Page 69 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

But—was this word from One?

No. Couldn’t be. If the plot had failed, Five would be given the order to kill his captives. If the plot had been successful, Five would be given the order to free his captives. That’s the way it was supposed to work.

Five listened to the members of the strike team force their way into the house as he strapped on his body armor.

No, this was something else. Someone had snitched.

Maybe friends of those cops who’d tried to shake him down or an overly curious neighbor who’d caught the scent of blood and money and had an impulse to help the cartel.

Although—maybe this was the wrath of One.

He’d warned Five and the rest of the team against using any outside help, and Five’s brothers-in-arms certainly qualified as outside help.

But no, that didn’t make sense. Why would One choose this violent display of force with his valuable hostages in the cross fire? Wrath was one thing; money was another.

But it didn’t matter now. Five could sort out the message later.

Let those sons of bitches come down here—they’d be stepping into a cellar of death. Five had all the advantages. His days in the military had taught him to plan ahead.

Any men who were stupid enough to step into this hallway would probably think they had their target pinned down.

What they didn’t know was that Five had the entire length of the hall rigged with smoke bombs, and if his attackers fired blindly at him, they risked hitting his captives.

A desperate kidnapper might use them as human shields.

Five was not a desperate man. He was a careful and prepared man.

His attackers would have no choice but to venture into the smoke.

Which would also play to Five’s advantage.

He wouldn’t shoot at them. He’d wait until enough of them were in the hall, then he’d go to a hidden wall panel and trigger the series of explosives he had wired along the floor and ceiling.

Death from above; death from below—Five’s preparation for a doomsday scenario, installed just last year when he thought he might be going to war with the cartel.

And by the time the survivors of this assault team were scraping body parts off the walls, Five would be hustling the rich boy and his actress girlfriend through a tunnel to an awaiting car that nobody—not even his own brothers—knew about.

Five would miss this house, this neighborhood. But all the money would ease the hurt. And if this was One messing with him, Five would mess right back and take the whole billion for himself.

The idea of all the money made Five think of Julia, naturally. You’re gonna be sorry you stuck with that loser Rubin. The best he’ll be able to buy you is a $9.95 breakfast buffet in some shitty casino.

Smoke was filling the hallway now, and Five slipped on his 3M full-face respirator. As he was tightening a strap, he looked down at his left hand and saw something odd.

A glowing red dot danced on one of his knuckles.

Before Five had a chance to follow the dot to the laser light that cut through the smoke, the meat of his hand exploded. Detached fingers tumbled down his armored body.

No. No, no, no…

These bastards had infrared laser sights that could find their targets even in all this smoke!

Five turned and stumbled down the hall. One hand was gone; that was fine. He didn’t need both hands for what came next. He’d worry about the future later. A billion bucks could buy all the hands he wanted.

The next bullet found Five’s right shoulder and spun him around. Where was the control panel? In front of him? Behind him? Another bullet took out his left leg, forcing him to drop to one knee.

Still, this wasn’t over. You might take a few hits in battle, but proper preparation always won the war, Five knew. Get your head together and find that panel.

He oriented himself and crawled along the ground to the control panel on his one hand and one good knee.

Five thought staying low would keep him from much of the gunfire, but the glowing red dots found him anyway.

By the time he reached the end of the hall where the trigger panel was located, he’d taken at least a half a dozen more bullets.

At this point, Five looked through the blood-spattered plastic of his mask and saw that he had been mistaken.

This wasn’t the end of the hall with the trigger panel.

In the smoke and confusion, Five had crawled right to his attackers, who put two more bullets in his skull and waited for the smoke to clear.