trap to kill his own man. Maybe Julio said something in code. If he did, it cost him his life. It’s damned cold-blooded to kill your own man like that, even for Montez.”
“Don’t humanize Montez too much, Nate.”
They fell silent for a minute.
“If you’re right about Julio alerting Montez,” Harv said, “he wanted to take us out as well. Nearly did. Which might give us an advantage if he thinks we’re dead.”
“We shouldn’t assume that.”
“If Montez believes his safe house was compromised then he’ll also assume this location could be compromised as well. There could be a similar booby trap here. Getting cooked alive isn’t exactly at the top of my bucket list.”
“Relax, Harv. I’ve got everything under control.”
“I hate it when you say that.”
“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
“You call this living?”
“Just admit it, you love this.”
“I’ll have to take the Fifth on that.”
Nathan focused on the landmarks along the road now. “Nichole Dalton said the house is past a stop sign.”
A few minutes later they found the stop sign Nichole had mentioned. The cross street was Linea Del Cielo. They drove down a gradual grade, focusing on the right side.
“There’s a white fence,” Nathan said. “This could be it.”
“Looks promising.”
“Keep going, we need an electric gate.”
“I don’t see a big stump.”
“The gate’s too far away. Kill the headlights and pull over past the driveway. I’m gonna take a look.”
Nathan wasn’t out of Harv’s Mercedes more than ten seconds before hearing an approaching car. He cursed inwardly and bolted up a steep slope. He had to lie flat on his stomach to avoid being touched by the headlights and peered through a low bush as a San Diego County sheriff’s cruiser rolled to a stop next to Harv’s Mercedes.
He saw the cruiser’s passenger side window roll down. “Sir, is everything okay?”
“Thanks for stopping, Deputy. I needed a drive to clear my head. Had an argument with my kid. He came home drunk.”
“You live around here?”
“Yes, sir. Just a mile or so away.”
“Please show me your driver’s license.”
“No problem.”
He couldn’t see Harv, but the deputy shined his flashlight into the Mercedes. Good thing they’d removed their tactical gear and face paint following the safe house explosion. “My name is Harvey Fontana. I own First Security, Inc.”
“The company with the radio ads?”
“We offer a twenty-five percent discount to all military and law enforcement personnel.”
“I might give you a call, we have an old system. Have you had anything to drink tonight?”
“Absolutely not, Deputy.”
“All right, Mr. Fontana. Have a good evening.”
“Thanks again, Deputy.”
The cruiser continued north on El Camino Real and disappeared around a gradual bend in the road.
Nathan slid down the slope and approached the electric gate. No stumps of any kind. He searched the immediate area for wood chips produced by a stump grinder, but didn’t find any evidence of that either. Plus, he could clearly see the house a hundred yards up the driveway. This didn’t look like the place.
“Good job with the deputy. I took a close look, and this isn’t the place. Let’s keep going, but carefully. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of our law enforcement friend.”
“He’ll definitely cruise through here again.”
Further down the road they found their house. No doubt about it. White rail fence. Electric gate. Interlocking pavers. And the stump was hard to miss.
“We’re in business,” Harv said. “Let’s find a place to park.”
Driving by, he studied what he could, but Nichole Dalton had it right. The house couldn’t be seen from the street.
Farther down the road, they both saw it at the same time, a place to park at the entrance to a small community park. The closed gate prevented access, but they could park on the shoulder without drawing too much attention. And Harv’s big Mercedes would look perfectly natural in this neighborhood. When the deputy patrolled through here again, he couldn’t miss it, and finding it unoccupied would raise suspicion. Short on options, they decided to risk it.
They put on all their tactical gear and applied fresh face paint to the exposed areas of skin. Satisfied, they nodded to each other and climbed out. Harv locked the sedan and placed the keys on top of the left front tire. They both knew an untimely jingling of keys could blow a stealthy approach-especially with dogs.
“Nate, you still have those quarters in your pocket from the payphone?”
He removed them and tossed them into the bushes.
“Let’s mask our scent,” Nathan said. He reached up and yanked a small branch from a eucalyptus tree. Harv did the same. They crushed the leaves and rolled them like dough in their hands before rubbing the pungent leafy mix all over their clothes and exposed skin. It wasn’t perfect, and certainly not adequate against trained tactical dogs, but better than nothing. Too bad some road apples weren’t available. They never used deodorant on missions, and they’d both showered with scent-free soap prior to the Long Beach raid. Dogs were always a concern. Their keen sense of smell didn’t miss much, especially human traces.
Nathan kept his voice low. “Let’s cross the street. If anyone drives by, we can hop that rail fence and duck behind the hedge. When we get to the west property corner, break out your thermal imager and take a peek. It should see any dogs or guards. I’ll be on the NV for infrared beam sources and tripwires. If there’re dogs patrolling the property, we won’t need to worry about trip wires or beams unless they’re higher than the dogs. What do you think, four or five feet AGL?”
“That’s where I’d place them if I used dogs.”
“Ten yard separation. I’m on point.”
Over the next five hundred yards, they crossed several driveways, snaking up to huge estate homes. The driveway just west of their target was shorter and wider and flanked with mature cypress trees. The rail fence they’d been following turned 90 degrees to the north and paralleled the colonnade of cypress. They’d reacquire the fence on the opposite side of the driveway.
Nathan inhaled deeply through his nose, but didn’t detect anything other than eucalyptus, which tended to mask all other odors. “I’m going to cross the driveway and hop the fence,” he whispered into the lapel mike. “We’ll advance on the inside and use the hedge for cover. I’m almost there. Twenty-five yards to the property corner. Switching to NV. Lasers on.”
The lasers would stay dark until they pressed the activation buttons on the butts of their weapons. He reached up to his visor, pivoted the NV monocular down to his left eye, and powered it up. Once again, the nighttime world around him turned bright green. He adjusted the input to a slightly lower gain and slowed his pace. At the property corner, the rail fence converged into a Y intersection. A second fence, presumably the western boundary of the target property, joined the obtuse angle and ran in a northerly direction. At the convergence of the fences, he crouched down and held up his right fist, putting Harv on hold. He conducted a slow sweep of the area on both sides of El Camino Real.
Nothing moved. All quiet.
The absence of wind made their job more difficult. It was eerily quiet. Every snapped twig or crunch of leaves under their boots would be detected if dogs were present.
