“And Senator Delanor?”
“Oh jeez, we were all in love with Ellie. But she chose George.” He looked at O’Dell, waited for her eyes. “And now George is going to destroy her completely, isn’t he?”
63
Creed had given everyone the weekend off. If Jason was right, Choque Azul’s hit squad would be coming for him either tonight or tomorrow night.
After his friends Colfax and Benny had left the bar last night and it was just the two of them, Jason told Creed about Tony. A guy named Falco had convinced Tony to leave the bananas on Hannah’s kitchen counter. Somehow Falco knew that Tony had been hired to go out and check the electricity at Creed’s facility. He swore he didn’t know about the spiders, and Jason said he believed him.
He also said his friend was still pretending to be interested in doing more work for Falco. That’s how he knew about the raid. From what Tony had shared with Jason, Choque Azul was used to hiring ex-military members to do quite a bit of their dirty work. And unfortunately, many of them were lured in, just like Tony had been, by the large amounts of cash they were paid and the promise of much more. Jason offered to help. Creed declined. He told him not to take it personally. He simply did not want anyone else to get hurt. The information he had given was more than enough.
Creed took the entire day to prepare, and needed every minute. Then he waited for darkness. He knew they wouldn’t come until they had the cover of night.
In some strange way — and Hannah would probably add “some sick way”—Creed was impressed with the show of force that Choque Azul thought was necessary to bring him down. On his iPad he watched the men approaching — which made it look like he was playing a bad video game. The infrared cameras he had placed on the dogs’ collars jerked a bit more than he’d like, even though the dogs were doing their best stealth tracking of the men who were now invading his property.
All three dogs were war dogs. Two male, one female. Cheyenne was a muscular pit bull mix; Diesel, a sleek, bronze boxer; and Nuru was a blue-eyed husky mix. They had been trained for military work and could track independently behind enemy lines without constant instruction and with little guidance from their master.
The cameras on their collars were accompanied by a GPS and another device that emitted a series of high-pitched signals. Only the dogs could hear and react to the signals. Creed was able to give them directions by punching in commands using special apps on his iPad and his cell phone.
The dogs understood they were to track the intruders while remaining unseen and unheard. It looked like quite the challenge, because from what Creed could see, the men were equipped with infrared goggles. So far, the dogs were following behind or alongside in the trees and brush and keeping low to the ground.
Suddenly one man stopped to listen. He spun around to look behind them.
Creed held his breath as he watched.
The guy called out something to the other two men with him, and they stopped up ahead. Creed couldn’t make out what was said. For all the wonderful technology of the camera, it had a crappy microphone that filled Creed’s ears with only his dog’s sniffs and pants.
The man swung his gun and his bandanna head with goggle eyes from side to side, looking up at the branches and into the trees. For some reason he didn’t bother examining the tall grass or anything closer to the ground. Thank goodness, because from the angle of Cheyenne’s camera, Creed knew the dog had dropped to its belly.
The man decided there wasn’t anything, and he waved to his buddies. They continued to sneak through the trees.
Again, with another app, Creed pulled up a map of his property. Three lights were blinking within the borders — one green, one yellow, and one red. Each light identified a dog and his or her location. Cheyenne was the green light, tracking the group that came in from the road.
Creed could also access the other cameras he had planted around the property. A touch of his iPad screen and he could choose to see in real time what was in each camera’s viewfinder. Of course, he couldn’t monitor the entire acreage, but he had views of almost every possible approach to any of the buildings on the property, especially the one with the dog kennels and his apartment.
In addition to Cheyenne’s team of three that he was following, Diesel had two in his sight coming through the forest behind the main house. Nuru’s group from the west included two more. From the camera up in a tree at the end of his driveway, Creed could see a vehicle parked off the road with its headlights off. Once in a while he saw what he believed was the red-orange tip of a glowing cigarette behind the steering wheel.
None of the other cameras had shown any movement for the last hour. So Creed put the count at seven, with one outside the perimeter. He wondered if the guy who had run Hannah and Amanda off the road was here tonight. He hoped so.
What Jason had told him appeared to be correct. Most of the men looked like ex-military. But they also looked like a ragtag assortment. Some were dressed in camouflage. A few wore bandannas around their heads. A couple chose ball caps.
No helmets. That was good.
It meant no advanced communication system, and he didn’t see any radios strapped to their arms or any jawbone microphones.
What surprised Creed — and should not have — was the firepower. Two of the men looked like they were carrying AK-47s. The others had serious semiautomatic handguns. One guy wore an ammo belt strapped across his chest. Another had what looked like grenades hanging from a belt.
This seemed like overkill.
Maggie O’Dell had said that Trevor Bagley and the fishing boat captain had been tortured by fire ants and spiders, then dumped into the river. Neither had been shot or stabbed or blown up. They had been killed by the cartel’s hired assassin, a phantom nicknamed the Iceman. He preferred to torture his victims. Creed wondered why they had sent an entire military-style hit squad to kill him.
And then he realized the answer to his question, and he felt a knot twist in his stomach. Suddenly he was questioning his entire strategy. These men had probably been ordered to capture him for the Iceman. The heavy artillery wasn’t for him. It was to take out his dogs.
64
Creed’s second cell phone started to vibrate. Diesel’s crew had tripped the motion sensor at the back door of the main house.
Creed grabbed his iPad. He punched the app that brought up all the dog collars and their communication devices. He opened Grace’s and tapped three times. She didn’t have a camera — just the communication gadget. He’d be able to watch her from the cameras already in the house. He touched the app for the interior and brought up the camera views from inside. And sure enough, he saw Grace scurrying into position.
The two men entered the kitchen at a crouch. Diesel knew not to follow them inside unless or until Creed gave the command. From Diesel’s camera, he watched the men disappear inside. And from the kitchen camera, he saw them moving in.
The lights were on in the house. In every room, every possible bulb burned bright, so the two men removed their infrared goggles. From camera to camera Creed watched them sneak from room to room. He adjusted his earbud. The microphones on the cameras in the house were much more sensitive.
“Did you hear that?” the man in the lead asked his partner.
“Sounded like it came from that way.”
Just at that moment, Creed saw Grace peek around the corner, letting the men see her.
“It’s a dog.”
Gunfire blasted in Creed’s ear, sending him to his feet.
Damn it!