“You’ll have to wait until we take out Reiner. We have plans in motion and hopefully we’ll take him out after your funeral.”
“My funeral?”
“Sorry, we have to fake your death. Reiner thinks Knight shot you, so we have to go through with the whole thing or he’ll get suspicious.”
“Okay. When are you going after him?”
My anger flared suddenly. “Don’t worry, I won’t make you stay a mother for too much longer.”
She turned red and glared at me. “I was going to ask you to be careful. I care about all of you and I don’t want to see anyone get hurt.” She got up and stomped over to the bathroom, making me feel like an ass. I was letting my emotions get in the way and there was work to do. I quickly got dressed and headed downstairs to take over. The time for living in the past was done. Now it was time to move on with my life and I couldn’t do that as long as Reiner was still alive.
✯✯✯✯✯
Two days later, we were sitting around making our final plans for our mission. Maggie’s “funeral” was tomorrow and we would be making our final contact with Knight the next day. Then the following day, we would be flying down to prepare for our mission. We needed to have everything planned as tightly as possible before we got there because Knight would most likely not have a way to contact us once he was inside Reiner’s compound in the Dominican Republic.
We had called back Team Five and Cash had sent in a team to replace them on their assignment. Craig Deveraux, Florrie Young, and Alec Wesley were now at the safe house with us and had eagerly joined our planning for the mission. Mostly we did security and personal protection, so it had been since our military days since we had planned anything this elaborate.
“Alright, once we get down there, Craig and Florrie, you’ll be in charge of wheels. Make sure you know our routes like the back of your hand. Knight has set us up with Mikhail Davidoff, who will take over Reiner’s operation once we’ve eliminated him. He’s providing us with vehicles, weapons, and any other supplies we need for this mission.”
Florrie and Craig nodded their agreement, so I moved on. “Jackson and Alec, you’ll be on surveillance in the van. We have several drones that you’ll be using for recon. You’ll be our eyes out there, so when we land, familiarize yourself with the equipment and get us all set up.”
“It’s a shame Becky can’t come with us. She’ll be pissed that she’s missing out on the drones,” Sinner said.
“Someone has to stay and run the house. Next, Chance, Gabe, Burg, and Sinner; you’re on recon. I want to know the lay of the property, guard changes, best routes in, and any other useful crap you get for me. The villa is on the beach, so you’ll have to recon who comes and goes from the sea.”
“Is Davidoff getting us a fishing boat for surveillance?” Burg asked. Lola smacked him upside the head. “What? It’s not like I was considering doing any fishing. I was just saying,” he shrugged. Lola rolled her eyes, obviously knowing her teammate a little too well.
“You will be doing surveillance on a boat, but you’ll be posing as wealthy tourists on a yacht.” Burg rubbed his hands together in excitement. “Just remember, you break it, you bought it.”
“Lola and Hunter will be on weapons. As soon as we get there, I want every weapon cleaned and tested. Since I’ve never met Mikhail Davidoff, we aren’t trusting him on anything. Every piece of equipment we use will be gone over with a fine tooth comb before it’s used.”
“Derek and I will be coordinating and planning. We have two full days of recon after that. The third night, we’ll make our final assessments and move out on day four. Our time of attack will be early morning, probably around four. We’ll see for sure what time their shift change is, but for now, we’ll plan for four.”
“Cap, who’s going to be at the house if we’re all gone?” Lola asked.
“Cash is sending in a team that Sinner worked with when he was out in California. They’ll be on protection detail while we’re gone. They’ll have an extraction plan in place should something go wrong either here or on our mission. Cash will be running point while we’re gone. Any questions?”
Everybody shook their heads. “Alright, as for tomorrow, I need six guys for carrying the coffin. Three will be staying here. Remember, we need to make this believable, so wear something nice and look sad. We don’t know if anyone will be watching.”
“You giving a eulogy, Cap?” Sinner asked with a raised brow.
“Yes,” I replied hesitantly. “It would look bad if I didn’t.”
I cleared my throat and slammed the folder shut. That was enough talk about funerals for one day. It was bad enough that I was going to have to pretend that she died for the day.
“What about after the funeral?”
“Aggie is hosting a farewell party for Maggie at her house. Remember that Harry and Aggie aren’t aware of what’s going on, so be sensitive to their grieving. Let’s get back to our posts.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sebastian
WE WERE IN the Dominican Republic preparing for our mission in the morning. Knight had set everything up with Mikhail Davidoff, so as long as we executed our plan without any issues, by midday, Davidoff would be taking over Reiner’s arms business. We were basically trading one bad guy for another, but this one was on our side and if it took the heat off us, I would make a deal with the devil himself. We were relying on Knight to do his part and take out Reiner and I prayed that we could trust him to do his part.
“Hunter, how sure are you that Knight isn’t setting us up?” I asked him off to the side before we went through our final plan.
“He’s solid. He would never do that to me.”
“You’re one hundred percent sure? Because we’re relying on Knight to not only take out Reiner, but also Davidoff to have our backs. If they double cross us, none of us will be going home to our families.”
Hunter looked around the room at our other team members and then spoke quietly so only I could hear. “How much do you know about Hud?”
“Uh, he went rogue and killed his superiors. It was suspected that they were dirty and benefiting from soldiers dying, but it couldn’t be proven. He was convicted of murder and was going to be sent to Leavenworth, but he escaped before he could be transported.”
Hunter nodded. “Do you remember when I first started working for you?” I nodded. “I took off a few weeks and I told you that I had a family emergency.”
I thought back and vaguely remembered that happening. “I vaguely remember that. What does that have to do with this?”
“The guys that were on the team with Knight and me,” he paused and gritted his teeth. “We were the ones that helped him escape before he could be sent to prison.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. That didn’t sound like the Hunter I knew. “Why did you help him escape?”
“Because he was right. His superiors were doing things that were getting soldiers killed. They were selling information for their own gain and good men died. I wasn’t about to let him go to prison for that. After we got him out, I made him promise never to contact me again. I didn’t want any of it coming back on me or the guys we served with.”
“How did you even pull that off?”
He grinned and slapped me on the back. “That’s a story for another time, Cap. The point is, he owes me and he would never go back on a debt like that.”
“Well, I gotta say, I almost wish I didn’t know that, but it does make me feel better about this mission.”
“I never meant to deceive you, Cap. It was just something I had to do.”
“I understand. Let’s get this meeting started.”
Hunter went and sat down around the table and I took up my position at the head of the table. “Alright, we need this to go as smoothly as possible if Knight is going to do his part and not get his ass shot off. Jackson and Alec, you’ll be in position at 0300. Make sure everything is as we expect. The rest of us will move into position at 03
30. At 0400, you’ll count us down. Burg, Sinner, Lola, and Hunter will take out the guards simultaneously.” I pointed on our sketched out map of the property, indicating where the guards would be positioned.
“Derek and I will go down the center to the house.” I pointed to the route we would take through the trees by the drive. “Lola and Hunter will flank us on the right while Burg and Sinner take the left.” I moved my finger to the sea exit and pointed to another position. “Chance and Gabe will be in position here and cut off the sea exit. Davidoff will be anchored offshore and awaiting our signal when the mission is complete. Chance, when I give the word, you send up the red flare.” They nodded and I moved on. “Jackson and Alec, you’ll be our eyes as we’re moving in, so you call out enemy positions as you see them. If we do this right, we shouldn’t meet much resistance. Craig and Florrie, you’ll be waiting in the vehicles. As soon as we’re all loaded, you get us to the airport and we get home. Chance and Gabe will be riding with Jackson and Alec in the surveillance van. Davidoff will have someone at the airport waiting for us. We drop the supplies with him and go. Any questions?”
A round of no’s filled the room. “Good. Let’s hit the rack. We move out at 0200.”
✯✯✯✯✯
As much as I knew I needed to get some sleep, I couldn’t shut my brain off. I wasn’t worried about the mission. The guys were solid and now that I knew about Hunter and Knight, I had no worries about being double crossed. What was weighing so heavily on my mind was Maggie. The last few days at the house together were filled with tension. We avoided each other as much as possible and I took the night shift whenever I could so that I could sleep during the day while Maggie was up. The house was filled to capacity, so there was nowhere else for me to stay.
I had ended things badly with Maggie, throwing it in her face that she was aborting our child. I wanted to support her decision, but it felt like I was the one killing our baby. I was a defender by nature and that part of me wondered how I could allow her to do this to us. Maggie knew who she was, though and apparently that wasn’t a mother. I talked with Becky a little bit one night and told her how it felt so wrong to let Maggie do this. I expected a woman’s rights argument from her, but instead she just said, “Not every woman wants a child. Some are meant to be mothers and some are meant to have dogs.” I supposed she was right.
As a man, I guess I expected that every woman would want kids someday. It was a part of life. It had never occurred to me that some women just weren’t cut out for diapers and breastfeeding.
Maggie and I both knew this was the end of the line for us. I would never be able to get past what she was about to do and she would never be able to look at me without seeing the pain in my eyes.
“Trouble sleeping, Cap?” Derek asked as he sat down next to me on the couch.
“Yeah. I’ve got a lot of shit on my mind.”
“Don’t worry about the mission. We’ve got this.”
“It’s not the mission.”
“So, Maggie then.”
I nodded. “When we get home..” I didn’t need to finish my thought. Everyone in the house pretty much knew what would happen when this mission was over. Between Hunter, Lola, and Derek overhearing Maggie discuss it with Aggie and Sinner hearing about it in the car, there really weren’t that many people left that didn’t know. Everyone else pretty much guessed what was going on or the rumor mill had spread to the others. Becky was not the best at keeping secrets.
“I’m sorry, Cap. You know, I gotta tell you, I always got the feeling she wasn’t totally in it with you. I never said anything because I hoped it would change, but then she left and proved it.”
“We didn’t just break up because of her.”
“No, but we could all see it.”
“I think Sinner would take a different stance on that one.”
He laughed a little, “Well, Sinner and Maggie are like brother and sister. You don’t always see the flaws in your family. I’m guessing that Sinner saw it, he just didn’t want to get involved, or maybe he thought she would change.”
“How did I not see it, though?”
“You did, Cap. Otherwise, you would have asked her a long time ago to marry you. You told me you were thinking about it. There’s a reason you never did it.”
“I just keep wondering if I had asked her, maybe this would have turned out differently.”
“You mean she would have magically gotten over her issues and would have decided she wanted a kid? Not likely. People don’t change unless they want to. Maggie did one smart thing, she left to figure out what the hell was wrong with her. It didn’t turn out so well for you, but can you imagine if you two were married and she decided to leave? You caught a break, man.”
“You’re kind of cynical, you know?”
“I’m not cynical. I just see things in black and white. There’s no gray area. Like this mission, it’s not maybe right or wrong. It’s kill or be killed. You have to decide what you can live with in life. I can live with trading one arms dealer for another if it means we’ll live to fight another day.”
“Lord help the woman that snags you. You realize that women don’t see things that way, right? Women are full of gray areas and every other color of the rainbow.”
“That’s why I don’t get attached. There’s no point in it. I like my life the way it is and I don’t need a woman trying to color my world with her crazy ways.”
“I might have agreed with you at one time, but I gotta tell you, even with everything Maggie and I went through, I wouldn’t trade it for what I had before her.”
“Seriously?”
I nodded, staring off into space. “Maggie was life for me. She was what made me wake up in the morning and look forward to my day. I always wondered what crazy thing she would do next that would drive me up the wall.”
“And you’re going to miss that?” he asked incredulously.
“When you find a woman that has that much drive and that much spirit, it’s hard to go on with life knowing it won’t be there for you anymore. I know we have our differences and it would never work out the way things are, but..there’s this ache in my chest that won’t go away. Knowing that I have to let her go is killing me.”
✯✯✯✯✯
“On my mark. Three-two-one-mark.” The sound of suppressed shots came through my earpiece. Alec was calling the shots through the camera feed on the drones. “All clear, move out.”
Derek and I worked our way through the trees along the driveway. He was on one side and I was on the other. So far, we hadn’t encountered anyone else, but we weren’t expecting a whole lot of resistance until we got further in. There were patrols around the perimeter of the tree line. It was basically open after that and would be harder to go undetected. Once we reached the tree line, we would be waiting for Knight’s signal that he had taken out Reiner.
“Cap, ten guards posted around the tree line,” Alec said.
“Copy that.”
We continued to the tree line, stepping silently over fallen branches and maneuvering around the underbrush. The guards were on a rotation, never staying in one spot more than a minute before moving on to the next location.
“Wait for Knight’s signal,” I said into the mic. The gear was hot as hell even at four in the morning. We were all wearing head to toe black combat gear with face paint. The tactical vests were heavy but necessary, as were the helmets that had night vision goggles. We each carried a suppressed MP-5, a Smith and Wesson MP40, and an FN 5-7 plus one or two knives. That plus all the ammo needed for those guns added to the bulk of the combat gear, making the already warm weather unpleasant. At least it was early morning and not the middle of the day.
We waited for close to ten minutes and I was about to tell everyone to finish taking out the guards when Knight appeared at the window and gave the signal that Reiner was dead. The problem for him was that he still had to make it out of the house. He didn’t have any weapons on him and he only had the clothes on his
back, which, thank God were always black. At least he had that going for him.
“Move out.” I said into my mic. I moved into position and took out the two nearest guards with a single shot to the head. I saw the other guards fall around the perimeter and then gave the signal to move forward. The house lights flicked on and yelling could be heard from out here.
“Alec, any visual on Knight,” I asked as we crossed the distance to the house.
“Negative.”
Guards started pouring out of the house, firing blindly into the dark.
“Take cover,” I shouted into my mic over the sound of bullets pinging off random objects. “Hunter and Burg, draw fire. Derek and I will move in.”
“Ten-four, Cap,” Burg said. Fire came from the left and right, drawing the guards further to the sides of the house. Derek and I moved forward, hiding behind trees and benches in the gardens to get to the front door. When I had a shot, I took out as many guards as I could without drawing the attention of the others. Our main objective was getting to the house and getting Knight out. Whatever guards were left would be up to Davidoff to deal with.
Derek and I made our move, running for the front door, firing at the guards who were turning back toward us. I was just about to the house when Knight came flying out the front door, rolling on the ground as a hail of bullets flew by him. Derek and I fired at the guards that had been chasing him and Derek threw his Smith and Wesson to him.
“We’ve got Knight. Time to move out.”
“Cap, you’ve got incoming from the back of the house. Move your asses,” Alec said.
“Chance, flares up. How’s it looking at your end?”
“We’re bugging out. See you back at the airport.”
The guards were dwindling, but if there were more on the way, we needed to get out now.
Cap_A Reed Security Romance Page 15
