"No problem, man," Axe said. "I'll be under a tarp that looks like just another roll of asphalt. I won't be visible unless someone steps on me."
"Good," Eddie said. "Send a confirmation key on the radio when you're in position and have a clear view of the layout. We want to hit the power at exactly 0300 hours while everyone is asleep. Manny, you and Diego will kill the generator first, then the power. Squid, you get the grapple on the second floor balcony and wait for Manny and Diego to catch up with you. You guys have the second floor to clear. Photo-lume the door as soon as it's cleared. Wait for us to sweep the first floor and meet up with you before we head up to the third floor. Axe, you've got the best view of what we assume are Aston's quarters. Once we kill background lighting, see if you spot any signatures on the infra-red scope."
"Roger," Axe said. Manny, Diego, and Squid nodded their agreement.
"Javi, I hope your blades are sharp," Eddie said. "Yours is the diciest. You're heading down the road from here, where the street lights are nonexistent. Once you turn the corner, you stick the guard and hit the latch to open the front gate."
"Si," Javi said.
"Hammer and Blaze, you're with me. Once Javi turns the corner, we're moving across the street from the alley here." He pointed to a spot on the map. "We go through the front door and clear it, then meet up with the second team to hit the third floor."
Eddie paused and looked up at everyone. "Questions or concerns, gentlemen," he said. "Speak now or forever hold your peace. We hit it at 0300. We need to be out by 0320, considering potential police response."
"There's a lot of kids inside," Diego said. "This Aston guy might use someone as a hostage."
"Need to make sure it's not Meia or her kid," Axe said.
"She's talked about Aston," Manny said. "You got any idea whether he'd be keeping her close to him?"
I shook my head. "He didn't exactly keep her on a leash back in Vegas," I said. "Not at his house, and from what I saw when I followed her, his guys tailed her pretty randomly."
Blaze shot me a look. I knew what he was thinking when he heard me say I'd followed her-that I was a fucking psycho or something. "On the other hand,” I said. “He's fucking obsessed with her, and probably pissed as shit she got one over on him and got together with me. He's probably keeping her close."
"Preference is, we bring Aston back alive," Eddie said.
"So we just need to take out the guards; extract Meia and her kid from a psychopathic human trafficker; avoid the attention of the Thai police; rescue thirty or so kids from their lives of slavery; and make sure a trafficking rescue organization gets to the kids before anyone else does. That about sums it up, right?" Axe grinned broadly.
"You got anything better to do on a Friday night?" Blaze asked.
"Fuck, no," Axe answered. "Let's do this shit."
I didn't know what time it was, but it was dark. The tiny slivers of light that had pushed their way through the metal shutters that covered the windows were gone now. Aston was gone as well, after he had groped me, violated me with his fingers, and threatened more, until a phone call interrupted him and he left.
He promised he would return.
This time, I would be ready.
He probably had someone watching a camera feed in my room, I knew that. So I needed to perform.
I gave a convincing performance of being ill, I thought, wiping sweat from my forehead, and moaning while clutching my stomach. The ceramic bowl was still on the end table, and I bent over it while I pretended to dry heave. I laid back on the bed for a while, before getting up to walk across the floor with the bowl, where I sat, my back against the wall, close to the door, my head in my hands.
The ceramic bowl was the only weapon I had in this room. I would wait and swing at him when he opened the door. It was the only thing I could think to do.
A suicide mission is what it is, I thought. But I forced the concern out of my head. I needed to fight. I would fight. If I didn't, I would be dead anyway. And so would Ben. At least this way I had a chance. Even if it was remote.
I moved along behind Eddie and Blaze. The alley across the front of the compound was only about forty feet away, and from our positions in the shadows we could see the outlines of the guards, their lit cigarettes clear as day in the darkness.
"Go," Eddie whispered, the command communicated through our earpieces.
On cue, Javi appeared around the corner. Before the guard was even aware of Javi's presence, Javi had inserted one of his knives into the guard's eye socket and was drawing the other across his throat. Then he disappeared from sight.
Eddie whispered to us. "On me, let's move."
A few seconds later, we were at the gate. Javi reappeared, the gate to the compound now retracted just enough to walk through. He wordlessly closed it, stepping behind me. We paused when Axe's voice came through our ear buds.