“Understood.” Niko replied.
“First of all, forget what your thinking.” Max spoke sternly. “ I know what your gut is telling you to do but don’t. Get me?”
Niko knew, of all people, Max understood exactly what he was feeling. He took a long breath before answering. “I get you.”
“Good. Now, I want you to figure out the security situation, come up with whatever strategy you and the other Aegis think will work best. You have our complete support.” Max made things very clear. “I want you to get Juan Rojas into custody, liberate the captives by whatever means you can, destroy the operation in it’s entirety but...” Max spoke a little slower then usual now. “His client list, I want it. Also the distribution list for his blood project and I want no one else to have access to that but you and our boys. You bring it to me, do you understand?”
“I understand completely my Dominor.” Niko could feel the adrenaline surging at the thought of bringing Rojas down.
“I want Rojas here, alive.” Max clarified so there was no misunderstanding. “Frank will forward coordinates for a secure location but I mean it, I want him here alive. Am I clear Niko?”
“Crystal, my Dominor.” Niko responded.
“Niko...” Max made sure he had his attention. “Whatever it takes. But you all come home in one piece.”
Niko grinned. “Without question, my Dominor.”
After hanging up with Max the four men sat there looking at each other for a long while. They were all pissed as hell but they knew they needed to set that aside in order to complete the mission. Niko told them what their directive was and they all agreed it was exactly right. They had already established contact with Rojas through Lena’s consult that morning so they needed to use that to their advantage. After discussing their options the three of them headed downstairs and got everyone together to form a plan. Pablo, the agent that the villa belonged to was immediately put to work calling in the few other agents that were local enough to assist.
Yuri and his South American Aegis counterpart, Monica, possessed gifts that were going to be invaluable to pulling things off. They both were gifted with the power of persuasion, the ability to make someone do something as if it were their own idea. The problem, however, is that this specific talent only works on the opposite sex from the possessor. This meant that Monica was going to bare the brunt of the load in the persuading department since they needed to convince a ship’s captain and his crew to take on a hundred extra passengers without argument or tipping anyone off. Another hiccup was that they had to locate a ship that was due to sail after midnight. They had to find it, then do all the persuading necessary and get back to the villa within four hours.
The plan was simple. When Monica and Yuri got back they were going to call Doctor Rojas and depending on the gender of his assistant, one of them would use their gift to influence the assistant into convincing Doctor Rojas that the procedures Lena wanted must be performed that night, in secret and at whatever price he wanted. Her warlord husband was insisting. Provided this part went according to plan, the rest would fall into place. They just had to wait and see. In the meantime they went over the security layout of the facility again and again, talking through everyone’s specific role step by step so that they were on the same page. Once the wheels were set in motion, there was no room for error.
It took about an hour before everyone was confident that they had it all down. Emotions were running high so Niko suggested everyone take a break, get food or sleep, whatever they needed to get centered before Yuri, Monica and Pablo got back. Finn and Connor went off with one of the other Council members to arrange for transportation for the captives. The resort that housed the medispa conducted their own tours of the island for their clientele. On a tip, they found out there were four tour buses on the property, just waiting to be commandeered. Each bus supposedly carried fifty-eight passengers so with any luck they would be able to get two of the buses off the property with minimum difficulty.
Niko headed back to the roof for his down time, opting to clean his Glocks and enjoy a Montecristo cigar Pablo had given him. He had wanted to go and hunt down the good doctor immediately but Max’s directive removed that option. Instead, he took a seat at the small rusted iron table on the roof and tried to ground himself. It was a balmy afternoon in Cuba and little had changed from the last time he had been there over twenty years ago. The sky was mostly cloudy making it darker then it should have been at such an early hour and the temperature loomed around eighty-five degrees. Off in the distance Niko could see lightning strikes sizzling through the clouds. He hoped they planned on heading in their direction. A little thunder storm would work nicely in their plan since they were going to have to cut the power to the building.
Niko always had a soft spot for Cuba. He often wondered what would have happened if the Sanguinostri had not abandoned the island when Castro took over. On several occasions he secretly dreamed that he stayed and pulled the political strings needed to help the people, the way they needed to be helped. They were only dreams though, and Cuba had somehow fallen into a weird time warp that kept it very much stuck about fifty years behind. He supposed it could have been worse.
Nearly an hour had passed when he finally began fiddling with his guns. Connor and Finn joined him without saying a word. The three men sat smoking cigars, disassembling their weapons. Carefully brushing them then meticulously placing the oiled pieces back together to form the precision crafted tools they relied upon so heavily. It wasn’t the first time the three men held this ritual and it would most certainly not be the last. “I’m in.” Lena said as she suddenly appeared at the top of the steps.
“I’m to be there for pre-op at 11:45 p.m.”
“Well then your mean and nasty warlord husband had best get cleaned up so he can go with you.” Niko said with a smirk.
“Hey!” Finn protested. “How come you get to play the mean husband?”
Connor laughed. “You think me or you looks like a Venezuelan warlord? A Viking and a Mic?”
Both Lena and Niko laughed while Finn looked offended. They started to gather their things but the men decided they had a little more time to finish off their cigars. Lena chuckled and left them to their vice while she headed back down to get her team ready. It would be Lena and her team who would be transporting the captives on the buses to the ship while Niko and his guys would be taking Rojas and any other high level prisoner out via the boats they had come in on that morning.
By 10:00 p.m. everyone was geared up and ready to head out. Niko and Lena had gone through everything again making sure that each team member knew their specific role and the time allotted for them to do it in. Monica and Yuri had the arrangements for the ship ready and waiting, having happened upon an all too eager captain and crew that required very little persuading. As luck would have it, the boat was bound for Rio anyway so it couldn’t have been more perfect for the South American team. After one last check, they broke up into their respective units and started filing out of the villa one by one. Niko, Lena and her two associates were the last to leave for their appointment with Doctor Rojas.
Upon arriving at the medispa, the entry doors were unlocked for them by a lone security guard. Mr. and Mrs. Big-Bad-Warlord and their two bodyguards were escorted past the empty reception area and led directly to Doctor Rojas’ office. It was a large room with plenty of windows that looked out over the beach. The dark of night had settled in snugly so neither Niko nor Lena could see the extraction boats that waited just past the waves which meant there was no way anyone else could see them either.
“Welcome!” Juan Rojas greeted them with an overly cheerful tone. “I am so pleased we could accommodate you on such short notice.” He took Lena’s hand gently and guided her to sit. “Please, have a seat. You must be Mr. Gomez.” The doctor offered Niko his hand.
“Right.” Niko gritted his teeth and shook the bastard’s hand. He had to keep it together and play the part if he wanted to get those p
eople out of the basement and shut the little spa of horrors down for good. Fortunately, Niko’s cover was a warlord so he didn’t have to be sticky sweet with niceties.
“Please sit down, Mr. Gomez.” Rojas motioned to the chair in front of the desk. “Luckily my consultation with your wife is fresh in my mind since it was only this morning! We are moving forward with both procedures, correct?” The man opened a file on his desk and made a notation on one of the pages.
“Correct.” Lena answered. “Diego has urgent business and is going to have to leave me here to recover but he wanted to be here for the surgery.”
“I want to make sure my wife isn’t hacked up.” Niko glared at the doctor. “You come highly recommended but I’m a little distrustful of anyone wielding a knife. Especially when they are using it on my woman.”
“I completely understand, Mr. Gomez.” Rojas reassured him. “As you know by the references you listed, I have done extensive work for many of your associates. Probably some you are not even aware of!” Rojas chuckled. “Your request for discretion was accommodated to the letter. Fortunately for you we have no clients recovering on site so there is no extra staff on duty tonight. The only personnel here is my best surgical team and nursing staff whom I hand picked. They are all ready and standing by.”
“How many?” Niko grumbled.
“I’m sorry?” Rojas asked.
“How many people did you hand pick?” Niko clarified. “I want this kept quiet. How many people do I have to pay off to keep their mouths shut?”
Rojas chuckled again. “I can assure you my staff will not be saying anything to anyone. Discretion is paramount here. However, to answer your question, excluding myself there is a medical team of five scrubbing up as we speak.”
Niko motioned to one of the agents posing as his bodyguard with a slight wave of his hand. The man stepped forward and placed a large briefcase on the doctor’s desk. “He’ll need an escort to wherever they are scrubbing up.” Niko nodded to the agent and the man opened the case to reveal stacks of Euros.
The doctor raised an eyebrow and smiled. “We are on a limited security staff this late so I’ll have to escort him myself.”
“Fine.” Niko waved to the other agent and he stepped forward with another case, opening it to reveal that it too was filled with Euros. “This should cover the procedures and any inconvenience.”
Rojas stood up and inspected the contents of the briefcase casually then smiled wide. “This very generously covers things. Let’s get you settled in, shall we?” He pressed a button on his phone and a moment later a woman in white scrubs entered the room. “This is Nurse Lupe. She will escort you to the prep room so that you can get changed then we can start the sedation process. I’ll escort your man to the medical staff and you can wait with your wife while we finish getting ready for her. It won’t take long.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Gomez, please follow me so we can get you situated.” Nurse Lupe said with a bright smile.
Niko, Lena and her agent followed the nurse out of Rojas’ office and were lead down a dimly lit corridor then into the plush examination room Lena had been in that morning. The nurse opened a tall locker and suggested Lena put her belongings inside and that they would be safely transferred to her room once she was out of recovery. The nurse handed Lena the standard flimsy blue cotton gown and instructed her how to put the garment on then left the three of them alone in the room.
“That’s your cue.” Lena told her agent and he immediately followed after the nurse. “Time to gear up.” She looked at Niko intensely as she opened up her giant Prada bag and retrieved several weapons from within, passing half to Niko.
As Niko armed himself he tried to listen very carefully for any movement or sounds around them. Turned Sanguinostri have extraordinary hearing but Niko was only able to hear the footfalls of the nurse and Lena’s man as they trailed off. “Lets hope your guy takes his sweet time handing out that money.” He grinned at her while he checked the ammunition clips for his Glocks.
Lena touched a finger to her left ear. “Status.” She said as she activated her earpiece.
One by one the five units checked in with the last man, the one dishing out cash to the medical staff, giving a clear of his throat indicating he was not yet in position. Lena and Niko flanked the door of the examination room, waiting for the last signal and the nurse to return to retrieve them. They had studied the blueprints of the facility and knew they had to reach the west end of the hall in order to reach the surgical room where Lena’s last man was holding Rojas and the rest of the surgical team. The agent’s special gift was the ability to whistle a specific tune that captured the attention of anyone within earshot. The gift rendered them dazed and feeling as though they were lost in a daydream. It was a subtle but highly effective method of subduing a small group but the effects lasted only as long as the note could be held. Niko and Lena had to get there before her man ran out of breath so they could secure the prisoners properly. As Nurse Lupe returned, opening the door to the examination room, Lena could hear her man start whistling his tune through the earpiece. Fortunately the note had no effect when recorded or transmitted so Niko, Lena and the rest of the units on the communication channel were safe from his charms. Niko quickly hit the nurse with a pressure syringe and the strong sedative put her out immediately. In his disgust, he didn’t even bother catching her. Instead, he let her fall to the ground with a thud.
Lena and Niko high-tailed it down the hall and crashed through the door to the surgical room, flanking the other doctors who were entranced holding their stacks of dirty money. The agent stopped whistling the moment they came through the door and the three of them proceeded to hit each of the five medical staff with pressure syringes while Niko grabbed Rojas by the neck and lifted him off the ground. The man was flailing, gasping for air as Lena barked orders through her ear piece then started placing heavy plastic restraints around each of their prisoner’s wrists. Niko could hear the footfalls of the incoming units and knew he should put Rojas down before he strangled the man. It was just not what he wanted to do.
“Niko.” Lena put a hand on his arm. “We need him. Remember the directive.”
Acknowledging her words, Niko set the doctor down and glared down at him. “Time to check on the patients, doc.” He dragged him out of the surgical room and down the hall by the scruff of his neck, slamming him against the closed elevator doors when they came to them. After rifling through the doctor’s pockets Niko retrieved a key-card and swiped it through the elevator’s security scanner.
Only half the team was able to fit into the elevator with Niko, the rest needed to wait for the next trip. As the car lowered to the basement they all exchanged glances. Clearly they each wanted their pound of flesh from the good doctor but they all knew that was not part of the directive. When the doors to the elevator finally opened gasps were heard when they saw Roja’s operation with their own eyes. It was a single expanse of room. Dingy cinder block walls and concrete floors with dim incandescent lighting that ran the length of the ceiling. There were wire-framed cots lined up in ten rows of twelve, evenly spaced throughout the basement with some sort of cylindrical unit next to each. All but three cots were occupied.
Niko shoved Rojas out of the elevator and took a closer look. Upon inspection, Niko could see that the cylindrical units were what could only be called bleed systems, similar to an I.V. but in reverse. The tubing ran from the right forearm of each captive then to a drip system that filtered into a stainless steel containment cylinder about the size as an average barbecue’s propane tank. Slowly, drop by drop the prisoners bled into the cylinder while an I.V. inserted into the left arm gave them just enough nutriment to keep them alive, producing blood and enough sedation to keep them paralyzed. Before Niko could react and smash Rojas’ face in, Lena hit the doctor with one of the pressure syringes and he was out.
“No time to play.” She gave him a wary look. “Lets get these people unhooked and out of here, fast.”
“Yuri is bringing down the other six to help as well.” Monica grinned.
“Good thinking.” Niko smirked, realizing Monica had charmed the enemy into helping. He tapped on his earpiece. “Finn, Connor, you got the data?”
“Downloading as we speak.” Finn responded first.
Connor’s voice was next. “I’ve got his personal system done, just gathering the tech toys up now. He’s got three cell phones for some odd reason.”
“You’ve got two, how is that odd?” Niko asked him.
“That’s different. One is for work, the other is for my ladies.” Connor grinned as he said it and you could hear laughter throughout the facility.
“Before I vomit, hurry up and get everything secured then get your asses down here to help with the evac.” Niko ordered. “We have forty-seven minutes to get this place clear.”
“Roger that.” Conner responded and got back to business.
After the first bus was on it’s way to the ship and the second bus was being loaded, Niko and Yuri started setting explosive charges throughout the facility. When the last captive was removed from the building Monica charmed the security guards with another task. She ordered them to keep a one-hundred yard perimeter on the facility, not letting anyone pass until daylight. She added the suggestion that their orders were coming directly from Raul Castro himself and they were to remember nothing else of the night’s events. Niko overheard her instructions and had to laugh. The stupid men would have one huge mess on their hands when the sun came up.
Shadows of Deceit (A Series of Shadows) Page 29