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Colin’s jaw tightened. “At least five to six hours. Depending on body mass.”
“Great. Okay, Emma, can you?”
“On it. Video feed all along the street down. I sent a mirror drone feed to your cell so keep it out.”
Raul gave her a big smack on the mouth. “My girl. We’re a great team.”
She barely had time to turn red and he was gone. But he was right. They were a great team.
Colin hadn’t noticed. He was pacing up and down by the side of the vehicles.
She sighed and stared at the drone feed as Raul went to rescue her friend.
10
Raul loved the night.
Like most SEALs, he operated best under cover of darkness. If he’d had the choice, he’d have waited for the early hours of the morning to raid the house, knowing most people’s defenses were at their lowest at about 3 a.m. But his hand was being forced. No way to know what the guards’ instructions were regarding Toby. They could be ordered to get rid of him at any moment. Toby needed to be rescued now. Right now. Murphy’s Law dictated that it be in broad daylight. Mr. Murphy always had his say.
But still, he didn’t anticipate too many difficulties.
SEALs trained and trained hard to maintain situational awareness at all times of the day and night but these jokers didn’t seem to be the sharpest tools in the drawer. They were essentially goofing off. Even two to one was no contest.
He made his way quickly down the street. It took him a minute studying his cell to realize what Emma had done. She’d traced a map of his trip according to the neighbors’ vidcams she’d disabled. As soon as he passed the field of vision of the cams, they’d turn back on. The homeowners would have to be staring straight at the monitors to realize they’d been turned off for a moment and, if anything, would write it off as a glitch.
Having Emma along on a mission was amazing. God. She should join ASI and work with Hope and Felicity at making the life of ASI operators better, safer. Yeah.
For a moment Raul stopped and listened to himself.
Oh God yes!Emma in Portland, working for ASI. Yes yes yes! He knew perfectly well that workplace romances were frowned on, but Hope and Luke and Felicity and Metal made it work. Mainly it worked because Hope and Felicity were so great.
Emma was great, too, just like them. Super smart without being obnoxious. And she was beautiful, there was that. But not beautiful in a high maintenance kind of way. Raul had dated a model once and it had been like dating an Irish setter. Lovely to look at but dumb as a rock, and very high maintenance. The instant he was out of bed, he wanted to escape. It wasn’t like that at all with Emma. As great as they were in bed, he loved being with her out of bed, too.
If she was in Portland, working for ASI, he could see herevery day.Man. ASI gave its new employees use of a studio apartment and his own house wasn’t far from the ASI place. He could see her every day after work, too. Sex and smarts. And she was nice. She cared enough about her colleague to be doing all of this. She was very good friends with two of the finest women he knew.
He needed to grab on fast.
She was a woman in a million. She was –
“Raul.” Her voice was in his ear. Was she telepathic? What the fuck? “Raul, you’re veering too far from the path I set. There are some peripheral cameras that could catch you.”
Fuck. He had on earbuds and she was telling him nicely to get his head out of his ass. “Copy that.” And he wrenched his mind away from Emma and on to the mission.
Not often he had to do that. He was intensely mission-oriented all the time. All SEALs were. Emma was messing with his head.
“You’re almost there,” she murmured. She must have been worried that he’d had an attack of idiocy.
He couldn’t let on that the team leader had had his head up his ass. So, he just repeated, “Copy that.”
He was about ready to ask for the drone to confirm that the outside guard hadn’t moved, when she flew the drone over the rooftop and down the side of the house, without moving into view of the terrace. The drone switched to IR and yep, Asshole 1 was still sitting in the lounge chair. He hadn’t moved except to get a bottle of something. The bottle was on the round table next to the lounge chair.
Raul hoped it was beer. No special operator he knew would evereverdrink alcohol while on a job.
But he didn’t underestimate taking the joker down. It had to be done fast and completely silently, without giving him a chance to sound the alarm. He scaled the stucco wall easily and dropped silently to the dead grass.
‘All war is deception.’ Sun Tzu. Who also said to ‘stomp the grass to scare the snake’.
“Emma, send the drone in fast toward the man’s face from his right.” Raul was on his left. He subvocalized into the mike, knowing the sound wouldn’t carry more than half a meter.
