He made it to the yard and waited. The sniper was patient, not giving away his position, not firing again without a target. Ezekiel crawled through the brush until he was into the trees, Gino right behind him. Once in the cover of the bushes and trees, they circled around to allow the wind to carry information to them. The wind blew in off the river, blustery, a whip that stirred up leaves and a larger puff that sent them dancing in whirlwinds in the air.
Both hunters raised their heads to scent the air. Gino pointed to his left and held up two fingers. Ezekiel nodded. He'd caught the faint odor of sweat and skin. He went right, the two splitting up, Ezekiel going straight at them while Gino circled around to get behind them. By now, Mordichai would be moving into position on the roof. Draden and Diego would stay close to the women and children. Rubin would guard their back, but his Bellisia was a wild card. He hoped she'd listen to him.
Mordichai would know that he only had to worry about two friendlys in the forest--Gino and Ezekiel. Anyone else would be treated as an enemy and get shot. When Mordichai fired, he didn't miss.
The dark, deadly rage inside him began a slow rise. Someone had tried to kill his woman and he wanted to know just who had been that idiotic. Whitney knew him. Knew what was inside of him. Nothing would stop him hunting the man until he was dead if he came after one of his brothers or someone he loved.
Peter Whitney was a monster, but he was one with certain characteristics holding true. The man was a die-hard patriot. He would test his GhostWalkers, but he wouldn't kill one of them for no reason, not even if they'd pissed him off. The women weren't subject to the same rules--he despised women and thought it was perfectly fine to experiment on them. Whitney had his own code, as skewed as it was. He just couldn't see Whitney sending an assassin for spite.
Ezekiel dropped to his belly and moved into a small, almost nonexistent trail made by a swamp rabbit. He used elbows and toes to propel himself forward. He took his time, careful not to give his position away by moving bush limbs or leaves even gently. An experienced sniper would spot that. Whoever this was had to have patience.
Gino and Ezekiel had both scouted through the swamp numerous times and never picked up a trail. Both had been edgy, but there was never anything concrete to tell them that anyone was stalking their family. Still, they'd stepped up security and patrols. Days had passed, and turned into almost three weeks since the last attack on them.
The shooter was a distance away and most likely had a spotter with him. They would be up high. Ezekiel was a sniper, a good one, and he knew every tree in the swamp surrounding the Fontenot compound. The kitchen faced away from the river, so the shooter wasn't across from them. He was somewhere in the dense grove of trees, the taller, stronger ones in the middle. The shooter had made a good choice.
That particular grove was an area he would have chosen to set up for a shot because it had several locations that would give him access to the kitchen. He'd mentioned it to the others several times, but Wyatt and his brothers had made the decision not to use bulletproof glass in Nonny's home. Ezekiel and his brothers had argued, but in the end . . . Aside from the money, and that wasn't an issue, he couldn't figure out why they wouldn't take that extra precaution to protect Wyatt's family and Nonny.
He understood Nonny had lived there most of her life and the house was already changed so much. They wanted normal for her, but GhostWalkers weren't the same as everyone else. Pepper and the girls weren't the same. They had to be protected at all times. Nonny would understand that, if someone explained it to her. The Fontenot boys had overruled him in favor of giving Nonny her last years in her home as peaceful as possible. What the hell difference did it make if the glass was bulletproof?
Bellisia had nearly died because no one wanted Nonny to know exactly how much danger they were all in. Maybe it was that they didn't want to think they could be picked off, one at a time. As a unit, it would be tough to kill them all, but pick away at them one at a time, and someone could annihilate them.
Every few feet he stopped and listened to the drone of insects. To the birds in the trees. He lifted his head just enough to scent the air. Yeah, the stench of sweat was getting stronger. It was still drifting through the trees and brush, letting him know he was on the right track. He paid attention to the wildlife in the area. Two raccoons off to his right ambling their way back from the river. Squirrels running along a branch, another clinging to the trunk of a tree. Lizards making stops and starts up a tree trunk.
He started forward again. He could remain still for hours, so still squirrels ran over his back and a couple of times up his leg. He wasn't alone in that ability, which meant wildlife could have settled and they were close, but he didn't think so. The smell was still too faint.
The trick was to keep getting closer to them without giving himself away by accidentally moving a leaf or snapping a twig. It was slow, inch-by-inch work, but he was born to be a hunter and his training had honed his skills until he was elite. He covered the next few hundred feet without a problem, staying under cover of heavy brush, but suddenly the bushes gave way to a wide swath of bare ground. He knew immediately he was close to the shooter. Not only were the trees tall enough and sturdy enough to set up a blind, but anyone coming at them would be spotted the moment they emerged from the brush.
In position.
Give me another five, Gino said.
Gino was nearly as strong a telepath as Ezekiel was. The two of them could easily hold a bridge for the others when needed and often did in combat situations when it was necessary for complete silence and yet they needed to communicate. Gino was making his way around behind the suspected grove of trees. It would take longer but be easier to travel because he could use the outer edges of the swamp to move in.
Ezekiel lay relaxed, waiting for the moment he was anticipating. He breathed in and out, contemplating the fact that he felt alive for the first time in his life for the right reasons. Really alive. Before he'd felt that way when he fought with his fists, a raw insanity that he doubted was too healthy. He lived to protect his family, but he hadn't given much thought to a wife and children. That was for other people--specifically his brothers and Rubin and Diego. He planned to keep them alive until they could find happiness.
Nonny had gotten him thinking. There was something very special about the woman and the way she shared her life with all of them. She referred to them as her boys. He knew she had a special place in her heart for each of them. She took in Pepper and Cayenne as if they were her daughters. She did the same with Bellisia. The woman was generous and open, yet fierce and protective of her family.
She'd given him something he couldn't quite put a name to, but he knew it was real and it was extremely important. The traits he'd grown to love in Grace Fontenot were the ones he looked for in women. He realized Pepper and Cayenne had them, just in different ways. Bellisia had them in very similar ways.
Ezekiel allowed his gaze to move through the trees, up in the heavier branches where the trunk met the limbs, providing a thick cradle. Someone up there had tried to take his woman from him. He could have killed the triplets or Nonny--or his brothers, and that included every member of his squadron, who had chosen to be GhostWalkers. They had chosen to serve their country. They knew and accepted the risks, but they did it expecting that their families would be safe.
In position. Do you have them in your sight?
Ezekiel's eyes moved up the long, thick tree trunk. The bark was disturbed in three places that he could see. His gaze continued up to the cradle and yeah--he saw them. They'd built a makeshift blind that wasn't good enough to fool a goose, let alone an eagle--something he was often called when his brothers were teasing him.
I have them.
How much time do you need? Gino asked.
Give me sixty seconds and I'll take them. I'll kill the spotter and question the shooter.
I'm on your six.
Gino didn't have to reassure him. Of course his brother would watch his back. That
was a given. That was something else he'd been lucky enough to have. He'd given up his childhood, but he'd gained a lifetime of absolute loyalty from his brothers.
Two minutes later all hell broke loose behind the shooters. Gunfire, explosions, the sounds were horrendous, disrupting the early morning silence. Birds rose in a heavy migration, filling the air with startled, flapping wings as they exited the swamp and flew toward the open river.
Both men spun toward the danger and Ezekiel was up and running, breaking cover, sprinting across the open area to leap onto the side of the tree trunk. He went up it fast, using his strength to climb. He moved like a lizard, going up the trunk with blurring speed, uncaring about stealth. The men above him were moving, trying to get into position to see what was happening behind them, so they didn't notice the slight shaking of the tree, or if they did, they'd put it down to their own actions.
Ezekiel came up and over the limb serving as their platform, kicking the rifle over the edge and simultaneously sinking his knife into the spotter's left kidney. He withdrew it and stabbed a second time, this time slicing through the back of the neck. He used his boot on the man's back to send him tumbling out of the tree, already dead before he hit the ground.
The sniper came at him, seeing death, knowing he was next. He'd made the mistake of leaving his rifle set up, the Fontenot kitchen in his sights, so he had to scramble to pull a weapon. He was late, far too late. Ezekiel was still in motion, driving forward the moment the spotter's body fell. They came together, Ezekiel's knife sinking deep.
The sniper screamed and went to his knees, nearly toppling from the tree. Ezekiel held him there, settled him almost gently in the cradle, his hands moving over the body and flinging weapons away.
"Who are you?" Because the man was no soldier. Ex-soldier, probably, but he wasn't in the service. A mercenary then. Since when did Whitney employ mercenaries? Whitney made his own supersoldiers. Granted, they didn't last long, but while they were alive, they were a force to be reckoned with. This wasn't one of his creations.
"Stan. Stanley Jordon."
That didn't tell him a thing, and Ezekiel knew just about every sniper out there--at least the ones with the good reputations.
"You're not in the service." He made it a statement.
Stanley Jordon pressed both hands to the wound in his gut. He bled profusely through his fingers. His breath came in ragged pants. Still, he managed a sneer. "Losers. Any man stupid enough to take the crap pay to risk their life deserves to die."
"So a killer for hire."
Jordon nodded again, trying to look superior and tough--a little hard to do with a knife wound bleeding all over the place.
"You were hired to kill Bellisia?" Ezekiel kept his tone mild.
"Any of the women. All of them, including those little brats."
That dark swirling rage, always inside Ezekiel, pushed close to the surface. He took a breath and resisted the urge to kick the bastard out of the tree.
"Senator Smythe hired you."
A crafty look crept into Jordon's eyes. "Get me out of here and get me medical help and I'll tell you everything you want to know."
Ezekiel was fast, and he used blurring speed, slamming his knife right through Jordon's left thigh. He wasn't in the least gentle about it. Or careful. Jordon screamed and tried to throw himself to the side, away from Ezekiel, but Zeke just caught his shirt, settled him back against the trunk and casually wiped the blood from his blade on the sniper's other pant leg.
"That's not very respectful, calling the girls brats. I wouldn't want you thinking I'm not being upfront with you. I'm just fine cutting holes in you all day. I know a thousand ways to keep you alive. I'm a doctor. Did Violet mention that? A surgeon. Bellisia is my woman, and you royally pissed me off. So if you want to get along with me, I suggest you answer the questions."
"You're a doctor?" Now the breathing was more than ragged. Jordon was hyperventilating. "You can't do this. You took an oath. Doesn't that mean you have to fix me up?"
Ezekiel deliberately looked around him. "No one's here but the two of us, Stanley. I guess that oath doesn't count much unless I want it to." He tapped Jordon's right thigh with the point of his knife so that little dots of blood welled up, and the man's leg jumped with every prick. "I think it best if you talk to me about Senator Smythe."
"You're psycho." The accusation came out somewhere between a scream and a sob.
"Possibly. But no one's going to save you. You've got to talk, Stanley, or it's only going to get worse."
"Smythe is a cold bitch. She sleeps with anyone to get her way."
"She sleep with you?"
"Yeah. She did. At first she was a little whore, eager to do anything I wanted her to do, but then I was doing things for her I didn't even remember agreeing to." He shook his head. "I swear it was like I was hypnotized or something. I did a couple of jobs for her, and all the time we'd be together she'd talk about these disgusting experiments Whitney was doing with some women. Using insect DNA or something to mutate them." A shiver of revulsion went through him.
Clearly Violet had done her job, using her twisted talent of influencing people with her voice to turn a number of supporters against the women Whitney had experimented on. Ezekiel had seen the same hatred and loathing stamped on the faces of the mercenary soldiers Violet had in her employ.
"Keep talking."
"She kept saying we had to wipe them out, that she was planning to do it herself, to save America. That if we didn't get it done, the world would eventually be overrun--that they were like cockroaches, multiplying."
"I thought you only worked for money."
Jordon's body shuddered with the effort to keep going. He shook his head several times to clear it, to try to focus. He shivered continually, but didn't seem to notice. The sniper frowned in an effort to remember.
"She paid me part. When I get the job done, she'll pay me the rest. The bounty was high too, one of the best contracts I've ever taken. A mil each for the little bra . . . the kids," he hastily corrected. "A million apiece for the women. I didn't get a thing for killing any of you so I didn't bother, although I had you in my sights a couple of times. That should buy me something."
"Did she hire anyone else for the same job?"
He coughed. Spat blood. "No, it was all supposed to happen when she initiated the attack. She was the Trojan horse, coming to make peace talks with Spagnola. Said we weren't to touch him. She wanted to do him herself. That would be the signal to start the war. Everyone else was to kill all of you, and we were supposed to do the women and kids. She'd hired three other mercs to help with the job besides her own private little army."
"But you didn't have a shot."
He sighed. Coughed. Spat more blood. "No, so we waited. Watched them all get massacred. Of course the bitch got away. I knew she would. Decided it would be better to let things settle down. Almost took those kids when they were let out to play the other day, but too dangerous, too many guards on them."
His entire body shuddered. "I'm cold."
Ezekiel ignored that. "As far as you know, no one else was hired to kill the women and children."
Jordon shook his head. "You got to do something. There's blood everywhere."
There was. It ran in long trails down the man's body and onto the branch to leak down the trunk of the tree.
"What else did Smythe say?"
Jordon closed his eyes and leaned his head back, as if unable to maintain the weight of it. "She's going to be president. She's made an alliance with Cheng. Big badass in China. The government there protects him, but he makes deals all over the world. He's loaded, and he's backing her to be president."
"She's dead." Ezekiel leaned toward the man and raised his chin with the blade of his knife. "She didn't get away. Bellisia killed her. Even if you did the job, you wouldn't have gotten paid." Jordon resisted raising his head, but Ezekiel held the blade of the knife steady. "Look at me."
The head shook. "No. No. Why are
you doing this? They're insects. Insects. Like cockroaches. Snakes. They spit venom. Don't you understand? The nest has to be wiped out."
"You don't do causes. You don't save America. You hold all soldiers in contempt. Why would you want to deviate, risk your life for a cause?" Ezekiel kept his voice very quiet. Nonthreatening.
Jordon frowned. Blood leaked from his mouth. He shook his head, his eyelids flickering continually. "I don't . . ." He trailed off. "The meeting. Three senators there. A roomful of us. Her voice. The way she talked. There was a general too. A bigwig."
"How many people?"
Jordon didn't respond. He closed his eyes and shook his head.
"You don't want me to hurt you again," Ezekiel said softly. "Just answer. Soon this will be over and you can sleep."
"About sixty of us, mostly her army and the mercs. No women."
"The senators. I need names."
"Crane from Mississippi. Delgato from Florida. Jenson from California. . ." The voice trailed off.
"The general?"
"General Ivan Newman."
Ezekiel's heart jumped. The man had the ear of the president. He was the Air Force's military service chief, and outside of his duties for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he worked directly for the secretary of the Air Force. It was no wonder that their squadron found themselves deployed in several places, leaving them without guards for the women. Violet had prepared carefully and gotten people in key positions to aid her. Had she been able to have a little more time, she most likely would have eventually succeeded in wiping the women out.
Jordon drew in another deep, shuddering breath. Blood bubbled and foamed around his lips. More did the same around his hands. His fingers were coated. He didn't seem to notice. His throat rattled. There was silence. A moment went by. Another. Again there was a deep, shuddering breath, and then his body began to slowly topple over.