“Thanks for stopping, Deputy. I needed a drive to clear my head. Had an argument with my kid. He came home drunk.”
“You live around here?”
“Yes, sir. Just a mile or so away.”
“Please show me your driver’s license.”
“No problem.”
He couldn’t see Harv, but the deputy shined his flashlight into the Mercedes. Good thing they’d removed their tactical gear and face paint following the safe house explosion. “My name is Harvey Fontana. I own First Security, Inc.”
“The company with the radio ads?”
“We offer a twenty-five percent discount to all military and law enforcement personnel.”
“I might give you a call, we have an old system. Have you had anything to drink tonight?”
“Absolutely not, Deputy.”
“All right, Mr. Fontana. Have a good evening.”
“Thanks again, Deputy.”
The cruiser continued north on El Camino Real and disappeared around a gradual bend in the road.
Nathan slid down the slope and approached the electric gate. No stumps of any kind. He searched the immediate area for wood chips produced by a stump grinder, but didn’t find any evidence of that either. Plus, he could clearly see the house a hundred yards up the driveway. This didn’t look like the place.
“Good job with the deputy. I took a close look, and this isn’t the place. Let’s keep going, but carefully. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of our law enforcement friend.”
“He’ll definitely cruise through here again.”
Further down the road they found their house. No doubt about it. White rail fence. Electric gate. Interlocking pavers. And the stump was hard to miss.
“We’re in business,” Harv said. “Let’s find a place to park.”
Driving by, he studied what he could, but Nichole Dalton had it right. The house couldn’t be seen from the street.
Farther down the road, they both saw it at the same time, a place to park at the entrance to a small community park. The closed gate prevented access, but they could park on the shoulder without drawing too much attention. And Harv’s big Mercedes would look perfectly natural in this neighborhood. When the deputy patrolled through here again, he couldn’t miss it, and finding it unoccupied would raise suspicion. Short on options, they decided to risk it.
They put on all their tactical gear and applied fresh face paint to the exposed areas of skin. Satisfied, they nodded to each other and climbed out. Harv locked the sedan and placed the keys on top of the left front tire. They both knew an untimely jingling of keys could blow a stealthy approach-especially with dogs.
“Nate, you still have those quarters in your pocket from the payphone?”
He removed them and tossed them into the bushes.
“Let’s mask our scent,” Nathan said. He reached up and yanked a small branch from a eucalyptus tree. Harv did the same. They crushed the leaves and rolled them like dough in their hands before rubbing the pungent leafy mix all over their clothes and exposed skin. It wasn’t perfect, and certainly not adequate against trained tactical dogs, but better than nothing. Too bad some road apples weren’t available. They never used deodorant on missions, and they’d both showered with scent-free soap prior to the Long Beach raid. Dogs were always a concern. Their keen sense of smell didn’t miss much, especially human traces.
Nathan kept his voice low. “Let’s cross the street. If anyone drives by, we can hop that rail fence and duck behind the hedge. When we get to the west property corner, break out your thermal imager and take a peek. It should see any dogs or guards. I’ll be on the NV for infrared beam sources and tripwires. If there’re dogs patrolling the property, we won’t need to worry about trip wires or beams unless they’re higher than the dogs. What do you think, four or five feet AGL?”
“That’s where I’d place them if I used dogs.”
“Ten yard separation. I’m on point.”
Over the next five hundred yards, they crossed several driveways, snaking up to huge estate homes. The driveway just west of their target was shorter and wider and flanked with mature cypress trees. The rail fence they’d been following turned 90 degrees to the north and paralleled the colonnade of cypress. They’d reacquire the fence on the opposite side of the driveway.
Nathan inhaled deeply through his nose, but didn’t detect anything other than eucalyptus, which tended to mask all other odors. “I’m going to cross the driveway and hop the fence,” he whispered into the lapel mike. “We’ll advance on the inside and use the hedge for cover. I’m almost there. Twenty-five yards to the property corner. Switching to NV. Lasers on.”
“Copy.”
The lasers would stay dark until they pressed the activation buttons on the butts of their weapons. He reached up to his visor, pivoted the NV monocular down to his left eye, and powered it up. Once again, the nighttime world around him turned bright green. He adjusted the input to a slightly lower gain and slowed his pace. At the property corner, the rail fence converged into a Y intersection. A second fence, presumably the western boundary of the target property, joined the obtuse angle and ran in a northerly direction. At the convergence of the fences, he crouched down and held up his right fist, putting Harv on hold. He conducted a slow sweep of the area on both sides of El Camino Real.
Nothing moved. All quiet.
The absence of wind made their job more difficult. It was eerily quiet. Every snapped twig or crunch of leaves under their boots would be detected if dogs were present.
He motioned Harv up to his position and whispered, “Thermal sweep.”
To prevent bleed light, Harv kept the rubber eye shield pressed firmly against his face and scanned through an arc covering everything between themselves and the property’s driveway.
“Affirmative,” Harv said. “Ten o’clock, plus thirty.” Harv moved slightly left to get a better look. “Body down. Not bright enough to be alive.”
“Anything between us and the signature?”
Harv made another sweep. “Negative, nothing showing.”
“Okay, let’s advance up the property line until we’re parallel with the signature. Ten yard separation.”
“I’ll stay on the thermal imager.”
He followed the rail fence, taking slow, deliberate steps, avoiding the thickest areas of dead leaves. With a little luck, he might hear an approaching dog crunch through the dry ground cover before it lunged for his throat. So far, he hadn’t seen any signs of canine activity. No worn trails or droppings. Through sporadic breaks in the landscaping, he caught glimpses of what looked to be a mansion. All of its second floor windows were dark. He couldn’t see the ground floor windows along the north side of the house, but the glow they produced revealed a large, open area, presumably a paved parking area surrounded by trees.
A hand signal brought Harv up to his position. They knelt. He nodded toward the body several yards away. “Good guy or bad guy?”
“Probably a good guy. Montez could be long gone.”
“I’m gonna check him.”
He approached slowly and crouched down. The image in his NV scope revealed a single bullet wound to the back of the head. He didn’t bother checking for a pulse. This man wasn’t Hispanic. He looked African-American and wore black SWAT-type clothing with tactical body armor.
“Dead body found,” he whispered. “Single shot to the back of the head. Never saw it coming. If there were any dogs, it’s a good bet they’re dead too. We-”
They both heard it.
Cars doors closing-up at the house.
Then an engine started. Someone was leaving.
The vehicle’s headlights snapped on, turning the surrounding area painfully bright through his NV scope.
“Harv, form up.”
Within seconds, Harv joined him at the dead man. “That could be Montez.”
“Let’s move.”
The twin headlight beams swept through the trees as the vehicle turned aroun
d and started down the driveway. They both took off at a dead run.
They weren’t going to make it.
They had to cover more than a hundred and fifty yards. An Olympic sprinter couldn’t do it, especially over this terrain.
Ignoring the low branches whipping against his face, Nathan dug deeper for more energy and angled toward El Camino Real to gain speed from running downhill.
He stole a glance to his left and saw it. A light-colored van, probably white was halfway down the driveway already and he still had seventy yards to cover.
“You got a shot?” Harv asked.
“No.”
Fifty yards.
“Harv, beeline for El Camino Real. If the van turns right, you might get a shot. Dalton’s daughters could be in the van. Tires only.”
“Copy.”
In a full sprint, Nathan brought his suppressed Sig up and toggled the laser, but the beam couldn’t penetrate the low-hanging branches. What if it wasn’t Montez? It could be a neighbor. Or a friend. Or relative. Anyone could be in that van. It could even be Director Cantrell’s people. He couldn’t risk killing an innocent, even it meant letting Montez get away.
Thirty yards.
The van slowed to negotiate a hairpin turn in the driveway.
Fifteen yards.
As it rounded the corner, the face in the passenger’s window turned.
And looked directly at him.
In the green image of his NV scope, the face smiled. A face he knew as well as his own. A face from the depths of hatred and insanity. A face he’d vowed to remove from its skull if ever given the chance.
“It’s Montez. Passenger seat.”
“I’m almost to the road.”
In a gesture of brazen mockery, his former tormentor blew a kiss good-bye.
You son of a bitch. He brought his Sig up and toggled the laser. He’d only get one shot.
It had to count.
He skidded to a stop, took a deep breath, and painted the laser on Montez’s window-
And didn’t pull the trigger.
A second face had materialized.
A young girl. In the backseat. One of Dalton’s daughters. He couldn’t risk it. And the foliage along the driveway kept him from targeting the van’s tires.
“Hold your fire!”
“Copy.”
Five seconds later he heard the van screech onto El Camino Real. With a sickening twist of his stomach, he knew they’d never reach Harv’s Mercedes in time to follow.
And just like that, Montez was gone.
Chapter 35
Montez caught only a glimpse of the dark figure sprinting toward the van. Whoever he was, he wasn’t going to make it. A third bodyguard? Not likely. A few jolts of the stun gun to Duane Dalton’s exposed nerve endings verified there’d only been two bodyguards and two dogs patrolling the property. Arturo had eliminated all four threats with ease.
So who was that man back there? Could it be the same man who’d taken down his assault team in Clairemont? This guy was big-not just big-huge. And probably military or former military. Just like at Bullfrog Bay. The same person? The more Montez thought about it, the more likely it seemed.
His trap to capture or eliminate his pursuers was set, but would it work? He pulled his cell and called a phone number he’d extracted from Dalton.
“Harv, double-time back up here. We’re going inside the house. Let me know when you’ve got me on the TI.”
“Copy.”
The bastard had blown a kiss. What an arrogant jerk. Let’s see you do that again after I’ve burned your lips off with a cigar torch. He’d been so close. Now Montez could be going anywhere in the world, and being a master at disguise, he’d disappear without a hitch. And to make matters worse, they might’ve just signed the death warrant for Nichole Dalton’s daughters. Cantrell had told him not to approach this house. Had she known Montez was here? No, Montez would’ve been intercepted and taken into custody. So what was Cantrell’s concern? Why did she-
“I’ve got you. The edge of the driveway at the hairpin.”
He clicked his radio and heard Harv crunch up the slope through the leaves-all stealth abandoned. “What happened?” Harv said, winded from his sprint.
“I saw one of Dalton’s girls in the backseat. I couldn’t see the other.”
“You made the right decision.”
“I had him. The son of a bitch blew me a kiss as he went by.” He kicked the ground, fouling the driveway with dirt.
Harv motioned toward the house. “We might find Dalton’s body in there.”
“If so, I hope his girls didn’t witness any of it.”
“You want me to go in?”
“Hell, I’ve come this far.”
“I’m still alive,” Montez said.
“This isn’t a secure line. No names. What do you want?”
“I want you to call off your dogs.”
“They aren’t my dogs. Don’t you get it? I’m not calling the shots anymore.”
“Then I suggest you call in a favor.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Self preservation,” he said. “I have no desire to see you mired in scandal, or anyone else, for that matter. I’d like a certain amount of money deposited into my account. Tonight.”
“Then what?”
“Then I disappear and you won’t have to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life.”
“That door swings both ways. Suppose I agree, which I’m not sure I do. What guarantee do I have you won’t resurface someday?”
“My word.”
Montez heard the sarcastic laugh on the other end.
“That’s it? Your word?”
“Need I remind you I’ve kept your dirty secrets for fourteen years?”
“They’re not my secrets.”
“Is that all you care for your country?” Montez asked. “If anyone should be distrustful, it’s me. Do you take me for a fool? I’ve been planning against this betrayal for a long time. Did you really think killing me would protect anything?”
“It wasn’t my doing.”
“It doesn’t matter who gave the order. You’re a smart man. I’m offering you the lesser of two evils.”
“Who are you to talk about evil?”
“Oh, I see. You eat the steak but refuse to be blamed for the death of the cow.”
“Nice try.”
“It’s not negotiable. Your lapdog just spilled his guts, literally and figuratively. I’m minutes from mailing a special video package of his admissions to all the world’s major media outlets.” He waited through several seconds of silence. “Are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
He heard venom in the voice. “How much?”
“Twenty million.”
“That’s more than we agreed. A lot more.”
“Once again, not negotiable. Any contract we had was rendered null and void when your people tried to kill me. Twice.”
“I already told you, they’re not my people. I’m not responsible for that.”
“But it would have saved you a bundle. Coincidence?”
“Believe what you want.”
“I believe the political health of your nation is at stake. And if that’s not enough to move you, it’s about your health as well. You could go to prison and I don’t need to remind you what happens to people with soft hands in general lockup. How long do you think you’d last with the sodomites? If I were you, I’d start lifting weights and befriending white supremacists. And I hear the food is terrible.”
“I don’t take kindly to being blackmailed.”
“And I don’t take kindly to being the target of assassination squads. You have ten seconds to decide before I hang up.”
“I can’t move twenty million dollars million all at once.”
“I’d better find five million dollars million deposited tonight. You have two days for the rest.”
“I’ll start making the transfer
s. Don’t ever contact me again.”
“That depends entirely on you. Good-bye, Senator.”
Nathan left Harv in place guarding the driveway while he conducted a quick search around the perimeter of the house. He approached several expensive vehicles-including a Bentley-but none of the hoods were warm. Fifty yards to the west, a pool area with several large gazebos connected to the driveway via granite slab sidewalks. Whoever owned this property was clearly wealthy. The landscaping alone probably cost more than most people’s homes.
In his earpiece, Harv’s voice broke the near silence. “Another body, east side of driveway. Plus one dog. Same MO. Looks like another bodyguard.”
It explained why they hadn’t seen any tactical dogs. Montez or his men killed them. “Meet me at the front door. I doubt anyone’s still here, but let’s stay sharp.”
The double front doors hung wide open. Most of the ground floor lights were on. Harv powered off his TI and tucked it into his waist pack. Nathan did the same with his NV visor.
“Why’d they leave the doors open?” Nathan asked.
“Maybe they left in a hurry. We could’ve been spotted.”
“Maybe.”
“I don’t smell propane or natural gas,” Harv whispered.
“Me either. I’ll take the left.”
They rushed inside and couched down, both sweeping their Sigs across the room.
All clear. Silent as well. No background music or TV noise. Nothing. The house felt abandoned.
Wall-to-wall with ornately carved antique furniture, the living room looked like a time warp. Mahogany-paneled walls were adorned with huge oil paintings, some of which he recognized. Possibly one reason why Montez hadn’t rigged explosives. Even being the monster he was, he remained respectful of personal property. The Bonita safe house had been worthless to him, but this? He’d probably spent a good amount of time coveting it. No doubt Montez believed destroying this furniture and art would’ve been a crime against society. The irony almost seemed laughable.
“I’ve seen museums with less inventory,” Harv said, looking around. “What’s this stuff worth?”
“Millions, maybe tens of millions.”
Harv scanned the room. “I don’t think anyone’s here, but we should clear the house.”
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