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They found Markus and Luka, cold but alert, a few meters inside the tree line.
“Any movement?” Lyon asked after he’d made a round of quiet introductions.
“Not since around seven,” Luka said. “One of them left and came back with food.”
Lyon strapped on his night-vision goggles to check out the cabin.
It was dark, not even the flicker of a TV, and he had to fight against a feeling of euphoria, the hope that this would be easy. They couldn’t afford to be complacent. They had to assume that Musa was in there, armed and waiting, expecting them even.
“Dark,” Lyon murmured. “But don’t be lazy.”
“You got leaks?” the man named Sal asked.
Lyon lowered the goggles and stared at him through the dark. “Not unless it’s one of you. You’re the only ones who know we’re here besides us.”
They ran one last test on their comms system and synched them with the ones Markus and Luka had been using. They would maintain their positions outside and let Lyon and the others know if they had unexpected visitors.
When they were ready to move, Lyon looked at the Syndicate’s men. “Remember, Shapiev stays alive. He’s mine.”
He’d shown them photographs of Musa just to make sure there were no accidents. Musa would die tonight, but it would be by Lyon’s hand, and Lyon didn’t intend to make it easy on him.
“But the other ones are fair game?” Leo asked.
“Fair game,” Lyon said. He didn’t yet know the identity of the men holed up with Musa, and he didn’t care. It didn’t matter. They’d aligned themselves against him and now they would die.
They fanned out according to the plan they’d constructed at the shack, the Syndicate men at the front and side of the house, Alek and Lyon at the back.
The moon was only half-full, but it still provided more illumination than Lyon would have liked. He approached the house at a crouch, hoping no one happened to be looking out a window.
They reached the back of the house without incident and Lyon exhaled his relief.
“Damn moon,” Alek muttered.
“It’s okay,” Lyon said. “I think we’re clear.”
“You in position?” Alek asked into the comms system.
“Roger that.” Lyon recognized Tony’s gravelly voice. “At the front door.”
The other two men checked in at the sides of the house. There were no doors there, but Lyon didn’t want to leave the windows without cover. First and foremost the Syndicate men were along for the ride to prevent Lyon and Alek from being killed, but a close second was making sure Musa didn’t run.
Lyon wouldn’t let him get away a second time.
“On my three,” Lyon said, readying his weapon.
He’d considered a quiet approach and decided the potential upsides didn’t outweigh the downsides. Being quiet meant moving slowly. If someone inside the house heard them, they would have time to ready a position.
Fast and hard. That was the way to go. In pretty much everything.
“Three… two… one.” Lyon gave the back door a vicious kick, heard the satisfying splintering of wood as it flew open.
Now they had to move fast.
They were only halfway through the dingy kitchen at the back of the house when he heard semiautomatic gunfire from the front of the house.
“You good up there?” Alek asked. His voice came in Lyon’s ear, but Lyon knew Alek was at his back.
“Good,” Tony said into the comms system. “One down.”
