colleagues’ banter for fear that her voice would tremble in the process.
She told herself to settle down. This wasn’t the first time that she’d strayed outside the law while in Jonathan’s employ. That trend had started on the mountaintop in Pennsylvania, and then continued into the wilds of Alaska some months later. She’d approved illegal wiretaps and photographs that never should have been taken, but those were mere violations of civil rights. She’d killed, but that had always been in self-defense. Jonathan was right to question her ability to kill prophylactically. That skill-to kill in order to eliminate an enemy before he could kill you- was perhaps the single most important factor that separated what police did from what soldiers did.
Studies had been written about it, in fact. Several decades ago, during America’s War on Drugs, the Drug Enforcement Administration had enlisted the aid of Navy SEALs for the interdiction of seaborne drug trafficking. The planners had envisioned the SEALs as a legal force multiplier that would chase down bad guys, place them under arrest, and recover countless millions of dollars in drugs.
In practice, the plan had proven disastrous. The SEALs chased down the boats easily enough, and they recovered the millions of dollars in drugs, but more often than not, there were no people left to arrest. If a bad guy had a gun, he was killed, consistent with the SEALs’ long-standing training.
It made sense when Gail thought about it. What was the point in having a conversation with a guy who wants to kill you?
If only prosecutors were that sensible.
The lesson learned from SEAL exercise was that training trumped intentions. When you invest millions of dollars in creating a warrior, that’s what you get. You don’t get a cop.
Now, Gail worried that the opposite was true. Could she be the warrior she needed to be when the time came to pull the trigger? And if not, then who would take her place?
Finally, an easy answer: No one would take her place. If she froze, the mission would come unzipped; and if that happened, everyone might die.
She could do this, she told herself. All it took was a total commitment to “We’ve got a guard coming,” Boxers’ voice said in her ear.
Gail shot her gaze first to the Big Guy, and then followed his eyeline into the woods, where a black-clad sentry was wandering into view.
“No guns,” Jonathan whispered. As he spoke, he drew his KA-BAR knife from its scabbard on his left shoulder. The finely honed edge flashed white against the flat black finish of the blade. Gail shifted her eyes and saw Boxers mimic the move.
Her own knife remained in its sheath on her belt. Another training deficit. She reached out to Jonathan and touched his arm.
He glanced at her briefly, then shook his head and pursed his lips in a silent shh.
“Let him go unless he poses a threat.” Jonathan’s whisper was barely audible over the radio.
Gail settled more deeply behind the bush that provided her concealment, her heart hammering Verdi’s “Anvil Chorus.” To her right, Jonathan and Boxers both looked like coiled snakes, every muscle tensed, their knives ready to separate the guard’s soul from his body.
The foliage confounded any clear view of the man as he approached, but to Gail’s eye he could have been the very sentry they’d seen in Rollins’s satellite photo. Tall and lean, he appeared to be young. He wore his M16 casually, dangling by a sling from his shoulder. He was nowhere near ready to confront an intruder. He had the complacent, bored look of a man who’d been walking the same route for far too long while seeing far too little action. Gail thought ruefully that she could probably jump out at him and yell, “Boo!” and he’d be half a mile away before he ever got his hand to his weapon.
This was all good news.
As the sentry approached within a few yards of their hiding place, Gail looked at Jonathan, whose eyes never left his prey. He remained perfectly still, nothing moving but his eyes as the young man passed the tree that shielded them, and then continued to wander down the line and around the corner. The danger had come and passed in a little over a minute. When the guard was out of sight, Jonathan’s shoulders finally relaxed.
“That was encouraging,” Boxers said, sliding his KA-BAR back into its scabbard. “I like clueless guards.”
Jonathan raised his eyebrows as he slid his own knife into its sheath. “I make it a point not to underestimate anybody with an automatic weapon.”
“Actually, I thought I was overestimating,” Boxers countered with a smile.
“Are you guys safe and clear now?” Venice asked over the radio.
Jonathan touched the transmit button. “Affirm,” he said. “Wasn’t even close.”
Really? Gail thought. What does close look like if that wasn’t it?
“You sounded pretty tight on the radio,” Venice said. “Are you sure?”
“Does it matter?” Emotionally, Venice had the most difficult job on the team. Hers was a world of impressions and anticipation, while the team on the ground had the benefit-for good or ill-of real-time knowledge. It never hurt to shield her from certain realities.
Venice said, “I’ve got all the footage I need for the broadcast loop. Are you ready to go?”
It was the statement they’d been waiting for-the statement Gail had been dreading. Was she ready to go?
“Are you spinning the recording?” Jonathan asked.
“All the monitoring company will see is uninterrupted boredom,” she reported. “But understand that I’m going to need to record again. We’re going to have to show nighttime approaching. Otherwise the monitors will see something wrong. Then, once it gets dark, I’ll need another half hour of darkness to make the loop.”
“Shit,” Jonathan cursed off the air. He hadn’t considered that.
“I’ll give you plenty of notice,” Venice assured. “I’ll also be monitoring the live feed, so I’ll be able to tell you if danger approaches.”
“Are we set?” Jonathan asked his team.
Boxers was already on his feet, walking toward the fence.
Gail nodded, but apparently, it wasn’t convincing.
“This is fish-or-cut-bait time, Gail,” he said softly.
She nodded more aggressively this time. “Let’s go,” she said.
They chose a spot along the fence in the rear sector of the estate where trees pressed in close and drooped over the barbed wire. Jonathan judged this to be a spot where the cuts they needed to make would be less likely to be spotted.
Boxers climbed the fence with a dexterity that Gail would have found impressive from anyone, but particularly given his size. Maybe it helped that by just standing at its base, he was already three-quarters of the way to the top. He planted the toe of one boot in the wire mesh of the fence and reached with one hand to raise himself high enough that the barbed wire was at face height. He’d already drawn the snips with his other hand.
“I hate this part,” he said. He placed the jaws of the snips around the wire, then hunched one shoulder to protect his neck, and looked away and down. “In three,” he said. “Two, one.”
There was a snapping sound, and then the wire sagged. He repeated the procedure for the four lines of wire on their side of the fence, and then he leaned across and dispatched the four lines on the far side. That done, Boxers continued up and over the side.
“You okay, Big Guy?” Jonathan asked. “You look a little winded.”
“Winded my ass,” Boxers replied. “When you get your little razor butt over here, we’ll arm wrestle and see who wins.”
It had been a long time since Gail had climbed a fence, and she was proud of herself for doing it with her dignity intact. When they were all assembled on the other side, she said to Jonathan, “What happens when the sentry notices the cut wire?”
He shrugged and forced a smile. “That’s another one of those moments where we pray for luck to be on our side.”
The lucky breaks were beginning to stack pretty high.
They spread out to recon the mansion from the outside. Sooner or later, they were going to have to enter the house, and before committing to that kind of risk, they needed to learn as much about the place as they could. Jonathan and Boxers split the duties to view the front and sides, each of them taking positions on either side of the long driveway, and Gail was relegated to watching the rear and reporting on what she saw.
Despite the risk of losing the Nasbes in the next hour or two, Jonathan decided to wait till nightfall to approach
