Hired to Kill (The Nathan McBride Series Book 7)

  “Copy.”

  Nathan started a mental countdown. Both he and Harv had a good sense of passing time in situations like this.

  They watched Vince sprint across the circular driveway toward the access road to confront the approaching vehicles.

  “All right, Harv, we’re on.”

  “Let’s do this.”

  “I’ll take point. We’ll go left at the main hallway.”

  And with that, they slipped inside.

  CHAPTER 30

  With Harv covering his advance, Nathan hurried across the forty-foot-deep sitting room and peered around the corner to the left. The main hallway, which had to be ten feet wide, extended well beyond a couple of closed doors—probably a coat closet and guest bathroom. He glanced the other direction and saw nearly a mirror image. Straight ahead on the other side of the glass, a tropical landscaped area surrounded a huge meandering pool. It appeared as if this main hallway followed the courtyard all the way around the house and ended up back here. Most of the light in the hallway came from the courtyard landscaping. The effect looked beautiful and, most likely, planned this way. Small spots mounted above huge paintings provided additional ambient light.

  He waved Harv over to his position.

  “Marijuana,” he said. The hallway reeked of pot smoke.

  “Yeah, lots of it.”

  “I’m going to check those doors. If we hug the left side, we can use the reflection in the glass. The lighting in this hall is—”

  Sandra’s voice broke through. “Hotel one, I’ve located the breaker box, but it’s a subpanel. The main breaker isn’t here. There must be fifty individual breakers, all labeled. Count on about three seconds for me to flip all of them. I can detonate the power conduit outside, but it won’t be stealthy.”

  “Copy, Tango one,” Nathan whispered. “We’re inside the main hallway. Stand by.” His radio clicked in response.

  Halfway down the hall, they encountered a rare sight: an original oil by Albert Bierstadt depicting a landscape that looked a whole lot like the Chihuahuan Desert.

  “I’ve got dibs on that,” Harv said.

  “You’ll have to fight me for it.”

  They both heard it—a burst of female laughter, then a barely audible male voice. They couldn’t make out what was said. A different kind of sound filtered down the hall—a strange clicking, like someone tapping on a hard surface with a hard object.

  What the hell would make a sound like that? He looked at Harv. “What’s that noise?”

  “Razor blade on glass. Someone’s chopping cocaine.”

  “And you know that because . . . ?”

  “I’ve seen it in the movies.”

  “Uh-huh. Cover me; I’m going to get eyes into the next room. If anyone appears in this hall, take ’em down.”

  “Women?”

  “Shit, Harv, I don’t like it, but there’s too much at stake.” Being ultraquiet with his footfalls, he moved deeper into the house.

  The room on the left was a home theater. And from the look of things, a really nice one. The furniture in here probably cost as much as an average American home. On the opposite side of the home theater, a narrower corridor connected to the next room, probably the kitchen. The light was substantially brighter.

  Nathan pressed the transmit button. “Does anyone have eyes inside the northwest corner of the house? It’s pretty bright. Could be the kitchen.”

  All the members outside reported seeing the same thing: closed window shades. It made sense. Men like Alisio and El Lobo lived in constant paranoia.

  He looked back along the hallway toward the sitting room and signaled for Harv to join him. “I’ve got your six while you advance,” he whispered.

  Suppressed Sig in hand, Harv arrived a few seconds later. With his tricolor face paint, desert MARPAT uniform, tactical garb, and an M4 equipped with a grenade launcher, Harv looked like a Special Forces badass.

  “We’ll enter the next room simultaneously. I’ll use the opening on the other side. I think it leads to the kitchen or maybe an adjoining dining or living room. Use the glass when you’ve got the reflective angle to see in there.”

  Nathan crossed the room and stopped at the corner of the opening.

  An irritated voice boomed, “Where the hell is everyone? Where the fuck’s Quattro? Quattro! Get your ass in here! Shit. Go find him.”

  They’d run out of time. Harv would have company in mere seconds.

  He pressed his transmit button and whispered, “Now, Hotel two. Engage, engage!”

  Nathan whipped around the corner of the opening and found a vast open space. The main hall became part of the kitchen, dining room, and living room before continuing around a corner. Seated in boy-girl/boy-girl formation, three sharply dressed men and three bikini-clad women looked up with shocked expressions. All of them were seated on a huge semicircular sofa wrapped around a glass coffee table. Each woman wore a primary-colored bikini. Red. Yellow. And blue.

  Piled on the glass, a mountain of cocaine rose like a dump truck’s load.

  Nathan saw the scorpion tattoo right away. A twisted trademark, it dominated the back of El Lobo’s hand like a cattle brand.

  “Nobody moves!” Nathan yelled in Spanish.

  From the other side of the room, Harv shouted the same thing as he stepped in.

  Not everyone obeyed.

  The man at the end of the sofa reached for his belt.

  His hand never made it.

  Harv drilled him through the back with three quick shots. One of the bullets passed through the man’s torso and found the mound of white powder. It went up like a volcano. Glass shattered and fell in huge pieces.

  Red and Blue screamed and covered their chests. Yellow just froze in place.

  “Who’s next?” Harv yelled.

  Nathan closed the distance, keeping his Sig’s laser painted on El Lobo’s face. “Everyone keep your hands where we can see them!” he yelled. “Anyone who makes a sudden move dies.”

  Blue bolted from the couch.

  Shit.

  He painted her butt, careful to avoid her sacrum, and squeezed off a shot.

  Shrieking in pain and fear, Blue tumbled and began squirming on the floor. He hated shooting an unarmed woman, but she’d given him no choice.

  His heart and lungs perforated, the man Harv had shot slumped sideways. His head plopped into Yellow’s lap. She yelped and shrank away in revulsion.

  “That’s far enough,” Nathan said to her, then glanced at Harv. “We’re not secure.”

  Keeping his Sig pointed in El Lobo’s direction, Harv crouched at the end of an unoccupied sofa.

  Nathan keyed his radio. “Tango one, leave the power on, exit the garage, and enter through the front door. Turn left at the main hall and proceed to our position. Best possible speed. Copy.”

  “Copy, on my way.”

  El Lobo looked at the dead man’s nickel-plated pistol, but must’ve realized he’d never be able to lunge across Yellow’s lap in time to grab it.

  “Don’t move,” Nathan told him. “The same goes for you, Alisio.”

  El Lobo and Alisio glanced at each other.

  “Yes, we know who you are.”

  Nathan focused on Yellow. She was incredibly beautiful, even with her face a mask of terror—a shame she’d fallen in with these criminals. He had a better chance of getting information out of her than El Lobo or Alisio.

  He put command tone in his voice. “Who else is in the house?”

  “No one,” she said, but her eyes glanced toward a closed door.

  “Harv! Behind you!”

  The door burst open.

  His friend dived for the floor.

  And a huge man filled the doorframe.

  Nathan’s mind registered multiple things. An aloha shirt. Slacks. A toilet and sink. Shiny black shoes. A snarl of rage. But most importantly, a machine pistol.

  Leveled for business.

  He noticed one more thing. A bright red laser dot on
the man’s chest—from his own weapon. Before he could consciously think about it, he popped off two rounds.

  At the same time, the man’s weapon discharged.

  Cutting the room in half, the bullets walked across the floor, sliced into the couch where everyone sat, then climbed up the far wall into the carved wood ceiling. Amazingly, the slugs passed harmlessly between El Lobo and Yellow but struck the man Harv had nailed, making his body shudder.

  Aloha Shirt looked down at the holes in his chest with disbelief. When he tried to bring the weapon up again, Nathan nailed him in the throat, just below his chin. All motor function severed, the man melted.

  “Tango one, ETA?”

  “I’ve got eyes on Hotel two. I’ll be there in a few seconds.”

  He clicked his radio, pointed his Sig at Yellow, and narrowed his eyes.

  “Please,” she pleaded. “I was scared. I wanted to tell you!”

  He moved his aim to Red. “Your turn. Who else is in the house?”

  She pulled her legs to her chest and shook her head.

  “I didn’t ask a yes or no question.” He fired a bullet into the seat cushion next to her, making her yelp in fear.

  “No one!” Red said quickly. “The staff doesn’t live in the house.”

  Sandra arrived and kept her expression neutral. He admired her emotional control. This wasn’t something you saw every day. Without being told, she assumed a defensive position where she could watch the hallway she’d just traversed.

  Tango two’s voice sounded in his earpiece. “Hotel three, the two vehicles stopped side by side on the access road. They’re just sitting there. No one’s getting out.”

  “Copy,” Vince said. “Let me know when they’re in motion again. I can’t see straight down the road from my location.”

  Tango two acknowledged.

  “You’re real tough against defenseless women,” El Lobo spat.

  Nathan ignored the jab. “What about more bodyguards?” he asked Red.

  The woman shook her head no.

  El Lobo’s voice held pure venom. “They ain’t telling you shit.”

  Alisio said nothing but kept his eyes on Nathan.

  Nathan turned toward Harv and waved his gun at the woman he’d shot in the butt. “Grab a field dressing from your pack. Better yet, grab two. Here’s why . . .”

  Nathan carefully aimed his Sig and fired.

  He purposely grazed El Lobo’s right calf, creating a channel of torn flesh. Grunting in pain, the coyote clenched his teeth and covered the wound.

  “Is there anything else you’d like to say, Mr. Lobo?”

  The coyote’s face showed pure rage, but he remained quiet.

  Alisio didn’t move; like El Lobo, he looked extremely pissed off. Clearly these two men were used to being in command and despised being told what to do.

  With the bandage packs in hand, Harv said, “We’d better tape their wrists and ankles first.”

  “Good idea. They still look a bit defiant. Tango one, update Hotel three on our status in here.”

  After setting the field dressings on a sofa end table, Harv pointed his Sig at their prisoners.

  Nathan ordered El Lobo to lean forward and put his hands behind his back.

  “Hey, I’m sitting next to a fucking dead guy,” El Lobo said. “Do you mind getting his ass off the sofa?”

  Nathan nodded an okay to Harv, then said, “Keep your hands and feet still. Any sudden moves will result in more discomfort.”

  Harv yanked the body to the floor and dragged it several paces away.

  While taping El Lobo’s wrists, Nathan asked a third time if anyone else was in the house.

  Yellow said there were six more men, not including the dead guy near the bathroom door.

  He asked if the count included Alisio and El Lobo. She said it didn’t.

  Nathan ran the body count in his head. Including the pickup driver, they’d killed six bodyguards. So who was the seventh?

  Quattro.

  He’d heard El Lobo call out to him.

  The man he’d just shot couldn’t be Quattro—he was too big and didn’t have fully tattooed arms. Assuming Yellow knew who El Lobo’s right-hand man was, he asked, “Where’s Quattro?”

  “He left.”

  “Yes, we know that. Where did he go?”

  She looked at El Lobo with an uncertain expression. Clearly, she didn’t know how to respond.

  “Here’s the deal. These men? Their lives are over as they’ve known them. Their next residence will be a prison cell at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. You don’t have to pretend they’re attractive or desirable in exchange for money anymore. Now, listen up. I don’t want to hurt you. All we want is information, so please tell me where Quattro went.”

  El Lobo looked furious but remained silent.

  She bit her lip, obviously considering her situation. “I don’t know. He just grabbed the car keys and said he’d be right back.”

  “Did El Lobo ask him to go out?”

  “I don’t know. They left the room and talked in the kitchen. I didn’t hear what they said.”

  “But Quattro went out right after that?”

  She nodded.

  “How long ago?”

  “I don’t know, maybe ten minutes.”

  He keyed his radio. “Hotel three, one of our guests said Quattro left the house around ten minutes ago. Pretty sure he’s the one driving the sports car.”

  Vince copied the transmission as Nathan secured Yellow’s hands behind her back, then focused on . . .

  Alisio.

  The man who’d ordered the assassination of his father and nearly killed his sister and niece in the process.

  The man behind the torture of Vincent’s secretary.

  The man who’d orchestrated the death of Vince’s youngest son and come within an eyelash of killing the rest of Vince’s family.

  And last but not least? This man was responsible for the cold-blooded murder of sixteen other people in San Diego and DC—the collateral damage price tag of his quest for revenge.

  Nathan wanted to put a bullet through this jerk’s face so badly, it physically hurt to restrain himself.

  What a piece of crap.

  He ordered Alisio to lean forward, then duct-taped his wrists tightly. Short and heavyset, Alisio looked like a younger clone of his father. Wispy mustache and goatee. Double chin. Heavy gold chains. Diamond studs on his lobes. He even wore the same white fedora with a gold band. The only real difference? His stubby fingers weren’t adorned with rings.

  Nathan taped everyone’s ankles, stepped back, and crossed his arms while Harv applied field dressings to El Lobo’s calf and Blue’s butt. She groaned in agony when Harv helped her off the floor and sat her on the couch.

  Finished with his first aid, Harv said, “If we was fishing, I’d throw ’em all back.”

  “Very funny, asshole,” Alisio said. “Do you have any idea who you’re fucking with?”

  “Yeah, we do,” Nathan said. “The trust-fund child of a dead cartel kingpin. You look just like him.”

  That stunned Alisio. His lips moved, but nothing came out.

  Nathan raised his brows in a figure-it-out kind of expression. “Don’t strain yourself.”

  “You were there?”

  “Let’s just say your good ol’ dad didn’t know when to shut up.”

  At that, Alisio began a verbal tirade—annoying at best, deserving a bullet at worst. Unfortunately, Alisio represented DNI Benson’s best hope of tracing the WMD-grenade-smuggling sequence all the way back to North Korea—a vital step in preventing this kind of threat from emerging again. Instead of shooting him, Nathan stepped behind the couch and smacked the butt of his pistol onto the top of Alisio’s skull. It sounded like a dropped watermelon on concrete.

  The man groaned, turned his head as far as he could, and spat in Nathan’s direction. The saliva missed its mark, but it seemed another demonstration was in order. He clocked Alisio again, on the exact same tender
spot.

  “Oh, man, that’s gotta hurt,” Harv said.

  El Lobo squirmed and cursed, not at his captors, but just in general. Nathan let the outburst slide. It was, after all, understandable.

  Alisio became much more docile after that. Perhaps the reality of his situation had become clear: no escape and no one to rescue him.

  “Let’s get the women out of here. We’ll tape them all together and put them in a bedroom.”

  Sandra guarded their prisoners while Harv and he moved the three women through the kitchen and into a spare bedroom. The woman with the bullet wound cried out but managed to limp along on her own. To make sure they couldn’t escape, Harv taped all of them to a heavy reading chair. Even if they managed to get up, which was unlikely, the chair would act like a ball and chain. These women weren’t going anywhere.

  Back in the sofa room, Nathan said, “Let’s get these two situated in the middle of the living room. It’s wide open in there. Grab two dining room chairs and set them face-to-face so our guests here can witness each other’s interrogations.”

  It took Harv a moment to arrange the chairs. They secured Alisio first, wrapping multiple layers of tape around his torso and the back of the chair. They repeated the process with El Lobo.

  “The tape keeps you from falling out of the chair when you pass out, assuming we have to get . . . What’s the word I’m looking for?”

  “Rough,” Harv said.

  Sandra maintained an even expression, but Nathan got the impression she’d never witnessed an interrogation of this type before.

  “It’s a little understated, but rough will do. See, we’d like nothing better than to go home and get some sleep, so the sooner you cooperate and tell us what we want to know, the sooner this will be over. How rough we get depends entirely on you two.”

  “Do you think I’m scared of you?” El Lobo asked.

  “You misunderstand. This isn’t about fear; it’s about pain. I’m sure you’ve tortured many people over the years. Now it’s your turn to be on the wrong side.” Nathan put on his warmest smile. “Welcome to my world.”

  Alisio began squirming, testing the tape.

  “Save your energy,” he said. “From now on, you will speak only when spoken to, and the first and last words out of your filthy sewers will be sir. Do you maggots understand me?”