Chapter 15 #2
“Which is why it’s so much fun to watch your old man spin at a thousand revolutions per second.” Con chuckled. “Okay, I’m finishing up the details on the extraction. Give Zane the timing, and I’ll get your exfil set in stone.”
“Thanks, I will.”
“Whatever it takes, Havoc.”
“As long as it takes,” Blake finished and tapped his ear. Con was a child in a man’s body. He was certain of it. But he had more important things to think about.
Blake left the affluent neighborhood behind and slipped into the city’s arteries with practiced ease.
The warm glow of Ilona Brzek’s home gave way to narrower streets, the cracked pavement damp from an earlier rain.
He drove the vehicle back to the alley parking lot, and left a wad of notes on the driver’s seat, and left.
He walked a mile to where he had left the car Guardian had provided and then drove out of town toward Zajac’s compound.
By the time he reached the wooded ridge overlooking the compound, the last light had drained from the sky. He crouched in the cover of brush, night-vision optics pressed to his eyes, and felt the difference immediately. The place hummed with activity.
Last time, the guards had been lax but attentive with two men at the front gate and one half-hearted patrol along the perimeter.
Now, there were twice as many. A black SUV sat idling just inside the gate, headlights off, but the soft glow of its dashboard confirmed someone waited inside.
Blake watched for two hours, observing everything.
The guard rotations had tightened, their paths deliberate and overlapping.
But there were patterns, and they were timed.
An advantage if he factored his infiltration correctly.
He noted that floodlights had been angled higher along the wall and that the floodlight now covered one small gap in the lighting that he’d noticed on the first visit. The entire place carried the sharpened edge of expectation.
Zajac was coming home.
Blake adjusted his position, cataloging each change.
He lowered the optics and let the night sounds settle into his awareness—the crunch of boots on gravel, the muted bark of an order in Hungarian, the faint smell of diesel mixing with damp and cold autumn air. The compound was shedding its lazy facade and pulling on its armor.
Blake’s jaw tightened. Zajac wasn’t inside yet. The preparations proved it. But soon, the target would arrive, and once he did, the compound would become a fortress.
He sat in the darkness below the ridgeline, the map spread across his lap, with the pale moonlight illuminating it just enough to see.
Everything now narrowed to a list he could check off and a series of contingencies he would ensure were accessible and feasible.
Zajac was the mission, and Zajac would not walk away from that compound.
Blake made the plan the way he always did. First, the facts. Then the angles. Then the worst-case scenarios and how to survive them.
His facts were simple. Zajac was expected in the compound in roughly forty-eight hours.
The compound had increased guard rotations.
A black SUV sat on constant watch. Dogs weren’t used but kenneled instead.
Were they only used in an emergency? He didn’t know, but he’d prepare for them anyway.
Januse Brzek was an employee, loyal and professional, not a conspirator.
If he could avoid killing the man, he would.
Next, he put his objectives in order. First, get inside the compound and confirm Zajac was present. Second, eliminate his target. Third, exfil to Elise and Rook, make sure they are safe, and get them out of the country.
So, for entry and approach, he needed some information. He tapped his ear and turned around, lifting to the crest of the grassy ridge where he’d been studying Zajac’s compound. “Do you have access to the power grid?”
Jewell chuckled. “Always. What do you need?”
“Shut it down for fifteen minutes.”
“Give me a sec.” Jewell’s fingers raced over her keyboard, and he listened to the rhythm as the tapping slowed, then sped up, and then slowed again. “And now,” Jewell said with one final click. Blake watched as the power failed and timed the startup of the generators.
“Seventeen seconds for the power,” Blake said. “Are you monitoring the cameras?”
“Yep. Twenty-three seconds for them to start coming back online.”
“Guards?” Zane asked.
“Held position.” He could see one of the gate guards standing halfway into the driveway, talking to the person in the SUV. “So, we need a distraction other than the power outage.”
“A delivery,” Jewell said. “The compound has been getting deliveries steadily for the last twenty-four hours. Their security footage is stored in the cloud for only twenty-four hours before it poofs.”
“That’s stupid and risky,” Blake muttered as he checked on each of the guards’ positions. None of them had moved.
“Yes, it is. And it won’t be uploaded when you’re active. The server for the security company he uses will have been hacked. Con’s going to take care of that. Also, he has the exfil pinned down. I saw the plan. It’s solid,” Jewell said as he heard typing in the background.
“Thanks for double-checking.” Blake narrowed his eyes. “There must be internal guards.”
“Or they don’t move unless he’s in residence,” Zane surmised.
“The guards live above the kitchen. Easy response from there to Zajac’s side of the house.”
“Would the interior guards move if it were just a power flux, not an outage?” Zane wondered out loud.
“I’d say no, but then again, I won’t be there right after the power goes out, so if they do check on him, he’d still be breathing.”
“Then we have a power flux and a delivery at the front gate at the same time. Distraction times two,” Zane said.
“That will work.” Blake shifted his focus and slid down the embankment. “The service entrance is on the side. There’s a hedgerow about twenty yards away. If I don’t get too close, I won’t be spotted.
“Seventeen seconds to clear the open area and pick the lock. How good are you with the pick?”
“Damn good,” Blake answered. “I’ll need a jammer and sleepy time jerky for the dogs, just in case.”
“I’ll send a series of jammers,” Jewell said. “They can be localized, and I can loop the camera system. We’ll let you know when to activate one, and I’ll send pictures of the camera’s views to you for your approach.”
“Copy.” He’d visualize the approach and exit at least a thousand times before he’d take one step. The more information, the better. “His schedule?”
“He has it blocked for the doctors until five. He has free time until nine thirty, at which time he has a meeting with, oh look at this … he’s meeting with the Budapesti Rend?r-f?kapitány and the Országos Rend?r-f?kapitány.”
“The national law enforcement chief and the Budapest Chief of Police,” Blake translated Jewell’s Hungarian. “You slaughtered that pronunciation, by the way.”
“Hey, you figured it out, and don’t pick on your elders.” Jewell tried to sound offended but didn’t quite cut it.
“Then we have a timeline.”
“We do?” Jewell’s confusion was apparent.
“I’ll go in fifteen minutes before his guests arrive.”
“That’ll be cutting it close.” Zane played devil’s advocate. “What if you’re delayed inside?”
“Then there will be three dead assholes instead of one.”
“Well, as long as one of them isn’t you.” Con’s voice came over the comms.
“Seriously, who let you in?” Blake studied the map of the compound.
“I was invited. Once, I think, anyway, I found something I thought you’d like to see.”
Jewell asked, “What’s that?”
“Why, thank you, Jewell, for asking. A water conduit system was installed at the turn of the century. It runs from the river four miles to the east to …”
“The compound,” Blake guessed.
“Bingo! Give that man a cigar. Big culverts, and they’re still in place and close by.”
“Exfil,” Zane said.
Blake nodded his head silently. He agreed that would be the perfect exfiltration plan.
Any way you cut it, there was a vast amount of open space circling the compound.
A few hedge rows that were probably built as windbreaks back at the turn of the century, which were now overgrown and tangled messes of branches, but if he had a straight shot, underground …
It could work. He’d check out the conduit as soon as humanly possible.
“Send it.” He wanted to see the plans and scout the locations.
“On its way.”
“Con?” Blake closed his eyes
“Yeah?”
“Thank you,” he said with a grimace.
“What? Oh my God. I’m going to have a heart attack. Someone call the doctor.” Con started gasping and coughing before it went silent.
Jewell chuckled. “I turned him off.”
“Thank God,” both he and Zane said at the same time.
Blake hated the man and kind of liked him at the same time, but damn, he was annoying. “I’ll check the conduit as soon as I get the plans.”
“Don’t let that be your only option.”
Blake gave a low laugh. A laugh that people told him sounded just like his father’s. “I’m not an idiot.”
“I know, but you are my nephew, so you’ll have to excuse the looks over your shoulder,” Zane replied.
“Appreciated and always welcome.” Blake started packing up his map and NVGs. “I’m going to review the plans and then make my way to the system to find out if it’s passable.”
“Let us know if you need anything.”
“Will do.” Blake put his pack on and continued down the hill to the small washout at the bottom.
He moved away from his lookout and behind a chestnut tree before he pulled his phone out of his pocket, put it under his jacket to shield any light from being seen, and studied the diagrams that Con had found.
The channels were formed by brick and mortar and then buried.
Over a hundred years old. The damn things were probably compromised and blocked. But he’d check anyway.