Atticus in my ear: “He’s climbing out the window.”
“Understood?”
The woman nods quickly. The children have started crying again. The little girl keeps saying abuelo, over and over, and the boy is so scared he pees his pants.
I shout, “Go!”
Without waiting for a response, I turn and hurry out of the bedroom.
Five
“He’s almost out.”
Atticus’s voice echoes in my ear as I sprint toward the door at the end of the hallway.
Because of the urgency, I don’t bother being careful, which is of course stupid on my part. Instead of standing to the side when I open the door, I run at it full on and kick it open. I expect only Ernesto to be in the master bedroom, but there are two more guards inside. One is assisting Ernesto out the window, the other stationed across the room, his gun aimed right at me.
The second guard fires off a shot. Had the lights been on, his bullet would have taken me out, but because of the dark, he misses by a few inches.
I shoot him first, two bullets to the head, then swing my pistol toward the other guard. That guard has already let go of Ernesto—the old man issuing a strangled cry—and has grabbed the rifle strapped over his shoulder as he turns toward me.
This guard doesn’t care about precision. He squeezes the trigger and doesn’t let go, spraying bullets everywhere in my direction.
I dive to the side and stay flat on the floor as I take aim at the guard’s nose. My bullet shatters his face and he stumbles back, his finger still on the rifle’s trigger, exhausting the rest of the magazine into the ceiling.
I jump to my feet and sprint over to the opened window. Ernesto is already hurrying away, toward the front of the house. But he’s limping, favoring his left leg, which he either sprained or broke from the fall.
Aiming carefully out the window, I fire off two rounds, one of which strikes Ernesto in his right leg. He falls to the ground and then lies there, motionless, before he regains some strength and uses his arms to start crawling forward.
Just outside the window, one of the quadcopters hovers midair, its camera pointed at me.
I ask the quadcopter, “Anybody else around the compound?”
Atticus says, “Not that I can see. Ernesto is the only one left.”
I glance down at the ground two stories below. If Ernesto were more mobile, I would climb out and drop down, but why potentially roll my ankle if I don’t have to?
I step away from the window and cross the bedroom to the door. Down the long hallway to the top of the foyer where the woman and the two children are already halfway down the one set of stairs. She carries the boy while she grips the girl’s arm, pulling her forward. Mercifully for the children, the penlight’s thin beam doesn’t illuminate much of the carnage. But the children are still scared, the boy sobbing, the girl sniffing back tears.
The penlight swings in my direction when the woman hears me coming.
“Relax. Just keep focused on what you’re doing.”
The penlight stays on me for a moment longer before swinging back toward the stairs. The woman does her best to keep the bodies and the blood concealed by the dark.
I use the other set of stairs down to the foyer, stepping over dead bodies on my way out the front door.
Ernesto hasn’t gotten far. Maybe ten yards, maybe less. He’s nowhere near the pickup trucks and SUVs he seemed to have been headed toward before I shot him. The moon is bright enough that he sees motion off to his left. When he realizes it’s me, he gives up and stops moving.
I stand over Ernesto, the gun in my hand.
He glares up at me. The muscles in his face ripple with pain. When he speaks, his voice is deep and stunted.
“My son?”
I raise the SIG, point it at his head.
“Tell him I say hi.”
Despite the silencer, the single gunshot sounds like an explosion in my hand.
Behind me, the little girl screams.
I turn to find them standing not too far away, the woman still holding the boy, her hand wrapped tight around the little girl’s arm.
I don’t bother trying to comfort the children. That isn’t my job. Just like I’m not about to explain myself.
I take a step forward.
The woman flinches, gripping the girl even tighter.
“I told you, I’m not going to hurt you. I didn’t come here for you. I came here for him.”
I don’t bother pointing at the dead man behind me.
“Get in one the SUVs and drive away. You want to be far away for what happens next.”
The woman stares at me. Her voice trembles when she speaks.
“What happens next?”
“Actually, on second thought, make sure you don’t use either that SUV or that pickup.”
I point at the closest ones.
The woman keeps staring at me.
“Why?”
I don’t answer. I step past her and the children and head back inside the house. It takes me two minutes to do what I need to do, and then I’m back outside and it doesn’t look like the woman and children have moved.
“Goddamn it”—exhaustion in my voice, irritation—“you should be gone by now.”
The woman shakes her head slowly.
“There is nowhere for us to go.”
Atticus in my ear: “You’ve got company.”
I turn away, looking around the compound frantically.
“What do you mean?”
“Heading up the drive to the house. Two pickup trucks.”
I sprint toward the open gate. Ernesto Diaz’s compound is secluded, which was why I knew it would be possible for me to breach it. The closest town is five miles away. Now two pickup trucks are bouncing up the rugged drive.
Behind me, I hear the woman approaching.
I glance back at her and the children but don’t say anything at first, my mind reeling with all the different possibilities. This would have been a whole lot easier had the
