Page 39 of Her Fearless Warrior

“Me too,” Linc whispered.

At least there wasn’t a guard tower. “I’m going to keep going,” Linc said.

“Same.”

Linc finished his patrol at the back section of the mansion. They’d started at the front, where the driveway turned into a courtyard. There had been three Humvees, a truck, and a Mercedes parked in the front. God knew how many were parked in the four-bay garage he had seen.

“Did you see any more guards,” Linc asked Jase as he met him.

“No, but I did see two lights on, in what looked like a big room on the third floor, on the east side.”

Linc looked down at his watch. It was oh two fifteen.

“Did you see any activity?” Linc asked.

“Negative,” Jase answered.

“More than likely, that’s our target,” Gideon whispered into their ears.

“Agreed,” Linc said. “From what we saw during the day, they change guard shifts every four hours. We’ve got three hours and forty-five minutes before the shift.”

“We took down six guards. We know there are six more. That would fit the three Humvees,” Jase said. “That looked to me like an armored Mercedes, so let’s say four in that.”

“One of them would have been Vugar,” Gideon pointed out.

“You’re right,” Linc agreed. “So, at the minimum, ten guards, when you count the driver of the truck, Vugar, and two hostages.”

“I don’t see any cameras, do you?” Jase asked. He had his binoculars up and was checking out the back of the mansion. “There aren’t even any security lights.”

“He probably just depends on muscle and the fact that it’s Syria. He probably thinks no one will take a shot at him, here,” Linc said as he looked over the backyard and the house through the scope of his sniper rifle.

“I see something,” he whispered. “I can see the kitchen,” he continued to speak softly. “Someone just opened the refrigerator. He’s just wearing boxers.”

“Can you track him to see where in the house he goes after he has his glass of milk?” Jase asked. “After all, it does a body good.”

“Cut the shit, Jase,” Gideon said. “We don’t have time. Linc, you’re wrong to think you have til the next guard change. You want to get out of there with the hostages, without them knowing, then get them to me and all of us getting out of here before they even know what happened.”

What’s more, the longer Leila and Katherine were in the hands of Vugar, the worse it was for them. God knew what was happening to them.

“Let’s get over the fence, and each of us go to the back of the house. You take the east, and I’ll take the west.”

Jase nodded.

It was a ten-foot-high steel fence with spikes on top. Both he and Jase cleared it in less than a minute.

Linc shook his head. The lack of security was amazing compared to some places they’d encountered in the past. Both of them crouched and ran to their respective corners, their rifles up. There was ornamental shrubbery growing against the house—another big no-no—and Linc used it to hide himself as he peered in the different ground-floor windows.

“Got it,” Jase spoke into his ear. “Bunk beds, four men.”

“Asleep?” Linc asked.

“Affirmative.”

“Stay with them. I want to check out the lit room. See if it’s Vugar’s room.”

Linc carefully eased around the east corner of the concrete mansion when he immediately found a window. He peeked in. Bunk beds set up for four men. Two of the beds were occupied.

“I’ve got two more guards accounted for,” Linc said into his mic.