Page 161 of One Minute Out

I hook on to the front port side, positioning myself right behind Shep and his SCAR 16S rifle in the front left seat. While the other men climb into position, I check my gear once more. I’ve got a nicely souped-up yet simple AK-47-pattern semiautomatic rifle. It’s a big gun for close-quarters work, but it’s proven itself over many decades of fighting around the world, and I know how to run it effectively with my eyes closed.

I have four extra magazines in a rack on my chest, giving me 150 rounds total.

The other guys are wearing body armor, but there weren’t any extra plates for me. I’m wearing my pistol in a drop leg holster, and there is a trauma kit and a long fixed-blade Benchmade knife in a sheath on my belt. Rodney gave me one smoke grenade and one flash bang grenade, and they’re both hanging from my chest, and I’m wearing borrowed ear protection over my interteam radio headset, and ballistic goggles.

I don’t have a helmet. Rodney was fresh out of helmets, too.

In a small backpack I have extra pistol mags along with the Walther P22 pistol and an attached suppressor, though I’m not sure how covert I’m going to need to be considering we are flying right up to the target in a helicopter. Still, you never know how tonight is going to shake out, so I like the versatility of a low-decibel firearm on my person, just in case.

At midnight Carl applies maximum power and the rotors battle the air a moment, and then we lift off the field for our twenty-minute flight to the target, surrounded by a swirling cloud of dust.

Instantly my goggles are covered in the dust, and when I wipe it off I see that the Vietnam vet pilot has already turned off all the lights on the aircraft. I look inside the open hatch and see him there, his craggy face glowing with the green light of the instruments in front of him. He doesn’t have night vision goggles, he’s just flying along low to the ground, picking up speed, and peering into the darkness ahead.

Holy shit.

I catch myself pining for the relative safety of the shootout at the other end of this flight. Surely it won’t be as dangerous as the next twenty minutes.

•••

Ken Cage lay on the bed, his eyes on the ceiling, and he wiped sweat from his brow with a hairy forearm.

His heart pounded in his chest; the angina burned, but he was used to this after sex.

Next to him, his newest victim lay facing away from him, her naked body exposed, and he heard her soft sobs, like a punished child.

This made him smile a little. He lay without moving for several seconds, then reached over and grabbed her by her hair, pulled her head back to him. She screamed in surprise, and their eyes met in the low light, inches apart. “Just so you know... I was easy on you tonight. Next time, you’ll get to see my wild side.”

He rolled off the bed, pulled on his shorts, and headed for the door. “No, you didn’t get the high-octane version of me, because I saved my energy for the other new girl.” He smiled again. “You can thank her in the morning.”

The Director left the room without another word.

The Hungarian girl called Sofia gazed blankly at the wall through tear-filled eyes.

She’d been raped, and she’d been helpless during, and now that it was over, she felt just as helpless.

She looked at a bar glass the Director had left on the nightstand, half full of some brown liquid, and she wondered if she had the mental strength to shatter it in the bathroom and then to slit her wrists.

But she made no move towards it. No, she just lay there and wept.

FORTY-EIGHT

Jaco Verdoorn had taken off his suit jacket and his tie, but his shoulder holster was in place over his dusty blue dress shirt, and his SIG Sauer pistol was snapped into it and ready for instant access. His feet were on an ottoman and he reclined in a chair; at nearly midnight he’d only just fallen asleep here in the library on the ground floor of the massive ranch house.

He’d spent the evening positioning his own men as well as the Mexicans who were the regular security force here at Esmerelda. Everyone had been warned there were special threats here, and everyone seemed as ready as they could be. Mexican cartel soldiers were positioned on the large, almost flat roof of the hacienda-style building, as well as on the property all around, with many more on reserve, a half mile away at the eastern edge of the property.

Verdoorn’s own men were here inside the home with him, and he had them in cover. All eight were dressed like the wealthy johns allowed access to Rancho Esmerelda; they wore nice suits, expensive polos, or other casual clothing, and they bunked in a couple of the dozen or so rooms on the second and third floors normally used by the johns and the whores.

His boys wouldn’t like this environment at all. They weren’t security guards; they weren’t here to police the johns. They were hunters, enforcers for the Consortium. But their ill ease was good, as far as Jaco was concerned.

He didn’t want them happy—he wanted them ready.

Verdoorn had steered clear of Sean Hall and his team of six security officers since they’d arrived here with Cage an hour earlier. They were all up on the third floor, in or around Cage’s private apartment on the eastern side of the house, or else positioned around whatever room Cage was in, either enjoying one of his new arrivals or relaxing in the lounge off the entry hall, eating, drinking, and snorting lines.

Jaco dozed a little, but he’d spent the entire time here tonight wishing Gentry would just get on with it. He’d studied the way the assassin had ingressed to target on the few of his missions about which such details were known. He liked to move silently, with stealth, cunning, and the tradecraft of the most elite assassin in the world.

The South African fully expected Gentry to try to slip into this building unnoticed, and Verdoorn and his men would be here to greet him, and then the Mexicans outside would close off any chance he had to escape.

And Cage? As far as Verdoorn was concerned, Ken Cage was Sean Hall’s problem.

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