“Seventeen?”
“It’s fine. We’ll have to man the weapons though.”
“What are you two talking about?” Kinimaka asked.
“Don’t worry,” Luther smiled. “Just call it exfil sorted.”
“I do worry,” Hayden said.
“There’s an army base in San Diego. If I shout loud enough, and call in every favor, I can get us a big bird.”
Mai pushed her way in. “The tunnels,” she said. “Where do they begin?”
Karin pointed to a range of hills about two miles from Ruiz’s mansion. It was clear that they were to the northeast of the house’s position, closer to the American border. Interestingly, Ruiz thought his best escape route was closer to his apparent enemy and attacker.
“We can chopper in a few miles north,” Karin said. “That’s plenty far enough from the house.”
“So we’re ready?” Dallas asked.
Kenzie nodded. “You sound excited?”
“I still have something to prove.”
Drake was reminded that they hadn’t properly screened this guy yet. Once they split up after the Devil’s Island mission all thoughts of work had purposely been put on hold. It had been rest and recuperation, sand, sex and cocktails. Not in that order or frequency.
Weirdly, he was glad to be right here, right now. Back in the field.
“You know,” he said aloud. “I’m not sure I could take another three-month layoff.”
Almost everyone smiled and nodded in agreement. Molokai made a point of tapping Hayden on the shoulder. “Take more jobs,” he said. “It doesn’t matter too much what they are. We’re capable of anything.”
Drake noted the only ones not in full agreement were the new couples. Mai and Luther. Karin and Dino. Even Hayden and Kinimaka looked dubious.
“We should probably shelve this for another day,” he said. “Tool up and head out.”
“When my kids leave,” Dahl said. “I will probably have to take a few jobs.”
Drake paused, halfway across the room. He looked back at the Swede and saw an unguarded anguish in his face. “I’ll go with you,” he said.
“And me,” Alicia added.
Dahl smiled at her. “You still running for that horizon?”
“Only when I have to or when my friends need me to.”
Mai had always been loyal to the team. “Just call me,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
Hayden grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. “I’m positive there will be something, even if we have to force it.”
“Force it?” Dahl wondered.
“I’ll get us something,” she said.
Everyone agreed. Kinimaka drifted closer to the big Swede, almost as if he felt the need to protect him in that moment as he often did Hayden. Luther said he’d go anywhere with Mai, which raised several eyebrows, including Molokai’s.
For a moment Drake thought he’d seen a rare flash of amusement on the robed man’s face.
Kenzie rose and walked over to Dahl, staring him right in the eyes. All movement in the room stopped.
“Whatever happened before doesn’t matter,” she said. “When you need me . . .”
She let it hang. Drake wondered at her choice of words. When? Not if?
Finally, Dahl nodded at them and turned away, finishing his preparations. Drake reflected over all that had happened during the last three months. The Caribbean getaway, the awkward reintroduction to civilian life. The first vacation week had been spent scanning for enemies, wondering if the waiters were spiking drinks or carrying hidden firearms. A quiet, peaceful ambiance just didn’t suit him.
Or Alicia.
“I’m happy with the new team and writing our own ticket,” he said. “But I agree, we shouldn’t wait three months next time for some action.”
Alicia nodded firmly. “God, yeah. Drake’s more boring than a priest at a hooker convention.”
He turned hurt eyes on her. “Well, thanks, love.”
“Do you think they have those?” Kinimaka asked without thinking. “Hooker conventions?”
Hayden stopped and turned to him. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason. Just wondering.” Kinimaka turned away to hide a grin at his own foolishness.
Drake stopped at the door, turned and looked over the large crew, ready to go out and do war, to risk their lives for no reward. The eggs were simply art and the One Percenters were criminals. It was a rare, selfless group he worked with.
“I missed you guys,” he said.
They headed out the door.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
They were utterly silent; predators in the night, creeping toward their prey. Blackness shrouded them like a cloak, as if welcoming their presence. Despite their gear, the amount of weaponry they carried, they were ghosts.
Drake slipped night-vision goggles over his eyes, and approached the range of hills in which the tunnel entrance lay. They’d pinpointed it by satellite and were now closing in on the precise location on foot. Comms were active.
“Two guards,” Drake whispered. “Waiting five as agreed. Checking for radios.”
The cartel had owned this area for a long time. They didn’t expect unannounced visitors. The guards were just a token presence, possibly even sent out here as some kind of punishment, to do a job that didn’t really need doing.
“Looks clear,” Karin said. “I’m detecting no radio frequencies.”
They’d brought a good array of up-to-date tech with them.
Drake started to move. Dahl rushed past him, silenced MP5 submachine gun at the ready. He’d finally gone for compact and lightweight, but retained the ability to do damage at close or far range. The MP5 was incredibly versatile. Luther was a step behind the Swede. Drake let them go. Dahl crept up on the blind side of the two guards, lined them up and fired four times.
Drake saw two figures roll lifelessly down the slope.
Luther was covering, just in case Dahl missed a shot. Now, he eased out of hiding and crept over to the spot the two men had been guarding.
“Clear,” he reported through the comms.
Drake came around to take a look. Barely discernible in the dark was a ragged entrance cut into the hillside. It was sealed by a wooden door, overhung with greenery and surrounded by rocks.
“It’s a good job we had the human markers,” Mai said. “We’d never have found it.”
Drake smiled. It was curious to see what great planning and good luck threw back at you. Kinimaka and Hayden tugged at the door. They weren’t surprised to see it open easily and smoothly.
“Escape route,” Karin said by way of explanation. “Not to be neglected.”
They entered the tunnel slowly, using their night-vision at first, but then breaking out the flashlights. It was totally dark down here. Drake shone his flashlight around, picking out earthy, shored-up tunnels, an uneven, rock-strewn floor and a string of lights attached to the roof above. It was definitely makeshift, but it would work.
“I wonder how they’d finish their getaway,” Kinimaka asked. “Once outside, I mean.”
“Same way we are,” Luther said. “In style.”
Drake recalled they still didn’t know Luther’s exact plan, but he trusted the man. If his support in battle wasn’t enough, Mai’s faith certainly was.
The tunnel stretched ahead, dark and straight and getting gradually deeper. Karin had a device that counted the steps and monitored how close to their goal they were getting. Luther and Dahl ranged ahead at first, checking for guards that weren’t expected, then swopped with Dallas and Dino, the two relative newcomers eager to take the lead.
“Buckle up now,” Karin said. “We’re approaching the tunnel’s end.”
Drake eased the tension out of his shoulders. A few minutes later they came up against a second door, this one locked from the other side.
Alicia swore. “I didn’t expect that. Did we expect that?”
Karin nodded. “I did.”
Quickly
, she mixed two small vials of chemicals and poured the resulting substance on the door handle. The hard metal melted within two minutes and began to pour down the door. Kinimaka found he could just nudge the wooden panel.
“Ready,” he said.
It opened inward. Drake went third, finding himself inside another tunnel, this one far better constructed. It had a high ceiling and proper rafters, sturdy supports with iron braces and a concrete floor. It was well-lit too.
Drake checked for cameras. “Clear.”
It was a short way to the next door. Karin stopped them for a moment.
“Past here, we’re in the wine cellar. Beyond that are the underground cells, we believe. There are four prisoners that we definitely know about. And there are the eggs.”
“Let’s get it done.” Dahl pushed at the door, which was locked, and waited for Karin to do her thing with the chemicals. The door opened inward. Drake was treated to the sight of hundreds of dusty wooden shelves to each side, filled with bottles of wine. The first aisle stretched for about thirty feet.
Dahl went first. Drake followed. They progressed silently down the first aisle, senses attuned. They were underneath the main house now which, they guessed, was guarded by roughly one hundred men. Drake reached the end of the aisle and looked left. He could see the far side of the wine cellar and an arched opening that led to the cells. Staring hard, he could make out several sets of bars.
“Looks like we were right.”
From behind there came a clink. Drake, and everyone behind him, looked back, weapons raised.
Kinimaka was pulling two bottles off the shelves. When he looked up he started, seeing he was under scrutiny. He shrugged. “Hey, it doesn’t matter if you’re visiting the cartel’s cellar or the Queen of England’s. If there’s good bottles of wine down there you make sure they’re in your backpack when you leave.”
Kenzie nodded her agreement. “That’s a good point.” She thrust a couple of the dusty bottles into her own pack.
Drake gestured unhappily. “Are we ready now?”
“Just waiting for you.”
Drake took the long walk to the far side of the wine cellar alone, checking every aisle. When he reached the archway, he stopped and checked inside.
“Guard room,” he said. “They’re playing cards. I see four.”
“Cells?” Hayden asked.
“Yeah, at least a dozen. Can’t see any occupants.”
He waited, allowing the tension to seep out of his body. The rest of the team joined him. The guard room was to the right and the door was wide open.
They moved, Drake and Dahl first. The walls, ceiling and floor were all hewn out of rock. Their footsteps were silent. Luther and Molokai backed them up whilst the others waited, not wanting to venture further inside in case an inmate shouted out.
Drake fired, shooting one man through the head and chest. Dahl did the same. They ran inside the room. A third man was reaching for a gun that was propped up against the table leg. Drake shot him twice in the back of the head and neck. The last man managed to lift his handgun off the table and raise it before Dahl ended his life.
Drake checked the rest of the room. It was small, consisting of a refrigerator, a bar for bottles of liquor and a coffee maker and a bin. The dead men stared back at him in their various positions of repose, seeing nothing. He turned and walked out.
“Go,” he said through the comms.
Hayden led the others through the cell cave. Six stood to either side, thick metal bars running floor to ceiling. They took them two at a time, training their guns through the bars. Once they reached the end they turned back around.
“Five people,” Hayden said.
Shouts were already coming from the cells. Drake saw Cara’s blond hair appear, her hands gripping the bars. He saw Jax and two more figures. Two voices were loud, but the others were hushed. They’d already suffered down here.
Drake stuck to the plan. They didn’t have a lot of time to waste, but hadn’t been spotted yet, so weren’t under too much pressure.
Hayden supervised the opening of doors. The remaining four members of the One Percenters and another woman walked or stumbled out, looking wary. Hayden wasted no time telling them what was going to happen.
“You’re not free and you’re definitely not safe. Thanks to you guys we now have to go upstairs and retrieve those eggs you stole. You’ll wait here, under guard, until we get back. Understood?”
Dallas and Dino stepped forward, one guard each for two One Percenters, with guns aimed to show they meant what they said.
“No bullshit. No escape attempts. You keep it down or we leave you here. Got it?”
Cara nodded for all of them, seeking Drake out with her eyes. “Thank you,” she said.
The Yorkshireman nodded. “Just stay calm. We won’t be long.”
“You . . . should . . . leave those fucking eggs behind,” Jax faltered, hanging on to one of the bars to keep himself upright. “Brought me nothing but trouble.”
The unknown woman ran at Jax, grabbing him under a shoulder and hefting him up. She was crying, sobbing. She brushed Jax’s face and tried to shore him up.
“I . . . I’m okay love,” he said.
“That’s it?” Dahl asked. “They kidnapped your wife?”
“Yeah, you would do the same.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
Cara scowled at the ground. “But you should have told us.”
Jax leaned on his wife’s shoulder. “You know I couldn’t. Kushner at least would have refused, and we couldn’t have pulled it off without him.”
Kushner didn’t protest. He was staring at the roof and the walls as if seeking a way out, ignoring proceedings.
Cara looked betrayed. “We would have found a way.”
“Quick question,” Hayden said. “Did you guys put any kind of tracker on the eggs? Anything to make it easier to find them.”
“I told you we should have,” Cara told Jax.
“No,” Jax said. “She’s right, but I couldn’t risk the cartel finding the tracker and using that as an excuse to hurt Bella.”
Dahl scratched an ear. “You really think they need an excuse? You think they were gonna let you go?”
“Not even close,” Cara said. “We were about to become their new puppets. They pull one string we rob a place in the US. They pull another we head to Eastern Europe. You understand?”
Drake nodded, disappointed but not shocked. It was then that Faye spoke up in a quiet, breathy voice. “I’m sorry,” she said to Jax. “But I did put a tracker in them. At least, in one of the boxes.”
Jax closed his eyes and shook his head, then glanced at Cara. “And you wonder why I didn’t tell anyone about Bella?”
“I helped make the boxes,” Faye said. “I inserted a small bug inside the machine-tooled foam we created to house the eggs according to online dimensions. The tracker’s so small you won’t spot it and had a redundancy of one day. It should have started working now.”
Karin conferred with Faye about the tracker’s frequency. Soon, she had a flashing green dot on her mobile tablet. “Got it.”
Drake stepped forward. “Hey, I’m happy for you guys to chat. Get your feelings out in the open. But these two will perforate you if you make any stupid moves, and you need to get him ready to move fast when we return.”
He nodded at Jax. Cara and Faye walked over to him. Dallas and Dino moved to cover them.
Drake pressed his comms. “Everyone else. Let’s go kick some cartel arse.”
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
They returned to the wine cellar, found a set of stairs and climbed them to the house’s ground floor. Faye’s flashing green dot told them the eggs and, presumably, the big iron safe or some kind of vault, were one floor up. Drake paused at the top of the stairs to give everyone time to make ready.
Then he pushed hard, and they were out. No more finesse or silence. They entered a kitchen, wide and spacious and mostly white. Three men s
tood inside. Drake opened fire, killing one that stood by a counter eating a sandwich. Luther wasted a second, catching him by the open fridge, tipping half a pint of milk down his throat.
The third was just too close.
He was right in front of Drake, shock stretching his features, but he wasn’t slow and drew a handgun in an instant. Drake leapt at him, driving him back to the wall. The gun discharged, the bullet passing under Drake’s shoulder and hitting the door jamb next to Dahl’s head. The Swede muttered a curse, moved to Drake and shot the guard through the temple.
Drake spun and exited the kitchen. Luther was ahead of him, followed by Hayden. They fired, catching two guards with three rounds. They entered a study, lined with bookcases and old paintings. An old desk stood to the left and a huge globe to the right. The room was empty. Luther ran through it, staying low. He followed a blinking map attached to a mini-tablet on his left wrist, heading for the nearest staircase. Drake checked to left and right. They exited the study and came to an expansive living room.
“Nine marks,” Luther muttered.
Drake ran fast, joining Luther and the others as they surged into the living room. Shots popped off, the sound muffled by the big silencers. The Mexicans fell backward, blood spraying the couch and the walls. Alicia and Mai came in fast, choosing other targets. One man dived headlong to the ground, pulling out a handgun as he went. He fired back, the shots flying wide. Another enemy returned fire, but he was in panic, the bullets riddling the roof eight feet above Drake’s head.
Strike Force One spread out, fanning through the room. Drake took out two men hiding behind the sofa, not sure how they thought it would protect them. They all ducked when several rounds of more purposeful fire came from the far side of the room. But this had to be a fluid op. They couldn’t afford to stop moving and get pinned down.
Mai threw her flash-bang grenade. It stunned the shooter, enabling Hayden and Kinimaka to rush him and end his life. The team pushed through a far door, into the house’s front lobby—a wide, high, white-painted vestibule, the space larger than many houses Drake had seen.
To their left, a wide staircase wound up to higher floors. On the right, a pair of wide front doors were partially open. Beside them, a row of glass windows looked out onto the expansive gardens. They could see the entire front lawn.
The Faberge Heist Page 18
