Trained by Sansa Rayne

Chapter 5

“This is Shepard One,” I say. “Status report.”

“This is Shepard Two,” Eyal replies. “We’re in position. Four targets acquired.”

He and the rest of his six-person strike team are north of Waterston’s ranch, hidden in the thick forest surrounding the property. According to prior surveillance, we know a stone wall serves as a barrier between the treeline and the ranch, but that’s not going to be a problem. In fact, it’s going to help us all stay hidden, so long as we avoid the main gate.

“Shepard Three in position,” says Henrik, speaking for himself, Stanislaw and their team from the east. “Three targets acquired.”

The west side of the ranch is blocked by a lake. That just leaves me in the south.

“Shepard One. I have a single target acquired. Mission is a go.”

When Eyal and I made our plan to steal Anton’s missiles, we figured it would be easy to buy or build the launching platforms we’d need to shoot them. Having Nasir’s help made it ten times easier. Our launchers are the size of shoeboxes, just long enough to house four of the missiles. Detachable panels from the base allow exhaust to escape. They’re heavy, made from steel and titanium, but they can be carried in a backpack — and they’re reusable.

“Tactical, report,” I say.

“This is Tactical,” replies Baptiste from back at our compound. “Eight targets are locked and in range. Weapons systems are set for impact protocol and ready to fire on your command.”

According to satellite surveillance, both Timo Thor and Lincoln Waterston have taken up residence at the ranch. My guess: they’re staying out of Anton’s way in the hopes he’ll leave them alone. It was never going to work, but it was the best shot they had. Perhaps they thought if they brought along their wives and children that Anton’s soft spot for family would offer some protection. I’m guessing the idea of using family as a shield would piss Anton off even more.

“Commence the attack. Strike teams, move in.”

This is it. After months of hiding, recuperating and gathering strength, it’s time for the wounded dragon to breathe fire. From today onward, Anton is going to know he’s at war. Surviving one strike could be written off as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But with two members of his organization assassinated only days later… that’s no coincidence.

Anton should know that when you sit on a stolen throne, someone will always challenge your reign.

I lower the visor of my motorcycle helmet and crouch low to the ground a few feet away from the launcher.

“Attack commencing in three… two… one,” says Baptiste.

A solitary missile launches from my location. Seven more launch from the rest of our positions. My visor’s built-in display shows me the eight missiles and their anticipated trajectories, as well as the feed from one missile’s built-in camera. However, they fly so fast there’s barely any time to actually watch.

Eight security guards patrol the ranch’s exterior. Within three seconds, all eight of them die, pierced by the missiles like thrown spears. The impact protocol keeps the missiles from exploding; for now, we don’t want to raise any alarms. Taking the guards out silently means we have time before anyone notices they’re out of commission — and we can always detonate the missiles later if we need a distraction.

I toss my grappling hook over the wall and climb up. Grunting as I land on the other side, I grimace in pain; the bullet in my leg didn’t like that maneuver. I should have used the rope to climb down. Too late now.

“We’re approaching the bodies,” Stanislaw says after a minute. “The missile strikes were clean.”

“That wasn’t fair of us,” Henrik chuckles. “They didn’t stand a chance.”

“Cut the chatter,” I say, though he’s not wrong. “Keep moving in.”

At least they died immediately, and without pain.

I hate to think what Anton would have done with these. It would have been tragic for a lot of people who didn’t deserve it. If I accomplish nothing else with this war, keeping weapons out of Anton’s hands is a victory in itself.

We wear black leather jackets reinforced with hidden armor plating, as well as black jeans and our biker helmets. In the night, we’re invisible — wraiths stalking through the darkness. I watch my step, constantly on the lookout for piles of horse manure; I can’t afford to get any on my shoes. I’d rather not leave a trail on the carpet for the guards to follow, or have them pick up the scent and realize they’re not alone.

Of course, at some point they’re going to know we’re here. We carry combat knives and suppressed Glock sidearms for stealth, but M16 assault rifles for when the situation heats up.

While the other teams prowl the front of the ranch’s two-story mansion, I sneak my way around the rear, where the security office is located. I find the south end’s solitary guard lying on the ground, the missile stuck in his chest. His mouth hangs open in a silent scream. I search his body, finding his keys, phone and pistol.

“Troy, this is Moore. Check in,” the man’s phone chirps. I lean over and touch the body’s finger to the surface.

“All clear,” I mumble through my helmet.

“What? I can’t hear you.”

“Are you there?” I ask.

“Troy?”

“Hello?”

“Hang on,” says Moore. “I’ll be right there.”

I wait for him behind the thick shrubs lining the mansion. He steps outside with his gun and flashlight in hand, smart enough to be suspicious. I guess they’ve been briefed that an attack could occur; otherwise, Timo and Lincoln wouldn’t be hiding.

Moore gets half a second of warning when my feet squish in the dewy grass, but by then it’s too late. I drive my knife into his back, piercing his heart. He collapses at my feet. Quick and quiet. I take his badge and head into the security office.

Six screens show rooms from around the mansion on a rotation. Several of them show my men marching down the halls and carrying out their orders: secure Timo, Lincoln and their families. Guards are fair game, but the civilians are not to be harmed. They’ll go room-by-room for now, subduing silently everyone they can with gags, zip-ties and tasers, if necessary.

I hear a series of thumps — gunshots muffled by the suppressors.

“Moore, I’m hearing something strange,” a voice calls in through the office’s intercom. “Are you hearing this? I think we’re under-”

More thumps. My teams have breached.

An alarm sounds out, and red alerts appear on the office’s monitoring systems.

“Emergency! This is not a drill! Emergency!” calls out a recorded voice.

Well, everyone’s awake now.

“Head them off,” I order. “Stop them before they reach the exits and the panic room.”

“Understood,” Eyal replies.

Adrenaline hits me as I catch a reflection in one of the monitors: movement, behind me. I swing around in time to take the gunshot in my jacket. Air rushes from my lungs, and I fall to the floor.

Whoever fired on me makes a huge mistake, stepping toward me instead of emptying the magazine. I roll toward the legs standing above me, knocking over my assailant.

Finding a second wind, I jam an elbow into the man’s face, kick the gun away and rise to my feet.

It’s Timo Thor. His nose bleeds as he gasps on the floor.

“Primary target acquired,” I say into my com.

I turn him over and bind his wrists.

“Please,” he groans. “I can pay you whatever you want. Whoever hired you, they’re not richer than me.”

“I don’t want your money,” I say, lifting him to his feet. “You have something much more valuable.”

—

Eyal intercepts Lincoln Waterston at the panic room. Stanislaw finds their wives in the jacuzzi drunk on rosé, listening to Shania Twain so loud they never heard the gunshots. Henrik locates Chris Waterston in Astrid Thor’s room, snorting lines of cocaine off her bare breasts.

“There’s more powder in here than a Cancún hotel during spring break,” he laughs as his team subdues the Masters’ coked-out adult children.

With the ranch secured, two members of our strike teams lead the wives and kids to the mission van parked on the north side. They’ll be driven to our jet and taken back to the compound. It’s not the first time I’ve taken captives before; at least today it’s for a good cause.

Timo and Lincoln, however, we keep here in the panic room. Stripped down to their boxer shorts and bound to chairs, they’re not going anywhere, but Henrik and Stanislaw’s keep watch over them until Eyal and I are ready.

“Please don’t kill us,” says Timo. “Whatever this is, we can figure it out.”

“You’re wasting your breath,” Lincoln sighs. “We knew Anton was going to kill us.”

“This isn’t Anton — he’d just use our chips, not send a hit squad. This is something else.” Timo turns back to me. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

I lift off my motorcycle helmet and watch their reactions. They stare in silent shock. It’s been eight months since I died. Maybe they knew Eyal and the others got away before Anton shot me, but they definitely thought I was dead.

“That’s impossible,” Lincoln says, shaking his head.

Timo laughs. It starts off soft, like he heard a reasonably good joke, but it turns to tears. He slumps in his seat as much as his bindings will allow, shaking his head.

“How?” he cries.

“I had some help, and I had some luck,” I say.

“Ingram, you have to help us,” Timo says. “We want Anton dead as much as you, but he has us chipped. If he dies, so do we. We can get you weapons, vehicles, anything. If you can knock him unconscious long enough, he won’t be able to give kill commands.”

“Is that all?” I ask. There’s no guarantee that would work. What if the implants are set to detonate if Anton’s vitals show an unexpected sleep pattern? They have no way of knowing for sure. “If it’s that easy, why do you need me?”

“Because you’re a dead man!” Lincoln replies, nodding along now. “He’ll never see you coming. He’s not watching your finances, or tapping your calls.”

All valid points. But, I didn’t come here to strike a deal with these men. And his plan has a big flaw.

“You don’t think Anton has redundancies?” I say. “Are you stupid?”

Timo and Lincoln glance at each other.

This is why Jamison wanted me to take over the Masters: men past a certain age just don’t have enough imagination when it comes to tech.

“Lucky for you, I have a better plan,” I continue, taking out my phone. I load up the camera and begin shooting. “But first, tell me everything you know about what Anton’s doing to Kate.”

“Put that away and delete that,” Lincoln growls.

“Talk,” I reply. “Or I’ll leave you two here to starve to death.”

“Oh, fuck it,” says Timo. “He’s turned her into a fucking ventriloquist dummy. You’ve seen her show, right?”

“Yeah,” I snap. I force myself to watch it — to know what they’re putting her through. It makes me livid, but it’s been the least I could do, especially while my injury healed.

“Anton forces her to do all that. If she gets out of line, he’ll kill her friends. And when she’s not at the studio taping, she’s kept in a prison cell in her old apartment. Except on weekends and holidays; then they keep her at the Enclave.”

Excellent. That’s the intel I really needed; most of it, anyway.

“What are they doing to her?” I ask, though I truly don’t want the answer.

“They don’t rape her, if that’s what you’re getting at,” answers Lincoln. “They just humiliate her — treat her like shit.”

That’s a relief. I had held out hope that based on Kate’s composure on television she wasn’t being badly abused, but she must have scars at this point. If she’s damaged past the point of no return, I don’t know what I’ll do to Anton — the pain I’ll inflict hasn’t been felt in the history of mankind. I will invent new ways for him to suffer.

I shut off the recording, then open a channel to Eyal.

“We’re ready,” I say to him. “Show in the specialist.”

After a minute, they arrive. Gray-haired and wrinkled, but healthy, fit and sharp, the specialist could pass for a woman twenty years younger. She wears loose, green scrubs and a surgical mask, leaving only her steely eyes exposed.

“Who the hell is this?” asks Timo.

“Gentlemen, meet Dr. Talia Grenoble,” I say. “Ex-wife of Peter Grenoble, the medical examiner that set a young Simon Wilson on his way to a new life. She’s here to honor her ex-husband and lend her medical expertise.”

As Peter warned me a lifetime ago, she wasn’t easy to find. When I went looking for her, I didn’t even know she was a doctor — but I felt someone ought to tell her why Peter made the choices he did, that he sought to protect her all those years ago, even if it drove her away.

Tell me what I can do to destroy Simon Wilson, she said to me.

“Before Kate killed Edward Lonergan, he told her the key to removing the implants successfully,” I say as Dr. Grenoble washes her hands. Eyal opens a briefcase full of syringes, surgical tools and a series of nine small devices that could be mistaken for jewelry boxes. “The key is to remove them in the right order, and to fool the chips into thinking they’re still implanted.”

“It’s easier said than done,” Grenoble says, picking up the thread. “If what Lonergan told Kate is accurate, removing any one implant improperly will trigger the others. And if what he told her is wrong…”

“Wait,” says Timo. “This isn’t safe. I want the implants out, but there has to be another way.”

“You don’t have a choice,” I grunt. “Doctor, start with him.”

“These devices are the key,” she continues, pointing to the little boxes. “The insides of them are filled with ballistic gelatin, that will be heated to your precise internal body temperature at the site of injection.”

Eyal runs a signal scanner over Timo’s wrist, finding the implant. He draws a dot on Timo’s skin to mark the location.

“The cases also produce an electrical charge to mimic the one present within the body, and the interior releases sonic pulses, simulating a heartbeat. The plan is to remove the chips and seal them in these cases.”

The scanner releases a sharp squeal over Timo’s thigh; Eyal marks the spot.

“If I apply the procedure properly and the information we have is correct, you will not be harmed, Mr. Thor.”

Finally, Eyal waves the device past Timo’s neck, finding and marking the final implant.

Grenoble picks up a syringe and says, “I’m ready, Mr Dent.”

“Is that going to knock me out?” Timo asks.

“No, it’s just Novocaine,” says Grenoble.

“Could you knock me out?”

“No,” I snarl. “If this doesn’t work, I want you to feel it.”

“Fuck you, Ingram.”

“Doctor, you can skip the anesthetic,” I say.

Grenoble laughs.

“It’s my medical opinion that I can’t,” she replies, injecting Timo’s wrist. “Look upward or shut your eyes, Mr. Thor. Don’t watch what I’m doing.”

“Fuck,” he mumbles, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling.

Eyal, Lincoln and I watch the doctor works in silence, giving her the tools she needs whenever asked. Despite her age, she still has a steady hand, making precise incisions. She has the first implant out within minutes: Eyal holds open the first container to Timo’s skin so Grenoble can slowly pull out the implant using a pair of forceps and immediately transfer it into the hot gelatin. Once it’s inside, Eyal seals the device.

It’s a good start.

The implants in his thigh and neck take more time: she has to be careful around his femoral artery and spinal column. However, within an hour she completes the procedures, and Eyal has safely stowed all three implants in the cases.

Timo smiles, his face flushing red with relief.

“It’s going to be okay,” he says to Lincoln. “Thank you. Thank you, thank you!”

“Relax,” she says. “Don’t tear your stitches.”

She moves on to Lincoln, who focuses on me, brows furrowed in suspicion. He doesn’t argue, though, allowing Grenoble to anesthetize him and perform the operation. She builds up a sweat, perhaps growing tired; Eyal dabs her brow with a cloth, but working on the last implant, her hand starts to waver.

“Doctor, are you okay?” I ask her.

“I’m fine,” she says. “Almost done.”

However, Lincoln begins to breathe heavily.

“Stop!” he says, struggling against his bindings. “You’re going to fuck it up. You’re going to kill me!”

“Settle down,” Grenoble growls. “You have to remain still! Eyal, get the case!”

“No! Make her stop!” Lincoln shouts.

“Almost… there…”

He twists his neck, knocking the forceps and the implant from Grenoble’s hands.

Eyal and I react at the same time: I pull Grenoble away while he kicks the implant to the other side of the room. It’s still in the air when it bursts, releasing a spray of sharp metal and plastic shrapnel. Most of it bounces off the denim of mine and Eyal’s pants, but Lincoln takes a few bits in his legs.

“Fuck!” he snaps. “That hurts!”

“Imagine what it would have done to your neck,” I say. “Doctor, are you okay?”

She looks herself over, spotting a piece of shrapnel embedded in her scrubs.

“It’s not bad,” she says. “I’ll be fine.”

“Good. And congratulations, by the way. The operations were successful.”

“True, but I’d like to refine my methods before attempting it on Kate. I’ll need more test runs to feel comfortable with the process.”

I smirk.

“That can be arranged. Eyal, escort her back to the transport. Tell all units to commence the clean-up phase.”

“Understood,” he replies, taking Grenoble’s hand.

I wait for them both to leave before turning back to Timo and Lincoln. By now, Anton should have received an alert that Lincoln’s implants have detonated. He’s going to send men to investigate the second he finds out. I wish I could see Anton’s face the moment he discovers what we’ve done. What is he going to think?

It’s too bad we have to burn this entire place to the ground, or I’d tap into the security cameras and watch.

“We were test subjects?” Lincoln grunts.

“Yes. I had to know if the procedure works,” I say, running the self-destruct sequences on the remaining implant containers. It’ll draw power from the batteries until they overheat and catch fire. Elsewhere, throughout the mansion, Eyal and my men are dragging inside the bodies of the dead guards and pouring out canisters of gasoline. In a few minutes, this place will go up so hot, only the bones will be left.

“If it makes you feel any better, Anton was planning on killing you soon. Your families will be protected until this is all over. And we’ll let the horses out before torching the stable.”

“You don’t have to kill us,” says Timo. “Our implants are out, we could go — if you burn the mansion, Anton will never know we’re still alive.”

“No, it won’t work,” I say, drawing my Glock. “If he doesn’t find your remains, then he’ll know we can extract the implants. It has to be this way.”

“Wait!” Timo shouts.

I don’t. I fire four shots, putting two bullets in both their stomachs. They scream, coughing as blood and more spills out.

“That’s for everything you’ve done to Kate,” I say. “And for all the others you’ve spent your life hurting.”

Fire alarms go off as I turn to leave them. I feel no pleasure from the kills, though I don’t regret my actions. They deserved a painful death for their many, many crimes.

But, if they did, then so do I.