for getting Parker out and nailing Fernandez, Austin’s reply was straight, to the point, and one hundred percent SEAL.

“Get your ass over here and get me and Vargas out of this f*cking hospital. We’re coming with you.”

Brady had wasted entirely too much time arguing with an intern at the hospital to get the two men discharged. Austin’s bullet wound to the shoulder was stitched up nicely, and the area was pumped full of Lidocaine to take the edge off the pain. Luckily the injury was to his left shoulder. He could still raise his right arm and shoot a gun if needed.

The gash in Cole’s side was also stitched and bandaged and looked like it would heal nicely. The intern said he didn’t have any serious restrictions where that was concerned, aside from not lifting anything heavy or twisting his body in an unnatural way that would rip the stitches out. The nasty pounding he’d taken to the head was another matter. The younger man yelled to everyone who would listen that Cole needed to stay right where he was and be monitored for twenty-four hours to make sure he didn’t have a concussion. Brady assured him he would shine a flashlight in Cole’s eyes every thirty minutes and ask him what year it was before he told the intern to get out of his way.

Luckily, a code blue alarm went off somewhere else in the hospital and the guy needed to rush off.

While Brady had been on the way to the hospital, Austin and Cole had called in a few favors. Austin managed to get them a nondescript van that had video and audio equipment installed in the back. Unfortunately, the van and everything inside of it was circa nineteen-ninety-something and the equipment was not up to Brady’s usual standards.

While Austin and Cole had canvassed the palace for a way inside the gates, Brady hooked his laptop up to the old computer in the van. He was trying unsuccessfully to pull up the listening device software on his laptop so he could find out what was happening inside and instruct the two men on their next moves. Since his own internet connection kept crashing, he switched gears and tried to find a way to bypass the palace’s secure wireless connection. To do this he would need to access the media network that the entire palace ran on. It was proving to be one enormous cluster f*ck.

“Son of a mother f*cking…” Brady swore again and wiggled the cables that connected his laptop to the hard drive in the van.

“It’s Friday night and the beat is sick. I’m gonna get my girls and hit the club up quick.”

The walkie-talkie next to his laptop on the small table in the van crackled to life with the sound of Austin singing horribly off-key. Brady scooped it up with one hand and pressed the ‘talk’ button, tapping on a few computer keys with his free hand.

“What the f*ck are you singing?”

“Dude, have you been living under a rock? It’s the new song by Layla Carlysle. It’s a catchy tune,” Austin responded.

“That’s the worst f*cking song I’ve ever heard in my life. What’s your status?” Brady questioned.

“The good news is Vargas and I just scaled the fence. We’re in the North corner. The guard that was stationed here got called away,” Austin replied.

“Good work. What’s the bad news?”

“I’m pretty sure we both just ripped our stitches in the process. That doc is gonna be pissed,” Austin said with a laugh.

Brady heard Austin breathing heavily and the muted sounds of him shuffling across the grounds of the palace. SEALS were trained to handle more pain than the normal human being in order to complete a mission, but that didn’t mean Brady wouldn’t worry about the two men who were like brothers to him and hope he hadn’t made the wrong decision by checking them out of the hospital against doctor’s orders.

“Okay, we’re by a window. I see a few of Fernandez’s people. They’re going about their f*cking business like there aren’t hostages in there right under their noses,” Austin said angrily.

Brady unplugged one of the cords and then reattached it, typing in one more command while he held his breath. A new screen suddenly opened on his laptop with the words “Chamberlain Wireless Intercom” at the top.

“Well son of a bitch,” Brady mumbled in surprise.

“What’s going on?” Austin voice crackled over the radio.

“I’m pretty sure I just found out that Chamberlain uses a wide area network, and I linked my WLAN into their secure connection without using Ethernet and running on less than four gigahertz.”

“Uh, in English please,” Austin replied as Brady typed in a few more codes.

“Basically, my friend, I just connected the bug that Margarita is wearing to the palace’s intercom system.”

Within seconds the bug’s audio burst through Brady’s laptop speaker and every single intercom that was inside of the palace walls.