Locked and Loaded (2 page)

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Captain Anthony Davis sat transfixed as his battalion commander gave his unit the briefing. The next generation of Salazar drug traffickers was expanding well beyond their Miami operations, making alliances with Afghan and Pakistan nationals that had known ties to both the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Satellite photos of the Salazar compound flashed across the briefing room screen.

“We’ve got seventy-seven thousand square feet exposed with a hundred-and-eighty-degree view of the water. This place was arrogantly built for luxury, not built to withstand a fast, preemptive strike,” Colonel Mitchell said looking around the small DELTA Force unit. “Cabanas, pool, tennis courts, marina … all make good access points and hiding places, but don’t get sloppy. Make no mistake, this compound is heavily armed, even though it seems fairly spread out and easy to wire. If the targets fall back to this position—which hopefully they will, with all of Assad’s people—I’d rather you go in and take them down the old-fashioned way, rather than leave a smoking black hole in this otherwise upscale, residential neighborhood. The main house is a ten-thousand-square-foot, seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom monstrosity that will leave quite an eyesore if you have to blow it.”

“No trouble with the Posse Commitatus Act, Colonel?” Captain Davis asked carefully, and then glanced at Lieutenants Butcher and Hayes.

“No,” Colonel Mitchell said in a flat tone. “We are in hot pursuit from our units in Afghanistan. That voids our concern about getting caught in a jurisdictional battle with the Drug Enforcement Agency or any other stateside law enforcement organization. We have word from the DEA through our International Joint Task Force on Homeland Security that the same target we have, Anwar Assad, is doing a deal in DEA’s Miami jurisdiction. We are getting more intel as we speak from their field division special agents, and we’re eventually going to need to establish a liaison relationship between us and the DEA. But right now, we’re burning daylight. You better than anyone know that we cannot waste time with bureaucratic bull. We have to strike while the iron is hot. So, although our roles somewhat overlap on this one, our mission is clear.”

The colonel began slowly pacing at the front of the briefing room, ticking off the points on his thick fingers as he enumerated them for his men. “One—confiscate the shipment to keep that insane amount of narcotics off our American streets; two—via Central Intelligence, our forces are to track all funds transfers so we can cast a wider net to catch even bigger fish, and so we can interrupt the cash flow of this operation to cripple it; and three—capture the bastards for future intel if we can, or exterminate them on-site if we can’t. Allowing any of them to disappear back into the shadows or to hide behind the facade of being legitimate businessmen isn’t an option. They’re attempting to bring the party to our house, so, gentlemen, let’s show ’em a real good time.”

“Roger that,” Captain Davis replied, staring at the beautiful woman who had briefly graced the screen. “How much civilian collateral damage is at risk within the compound, sir?”

“We’re not sure at this time, because the household population changes daily based on whoever is visiting. That’s why it’s an option of last resort, but one that may ultimately be necessary—so rig it.” Colonel Mitchell clasped his hands behind his back and lifted his chin, but his eyes were troubled. “There may be a few girlfriends and nonsecurity civilian staff inside the compound when the time comes … which is regrettable and also why I’m giving you orders to rig it for detonation as a last resort, but to preferably go in as a small, swift-moving assassin squad. It’s always unfortunate to have civilian losses, but sometimes it’s unavoidable.”

“Understood, sir,” Captain Davis said, glancing at his lieutenants, who nodded; he returned his attention to the colonel.

Although he outwardly seemed engaged in the colonel’s words, in truth he was momentarily unable to get the image of the shapely, bikini-clad, cocoa-skinned woman with a million-dollar smile out of his head. He oddly found himself wondering what her eyes looked like behind the huge, black designer sunglasses she wore, and wanted to know how a woman who appeared so classy could wind up sleeping with a drug kingpin.

But just as immediately as the thought flitted through his mind, he banished it. Women like that did anything for money, and that same beauty would be the first one to put a bullet in his skull if she thought he was going to try to capture or kill her lover.

A long deployment in Afghanistan without regular female companionship was probably what was wearing on him, if he’d gotten temporarily distracted by a mere photo. Would have been nice to get one more quick trip in to Amsterdam for some paid brothel talent before he’d had to track Assad, but that was the last thing he needed to be thinking about at the moment.

Anthony immediately admonished himself. He was stateside now, just had to complete this mission, then he’d be able to have a life for a couple of weeks.

CHAPTER 1

Although the grounds seemed to be wide open and vulnerable, he knew better. Intel from the cell phone chatter and closer satellite feeds told him the place was crawling with guards and attack dogs, sweeping security cameras, and laser alarm fencing around the water side of the property.

But with a little creativity, it was possible to get in anywhere.

Using the pleasure boat traffic as a cover, Anthony silently slipped into the water and waited. Lieutenant Butcher was making an approach at the front of the house. As soon as the guards left the yacht that was moored on Salazar’s dock, he could rig it and the two security speedboats with explosives, board the main vessel, quickly upload a viral image to their security camera software, then cover the grounds in less than seven minutes to strategically plant C4, and be out.

Anthony looked at his watch and stayed low behind his small moored fishing craft. As soon as he heard shouting and saw a huge, blond, bouncer-like guard stand up in the yacht’s pilothouse, he moved in.

“Don’t shoot the fucking dogs!” the blond guard shouted, coming out to assess the problem. “Are you stupid? You wanna draw cops here because a neighbor heard something? What did Roberto tell you?”

From the edge of the water beneath the dock, Anthony watched guards scramble to fan out with guard dogs pulling them forward.

“Pop the chains!” a burly Latino guard shouted. “It’s not our fault if the mutts crossed the property line!”

Anthony packed C4 under the dock and slipped out of the water. Chaos was his cover. The alarms were already going berserk. A fence breach would be blamed for his diversion. By now, porn should have been showing up on the security cameras in the house as well as the boat; wireless networks were a bitch to secure and his people were the best at hacking in. Some poor bastard in Salazar’s camp was going to take the fall for it, but who cared?

Laughter rang out along with booming curses. That’s how he knew his strategy had worked. It was an insane one, but one the older vets had told him killed a lot of good men in WWII. Starving stray dogs were cheap and expendable. In that war, the enemy wired the animals with explosives and trained them to run under tanks to get fed, then
kaboom
.

His strategy this afternoon was a somewhat subtler approach. It was a known fact that male guard dogs could be trained to resist anything except a female in heat. Release four or five strays in heat on a compound, and you no longer had an effective pack of male guard dogs to contend with.

Up and out of the water in seconds, Anthony peeled off his black wet suit like a viper shedding his skin, then began running as if he were an animal control officer who had scaled the border property fence. In his peripheral vision, he could see Lieutenant Butcher dashing across a section of landscaped lawn with four henchmen running after their out-of-control Dobermans.

“We ought to shoot you for letting them get out of your truck,” one henchman yelled out.

The blond in charge raked his fingers through his hair as one of the guard dogs that had mounted a female snarled at him when he approached it.

“I’m sorry, man,” Lieutenant Butcher called out, purposely allowing a skinny female dog to dodge him. “Why don’t you just let him finish, bro … like, it won’t be that long, then I won’t have to trank him so you can get him get back on a leash.”

“Fine!” the blond yelled. “But you get this bullshit off our grounds pronto!”

“Done,” Butcher said, trying to tuck away a smile as all five guard dogs became adhered in ecstasy to the strays, totally ignoring their primary job functions. “My partner went over the back wall to be sure there’s no more running loose on the property, sir. He’s got a van patrolling the area on an assist. So don’t get trigger-happy if you see a tall black guy in a beige uniform, dude. We’ll be out of here as soon as the Dobermans dismount.”

The ruse worked. Several of the guards laughed, making lewd comments about female anatomy, but all seemed generally sympathetic to the temporarily powerless state of their attack dogs. Butcher had played his role beautifully, as if he was going for an Academy Award, even down to showing the guards how the lack of county funding had left his vehicle cage locks half-busted and unreliable.

The lieutenant’s claim was that they’d gotten a local call about a small gator, and he and his partner’s trucks were the only ones nearby in this area that had room in them at the moment. A speed bump on the cul de sac had jarred everything loose—that, along with eager female canines pushing on the doors after clearly smelling male dogs in the vicinity, was the culprit.

Now he had to play his role, and thanks to Butcher, even if he was spotted, he wouldn’t cause immediate suspicion. Dogs had been disabled. Cameras were on the blink. Guards and garage staff were in the front of the main building trying to get their animals back under control. Five minutes was all he needed to conceal C4 bricks wired with cell-phone detonators in the pool cabana, at the house foundation, and under the cars in the garage. In a matter of minutes, Plan B would be in full effect. Lieutenant Hayes was on airport detail, already tailing Salazar and Assad, gathering more intel to execute Plan A.

As he set down the last explosive, hiding it behind a drainpipe, Anthony looked up from the back west wall of the house as the unmistakable click of a gun hammer cocking pierced his right ear. Instinct made him immediately throw a hard elbow jab backward to catch the would-be shooter in his Adam’s apple. But this assailant was shorter than he’d judged, didn’t have an Adam’s apple, and deftly moved away, anticipating the jab as though an expert in martial arts. The blow never fully connected, only grazed her cheek.

For a split second their eyes met, assassin to assassin. She was the beauty he’d seen in the briefing and now held a nine-millimeter on him. Her hard brown gaze told him that she’d seen him stash the explosive. They both knew she had no problem pulling the trigger, but he couldn’t allow her to alert the guards.

Only two precious seconds had ticked by. In a flash he nodded forward with a powerful neck thrust to butt his forehead against hers and quickly deflected her right wrist to keep from getting shot. But she’d jerked her head back in a strong snap to avoid the collision, yet hadn’t properly judged her own distance from the brick wall. Her skull slammed against the masonry with a crack and he could see it in her eyes that she was temporarily dazed when she tried to point her weapon at him again and needed both hands. He also knew that her uncertainty would make her more deadly. Once a person tasted fear or was wounded, they were more likely to do something erratic as panic set in.

Not giving her time to think or regain her balance, he moved in. Size and clarity were his advantage, but speed and adrenaline seemed to be hers. She rolled out of his attempted grasp and then delivered a gun butt blow to his temple that would have dropped him, if her aim had been a quarter inch better. But in the vastness of those frenetic fighting seconds, he could sense that she meant to capture him, not kill him.

She had a gun and yet hadn’t fired it. If she were merely protecting herself and the property, she should have put a bullet in his skull at close range by now. After he’d reached for her and kept attempting to disarm her, she should have screamed. If this was a normal civilian … as a terrified girlfriend, she should have shot blindly and wildly—squeezing her eyes shut to pull the trigger, something to suggest that she was just a civvy. But she didn’t. She was actually battling him in hand-to-hand freakin’ combat, trying to apprehend him without alerting the guards? That had to mean she wanted information. This was a pro.

Then she made a miscalculation, a defensive move to match his aggression. She’d turned too slowly, her pivot being off by a hair, and his elbow jab caught her in the back of her skull. She went down hard, and he caught her before she hit the ground.

This was not a part of the plan.
Who the hell was this woman?

If he left her body here, Salazar would be on high alert; the shipment might even be aborted and they’d lose months of surveillance work. Assad would slip back into the shadows. The entire mission would be in jeopardy; their targets would know that someone had gotten on the inside. If he left her in the grass with a gun in her hand, his lieutenant would probably be swiftly executed or worse—tortured for information.

Anthony peered up at the glass French double doors leading out to the patio where the female assassin had obviously emerged. A woman’s purse was on the floor along with her high heels. She’d literally come to fight him Ninja style in her bare feet. Oh, no, this wasn’t a civilian by any stretch of the imagination.

“Shit!” he murmured and then quickly ran across the patio, grabbed her purse and shoes, gathered her up in his arms, and began running toward the marina.

If he took one of the moored speedboats, it could be made to temporarily appear as though she’d gone out on the water. If she was missing from the house and no one saw her leave by car, his lieutenant wouldn’t have time to get out of there.