And what was she supposed to do with that?
9
The sun was just lifting into the sky when Nick left the city behind. The drive was an added complication but he was glad for it. The fact that Allen Clatcher lived outside of Havana on a deserted stretch of coastline halfway between Matanzas and La Teja was to his advantage. There were plenty of other things to worry about — namely Clatcher’s former occupation as an Army Ranger.
He didn’t need to add nosy neighbors to the list.
He drove with the window down, breathing in the salty air and trying to clear his mind of Alexa’s face when he’d walked out the door. She was a fierce woman, a woman who’d survived things most people would never have to confront, a woman who rarely showed fear.
And yet she’d been afraid, and worse, her fear echoed his own. Ronan might be MIS’ go-to field operative, but Nick had supported him countless times. They’d breached some of the best security systems in the world, had killed men where they stood using a variety of methods, had been beaten, shot at, and stabbed in the name of their company’s mission to bring justice to those who had escaped it.
He’d never been afraid. It would sound egotistical if he said it to anyone, but his lack of fear had never been about bravery or strength. He just hadn’t had anything to lose, and it was amazing what the body — what the mind — could endure when you had nothing to lose. He’d once thought it had made him free. He didn’t fear pain and didn’t fear death, had no one outside of family who would mourn him.
The reality of it made every decision easy: what would get the job done? It was the only question he’d ever had to ask himself when in the field. The consequences didn’t matter.
Now he had something to lose. He’d never felt less free, never been more intertwined with another person. When he’d planned the mission to question Clatcher, gathering information from Clay and his team in preparation, he’d been aware of the risks: he’d be alone, no backup in sight.
He knew the risks and he’d take them to get the job done, to get justice for Alexa.
But damned if there wasn’t something else bouncing around in his head — getting back to her in one piece, grabbing however many days they had left together by both hands.
He shook his head and pushed her from his mind. Now was not the time to wax poetic about Alexa, even in his own mind.
Traffic increased as he passed through the city of Matanzas, then thinned again as he left it behind. The road was mostly deserted, the ocean keeping him company on the left, the road sometimes running alongside the concrete embankments or grassy hills that sloped down to water so blue it didn’t look real.
After another hour he followed the instructions on his GPS and pulled onto the dirt road leading to Clatcher’s property. It was nearing nine a.m., and he continued for a couple minutes up the road, then veered off into the scrubby ground cover that lined the drive.
Away from the beach, the topography was almost Mediterranean, the ground covered in wild grass bleached by the sun. Trees socked the property in on either side, and Nick navigated the car into a dense copse and turned off the engine.
He grabbed the pack from the passenger seat and removed the ski mask he’d stashed there. Then he got out of the car and backtracked to the driveway, checking to make sure the car was hidden. When he was satisfied, he stepped into the trees on the other side of the drive, removed a copy of the satellite map he’d brought with him, and pulled the ski mask over his face.
He started for the house, checking the satellite map on his phone as he maneuvered between the trees. His face was hot under the mask, sweat dripping down his neck onto his back as he walked, the ground rising beneath his feet right on schedule.
Twenty minutes later the incline had turned into a full-scale hill. He climbed carefully, dodging the cameras where he could and passing them quickly when he couldn’t. It wouldn’t matter until later, when Clatcher — if Nick let him live — checked the feed. According to Clay’s intel the guy didn’t keep security on staff, preferring to rely on the cameras surrounding the house and the security measures he’d installed on its immediate perimeter.
He slowed his pace as he reached the top of the hill, the house finally coming into view. Clean-lined and modern, it sat at the edge of a retaining wall that sloped down onto the hill Nick had just climbed, a large patio stretching along the back of the house.
He paused when he reached the boundary between the sloping hill and the retaining wall, looking for the trip wire he knew was there. It was thin, and it took him a couple minutes to spot it in the bright sunlight, but a moment later there it was: a tiny filament that glimmered like a spider’s web in certain light.
He got down on his stomach and low-crawled under the wire, then crouched while he cased the area for other obstacles. After a minute or so, his eye caught sight of another wire along the boundary between the patio and the hill.
He gauged the distance between his position and the house and determined it was close enough for him to connect to the house’s network. Crouching in place, he removed the laptop from his pack, then set it up the way Clay had instructed to connect to the house’s security system.
It was as easy as Clay had promised, and Nick silently thanked the fact that Clatcher was an old-school Ranger. All trip wire and cameras and security systems — and undoubtedly plenty of weaponry inside the house — but nothing beyond a simple firewall to keep someone like Nick off his network.
The games — of surveillance, of strategy, of war — had changed in the past two decades. Now it wasn’t about the number of boots on the ground or the power of your arsenal, because none of those things mattered when digital data could take it all out with a few keystrokes miles away.
He followed Clay’s instructions to the letter, one slow step at a time, not wanting to make any mistakes. The sun was higher overhead now, although not quite to its midpoint in the sky. Sweat dripped down his temples inside the ski mask, his hair damp and sticking to his head, his hands clammy inside the leather gloves he’d worn to avoid leaving behind prints.
He was hoping for some sign that he’d gotten it right, some kind of notice that told him it was safe to breach the house. Instead the code continued to blink back at him, lines of letters and numbers running across the computer screen.
Fuck. How was he supposed to know if he was in the clear?
He considered calling Clay on the sat phone, then decided he couldn’t risk the time or the possibility of being overheard. He would have to trust that he’d done everything right, that Clay had given him everything he needed. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d placed his life in the tech wizard’s hands.
He stuffed the laptop back in the pack and looked at the cameras positioned along the length of the wide patio. If he’d disabled the system according to plan, they would be off, but he didn’t dare risk taking off the mask. Not until he was sure.
He crawled under the trip wire at the edge of the patio, jumped to his feet, and headed for the patio door. He had to move fast now. The intel said that Clatcher was a drinker, frequenting the local dive bars until they kicked him out and returning to the house when the sun hovered just below the horizon, preparing to make its entrance. It was why Nick had chosen early morning instead of a middle-of-the-night breach: he needed Clatcher half-asleep, hungover, and off his game.