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“I hate the desert,” River muttered.
“Mm.” I opened up the back and grabbed my carbine from my gun case, and I hung it over my shoulder before adjusting it to the front of my vest. Two handguns, four combat knives, two smoke grenades, one actual grenade… “Can you peer over the ridge and give me a status update on approximate headcount? Turn on comms too.”
“Wilco.” He trailed up toward the top of the hill.
Focus.
I pressed the button on my earpiece. “RT2 online.”
“Roger,” Ramirez responded.
“RT1 online.” River’s voice filtered through as well, and Ramirez and I confirmed we heard him.
Deep breaths.
These past two weeks, we’d been shoved between states of utter carelessness, crippling devastation, blinding rage, and overwhelming fatigue so many times that not a single fiber of us was settled and content. We didn’t sleep okay, we didn’t eat properly, our brains were ticking time bombs, and, even physically, we were shit. River’s gunshot wound was healing too slowly because he couldn’t rest. My ability to concentrate came and went. My skin prickled uncomfortably, and I couldn’t stand still.
The restlessness was getting to me now.
We’d studied Gomez’s estate for three days, partly thanks to Willow’s drone photography and partly thanks to the blueprints we’d obtained. The house itself seemed to be sturdy and built to keep people safe, and we believed the massive windows were bullet-resistant. They also had heavy surveillance. Because of the number of windows, we’d been able to get good footage of all three floors, and there were plenty of cameras around, even indoors. But that’s where the security ended. The wall that surrounded the property was about four feet high—a toddler could jump it.
Even stupider was the fact that it was one of those “smart” homes. In other words, it’d taken Ramirez three hours to seize control of everything from the power to the alarm system.
“Party’s in full swing,” River reported. In the glow from the house on the other side of the hill, my brother was just a dark contrast squatting down close to the ground. “Thirteen people in the pool, mostly women. Roughly thirty heads on the patio—six guards. Ramirez, do you have eyes inside? I lose track at around thirty-five.”
“Checking the live feed,” he answered. “Round it up to fifty moving around on the first floor. Inside only. Your target is leaving the kitchen right now.”
“I see him,” River said. “He’s heading for the living room.”
“How many guns do you think we’re talking about?” I asked.
I was met by silence at first.
My brother might take longer to answer, but he was thorough. He studied everything. What the guests wore—what weapons could be hidden in their clothes. A person’s stance and how he or she observed their surroundings. The proximity to drugs. Who or what someone had to protect.
“I wanna say twenty handguns,” Ramirez surmised. “Your target has four guys with him—they might pack heavier heat.”
I waited for River’s verdict.
He cleared his throat quietly. “Twelve associates with security responsibilities—they’re armed. As Ramirez mentioned, four guards on Luiz. Definitely armed, but I don’t think they’re sharpshooters. They’re muscle. I’d rather take them on in a shootout than in a bar fight. Possibly seven guns on partygoers—that’s just a guess.”
His guesses tended to be spot-on, though.
“I need a moment alone with Reese,” River continued. “We’ll be back online in a minute.”
I frowned, confused, but switched off my comms for the moment.
River jogged back down the hill until he stopped in front of me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, hesitating.
I dimmed the glow of my headlight so I didn’t blind him.
“Remember our talk in Moscow?”
Fuck. Of course I did.
