“Let’s do this,” he mouthed.
Hunt wiped his forehead with his arm. He never minded the heat, but tonight the humidity was killing him. His shirt was stuck to his back, and sweat trickled into his eyes. He looked ahead. Another fifty feet and they would reach the terrace. They wouldn’t be able to keep going in a straight line, though; there was a massive pool in their path, so they hooked to the right. As much as Hunt forced himself to focus, he couldn’t help thinking about Leila. The closer they got to the house, the more he felt she wasn’t there. The house was too dark, too quiet.
He couldn’t let his pessimism get the best of him.
One step at a time, Pierce, Hunt told himself. Take it one step at a time. It’s the only way to move forward. She’s counting on you.
“Stop!”
Hunt turned his head to his left. Tony had caught up to him.
“What is it?”
“There’s a pathway to our right. Looks like it tracks the side of the house.”
Hunt had missed it. That’s what happens when you aren’t attentive to your surroundings. You’re lucky someone wasn’t waiting for you with a rifle. You’d be dead. They were so close to the house that Hunt was confident there were no more motion detectors between him and where he wanted to go. He gave the detector to Tony and whispered, “Take this, and slowly make your way to the front door.”
“I’ll let you know when I’m there,” Tony told him.
Tony had already moved toward the path when Hunt reached out and grabbed his ankle. Tony glanced back.
“Make sure you know who you’re shooting at before pulling the trigger.”
“Let me worry about this,” Tony whispered back, kicking Hunt’s hand away with his opposite foot.
Once Tony was out of sight, Hunt continued inching his way toward the house while making sure to stay out of direct view from the patio door. If someone were to take a peek from one of the second floor windows, he’d be done for.
Tony’s voice came squawking in his earpiece. “I’m a few feet away from the front door. Are you ready?”
Tony had gone his separate way less than three minutes ago. Didn’t I tell him to go slow? He loathed working with civilians. They had no tactical awareness. Tony was tough and a bright guy. Hunt wasn’t surprised that the Garcia family had thrived under his leadership. But in their current situation, Tony was out of his depth. He should have listened to Hunt.
“Stand by,” Tony told him.
“I’m good to go when you’re both ready,” Anna informed them.
“Copy that, Anna,” Hunt replied. “Wait for my command.”
It took him another two minutes to reach his spot. Hidden behind the built-in kitchen, Hunt had a perfect view of the patio door fifteen feet away. He was about to use the bottom of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face but remembered it was full of sand. He used his hand instead and rubbed it dry against his jeans.
“Anna, this is Pierce.”
“Yes?”
“On my command, open the front gate, then wait twenty seconds and ring the doorbell.”
“What about the floodlight?”
“I’ll let you know when to turn it on.”
“Okay.”
Hunt took a moment to gather his thoughts and picture what was about to happen. They were as ready as they were going to be. Hunt had conducted raids similar to this one more times than he could count, and he usually had a pretty good idea of how things would go. Not this time. Having Leila in play changed things. There was no point denying it.
“Anna from Pierce, open the front gate.”
Three seconds later, Anna replied, “Front gate opening now.”
Hunt counted to ten and closed one of his eyes in anticipation of what was about to happen. There was a chance he’d need his night vision. He heard through the wall the ring and chimes of the front doorbell. When Hunt reached the count of sixty, he asked Anna to turn on the floodlight. A moment later, half the backyard was bathed in light as two powerful floodlights were turned on. Crouched in the shadows of the built-in kitchen, Hunt aimed his silenced Glock at the sliding door and waited.
“Stand by,” Emilio said, loud enough so the two shooters positioned at the back of the house heard him. “I’ll check who’s there.”
Emilio pulled out his phone and tapped on the application that allowed him to see who was at the door. It didn’t work.
Strange, but not unusual. The timing, though, couldn’t be worse. He carefully made his way to the office—which had a window with a direct view of the front of the house—and looked outside with his gun drawn and at his side. The front gate was open. Emilio relaxed. Hector had probably forgotten something and sent one of his men to retrieve it. That meant it was Hector’s man waiting for Emilio to open the door for him. He holstered his pistol and headed to the foyer. He was ten feet away from the door when one of his men shouted a warning.
“Two floodlights just switched on! North side of the lot!”
“Go check it out,” Emilio ordered. “It’s probably one of Hector’s men, so hold your fire.”
Probably one of Hector’s men. That wasn’t good enough. “Hey,” Emilio said to the other shooter, “cover him. Just in case.”
The humming sound of the keyless door-lock mechanism behind him grabbed his attention. Who had activated it? Only he and Hector had the eight-digit code to the keyless lock. If Hector was at the front door, he wouldn’t have bothered ringing the doorbell. He would have simply called in advance to warn them of his arrival and come in.
Joder! Emilio’s hand had just reached his holster when the front door burst open.
Hunt heard at least two different people yelling inside the house. If whoever was in charge was going to fall for it, they’d do it now. His pulse quickened.
C’mon, assholes. Come outside. Hunt welcomed the sound of the sliding door latch as if it were the Messiah’s second coming. Someone had unlocked it. A moment later, the door slid open.
“Anna from Pierce,” he said into the mic. “Hit the inside lights!”
Hunt held his breath and readjusted his pistol grip as a rifle barrel appeared in the gap between the doorframe and the sliding door. A tall man stepped out, and the ashen glow of the moonlight allowed Hunt to take a good look at him. He had wide shoulders and a big, beefy neck with arms to match. His hair was cropped short, and the man wore a two-day-old beard. The man squinted, trying to adjust his eyes and waiting for his night vision to return. Then the interior lights came on. Hunt had a clear shot but decided to wait an extra second to see if another man stepped out.
“I’m going in through the front door,” Hunt heard Tony say over the radio.
Before Hunt could reply, a shot rang out. Then another.
Tony!
The gunman spun around, bringing his weapon up.
Hunt broke cover and stood upright from behind the built-in kitchen with his pistol grasped in both hands and its muzzle pointed at the gunman’s head twenty feet away. The black suppressor of Hunt’s pistol coughed twice. The first round hit the man in the jaw, destroying the lower half of his face. The second round entered his neck below his right ear. By the time the gunman’s body collapsed on the terrace, Hunt was already halfway to the sliding door. He had no intention of spending any more time in the open than absolutely necessary. Being in the open had always given Hunt a sense of vulnerability. He squeezed into the opening and charged into the house, checking his right and then sweeping to his left. He saw another gunman running toward the front of the house. He had an MP5 in a sling around his neck and a pistol in his hand.
Hunt shot him in the back. The gunman, carried by his forward momentum, crashed headfirst into a wall. Hunt scanned for more threats. When his eyes returned to the gunman he had just shot, he was raising his pistol toward Hunt. Hunt rolled to his right as a bullet whizzed to his left. He reengaged the gunman with three quick rounds to the upper body. The man dropped his gun, and his body went limp. Hunt continued toward
the front of the house.
More gunshots came from the foyer, and the sound of two men fighting forced Hunt to move faster.
Then he heard Tony scream in pain. The kind of guttural and uncontrollable scream that came from the depths of a man afraid to die.
The man came in so fast that Emilio’s first shot went wide. By the time he realigned his pistol, the man was almost on him. A muzzle flashed in front of him, and Emilio felt a bullet graze his cheek. Emilio fired again, and he heard the man grunt as the bullet ricocheted off his gun and nicked his hand before embedding itself in the drywall. The man yelled in pain but nevertheless managed to tackle Emilio just below the belt. Emilio’s pistol flew out of his hand, and both men crashed to the floor, locked in a deadly embrace. Emilio grabbed the man’s hair and pulled back to create some distance. The moment the man’s face was a few inches away from his, Emilio head butted him on the nose with a sickening crunch. The man cried out, blood gushing out of his nose and splashing across Emilio’s face. Emilio pushed the larger man off him and jumped to his feet.
A shot rang out behind him, and for a second, Emilio lost his focus. He glanced back to see if he was in immediate danger. It was all the other man needed to make a move. This time, he swung a knife.
Where did the knife come from?
Emilio’s pistol was behind him, and he had no idea where the man’s gun was. The knife came in fast, directly at his stomach. Emilio parried with his arm, knocking the man’s knife arm to the right. But the knife swung again, and this time it sliced his right forearm open. Emilio, enraged, swung wildly and got lucky. His fist connected with the man’s already broken nose, forcing him back a few steps. Although Emilio was in an unbelievable amount of pain, his mind was still in the fight, and he dived for his gun. He slid on the sleek marble and reached his pistol on his stomach. He crashed against the wall with a loud thud, still holding his pistol loosely in his left hand. He rolled to his side just in time to see the man lunge at him with his knife, his eyes wild with rage.
Emilio had time to fire only once before the man’s blade plunged into his chest.
Hunt gasped at the scene in front of him. Tony, huddled against the wall, was clutching his stomach, blood pouring from between his fingers, his eyes open wide in disbelief. Next to him was a man in even worse shape. A knife was embedded to the hilt in his chest.
“Anna from Pierce—”
“What’s going on?”
“Tony’s been shot,” Hunt said, rushing to Tony’s side.
“Get the girls, Pierce. I’ll be fine.”
The boldness in Tony’s voice surprised Hunt.
“Go,” Tony insisted. “Please.”
Hunt ignored him and said to Anna, “Come to the safe house. Drive through the front gate and come right in.”
Tony grabbed his arm, and shook his head. “No—”
“He’s in the main entrance. Take him to a hospital.”
“On my way,” Anna replied, her voice breaking. “I’m only two minutes away.”
“I have my own doctor—”
“This is serious, Tony,” Hunt insisted, trying to place Tony in a more comfortable position. “You need surgery.”
“What are you doing?” Tony asked. His voice had lost its strength now, and his eyes were closed.
Hunt inserted a fresh magazine in his Glock and pocketed the other one. “I’m gonna find our daughters, Tony. Or I’ll die trying. I promise.”
Tony slowly opened his eyes. They were glazed and distant. He nodded slowly. A tear trickled down his cheek. “I want to see her again,” he said. “She’s my everything, Pierce. You understand?”
Yeah, I understand.
“Anna will take care of you. Hang tight,” Hunt said.
Without another look at Tony, Hunt stepped out of the foyer, half expecting to get shot. If there were more shooters in the house, they would have flocked to the ground floor and surrounded them by now. Instead, the house was dead quiet. With any luck, nobody had heard the gunshots, or if they did, they thought they were fireworks—a daily late-night beach occurrence nowadays. His gun up and in front of him, Hunt started searching the rest of the house. He began with the second floor, where he found six large bedrooms and as many bathrooms. But there were no signs of Leila and Sophia ever having been there. He checked every room and closet, hoping to find a clue that would at least confirm whether the girls had been in the house. By the time he returned to the ground floor, Tony was gone.
“Anna from Pierce,” he called over their communication system.
“What?”
“Are you on your way to the hospital?”
“Did you find Sophia?”
“No trace of the girls yet, but I’m not done.”
“Shit!”
My thoughts exactly.
“I’ll be at the hospital in less than five minutes,” she added as he was about to ask her that very question.
“I want you to leave him at the emergency room, Anna. Then you head straight back to his house and ask Mauricio to take care of the Range Rover.”
She didn’t reply.
“Anna, did you hear what I just said?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Hunt could only imagine how she felt. During the past twenty-four hours, she had lost her father, a powerful Mexican drug cartel had kidnapped her niece, and now her brother had been shot and was fighting for his life. That wasn’t counting the fact she’d been forced to work with Hunt, the man who had wrecked her life.
“How’s he doing?” he asked, entering the living room.
“I’m not a doctor, Pierce!”
“You’re doing a hell of a job, Anna. Just focus on one thing at a time. And right now, it’s getting Tony to a hospital.”
“What about you?”
“Thank you for everything you’ve done tonight. But I’ll do the rest on my own,” he told her. “Goodbye, Anna. And I’m truly sorry. You’re a good and kind woman.”
He took the earpiece out of his ear and put it in his pocket. He also turned off the radio. He continued his search of the ground floor. He checked the pantry and the appliances and looked under the sofas and armchairs for anything the girls might have left behind.
Nothing.
There was only one place left to look. The basement.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
South of Hypoluxo, Florida
Hector wasn’t worried, but he wondered why Emilio hadn’t called him yet. The application on his phone that monitored the Hallandale Beach safe house wasn’t working. He loved new technologies, but he was frustrated when they didn’t work as advertised.
Leila and Sophia—blindfolded, gagged, and with their hands tied behind their backs—were in the back of the Ford Transit. He touched his ear. To help with the extreme bruising and tenderness, he’d swallowed four two-hundred-milligram tablets of Advil. Still, his entire head rumbled with the worst headache he’d ever had. He would have ripped the girl’s throat out right on the spot if it wasn’t for his cousin, who’d insisted on keeping the little pest alive for a few more hours. Despite the constant pain, Hector laughed at his own stupidity. Never before in his life, whether in the military or at the service of his cousin, had he underestimated an adversary. And here he was, in total agony, because he had misjudged an unarmed fifteen-year-old teenager. Serves me right.
Hector reached up and flipped open the mirror on the sun visor and angled it so that he could look at the bandage wrapped around his head. Blood had already begun to darken the white bandage. A little blood loss wouldn’t kill him, but damned if it didn’t hurt like hell. He checked his watch and decided to call Emilio for a situation report.
Why isn’t he answering his phone? Emilio always picked up, usually on the first ring. Hector checked that he’d dialed the right number. He had. He punched the number a second time. Nothing.
He tried the mobile application again, but he was still unable to connect with the safe house’s Wi-Fi. Hector murmured a curse and dialed
another number. This time his call was picked up right away.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Hallandale Beach, Florida
The nondescript gray van was parked on a quiet side street with a direct view of the front gate of the Black Tosca’s Hallandale Beach safe house. Inside the van, Egan pressed his sniper rifle to his shoulder. He peered through the scope, his finger on the frame, not yet caressing the trigger. He’d stolen the van from a twenty-four-hour grocery store in Aventura. He’d then stopped at a Walgreens in Fort Lauderdale and pinched a license plate from an identical van.
His phone, placed on the van’s floor next to his SIG Sauer P229, chirped twice.
“Where are you?” Hector growled.
“Across the street from your Hallandale Beach safe house.”
When Hector replied, his voice was clear and calm, but there was an added urgency to it. “Emilio isn’t picking up. Have you been inside the house?”
Egan centered his scope’s crosshairs on a large window on the second floor of the house. “No, I haven’t.”
“I’m getting tired of having to squeeze every simple answer out of you, Mr. Granger. Fucking exhausted, in fact!”
“Are you done with your tantrum?” Egan asked, keeping his voice even.
Here you are, Egan thought, adjusting his aim. The lights were on, but most of the curtains and drapes were closed. Egan switched to infrared, and through a heavy curtain he saw someone, but only for a fraction of a second.
“You asked me if I’ve been inside the house. I said no. What else do you want to know?”
“You’re a fucking pain in the ass,” Hector said, the heat of his anger sizzling through every word. “Did you see anything unusual? Did anyone else enter the house?”
“I told you to pull your guys out, didn’t I?” Egan replied matter-of-factly. “I warned you, Hector, but you hung up on me instead.”
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