And that was long before he had taken out one of their own and made an attempt on another.
Seated on one of the sofas in his office, unable to even consider sleep, his subconscious refusing to shut down as it almost sensed what was surely coming, he had heard as the front gate was destroyed. Not quite certain what the noise was, he’d risen from his seat and walked outside, making it to the rail just in time to hear the gunfire begin.
A familiar din that instantly made everything clear.
“El Jefe,” a voice said from behind him.
So deep in his thoughts, Ruiz hadn’t heard the door to his office open. Not one footfall had penetrated his mind, the voice the first sign that he wasn’t alone.
Feeling a spur of surprise roil through him, he pressed his fingertips hard against the top of the rail, a jolt passing through him before receding as recognition set in.
“I heard,” Ruiz replied, not bothering to turn around to face Mejia behind him.
“You might want to consider coming inside,” Mejia said. “Or at least turning off the lights behind you.”
Head turned to the side, chin pressed to his shoulder, Ruiz grunted softly, as if considering the option.
Not that there was any point. Whoever had just entered the grounds had done so with the express purpose of finding him. Where he was standing, how much light was on him, didn’t matter.
Which was why he wasn’t now trying to run. He wasn’t grabbing Mejia and whoever else was nearby and loading into a vehicle, hoping to steal away into the night.
Eventually, they would make their way to him. Or he would find them. Either way, this was a climax far too long in coming. Something that had to be finished before either side could ever move forward, free of the other.
Might as well be here and now. At least this way he could finish what had started eight years before, what he had spent many nights staring at the bunk above him thinking about.
A clean sweep, Reyes and Tate and whoever else, all in the first couple of days.
“How many men onsite tonight?” Ruiz asked.
“Twenty-two,” Mejia said. Stepping up beside him, he extended a single hand, placing a gun atop the railing not ten inches from Ruiz’s flattened palm. “Including us.”
Chapter Eighty-Five
I have no idea why Junior Ruiz, or Ramon Reyes, or whoever the hell else was actually in charge, had decided to create a jungle twenty-five miles outside of San Diego. Whether it was to in some way bolster the fake business front they were running, or if it was some sort of vanity play gone overboard, or if it was something else entirely, I couldn’t begin to fathom.
What I did know was that it made our job infinitely easier, giving us ample cover to work through as we made our way onward.
My knees flexed, submachine gun pressed tight to my shoulder, I moved one foot across the other. Body twisted slightly to the side to make myself as small a target as possible, I took the far side of the driveway, Diggs moving opposite me.
Under the heavy canopy of the palm fronds above, each step seemed to take me back into a different time. Missions conducted on separate continents, assignments handed down during my time with the DEA and the Navy before that.
At odds in every way with the desert setting just beyond us, the air was supersaturated with humidity. So thick it felt like breathing pure vapor, it clung to my skin and clothing. Beads of it lined the short hairs on my forearms, caused my bangs to hang damp and lank across my brow.
Underfoot, metric tons of topsoil had been brought in, the smell of damp earth rising to my nostrils.
There was no sound from my footfalls, the soft ground swallowing it up, bits of mud clinging to the soles of my boots.
Taking advantage of the thick tangle of forestation, I kept the driveway a few yards away to my right. Darting from the base of one tree to another, I was careful to avoid the low-hanging branches of fruit trees, instead sticking to the smooth trunks of the King Palm trees rising above.
Just barely visible was the glow of the main house, bits of light poking through narrow slits in the foliage, there and gone in a matter of moments.
Counting seconds in my head, I made it to one-hundred-and-ten, just shy of two minutes, before the telltale sound I’d been waiting on arrived.
Not yet had we come upon the remnants of the SUV. After ramming the front gate, it must have been in decent enough shape for Pally to keep going, no doubt finding a prime target and smashing the vehicle right into it.
Likely using it to take out some of the guards, or one of their rigs, or a chokepoint of some sort, the crash would have put whoever else was on the grounds scrambling.
An advantage that had allowed us to get inside, to tuck ourselves into the trees, before anybody else came looking.
But one I knew couldn’t last forever, it only a matter of time before they were able to regroup and come looking for us.
Something that, if the sound of the engine ringing out into the night was any indicator, was now upon us.
Halting my forward progress, I moved back out to the edge of the driveway. Keeping the trunk of one of the towering palms lining it between myself and the sound of the approaching vehicle, I pressed my shoulder tight against it.
Lifting my chin, I pressed my tongue to the top of my mouth, pushing a hissing noise out as loud as I dared.
Catching it on the first pass, it took only a moment for Diggs to materialize from the opposite side of the drive. Completely at home in the jungle, barely a day removed from the real thing on the other side of the planet, he emerged five yards ahead of me, a bit of sweat shining from his head.
Using only hand gestures, I waved once to get his attention before pointing to my ear.
Nodding in agreement that he had heard it too, he pointed to me and then raised a single finger. Dropping his hand to clear the sequence, he then pointed to himself and raised a pair of fingers, ending with motioning to the bag still hanging from his shoulder.
Raising a closed fist in acknowledgment, I watched as he melted back into the trees, disappearing from sight.
The scheme was a simple one, something we had done a handful of times before in the past. Never before had we had the benefit of grenades with us at the time, but that didn’t change the basic approach.
Keeping my position against the base of the tree, I lowered myself to a knee. Ear trained to the side, I waited, listening as the groan of an engine grew closer, seconds ticking by before a pair of headlights appeared through the brush.
Square and boxy, they set up high, appearing to be from a work truck of some sort. Moving as fast as the winding curve of the drive would allow, the engine revved and fell away.
Submachine gun tucked in tight, I watched as it grew steadily closer, waiting until it was just fifteen yards beyond where I knew Diggs to be before opening up.
At such a distance, with such an enormous target, there was virtually no way to miss. The first cluster of rounds all slammed into the engine, sparks flying from the collision of metal on metal.
Tugging back on the trigger a second time, I unleashed a second burst, this one aimed a few feet higher. Slapping across the front windshield, I could see sprays of crystalline glass rise up, spiderwebs spreading wide from a trio of impact points.
Careful to keep them on the passenger side of the truck, my goal wasn’t to take out the driver. Of everybody, he was the only one I needed to ensure stayed alive, reacting with basic human instinct.
Which, a moment later, he did.
The truck was almost even with Diggs when the person behind the wheel slammed on the brakes. For the second time of the night, the squeal of tires on pavement rang out, the tang of burnt radials rising into the air.
Keeping my position, I unleashed one last trio, just barely getting it off before a pair of men rose from the bed of the truck. Standing over the front cab, they extended weapons my way, full focus on unloading at whoever was firing at them.
To the point they never even
considered the ambush they had just driven into.
Back pressed to the base of the tree, I listened as Diggs’s submachine gun opened up. Two quick sprays, I could just make out the pained grunts of his targets before hearing the distinctive clack of a grenade rolling across the concrete.
Tucked down tight, I put my head between my knees, waiting as the explosive ignited, a fiery wall of heat and shrapnel rushing past.
Chapter Eighty-Six
Most people would make the mistake of lobbing the grenade. They would have seen too many movies, would want that moment of seeing it silhouetted against the sky, tumbling end over end before landing in the bed of the truck.
Maybe even watching any opposition that might still be alive scrambling for cover, realizing what was about to happen.
Carl Diggs wasn’t most people.
Following basic rules of physics, he had put it under the truck. Rolling it across the asphalt beneath the vehicle meant that all concentrated force was aimed upward, directly through the engine, with all of its various fuels and moving components. Igniting instantly, the explosion sent the rig skyward in a fiery pyre.
I remained tucked in my hiding spot. Four full seconds passed before it landed, the crash every bit as loud as the original detonation. Smashing down to the driveway, shattered remnants of the machine scattered in every direction. Twisted bits of metal and smoldering rubber pelted the trees, tearing through the thin leaves.
Waiting until both were past, until some portion of the concentrated heat and smoke had managed to slip upward into the atmosphere, I twisted myself free from the base of the tree. MP5 tucked back into position, I made a quick pass around the outside of the rig, checking for the unlikely event that someone had survived.
Seeing nothing that posed a threat, I kept my gun held tight, meeting Diggs on the backend of the wreck, his focus already turned to face down the length of the driveway.
“How many?” I asked.
“Three in the back, don’t know about the front,” he replied.
There had been six by the gate. Adding these, that put us at either ten or eleven, depending on if anybody was riding shotgun.
A solid start.
“How many you think are here?”
“This many buildings?” he asked. “Have to think fifteen or so.”
“Yeah, but don’t forget,” I countered, “he knows I survived, and that I went to see his sister.”
“Twenty or twenty-five anyway, then,” he replied. Not one bit of mirth permeated the words, his attention squarely on the route ahead.
“We need to get off this driveway,” I said.
There was no way at this point that every person on the property didn’t know we were here. Not with what happened at the front gate and whatever Pally managed to do with the SUV.
That much was obvious.
Just as was the exact spot we were standing in, the explosion pinpointing our location.
“Right,” he agreed. “Use the trees.”
Not another word was said. No discussion about which way we should go, no further debate about how to proceed.
So many times over the years we had been drilled on the fact that a plan is only truly effective for approach and initial contact. After that, there was only a best-case scenario and then the hundreds of ways things usually ended up playing out.
None of them foreseeable, people’s behavior in a fight being something there was no way of knowing in advance.
This time, we had arrived without so much as a plan, but that was irrelevant at this point. We had made it past the front gate, had now eliminated nearly a dozen of the opposition.
That’s all we could ask for.
Pushing ourselves to the left of the drive, we set a course toward the house. Gone was any need to circle out wide, everybody present already knowing what we were here for. Any time we spent on the outbuildings, any further attempts at misdirection, were only going to give Ruiz time to better fortify.
Returning to our original stances, we settled in at double time. Keeping no more than a few yards between us, we picked a path over the forest floor, sweat and soot and humidity clinging to our skin.
Little by little, we made our way forward, the density of the forest thinning slightly around us. With every tree we passed, a bit more of the light from the main house became visible, the expanse of the structure stretching as far as the forest would let us see in both directions.
In the distance, we could make out the sound of a second engine turning over, a stray voice punctuating the air, dying away as fast as it had arrived.
Moving at a diagonal, we put as much ground as possible between us and the driveway. Sticking to the shadows, we pointed ourselves to the northeast, moving for more than two solid minutes before pulling up as a clear outline of the corner of the house could be seen peeking through the dense branches.
Inching toward it, we made our way to the edge of the tree line before pausing, waiting and listening.
Shoulders almost touching, Diggs whispered, “Looks like our big entrance pulled most of the patrols.”
Grunting softly, I nodded in agreement.
Earlier in the night, not knowing when or even if we were coming, whatever coverage there was for the place would have been spread evenly over the grounds. More for surveillance than interaction, the moment our presence became known, they would have fallen back to key points.
Gates. Vehicles. Doorways.
Ruiz himself.
Where we were now had to be the least fortified spot on the grounds.
“How you want to play it?” I whispered.
Pausing a moment, I saw Diggs jerk his attention in either direction. Considering what we knew, where the points of contact were likely concentrated, he said, “Don’t like the idea of splitting, but it may be our best bet.”
I didn’t like the idea either, but it was the same conclusion I had already drawn, the reason I had asked him what he thought before he did the same to me.
With only two of us, it would be too easy for them to evade on a property this size unless we somehow managed to funnel things inward.
“I’ll swing down the side and around the back, meet you on the opposite corner in ten.”
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Calling it a house wasn’t just a misnomer, it was flat out wrong.
A house had normal dimensions. It had a number of bedrooms and bathrooms that could each be counted on one hand. It had windows lining the front and a garage on the end and a single kitchen and living room somewhere inside.
This place was nothing like that. It wasn’t even what I would consider a mansion.
It was nothing short of a monstrosity.
When I’d suggested we meet on the far southwest corner of the spread in ten minutes, that was before realizing just how much ground that meant we both had to get across. Most of our time since arriving spent in the deep cover of trees, it had been impossible to get a full visual of what we were dealing with.
A fact that became apparent as it took me more than a minute walking fast just to get across the far end. Keeping to the trees, submachine gun with a half-magazine at the ready, every shadow, every rustle of the leaves, earned my attention.
Jerking the front tip of the muzzle from side to side, I left nothing uncovered, aware of the clock ticking steadily backward in my mind.
Several minutes had passed since the explosion on the front driveway. A second response was no doubt being mobilized, every other guard onsite falling back into defense positions, placements meant to maximize visibility, to lessen any chance we had at getting to Ruiz.
Much like our first arrival - or even our being here at all tonight - the sooner we moved on them, the better. The more time they were afforded, the more entrenched they could become, hunkering down and waiting for us.
Swinging out wide, I circled around the southeast corner of the place. Dropping to a knee, I lined myself up with the backside of the house, finally getting a clear view the l
ength of it.
Unlike the front, with trees butting as close to the structure as possible, meant to block everything from the road, a strip along the back of the structure had been left bare. Whatever effort had been made to fortify the area with orchards and grapevines had stopped short of the house, likely not wanting to have the irrigation and humidity so close to the residence.
Without it, a clear lane ran the length of it, a gentle bend in the middle giving it a slight boomerang shape, though still straight enough for me to get a full view.
Best bet, the place looked to be close to a hundred yards in length. On either side were matching wings, both bent back at an angle. Nothing but mulch beds and some shrubbery was tucked up against the house, plenty of light spilling out from the windows, illuminating everything.
In the center was an expansive patio, appearing to be made from paver stones, large planters filled with various flora set up at even intervals around the outside of it. In the center was a small tangle of furniture, all of it wrought iron and cushions.
Grouped into various clusters meant for dining or entertaining, tonight there was a far different crowd gathered, a trio of guards stationed along the back end of it. All dressed in black and carrying assault rifles, they were wearing sunglasses despite the hour, all appearing to be extras brought in from central casting more than men actually meant to serve a purpose.
Regardless of what had already transpired, the mess we had made out on the driveway, all three were rooted in place. Their rifles were held in either hand across their fronts, focus aimed outward.
Taking them in, committing their positioning to memory, I peeled back from the edge of the clearing. Receding further into the trees, I resumed my previous stance, looping wide out away from the house.
Within just a few strides, it became apparent that whatever had been planted on the front side of the spread was there for the express purpose of providing cover.
Out back, there appeared to be much more order, everything arranged into even rows. Irrigation had been taken to another level, puddles lining the ground, splashing up over the toes of my boots as I slipped ahead.
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