Page 340 of The Black Trilogy

This time, his hand lingered on my backside. “I already know where the treasure is.”

“Pig.”

Okay, time for a radio check. Each team was designated a colour to keep things anonymous in case anybody managed to cut in on our communications.

“Team Black, ready,” I whispered, trying to smooth out the catch in my voice.

Nate’s voice came from his position to the north, his tone businesslike. “Team Red, ready.”

He was mirrored by Seb in the south. “Team Green, ready.”

“Team Blue, ready.” Jack’s guys in the west were good to go. They’d be checking the aircraft hangar first.

Marco’s grey team checked in, then the pilots waiting five miles out confirmed, “Orange, ready.”

Finally, Carmen let us know she was with us. “Pink, ready.” Of course she was pink. Carmen was always pink.

Like wraiths circling the underworld, we crept forward, stopping just short of the tree line. Our first task was to take out the roving patrols, silently if possible. According to the schedule they stupidly kept to, they were due any minute now.

Right on time, a pair of them strolled past. Their guns were safely in their holsters as they chattered away in Spanish, comparing the quality of the output on two pay-per-view adult channels. They didn’t notice when Nick and I fell into step behind them.

“No, those ones, they are too artificial,” the shorter of the two guards said. “The ones on 308, yes they are smaller, but also more bouncy.”

He put his hands to his chest to emphasise his point just as I snapped his neck. I winced at the pop as he crumpled to the ground.

Beside me, Nick had done the same with his target. We grabbed their arms, and Dan and Jed gave us a hand with the feet as we hid them in the undergrowth. The creatures that inhabited it would be spoiled for choice tonight. I planned to provide them with a veritable buffet.

So far, so good.

“Red, clear. Does anyone know how to get bloodstains out of nylon?” came Nate’s dulcet tones.

“Blue, clear. Proceeding to the first objective.”

It was at that moment Mr. Murphy made his second appearance, and I heard the unmistakable pew-pew-pew of an automatic weapon from the south.

Oh, Jiminy Crickets.

It didn’t last long, but the damage had been done. As Seb announced, “Green, clear,” my team was already on its way to the villa.

We moved from cover to cover, zig-zagging stealthily across the compound. Twenty seconds passed, then Nick and I shrank back behind a storage tank as the front door burst open and four men shot out, waving guns.

In the way we’d practised, Nick and I took two each, then Dan and Jed ran forward and we stacked up outside the door. We’d rehearsed this so many times it was instinctive—we had a building at Blackwood built especially for the purpose. The first person would go through the door and break left, the second person broke right, the third went left, the fourth right. We hugged the walls, forcing our targets into the centre of the room so we didn’t take each other out with friendly fire. We kept moving. If we stopped moving, we were dead. We trained until our movements flowed like water down the Amazon, a deadly dance, choreographed to perfection.

And now it was time for our main performance.

CHAPTER 16

INSIDE, THE HOUSE seemed bigger than it did from the outside. I barely took in the decor as we swept through each room, but it was obvious even from a glance where the Ramos family spent a good chunk of their income. The place made Eduardo’s villa look tasteful.

We met little resistance as we prowled through the bottom floor. All the fun was going on outside, where the high-velocity rounds from Carmen’s rifle broke through the crackle of small arms fire.

A muttered expletive came over the radio.

“What’s up?” I asked Nate. His team had cleared the gatehouse and come in through the other end of the villa.

“That old woman we saw threw a rolling pin at me.”

I stifled a laugh and ducked into a doorway as a dude in pyjamas ran past, carrying an AK-47. He pitched forward as I put a bullet through the back of his head, coming to rest spread-eagled across a Queen Anne-style armchair upholstered in blue leather. I got more relaxed about my “don’t shoot anyone from behind” rule when I was on holiday.

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