Ice Cold (38 page)

“If
I
were Savage, I would’ve flown into Billings, in
disguise,
stolen a car out of the parking lot, stolen a couple more vehicles along the way, and then found myself a horse, or a snowmobile, or snowshoed up through the foothills. Two, three hours, tops. And, gentlemen, if
I
were Savage, I’d
be
here already.”

Rafael’s eyes narrowed behind the lenses of his goggles. “
You’d
be here, but you have to consider that you didn’t take a circuitous route, and you know your way.” Rafael made it sound reasonable, his voice clear and calm over the commlink built into the headgear. “At the most, she could’ve had an hour head start.”

“And you know what else I would do?” Honey said harshly, rejecting his reasoning. “I would’ve had people on the ground paving my way, and setting things up. She’s
not
alone. And—” A thought came to her, and it made her even more crazy to get to the house. “What if she
knew
we were headed to the casino in Prague? Isn’t it just a little too much of a coincidence that Kobevko surfaced, after years of being a ghost, right when we needed to find him? What if I was dead wrong and that
wasn’t
her I saw in Prague? She’s a master of disguise, she could have set up a decoy aimed at me, knowing what I’d be looking for. What if she set up—She’s here, damn it. She’s here and inside my home!”

Worry Pollack had yet to contact her was gnawing at her. She pushed it aside, making herself speak with less heat, more authority. “If she’s
not
inside now, she soon
will
be. She’s somewhere between our location and the house. Trust me on this. I know. Somehow, someway she’s bypassed our failsafe security systems and outsmarted us.”

Sick with worry, she didn’t miss the glances exchanged over her head. And just in case the two men didn’t get it, she reiterated. “She’s outsmarted the best more than once. She fucking got herself out of
supermax
under T-FLAC’s watch. What does that say about our adversary, gentlemen?”

“Even if that really is the case,” Rafael told her, as Dolan started to protest, “we’re here now. We’ll eliminate her and get everyone out.”

“I’ll die trying.”

“Nobody’s dying on my watch,” he said harshly. “Something to keep in mind when we make first contact. Shoot first, fuck asking questions, got it?”

“Loud and crystal clear.”

He stared out over her land with intense concentration. “Too bad we can’t take out the cameras.”

“The longer she believes she’s got all the time in the world, the better. I can get us into the house without notice. I’ll deal with the inside security when I’m inside.” Motion and heat sensors, pressure pads- If Savage was inside, she had a lot to deal with before she could do any real damage.

“So can I,” Dolan pointed out.

“That’s why we’re splitting up. Navarro and I will take point.” They didn’t know how many people Savage brought with her, but they knew she’d have plenty of firepower. Like any feral animal, she’d want the protection of her pack at her back when she went in for the kill.

“I want to know where you are,” Dolan told her.

“
I’ll
know where she is,” Rafael said flatly. “Watch your six, I’ll watch hers.”

“Gotcha.” Dolan melted into the trees.

“Ready to kick Savage’s ass?”

“Hell yes. It’s a well-thought-out plan. No matter how well prepared Savage is, she doesn’t know
all
our tricks.” They’d had this exact conversation, verbatim, on the plane, a second time, when they got to the outskirts of the ranch, and again now, when there was nothing between them and the main house.

Out of sight, blending perfectly into their environment, a dozen well-armed operatives, dressed from head to toe in white LockOut, covered their flanks. A dozen more positioned beyond a small ridge a mile and a half to the east. To the west was nothing but hundreds of miles of open rangeland and national forest; north were the mountains.

A low-orbiting T-FLAC satellite trained its eye on the entire ranch. Anything moved, they’d see it in real time on the tiny, transparent screen in the upper right-hand corner of the right lens of the goggles they all wore. Dolan’s latest invention was a marvel of technology.

Invisible when not in use, unintrusively small, the miniaturized, high-powered processor would feed them the intel they’d need to give them the advantage. The glasses, clear now, could, at the touch of a finger to the frame, change from clear to night vision, or to photochromic when needed.

“We have a veritable army waiting beyond the trees, by land and by air, off the radar,” Rafael reminded her. “All ready to rain hell down on her. There’s no getting away. Not this time. No prison cell or years to contemplate her fate. The kill order is in place.

Honey’s jaw ached, her teeth clenched so hard. Focus.
Breathe. Do your job.
“Looking forward to it.” Good guys bled out on the field of battle every day. But not here. And not her people. Not at her home.

They’d gone over every inch of her security on the flight. Every bit of the house, the outbuildings, her land. She and Jake had remotely deactivated as much as they could. Everything else was controlled from inside the house. Something she’d update . . . After. Their plan of action was to breach the compound without tripping any of the remaining surveillance cameras or activating any of the motion sensors. Then to enter the house unseen. It sounded easy, but the reality? Not so much.

She had top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art equipment, and intricate, undetectable systems, but if she forgot even one . . .

Savage had always preached, “Be ready for the unexpected,” and Honey knew Catherine would
anticipate
attack, but not expect it in this case. Not for hours, anyway. She thought she was too smart, smarter than Honey and Rafe, smarter than the combined experience and intelligence of T-FLAC.

No matter how much research Savage had done to ready herself, Honey knew her property a hell of a lot better. The computer-fed goggles gave them an added edge. With the home-team advantage, they’d attack before their enemy was ready for battle. It would put Savage on the defensive, reacting with a slight delay to attack. The element of surprise increased the odds in their favor by at least three hundred percent.

Third, being first to attack usually meant drawing first blood, a solid technique to disorient and incapacitate the enemy. “The best defense is a good offense,” Honey muttered beneath her breath.

“Yeah, I’m particularly fond of the sucker punch myself,” Rafael replied.

It was only partially dark under the trees, but even here, the dappled moonlight made it easy to see their surroundings. Honey knew every tree, every rock. She knew where the sensors were and the angle of the cameras. She and Jake had set them all. Personally. The goggles everyone wore would show the T-FLAC operatives where each was located as well.

Now she had to avoid being seen on the very monitors she’d programmed to view every inch of her property.

If Pollack hadn’t comprehended or received her coded message hours ago, he might very well be dead. And since Savage was a psychopath as well as a sociopath, her friend’s death wouldn’t come easy. Honey had to believe that Pollack had gotten the message loud and clear, that he was in the safe room, and that he and the others hadn’t been compromised.

She refused to allow her galloping heart and sweaty palms to dictate rash haste. She had to think like Savage, who would be thinking like
her
.

Catherine would be as antsy and twitchy as a cat in heat. Especially if that
hadn’t
been her at the casino. If she’d been in Montana for days, she’d be impatient to get the job done. If she’d only arrived, she could only have been on the ground ahead of them by an hour, perhaps two depending how fast her flight had been from Prague. She’d have to have spent most of that time getting to the ranch, then bypassing all the booby traps, eluding the cameras, and crossing miles of pristine snow undetected.

“Even if she managed to bypass everything and get into the house, there’s no way she’ll figure out where the computer’s located.”

“If she’s managed to breach your security, that won’t deter her.”

Honey’s thoughts exactly. “To get into the computer room will require skills Savage doesn’t have. And there are more security measures inside, remember.”

“You’re a paranoid woman, Honey Winston.”

“Obviously with good cause.”

THIRTY-ONE

 J 
ust the two of them. Snowmobiles in a zigzag pattern. Using every bit of cover they could find—rocks, shrubs, a bison in one case, until they arrived at outbuildings near the house. Data on their goggles indicated a skirmish on the western side of the property. Bad guys: ten. Good guys: six. End result? Bad guys: zero.

Honey’s home wasn’t a
house
. It was a fucking beautifully designed log mansion of
gigantic
proportions. A deep porch wrapped around the place, and enormous, strategically placed windows took in the panoramic view of the surrounding mountains.

Warm golden light spilled across the porch and soaked into the snow around the deep shallow steps surrounding the place. It looked like a magazine ad for luxury country living.

“Okay,” Honey said through the headset, as they approached a log building the size of a house. “This is as close as we go. She’ll hear us if we ride these things any closer. We walk from here. Head behind the horse barn over there.”

They tucked the two snowmobiles close to the barn wall in the moon’s shadow, and walked the rest of the way. It was heavy going. The hard packed snow was almost knee deep on him, thigh deep on Honey. He helped her keep her balance with his free hand on her shoulder, so she was hands free as they trudged between two buildings. Blocked from view from inside the house for the next several hundred feet, they were still exposed and vulnerable.

The “horse barn” was the size of a small stadium. “We can cut through here.” Unrecognizable suited up, goggles and face mask in place, she led the way, giving him a nice view of her firm ass. In case he’d forgotten her diagrams, and reminders up on the ridge, she took the time to point out the three cameras trained inside the stable area.

The inside was warm and spotlessly clean, with a few dim lights between the doors of some of the stalls. The place smelled pleasantly of hay, manure, and horse. The horses nickered in the heated stalls as Honey and Rafe walked quietly down the wide center aisle, their shoes making almost no noise on the thick, black rubber matting on the floors.

“Hi, baby.” Honey pulled off her glove, and when the horse was still agitated, pulled down her head covering, then let the uneasy horse sniff her hand before she rubbed her palm between the eyes an enormous black horse hanging its head over the stall door. It didn’t look like a baby to him as it flickered long-lashed, black eyes at him to shoot him the evil eye. The brass plate on the stall read DIABLO. Figured.

Honey soothed horses all the way down the line. They’d picked up on the tension in the air, growing uneasy in their stalls, whickering to one another, and pawing the ground as they passed.

Rafael made a hand gesture, alerting Honey to the presence of company inside one of the dark stalls. She positioned herself to cover him. “Show yourself, hands up! Now!”

After a few seconds, a dark-haired woman, dressed in a red puffy coat and jeans, stepped into the light from the dark corner of the empty stall. Feet spread, she gave him a hostile look, a shotgun held firmly in her hands. “
You
put
your
hands up!”

She was no tango, but he had to admire her guts. “Know her?”

“Put the gun down, Amber! It’s me.”

The muzzle lifted. “Show your face!”

Honey lifted her goggles on top of her head.

The woman glanced between them, then back to him. “Prove your identity!” She addressed Honey, and she was pissed enough not to care that he, too had his weapon drawn, and
his
hands weren’t white-knuckled or shaking.

“Your name’s Amber Dye, you’ve been my stable manager for three years, you- Hell- what else? Ah- When you aren’t in here, you’re reading. In fact, a lot of the time when you’re in here, you’re reading. Put the shotgun down before my friend here decides to shoot and ask questions later. What’s happening at the house?”

Looking uncertain, Amber hesitated then placed the shotgun carefully on the floor. “How do I know you’re not the same woman who started shooting up the place this afternoon?”

“Let’s just go on faith here, and say I’m not. Some woman impersonating me is inside?”

“You-
she
arrived in a cab just after lunch. The only reason Cindi opened the door against instructions, was because you were hurt so bad.” She scanned Honey with suspicion.