Her mask was pulled sideways and out of position. She could only see out of half of one eye slit. His jaw appeared. Frantic, she rose up as far as she could, estimating where his eyes would be, and jammed her left fingers at them.
He gasped. She had connected with at least one eye, which gave her a chance to ram her stiff fingers into his throat.
The man was choking, but he back-handed her hard with the pistol. Her head snapped sideways. She ignored the pain and blocked his gun away with her left arm, striking out at the other eye as hard as she could with her right fingers.
This time he cried out.
She hit him again in the throat and heard something crunch. Gasping for air, he leaned sideways and she pushed him off her. Through the slit in the mask she glimpsed him sliding the gun over the ground toward her.
She rolled on top of him, palming him as hard as she could in the nose. His gun hand fell to the ground, but his other hand came up, jabbing a knife at her.
She twisted to avoid it but felt a burning sensation in her lower back. Groaning, she hammered at his throat repeatedly with both fists until his knife hand dropped to the ground and he lay still.
Her lungs heaved. Adjusting her head mask so she could see, she took some deep breaths. The man appeared dead. She checked his neck for a pulse. Nothing.
She sized him up, something she was good at. Latino, five-foot-ten, one-seventy pounds, mid-thirties. Creep.
Not wanting to sit atop a dead man, she crawled off him and pulled up the back of her torn blouse. She had a cut three inches long on her lower back, shallow and bleeding. Better than dead. She had lost a few buttons on the jacket too.
She crawled to gather the SIG, spare mag, and knife, returning them to her pocket and waistband. Lastly she put on the night vision goggles.
Needles and dirt clung to her clothing and knees, her thoughts in disarray. Wanting time to recover, she was suddenly flooded with images of Steel walking into a trap. The guard’s gun was silenced, but the guard on the porch would have heard it.
She grabbed the Rattler, stood, and ran east through the woods, intending to take a wide half-circle route back to the east side of the front porch. The cut on her back burned.
Surprisingly she felt no remorse over killing the man. From the way he had talked about abusing her, this wasn’t the first time he had used and killed women. He deserved to die, probably many times over.
She had been wrong. If need be, she could kill all of them.
CHAPTER 9
Steel heard the ooh ooh ooh cry of a Mexican spotted owl. It began softly and escalated rapidly to a louder pitch. Wishing he could just stand still and enjoy it, he kept moving. He had a deep, abiding love for nature—which always grounded him.
As he made his way south, he also wished he had taken a firmer stand with Christie and refused her help. It probably wouldn’t have mattered. She would have come anyway. But the fact that she was in a dangerous Op, with little field experience, gave his steps more urgency.
A deeper fear lurked beneath that idea. When the Colombian had threatened to send Christie’s photo to the cartel, he had intuited that it wasn’t just a threat, but a plan. The Colombian would have to die before that happened.
The trees formed dark shadows under the moon. He ran from trunk to trunk until he was far enough south that he could approach the side of the house directly from the east.
Decades of exploring caves had made moving in darkness second nature to him.
As he got closer, the house lights guided him in. He stopped fifty feet out behind a tree. No one was visible in the windows. It triggered an alarm in his head to be more cautious.
He quietly backed up fifty feet, and then worked his way a hundred yards farther south. Using the moon for a bearing, he headed west again and then north.
This was taking more time than he had anticipated. He worried about Christie reaching the front of the house before he did.
A faint noise. Silenced gunshot.
He froze, listening. Nothing followed. Not wanting to think about what had happened, he moved faster.
A hundred feet ahead was a small illuminated patio at ground level. The second floor had a balcony running along the back of the house, empty except for furniture. Lights lit up a large room adjacent to the balcony, but no people were visible. Why leave lights on in empty rooms? Of course, many people didn’t care about wasting energy. Still it made him cautious.
He studied the windows. Everyone could be in other rooms, but maybe the Colombian had already tipped off Garcia and Hernando, trying to get revenge on both parties at the same time.
Worse, Christie might have been captured and the guards alerted. The fact that no guards were visible made him wary. Worst case scenario, Christie was dead and Garcia was planning to leave. He would kill all of them then.
He calmed himself. Maybe there were no guards in back, but he didn’t buy it. He tried to imagine where a guard would hide to ambush an intruder. If it were him, he wouldn’t pick either side of the patio, in case someone came up behind him.
That left the area between him and the patio. From there you could see any entrance onto the patio. The man would be kneeling or lying down to reduce his visibility.
He put on the night vision goggles and studied the area in front of him. Nothing.
Slowly and quietly he walked toward a different tree to get another angle. As careful as he was, he stepped on a twig on the soft soil, giving the faintest of sounds. There was movement ahead of him—in a pile of leaves. By the time he slid behind the tree, two silenced bullets hit the trunk.
Keeping the tree between him and the camouflaged guard, he backed away from it. He hoped the guard would call for reinforcements from the front of the house, leaving Christie safer.
He reached another tree big enough to hide behind and stopped. To his right a shadow moved. The guard was trying to work around to his last location. Dropping to one knee, his gun leveled, Steel watched as the man slowly advanced in front of him.
The guard figured it out and whirled toward him.
Steel shot him in the chest and head. The man went down and stayed down.
Steel rose and ran, circling wide of the west side of the house. Images of Christie captured or hurt made him run faster.
He stopped even with the front of the house, fifty yards west of it. A guard on the porch stared in his direction with night vision goggles. A barrage of bullets struck the trees around him from a silenced machine gun as he dove to the ground.
The shooting stopped.
Quiet.
Two soft shots.
Quiet.
He glanced up. The man had fallen, his body half off the front porch.
He scanned the far side of the house. Christie. Standing on the other side of the porch, just beyond the front steps. She wore the night vision goggles and held her SIG in both hands, the Rattler slung over her shoulder. Relief swept over him.
She gave him a thumbs-up.
The front porch had no railings and was two feet off the ground. A large window overlooked it.
He didn’t want to cross in front of the window, nor try to gain entry through the front door. He stood, held up his palm to Christie, and pushed toward her several times until she backed up into the shadows. Next he pointed at her, and then north. She gave him another thumbs-up.
She disappeared along the east side of the house.
Retracing his steps on the west side, he passed by the man he had killed in back of the house, quickly ending up on the east side of the patio. Christie was waiting, holding the Rattler, her night vision goggles hanging down her back.
He wrapped his arms around her and she held him loosely. The relief that washed over him made him want to leave or get her out. Both were impossible.
He pulled back. A small cut on her face and missing jacket buttons m
ade him grimace. She had been in close quarters combat. She could have died. And it was his fault she was here.
Anger and worry collided in his throat. He had to wait a few moments before he spoke. “You’re alright?”
She nodded. “You?”
“Yes.”
He drew her farther into the woods. “What happened?”
“I killed another guard by the driveway,” she whispered.
He frowned over hearing that, but there was no time to discuss it. “I killed one. If the intel was correct, that leaves Hernando and Garcia inside. Hernando will know his guards are down, and Garcia will be armed. That makes the front and back doors too obvious and dangerous. Can you climb the balcony?”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“I’ll climb up first, secure the room, and signal if it’s clear. If you don’t see me, get out of here.”
She shook her head. “We both go up on opposites sides. I know how to clear a room, Steel. Two of us up there stand a better chance.”
For a moment he wanted to argue with her, but again he couldn’t fault her logic. And her tone said there would be no discussion.
He hesitated. What would he do if she got shot? Damn the Colombian. “All right. I’ll go around to the west side. When I signal, start climbing.”
CHAPTER 10
Christie watched Steel fade back into the woods, overjoyed that he was all right. She had felt certain that he would be shot or trapped due to her mistake. Thus when she had seen him in front of the house she had wanted to shout in celebration.
He had outmatched the alerted rear guard. Impressive. Everyone had always told her that he was the best in Blackhood Ops. But to witness it firsthand gave her confidence in him—and in the two of them as a team.
They had a chance to succeed at whatever the Colombian threw at them. She couldn’t wait to put a bullet in the man’s head.
Steel hadn’t seen her injury. She had used her arm and jacket to hide it. He would never have agreed to her climbing up with the cut and would be upset with her for hiding it. But he needed her.
She made her way to the east side of the balcony. It was a wrap-around, with no windows on her side. To climb up she would have to start at the corner of the house. There was uneven brick from ground level to ten feet up. Woodwork above that would provide handholds.
She remembered watching Steel climb up ropes in his barn with ease. He would get up before her, but not by much. Slinging the Rattler over her back, she waited until he appeared at the west corner. He signaled and she began climbing.
Gripping the edges of bricks about six feet up, she positioned her feet on either side of the corner on narrow edges and began climbing. Her cut ached, but she didn’t make a sound.
It was harder than she thought and took all her strength to reach the top of the brick. From there she could barely reach the wood struts beneath the balcony. Stretching her arms made the cut burn. With her shoes balanced on the edges of bricks, she gripped a strut.
The balcony door slid open, and then closed. She pulled herself in close to the wall and quieted her breathing.
Soft footsteps approached her along the balcony. Worried that the person might have night vision goggles, she didn’t move. Above her the balcony had tiny cracks between the boards. She hoped the cracks weren’t wide enough for someone to see her.
The footsteps continued to the end of the wrap-around, and then slowly returned, the sounds receding to the other side. If Jack was already up he would kill the person.
In a few moments the sliding door opened and closed again. She was glad she had waited.
Moving along the struts, she edged her way to the end of the wrap-around, where a strut allowed her to pull herself up to the balcony railing. She slipped over the side and unslung the Rattler. Her back ached fiercely, forcing her to pause.
Walking to the corner of the balcony, she peered around it.
A row of waist-high windows lined the wall, ending a foot before the sliding door at her corner. A table and three chairs were in the center of the balcony. Whoever had come out onto the balcony had turned off the lights in the interior room.
Steel appeared at the other corner. He held up a palm so she didn’t move. Crouching, he scrambled below the windows, stopping and straightening just before the sliding door.
She raised her gun, and he motioned for her to get down. Slipping on her goggles, she dropped to one knee.
Slowly he reached over and pulled the sliding door open.
Peering around the corner, she didn’t see anyone inside. Furniture and a wall TV suggested a large family room. Quietly she stood and entered, going right, her gun up. Steel was on her heels, going left.
They skirted the room to the far door, which was open. Steel went through first. She followed him into an open hallway with a railing overlooking the room below.
The hallway ended in a closed door to the far right, and a wooden stairway that led down to the first floor. Dim lighting revealed only furniture in the living room below. They both slipped off their night vision goggles.
Steel led her down the hallway. Halfway along it, the wood creaked beneath their feet. Arms outstretched, Steel flattened himself against the wall. Christie did the same as machine gun fire exploded from below, creating holes along the hallway floor.
Two lines of bullets tore through the wood, coming from both ends of the hallway and meeting in the middle. The firing stopped.
Steel touched her shoulder, then pointed to her feet and left to the end of the hallway. He aimed his gun at the floor and pointed right. She nodded.
They began firing simultaneously into the wood, following the same lines of bullet holes already there.
Steel ran down the hallway chasing his line of bullets. She kept up with him, running sideways while still firing into the floor, but in the opposite direction. Steel reached the door and shouldered it open. Hastily following him, Christie stopped just inside the room. She closed it until only an inch-wide crack remained.
The room was half-lit. A Latino woman in her thirties sat rigidly on the floor next to the bed, wearing a short white negligee, her long dark hair trailing down to her chest. Two young children, a boy and a girl—one tucked under each arm—sat beside her. She whispered to them in Spanish.
“Watch them,” murmured Steel. He put a fresh mag into his Rattler.
Christie did the same, and moved farther into the room, seeing terror on the faces of the woman and children. It didn’t make her feel good. She wanted to tell them they would be alright, but they wouldn’t believe anything she had to say.
***
Steel called out from inside the doorway, “If you want your wife and children to live, Garcia, come up the stairs, hands in the air. Tell your man, Hernando, to do the same.”
“I’m unarmed.” The voice came from the first floor.
From the edge of the doorway, Steel watched Garcia slowly approach the bottom of the stairs, his hands in the air. Hernando wasn’t visible in the room below.
Garcia stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “I am coming up. What do you want? Did Antonio send you? If so, I believe we can work something out.”
Steel guessed Antonio was Garcia’s competition. The man was stalling.
He backed away from the door. Adjacent to the bed was a master bathroom with a tiled floor. The bathroom door was near the bed, and a wall separated the bathroom from the bedroom door. It would provide some safety for the woman and her two children.
He motioned with his gun. “Lie down on the bathroom floor.”
The woman stared at him, then crawled with her children into the bathroom, lying on her stomach with a child on either side of her.
Steel knelt down near the bed, facing the door, gun raised. A sliver of the stairway was visible. Christie knelt beside him, her Rattler ready.
�
�I am coming up. Is it safe to do so?” called Garcia.
Holes exploded at the edge of the doorframe and along three feet of the wall as machine gun rounds blew through it and into the opposing bathroom wall.
The woman and children cried out.
Steel dropped to his belly, his gun held up with propped elbows, still facing the door. Christie followed suit, using the corner of the bathroom wall for protection.
The gunfire stopped. The bullet holes were four feet above the floor. Garcia was trying to ensure he wasn’t shooting his wife and children.
Still Steel wondered how badly Garcia wanted to save his family. He called out, “Last chance, Garcia. Then we’ll kill them.”
“We’re both unarmed and coming up. Please do not hurt my wife and children.”
In seconds Steel caught glimpses of the two men almost at the top of the stairs, their arms in the air. But they moved out of sight when they reached the top.
“What do you want us to do now?” asked Garcia. “We’re here.”
Steel whispered to Christie, “Shoot him in the ankle when he comes through. Don’t hesitate. He’ll have a gun.”
Her face tightened, but she nodded.
Hastily he belly-crawled around to the other side of the bed and faced the wall that adjoined the family room they had entered from the balcony.
Machine gun rounds burst through the wall at the foot of the bed, cutting holes at chest level into the opposite wall at the head of the bed. Simultaneously Garcia burst through the bedroom door, holding a pistol and firing it.
Christie returned fire.
Steel shot at the wall in a waist-high sweeping arc.
The gunshots from the other side of the wall ended.
He crawled around the bed and saw Garcia lying on his side on the floor, groaning and still holding his gun. The drug lord tried to lift his pistol and Christie shot him in the shoulder. He gasped and dropped his weapon.
The kids were crying and the woman exclaimed fearfully.
“Stay here,” Steel whispered to Christie.
Steel Assassin Page 5