The Devil You Know

by Robert Swartwood

  The Devil You Know

  A Holly Lin Novel

  Robert Swartwood

  RMS Press

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  Details can be found at the end of The Devil You Know.

  The Holly Lin Series

  No Shelter

  Bullet Rain

  First Kill

  The Devil You Know

  Hollow Point

  For Norman and Rosemary Sargent

  Part One

  The Boogeyman

  One

  The guard is short and stout, almost pudgy. He walks his section of the perimeter carrying an AKM at the ready. He’s walked past this spot twice so far, taking his time, his focus mostly down at the beach. He pauses, straps the AKM to his shoulder, and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. He uses a match to light the cigarette, flicks his wrist to extinguish the match, then tosses the spent match aside. He takes a heavy drag off the cigarette, blowing the smoke out through his nose.

  I give him the pleasure of one final drag before slipping out of the shadows, a knife in hand. His back is to me, so he doesn’t see me, but he hears me at the last second. He turns, and I plunge the blade repeatedly into his chest.

  The cigarette falls from his hand. He tries to reach for his rifle, but by that point it’s useless. My blade has punctured his heart and lungs. Blood instantly stains his shirt. He issues his final breath. Not the noblest way of taking his life, but the quietest I could do under the circumstances.

  From the transmitter in my ear, Atticus says, “You have two more heading your way.”

  I whisper, “How long?”

  “Ten seconds. Fifteen if you’re lucky.”

  Right now four quadcopters are quietly buzzing in the air above me, each equipped with an infrared camera, monitoring the area, the feeds bouncing back to Atticus in the States while I’m here on the Mexican coast, twenty miles from Culiacán, on Ernesto Diaz’s compound. I’ve been in Mexico three days now, having done as much surveillance on the compound as could be done in that time. Ernesto Diaz is inside the house, with a bunch of guards. By now Ernesto knows his son is dead. He may not know this for certain—there’s no way Javier’s body has been found—but maybe a gut feeling a father has when his son disappears off the map.

  Despite the fact it’s the middle of the night, sunglasses are currently propped on my head. I check to make sure they’re secure and then sheath the knife and grab the guard with both hands, drag him back into the shadows where I’d been hiding. I try to do this as quickly as possible, but my broken rib is causing me pain. I also try to do this as quietly as possible, but the guard’s boots scraping against the ground sound like fireworks in my head. At least there’s the sound of the ocean not too far away to muffle the noise, the surf hitting the sand and rocks.

  I slip the man back into the shadows just as the two other men appear around the corner.

  In my ear, Atticus says, “The cigarette.”

  Shit.

  It’s maybe fifty feet away, the cherry still glowing. Maybe by the time the guards get close enough the cherry will be extinguished, but maybe not. I could easily take the guards out with one of my pistols—I have two SIG Sauer P320 TACOPS strapped to my belt, both of them equipped with sound suppressors—but I want to wait as long as possible before I alert the rest of the guards. Because based on what Atticus has seen from the quadcopters, there are at least fourteen in all, counting the guard I just killed. Ten monitoring the outside perimeter, the others inside the house, all heavily armed.

  One of the approaching guards whispers, “Hector, we know you have a fresh pack of cigarettes. Don’t hold out on us.”

  The two guards move into my line of sight. Both of them are carrying identical AKMs.

  I could easily take them out right now, but again, I don’t want to bring attention to myself. The pistols are silenced, but that doesn’t mean the shots would be entirely silent. This isn’t a movie. The shots would still make noise, enough that it might catch the attention of the other guards walking the perimeter. I’m going to have to start shooting at some point—there’s no way I’ll be able to do this without lead—but I want to wait as long as possible.

  My left hand touches the stick on my belt. It’s a foot long, black, and looks like a baton. But it’s not a baton.

  The same guard who whispered before whispers again.

  “Hector, mi amigo, where are you?”

  That’s when the other guard spots the fading cherry. He pauses, taps his counterpart on the arm, and points.

  Time to work.

  I unsheathe the blade again and throw the knife at the closest guard forty feet away. The blade slams into the guard’s back. He grunts, drops the AKM, reaches for the knife stuck between his shoulder blades as he starts to fall to his knees. By that point I’m sprinting forward, the other guard turning toward me and raising his rifle. I throw the baton at him. It strikes him in his throat, stunning him just long enough for me to reach them both.

  Swiping the baton off the ground, I use it to smash it against the side of the guard’s face, then twist the baton and pull it apart to reveal its other purpose. I step behind the guard and wrap the garrote wire around his throat. The man struggles, attempting to reach back at me, but the wire is sharp and tears into his skin. Blood squirts out, and in seconds the man stops struggling as the life fades from his body.

  The other guard, meanwhile, has stopped trying to extract the knife from his back. For the moment he ignores the AKM lying feet away, and even ignores the gun holstered to his belt. Instead, he reaches for something else clipped to his belt.

  His radio.

  In an instant, I calculate the distance between us. About twenty feet, but still more than enough space for him to access his radio before I make it over to him. And then what? Pull the knife from his back, slice him across the throat? Won’t matter how I kill him, because by then he’ll have already used the radio. Maybe he won’t be able to alert the other guards to exactly what’s happened, but any slight warning is more than I can allow.

  I have no choice, I realize, and pull one of the pistols from my belt.

  I place a bullet in the back of his head.

  Despite the silencer, the single round shatters the night’s stillness.

  For a moment I don’t move, just stand there staring at the dead guard.

  Atticus says, “They’re coming for you.”

  “How many?”

  “All of them.”

  Two

  The Diaz compound sits on the top of a bluff overlooking the Pacific. A chain-link fence circles the compound, some trees and bushes lining spots of the fence. I can’t see the men hurrying in my direction, but I can hear them—the heavy pounding of their boots on the ground coming from both directions—and I start to take a step toward the shadows where I’d been hiding before, when I pause.

  Atticus says, “You’ve got less than ten seconds.”

  Ignoring him, I pull out the strip of firecrackers from my pocket—I’d purchased them from a kid selling fireworks on the street earlier today on a whim—and extract a lighter from my other pocket and prime the lighter as Atticus says, “Five seconds,” and then once the fuse lights, I fling the strip of firecrackers toward the end of the bluff, right toward the narrow trail I’d used to climb up here.

  I slip back into the shadows, right next to the first guard’s body, and I watch as the other men hurry into view. There are five of them. Each carries an AKM at the ready. They pause when they see the two bodies on the ground. They look up at each other but say nothing. One of them notices the divots in the dirt f
rom the dead guard’s boots. He starts to look toward me, but right then the firecrackers go off.

  All of the men turn and open fire at the end of the bluff. As they do, I step out of the shadows, the dead guard’s rifle in hand, and mow down the other guards, sweeping the barrel from left to right, right to left.

  Six seconds, that’s all it takes, and then all seven guards are down.

  Atticus says, “Three others still inside the fence.”

  “Where?”

  “Right by the entrance.”

  I toss the spent rifle aside and start running toward the entrance. As I run, I take a flashbang grenade off my belt, pull the pin, and toss it over the fence when I’m just ten yards from the open gate.

  On the other side of the fence, the flashbang grenade goes off. I hear one of the men shout something, and then there’s brief gunfire directed toward the explosion. By then I step around the corner, a gun in hand, and take out two of the guards who have their backs to me, two bullets each to the back of their heads, but where the fuck is the third?

  Someone shouts behind me, ordering me in Spanish to stop and drop my weapon.

  I start to turn.

  The man shouts again, telling me to drop my weapon.

  In my ear, Atticus says, “Give me a second.”

  I’m not sure what this means, and I’m not sure this guard will give me more than a second before he drops me.

  The man behind me shouts again in Spanish.

  “Drop the fucking gun.”

  It’s the last thing I want to do, but I let the SIG fall to the ground.

  I whisper, “Atticus?”

  In my ear: “Another second.”

  Behind me, the man says, “Where are the others?”

  I say nothing.

  “Puta, where are the others?”

  My hands held up at my sides, I slowly turn.

  The guard’s young, almost a kid. Just like the others, he carries an AKM, but it doesn’t waver in his hands.

  I answer in English.

  “Only me.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I just smile—and watch as one of the quadcopters takes a nosedive into the back of the guard’s head.

  He stumbles sideways.

  The distraction gives me only two seconds, but it’s enough time for me to pull the other pistol from my belt and place two bullets in the guard’s face.

  As the guard hits the ground, I do a sweep of the area for any other surprises.

  The compound sits one hundred yards away. Several pickup trucks and SUVs are parked beside it. The lights are on inside, but I can’t see any movement.

  Crouching to retrieve the dropped pistol, placing it back in its holster, I ask, “Anybody slip out the back?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What side am I looking for?”

  “The east side.”

  I start toward the house, moving on a diagonal to give me space. Almost every light is lit inside the house, and so far I haven’t seen any movement, which is disconcerting. Ernesto Diaz is here, isn’t he? From the limited surveillance I’ve been able to conduct the past few days, the answer is yes. I did take out ten of his men, but what if they were just decoys and the house is empty?

  “Atticus, those nifty little toys of yours can’t see the heat signatures inside the house, can they?”

  “I’m afraid they cannot.”

  I’ve reached the pickup trucks and SUVs and carefully weave my way through them, my gun at the ready in case anybody’s hiding inside one of the cabs. Underneath a few of the vehicles I leave surprises and then keep moving closer to the house.

  I spot the electrical box on the side right where Atticus said it would be. I leave another surprise and then swiftly move toward the front, keeping close to the house for cover. It’s been a full minute now since I entered the fence and nothing’s happened, and the stillness unsettles me. An alarm bell goes off in my head, but there’s nothing with which to associate it.

  At the edge of the house, I pause once again.

  Atticus says, “What’s wrong?”

  “Something doesn’t feel right.”

  “Do you want to abort?”

  “No.”

  “Then get to it.”

  I do one more sweep of the front yard before hurrying around to the porch steps. The door is already open, which sets off another alarm bell in my head.

  I step into the foyer.

  It’s what one might call a grand foyer. The ceiling two stories tall. The staircase split, moving up the side of each wall. A small chandelier hanging above my head. The house isn’t a mansion like you’d find back in the States, but it’s impressive enough for an area full of poverty and slums.

  I shout, “Knock, knock! Is anybody home?”

  Silence.

  At least for the first couple seconds, and then I hear footsteps behind me as four men appear from side rooms, then two men appear at the top of the stairs.

  The men don’t say anything, just glare, so I decide to break the ice, pointing at the sunglasses on my head.

  “I’m a tourist on vacation. I’m looking for the beach. Can anyone point me in the right direction?”

  Still silent, the men aim their guns at me.

  I whisper, “Atticus, now.”

  Somewhere in the States, Atticus presses a key on his keyboard, and outside, the surprise I attached to the electrical box—the quarter pound of plastic explosive—detonates. There’s a magnificent bang, and then the house goes dark.

  Party time.

  Three

  The sunglasses on my head are not actually sunglasses. They’re a kind of night vision goggles, designed to look like sunglasses, and once the lights go out, I drop to the floor and flick the glasses down on my face just as some of the guards open fire.

  They’re not entirely stupid, though; they know better than to shoot wildly in the dark. Fact is, it’s not totally dark because outside the sky is clear and the moon is bright, but it’ll take several seconds before their eyes start to adjust.

  I hit a button on the side of the glasses, and the world turns green. Now I can see just as clear as day.

  Only a few of the guards opened fire but quickly stopped, not wanting to shoot any of their friends. One of them shouts for someone to turn on a flashlight. I look back and forth, but it doesn’t appear any of them has a flashlight. Someone pulls out his cell phone, no doubt planning to use a flashlight app.

  I kill him first.

  Because of the silencer, there’s only a slight muzzle flash, barely even there, which doesn’t give the guards much to aim for. A few shoot randomly, but their shots are high.

  Okay, no more screwing around.

  I move toward the closest wall, right beside one of the guards, and shoot him in the head. Then I turn and take out three more guards—pop pop pop—before sprinting toward the other end of the foyer because the two guards up at the top of the stairs now open fire in my direction.

  They move down the stairs, slowly, taking their time as they wait for their eyes to adjust.

  I don’t give them the time—I take out the closest guard, two in the head, then hurry up the stairs as I fire across at the other guard.

  My bullet hits him in the shoulder, causing him to twist back and fall down the stairs. He’s still alive, though; he climbs to his feet, disoriented, looking around the foyer and shooting randomly.

  Now positioned at the top of the stairs, I place a bead on his head and pull the trigger.

  His head snaps back, and he falls dead to the ground.

  Satisfied all the guards are dead, I turn and walk straight into a wall of flesh.

  Stumbling back, I have a moment to take in the three-hundred-pound man standing in front of me. I remember seeing him the other day, trailing Ernesto, clearly the old man’s personal bodyguard. A massive guy, all muscle. His eyes haven’t adjusted quite yet to the dark, but still he manages to hit me when he swings his enormous fist.

  I fly into the wal
l. The SIG falls from my hand on impact. I pick myself back up, reach for the gun, but the giant lashes out with both hands, gripping different parts of my body, until one of his hands finds my neck. He throws me up against the wall. I kick and punch at him, but it does little good. With the night vision, I can see the frenzied look on his face, the pure menace in his eyes, as he starts to squeeze my throat. When I try to kick him in the balls, he swats at me with his other hand, slapping me across the face, causing the glasses to go flying.

  I can’t see in the dark now, but that’s okay. I still have one of the guns holstered to my belt. I try to reach for it but the giant seems to sense my intention. He grabs the gun himself, yanks it from the holster.

  Fuck this.

  Again I kick the giant in the balls, as hard as I can, and with my right fist I punch him in the throat. It doesn’t drop him, but it does stun him long enough for him to release his grip. I don’t have time to catch my breath as I struggle back to my feet and start kicking randomly in front of me, hoping that the tip of my boot connects with his face.

  The giant lets off several rounds of the silenced pistol, the shots going straight up toward the ceiling. I’m close enough to see the muzzle flashes—only feet away from my head—and I dive forward, grabbing the gun and wrestling it from the giant’s hand.

  He smacks me with his other hand, but I elbow him in the throat, again and again, until he stumbles back, coughing, and lets go of the gun.

  Taking possession of the SIG once more, I turn and press the silencer into the giant’s chest and squeeze the trigger repeatedly until the magazine is exhausted and the slide pops back.

  The giant falls to the floor. He doesn’t die right away—I can hear him gasping for air—but he will in the next minute or so.

  I drop the empty magazine, load a fresh one, and then turn toward where the glasses fell.