A Covert Affair (Deadly Ops #5)(86)
It was empty except for some crates. Bypassing the crates on the outside, she ran up inside the plane and took half a dozen pictures of the crates with the SBMS logo on the outside. Then she started opening them.
By the time she opened the fifth crate, she was starting to feel completely insane, but as she popped the next lid, ice chilled her veins. She blinked once and struggled to draw in a breath, sure she was seeing things.
A black grenade peeked through the yellow-colored stuffing at the top. Carefully she lifted a bundle of it. There were more grenades lining the smaller crate, packed tight with the fluffy material. Her heart hammered wildly as it registered that Keane was likely running arms and weapons, using SBMS supplies as cover, but she forced herself to stay calm. Pulling out her cell phone, she started snapping pictures of the inside of the crate, then pictures that showed the logo on the outside. In the next crate she found actual guns. AK-47s, she was pretty sure. She’d never actually seen one in real life before, but it looked like what she’d seen in movies. After taking pictures of those, she hurried out of the back of the plane toward the crates sitting behind it.
Before she could decide which one to open first, a loud rolling sound rent the air—the hangar door!
Ducking down, she peered under the plane and saw the main door the planes entered and exited through starting to open. Panic detonated inside her. She had no time to do anything but run. Without pause, she raced back toward the darkened hallway. She’d go out the back, the same way she’d come in. All she had to do was get to that hallway before whoever—
“Hey!” a male voice shouted.
Crap, someone had seen her. She shoved her phone in her back pocket and sprinted even faster as she cleared the hallway. Fear ripped through her, threatening to pull her apart at the seams. She wouldn’t risk turning around and letting anyone see her face.
The exit door clanged against the wall as she slammed it open. Male voices shouted behind her, ordering her to stop in Spanish.
Her lungs burned and her legs strained with each pounding step against the pavement. She really wished she’d worn sneakers. As she reached the edge of the fence that thankfully had no lighting and was lined with bushes and foliage behind it, she dove for the opening. If she hadn’t known where it was, it would be almost impossible to find without the aid of light.
Crawling on her hands and knees, she risked a quick glance behind her. Two men were running across the pavement toward the fence, weapons silhouetted in their hands. She couldn’t see their faces because the light from the back of the hangar was behind them, but they were far enough away that she should be able to escape. They slowed as they reached the fence, both looking around in confusion.
“Adónde se fue?” one of them snarled.
Sophie snorted inwardly as she shoved up from the ground and disappeared behind the bushes. They’d never catch her now. Not unless they could jump fences in single bounds. Twenty yards down, her car was still parked on the side of the back road where she’d left it.
The dome light came on when she opened the door, so she shut it as quickly as possible. She started her car but immediately turned off the automatic lights and kicked the vehicle into drive. Her tires made a squealing sound and she cringed. She needed to get out of there before those men figured out how to get through the fence. She couldn’t risk them seeing her license plate. Only law enforcement should be able to track plates, but people who were clearly running weapons wouldn’t care about breaking laws to find out who she was.
She glanced in the rearview mirror as her car disappeared down the dark road, and didn’t see anyone in the road or by the side of it. Didn’t mean they weren’t there, though. Pure adrenaline pumped through her as she sped away, tearing through her like jagged glass, but her hands remained steady on the wheel.
What the hell was she supposed to do now? If she called the cops, this could incriminate SBMS and that could ruin all the good work their company had done over the past decade. And what if by the time the cops got there all the weapons were gone? Then she’d look crazy and would have admitted to breaking into a private airport hangar, which was against the law. Okay, the cops were out. For now. First she needed to talk to her boss. He’d know what to do and they could figure out this mess together.