Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 133975 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133975 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
The two entering first would be most at risk. They weren’t wearing colors, and they wore the faces of older men. Both wore short salt-and-pepper hair. If the women were to describe them later, they would sound like no one in the Torpedo Ink club.
“Going in,” Mechanic said.
Keys never tensed up during a mission. If anything, he became calmer and much more relaxed. This was the shit he knew best. He focused completely on his work, and his job was to kill. The women wouldn’t be his problem; that was for Absinthe to deal with. Player would mask the other members of Torpedo Ink. Keys’ job was to kill the guards as quickly as possible. He would only have seconds to confirm identities and dispose of the threat to the prisoners and his team.
As always, he built the moves in his mind, going over and over them carefully. Mechanic had done his best to give him an approximation of where his targets would be. Mechanic was rarely wrong. He hit the sequence of code that swung the heavy door open. He stepped through and to the side, giving Keys a clear path to the two guards on his right. They filled his vision, six feet apart, more like seven, but he had them. He threw his weighted knives with deadly accuracy, a one-two throw that took both men in the throat even as he was in motion, running forward toward them.
He saw Mechanic’s man go down as he finished off both of his guards. Absinthe and Player were already inside, calming the women, casting the necessary illusions needed so the women would have no idea who rescued them.
He continued through the open archway into the wide tunnel that led to the entrance of the cave. Mechanic, Savage, Destroyer and Preacher raced with him. Their job was to take out the rest of the guards and drag them into the cave without leaving evidence of who killed them. They had only minutes to accomplish their part of the mission and get back to the waiting helicopters.
The others collected the knives used, blindfolded the women and loaded them into the helicopters. Steele would assess their condition, and they would be taken to waiting vans. From there, they would go to a medical facility.
There were six men dressed like the other militiamen had been, lounging around, smoking, drinking, two playing cards, all of them bored. They had a small lounge set up just inside the entrance of the cave where they could stay cool and shelter from any weather but still have a good view of anything coming at them from the trails.
None of them expected the attack to come from inside the cave. Torpedo Ink preferred to use knives or break necks rather than use guns that might be traced back to them. The club had a gun range and a weapons repair shop, and they taught gun safety.
The men they were targeting weren’t the assassins from Russia; these were the men working with them to set up trafficking rings. Keys found it easy to kill them. They should have been better trained and more aware.
* * *
Sean Stark was in his seventies. A retired army ranger, he’d had an impeccable career. The man had served his country with honor, and when he retired, he had more medals than most, and deservedly so. He was highly respected in the military community. Everything Code learned about him—and he was able to hack into records few could—showed that Sean Stark deserved the respect and admiration given to him.
He was married to his childhood sweetheart, Dawn, a woman who stood by him all the years he was in the service. The two had three sons, Archie, Charles and Bryson. They also had one daughter, Janelle. It appeared they had a happy marriage.
When he retired, Stark did so without fanfare. He retreated to a farm in Vermont. He lived quietly for five years. In that time, several of his men contacted him when they were in trouble. At some point, he took those men into the mountains and established homes far away from others. He led them, working with them in the hopes that he could help to integrate them back into society. When it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, he started a self-sufficient community, where they grew their own vegetables and had small farms for goats, sheep, cattle and horses.
The community grew in size, but they didn’t cause problems. There was no hint of illegal activities such as drug running or selling arms. To allow his men to do that seemed against everything Stark stood for. It made no sense that he had gotten his men involved in human trafficking.
According to Sid Baily, Headed for Hell’s president, the militia community had never caused problems until a few months earlier. They’d always been cordial when they were in town. The last few months, there had been several men, just like a few of Sid’s newer prospects, who treated the townspeople with disrespect.