Gabe (In the Company of Snipers, #8)
by Irish Winters
Chapter One
Pop! Pop! Bang!
Backfire? Gunfire? Could’ve been, either.
Junior Agent Gabe Cartwright jerked his gaze to the exit gate of the underground garage. He’d just parked his Land Rover in its assigned stall. With his revoked driver’s license, he shouldn’t have been driving, but he was. Barely had his feet on the ground.
His boss, Alex Stewart, lingered at the gate in a black SUV. Always in a hurry, the speed demon should’ve stomped on the accelerator and roared off into traffic by now.
Damn. Was that gunfire?
Gabe couldn’t get to his boss fast enough, then couldn’t believe his eyes. Alex sat slumped forward in his seatbelt, his forehead tilted down and his mouth open in shock. Three crimson bull’s-eyes blossomed dead center of his white dress shirt.
“No! No! No!” Gabe jerked the door handle. Locked. His palms hit the window. “Boss!”
Alex didn’t move. The damned engine still idled.
This can’t be happening. Not here in America. Not to Alex.
Gabe grabbed his cell phone and stabbed 911, his heart roaring in his ears. He barked address and details to the dispatch operator, then his teammates two stories up. “Shooting. Parking garage. Alex. Get down here now!”
Where the hell had those shots come from? The busy traffic on the street looked normal. The office building across the way, too. No glint of a scope. No shadowy figure skulking away. It was just another sunny day in Alexandria, Virginia. Like hell.
No time to waste. Gabe braced the sole of his boot to the windshield and pushed it inward far enough to loosen the window seal, then jerked the entire sheet of safety glass out.
“I’m... shot?” Alex gasped.
Yes, damn it. Only Alex would be surprised at that. And still talking. Had to be in shock.
Leaning over the dashboard, Gabe shoved the shifter into park and unlocked the doors.
“Gabe?”
“Yeah, I heard you, Boss. Help’s coming. You’re gonna be okay.”
Please. Don’t let him die. Not Alex! Not my boss!
He didn’t need CPR. He was still conscious, still huffing shallow breath. A sheen of sweat glistened on his upper lip. There just wasn’t enough blood. He had to be hemorrhaging internally. To death.
“Kelsey,” Alex whispered, his eyes glazed and his voice fading. “Tell... Kelsey...”
“No, Boss. You get to tell her yourself. Promise.”
Lies. All lies.
Alex didn’t curse. Not even once. He closed his eyes with a soft sigh, barely breathing.
Just that fast Gabe was inside the vehicle with him, releasing his seatbelt, easing him out of the SUV and onto the concrete. He locked his hands together and commenced first-aid, applying hard pressure to stop the bleeding.
Alex would not die. Not today.
The men and women of The TEAM tumbled out from the stairwell. Gabe heard the rumble of boots on concrete, but offered not one second of precious time to acknowledge them. All ex-military, they knew what the hell to do.
“Is he still breathing?” Harley asked, shoulder to shoulder with Gabe on the cold garage floor.
“Yeah. Three shots. Professional hit. Came out of nowhere.” Gabe kept the pressure up. Not Alex. I’m not losing another friend. Not again.
Mark knelt at his other side with a fistful of sterile packing. He covered Gabe’s hands with it, and together they applied enough pressure to make a grown man cry.
Alex never even groaned.
What kind of man survives three mortal wounds? Superman, maybe. Ironman. Alex was close to invincible, but the harsh reality of ballistics sucked.
Sirens shrieked. Maybe two. The paramedics barked orders for everyone to step back. They took over first-aid and had Alex off the ground and on the gurney in no time.
Gabe sucked in a lungful of stale concrete air. Damn. Could this be Alex’s lucky day? Could he bully Death as he’d bullied everyone and everything else?
God, I hope so.
The medics loaded the ambulance, the clock ticking. Gabe stepped forward, going with his boss every step of the way.
“No riders.” The driver secured the tailgate, his palm in Gabe’s face.
“But I—”
“Follow in your own vehicle. We need to move.”
They didn’t waste time. Sirens blared away as quickly as they’d come.
Every team member scrambled to his or her vehicle. Gabe found himself pulled into Junior Agent Zack Lennox’s family van. “Come on. He’ll need Kelsey.”
“You’re not going after the boss?
“No, Gabe. We’re not. We’re going to take him his reason to live.”
Good thinking. Gabe climbed into the van, wiping the blood off his fingers, needing the sticky stuff to stick somewhere else. Anywhere else.
“Did anyone call her?”
Zack only growled. Obviously not. This kind of news had to be delivered in person. With tender care. He aimed the van toward the elementary school where Kelsey taught.
Gabe pushed a fist to his sternum as if that could stop the drum roll in his chest, the creeping suffocation of an imminent panic attack. Triggers. It was all about managing his response to the triggers that initiated that claustrophobic sensation of the world closing in.
Not now. Keep it together. Breathe in. Breathe out.