Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 59119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
He peered through the scope again. “No visible surveillance so far. When we get closer, I’ll find a tree.”
We had plenty of those all around.
We advanced until we were about twenty feet from the fence, and I signaled to Ryan that I would do a perimeter check. He nodded firmly before I was off.
The back of the property had no entry point, and I had to jump down into an indention in the mountain, suddenly making the fence above some fifteen or sixteen feet high. I climbed up on the other side and just felt my thoughts scatter, clearing my head. It was the best fucking peace, one I only ever felt under pressure—and usually only in the field.
If some were born to be soldiers, I was one of them. My insecurities faded into background noise, where they were actually of use. Because nobody should be too cocky in combat.
“Testing sound again.” Ryan spoke under his breath.
“Roger, but I miss proper communication, over.” I brushed a hand along the wooden fence and peered up. Delgado had a few trees on his side of the fence too. No immediate light reflection on the underside of the foliage, indicating no outdoor lights were on.
“My desire to smack you upside the head is going from a Delta to a Charlie, out.”
I laughed and silently continued along the wall until I got close to the front of the house. I threw a fist-sized rock onto the ground, then listened for a beat. A dog would’ve heard that. Maybe even Delgado if he’d been outside, though I doubted it.
“I’m too old to climb trees, and don’t comment on that,” Ryan grunted. “I got visual of the downstairs. Living room and part of the kitchen.”
The fence became shorter in steps around the corner, revealing a driveway hidden behind a few cypress trees. The lights were on downstairs. No shutters, no bars. Nice welcome mat on the little stoop. Two flowerpots flanked the entrance.
The house actually didn’t scream wealth. It was nice, absolutely, but not huge or ostentatious.
“No gate,” I reported quietly. “Only one car—dark green Lexus. Can’t see any cameras—never mind. Correction, one security camera on top of the carport, angled to capture the entrance, over.”
“Two cameras in the back, so you might have one more up there,” he replied. “Damn—I got movement. Fits the profile, tall, late forties. He’s alone. He just sat down in the living room to eat.”
Could we be sure he was alone? A freelancer of his caliber often had his own crew.
Eating dinner at this hour, to boot? What kept him up? Did criminals FaceTime across time zones?
This didn’t sit well with me. Either we had stumbled upon a hideout he’d never expect anyone to find, or… And that would be dumb, because he’d used his fucking credit card. His steps weren’t invisible.
“Why doesn’t he have a gate and better security?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Ryan muttered. “The way I see it, we have two options. Force our way in and take him—or you ring the doorbell as a hiker who’s lost, and we grab him as he opens the door.”
I scrubbed a hand over my jaw, through the balaclava, a piece of clothing I didn’t wanna lose, no matter how much I hated breathing through fabric. I didn’t want to reveal my face unnecessarily.
“A third option would be to wait until he’s leaving the house.” I threw that in there. “I don’t have a hiker’s backpack, and even if I changed back into civilian clothes—hell, I’d never open the door. And if he suspects something right then and there, he’ll get a few extra seconds to grab a gun and possibly alert a security service.”
“If we wait, chances are it’ll be light out, and we’ll have to worry about neighbors and traffic,” he added.
So we only had one option, then.
“Join me at the eastern front corner,” I requested.
“Wilco.”
While I waited for him to reach me, I scanned every inch of the front of the house, from the stone tiles across the driveway and…well, I couldn’t call it a front yard; it was just flat stone and nothing else. At most, the extra space would fit a second car. I couldn’t see any additional cameras, but given that the criminal fuckface clearly cared about surveillance, it would be weird if he allowed for blind spots.
My suggestion was messy but would hopefully get the job done quickly.
The window to the left of the entrance was the kitchen. The other window—it had to be a bathroom, because the glass was stained.
The sound of heavy breathing and twigs breaking alerted me to Gramps’s arrival, and I made room for him so he could take a look at what we had to work with.
Together, we inspected the windows, primarily to rule out they were bulletproof, and they were too thin for that. Besides, the correct term was bullet-resistant. Sooner or later, you got through. Ryan determined a single bullet would be necessary here.