“It’s them,” Jess hissed. “The men that attacked me in Rome.” It was unmistakable. The tall man had his arm in a sling, the same arm Jess had twisted. She hoped it was broken.
Walking through the front gate and down the sidewalk to a car, the men drove off.
“This is it,” Jess whispered. “This is our chance.”
She stood and limped to the couch inside the apartment. They kept the lights off. Grabbing a headlamp from the coffee table, she clicked it on and scribbled on a notepad.
Giovanni grabbed his clothes, and, hunched over, walked to the couch while he pulled his slacks and shirt on. “Now? We go now? I thought you said we should wait until after midnight?”
“This changes everything. Two of them just left, and I doubt he has more than two other men in there with him.” She pointed at her drawing on the notepad. “Your security guys say there is one large living room in the back, right?”
Giovanni nodded.
“And I bet there is a kitchen off that.” She scribbled again. “A bathroom somewhere in the middle, and two bedrooms off to one side. That right side room, the light hasn’t gone on since we saw them go in with Hector?”
Giovanni spoke into the walkie-talkie softly, asking a question. It crackled a response. “No, it hasn’t,” he confirmed.
“So I bet that’s where Hector is. Right now is our best chance. You and I go in through the front door, your two security men in through the rear. We get Hector while they surprise Enzo and his guys in the back.”
Nodding, Giovanni smoothed his pant legs. “Good, good, so we go?”
“We need a way to coordinate going in.” Jess looked at Giovanni. “Synchronize our watches or something?”
“Why don’t I just give them a signal on the walkie-talkie?”
Jess stared at him for a second. Yeah, that was a better idea. “Perfect.”
“So we go now?”
“The sooner, the better, while those guys are gone. Can you explain to your men?”
Nodding, Giovanni walked to the back of the apartment, next to the door. While he explained the plan over the walkie-talkie, Jess grabbed a bullet proof vest—a benefit of the Ruspoli armory—from the couch and secured it around her torso, gripping and pulling the Velcro tabs tight. Nomad might be coming tomorrow night, but this night she intended to live through. Giovanni walked back from the door, stooping to pick up his own vest.
“So we’re all set?” Jess grabbed the AK assault rifle.
“The guards are going around the back right now. When I give the signal, ‘Ora,’ they’ll crash the rear entrance.” He looked at Jess inspecting the AK as he secured the straps on his vest, then he picked up his Beretta from the table.
“Ora?” Jess grabbed another Beretta from the table and secured it in the small of her back. “What does that mean?”
Giovanni smiled at her. “Now, it means now.”
Jess followed him to the apartment’s door. They made their way down the interior stairs, and then out the back of the complex onto a street that faced a park. Palm trees, dimly lit by the crescent moon, swayed in the ocean breeze. A thick carpet of stars hung overhead. No shimmering lights. Jess smelled the oil of her rifle and the new plastic of the ballistic vest tight around her chest.
Tapping her shoulder, Giovanni nodded and they walked to the corner. She hid the rifle behind her back with one hand.
Holding hands, they walked across the street slowly like a couple on a stroll, until they reached the cover of the shrubs on the other side. They hugged the bushes and stopped at the gate of the house. Jess wanted to go first, but Giovanni had insisted that he lead.
She could have insisted that she go in first, but the truth was, she was scared.
Jess might have been in the Marines, but for all her bravado, while she’d technically been in ‘combat’, she’d never been in a firefight. For the first month of her rotation in Afghanistan, she was consigned inside the wire of Camp Rhino in Registan Desert, the first base that US troops established. It was on her very first mission, a low risk pickup of field reporters, that her Humvee had hit an IED. The blast destroyed the entire left side of the truck, and taken her left leg with it. She was sent home in pieces. In a life filled with half-finished business, she never even managed to finish a tour of duty with the Marines.
Her heart in her throat, Jess waited as Giovanni leaned forward to slide the gate open. They jogged to the front door, keeping low. Giovanni glanced at her, his hand holding the Beretta shaking.
“Take a deep breath,” Jess whispered as much to him as herself. “We go in, straight to the right. You get Hector, I’ll cover you.”
Crickets chirped in the silence. Nodding, Giovanni took a step back and held the walkie-talkie to his mouth. “ORA!” he said loudly, standing up straight.
He lifted one leg and crashed it into the door.
It barely budged.