The Last Operation (The Remnants of War Series, Book 1) (11 page)

"I know it ain't fucking Halloween, so I guess, no, make that I pray, you punched his clock and look like him to pull us out of here."

"On target buckaroo. The way it works, we got about one and a half minute to meet our ride just outside. How bad is he? Can he walk?" Oscar Velez sat up. Every move yanked a grimace of pain from his face. His skin had the complexion of a jaundiced sickly old man. Rhineman pulled a small hypodermic syringe and injected Oscar.

"That should mask the pain and give you a few minutes of straight thinking. That's all we need. We'll have you in a top military hospital by dinnertime."

Rhineman fumbled with the keys until he found the one that opened the chain lock holding the men to the cot. LeCount helped Oscar to his feet and placed his arm around his shoulder. Oscar's left leg hung useless and dragging as fresh blood seeped out of the hideous wound that was his knee. Rhineman thought Velez would be lucky to keep the leg. He surely wouldn't walk right again.

They went up the basement steps into the circular hallway with Rhineman leading the way. The right side of his white pants was bright red with blood from the leg wound. He limped slightly and winced with every step. The ricochet bullet had passed through muscle without hitting anything vital but it was now seriously talking to him.

Kurt Rhineman was running on adrenaline.

"We can't go through the front of the house. Fucked up as we are right now, their dumbest son of a bitch guard would make us out. We gotta use the kitchen service entrance."

They walked thirty feet to the vaulted brick arch that decorated the entrance to the mansion's kitchen. Rhineman ushered LeCount and Velez inside. He started through the entrance when he heard the voice behind him, calm and deep like far-off summer lightning.

"Was your evening all you hoped it would be Miguel?"

There were no more options. Anyone talking to him this way would be one of the Durand brothers. They would have no fear of him. They would recognize in an instant he was not Aquilino. All this ran through Rhineman's head in an instant as he whirled, leveled the Glock and fired five rounds in the direction of the voice. Simultaneously he dove through the archway into the kitchen. The shots reverberated throughout the mansion like a clapper in a church bell.

* * *

Hector Durand had been restless. He felt some edge of disquiet, a primitive sense that all was not right. He'd wandered to the kitchen and found there were no guards on duty. Upstairs, he discovered Miguel's apartment empty with the door opened and furniture drawers scattered, as if someone had gone through it looking for something. Hector Durand had gone back to the foyer and picked up the electronic alarm trigger, a device that looked like a television remote control. If he pushed the single red button in the center it would alarm the house next to the mansion and bring thirty armed men at a run. The gate guards would also be alerted and nothing would get in or out of the compound. Ten more men from the house would fan out as perimeter guards.

He clipped the alarm trigger to a steel loop in his belt and removed his favorite weapon from the wall case. He picked up a full clip and inserted it into the World War II vintage Thompson .45 submachine gun and stuck another clip in his pocket. Hector Durand liked the weapon. There was a heavy strong feel to this gun that he had not found in any of the newer more modern weapons that abounded in the compound.

* * *

When Rhineman fired the Glock it took Hector by surprise. He knew it was not Miguel, he had expected the imposter to at least pause or even turn around. The speed of the stranger's reaction had been amazing. But Hector was no slouch. He had not risen to the top of the vicious, deadly world of Mexican drug gangs by being slow. He dropped to the floor and the nine-millimeter rounds whistled above his head, pinging and ricocheting, kicking up clouds of plaster dust from the walls. Hector returned the fire with a long burst from the Thompson, the hail of .45 caliber "dum-dum" bullets blowing out chunks of bricks from the hallway where Rhineman had stood less than a single second ago. Hector Durand fired another short burst and pressed the red center button on the remote alarm.

* * *

An unbearably high pitched shrieking seemed to come out of the very air, rising and falling in rapid tones, red flashing strobe lights pulsed in several locations inside and outside the mansion. Simultaneously the alarm went off in the adjacent house and men rushed off their cots, card games and dinners forgotten, grabbed an assortment of weapons and rushed outside.

* * *

Carlos drove the Durango past the second guard post with Daniels still slumping, his head down. They drove the rest of the way until they reached the graveled front yard. There were two men sitting on the front steps, AK-47's casually slung around their shoulders.

"That's the perimeter guard about to go on their round," said Daniels. "Park by the other side, not too close. Stay in range."

Carlos and Daniels got out of the truck and stood leaning against the white fenders like a couple of employees taking time out to shoot the breeze.

"They should have been out of there by now Richard. We're late, they should have been out already."

"Maybe they're making themselves some tacos. The way things are going we'll probably miss breakfast."

Carlos glanced at Daniels. The
North Americano
is certainly
un poco locos
, or maybe a lot nuts, thought Carlos. But then again, the way he had dispatched El Toro made you wonder about the aces he held in his sleeves.

Carlos jumped as a high wailing siren pierced the still night air. A strobe mounted atop the gable on the front of the mansion began flashing red, another siren sounded in the nearby smaller house and they heard the commotion of men roused to their weapons.

Daniels motioned Carlos in the truck as he took the driver's seat. He pulled a wire from inside the bandanna and adjusted it so it was in front of his mouth.

"Matt, what's going on?"

* * *

Matt had seen Kurt Rhineman disguised as the blonde enter the house. The sniper scope brought everything in close view. She had a funny twinge as she thought, shit, he looks better than I do in my best dress.

She'd seen the two guards leave with the body in the Durango. When the truck returned she saw through the scope that Daniels and Carlos were in front. They were running late, but more troublesome, Rhineman was running even later. They should have been out of the house over six minutes ago. The sudden screech of the alarms and the flashing of the strobes confirmed her worst fears. Something had gone wrong, she thought, as Daniels' voice crackled in her earphone radio.

"Nothing, nobody's coming out. Can't see shit."

* * *

Kurt Rhineman hustled LeCount and Oscar through the kitchen. They were practically carrying Oscar as blood flowed freely from his shattered knee. Rhineman kicked the empty cartridge out of the Glock and slammed a new one in. Hector Durand held the Thompson around the edge of the brick arch and fired a long random burst. The bullets ricocheted everywhere knocking down hanging pots and pans and cooking implements in a violent pandemonium of metal, noise and deadly particles. The bullets passed above them as they crouched through the second hallway and burst out the courtyard through the kitchen service door.

* * *

"Side door, side door, I have them, repeat I have them," Matt's voice came through the radio earphones in Daniels' bandanna. He floored the Durango taking off in a spray of flying gravel and dust. The two perimeter guards stepped back, confused by the sudden alarm and the truck flying past them. Daniels stopped the Durango in front of the three men emerging from the kitchen entrance. He threw Oscar in the rear seat. Lecount jumped behind him followed by Rhineman. The truck took off as Rhineman pumped the remainder of the Glock magazine into the open doorway of the kitchen, pinning down Hector Durand. The two guards had followed the truck at a run and saw it stop and pick up three men fleeing from the house. The leading guard dropped to one knee and raised the AK-47 and sighted down the barrel. He was less then forty yards. He couldn't miss.

Chapter 15

Matt watched through the scope as the Durango with Carlos and Daniels bolted to the side of the house and picked up the three men. She saw the guard lining up the AK-47 behind them. They wouldn't make it. She centered the guard's head on the second mill dot below the crosshair, taking in the elevation and trajectory, and squeezed the trigger.

* * *

The second guard had been a little slower than his partner. That extra fat saved his life. He watched his partner kneel, aiming the AK-47 at the rear of the white Dodge Durango. One second he was holding the automatic weapon, the next second his head exploded in a pink and white cloud that left a shimmering halo of bloody droplets reflecting the bright white sodium lamps of the compound. Uncomprehending, his partner had seen up close the devastating kinetic energy of a modern sniper round.

The man dropped to the ground whimpering as his partner's body toppled forward. The crack of the rifle followed as the sound caught up with the supersonic flight of the bullet.

* * *

Daniels held the pedal to the floor as the Durango accelerated toward the first guard post. He felt naked and vulnerable under the bright lamps lining the roadway. His back twitched as he anticipated the feel of a bullet entering his flesh. In the rear view mirror he saw Hector Durand jump into a Hummer with four armed men. Two more groups were mounting up to give chase. In the first guard post, the men started to swing the big Belgium machine gun in their direction.

"Come on Matty, come on Matty," screamed Richard into the wire speaker.

"That's not my name asshole," whispered Matt. Her hands and arms were rock steady in the classic sniper stance, feet apart facing opposite directions. The man in the crosshair had just swung the machine gun on its pivot toward the approaching Durango when Matt squeezed the trigger.

* * *

The round took the man in the chest, the energy dissipating into his body, blowing out pieces of his heart and lung, forcing gouts of blood upward through his throat and outward from his chest. His arms were thrown in the air as the impact drove him over the four-foot sandbag wall into the road like the bundle of dead meat he had suddenly become. The thought had not yet formed in the second guard's mind, the visual impact too sudden and surprising for the synapses in his brain to figure it out, when Matt's next round passed through his throat and slammed into the sandbag. The second guard fell against the base of the machine gun, driving its barrel so it pointed into the sky.

* * *

Hector Durand was in fog of blind rage. He'd been duped, right in his own fortress, his own castle. I will kill them, he thought, I will hunt them with everything I have until they are dead. I will kill their families, their children. None will escape. He saw the Durango pass through the first guard post. Incredibly, not a shot had been fired. When he came closer he saw the machine gun pointing in the air, the dead guard on the road.

"Move, move or I'll have your eyes cut out," he screamed at the driver. The Hummer flew past the guard post, running over the guard's body with a wet, crunching noise.

* * *

The guards at the entrance had locked the heavy ferro-cement door in place. There was no chance the Durango could blast through. The gate had been designed to stop any vehicle.

Sitting next to Daniels as he drove, Carlos crossed himself over and over.

"Oh shit, oh shit, Oh
Madre de Dios
, we are screwed Richard,
mira, mira,
that big gate, we're dead," Carlos said, the words tumbling out one over the other, his face sweating and his eyes blinking so rapidly they trembled.

In the back seat Oscar moaned softly while LeCount closed his eyes. Rhineman was calmly reloading the Glock.

"Hey you losing faith
amigo,
taking the Lord's name in vain and all that shit. Just relax, enjoy the ride," said Daniels.

Oh please, oh please thought Carlos, just let me live, just let me live this once and never again will I ever have anything to do with insane Americans, crazy bastards all of them. This Richard Daniels was actually smiling like it's a great big joke.
Loco loco, esta loco.