No, can’t see any of them. Nearing tree. Let me know when you’re climbing.
Will do. Gino made his way toward the east and the tall tree where his target was. He circled around behind the tree, making certain that there was cover between him and the fire pit at all times. It wouldn’t do for one of the soldiers to spot him as he was coming up on his goal.
He crouched at the bottom of the tree, looking up. He could see where there were gouges in the bark where the soldier had climbed up. In position.
Let’s do it.
At Draden’s go-ahead, Gino began to ease his way up the tree. He had the strength to use just his upper body, but he didn’t want the trunk or branches to tremble as he moved upward. He couldn’t displace bark or crack a limb. Any of those things would give him away to the soldier watching the entrance to the property.
He was into the heavier branches now, but he couldn’t move fast and draw the eyes of the sentry. He kept his pace steady and made certain he was on the far side of the tree, away from the observant soldier and the one Draden was targeting. He finally came up behind his man. The soldier was stretched out along the branch, his rifle resting in the crook of two twisted limbs. He was using his night vision goggles, sweeping the area along the stream and the swamp behind it continuously in a grid pattern.
Gino waited a couple of heartbeats, looking along that swamp line as well. There wasn’t one indication that his team was right there, waiting for the signal to attack. It was difficult to kill Whitney’s soldiers. Sometimes they even wore mouth armor. The doctor had created an armor beneath the skin that kept bullets and knives from penetrating. The armor was made of a kind of spider’s silk, but it rendered the soldiers a little stiff. Whitney had tried to experiment on a couple of the women, but this was relatively new, and he still made mistakes. It was a measure of his lunacy that he now used the supersoldiers he knew wouldn’t last very long. They could move fast when necessary, but they didn’t have the kind of agility and quickness they needed for fast hand-to-hand combat.
What Gino was going for was stealth. His GhostWalker team wanted to wipe out the soldiers without anyone knowing they were even there. It would be interesting to see what Pascal and Blaise Comeaux would do when they came home to a killing ground, especially after Whitney had to have paid them a fortune to house his soldiers in secret. The two men had gone to a bar to drink, something they were known for. Whitney had probably left orders that the two men stay away from the bar, afraid of loose lips. The two brothers had played right into the GhostWalkers’ hands.
Gino crept up behind the sentry, his heart beating steadily. There was no adrenaline to deal with, not wild breathing. This was his world and he was damn good at it. The soldier moved, his arm going slowly down to pick up his water bottle. He raised it just as slowly to his mouth, tilting his head to drink. Gino’s knife sank deep, straight into the throat to slice left and right. He left the knife in him while he caught the water bottle before it fell. Holding the soldier’s body as the life drained out of it, he lowered the bottle back to the small box the sentry had set up next to his rifle.
It took minutes to station the body in the tree, laying him out, belly down along the branch, wedged in the crook, his hand on his rifle, so if anyone looked up at him with field glasses, they would see he appeared in position to shoot.
Clear to the east.
He moved to the far side of the tree, away from the sentry to the west. He leapt, landing in a crouch and stayed at the bottom, close to the root system, waiting for Draden’s report. It came a few minutes later.
Clear to the west.
Eyes on the last two soldiers? Wyatt asked.
Negative, Gino and Draden reported simultaneously.
There was a small silence while Wyatt debated. We’re moving toward you. Look around, see if you can spot them. They could be taking turns sleeping.
That made sense, but Gino was uneasy. He didn’t like the idea of two of the soldiers being absent. He knew Whitney’s new army could go without sleep, just as the GhostWalkers could, for several days if necessary. If they weren’t sleeping, where were they? Could they be watching the Fontenot home and if so, did they see the team leave? He doubted that or there would have been an ambush set up.
I don’t like this, Wyatt. If they aren’t here, and I don’t think they are, they have to be watching our women and children.
Joe and Ezekiel have a five-man team there as well as Cayenne, Pepper and Bellisia. Nonny is no slacker, and neither is your Zara. She charged that soldier with a shotgun and bare feet. Keep your mind in the game, Gino. Those two soldiers aren’t going to try to take her themselves.
Opportunity could just be as simple as chance. Zara could be alone on the front porch. He hadn’t told her to stay indoors. The women liked to sit on the porch when they couldn’t sleep. He doubted, with Wyatt and him gone, that neither Pepper nor Zara would be able to sleep. He should have been very precise in his orders. Instead, he’d fucked her. Okay, who was he kidding? It hadn’t felt like fucking. He knew exactly what he’d done. He’d worshipped her. Paid attention to every square inch of her body. Memorized her. Etched her into his brain for eternity. He’d taken her twice and then, just before he left, he kissed her. Over and over. God. That mouth of hers. He was as addicted to it as he was her body.
He watched Wyatt and the others move out of the trees and denser foliage to belly crawl to the stream. Insects continued droning loudly. Frogs kept up their chorus. That reminded Gino that some of Whitney’s soldiers did have some developed psychic abilities. They hadn’t failed testing because of their psychic gifts—they’d failed psychological testing.
He swept the area behind Wyatt, Malichai and Rubin. There was no movement. Now all three were in the path created by the trampled grass. Draden joined him and the two went back-to-back, Draden facing the fire pit and the four soldiers there. Gino kept his gaze moving restlessly, quartering their back-trail, making certain that the missing soldiers—or the Comeaux brothers—didn’t come up behind his team.
Wyatt took the field glasses and studied the four soldiers sitting around the fire pit. Clearly, they weren’t expecting to be attacked, all four were looking into the fire.
One yawned. He glanced toward his sleeping bag and then toward the house. It was a good distance away. Several trees separated the house from the soldiers’ camp. “Wish that woman would cook for us,” he said. “Rations suck.”
“Gotta agree with you there Tyler,” another said. “The smells coming from that house are amazing. I’m pretty sure there’s fresh baked bread.”
“You ever get near the Fontenot house, Tom, you’ll smell some great food cooking. That old lady has a rep around here. We ought to forget bringing Zara back and get that old woman. Get her to cook for us,” Tyler said.
There was a great deal of laughter over that. Gino didn’t like them even saying Zara’s name aloud. It was said with familiarity. They knew her. They knew the way the women were treated by Whitney and still they went along with everything he did.
“Whitney would despise Comeaux,” Tom said. “He’s a greedy little bastard and doesn’t have one ounce of patriotism. Not one.”
“Neither do you,” another soldier sneered good-naturedly.
Tom threw his hat at the soldier, hitting with deadly accuracy right across the flames. “I’m in it for the money. What are you in it for, Brax?”