“You allowed to own this stuff in California?” I ask as I adjust the rifle’s sling to my frame.

“Nope. Not allowed to shoot people, either, but I figure that’s probably on the agenda tomorrow night.”

“Good point.”

I pull a Walther P22 pistol out of the safe and pick up the .22 caliber silencer lying next to it. “Mind if I grab this one, too?”

Rodney looks at me quizzically. “Sure. But I’ve got other pistols with threaded barrels. You don’t need to take that little peashooter.”

I put the Walther and the silencer into my canvas backpack. “You never know when you might need to shoot a pea.”

He looks at me like I’m nuts, then hooks me up with the rest of the gear I need.

Seeing the impressive size of his cache, I say, “You guys are supposedly retired. Why are you hanging on to so much weaponry?”

I expect him to say he’s just a gun collector or a firearms aficionado, but instead he verifies what I have been assuming all along.

“We’re always looking for the next thing we can’t stay away from. We’re out of the fight after Manila, but we’ve all wanted to get back into it. Even Stu, until his wife got pregnant. The rest of us? The shit we’ve seen? Damn, dude. I’m going to be going out hunting traffickers and abusers till I take my last fucking breath. Same goes for the other boys, Papa included.”

“Works for me,” I say, and then I head out to the driveway to climb into Duvall’s pickup for the drive down for our recon on Rancho Esmerelda.

FORTY-SIX

   Shep and I drive south for an hour and a half, most of it through canyoned scrubland, finally arriving at our destination at four in the afternoon. He parks his F-350 on the gravel side of Lake Hughes Road; we both pull packs out of the bed and begin hiking through hills. After thirty minutes of this we crest a rise and then drop to our bellies.

We are most of a mile north of Rancho Esmerelda, just south of San Francisquito Canyon Road, and with the maps on our phones and the GPS on Shep’s watch we’ve picked this particular site as a good overwatch position for our evening of reconnaissance. We pull binoculars for a quick look, then unpack a high-end spotting scope Duvall brought along to get a better picture of the property.

Spotting scopes suck in the night, but the buildings around Rancho Esmerelda are lit up and the moon is nearly full. These conditions help us this evening, although Shep and I both know they will hinder us tomorrow when we have to try to get as close to that target as possible without being seen.

After looking through the optics for just seconds we realize we are facing a large and formidable property. The sixty-power scope Shep brought along helps identify the main guard force to be, as near as we can tell, Mexican or perhaps even Salvadoran gangsters. If experience is any guide, these men will be trained in the use of their weapons but not overly organized as a cohesive fighting force. They are carrying what appear to be civilian AR-15s and shotguns, mostly, and they amble about on foot, drive patrols over the sixty rolling acres in four-wheelers, or sit in covered fixed positions around the property.

We don’t see any women milling about outside, but that’s no surprise. Still, we quickly get an idea about where the victims are being held. The guard force is centralized around the main building, a luxurious three-story ranch house we estimate to be somewhere around fifteen thousand square feet. While there are other outbuildings around the ranch, sheds and warehouses and a barn and a couple of cabins, from the disposition of external security we determine that the girls are located in the big house.

The bunkhouses are to the east on the far edge of the property, but there are vehicles parked behind them and a halfway decent road through the undulating landscape to the big stucco house, a half mile to the west.

Just after nine p.m., a pair of high-end SUVs turn off the main road, roll up the drive, and stop at a guard position. A minute later they continue forward, until they finally stop again in front of the main house.

The drivers open the rear doors in both vehicles, and four men climb out and head up the steps to the front door. They disappear inside a moment later.

Shep says what I’m thinking. “Johns.”

“Yeah.” If I had a sniper rifle on me I’d be inclined to open up on these bastards, so it’s a good thing I don’t.

I speak softly, knowing how voices can travel on a quiet night. “We’ll do a helo infiltration, concentrate forces on the main building. We secure hostages, and then, hopefully, fight our way back out.”

“Hopefully,” Shep mutters.

“Yeah, I know. Hope isn’t a strategy. But tomorrow night it will definitely have to serve as a tactic.”

Shep nods. “We need two outside to keep the responding forces occupied. I’m old, my knees are pretty shot, but I can snipe. I’ll fly shotgun in the helo and provide air cover; me and Carl will circle the target during the raid. And A.J. can knock the stink off a gnat’s ass from a thousand yards. We’ll put him on that hillock over there on the other side of the canyon; he’ll do his best to keep the guys in the bunkhouse busy.”

I laugh in the dark. “We make it sound so easy.”

Shep spits into the dirt in front of him. “Getting in . . . not easy, but doable. Getting out . . . I don’t know.”

“One problem at a time,” I say. Then I ask, “You’re sure Carl can handle this?”

Without hesitation, he says, “He’ll be fine.”

“You met him at the Agency?”

“Nah, he’s been retired since, like forever. He flies that helo at a two-hundred-fifty-acre gun range north of Las Vegas. Weekend warriors go there to shoot targets from the air, and he gives them the ride of their lives.”

“He knows he’s gonna get shot at tomorrow, right?”

Duvall nods. “He knows the mission. Look, you’ve got five guys willing to face death to help save those girls and frag any of those fuckers holding them who try to stop us. Don’t look too deep into the motivations of any one of us, and we’ll try not to think too hard about yours.”

“Fair enough. Have you seen his helo?”

“Sure. Decent little four-seater.”

I take my eye out of the scope and look at Shep. “A four-seater?”

“Yep.”

Confused, I point out the obvious. “You, me, Rodney, Kareem, and A.J. Plus the pilot. That’s six.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Why doesn’t it matter?”

“Because you, A.J., Kareem, and Rodney are riding the skids.”