Out of Plans (The Mercenaries #2) (28 page)

The sun rose about two hours later. An hour after that, a heavy snowfall started. Lily tried to remember the last time she'd seen snow. Big flakes fell from the sky, blanketing the highway as they raced down it. The country around them looked pure and pristine.

This is probably the last time I'll see something like this.

Marc was driving. Kingsley was in the passenger seat. Lily smiled and remembered them driving away from their great escape in Tangier. She looked down at her arm, at her scar. Stroked her finger down the ugly line.

“Hey,” she called out, looking back into the front. Kingsley turned his head towards her. “If we live through this, we should all go back to Dakhla.”

Marc laughed, but the Brit just groaned. Dakhla was where she and Kingsley had first met. She'd tried her best to kick his ass. He'd almost strangled her. Then a day later, their car had gotten blown up when it had rolled over a land mine.

Good times.

“It's a date, sweetheart,” Marc teased.

“You're not giving me much incentive to fight very hard,” Kingsley joked.

“Sorry. All out of incentive. Left the diamonds in Stankovski's apartment,” she sighed.

“You didn't!” Marc exclaimed.

“Yup. Now they're someone else's problem.

“Yeah, probably some corrupt police officer. Probably on Stankovski's payroll. God, how could you have left them!?” he whined, dropping his head back.

“They were cursed, anyway,” she reminded him.

“Hey, how much farther?” Kingsley asked. Lily picked up her GPS unit and tapped a couple buttons.

“Like … five miles,” she answered.

“Okay. We're stopping two miles out and hiking in.”

“Not going to be fun in this weather,” Marc mumbled, staring out the window. It had obviously been snowing on and off for a couple days, and it was quite thick in some areas, easily up to five inches or more.

“Neither of you have to do this,” she started, but was quickly cut off.

“Sod off.”

“Shut up, Lily.”

“No,” she began again. “This wasn't your battle. It never was, and now it's completely fucked. We're beyond not having a plan – we're flying blind. At least in Morocco, you guys knew how many bodyguards were with Ivanov, you could see the whole building. Now we're going to a place in the middle of the woods, who knows how many outlying buildings or barns or what-the-fuck-evers there are, and they could all house an army each, for all we know. It's … crazy, and I know that, and I don't want to make you do this.”

There was silence for a second. She could see in the rear view mirror that Marc was glaring. Kingsley had his head tilted to the side and he appeared to be lost in thought. Then he took a deep breath.

“Well. It's not like I had anything else planned for today.”

She laughed until she almost started crying.

*

Stankovski's farm wasn't actually in Ithaca. They got off the interstate in a small town called Richford, then drove north, right into the thick of Hammond Hill State Forest. They abandoned the car at a trail head and unloaded as much weaponry as they could carry. Kingsley lugged out his heavy gun case without a word, but complained about what the snow would do to his shoes.

It wasn't fun. Stankovski's property bordered the northeastern edge of the forest, so they had to hike trails for miles, and then eventually leave the trail all together, cutting through trees and dense brush. Lily was wearing lycra leggings and running shoes – the snow wasn't exactly enjoyable.

It took them a couple hours to finally come out of the woods, and even then, more time skimming the edges, walking along, hoping to run into some of his buildings. Once they saw his stables in the distance, they went back into the edge of the woods, then moved uphill, gaining a good vantage point.

It was after noon and the sky had cleared up, making it easy to spy on the area. Kingsley gave her a pair of his black pants to help stave off the cold, then they all laid out on his green felt blanket, looking through scopes and binoculars.

“
Six on the outside, rotating shifts,
” Lily whispered.

“
Two on the hill, to lay cover,
” Kingsley added.

“
I've seen four through the windows, moving around,
” Marc crawled forward a little, trying to see more.

“Someone needs to go down there,” Lily finally sighed. “We need to get a real number on how many are inside, cause there sure as shit aren't horses in there.”

“What makes you say that?” Kingsley asked.

“No hay, no tracks, no horses in any of the windows, and really, why would Stankovski have a stable full of horses in a place he rarely visits?” she pointed out.

“Yeah. And why does he have all those flood lights? Look at that – all along the tree line, too,” Marc said, pointing between them. He was right. Huge light structures were set up around the perimeter, and there were lights all under the eaves of the building.

“We need to get down there,” she grumbled.

There was silence for a second, then Marc climbed to his feet.

“I'll go.”

Before anyone could argue, he'd had already taken off into the woods behind them. Lily cursed and kept her sight on the grounds ahead of her, watching for his form. It was a couple minutes before she saw him; he'd manage to circle around the area and was on the other side of the clearing, coming out the woods across from them.

There were three men in the front of the building, and three in the back, all with impressive looking guns. Marc waited on the hill for a while, then when it looked like a shift change was happening with the guards in front, he made a break for it, sliding down the snowy hillside. Then he was out of sight.

“I don't like this,” Lily said.

“He'll be fine. De Sant is shockingly difficult to kill,” Kingsley reminded her, and they both laughed.

He was gone for longer than she would've liked, but about twenty minutes after he disappeared, a window that was facing them exploded. All the guards looked around their corners, with a couple jogging to investigate what had happened. Meanwhile, Marc scurried back up the hillside. A few more minutes after that and he was finally jogging up to their sides.

“Jackpot, folks,” he panted, kneeling down at the edge of the blanket. Lily moved around to face him.

“What? What all did you see?”

“There aren't horses in there.”

“Like we thought.”

“There's kids,” he started in a cautious voice. “Kids are being held in the actual stables. There's four guards walking the floor.”

“That's a lot of guards for a bunch of little kids,” Lily commented, doing the math in her head. Ten guards for a couple dozen children, all under the age of ten.

“Ah, it's not just a bunch of kids. There's an office in the back. Guess who was sitting behind the desk, screaming and cursing into a phone?” Marc asked, a small smile playing at the edge of his lips.

“I'm going to be incredibly honest for a moment and admit something – I really did not think he'd be here,” Kingsley said in a loud voice. Lily laughed.

“I knew he would be. I knew there had to be more kids. That's what he's doing, he's trying to off load them all. We have to stop this before anyone else gets here, and we have to get to him before he leaves. We have to go
now,
” she stressed.

“The sun is going to set in something like … a couple hours,” Kingsley pointed out, glancing at his watch.

“All the more reason,” Marc added.

“Alright then,” the Brit sighed. “You two go back around the way Marc went. Once you're in position, I'll start taking out the guards. Now, it won't take them long to find me, so you need to be on them.”

“We can handle that. Avoid hitting the walls, too. Remember, there's kids in there.”

That same feeling again. Of too much adrenaline, and nerves, and tension, and …
everything
. She felt like she was going to spontaneously combust.

Over. This is it. Really it. He's there.
End this
.

They worked out a signal so they could synchronize their attack. Lily gave Kingsley his pants back, then they hugged each other goodbye. It was kind of sad, really. All the months of planning and tracking with him, yet she would be storming into that building with Marc.

But as they ran through the woods together, she realized how fitting it actually was; Marc had been a part of it since Africa. Had come to mean so much more to her, even beyond Kingsley. She was glad to have him by her side. Good luck or bad luck, they always wound up on top of a situation.

They jogged for about half a mile, then cut across the land quickly, staying as low to the ground as possible. Once they were in a wooded area on the other side, they ran back towards the stables.

“You ready for this?” Marc whispered, dropping into a squat and pulling off his backpack. He took out a set of binoculars, then tossed the bag behind a tree.

“As I'll ever be,” she whispered back.

“That was pretty intense this morning. He's not going anywhere tonight. We could always lay low and watch him, do this all tomorrow morning,” he suggested. She glared.

“I'm fine, Marc. I can handle this.
Don't worry about me,
” she stressed, and he chuckled.

“Still haven't figured it out yet, sweetheart.”

“Figured what out?”

“I
never
stop worrying about you.”

Marc had pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and he pointed it straight ahead. He flicked it on and off, in a series of patterns. A minute after he left it off for a good, a light across the way began flickering back at them.

“Why didn't we bring the radios?” Lily suddenly wondered out loud.

“Doesn't matter, they'd probably pick up the signal if we had. Look alive, princess, this is it,” Marc warned her, then flicked the light on again.

The distance between them and Kingsley was decent; easily 500 yards or so. Yet his gun shot sounded so loud. It echoed around them, bouncing off the dense trees. As they watched, one of the bodyguards at the entrance fell down dead. His co-workers rushed forward to see what was wrong, and there was another loud BOOM. One more bodyguard bit the dust.

“
MOVE!
”

Lily didn't need to be told twice. She shot off down the side of the hill, sliding through the snow. She reached the side of the stables and was pleased to see that she'd beaten Marc. He came to a stop next to her and they nodded before turning, pressing their backs to each other. Marc walked towards the front of the building and Lily moved with him, her gun trained on the back end of the stables.

“You know what?” she whispered, leaning her head back against his shoulder.

“What?”

“Blazing heat in Africa was
so much
better
than this snow bullshit,” she hissed, and was rewarded with a snort of laughter.

“I agree. I'm going around the corner, be alert.”

One guard had stayed back by the doors, but he was facing the direction Kingsley was firing from; it was easy for Marc to sidle up behind him and get him in a chokehold. In less than a minute, the man was unconscious. Moving in a crouch, Lily made her way over to them.

“They're moving towards Law,” she whispered, watching as the remaining three guards fanned up the hill in front of them.

“Then I'll stop them. Between Law and I, we should be able to drop them all. Clear out the stables for us. You only have minutes, sweetheart,” Marc instructed her, all while double checking the magazine on his rifle. Lily nodded and did the same with her own gun.

“Okay.”

“Pay attention. Don't hesitate. Pull the trigger.”

“Pull the trigger. Got it.”

She turned to move back to face the door, but Marc grabbed her arm. She was yanked around, which made her stumble and slide on the packed down snow. She went to curse at him, but then his mouth was over hers and he was bending her into a deep kiss.

“I mean it,” he said when he finally let her go. “
Do not hesitate
. It's you or them, princess.”

Lily smiled and stared up at him. How different he seemed. Still so tan, from all his time in Colombia and Brazil. His eyes so bright. He was frowning at her, his eyebrows knitted together in a scowl, and she ran her fingers across them.

“Only us,” she sighed.

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Let's get this over with.”

Small windows lined the upper part of the barn like doors, and Lily hopped up and down to look through them. There were two guards in the walkway between the stalls, and one standing a couple feet back from the door. He seemed to be shouting orders at his coworkers.

Now or never. Office is in the back, no exits. Just get there.