They lay on top of the thick stone wall getting their bearings. The corner of the wing of the house was only twenty-five feet away. Riley spotted the guard on this side of the wall heading toward the landing pad, just as they had hoped he would. If the guards fired on the helicopter, Tremont would intervene with his suppressed rifle.
Riley slid off the wall and landed on the inside, followed by Westland. He led the way toward the house across the lighted section of lawn. As he did so a dark form leapt out of the shadow of the house. Riley fired a quick burst from his submachine gun and the dog was slammed back into the shade.
The inbound helicopter not only drew attention away from the wall, but it covered up the slight noise Eagle Force made as it landed on the main building. The dark forms touched down on the roof like winged vampires.
Edberg was the trail man in the airborne formation. He could see the canopies from the other jumpers draped all over the roof. He braked and felt his knees buckle slightly as he made a perfect landing in the center of the roof. Two of the first jumpers were already at work, prepping a charge on the locked door that barred their way down. Thompson had passed on the warning that the windows were barred, so they had changed their original plan of rappelling off the roof and going in through the windows.
Edberg looked up as the OH-58 swooped in from the south, its bright searchlight blinding the guards on the ground as it settled in toward the landing pad. The man in charge of the demolitions gave Edberg the thumbs-up. Edberg signaled for him to wait.
Lopez, the security man in charge of this shift, was confused. He was listening to the radio reports from the guards outside concerning the inbound helicopter. From his room on the back side of the first floor of the main building, Lopez couldn't see anything, but he could hear the aircraft. The guards were reporting that it looked like the Ring Man's helicopter, yet Lopez had not been told that the aircraft was en route or that the Ring Man had called for it.
He didn't even consider ordering his men to fire at it. The Ring Man would have his ass if he shot up the boss's helicopter. He keyed his radio. "Let it land and find out what that idiot of a pilot is doing up here. The boss is going to be pissed if this woke him up."
The guard at the landing pad acknowledged.
Rabitowski smiled as the skids of the bird settled on the concrete landing pad. Two Colombian guards were moving toward the aircraft from the front. Cullen suddenly twisted his throttle to flap the blades. The two guards bent their heads even further and covered their eyes at the sudden onslaught of wind.
As they did so Griffin and Jacobs leaned out of the open back doors, one on either side, and gunned down the guards, using their silenced MP5s.
"Tiger, two down LZ," Rabitowski reported over the radio as he got out. Griffin and Jacobs started sprinting for the front gate, their RPG rocket launchers over their shoulders. Cullen rolled off the throttle and stepped out next to Rabitowski; they headed for the cars parked in the lot.
Tremont started firing. He was slightly off his boast to Riley of a round every two seconds, but he wanted to be sure he hit his targets. He fired and worked the bolt like a well-oiled machine. The rifle puffed as each of the three rounds left the barrel. They were all out in slightly less than nine seconds.
"Tremont, three down, north, north, and south," he whispered into his mike.
Below him, Thompson was trying to find the last remaining guard. The man must be somewhere on the west side. He spoke into his voice-activated mike. "We've still got one on the outside. I think he's on the west side."
Lopez heard nothing but the sound of the helicopter winding down. He keyed his mike. "Hosea? Antonio?" He frowned at the lack of an answer. He was interrupted by the buzzing of his phone. He sighed as he realized it was the line from the Ring Man's room.
"Yes, sir."
"What is going on? What is my helicopter doing here?"
"I don't know, sir. I'm trying to find out."
"Find out and let me know." The other end slammed down.
An unpleasant, tingling feeling grew in Lopez's stomach as he continued to receive no answer from the men who had been waiting for the aircraft to land. He considered alerting the other guard shift of eight men who were sleeping in the room next to this one. Or perhaps he should go out himself to check on why the helicopter was here. He wished the Israeli was here to handle this. He was still trying to figure out what to do when the guard from the west wall called him.
"Lopez, this is Rene. I'm heading around front. I don't see—" There was a thunk followed by a brief gurgling noise.
"Tremont, one down west side." Tremont smiled as he worked the bolt and reloaded. The last guard had shown just enough of his head around the side of the building.
Thompson listened as other reports came in.
"Tiger One in place."
"Eagle going in."
Edberg signaled. There was a flash and hiss as the charge ate through the lock. The door swung open and the ten men slipped in, Edberg in the lead. They halted at the foot of the stairs and the team split. Four men headed toward the west wing, while the other six began work on the second floor.
They fanned out on the second floor, moving in a practiced routine.
They began clearing, room by room. The first indication that anything unusual was happening in the building finally occurred — the muffled roar of a shotgun echoed up from the east wing.
Getting in had been easier than expected. The patio doors at the rear of the wing had carelessly been left unbarred. Riley had pried them open with his knife. Starting from the farthest room out, they had begun working their way down the corridor toward the main building. The first three rooms had been empty.
Riley turned the knob on the fourth door and stepped through to the right while Westland stepped to the left. In the dim light shed by a single lamp, they were greeted by the sight of a man and a woman in a compromising position on the bed.
The man dove for a gun on the nightstand and Riley pinned him against the headboard with a sustained burst from the MP5. The room echoed lightly with the noise of his expended brass tinkling onto the wood floor.
"Stay put and you won't get hurt," Riley hissed at the woman in Spanish. She nodded weakly, holding the sheet up in front of herself with one hand. Riley turned for the door.
The repeated roar of Westland's shotgun reverberated in his ears. Riley turned in surprise to see the girl on the bed crumpling forward, a pistol in her hand, practically disemboweled by the slugs and buckshot from Westland's gun.
"Riley, two down east wing," he whispered into the mike as he and Westland turned for the hallway. He was conscious that he'd made a bad mistake in not shooting the woman to start with. Kate had saved his ass.
Lopez screamed for the men in the next room as he grabbed his MAC–IO. He yelled into the radio: "Jaime, get your people up here. We're being attacked!"
He waited for the brief acknowledgment from the leader of the four men manning the ambush position down the driveway before he headed for the door.
Lopez swung the door open and stepped into the main foyer. He spotted two black-clad men moving up on the second-floor stairwell. He was preparing to fire when an explosion blew open the locked front double doors. Lopez swung around to see two more dark-clad men stepping through the smoking wreckage. He fired a wild burst at them. In return, a sustained burst of machine-gun fire pummeled him back into his office.