Halfway through the meal, and the discussion on how and when they’d case Malmon’s rented villa, Riley’s phone signaled. She took one glance at the readout, rose, and moved off, speaking rapidly in Italian.
When she came back, she picked up her plate, shoveled food in while she stood. “Okay, I scored us three SPP-1Ms, with twenty-four cartridges. Best I could do for now, and the third’s a bonus. We’ll need to hit the kitty,” she told Bran.
“I’ll take care of that part. Where do we pick them up?”
“We need to go out to his boat, so we’ll have to get moving pretty soon. I’ll need you to give me the cash, and some room. This guy doesn’t like crowds.”
“How trustworthy is he?” Bran asked her.
“Well, he’s a smuggler, a gunrunner, and a thief, so he’s slippery. But he won’t screw with me. He’ll keep it straight—wouldn’t want to damage his rep, or lose the sale if we want more ammo.”
“Are these guns stolen?”
Riley shrugged at Sasha. “Don’t ask, don’t tell. We need them, we’ll have them. Or three of them. Sawyer’s the best shot, so I say he gets one. And me, and it should probably be Doyle for the third. Bran’s good, but considering what he can already shoot, a gun’s superfluous. And Sasha’s a decent shot. Doyle’s just better.”
“I’m fine with that, but I should learn how to use it. In case.”
“We can go over all that on the boat, once we have them.”
Though she didn’t like the idea of more guns, Annika said nothing. She did her assigned chores, got her pack for the day, and with the others, walked to the marina.
As they eased out of the slip, Riley pointed. “See that yacht out there? Ten o’clock?”
“Hard to miss,” Doyle answered. “She’s an easy two hundred fifty feet.”
“Yeah, Lester doesn’t go for subtle.”
The smirk lit his gaze as he slid it toward her. “Your smuggler’s named Lester?”
“I used to know a rogue lycan named Sherman. Nice enough guy until he discovered the wonders of cocaine. After that, he really loved ripping out throats three nights a month. Anyway. Just head out, pull up on the port side. I’ll take it from there.” She adjusted her sunglasses, took the bag of cash from Bran.
“Don’t be alarmed if you see a couple of guys with automatic weapons. They’re not going to shoot anybody.”
“Somehow that doesn’t inspire confidence.” And because of it, Sawyer unclipped the holster from the small of his back, reset it on his hip.
“You’re just as likely to see some bimbos sunning French style.”
“For that I need my camera.”
As they approached, Sawyer did see a couple of hard faces with rifles. And though he thought it unfair to assume bimbo, a trio of hot chicks wearing nothing but big sunglasses and tiny, tiny thongs.
“Riley Gwin,” Riley called out. “Lester’s expecting me. And this.” She held up the bag. “Hey, Miguel, ¿qué pasa?”
The burly guy with the AK-47 grinned. “No mucho, chica.”
When they lowered the boarding ladder, Doyle signaled Sawyer. “Take the wheel. I’m going with her.”
“No, you’re not.”
Ignoring her, Doyle stepped over, grabbed the ladder, and started up.
“Damn it. Got a friend with me, Miguel! I’ll need some help getting the stock down the ladder.”
A moment later Doyle boarded, then Riley, and both moved out of sight.
“How long do we give them?” Sawyer kept his eyes on the men with guns.
“Ten minutes,” Bran decided. “Can you read them, fáidh?”
“The one she called Miguel would like to see Annika and me naked. The other one . . . he feels a little unwell. Indigestion, I think.”
“Ten minutes,” Bran said again, “unless Sasha feels a change.”
It took every bit of the ten, and as Sawyer worked out how best to protect his friends, get on the yacht, and save the others, he heard Riley laugh.
But he didn’t relax until he saw her coming down the ladder, a leather satchel strapped cross-body and a metal case in one hand.
Doyle came after her, another satchel, another case, and some sort of box tucked under his arm.
“Ciao, Miguel.”
“Hasta luego, chica.” He blew her a sly kiss, but stood, armed, until Sawyer turned the boat out to sea.
“All good?” Sawyer asked.
“Five-by-five. Three Russian underwater pistols with cartridges, holsters, and cases. And a little gift for Doyle. Lester took to Doyle, which is fortunate, as Lester doesn’t like alterations in agreements.”
“You couldn’t have carried it all.” After taking off the satchel, Doyle passed it to Bran. “Lester is barely taller than Gwin here, with a face like a rat after it’s been squeezed in a door.”
“He’s also worth about a couple hundred million, and is quite the bon vivant. He likes brainless, built women and hot, younger men, often at the same time. He’d have oiled you up and slithered all over you given half the chance,” she said to Doyle.
“Not my type. But I got a prime bottle of tequila out of it.”
“Tres Cuatro y Cinco—that’s not just prime tequila, it’s the god of tequilas. It ain’t for margaritas or Jell-O shots. It’s for sipping and savoring. Anyway, Lester came through.”
She sat, opened a satchel. “Let me show you our new toys.”
“First? Where am I going?”
“I’ll take the wheel.” Doyle moved to the wheelhouse. “I’ve seen the new toys.”
Because she didn’t really want to see the guns, Annika rose. “I’ll go with Doyle. He’s going to teach me to drive the boat.”
“Here, you take the wheel.”
As Sawyer moved aside, Doyle shifted Annika, put her hands on the wheel.
“I can?”
“I’m staying right here.”
Behind her the men exchanged a look that expressed appreciation on one end, acknowledgment on the other. With Annika occupied, Sawyer went back for a briefing on SPP-1Ms.
Once in the water, he didn’t fire it—no safe target and no point in wasting ammunition. But he got the feel of it, the weight, the balance—a different sensation.
As they dove, with the search once again the focus, he kept Annika—and all the rest—in his eyeline.
Riley’s intel could be wrong, or Malmon might have sent advance forces. But again they found nothing, and no one.
Still, he had a job to finish. When they got back to the villa, he focused on that. The others gave him room and quiet.
He glanced up when Annika came in.
“I’m sorry, but Sasha said you need to eat.”
“I’m nearly done.”
“She said she’s making chicken parmigiana.”
And suddenly, he was hungry. “Really?”
“And it would be time to eat it in thirty minutes.”
“That should work for me.”
“Sawyer? Will you lie with me in my bed tonight?”
“I was going to ask you the same.”
Her smile just brightened the room. “Then I could put the laundry I folded—yours—in my room?”
“That’d be nice.”
But she should have more than just sex, he thought. Because however fatalistic, Doyle had it right. When beauty fell into your hand, you held on to it.
And in Sawyer’s mind, you cherished it.
“Maybe we could take a walk around the gardens after dinner.”
“That would be nice, too. I like to walk with you, and have you hold my hand like Bran holds Sasha’s.”
But over dinner, Riley suggested moving up the timetable.
“We head over to Malmon’s villa, scope it out. We need to make sure it’s empty. He could’ve sent staff or soldiers ahead, or arranged for locals to stock it up for him.”
“That’s why we decided to go in after midnight,” Doyle reminded her.
“It’s after eight now, and a good thirty-minu
te hike. We need to case it, find any exterior security, deal with it. After Sawyer pops us in, we may have more security to deal with. Then we have to find the three most logical locations for the bugs.”
“Why wait?” Sawyer had to side with her. “Y’all mostly decided on the time to give me a chance to finish the bugs. They’re done, so let’s move it up.”
“And if there is someone in residence?” Sasha asked.
“We’ll figure it out.” Considering that, Riley switched wine for water. “It’s a hell of a lot easier to figure out on-site than it is to speculate.”
“There’s a point,” Bran agreed. “So should we say we’ll leave here at nine then?”
It wasn’t the romantic garden walk Sawyer had envisioned, but he calculated every step took them closer to resolution. If they could eavesdrop on any of Malmon’s plans, they could foil them, maybe turn them back on him.
And if they beat him badly enough, what use would he be to Nerezza? Whatever punishment she might mete out for failure, he’d earned.
“We’re closer to the sea,” Annika told him. “More above it, but closer.”
“He’d want a good view.”
They came to a wall.
“Other side of this,” Riley told them. “The gate should be up ahead. It’ll be locked. Smarter to go over the wall anyway.”
“Let me check it out.”
Sawyer moved ahead, came to the gate—iron, elaborate, arched, and secured with an electronic lock. Behind it he made out a pebbled road wide enough for a vehicle, and shielding trees, bushes. But no cameras.
As he walked back, he scanned the area. More homes, but he saw no one on the road, no one in a window.
“I didn’t see an alarm or cameras, but if we tried the gate, it might set something off. I can get us on the other side.”
“I’ve got mine.” Bran put an arm around Sasha’s waist, floated up with her, over, and down.
“Never gets old,” Sawyer commented. “Okay team, huddle up. Quick trip.”
He had them over the wall where the air was sweet with flowers and the night full of shadows.
“Stay together,” Bran said quietly. “And keep out of the light.”
Keeping the pebbled road close, they passed through a lemon grove, circled around an area with stone benches and a small fountain, then through a garden lush with blooms and scent.
“Got our garden walk after all.” He gave Annika’s hand a squeeze, then stopped. “Wowzer.”
The villa loomed ahead, white as fresh snow with windows black and glittering in the starlight. The pebbled path split, one stream toward the house, banked with rose bushes, another toward an outbuilding.
The face boasted wide terraces held by carved columns.
It rose three stories, along with what he took as a rooftop terrace. The stream of moonlight turned it all into a charcoal sketch of indulgence.
“It makes our villa on Corfu look like the low-rent district.”
“I liked ours better. We had Apollo.”
Sawyer gave Annika’s hand another squeeze. “He’s a great dog.”
“No lights on,” Riley pointed out. “It’s not even ten o’clock. If anyone was in there, we’d see lights.”
“Ones out here are probably motion-activated,” Sawyer said. “You know, get home late, they come on as you get close to the house, so you don’t fall on your face. Shouldn’t matter. If anybody sees lights come on, they’ll just figure someone’s staying here.”
“Provided no one’s in there, and just called it an early night,” Sasha pointed out.
“Let me check it out. I can be in and out, like the Flash.”
Before Sawyer could take out the compass, Riley gripped his arm. “Not on your own, Barry Allen. Just like Doyle had to come with me this morning. I’ll go with you.”
“Fine by me. Give us ten minutes.”
When they vanished, Annika frowned. “Why did she call him that name? The Barry Allen name.”
“I have no idea,” Bran said.
“The Flash—his civilian name. Christ,” Doyle muttered. “Hasn’t anyone read a graphic novel?” With a shake of his head he moved into deeper shadows. “I’ll scout the grounds.”
“Keep close,” Bran warned.
“I’ll be close enough.”
He vanished into the dark as Riley and Sawyer had vanished into the air.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In just under ten minutes, Sawyer popped back, alone.
“The place is empty, and it’s a simple exterior security system. We’re fine inside.” He nodded as lights came on in the villa. “Riley’s scouting locations for the bugs. It’s a hell of a place. I should’ve made a freaking dozen.”
“We’ll work with what we have,” Bran said.
“We’ve got what we’ve got.” His hand went to his gun, then relaxed again when Doyle melted out of the shadows. “Ready?”
Sawyer took Annika’s hand, shifted them all inside.
Light splashed on smoke-gray tiles and dark wood in a soaring entranceway crowned by a double staircase.
“We did a quick sweep down here, another on the next two levels. Kitchen’s stocked, and there’s fresh flowers everywhere. There’s an outdoor kitchen on this level, and another on the roof terrace. There’s enough food for an army, but it wouldn’t be like Malmon to have more than his personal security and key people in-house. He wouldn’t house his grunts here.”
“And no word on how many he might have or where he’ll house them.” Riley came down the grand staircase in scarred hiking boots. “Eight bedrooms in this place, including two master suites. One’s more masterful than the other, and you can take it to the bank Malmon would pick that. The bathtub’s freestanding, natural stone, and big enough for a party. I want it for my own, but more to the point I vote for a bug in there.”
“I agree with that. He won’t have meetings in there,” Sawyer added. “But he’s likely to use it—it’s pretty princely—to make calls, send out orders, get sitreps.”
“I don’t know that word.”
“Situation reports,” Doyle told Annika. “Shorthand for it. Prime location would be where he’d meet with his team leaders.”
“Yeah, Sawyer and I talked about that. Main level—that’s how we see it.”
“And you know him, we don’t,” Bran put in.
“Yeah.” Still Sawyer looked around. “We did, like I said, a quick sweep. We should spread out, do a more thorough one.”
They rejected the kitchen, the main-level bedrooms, a game room, and took it down to a spacious parlor with windows looking out over gardens and out to sea or an office and library combination with an elaborate antique desk, more dark, heavy wood, lots of rich Italian leather.
“What’s your instinct?” Bran looked at Riley and Sawyer. “Which strikes you?”
“He’d like lording that view over his underlings,” Riley began. “And he might use the parlor deal, or the big terrace down here for a meet. But . . .”
“Office—that desk.” Sawyer nodded at her. “It’s command center. It’s ‘I’m in fucking charge here.’ That’s Malmon.”
“Do both.” Doyle scanned the office. “You’ve given us a clear sense of him, haven’t you? He’s not doing serious work above this level—not having his soldiers come into what he’d think of as more personal areas. Rooftop terrace, the pool, the setup? It’s an ass-kicker, but main level, that’s business.”
“Two down here, one in the bedroom. I should’ve made more bugs.”
“Whatever we might get is something we wouldn’t have had,” Bran pointed out.
“Okay. Agreed? And done,” Sawyer said when he got nods. “Bookcase is handy behind the desk. They will sweep.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Bran assured him.
After studying the shelves, Sawyer picked up a small silver box, opened it. “Pretty much tailor-made.”
As Sawyer slipped the device inside, Bran held a hand over it. For a moment it glowed cl
ear, cold blue.
“A kind of shield,” Bran explained.
They repeated the process in the parlor, in the bedroom they believed Malmon would claim.
“I want to test it. I need one of you at each location. I’m going to shift back to our villa. Y’all give me, we’ll say three minutes, then I need whoever’s in the office to say something, a couple of sentences. Give it ten seconds, then same thing from the parlor, another ten, bedroom. If it works, I’ll be back right after. If it doesn’t, give me about two minutes for adjustments, go through the round again.”
It took two rounds before he was satisfied. Careful to leave everything as they found it, Sawyer traveled them back to the villa.
“You look a little beat-up,” Riley observed.
“No, just used up some. A lot of traveling in a short span. It takes it out of you.”
“I’ll make you a snack.”
He started to brush off Annika’s offer, thought better of it. “You know, that’d be great. I’m a little low on juice.”
As Annika hurried to the kitchen, with Sasha behind her to supervise, Sawyer sat under the pergola. “Now we wait.”
“I’ll keep trying to find out where he’s housing his troops. If I get a hit, we might be able to screw something up for him. In fact, I’ll—”
Riley broke off when Annika ran out. “Sasha says they’re coming. From the sky. They’re coming.”
“Weapons,” Doyle snapped out.
Training paid off. In less than two minutes they stood together, fully armed, in the grove.
“Make them come to us,” Riley ordered. “Make them maneuver. You up for this, Dead-Eye?”
“Count on it,” Sawyer replied, a gun in each hand.
They winged down from the sky, not the mutant batlike creatures from Corfu, but hundreds upon hundreds of the strange, vicious birds they’d dealt with on the boat.
Smaller, faster, more agile but no less lethal, they poured into the grove.
Sasha’s bolt went through three at once, which burst into ash.
Sawyer fired, two-handed, while blades cleaved. Their wings, he discovered as