“Very demented.” He tipped her chin up and kissed her again. “I’m going to have to go. I’m on a timetable here, baby. I have to make that plane before it leaves.”
There was no winning this battle. She drew a long, deep breath and pressed closer to him. “How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know.” He kept her face tipped up to his, forcing her gaze to meet his. “Know I am coming back. Nothing will keep me away. I’ll get back to you, Zara, even if I have to break out of hell to do it.”
She wanted more than that reassurance. She wanted to know he’d come home still Gino, not some dark, twisted version of him. “All right, honey,” she whispered. “Just know I’m right here waiting for you.”
“Lie down for me. I’ve got seven minutes and I’m out of here.”
“How are you getting to the airstrip?”
“Helicopter. Trap has a couple of them. I can see we’re going to have to have our own plane and at least one chopper.”
He lifted her off his lap and back on the bed, his hands on her shoulders urging her to lie down. She did, but only because she knew nothing she said or did was going to stop him from getting on that chopper and she wasn’t going to send him off with her being a sobbing baby. She could wait until he was gone to do that.
? ? ?
The club Razor’s Edge was located in the red-light district of Shanghai. The GhostWalkers stayed away from the streets and alleys, moving instead on the rooftops. They used signs and fluttering wires to stay above the garish lights. The deeper they went into the streets lined with strip bars and clubs, the seedier the establishments.
They could have easily followed the dark-tinted windowed vehicles bringing elite clientele to the club. Too many, as far as Gino was concerned. They’d discussed going in as rich patrons, an easy enough thing to change faces and fingerprints, but they didn’t bother. They were there as hunters, and they didn’t need to blend in with their prey.
Flame, Wyatt’s sister-in-law, had sent them quite a file on Bolan Zhu. Between Jaimie, Lily, and Flame, they had gathered a tremendous amount of intelligence on him. All three were very good at hacking and they seemed to know where to get information. Bolan Zhu was born Bolan Allen Cheng. He was Cheng’s younger brother by nearly twelve years. He had been a sickly child and his father had hidden him away, embarrassed at having a son he didn’t deem good enough to share his blood.
To toughen his son up, he turned him over to sadistic teachers, men who taught him to fight. To condition his body. To use weapons. To become a weapon. He trained night and day, frequently yanked from his bed to go work. He was caned when he didn’t take down his opponents or if he made a sound when being punished. He grew strong enough for his father to claim him, but by that time, having a son he could use as an executioner that no one knew of was too good to pass up.
Zhu excelled in his service to his country, interrogating prisoners and keeping his men in top shape. They were the elite sent on impossible missions. He had his own army now, a private army of men loyal only to him, pulled from the ranks of the soldiers who had followed him. They traveled with him as a rule, and many of them were frequent visitors of the same club Zhu preferred. Like him, none were married. It was whispered even Cheng feared him and his army.
The GhostWalkers spread out, Ezekiel and Malichai taking the roof of the building to the left of the club. Mordichai and Trap took the roof to the right of their target. Gino, Rubin, Diego and Draden waited in the shadows, just outside the back entrance where bodies were brought out. Three bored guards smoked and paced, occasionally exchanging words. Clearly, they’d seen it all and weren’t in the least caring about what went on inside the building or how many were killed in a night.
Twice the largest of the three men nearly stepped on Gino’s hand where he lay in the ditch at the side of the building. Diego stood upright, pressed into the corner, blending in with the tawdry colors splashed on the siding. Rubin was above the door, lying prone on the roof, his eyes the only thing in sight. Draden, even Gino couldn’t spot. That was Draden, the male model who had graced so many elite magazines, a dangerous predator there in the darkness.
Two men on the roof. Both armed. They mean business. They aren’t like the guards you’re facing. These have to be two of Zhu’s men. Ezekiel reported in.
I’m looking at two roaming to the front of the building, Mordichai said.
Two roaming to the back, Trap said.
Zhu’s guards number twenty-five when he comes to this club. He likes his show of force and he gives some the privilege of participating in club activities, Ezekiel said. Count it down so we don’t miss any of them.
Cover us, Gino said.
Like a lizard, Rubin moved over the roof until he was looking down at the two guards in the front. The men paced back and forth, meeting briefly in the middle of the street, but not acknowledging each other. They continued walking part way down the road, turned and walked back, their pace unhurried, their semiautomatics very much in evidence and their eyes moving restlessly, scanning the entire block, roof to ground.
The problem was, it was too big of an area to cover for two men. They were good, but they had established a pattern and that allowed for movement. Rubin signaled to Diego, the soft moan of the wind, and Diego waited until the three guards had their backs to him and then he was gone, sliding into the night to get into position.
Gino had to take out the two men on the roof of the club without being seen or heard. Rubin and Diego would take care of the roving guards in the front of the club, and Draden and he would take out those to the rear. No one could move without the snipers on the roof gone first.
He rolled back to the darker shadows that took him to the side of the building between the club and the bar beside it. A man had a woman pinned against the building not more than five steps away from Gino when he entered that three-foot space. The two were going at it so hard, neither saw him as he climbed to the roof without a sound.
He was strong, unusually so, and he used only his hands, pulling himself up fast, not taking a chance his foot might scrape too loudly or push debris loose to fall on the couple doing their thing. He pulled his body up high enough to allow him to see the roof above the club. It was long and flat. The two guards went from one side to the other, and they were very systematic. He stayed still as the guard walked away from him. Had Gino wanted, he could have shot him, but this had to be silent work. He pulled himself all the way onto the roof.
He froze right over the thick railing, remaining very still. The other guard walked toward him in the same cross pattern the guards on the street maintained. Gino had to time it perfectly. He needed the first guard to keep his eyes forward, scanning the rooftops of the other building, while the one he stalked, coming at him, examined the left side. As the guard passed him, missing his prone figure by no more than two inches, Gino rose up, slammed his knife through the base of his skull, his hand over his mouth to muffle any sound. He caught the heavy weapon and lowered both man and gun to the roof.
He moved to his right, already having picked the darkest parts of the roof. He didn’t crawl, but walked fast, coming up behind the second guard. Something must have alerted the man because he began to turn his head to look over his shoulder. It was already far too late for him. Gino repeated the same kill, slamming his knife home, lowering man and weapon to the rooftop.
Eyes on roof taken out. That’s one and two, Gino reported.
It’s a go, Ezekiel gave the order.