Ruthless Game (GhostWalkers, #9)(119)
Rose was particularly grateful that Kane didn’t treat her any differently than he did his other team members. He didn’t hover, didn’t guard her as she feared he might. If anything, they all took extra care to stay close to Paul. He pulled his weight, handling each phase of the assignment as everyone else did, but she noticed the team members seemed to watch out for him a little more than anyone else. She found herself doing the same thing. She noticed Rhianna did as well. If anyone had asked her why, she wouldn’t have been able to articulate why exactly, but he seemed out of place in the environment—far too sensitive for this kind of work.
Rose and Jacob released the gas into the room where four guards were sleeping in bunks. Kane, Gideon, and Rhianna took the three playing pool. Mack and Paul darted the two men playing cards, and Ethan did the same with the one in the kitchen.
Phase five complete, Mack reported. Entering house for final phase.
Javier studied each room. Most of the occupants were asleep. Bodyguards sat outside the rooms of Cesar and his son. There was no camera in Cesar’s bedroom, but every other bedroom had surveillance. His two daughters were still visiting together in the conservatory while their husbands slept in the bedrooms. Two of the teens had gone to the kitchen and were getting snacks, while a third sat in Cesar’s den and watched porn. A guard stood outside the conservatory, but no one had followed the teens. Javier relayed the information to his team.
Rose had one job. Kane shadowed her through the labyrinth of halls, up the stairs to the master bedroom. The other team members were each assigned to specific rooms and families. She had to believe they would do their jobs, one by one, putting every household member to sleep and collecting some kind of evidence to show Lopez. Kane held up his hand, and she halted at the top of the wide staircase. The house was dark but for a few dim lights. It enabled them to use the shadows, sliding from one to the other in complete silence.
The whispers in her head began coming fast. Done. Done. Done. Still she waited, breathing in and out, amazed at the capabilities and unity of such a large team working together. Whitney’s idea had been two-man teams. He had stressed that the larger the number, the more room for error, and yet this unit of men—her unit—had penetrated the head of one of the largest and most dangerous cartels with an intricate and daring plan.
You have a go, Mack said.
At the soft order, Kane, lying prone on the floor just feet from the guard, shot the arrow into his neck. The guard tried to slap at what he thought was a stinging bug, but the needle had entered his bloodstream, and the fast-acting concoction had him slumping over, his semiautomatic slipping from his hands. Rose caught the gun and lowered it to his lap. Kane removed his ID. This was going to be the most dangerous moment. There were no cameras. They had to enter the bedroom without detection, put the wife to sleep, and have a talk with Cesar.
The door was bolted, and it took Kane a few precious minutes to pick the lock. They were on a time line. The guards had to wake up before sunrise, and all of them had to be gone and out of Mexico before that happened. Kane inched the door open and went in on the floor, rolling to the right of the bed—the woman’s side—staying in the darker shadows. Rose came in after him, softly closing the door behind her. The bed creaked, and she froze, lying in plain sight if Cesar happened to look down.
She counted to sixty and then began a slow crawl to Cesar’s side of the bed. He would be armed and wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. He was sleeping facing her, and she smiled as she slipped her hand under the pillow to remove his gun. A knife lay on the bedside table, the hilt pointed toward him where he could easily grab it. She waited until Kane had darted the wife and slid into the darkness. She knew his knife was out and ready to throw.
She crouched down, presenting a smaller target, lifted Cesar’s knife, and placed it ever-so-gently against the artery pumping in his neck. “I think you should wake up, now, Senor Lopez,” she announced softly.
The eyes snapped open, instant awareness there.
“I wouldn’t move if I were you, but take a good look at my face. I want you to remember me, to know who I am.”
No one wanted Cesar Lopez to remember them. The eyes burned with arrogance, with fury, with the promise of reprisal. Rose smiled at him. “I think, before you go all macho on me, you might consider that you haven’t looked at the condition of your wife.”
His gaze flicked toward his wife of forty years. He couldn’t turn his head, but he could see the outline of her beside him.
“She’s sleeping soundly. I want you to really think about this situation you’ve found yourself in, Senor Lopez, because if you don’t, some very bad things are going to happen to you and every single person you love.”
The door opened, and dark shadows flitted in and out of the room, dropping IDs on the bed between his legs. The IDs raining down on him were from his guards, his son, his daughters, their spouses, and eventually something taken from each child supposedly safe in his home.
Rose leaned in close. “As you can see, we could have killed every man, woman, and child on your estate and in this house. Everyone. You don’t know us, Lopez, but we know you, and we know where all of them live. No one else knows we’re here but you. They’ll all believe they fell asleep. You can tell them whatever you want when you give them back their IDs and whatever else we’ve confiscated from them as proof that we could have killed them. Call off the contract on me. Walk away and pretend I don’t exist. You and I won’t have any more trouble. If you don’t, my friends and I will be back, and believe me when I tell you, you don’t want any part of us. Not now. Not ever.”