William kept his eyes on the screen as he tapped the microphone on his desk. “You rang?”

A hesitation, and then, “Yeah. Can you come here a second?”

Protocol dictated that the man in the monitoring room radio one of the men on the main floor to check on the guest, but William liked being alone down here, and he didn’t think much of protocol anyway.

“Just a sec,” he said, then grabbed his keys and headed out into the hallway.

* * *

• • •

Zoya peered through the window. Just across from her was a door to a small supply closet, and on her right were more holding rooms and then, down at the end of the hall, the monitoring room. The last door—this led to the stairs and the main house—was just beyond.

William appeared and began walking her way. He stopped on the other side of the window and looked in at her.

“What’s the matter, hot stuff? Did you have a bad dream and wet the bed?”

Zoya glanced down nervously. “Uh . . . were you serious about the wine?”

William broke into a little grin. “I guess you’re gonna have to call my bluff to find out.”

She smiled coquettishly now. “I don’t suppose one little drink is going to hurt anything.”

He held a finger up. “The cameras first. Give me a sec.” He started to walk away, then spun back. “And the vino. I’ll grab the vino.” William took off up the hall, not quite at a jog but close, and Zoya stepped back into the center of the room and took off her socks, rolling them into a ball and tossing them on the floor next to her. She pulled off her sweatshirt, revealing a white Lycra sports bra, then untied the drawstring in her sweatpants and pulled them down to the floor. Kicking them off, she stood there a moment, facing the door, taking slow, calming breaths, and waiting for her guard’s return.

* * *

• • •

One hundred twenty yards away from the basement holding cell, a dozen men moved up a wooded hillside through a heavy downpour towards the lights of the building in the distance. When they arrived at the winding two-lane road in front of the big house, still much higher up the tree-covered slope, they broke up into four groups of three. One group stayed right there, taking up positions in the wet foliage, and the others moved off to the east and west.

They’d been ordered to close on the house from different directions to maximize their effectiveness.

All twelve men were sicarios of the Sinaloa cartel who lived and operated in Baltimore. Most of them had worked together before; most had killed in their duties, though none had ever done anything like this.

They’d been ordered by their leadership to hit this big house and to eliminate everyone inside.

The team had been warned that the location would be exceedingly well defended, but their leadership needn’t have bothered with the caution. The sicarios assumed they were being sent in to assassinate members of a rival gang, so of course there would be men with guns ready for a fight.

The Sinaloans’ weapons were individualized to their tastes; some carried AKs, some carried M4s, and one wielded a Scorpion EVO. Two of the men had venerable Uzis at their shoulders.

They all wore night vision goggles, most bought on Amazon or at Maryland sporting goods stores, and these helped them pick their way through the wooded five-acre property towards the main building.

When he was still fifty meters away from the gatehouse and the single sentry inside it, the team leader of the unit dropped into the wet leaves, flipped the bipod arms down on his M4, and lined up his four-power scope on the side of the lone man’s head.

He triggered his radio headset. In Spanish he said, “In position at the south drive.” In his ear he heard one of his men, this one sighting his M4 on a patrolling sentry in the back woods. “One target, west side. I’ve got him.”

Another voice came over the radio. “North side, one subject. I’m on target.”

When the eastern team reported no one outside in view, the team leader said, “En tres . . . dos . . . uno.”

An instant after the “uno,” the three men with targets fired suppressed, subsonic rounds from their weapons. Simultaneously the gate guard’s head snapped to the side and he dropped down in the gatehouse while both sentries pitched forward into the wet leaves.

All twelve Mexicans rose in the woods and, still in teams of three approaching from each of the compass points, they began their assault on the safe house.

CHAPTER 4

   Zoya stood all but naked in the center of the holding room as William peered through the glass with wide eyes. After taking a few seconds to recover, he unlocked the door. He fumbled with his keys upon entering, finally slipping them into a pocket with one hand while he held a pair of miniature bottles of red wine and two Solo cups with his other.

Zoya smiled, and William smiled back.

Entering the room he said, “Yeah,” looking her up and down. Then, “Hell yeah.” She looked down to the wine in his hand and he remembered it suddenly. “Right, vino. Gotta be honest, I’ve been holding on to these in my kit bag for the past month hoping you’d say yes.”

As William took a bottle and a cup in each hand, Zoya Zakharova’s smile remained, and she walked forward towards the man, her hand extended. She closed the distance between them and kept coming, reaching up and putting her hand behind his neck. William was clearly surprised by this; it looked as if she was going to kiss him.

But when her face was inches from his, her smile morphed into a look of primal intensity. Her legs sprang her up into the air and she swung her body around the security man, spinning high behind him by heaving herself up by the back of his muscular neck. Before William could react she had vaulted high onto his back, wrapped her legs around his midsection, and locked them together in front of his stomach, positioning her head above his.

The bottles and cups fell to the floor.

In a blur of motion Zoya reached forward around William’s neck now, slamming her muscular right biceps into the carotid artery on the right side of his throat, and, bringing her forearm around to his left side, cutting off circulation through the artery there. With her left arm she pushed his head forward, into the pressure against both sides of his neck.

He tried to reach back and grab her, but she shifted herself left and right to avoid his grasp.

Spinning around with her riding on him, he grunted and reddened.

She leaned into his ear while he struggled. “It’s just a blood choke, it won’t hurt you.”

The muscular thirty-year-old man slammed backwards into the wall, his hands pulling at the sinewy arms of the woman high on his back, desperate to relieve the pressure to his carotid arteries on both sides of his neck.