Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

He said, “Sorry. I wasn’t clear. Chapman used the phone keys to communicate in code. The beeps. She was in the room with somebody, I assume. Perhaps she gained control of a phone without being seen, such as hiding it under covers or beneath clothing, or in a pocket. We are trained for this kind of communication.”

“Using the phone keys without looking.”

“Yes.”

I said, “Okay, thanks.”

I thumbed the button and hung up the phone.

I was cruising fast, on the road toward Ellie’s house. A minute later I passed the turn-off. I thought of her, Hank, and Hagen. Sitting around her kitchen, hopefully safe and sound. Kind of like a happy family. The Mister Lawrence property was three or four miles west, off the Tongass highway. When I was a mile out, I flicked off the headlights. By now the moon was up and the road was straight. I could run dark without any issues. Half a mile from the property’s front gate, I pulled the truck off road and killed the ignition.

I sat in the cab, windows down. It was quiet out there. The air was still and smelled like ocean algae. Dark Alaskan rainforest all around, in a 360 degree circle. I felt centered, in the palm of a gigantic living hand. Things died in the wilderness and were born again. Trees and plants, animals and fish. A vast and barely comprehensible web of life operating in a cosmic cycle, or so they say. But not for us, humans don’t get to be born again. We just die once and that’s it.

I climbed out of the cab and walked around back. The two Breachers lay side by side next to Guilfoyle’s Remington. I filled my jacket pockets with ammunition. Shotgun shells in my left pocket, .308 Sierra Match King rounds in my right. Glock tucked into the waist band. Extra mag in the back pocket. Knife in my front pants pocket. I hoisted the rifle over my back, picked up a Breacher in each hand. Like a one-man assault team.

Good to go.

I knew that the property was north and east of my position. The entrance would be over the hills on my right. I hiked for ten minutes until I was just below the wooded rise. I came up the incline, slow and soft. Walking with the heel first, then lowering the ball of my foot. Silent, or near to it. I reached the crest and brought Guilfoyle’s rifle up to look through the Leupold scope at the driveway below. The track snaked north. At the end I could see a gate. In front of it was a parked pickup truck with a double cab. Nothing moving, everything dark and misty. The mist caught the moonlight and held it, making the whole landscape glow weirdly.

I retreated below the ridge and walked another five minutes before cresting again. I laid the Breachers on the ground and got into a prone position with the Remington. I flipped the lens caps on the scope.

First the gate. It wasn’t special. No fortified entrance. Any special precautions that Mister Lawrence had taken were confined to Human Resources. Specifically, the Wagner Group mercenaries. Up here at the entrance they had one truck parked in front of the gate, and another inside the gate. I examined the vehicles. Identical Toyota Hilux models. Each contained two men in the front cab. Warm and protected by the elements.

Two trucks, two comfortable guys. One gate.

Which was shut, maybe even locked. Which meant that an attacker would have to go through it or over it. But half the guard force had the same problem. I grinned to myself. Take out the guys inside the gate, then worry about the ones outside.

I considered the Human Resources issue. My guess was the Mister Lawrence people would not be able to afford a full-strength squad of Russian mercenaries. A Spetsnaz reconnaissance squad is organized into five teams, each with five or six men. My ball park guess was two six-man teams. A dozen qualified opponents. I did a second round of mental math. One team would be close protection for the Mister Lawrence people, the other would be assigned to the perimeter. They had four guys right here at the fence, which meant that another two mercenaries were positioned deeper in. Defense in depth, a decent concept.

The first target was going to be the truck inside the fence.

I reached into my jacket pocket and fingered the Match King .308 rounds. Nice number. It has a ring to it, appealing to a certain mathematical asymmetry. The three and the eight are strangers, but the zero holds them together, like a middle sibling or something. I slipped a round into the chamber and pushed it into the internal magazine. Did the same for another four. The sixth round went into the chamber and I drove the bolt home, guiding the bullet with my finger as I did so. I was looking into the cab of the second truck, the one inside the property. The two guys in there were talking. The guy in the driver’s seat was smoking a cigarette. He was flicking the ash out the window. The passenger was eating from a plastic bag. Looked like potato chips. From that distance I couldn’t hear them.

I switched back to the first guy with the cigarette.

He wasn’t there anymore.

Fifty

I took my eye off the scope and got the big picture view.

The guy had stepped out of the truck, leaving the door open. Looked like he was going to take a leak. I let him do it. Not for any sentimental reasons, only that shifting the sights from him pissing against a tree, back to the cab of the truck was going to be sub-optimal. I watched him flick his cigarette against a tree, littering. Another karma point against him. I noticed that it was an apple tree. I let the scope wander. Beyond the fence the land was an orchard. The