by Ty Patterson
Pico’s two houses were similar in design. Large metal gate manned by two security guards, a ten-foot wall that went around the house, thick foliage that offered only partial views of the house. At least one visible camera at the front gate. The houses were white, and had at least two floors, from what they could make out. No building plans were available.
The two houses were separated by a private road that was used for deliveries to both residences. That road went to rear entrances, which too were manned by security guards. The road that ran in front of both houses was a busy one, and had residences on either side, with a long line of cars parked on it, at night.
The three of them split up, occupying a car each, and after a couple of hours’ sleep, they flew their drones at one am.
The drones were unlike any other commercially available. They had a very small visible footprint, were mounted with HD cameras, and were coated with radar-absorbent material. The frames were made of composites, the same materials that were used to build stealth aircraft. Each drone was equipped with thermal imaging, infrared cameras, and had WiFi crackers, and cell phone towers. The drones had robotic arms and could carry five pounds of deadweight. The drones fed the screens in their Fords, which in turn relayed the video to Werner.
They flew the devices over the houses, moving front and back, side to side, covered other nearby residences, and by four am, they had a better picture of the houses.
One residence, the one on their left had just the security guards and no other occupants. The one on the right had ten occupants inside, four guards outside, who were replaced every four hours.
Four men protected the inside perimeter of the house, each one of them well-armed, carrying what looked like HK MP5s and handguns. Of the six occupants inside, two were female, and one man fitted Pico’s body mass. More security cameras inside the compound.
Zeb brought his drone back, loaded it with a cell phone tracking device, and launched his craft in the sky. He navigated it to a tall tree in the target house and after several attempts, planted the device on a leafy branch, burying its pin-like claws deep into the wood. The cell phone tracker had a modification on it. It had a camera that relayed data to a bird in the sky, which Werner talked to.
Werner worked on the WiFi data the drones had captured, running several cracking programs, while Zeb and his friends slept. It profiled the gang leaders, including Vasquez, and knowing the business the Crescents were in, came up with random passwords and applied brute force. It got the key in less than an hour.
Once it was inside the network, it injected a piece of code, which lodged into the various networked devices.
And then it resumed its game of Go, with its Swiss Miss.
Zeb, Bwana, and Roger went for their morning run just as the residents of the target house awoke. Zeb and Roger blended easily with the other runners; Bwana stood out, but then he stuck out in any country.
The first computer in the target house logged to the network by the time the three had returned to their hotel. Werner started sucking email data when they had showered and had a light breakfast.
Meghan got it to decrypt the email data and got confirmation that Pico was in that residence.
They parked the Fords in the previous night’s location and left the vehicles unattended. The tiny cameras on the sides of the vehicles started recording and relaying the front, side, and rear of the house.
By noon, they got visual confirmation that Pico was in the house. Of the two females, one was a cook, and the other seemed to be Pico’s woman. He hugged her several times and on one occasion, slapped her.
Zeb noticed Bwana’s knuckles tighten as they watched the screen in Zeb’s room and made a mental note to keep his friend away from the gang boss.
They made a final check of their equipment in the afternoon, and while his friends napped, Zeb called Cordova and checked that he was ready.
Cordova was.
The rain started falling in the evening, just as Cordova had predicted, and by seven pm, had become a deluge, with no signs of letting up. The guards huddled in a small shelter at each gate, and the patrolling men inside, pulled their ponchos over their heads. The rain-proof covers made them look indistinguishable from one another. Which was what Zeb wanted.
Bwana brought out a pack of playing cards and the three played poker, while the screen ran beside them. They were used to waiting. They knew how to relax and how to prepare for sudden, intense action.
At twelve am, they returned to their Fords and after a final check, each one of them went to their positions.
At one am, Werner sent a message to the cell phone tracker. The device responded by cutting off signal to all the cell phones in the residence. It disabled the sole satellite phone in the house. It stopped the security cameras’ feeds.
At one fifteen am, the first fireworks blazed in the sky and exploded into white, red, and blue sparkles. A few lights turned on in some houses and Zeb could sense what those residents were thinking. Who was crazy enough to light fireworks on a rainy night? So late? And what was the occasion?
The two guards at the front gaped as several rockets burst into a multi-colored display in the night. Bwana confirmed those at the rear were distracted too.
At one twenty am, the lights died out in that neighborhood.
At one twenty-one, a generator kicked in and a few lights came on in Pico’s stronghold; just as Roger fired his first missile at the front wall.
Chapter 19
The rocket launcher wasn’t very loud and in day time, with traffic, would have sounded like a vehicle misfiring. In the night, it was a sharp report, but the demolition of the wall was louder. The wall next to the gate crumbled as if made of powder and a giant cloud of dust rose in the air to join another sparkly burst of fireworks in the night.
The metal gate had no more support and came crashing down, making a louder racket than the wall’s destruction. Another rocket exploded high above and cast a reddish glow on the white residence.
Rain. Fireworks. A rocket launcher. The two guards stood rooted in their spots, not believing their eyes. Roger laughed silently and for a moment, was tempted to shoot them down. Zeb had been explicit, however. They didn’t know if the guards belonged to the gang or were rent-a-cops.
At one twenty-two am, he fired two darts from a tranquilizer gun at the guards and drove round the side of the house. He parked in another line of cars, flung open the passenger door, and fired another rocket at the side wall. It offered no more resistance than the section at the front, and gave way ungracefully. More dust filled the air and turned green and yellow under the fireworks’ reflected light.
The rockets that he had fired were specially designed to bring down heavy construction made of concrete, masonry, or stone. The missiles embedded in walls instead of going through, and were meant to explode into fragments, bringing down the construction.
Roger didn’t stop to admire his handiwork. He stowed the launcher in the trunk of the car, withdrew his sniper rifle and the tranquilizer gun, and ducked out of sight, behind the line of cars.
The two guards at the rear came running, as fast as they could in the rain. The first one staggered when Roger’s dart struck him and before the second one realized what was happening, he too went down.
‘Job done,’ he spoke in his throat mic, crawled underneath a truck, and fitted the McMillan Tac-338 to his cheek and waited for the first hostile to appear in his scope.
Bwana and Zeb entered the compound from two opposite ends, where the wall was still intact. Pico and his men would be expecting an attacking surge from the breached sections and would deploy there to counterattack. Their calculation was right.
Bwana crept low to avoid standing out against the wall, using all the cover he could find, and approached the broken side wall. He dropped to the ground just in time as he heard excited shouting and three men came charging, firing blindly at the hole. They spread out and concentrated their fire, stopping only when another firework burs
t and illuminated the area. There were no cops. No soldiers. Just the vast, irregular opening through which they could see the line of parked vehicles.
They broke out in excited chatter and one raised a radio to his mouth. Bwana took him out. One hood reacted swiftly. He swung round in Bwana’s direction, his rifle raking the ground in searching fire.
He went down when Roger’s round got him. The third hood swore loudly and got off a burst before Roger silenced him.
‘Good work, bro.’ Bwana whispered.
‘Any time,’ Roger acknowledged in his earpiece. ‘Where’s Zeb?’
‘I’m inside. From that private road side. Came across one hostile,’ Zeb replied.
Bwana waited for further detail from his friend. None came. He settled down to wait, knowing Zeb would call out if he needed help.
The hostile had come across Zeb unexpectedly as he was rushing towards the front. He too had been expecting police to swarm through the opening and had been running to support his fellow shooters. A wall going down, in two places. Who would have expected that?
‘Carlos!’ he called out to a shooter at the side breach when he heard firing.
‘Carlos–’
His shoes skidded on the wet grass as he caught sight of a black-masked figure in the periphery of his vision. That didn’t look like the police. He fell, rolled, struggling to get his rifle up and in despair, saw the man’s handgun rise, and saw nothing more.
Four down, inside, Zeb counted. Outside guards neutralized. Three more shooters. Pico and the two women. That made it four gangbangers in all. He didn’t count the women, though he knew they could be hostile as well.
He tuned out the sounds of confused shouting from outside the house. Neighbors, wondering what was going on. Why the fireworks? What was the meaning of that broken wall? They would try their phones and would find they didn’t work. They would hope for the police to arrive. The police wouldn’t; Cordova’s men had perimetered the roads surrounding Pico’s residence and would not let anyone pass.
He moved carefully, looking away from the fireworks’ reflection in the swimming pool. A star like cracker burst in the sky, and more rockets exploded. They weren’t needed, Zeb thought. I figured they would distract the guards. Aid our breach. The rain and lights-out were more than sufficient.
He approached the wide, columned, patio to the front of the house, circled its side and went to the rear, encountering no shooter. They will hole up inside. Protect Pico. A large garage was to one side of the compound and behind it was what looked like a store. He checked them out swiftly and continued to the back of the house.
The back was less grand than the front. A series of steps that went to large glass-paneled doors. A drive-way that went from the steps to the rear gate. Any hitters at those gates?
‘None, bro,’ Bwana seemed to read his mind. ‘I’m there. All clear.’
Zeb thanked him and considered his options. He didn’t have plans to the inside and would be going in blind, whichever entrance he took.
‘Rog, can you fly the drone? Run its thermal imager and see where everyone is?’
‘Give me five.’
Zeb lay on his belly, knowing the waiting would be harder on Pico and his men. They didn’t know what was happening. Who was coming for them. How many.
‘You’re at the back?’ Roger queried.
‘Yeah,’ he described where he was.
‘Pico and the two women are in a corner room. To your left, where the wall curves. That’s where they are. One shooter is right inside that rear door. Another is at the front. The third is on the upper floor.’
‘Blow away the upper floor.’
‘Why does he get the cool jobs?’ Bwana grumbled, good-naturedly.
Shooting a missile at the upper floor wasn’t difficult. The problem was knowing where the shooters would be after the missile did its job.
Roger solved that problem by keeping the drone in the air, in hover mode, and having the screen on the Ford’s driver’s seat.
He kicked the rear doors open, sprawled out on the rear seat, aimed the launcher, and depressed the trigger. He turned his attention to the screen and the drone’s controls as soon as he’d fired.
‘Impact,’ he murmured.
Impact resulted in the screen turning bright orange momentarily. He flew the drone to the rear and waited for its cameras and the software programs to settle.
‘Pico and the women still in that room. Rear shooter joining the one at the front. Go!’
Zeb went.
He bent double, listening to Roger’s running commentary, and when he was close to the rear door, opened with a long burst. Glass shattered and then he was inside, diving to the polished, wooden, floor. A returning burst ripped the air above him. He rolled.
Where were they?
‘One of them’s coming through the door. Now.’ The hitter came through the door just as Roger finished, and went down from Zeb’s sustained burst.
‘Move!’ Zeb dove away when the second shooter opened in his direction. He rolled away from the open door, glass crunching under him, tiny slivers piercing through his body suit.
Zeb was in what looked like a sun room. Easy-chairs around a glass table, which too was shattered. A wall and the door separated him from the door. No cover. The shooter could come in ablaze and Zeb would have to pray that his initial burst missed.
‘He’s coming. He seems to be bending. No, lying on the floor.’
Zeb looked around for inspiration, knowing what the shooter was planning. He would poke his gun through the door and rake left and right. No need to aim. No need to expose himself. Knee-high and chest-high bursts.
Fifteen feet. That was the length of the sun room. The door was eight feet away from him and the opposite wall was four feet from the door. He went to the far end of the wall and waited for his cue.
‘HE’S COMING!’
The first burst went into the wall, four feet ahead of him. The next burst came closer, but by then, Zeb was in the air after taking a huge leap, sailing, well above chest height, his body straight, his right hand extended, his Glock ready, his eyes seeking.
The door came in his field of vision. Then the shooter, who was starting to look up, his weapon still firing. The shooter looked startled. His rifle started changing direction. Zeb’s Glock had to move only a fraction of an inch. A one-two. Then he was twisting, taking the impact on his right shoulder, falling, landing, recovering, and covering the open door.
‘Clear’ he panted and heard Roger’s sigh of relief.
Pico was more angry than scared. He was not even angry. He was furious that his men couldn’t contain whoever was attacking them. He was furious that all those cameras, all those informers in the police, all that he had at his command, hadn’t alerted him to the attack.
That first missile had felt like an earthquake to him. He hadn’t paid it much attention since he was on top of the woman and was squeezing her throat. He liked that. Watching the panic in her eyes as she choked, letting go just before she lost consciousness. She was a good woman, did everything that he asked of her, but he knew he would have to replace her. She wasn’t new anymore.
Pico had experienced earthquakes before and knew they were safe. The house was strongly constructed and could withstand severe quakes. He knew something was wrong when the house shook again, a short time later. There wasn’t the deep rumble that accompanied a quake. This was something different. Then the cook came running in.
‘Señor,’ she babbled. ‘The wall. Guns.’ She was so incoherent in her fear that he slapped her and buttoned himself up. He raised a hand to silence both women and listened keenly. He heard shouting, the generator running. Guns chattering. Guns?
He swore and grasped his Colt from under the bed and grabbed his cell. No signal. He tried another phone in the room. It too was dead.
‘Felix?’ he called out.
He heard no reply. He peered outside the room. It was dark and he could smell something familiar. H
eavy weaponry. Cordite. There was another cell phone in the outer room. He darted to it. No luck. He went to the command room where monitors showed the camera feeds. The feeds were dead.
‘Hector,’ he yelled, rage flooding him. It could only be the Sinalao Cartel or the Los Zetas. No one else had this kind of capability. The police? They didn’t go to the bathroom without Pico knowing about it.
What was that? A step?
‘Hector?’
‘Hector’s dead.’ The man who answered in Spanish was masked and had a black bodysuit.
Pico flung himself away, out of the field of fire, his Colt roaring, rounds propelled by his anger, punching through the darkness, heading toward the stranger. He scrabbled when he landed, sought cover behind a table and peered cautiously around it.
No body. How was that possible? The man had been standing there, lazily, his gun wasn’t even up, when Pico fired. No, the body would be there. He searched the floor. Was it there–.
The blow to his head was so hard that he blacked out for a second. When he came to, the man was crouching over him, his eyes so cold that they sent a shiver through Pico.
‘Who is Miguel?
Chapter 20
Miguel? This was about him? The stranger’s head swam in and out of Pico’s vision and his words came as if from underwater. Pico shook his head to concentrate. Mistake. A thousand hammers started in his head, furiously beating away, making him groan.
‘Who is Miguel?’ the stranger repeated, his eyes unmoving, implacable.
‘Are you from the Sinaloa?’
Pico howled the next moment when the stranger’s gun crashed into his temple. Even as his body trembled in shock, his animal brain was figuring out a means to escape. To extricate himself, to turn the tables on his captor.