got from the assholes, the less critical was the need to be quiet.
Of course, that presumed that all the bad guys were clustered at the pool. For all he knew, the island was crawling with them.
Don’t get cocky, dumbshit.
The sidewalk behind the pool dropped even lower down the hill. Immediately before the gate in the hedges, which would lead him back out to the common area of the resort, he took a sharp right into the blackness of the palm tree archway that ultimately led him to the pole barn. He wondered if the guests had any idea of how much effort and money it took to give the impression of a natural habitat. These were details on which Baker would make no compromise.
Again using his fingers to filter the light, Tyler dared quick flashes so he could see enough to navigate, and finally, there they were. The tycoon taxis reminded Tyler of World War II photos he’d seen of planes lined up on the deck of an aircraft carrier. They sat nose-to-tail in two perfect columns, each plugged into a charging station on the adjacent wall. The first cart in the closest column sported an inconspicuous 12 on its nose. Tyler dared a full blast of illumination from the flashlight as he hunkered down on the concrete floor between Cart 12 and its neighbor. He pulled the bundle of keys out of his pocket and sorted through them till he found the one with the corresponding number. He separated that one out, snuffed his light, then tossed the rest of the keys back into the darkness.
Tyler stood, slid behind the wheel, and slid the key into the ignition. The electric cart started silently, thank God. He reached down to the front of the seat, rocked the transmission lever into the forward position, and eased his foot onto the accelerator. The brake kicked out automatically, and he was on his way.
The tycoon taxis all came equipped with headlights, but Tyler didn’t dare use them. Instead, he did the flashlight finger trick again until he was free of the overhanging foliage and into the open night. There, the cart path was illuminated by dim overhead floodlights that were hidden in the trees, so camouflaged that they were truly invisible during the day, and barely provided navigable light after dark. The point of the lights, Baker had explained, was to provide safe walkways, not safe streets.
“Do I go fast or do I go slow?” he asked himself aloud. The instant he heard it, he realized that there was only one reasonable answer. While moving quickly might attract more attention and increase the risk of a wreck, going slowly increased the time that he’d be in some asshole’s gun sights.
Fast, it would be.
* * *
Anatoly Petrovich Ivanov climbed the stairs of the main house’s magnificent sweeping staircase two risers at a time. The fine hardwoods and the grass paper wall-coverings were lost on him, as were the fine details of the cut crystal sconces and the bauble-coated crystal chandelier. Baker Sinise was a rich guy who catered to clients with rich tastes. Yeah, he got that, but none of the opulent flourishes contributed to Anatoly’s mission, so they were all irrelevant. He didn’t care about protecting the objects and the art, but he had no interest in destroying them, either. His mission was a simple one: to leverage Baker Sinise to perform the task that only he could perform.
It was a mission that would be rendered vastly more complicated if what India had told him was, in fact, the truth: Sinise was not here. How could that happen? How could their intelligence have been so wrong?
The stairway to the third floor of the Plantation House—to Sinise’s living quarters—lay hidden from casual view behind a door that appeared to be a wall panel that was no different than all the other walnut paneling that adorned the Plantation House. It was already ajar, no doubt because members of his team had neglected to close it behind them. And what would have been the point?
These stairs were steeper, but only slightly narrower than those of the grand staircase, probably to allow for the passage of furniture and such. As he neared the top of the steps, he could hear the voices of his team churning through the events of the evening. The fact that they were speaking in Russian piqued his anger. Why did mercenaries have such a difficult time following the simplest of rules?
“English!” Anatoly yelled before he’d emerged from the stairwell. “For God’s sake, how many times do I have to tell you?”
As Anatoly crossed the threshold into Baker Sinise’s private quarters, he didn’t even try to hide his admiration. If it was possible to be even more over-the-top opulent than the public spaces, then he’d managed to achieve it. Every polished surface gleamed, and every square inch of fabric-covered surfaces was spotless. “My goodness,” he said. “It seems there is a lot of money to be made in the weapons trade.”
“Tolya,” said Gerasim Kuznetsov. “You need to see this.” He stood next to Viktor Smirnov, who somehow had beaten Anatoly up to the third floor after discovering the bodies of their comrades. Together, they had gathered around a teak dining table that could easily have seated ten people comfortably, fourteen if they touched elbows.
“Damn it, India,” Anatoly snapped at Kuznetsov. “English and no names. These commands are not complicated.”
“I’m sorry,” India said. “You’re right, I should have known better.”
For his part, Viktor Smirnov—Delta—stood silently, apparently hoping to project an air of superiority. He held a smartphone in both hands, and from posture alone, Anatoly knew that they had been looking at pictures.
“Let me see,” Anatoly said as he approached them. He held out his hand and wiggled his fingers for Delta to hand over the phone.
The other man hesitated, but ultimately complied. “Notice the skill of these wounds,” he said.
Anatoly had probably seen more dead men in real life than he had in pictures, so he felt no emotional reaction as he took in the images of his dead operators. They lay on what appeared to be a bathroom floor, surrounded by halos of uncoagulated blood that had spilled from their gaping knife wounds.
“It appears that they were murdered as they entered through the back door of the bungalow,” Viktor explained. Younger than most of the other operators, and therefore less experienced, he appeared somewhat shaken. “There was some blood spray on the drapes and walls of the bedroom, near the veranda doors, but the final slaughter took place out on the veranda itself.”
“So, they dragged the bodies inside?” Anatoly said. He thought it was an obvious conclusion, but it was always best to be sure of these things.
“And stripped them of all their equipment and weapons,” Viktor reminded. “These are not the actions or skills of your standard tourists.”
Anatoly turned to Gerasim. “What do we know about these tourists, India?”
Gerasim Arturovich lifted the pad that normally resided in his shirt pocket and read from handwritten notes. “This comes from the registration sheet. They are Stephen Terrell and Alicia Crosby, unmarried. They are from Norman, Oklahoma, and have no food allergies.”
Anatoly cocked his head. “Why do I care about food allergies?”
Gerasim smiled, acknowledgment that they had known each other a very long time. “You asked what we know about them. I just told you everything.”
“Are there photos?”
“None that I have seen. And, of course, there is no photographic security to monitor.”
“Why ‘of course’?” Viktor asked.
Anatoly
