It’s a good team and our confidence is high, even though we don’t have anything resembling a solid exfiltration plan. I’m confident that we can overpower the opposition long enough for us to secure the hostages and grab some vehicles, but my confidence rests on Carl’s flying skills and his ability to keep himself and Shep in the air, raining down merciless aggression on anyone who opposes us.

It’s nine p.m. when we load up Shep’s F-350 and Rodney’s Ford Bronco, and then we head off towards the airport.

It would be a pain in the ass getting onto the airport grounds in Bakersfield with all our weaponry, so instead we drop Carl off at the front gate of the fixed operating base where his Eurocopter is parked, so he can preflight the helo while the rest of us drive south.

By ten we’re on the Golden State Highway, still wargaming different scenarios that may come up. I can tell these men have raided a lot of structures together over the years. They are cool and professional and, while they may not be in their prime from the standpoint of their physical ability, mentally they are rock solid, and I know Hanley and Hightower hooked me up with the right group.

I just wish there were two dozen more of them, but when hitting a fifteen-thousand-square-foot building with an unknown number of hostiles inside and an unknown hostage disposition, I can get a little greedy.

But, despite the small force at my disposal, I’ll take these guys into battle, and together we’ll do our best.

* * *

• • •

At eleven forty-five the four of us are sitting in the bed of Shep’s truck, looking at the cloudless sky, when A.J. points out a speck of light approaching from the north. It takes minutes before we hear it, but by the time Carl brings the bird on final approach, we’re all out of the truck, laden down with our guns and rucks.

The helicopter lands in a field fifty yards away, and we start humping over to it.

The four of us tasked with riding on the outside of the helo make uncomfortable eye contact. Carl is going to fly lights-out to mask us visually, and low so we won’t be heard from as great a distance. He’s told us about his flight plan and the tactics he will employ, and none of us are thrilled about the prospect of racing ten feet over the Earth at ninety miles an hour, in the dark, hooked to the outside of a helicopter flown by a guy who realistically should be home watching TV and thinking of his glory days.

But at this point, for all our reasons, we’re pretty much committed to seeing this through.

As promised, Carl has rigged four thick ropes, hooking them with carabiners to fixed points inside the cabin. The carabiner on the other end we each hook onto our utility belts, then we check one another to make sure we didn’t fuck it up.

The doors have been removed from the helo and our lifelines offer us just enough slack to stand on the skids and hold on to the door frames. If we fall from the skids we won’t drop to our deaths, but we will find ourselves dangling along, bouncing up against the fuselage of the helicopter, and praying Carl didn’t go cheap and buy the rope holding us up at some dollar store in East Bakersfield.

I push this out of my mind and notice four other ropes coiled on the floor inside the cabin. They’re each thirty feet long and they’ll be tossed out before we get to our target so we can fast-rope down, just a couple dozen yards from the rear entrance.

We considered a roof insertion of the property; the roof of the hacienda is flat enough, but we’re worried about squirters, enemy slipping out of the property, while we make our way down three stories, so we’ll hit from the back lawn, clear together to the top, and kill anyone who opposes us.

That’s the plan, anyway.

I hook on to the front port side, positioning myself right behind Shep and his SCAR 16S rifle in the front left seat. While the other men climb into position, I check my gear once more. I’ve got a nicely souped-up yet simple AK-47-pattern semiautomatic rifle. It’s a big gun for close-quarters work, but it’s proven itself over many decades of fighting around the world, and I know how to run it effectively with my eyes closed.

I have four extra magazines in a rack on my chest, giving me 150 rounds total.

The other guys are wearing body armor, but there weren’t any extra plates for me. I’m wearing my pistol in a drop leg holster, and there is a trauma kit and a long fixed-blade Benchmade knife in a sheath on my belt. Rodney gave me one smoke grenade and one flash bang grenade, and they’re both hanging from my chest, and I’m wearing borrowed ear protection over my interteam radio headset, and ballistic goggles.

I don’t have a helmet. Rodney was fresh out of helmets, too.

In a small backpack I have extra pistol mags along with the Walther P22 pistol and an attached suppressor, though I’m not sure how covert I’m going to need to be considering we are flying right up to the target in a helicopter. Still, you never know how tonight is going to shake out, so I like the versatility of a low-decibel firearm on my person, just in case.

At midnight Carl applies maximum power and the rotors battle the air a moment, and then we lift off the field for our twenty-minute flight to the target, surrounded by a swirling cloud of dust.

Instantly my goggles are covered in the dust, and when I wipe it off I see that the Vietnam vet pilot has already turned off all the lights on the aircraft. I look inside the open hatch and see him there, his craggy face glowing with the green light of the instruments in front of him. He doesn’t have night vision goggles, he’s just flying along low to the ground, picking up speed, and peering into the darkness ahead.

Holy shit.

I catch myself pining for the relative safety of the shootout at the other end of this flight. Surely it won’t be as dangerous as the next twenty minutes.

* * *

• • •

Ken Cage lay on the bed, his eyes on the ceiling, and he wiped sweat from his brow with a hairy forearm.

His heart pounded in his chest; the angina burned, but he was used to this after sex.

Next to him, his newest victim lay facing away from him, her naked body exposed, and he heard her soft sobs, like a punished child.

This made him smile a little. He lay without moving for several seconds, then reached over and grabbed her by her hair, pulled her head back to him. She screamed in surprise, and their eyes met in the low light, inches apart. “Just so you know . . . I was easy on you tonight. Next time, you’ll get to see my wild side.”

He rolled off the bed, pulled on his shorts, and headed for the door. “No, you didn’t get the high-octane version of me, because I saved my energy for the other new girl.” He smiled again. “You can thank her in the morning.”

The Director left the room without another word.

The Hungarian girl called Sofia gazed blankly at the wall through tear-filled eyes.