Chapter 5

The spot the gang leader had pointed out was, in fact, on the far edge of town. When Taylor found it, he could see why they’d want a place like this. Still in the city, giving them access to travel there quickly, but backed away near open land, giving good sightlines. It was also a large, walled house, which gave it an additional layer of security.

Not perfectly secure, of course. For one, the house made up part of the wall, so there were doors to the outside. For another, it was still part of the city, even if on the outskirts, so there were other buildings near it, allowing someone to get close to the building without being seen.

It took some time, but Taylor did find a taller building whose roof he could climb onto so that he could get a look down into the compound, which is really what it was. He waited and watched for almost an hour, until late into the afternoon, trying to get a feeling for what he was up against, and it quickly became evident that he had a problem.

While there could be people inside, it seemed like there might be less than half a dozen people in the entire compound, and only two vehicles. He’d seen more than that at the market, driving to the construction site, and even just in front of the hotel they’d previously been staying at. The most likely explanation was that they were out on Bonnie’s trail.

Which is exactly what Taylor had hoped wasn’t happening.

Taylor was less worried about them getting Bonnie than he was about their pushing her to leave town or give up and go underground. Seeing them in action twice now, he knew they weren’t terrible. They had good unit cohesion and operated as a team, they just overpowered everything, which sounds good on paper, but it made them sloppy as hell. Against third-world armies, it would work, but against someone like Bonnie, it gave her too much room to maneuver.

They could still get lucky. Taylor had learned a long time ago that being good didn’t stop the bullet you didn’t see coming, and if you stayed downrange long enough, eventually, your luck would run out.

All of which meant that he had to find out where they were, and the answer was inside the compound he was watching, since it was clear that no one was planning to leave from there any time soon.

There were some obvious entry points. Over the wall into what looked like the driveway and courtyard was the most obvious, but the big windows of the house looked right at it. It was just too exposed. And he needed to avoid getting into a gunfight. He’d had enough brushes with the locals already. He’d been lucky, but there was no guarantee that luck would hold.

The back door was the next most obvious choice. There were cameras facing it, which was a problem, but it was also right near other buildings and an alley, which would allow him to get close to it.

Any other approach and he’d be in plain sight of the open street.

He wished he’d had someone with him who knew more about these kinds of entries. A SEAL or maybe a Delta Force operator. SF was focused on small unit tactics and interfacing with locals, which didn’t usually include a lot of breaking into locked compounds. And the FBI actively frowned on that sort of thing.

Taylor made his way down to the street and cut across to one of the side alleys that led toward the compound. He stopped just at the edge of the alley, peeking around the corner to get a better look.

He took it back. They may not have been the worst he’d seen tactically, but they were still fucking amateurs. He’d been concerned about getting too close and having them pick him up before he got close enough to the building to scope it out, but there were no cameras pointing toward the alley, even though it was the most likely way someone wanting to assault it would approach the building.

More surprisingly, the cameras didn’t cover each other either. There was one that covered the door, but there weren’t any other cameras pointing toward it, so someone could get to it without being seen. Which is exactly what Taylor planned to do.

Taylor looked around the alley. There was something he used to do when he was a kid, to trick other kids into thinking birds pooped on them. The alley was full of debris, and it didn’t take long to find what he needed. Some dirt, some small gravel, a scoop of water, and a little chunk of drywall that he smashed into as fine of a powder as he could, which he then mixed up in a discarded paper cup.

The result looked reasonably like bird poop. Checking one last time, to make sure no one was really paying attention, he dashed across the street, staying out of the range of the camera and coming up behind it. With a quick glance around, he scaled the wall, gripping a sconce for support. Reaching around the camera, he smeared the mixture over the lens, obscuring its view in a way he hoped they’d write off as just a bird pooping on it. Assuming no one was looking at the feed when his hand passed over it.

Dropping back down, Taylor quickly picked the lock, which was rickety and didn’t look to have a security system attached to it, and slipped through the door. There was no sign of alarms and he didn’t hear people running, so it seemed he was safe for the moment.

Considering how these guys had done everything else and this was a fallback position, he’d been fairly certain they wouldn’t be prepared for something like this. Especially since they weren’t protecting themselves so much as hiding from the local authorities, who were looking for them because of all the mayhem they’d caused.

Taylor moved carefully through the hallway, gun in hand, listening hard. This was a huge risk, and he knew it. If they saw him and it turned into a shootout, he’d be stuck in a place where he hadn’t studied the layout, outnumbered, and almost certainly outgunned.

Not an ideal situation.

The place was a dump. Crumbling walls, trash everywhere, and signs of overall neglect. Any sergeant Taylor ever served under would have had his ass if he’d let his barracks get in a condition like this. Taylor had worked out of incredibly poor villages, living with families in mud brick huts that had been better maintained.

Approaching a bend in the hallway, he heard voices coming his way. There wasn’t anything to hide behind. Taylor backtracked the way he had come until he found a small bathroom that he slipped inside of, shutting the door. It was a good thing he had, as the voices continued on down the hallway, passing by him. They were bitching about Caracas in general and this place in particular, and it seemed that they’d been sent to clean off the camera, which meant no one had seen him smear the concoction on the lens and that they had bought his ruse. Good, although it wouldn’t take them long to complete that task and would put two guys behind him.