Bane: Elite Operatives (Bad Boys of X-Ops Book 4) (12 page)

Clean Sweep

“WALKER, YOU’RE WITH BANE and Kiki. Nasim and his group are your marks.” Blaize was in full-blown boss-lady mode. “Storm, Justice, and me? We’ll get Los Reyes de Guerra.”

Those were Miss Carmichael’s orders less than twenty-four hours ago. We weren’t cutting off the head of the snake until we destroyed its body. That was our T-Zone mission imperative after all. They just didn’t expect all of us to make it out alive, as we now knew.

Good times.

Just getting better.

Under the cover of darkness and the blanket of driving rain, the three of us infiltrated the swanky fucking isolated hacienda occupied by Nasim Hassan and his fanatical buddies.

We weren’t there to negotiate or interrogate or cut deals. We had one objective only: kill.

On hearing the orders, Justice had kicked off. “Shouldn’t we feel them out some more? Capture them alive?”

Blaize had rounded on him. “We already have all the intel we need. They’re planning an event of mass destruction on US soil, and they’re being funded by
our company
.” She looked even more ripshit-pissed about T-Zone’s traitorous schemes. “There’s no one else we can deliver them to as live fodder for info. Not now, when they can pin their activities on T-Z. We take care of the threats here first, then we clean
our
own house.”

End of story.

“Fucking monsoon much?” Walker grunted as sheets of cold slashing rain lashed almost sideways across us as we approached the perimeter of the hacienda’s grounds.

Visibility was nearly nil, but we didn’t want to deal with the bulk of NVG goggles. The colossal stone compound in front of us looked like a watery mirage in the distance, the lights shining from the windows on this darkest of nights a compass point.

Soaked to the skin the second we’d exited our ride one klick back, we’d trudged to the terrorist outpost. We’d bellied forward to within spitting distance, the storm hiding our movements, shielding any noise we might’ve made.

We made none.

Thunder boomed above, and Walker flashed his teeth in a sharp grin. “Bang,” he mouthed.

Lightning jagged down from the sky, bright white flashes that helpfully lit key points of possible entry.

Gotta love Mother Nature.

Our one-hour surveillance had provided all the gen we needed. The place was a heavily guarded fortress, and we were in for a massive motherfucking fight. One that had to be soundless to keep surprise on our side.

At go-time, we stealthily treaded toward the hacienda. Walker and Kiki crouched beside me when I raised my fist in the air.

“Once we’re in, you let me do the talking,” I said, raising my voice just enough to be heard above the howling wind.

“Not for nothing”—Walker butted his shoulder against mine—“but your social skills leave a lot to be desired, dude.”

“Ditto.” Kiki sent him a slight smile.

“Damn. I’d written you off, Baby Spy. Now I’m beginning to like you.”

I growled at the both of them.

Meanwhile, Justice, Storm, and Blaize headed up their own op . . . in the barrio. Carlos and his crew would be eating dirt by the time tonight was done.

On foot but maintaining a low profile, we brushed through the rain-lashed yucca plants, the tall
palmas
whose papery fronds twisted in the gale. The
mani
groundcover—wet and glistening glossy green—softened our footfalls.

Approaching the house, we replaced guns with lethally sharp blades. We’d tracked the guards’ walkabout intervals and got into place for our three-person invasion.

The fierce storm never let up, dropping a clammy, black cover around us.

With ear coms in place, Kiki, Walker, and I surrounded the hacienda, and every subsequent move was timed to the second. I knifed the first guard to round my corner, slicing his neck from one side to the other. I caught his gurgling deadweight, lowering him to the ground to breathe his final breaths.

Stepping lightly, I fell in behind my second sentinel. I stretched a garrote across his throat. Pulling the piano wire until my forearms flexed, I jerked him against my body. His feet came off the ground as he fought my hold, but nothing save cold fury enlivened me now.

His face suffused with blood, the veins in his eyes popping, he went down for the count.

The rain continued to bash down at me, and more thunderous crashes rent the air.

“Clear.”

“Clear.”

Kiki and Walker called in.

We’d made it through the first defenses.

More Hezbollah reactionaries roamed the corridors and rooms on the first floor. We strafed through, using only hands, knives, wires, and sheer force to put our enemies in the negative column.

Not a one of those fucks got off a single shout of alarm or a fired shot before one of us took him down. I came across Walker, shanking his KA-BAR up through the jaw of his opponent. Blood dripping down his hands. Rain slicked off his clothes. He released his quarry, rolling the carcass out of the way.

We nodded to each other and carried on with our grisly quest, heading in opposite directions.

Bodies dropped wherever we walked. The bloody fight to locate Nasim only revved my engine more.

I’d just reached the inner sanctum when Kiki rounded the opposite corner. She gave me a quick nod, and we moved toward the final set of interior doors snuggled deep within the structure’s mazelike corridors.

When she glanced behind me her eyes flipped wide.

I rolled forward instinctively, spinning into a crouch just as another assailant—one who could’ve shot me in the back—whirled like a gory top, his carotid ripped wide open by the knife Kiki had sailed end over end at him.

We waited a three-count before busting, boots first, into the room.

Nasim—caught unawares—looked up from getting his fucking nails buffed (I kid you not) by some nameless honey wearing little more than a silky robe.

The shitless wonder.

“Is he—” Kiki hauled up beside me.

“Yeah. Getting a goddamn man-icure.” Drawing my Sig, I motioned for Little Miss Nail File to hightail it before I erased her life, too.

“Jesus.” Kiki breathed out, pulling up her Glock, training it on Nasim. “I hate that metro-man shit,” said the woman dressed head to toe in black with a leather holster strapped across her chest.

Nasim watched us with awareness on his narrow features. He barely made a noise, but his personal bodyguard manifested as soon as the nail tech/sex pistol exited the room in a flurry of brightly colored silk.

“Mr. Bane.” Nasim half rose from his seat.

One more man stood between him and me.

Walker joined the party. “You want I should track down that chick and muzzle her?”

The bodyguard held a silenced gun, aimed straight at me. Like Kiki wasn’t a threat, too.

“Or I could just muzzle this dude here,” Walker amended.

Moving like I was back in the cagefighting ring again, I jumped the last few feet and landed with my fist coming down hard on the guard’s gun arm. His sidearm unloaded—bullets spraying uncontrollably at the wall and ceiling.

I yanked the weapon from his hand, tossing it away. My elbow smashed down on his face, the satisfying sound of crunching bone music to my ears.

He howled in pain, pain I cut short when I pressed my Sig against his head and fired with a sound deafened by the bashing thunder outside. Couldn’t have planned it better myself.

Walker and Kiki, who made sure Nasim remained docile and seated, made sounds of approval.

“Or you could just do that,” Kiki said, respect coloring her tone.

“Can’t fault Bane on his methods, right, Nasim Hassan?” Walker just couldn’t resist that extra dig.

Our prisoner had turned slightly pale beneath his swarthy skin. “Who are you people?”

“Your worst nightmare—”

“Pain you’ve never fathomed—”

“Reckoning day.” I stepped over the corpse, and jerked the terrorist
jerk-off
from his goddamn divan or whatever the hell it was.

I paced him backward until he was pressed against the wall. Lightning struck close by, sending shivery splinters of flashing white light in through the hacienda’s high windows.

“You wanted explosives.” Nasim’s robe opened at the chest, and very little air moved in and out of his lungs. “We can still deal.”

“You wanted to kill US citizens.” I leaned in close, my face a hard scowl. “That ain’t gonna happen.”

“I can give you money.”

“Do I look like I give a shit about scrip?”

“Anything. You name it!” The formerly cool commander of a Hezbollah cell thought he could bargain his way out of hell.

Too bad he was looking at the biggest baddest demon of all.

“Remember what you said about that American organization, T-Zone?” I dug in deeper against him. “We’re with them. So you’ve just sold them out. And you’re not the only ones who are going to die for the lives you’ve already taken and the heinous crimes you’ve committed.”

A quick bullet to the head was too good a death for the man.

I swung Nasim around, pouncing on him. Every punch I landed stained my knuckles, beat his flesh, made him babble more unsavory promises.

By the time I reined in my anger, I’d barely broken a sweat. But Nasim lay huddled on the floor, Kiki and Walker standing side-by-side, unmoved, watching the damage I meted out. No knife. No gun. No brass knuckles.

Just pure undiluted hate.

“That’s how you do the talking?” Walker raised an eyebrow.

“About right.” I blew across my fists, tagging Walker in. “Your turn.”

With his trademark black braid tucked into his jacket, he stalked toward Nasim.

“Get up,” he said.

I didn’t see how that feat was possible after the beatdown I’d put on the man, but somehow he made his legs work, his knees connect, his body move. He stood on his feet, weaving—bloody and bruised.

Walker drew his gun. “I never kill a man on his knees.”

His cold inflection sent shivers across my skin.

“But you’re not a man. You’re an animal . . . and animals deserve to be put down better than you.”

Kiki stood next to me, her eyes narrowed as she watched Walker in action for the first time.

“This is for Majedah Chehab. Your sister-in-law.” He smiled, but it was the twisted thing he’d once become famous for—and recovered from after he’d hooked up with Jade.

“A fine woman who loves her country.
A friend
.” Keeping one hand on Nasim’s shoulder to hold him steady for the shot, Walker raised his revolver. “This is for Majedah, do you hear me? I only wish I’d been able to do this to your goddamn brother first.”

The crack of the bullet filled the room.

Another shattering lance of lightning blew everything into blazing white.

Nasim dropped. Dead.

No last words.

No one to mourn him.

No one to come after us.

We exited the hacienda as a group after Walker laid a few strategically placed charges. No way in hell were we leaving any trace behind.

When we hit the cover of the trees, Walker flipped the switch with his trademark war cry. The hacienda and everything in it exploded into white light even brighter than the atmospheric lightning, the deafening boom as forceful as the blaze.

“Don’t know about you, but I’m feeling warmer already.” Walker rubbed his hands together.

“Anyone got any marshmallows?” Kiki asked, so not the Girl Scout.

“S’mores. When we get back to DC.” I tugged on her hand, leading her from the detonation zone.

“I’d say little brother Nasim definitely took after Qasim, that snaky shitbucket,” Walker sounded off over the coms.

Rain nearly choked the sky from sight as we nav’d back to our vehicle.

“RIP. Not.” Kiki squawked back.

We made it to the SUV, stripping down and pulling on dry clothes once inside the cover of the warm vehicle.

I’d probably punch Walker in the head if he peeked into the front while Kiki undressed.

The sound of magazines being reloaded filled the truck then I shifted into first, setting us en route over the washed-out road.

“Damn. That was quite the speech you gave back there, Kemosabe.” Walker popped up from the backseat like a fucking dark-haired gopher. “I think Kiki’s good for you.”

“Now he says this.” My girl sighed from the passenger seat with an extra snarky eye roll only I saw.

I threaded my fingers through hers and brought her hand to my lap.

She squeezed my hand, the message sent in one simple gesture no one else could read.
I love you.

“So, how far to the extraction?” Walker seriously needed to get laid.