AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Are you there?” I ask.
“Troy?”
“Hello?”
“Hang on,” says Moore. “I’ll be right there.”
I wait for him behind the thick shrubs lining the mansion. He steps outside with his gun and flashlight in hand, smart enough to be suspicious. I guess they’ve been briefed that an attack could occur; otherwise, Timo and Lincoln wouldn’t be hiding.
Moore gets half a second of warning when my feet squish in the dewy grass, but by then it’s too late. I drive my knife into his back, piercing his heart. He collapses at my feet. Quick and quiet. I take his badge and head into the security office.
Six screens show rooms from around the mansion on a rotation. Several of them show my men marching down the halls and carrying out their orders: secure Timo, Lincoln and their families. Guards are fair game, but the civilians are not to be harmed. They’ll go room-by-room for now, subduing silently everyone they can with gags, zip-ties and tasers, if necessary.
I hear a series of thumps — gunshots muffled by the suppressors.
“Moore, I’m hearing something strange,” a voice calls in through the office’s intercom. “Are you hearing this? I think we’re under-”
More thumps. My teams have breached.
An alarm sounds out, and red alerts appear on the office’s monitoring systems.
“Emergency! This is not a drill! Emergency!” calls out a recorded voice.
Well, everyone’s awake now.
“Head them off,” I order. “Stop them before they reach the exits and the panic room.”
“Understood,” Eyal replies.
Adrenaline hits me as I catch a reflection in one of the monitors: movement, behind me. I swing around in time to take the gunshot in my jacket. Air rushes from my lungs, and I fall to the floor.
Whoever fired on me makes a huge mistake, stepping toward me instead of emptying the magazine. I roll toward the legs standing above me, knocking over my assailant.
Finding a second wind, I jam an elbow into the man’s face, kick the gun away and rise to my feet.
It’s Timo Thor. His nose bleeds as he gasps on the floor.
“Primary target acquired,” I say into my com.
I turn him over and bind his wrists.
“Please,” he groans. “I can pay you whatever you want. Whoever hired you, they’re not richer than me.”
“I don’t want your money,” I say, lifting him to his feet. “You have something much more valuable.”
—
Eyal intercepts Lincoln Waterston at the panic room. Stanislaw finds their wives in the jacuzzi drunk on rosé, listening to Shania Twain so loud they never heard the gunshots. Henrik locates Chris Waterston in Astrid Thor’s room, snorting lines of cocaine off her bare breasts.
“There’s more powder in here than a Cancún hotel during spring break,” he laughs as his team subdues the Masters’ coked-out adult children.
With the ranch secured, two members of our strike teams lead the wives and kids to the mission van parked on the north side. They’ll be driven to our jet and taken back to the compound. It’s not the first time I’ve taken captives before; at least today it’s for a good cause.
Timo and Lincoln, however, we keep here in the panic room. Stripped down to their boxer shorts and bound to chairs, they’re not going anywhere, but Henrik and Stanislaw’s keep watch over them until Eyal and I are ready.
“Please don’t kill us,” says Timo. “Whatever this is, we can figure it out.”
“You’re wasting your breath,” Lincoln sighs. “We knew Anton was going to kill us.”
