The guard leaned in with the easy grin of a man greeting his own side. “Vic, took you long enou—”
He stopped cold. Instead of Butcher’s face, he found himself looking down the suppressor of a pistol aimed squarely at his nose. Above it were the flat, unreadable eyes of a special operator.
“Quiet,” the driver said softly. “Open the gate.” The guard froze. His brain simply refused to process what he was seeing.
It was Butcher’s SUV, but the men inside were strangers. Armed strangers. The whole security system had just failed in a way he had never imagined. He jerked instinctively, trying to pull back, but the operator was faster.
A muffled shot disappeared under the pounding bass, and the guard dropped. The second guard at the booth saw his partner fall and grabbed for his rifle. But a huge shadow was already moving from the rear door of the SUV.
Stone crossed the distance in a blink and took the second guard down with one clean, silent move. The body was caught and lowered behind a concrete barrier. “Gate secure,” Stone said into his headset.
“Exterior cameras are down,” Hawk reported from overwatch. The driver hit the control, and the heavy iron gates swung inward. The three SUVs and the team’s support truck rolled onto the property without resistance.
Inside the walls, the place was a picture of excess. The parking area was packed with luxury cars. Waiters hurried between them with trays, and women in party dresses laughed from the hoods of expensive vehicles.
A lit fountain splashed in the middle of the courtyard, and nobody paid much attention to the arriving convoy. People here were used to serious men showing up in dark vehicles at all hours. The tactical team’s SUVs stopped hard at the main entrance, blocking two stretch limousines from leaving.
Warren got out first, adjusting his gear as he moved. Around him, thirty-five operators poured from the vehicles in full assault kit. Shields, rifles, breaching tools. They were ready.
The music was so loud that the doorman at the entrance didn’t notice them until Warren was almost on top of him. The man’s eyes widened, and he started to shout. Warren put a finger to his lips, then dropped him with one short, professional strike.
“Go,” Warren said into the radio. “Alpha takes the front. Bravo locks down the kitchen and rear exit. Charlie seals the perimeter.”
“Use force where needed. Civilians are not the target. The Architect and his armed security are.”
Inside the main hall, the birthday celebration was in full swing. The room, decorated in gaudy old-world luxury, was packed. Local criminals, crooked officials, compromised police brass…
