Highway to Vengeance: A Thomas Highway Thriller (17 page)

I swung the barrel of the MP5/10 towards the
other guard, who was still in his chair, his eyes wide and his
mouth still open.

Now was the crucial part. I spoke some
rudimentary Spanish, but I didn’t want to say anything, knowing
that my accent would give away my true ethnicity. Nor did I want to
kill the guard unless it was absolutely necessary, because the lack
of a sound suppressor on my weapon could possibly alert another
guard that something was awry. So I simply brought the index finger
of my left hand to my mouth in a universal sign for silence.

The guard nodded.

I glanced down at the guard I’d stuck with
the lancet. He wasn’t moving at all, so I turned my attention back
to the seated guard. Using the HP5/10 I motioned for him to stand
up.

The guard put his hands in the air.

I again motioned, and this time the guard
stood up, sneaking a glance over towards his own weapon as he did
so.

I shook my head slowly from side-to-side.
With my index and middle fingers extended, I pointed to my eyes,
then towards him, then back to my eyes, as if to say, look at me
only.

The guard nodded again, more grudgingly this
time, and I knew I had to get this show on the road before the
guard decided to make a break for it.

I made a circling motion with my left
hand.

The guard just stood there, staring at
me.

I made the circling motion again, more
adamantly this time.

The guard still didn’t move, but his
shoulders tightened slightly and his jaw started to tense.

I took a step forward and prepared to
squeeze the trigger, fully expecting the guard to make some kind of
a move.

The guard seemed to sense my intent. He took
a deep breath, then relaxed his shoulders and slowly turned
around.

I waited until the guard’s back was to me,
then quickly stepped forward, pulled another lancet from the vest,
and stuck it the guard’s neck.

The man twitched once, then his knees gave
out and he started to slip to the ground. I caught him on the way
down and laid him down softly.

After dragging both of the unconscious men
to the back corner of the boathouse and covering their bodies with
a blue tarp from a supply closet, I again raided my backpack, this
time strapping a .40 caliber Glock to my thigh and putting a pair
of night-vision goggles on my forehead.

I checked my watch. Six minutes and 37
seconds until the first batch of C4 exploded. Ahead of schedule,
just like back in the day.

The easy part of the operation was over. It
was time for phase two.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO

Montoya’s defenses were set up so he could
escape given the unlikely scenario that his contacts in the Mexican
government were not able to warn him of an impending raid of his
premises. Or an attack from a rival drug cartel. Or a full-scale
military operation. They were not designed with the purpose of
keeping a single, highly-motivated, well-informed assassin from
penetrating into the heart of his ranch. It was, quite simply,
something that he did not consider to be a serious threat.

That was about to change.

The drug lord’s security plan was elegant in
its simplicity; if there was any evidence of trouble on the
outskirts of his property, he and two of his most trusted
bodyguards would immediately head towards an underground bunker
thirty feet below the foundation of the house. Inside the bunker
was a security center, which would allow Montoya to pinpoint the
source of the trouble and decide how it should be handled. If the
threat was serious enough, Montoya could use one of the two tunnels
that branched off from the basement to make his escape from the
property.

One of the tunnels led to a retractable
helicopter pad located on the outskirts of Montoya’s ranch. The
other led to his boats.

The exit to this second tunnel was hidden in
plain view just north of the boathouse, disguised as an oversized
water runoff pipe, complete with water dripping from its end. The
“pipe” ended forty feet from the shoreline, where the dirt ended
and the sand began.

It was through this second tunnel that I
would gain entrance to his house. I was going through the out
door.

I had to crouch to get through the first
portion of the pipe. The tunnel was pitch black, but there was
enough ambient light for my night-vision goggles to give me a
clear, if greenish gray view of the path ahead.

The pipe went on for about forty yards
before taking a sharp left turn into the tunnel proper.

Here the tunnel was larger, allowing me to
walk upright. The walls were lined with concrete and electrical
wires ran along the ceiling, feeding light boxes that were set at
twenty-foot intervals but were as of now unlit.

I made my way through the dusty tunnel
relatively quickly, unafraid of being detected. The tunnel was
supposed to be a closely-held secret, so there were no electronic
surveillance devices installed except for a camera at each exit.
These cameras fed only the security center in the underground
bunker, and were used simply to determine which exit provided the
safest escape and would only be turned on after Montoya had
retreated to the bunker. As long as I was in the correct position
before the C4 went off, my presence would go undetected.

I nestled up next to the door to Montoya’s
bunker with two minutes and 45 seconds to go until detonation of
the C4.

After taking a moment to catch my breath, I
again raided my backpack. Besides the second Glock and two spare
clips, three items were left inside; a small flashlight, a portable
breaching charge, and a detonator. I pulled these last three items
out. I turned the flashlight on and stuck the butt end into my
mouth so I could see the door directly in front of me, then started
to unfold the breaching charge.

After carefully attaching the breaching
charge to the door, I turned the flashlight off and placed it in
one of the empty pockets on my vest. Gripping the detonator in my
left hand, I moved ten paces to the left and set my back against
the wall of the tunnel on the same side as the door.

Everything was set.

Now it was just a matter of time until I
would finally have a chance to kill the motherfucker responsible
for the murder of my wife.

Josie.

I’d had been so focused on the task at hand
that I hadn’t really thought about her in days. But now, as I
counted down the final seconds until I could avenge her death, I
could think of nothing else.

I said her name aloud and something
blossomed in my chest. A slow, steady wave of warmth started to
spread throughout my body. It was a familiar sensation.

Pure, unadulterated rage.

I’d been letting it pool in an isolated
reservoir deep in my psyche since the moment she’d died in my arms,
keeping it separate from my actions, far away from conscious
thought. But now I let the rage course through my body, making no
attempt to stem its flow. I would allow it to flood my system, to
the point of nearly overwhelming me, then channel it, use it as
fuel during this final stage of my vengeance.

With every living cell of my body quivering
in anticipation, I opened my eyes, looked down at the watch.

Three seconds until detonation.

Two seconds.

One.

It was time.

The first C4 charge detonated precisely on
schedule, shattering the quiet night with its heavy blast. Even
though I was at least 400 yards away from the dock, the blast was
incredibly loud; because the purpose of the explosion was to shock
Montoya into action, I’d used three times the amount of C4 needed
to destroy each boat.

On the drive over, Chris had laid out
Montoya’s crisis plan in intricate detail, which now allowed me to
visualize the scene as it played out in the house above.

Seconds after the blast, the two main
bodyguards rush into Montoya’s bedroom. They rouse him and toss him
a bullet-resistant vest and some slip-on hard-sole shoes. With
their weapons drawn, usher him towards the door, moving quickly but
under control. They will have just reached the bedroom door
when—

Boom! The second batch of C4 detonated,
destroying the second boat.

One guard peeks into the hall, sees that it
is clear, and leads the way towards the bedroom three doors down
from Montoya’s. In the back of a walk-in closet of this bedroom is
the elevator leading to the bunker.

With one guard in front of Montoya and the
other behind him, they move quickly, their bodies pressed tightly
together. Shouting is audible throughout the house, but these three
men are silent. They are concerned with nothing other than getting
to the safety of the bunker. Once there, they will wait for
enforcements, re-evaluate the situation and decide on a course of
action.

They reach the elevator. The lead guard
punches in the six-digit number to unlock it while the other trains
his weapon towards the room outside. There is a hiss, then a click,
and the doors open. The lead guard enters, followed by Montoya,
then the second guard. The lead guard presses a button and the
doors close. They begin to descend.

I could feel the urgency running rampant
through my system, threatening to cloud my actions, pushing me to
detonate the breaching charge right now. But I held back.

The charge was designed to incapacitate the
inhabitants of the room it was breaching—much like a stun
grenade—which would give me a few precious seconds to engage the
enemy before they had shaken off the effects of the blast. The last
thing I wanted to do was detonate before anyone was in the room. It
would be giving away a valuable advantage, and being outnumbered at
least three to one, I needed every advantage I could get.

I glanced at the watch. Forty-five seconds
had passed since the first batch of C4 had detonated. According to
Chris, the average time it took Montoya to reach the bunker from
his room was 35 seconds, and it never took more than a minute.

Because of this time frame, we had decided
to wait until 75 seconds had passed before detonating the breaching
charge. There wasn’t much to lose by being a few seconds late, but
being early could cost me my life.

To help keep myself occupied, I ran through
a final check of the MP5/10, making sure the magazine was locked
and loaded, the safety off, the trigger group set to three-round
bursts.

Everything was perfect.

I looked at the watch again.

Seventy-five seconds since the first
blast.

I brought the MP5/10 into firing position,
took a final deep breath, counted to three, and detonated the
breaching charge.

The force of the explosion shook the tunnel.
Dirt fell from the ceiling, creating a tiny dust cloud. Some landed
on my head. I shook it out. The smell of cordite hung heavy in the
damp air. I stepped forward, pivoted, and climbed through the
large, ragged hole in the door, my weapon in firing position.

The breaching charge had done its job
perfectly. The room was a mess; papers everywhere, tables
overturned, lights flickering. Most importantly, it had left all
three men sprawled on the ground.

The closest one was ten feet to my right. It
was a bodyguard. He was on one knee. His left hand was on the
ground, providing support. In his right hand was an Uzi, which was
pointed at the ground. He turned his head and looked at me, his
eyes glazed over but still functioning properly.

“Don’t do it,” I said, even though he was
most likely deaf from the breaching charge.

The guard stared at me for another
heartbeat, then started to swing the Uzi upwards. I leaned forward
slightly and shot him in the face with a three-round burst from the
MP5/10. His head snapped back and then he fell, the Uzi clattering
on the concrete next to him.

The other guard was on the opposite side of
the room, sitting on the ground with his back against the wall. He
was yelling something in Spanish and holding his face in his hands.
His Uzi was lying on the ground next to him. I walked over, kicked
the firearm away, pulled one of the lancets from my vest and stuck
it into the guard’s shoulder.

The large man didn’t even seem to notice. He
continued to sit there and scream with his hands over his face for
another three seconds before slumping forward.

The room now clear of threats, I turned my
attention to a small man dressed in pajamas lying motionlessly on
his chest a few feet away. I knelt down beside him and gave him a
quick pat-down. After finding no weapons, I grabbed his arms at the
wrists, wrenched them back and zip-tied them together. I then
flipped the man over.

It was Montoya. His eyes were closed and his
body was slack. I felt for a pulse. It was there but very weak.
Apparently, the door breach had done too good of a job on Montoya;
it had knocked him unconscious.

I stood up and spun the straps of MP5/10
around so the weapon was against my back, then pulled the Glock
from the thigh holster and pointed it at Montoya’s face.

I debated whether or not to kill him
immediately, but eventually decided to wait as long as possible
before squeezing the trigger. I wanted Montoya to see my face, to
understand who had come to kill him.

Five seconds passed, then ten, and still
Montoya remained unconscious.

I couldn’t hear any signs of activity from
the house above, but I knew it wouldn’t be long until more
reinforcements made their way down to the bunker. Another ten
seconds—fifteen at the most—and I’d have to kill Montoya, whether
he was awake or not.

Ten seconds later I was about to squeeze the
trigger when Montoya’s eyes flickered to life. He blinked a couple
of times more and then they stayed open. They were bloodshot and
vacant. His face shone with confusion, most likely due to a severe
concussion caused by the breaching charge.