Chapter Thirteen Leone
No traffic. No pedestrians. empty loading docks and shuttered warehouses and the distant hum of the expressway a half mile south. The streetlights are spaced far apart, pools of orange in a sea of black, and between them the darkness is absolute.
Darkness is where I work best.
We park the SUV three blocks out, behind a derelict shipping container that smells like rust and stale water.
Engine off. Lights off. I check my gear one final time.
Rifle slung across my chest, suppressor threaded tight.
Glock on my right hip. Knife on my left.
Four extra magazines in the vest pouches.
Flash grenades clipped to the front plate.
Claudio is beside me, running through the same ritual. He moves without sound, every motion economical, conserving energy for what's coming. His face is blank. Operational. Whatever he feels about what we're about to do, he's stored it somewhere I can't see.
Emilio is in the driver's seat, watching the safehouse through a pair of binoculars he produced from somewhere I didn't ask about.
"Two on the front door," he says quietly. "One smoking. One on his phone. There's a third on the roof, northwest corner, but he's sitting down. Hasn't moved in ten minutes."
"Cameras?"
"Two visible. One above the entrance, one covering the east side. Probably more inside."
"If they're running the same Apex Meridian surveillance system, the feeds could be monitored remotely."
"Then whoever's watching is about to get a show."
I study the building through the windshield.
Three stories. Old brick, industrial era, converted into something functional but not fortified.
Loading bay on the south side, personnel door on the east, main entrance on the west. The windows on the first floor are boarded.
Second floor, dark. Third floor, one window showing a faint glow.
Third floor.
That's where she is. I know it the way I know my own heartbeat. They'd put her high. Away from the exits. Harder to reach, easier to control. One stairwell, one hallway, a steel door between her and freedom.
Fourteen men between me and that door.
I’ve gone through more in the line-up for a cheeseburger.
"Here's how we move," I say. "Emilio, you take the roof. Eliminate the spotter, then cover us from elevation. Claudio, we breach through the loading bay on the south side. It's the least visible approach and puts us closest to the east stairwell. We clear ground floor together, then move up."
"Rules of engagement?" Claudio asks.
"Anyone holding a weapon dies. Anyone who surrenders gets zip-tied. Anyone between me and the third floor gets one chance to step aside."
"And if they don't step aside?"
"Then they don't step aside."
Emilio lowers the binoculars. "What about Lorenzo?"
I've thought about this. Lorenzo Castillo is valuable. He's Marco's son, the heir to the Castillo operation, and killing him would ignite a war that makes the current conflict look like a playground fight.
"If he's in the building, he lives," I say. "For now."
Claudio glances at me. "And if he's between you and Alexandra?"
"Then he moves or I move him."
We exit the SUV.
The night swallows us. Three men in black, armed and silent, crossing empty concrete like shadows.
Emilio splits off first, angling toward the fire escape on the building's north side.
He moves fast, low, his boots making no sound on the pavement.
Within thirty seconds he's a ghost against the brickwork, scaling the ladder with the fluid ease of a man who's done this a hundred times.
Claudio and I circle south. The loading bay is a wide steel shutter, padlocked, but beside it there's a service door with a standard deadbolt.
Claudio produces a pick set and has it open in eleven seconds.
I count. Old habit. Knowing how long things take keeps me grounded, keeps the adrenaline from turning into something sloppy.
The door opens into a storage area. Dark, cluttered, smelling like motor oil and cardboard.
Crates stacked against the walls. A forklift parked in the corner.
Beyond the storage area, a corridor leads toward the main section of the building, and at the far end I can see light bleeding under a closed door.
I tap Claudio's shoulder. Two fingers forward. He nods and moves right. I move left.
My earpiece clicks once. Emilio, on the roof. The spotter is down. One.
We reach the door at the end of the corridor. I press my ear to the wood. Voices on the other side. Low conversation, relaxed. The sound of men who don't expect trouble.
I open the door.
The room beyond is a common area. Card table, chairs, a television playing some show with the sound off. Three men. One at the table with a pistol beside his coffee cup. One on a couch, rifle across his lap. One standing near a window, checking his phone.
The one at the table sees me first.
His hand moves toward the pistol. I put two rounds in his chest before his fingers close around the grip. The suppressor coughs twice, soft and precise, and he folds forward onto the table. His coffee cup tips and rolls off the edge, shattering on the concrete floor.
The one on the couch is faster. He's already lifting the rifle when Claudio's shot takes him through the throat. He makes a wet, gargling sound and collapses sideways, the rifle clattering to the floor.
The one at the window spins. I'm on him before he can raise the phone, let alone a weapon. My left-hand clamps over his mouth. My right drives the knife into the base of his skull. He drops without a sound.
Four down. Emilio's spotter plus three.
I lower the body to the floor and wipe the knife on my thigh. My heart rate is elevated but controlled. Steady. Every sense heightened, every nerve tuned to frequency. The world has narrowed to corridors and doorways and the stairwell that leads to the third floor.
To her.
Claudio moves to the east stairwell and checks. Clear. He signals, two fingers up, indicating the next floor. I take point.
The stairs are concrete, industrial, echoing if you're not careful. I place each foot at the edge of the step where the sound is absorbed by the wall joint. Old technique. Learned it from a man who learned it in a war I was too young to remember.
Second floor. Landing. A hallway extends in both directions. Doors on each side, most closed. One open, spilling light into the corridor. I hear a radio playing. Something tinny and foreign. A man's voice singing along, off-key.
I signal Claudio. He goes right. I go left.
The first door I reach is closed. I press my ear to it. Nothing. Move on.
The second door is open a crack. I push it with my rifle barrel. Empty room. Mattress on the floor, ashtray overflowing, clothes piled in a corner. Someone sleeps here but isn't here now.
The room with the radio. I approach from the left side, back flat against the wall. Inside, a man sits at a desk with his back to the door, scrolling through webpages on a laptop. The radio is beside him, tinny speakers filling the room with sound that covers my approach.
I'm two feet behind him when he senses me.
Starts to turn. I wrap my arm around his throat and squeeze.
He thrashes, grabs at my forearm, kicks the desk.
The laptop slides. The radio falls. I hold the choke for eight seconds until he goes limp.
Not dead. Unconscious. I zip-tie his wrists behind his back and leave him on the floor.
Down the hall, Claudio's suppressor coughs three times in quick succession. Then silence. He appears at the far end of the corridor, holds up two fingers, draws them across his throat. Two more down.
Seven total. Maybe eight left, concentrated on the third floor where they're guarding the asset. Guarding my woman.
I reload. Check my corners. Head for the stairwell.
The stairs from the second floor to the third are narrower.
Older. The concrete gives way to metal grating that could ring like a bell under careless feet.
I slow down. Each step is a negotiation between speed and silence, my weight distributed across the ball of my foot, my hand on the railing for balance.
My earpiece clicks. Emilio's voice, barely a whisper: "Movement on three. I count five through the thermal. Four clustered at the east end, one stationary further west."
The one further west. Stationary. That's her guard. Or her.
"Hallway layout?" I subvocalize.
"Straight shot from the stairwell. Thirty meters. Four hostiles between you and the west end."
Thirty meters. The length of a basketball court. In an enclosed hallway with four armed men and no room to maneuver.
Claudio appears beside me on the landing. I hold up four fingers, point down the hallway, then point to my eyes. He nods. Understands. We have to be fast. Once the first shot fires, the others will react, and in a narrow hallway reaction time is everything.
I pull a flash grenade from my vest. Hold it up. Claudio mirrors with one of his own.
I mouth the count. Three. Two. One.
I round the corner and throw.
The grenade bounces twice on the metal grating and detonates.
White light fills the hallway. The concussive bang is deafening in the enclosed space, rattling the walls, and I'm already moving before the flash fades.
Claudio's grenade goes a second later, further down, a staggered one-two that keeps the disorientation rolling.
The first man is on his knees, hands over his ears, rifle on the ground beside him. I kick the rifle away and put a round through his shoulder. He screams and crumples. Non-lethal. He's not between me and her.
The second man is tougher. Already recovering, blinking through the flash, raising his weapon. I shoot him twice in the chest. Center mass. He hits the wall and slides down it, leaving a red smear on the plaster.