Chapter 31

Chapter

Thirty-One

REMY

F orty-eight hours later, I followed the GPS toward the sprawling estate in a North Virginia suburb of Washington D.C. Power brokers came in all shapes and sizes. This one was retired military intelligence who amassed wealth considerably more than his pension would support.

Patch identified five separate revenue streams, all funneled through projects he was either in charge of or on the "board" of. His wife brought generational wealth into the marriage, but not enough to account for the literal hundreds of millions safely stored away in off-shore accounts.

Once we'd retrieved the safe deposit box from the tiny little local bank in Leesburg Patch used, she was able to open the dark web IP address she'd locked the data mine away in. Fortunately, she hadn't had to go to the bank herself. Hot on the heels of someone having gotten so close to her again, we were all running at full caution.

Locke was more than happy to fetch the box, using her keywords, codes, and memorizing a thirty-six-digit number for the account itself.

I didn't mind admitting I was impressed. Once she had the snow globe of all things, everything went into motion.

"I'm still not a fan of leaving you there by yourself," Locke complained. While I didn't disagree, her reasoning and logic were sound.

"So you've said," she answered in a patient voice. "However, these concerns are why we picked this extremely well lit rest area to park the rig. All three of you vetted it, and I'm plugged into all the local security and cameras…"

The huff Locke released said he knew but he wasn't satisfied with it. None of us would be until at least one of us was back with her. Unfortunately, the plan in play required coordination, three separate targets, and Patch in the chair playing conductor every bit as much as operator.

Unperturbed, Patch continued, "Which are currently showing me all clear. I also have two guns. The one under my desk and the other next to the coffeemaker."

"Left a third one for you in the loo," I chimed in. Luck had been on our side, along with a little forethought, to make sure she was armed. We were going to keep playing that card. "Velcro'd to the wall next to the chain."

"Still don't like it," Locke muttered.

"Stop your bitching," McQuade ordered. "We agreed to the plan. Sugar Bear agreed to the plan. Do your damn job."

The grousing was so McQuade. Unrefined, blunt to the point of painful, and very much a what you saw was what you got type of man, he also possessed incredible loyalty, determination, and a fierce kind of devotion to the woman who held all of our hearts.

"Be nice boys, we're all on the same side." Her scold had one corner of my mouth turning up. A lot of our conversations as a group went this way. If McQuade wasn't trying to take the piss out of me, he was doing it to Locke.

"That is nice," Locke commented, a grin in his voice. "For McQuade that's downright genial."

Shaking my head, I reserved my own opinion. Roughly a mile from my target's property, I parked behind a hotel and took out my backpack before setting off overland.

There were any number of approaches I could take to St. James' place, the retired colonel had decent security on his property, including a gatehouse, and electronic gate that didn't allow you in without being buzzed by the house.

The guard in the gatehouse was only there during the day. Otherwise, it was all camera surveillance and monitoring from another location. I studied the angles, the lack of blindspots required Patch and I to work in tandem. The system, however, had protocols to deter hacking. We would be on a clock from the moment she started redirecting the cameras.

Looping them would set off an alarm. So would a reset. While knocking out the power might seem a good idea, the house had generators and it would also trigger another set of protocols.

Complicated, however, only took you so far. Patch had come up with a far easier idea. Once I was in position with the fence in sight, I tapped my comm. "Ready for my kiss."

Her throaty laugh titillated, particularly after savoring her orgasms while she laughed. Sex and humor had become my favorite companions. Particularly when it came to her.

"Kiss incoming, three seconds, then start your clock."

After tugging the mask down firmly to cover my face and head, I did the mental count to three. On cue, I hit the stopwatch function on my watch as she said, "Go."

Seven seconds to clear the wall. I took it at a run, jumping to catch the top of it and pulling myself up and then rolling over and dropping to the ground.

"And go."

On my feet, I ran following a straight trajectory and hit the ground amidst shadows at the seven-second mark. I'd covered roughly fifty meters.

Three more sprints would bring me in range to the house.

"Go," Patch said and we repeated the process for the next three sprints. She was monitoring the cameras' rotation and had been gradually adding seconds to them over the past several hours to delay their range and it gave me mobile blindspots to run through.

Fortunately, I was a solid sprinter. In range of the house itself, I moved with the shadows beneath the trees that lined the edge of their garden. The retired officer didn't care for personal monitoring, so the cameras were sparser on his private spaces, such as the garden.

He likely trusted the system he had in place to alert him before anyone got this close. It was a very nice system. But nothing was fool proof against a determined man.

I was quite determined.

"You've got a thirty second window coming up," Patch said as I took a beat to get my air back. "In five, four, three…"

On one, I was up and went directly through the garden to the trellis that attached to the side of the house. I didn't bother with the doors or windows downstairs. Every single one was wired.

Instead, I climbed the trellis to the second story, then up to the third. The house boasted a very nice attic that Patch found featured in a Town and Country article from four years prior. The windows were narrow, but I could get through them.

They were also not wired.

Sloppy.

It took a little effort to get the window opened and slid up. Then I wiggled through the opening. Careful not to make too much noise once inside. On light feet, I crossed the interior of the attic to the door. They had a proper door at the top of the stairs.

In the Town and Country article, the attic had been converted into a cheery little reading space. The four different windows allowed for a cross breeze and the furniture had a lot of floral, and pink accents.

At the door, I used a small can of oil to lubricate the hinges and gave it a beat. A lot of older houses did the creak and groan. I didn't want to alert my target. The door opened silently after that. The lights were on low, the occupants were likely asleep.

A cat sat on the staircase below and stared up at me with feline indifference before sauntering away. Once down the steps, I began a sweep of the house. The occupants, well occupant since his wife was on a cruise with her sister in the Caribbean, was here somewhere.

It was why we'd chosen to hit all our targets in the middle of the night. It was just after one in the morning here. A soft murmur from downstairs drew me to the living room.

The flickering of a television offered alternating light to the room and cast wild shadows. The movie playing was a classic Bond film.

No comment.

My target, however, was sprawled in a recliner, an empty heavy crystal glass on the side table. The scent of bourbon reached me as the retired colonel snored heavily through his film.

Lips pursed, I studied him for a moment, then scanned the room before returning my attention to him. The curtains were closed, the windows blocked and no obvious signs of camera surveillance.

Still, I wasn't going to take any chances. I pulled out the device that Patch had made for me. It had two small antennae on it and basically looked like a wifi signal booster. Once I had it plugged into the wall, my comm played three dashes, a dash-dot, then two dots, and a dash.

She was in the system.

Withdrawing, I kept my gaze focused on the target until she sent another signal in Morse code for all clear. Pushing away from the wall, I did another sweep and removed any possible weapons from St. James' reach, along with his cell phone. Dropping it into a sealed pouch for Patch to do what she wanted with it, I finished my search.

Once satisfied, I pulled out the pressure injector and crossed the room to where my target continued to sleep blissfully.

I could just drug him while he was out. That would be efficient. Except…

They terrorized Fallon. Tortured her. Took her life from her. Threatened to do it again.

He didn't deserve an easy path. I kicked his chair once and his eyes jerked open. The pupils dilated as he focused on me and his mouth opened.

"Good evening, Colonel St. James—we need to have a word." Then I planted the pressure injector to his neck and fired it. The paralysis of just waking kept him from responding immediately and by the time he thought to fight, he was already going slack from the paralytic.

"You're going to be uncomfortable for a while, but I assure you, it's nowhere near as unfortunate as the treatment you have approved for others." I withdrew a step and pulled off the backpack before tapping the comm. "You there, luv?"

"Talk to me," she invited. Three magical words I craved more than my next breath. Because those three words meant she was still safe and still watching my back. It also meant she answered. "Well, talk to us."

"I'm on property. I've located the owner." I hadn't bothered to remove my mask. Being loomed over by a masked man with an accent couldn't be comfortable for the retired officer. "You need a retinal scan and his left thumb print, correct?"

His pupils tried to swell as the television lights flickered then retreated again. The paralytic was doing its job.

"Yes." The unguarded answer held just a single hint of a question. She knew what I was implying. However, to be clear for both of us, I asked the question more directly.

"Any message you want me to leave with him?" No judgment existed within the question. Patch's ethics and morals had been what drove her to leave their operation in the first place.

It had been what compelled her to take critical information. She'd excised herself from her own life, then rebuilt a new one. As much as I regretted her suffering, it was hard to not be grateful she was in my life.

If not for this bastard and the others like him, I might never have known her. That would be a bloody shame.

Section Five, the MadOg project was the brainchild of powerful and influential men. They left the day to day execution in the hands of actual mad dogs and sadists. Everyone answered to someone, in this case, St. James was at the top of the pecking order.

His information network had made him billions more than most people realized. It had also cost many people their lives.

It had cost my Fallon.

It had cost her dearly.

So I waited for her decision.

"Never again," she said quietly. "They don't get to do this again. Scorched earth."

"Yes," McQuade exhaled the word like a triumph. It had been his argument all along that we were better off killing them. Dead men couldn't hunt us down.

Hunt her down.

"Gloves off, Sugar Bear?"

"Make sure we have what we need first," she cautioned. "I know you may want in and out, but we need to make sure we have it locked and loaded."

"Done," McQuade said. "Also, I'm here. Going silent running for fifteen, twenty max. Standby for transmission. Even if you had the lead, I bet I get mine before you get yours, mate ." Then he beeped off.

McQuade was a prick, but he was growing on me. "I'll take care of it. Talk soon." Then I went back to silent running. What came next, she didn't need to hear. "Colonel St. James… the next hour or two are going to be very uncomfortable for you. I'd ask you if you were ready to talk, but you can't. You also have absolutely nothing to say that I want to hear."

I collected his thumb print by removing the thumb and storing it in a safe box. The pain helped to flush fresh motion into his eyes and I took full retinal scans of both. The flexing of the pupil was vital to accuracy.

When Patch let me know she had it, I nodded to myself. Business secured, I pulled out a knife and studied the colonel.

"You owe a friend of mine at least a pound of flesh, but I plan on charging interest…"

Even with the paralytic in his system, he did manage to scream after I carved out the first pound.

It was good practice, I had a call to pay on the man formerly known as Marty Cartwright when I was done here.