“Cameras?” Briggs asks later when I brief him over the phone.
“Nothing that records. He doesn’t want anything he does there caught on film,” I explain. “There’s a live feed monitor only. I hacked into the wiring down the block to give you access. I also got a motion sensor so you can tap into the back stairwell to give me some extra eyes. It’s connected to the kitchen, which is poorly understaffed and used to deliver Miguel’s meals to his office, which is adjacent to his bedroom. The security is a joke.”
“What time are you going in?”
“Zero one hundred hours.”
“What’s your entrance strategy?”
“I already disabled the security for an overlooked window leading into the basement. The entire place has got great shrub coverage. The basement contains a storage pantry that leads into the kitchen—and thus the stairwell.”
“Exit?”
“Back the way I came while the guards are distracted with a dumpster explosion on the opposite side of the house,” I say. “I even programmed a few other complications for them, just in case things start going south.”
“Sounds good.”
After we synchronize our watches, I get in a three hour power-recharge sleep. I wake up before the alarm—my body is trained to do so—and recheck my gear.
I position my plates and carrier vest—standard Navy SEAL issued. I think about the man I loved as a father every time I do it.
“These plates can stop up to three AK-47 rounds,” he’d remind me every outing. “You are to always wear it, Ryder—don’t you dare go off slick—capish?”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
“Good. Because I don’t want to have to be the one to tell your mother you were killed because you were going without it.”
Of course, I met my “mother” and Chief at the tender age of nine years old. Chief called her my mama, but I called her by her name, Betty, for a long time. Too long.
“What else is imperative, son?” he’d ask.
It’s so goddamn ingrained that I still pack my carrier and equipment, as if he were still right here beside me. Night vision goggles for night assault tactics—US SEAL issued. I check my Heckler & Koch M-4 assault rifle with suppressor and extra magazines and strap two Glocks into separate holsters. I’ve also got several smoke grenades, light canisters, my Winkler fixed blades, breaching charges, in case I’m put into a tough spot, tool box and lock picks, tourniquets and flashlights.
“The only easy day was yesterday, Ryder.” I may be the only one left speaking the SEAL motto out loud, but it’s all Chief.
I’m the last one alive.
Parking the Jag a mile from the target, I grab my equipment and take off on foot.
Through binoculars, I watch and wait as the middle rotating guard, who goes between the steel fencing and the stone wall, makes his lonely round with Cujo, the drooling canine, by his side.
Once past, I unearth the bolt cutters I left by the fence yesterday, hidden underneath a piece of fake green turf and tucked up into a small mounded decoy hill.
I snip myself a nice sized hole at the base of the fence, reposition the cutters back beneath the turf, crawl through and situate it so Cujo’s handler will be none the wiser.
My thumb taps the stopwatch on my SEAL dive watch. Ten minutes in and out.
“Talk to me, Briggs.” I barely breathe it. It’ll be the last thing I say through the communication device. But for all intents and purposes, Briggs will be my set of eyes in the building.
“You’re really blended, I can’t even detect your movement on the cam,” Briggs marvels. “But just in case, I’m disabling the live feed with a still shot. While I’m at it . . . there. All other monitor angles are frozen as well. You’re a ghost.”
Briggs and I have been doing this for years. He’s a great asset and friend, and we have our routine running smooth as clockwork.
I stay low on my belly over the stone wall and keep close to the ground as I glide, almost invisible, across the compound.
“Freeze,” Briggs says, and I do. “The guard is making his next pass. Just hold tight.”
I’m concealed within a cluster of banana palms and positioned enough upwind that Cujo won’t catch my scent.
Once they round the corner of the home, Briggs squawks, “Carry on.”
The window pops open with ease after my earlier tampering and I crawl through quickly.
The utility room is dark, but the night vision goggles keep everything illuminated. I reach the door and listen carefully before proceeding forward. There’s no monitoring equipment on the lowest level, so Briggs is out of the game, and I have only my eyes and ears to depend on.
Following the concrete hallway, Glock in hand, I head to the back stairs, which will lead me to the kitchen, when I hear a sound that stops me cold.
A frantic clanging of chains is accompanied by a woman’s high pitched screams, infused with panic.
“DON’T TOUCH ME!” she yells.