He calmed the animal, joined forces, and dominated, taking control and issuing orders. One by one he connected with each animal. They were not to give away, by sound or alertness, that a stranger slipped through their ranks. He was one of them. A member of the pack. They were to continue their patrol and alert only when told.
Once he was certain the dogs would obey him, Gator signaled to Kadan. “Green light.”
Kadan had dressed for the occasion, his clothing reflective, his skin mirroring the color of the ground, and his equipment locked in place for quick use. Drawing his skin-tight hood over his hair, he made his way to the fence. It was about twenty feet high, straight up, no toe- or finger-holds. He studied it for a moment and then leapt high, catching with the pads of his fingers. He went up the smooth side easily, using his enormous upper body strength to climb, only the sticky pads of his fingers preventing him from falling.
“Guard twenty feet from your position. Hang tight,” Nico reported.
Kadan clung to the side of the fence, his skin matching the darker tones, his clothes blending seamlessly. Even the hood mirrored the images around him, so he simply disappeared. The human eye couldn’t spot him. The dogs knew he was there and reacted with a restless sidestepping, but Gator’s outpouring of influence kept them from giving the GhostWalker’s presence away.
“All clear. He went around the side of the building. Laser’s down near the helipad. You have a go now,” Nico murmured.
Kadan pulled himself to the top of the fence, changing skin color to match the surroundings as he took a quick look before he vaulted the double chain-link fences holding the dogs. He landed in a crouch, waited a heartbeat, and then began moving through the dense shrubbery, relying on Nico to be his eyes as he crossed to the back of the garage.
“Coming at you, thirty yards. Two guards and they know what they’re doing.”
Mercs. Kadan’s lip curled as he sank down and went still. Fredrickson had blanketed the estate with mercenaries, and either Don and Sharon Meadows knew and approved, or they had gotten themselves into a mess they couldn’t handle, but it was fairly difficult to hide the kind of men guarding the estate. Kadan watched through narrowed eyes as the two men covered the ground fast. Every now and then their gazes touched on the dogs pacing in the fences. The men’s gazes shifted constantly, on the alert. Fredrickson definitely was expecting trouble.
One merc paused only a scant few feet from Kadan’s hip, talking into his radio. “Everything is quiet, Boss. The dogs aren’t showing signs of nerves.”
“Keep everyone alert,” a voice, probably Fredrickson’s, snapped.
The two men rounded the corner of the garage and were out of Kadan’s sight. He remained where he was, his breath moving through his lungs with a steady rhythm. A third man emerged from the garage, looked left and right, and then walked over to the chain-link fence to stare at the nearest dog. He muttered something, picked up a rock, and flung it through the open links. The rock hit the other side of the fence and the dog showed teeth. Kadan slipped the knife from his boot and waited.
“The son of a bitch is teasin’ the dog,” Gator complained, his voice a whisper in Kadan’s ear. “Can Nico put a bullet in the bastard’s head?”
“No,” Kadan hissed firmly and eased his body out of the brush, his gaze on the man who now jabbed at the dog with a long stick. “We need complete silence.”
“You kill him, Kadan, and our surprise is gone. I’ll take him out after you get Fredrickson,” Nico said, his voice cool and confident.
Kadan cursed under his breath. He wanted to do the bastard. He detested men who preyed on anything or anyone who couldn’t fight back. Looking at the dog, with its snarl and bared teeth, he realized the dog just needed one moment for revenge. It was obvious this man tormented the dog on a regular basis.
Another time, buddy,
he promised and sent the dog a silent apology before he began to inch his way across the yard. He was running out of time. The moment the guards moved their sweep to the other side of the estate, they’d be activating the lasers.
Nico whispered in his ear, letting him know when to move and when to be still. He made it to the edge of the shrubbery at the far side of the house, but it took several minutes of painstaking progress before he was clear of the laser field.
Kadan moved into the wide bed of flowers close to the house, looking up at his chosen point of entry. It was two stories up and Tansy’s bedroom window. On this side, there were no balconies, and she often left the window open a couple of inches because she needed to feel like freedom. Her hands, encased in gloves, always made her feel like a prisoner, and she would slide her hands out the window and wave them in the night air. If he was lucky, no one would have remembered to lock her window, as she’d been gone so long.
“Now,” Nico’s voice whispered in his ear.
Kadan leapt up as high as he could, going from a crouch to a full extension and reaching high above his head. His finger pads caught and held, gluing him to the side of the house. Again his skin tone changed, taking on the hue of his background. He began to move upward in silence. Fredrickson was a GhostWalker and their strongest opponent. He had the ability to sense their presence, and they had no idea of his psychic talents. He had to be neutralized before a rescue could take place.
At a soft go from Nico, Ryland moved into position, penetrating on the opposite side of the grounds, to get through the laser fields as the guards swept that area. When he made it through the yard and neared the house, he would hold at his location waiting for Kadan’s entry and the all clear, signaling Fredrickson was dead.
Kadan climbed to the window, anchored his body with one hand, and, as he carefully raised his body to peer over the sill, felt with the other for trip wires. His hearing was particularly acute, and he became aware of the faint hum that often accompanied a live wire. Fredrickson had not only known about the slightly raised window, he’d anticipated an entry and left it invitingly open that scant inch and a half, but had laid enough traps for ten mice.
“I’m going up, Nico. This is a trap.”
“Two men on the roof,” Nico reported. “One just above your position and one about ten feet to his right. Both look likes mercs. I can take them both, but Fredrickson will know.”
Kadan had already begun his descent. “No. I’ll get in.”
“I can rile up the dog. We’ve still got the bastard guard poking at him with a stick,” Gator offered. “Let me get the dog going and that will draw them to this side. Fredrickson will go on alert, but he’ll want to know what’s going on.”
“That’s a go.”
Kadan could use the diversion. If he was lucky, once Fredrickson knew his own guard had screwed up, he’d send someone personally to chew the man up. And that meant a door open. He just had to be in the right place at the right time. Moving with the speed and precision of a spider in a web, Kadan chose a door on the side of the house close to where the guard was teasing the dog. He went down the wall headfirst, much like a gecko might, held by the sticky pads on his fingers and his enormous strength until he was hovering just above the door, in plain sight on the side of the building.
Within minutes the German shepherd went crazy, slamming into the chain-link fence, roaring a challenge, snarling and barking, hitting the fence repeatedly in an attempt to get to his cruel handler. The yard erupted with guards, men running, calling out to one another, rushing toward the fence. One caught the guard with stick in hand, still tinged with blood where he’d driven it into the dog’s side. Lights burst on overhead, turning the grounds into daylight. Alarms shrieked as the lasers were set off.
Within a couple more minutes, enough time for the message to be relayed to Fredrickson, the door below Kadan burst open and a man went running out. Kadan swung his body through the opening, landing in a crouch inside, gun already out and tracking. From the drawings Tansy had provided, he knew this was an atrium that opened into the living room. Huge plants grew nearly wild, rising to the high ceilings, the mist kicking on automatically every few minutes to provide the atmosphere of a rain forest.
Kadan took his time. He was in enemy territory now. Not just any enemy, a GhostWalker who would feel the slightest change in the energy around him. Kadan could shield, but the closer he got to his prey, the more difficult it would become to do so. And he was close. Fredrickson was also a shielder—surprising, but it had to be true. That gift was somewhat rare, just as being an elite tracker was.
Kadan went to his belly again, green now, like the plants around him. Using his elbows to propel him forward, he slithered through the jungle of foliage to the edge of the glass. The atrium was huge, bringing the rain forest indoors. Completely glass, the room could be enclosed and kept separate from the rest of the house, or, with the double glass doors opened as they were, the sweeping, dramatic plants could become part of the enormous sunken great room.
Tansy had been raised in this opulent home. She’d lived there as if it was an ordinary, everyday house, probably taking the beauty and uniqueness for granted. Kadan had spent a lifetime on the streets, in foster homes and one-room apartments, before moving on to the military life of jungle, desert, and sea. What was he thinking? How could she go from this to what he could give her? The moment the thought entered, he pushed it away. Tansy had no place here. She couldn’t screw him up any more than she’d already done by turning him inside out.
Kadan forced his mind back under control and slid through the doorway into the great room. Fredrickson was just ahead of him, staring impassively at Tansy’s parents, who were sitting in two high-backed chairs, both with their hands tied behind their backs. Sharon Meadows was a small woman, very thin, with a wealth of blond hair. A bruise had formed just below one eye and there was swelling near her mouth. It didn’t take a genius to figure out Fredrickson had used her to try to control Tansy. She wept silently, casting little glances at her husband, who looked as if he might have a stroke any moment.
“She’s dead if they come in here,” Fredrickson said to Don. “You’d better hope your daughter loves you both enough to give herself up without bringing help.”
Sharon shook her head hard, but only sobbed louder.
Don bared his teeth and struggled to loosen his bonds. “You don’t need to touch my wife. Tansy will come. You tell Whitney she’ll come. There’s no need for this.”
Fredrickson shrugged. “We’ll take her back, one way or the other. And we’re doing you a favor. They know about her and she’s marked. They’ll kill her if they find her before we do.”
“You keep saying ‘they’ as if that’s supposed to scare me,” Don hissed. “I don’t believe that anyone wants her dead. Whitney made that up because he wants her back.”
Kadan propelled himself forward on his belly over the smooth, rich marble floor, gun in one hand, knife in the other. He slid forward, inch by painstakingly slow inch. Each centimeter counted when he was out in the open and Fredrickson had only to turn his head. Kadan gathered his strength, his resolve, and he flowed from the floor, rising like a demon summoned from hell, hurtling the knife straight to his enemy’s throat.
The knife buried all the way to the hilt. Fredrickson gurgled, eyes wide, one hand half rising in reflex, as if to examine the instrument of his death. He swayed and then toppled to the floor. Instantly Kadan felt the psychic shield come down and lethal energy flowing toward him. He spun, already diving in front of Tansy’s mother, instincts screaming at him that she was the target. The bullet caught him higher than he’d have liked, slamming into his bullet-proof vest like an explosive fist to his chest, half spinning him and driving him backward hard.
Sharon’s high-pitched shriek hurt his ears nearly as much as the punch to his chest, but his gun hand was already up, finger squeezing the trigger, one, two, three, precise shots, dropping the second GhostWalker even as Kadan fell. Blood sprayed across the marble and spattered the walls. He saw the red droplets showering down as his body slammed hard into Sharon’s, driving her chair over backward.
The blow to his chest had ripped the breath from his body, and it felt like every bone was broken, smashed beyond repair. For an instant, the edges of his vision blurred and then went black. He woke with rage and panic seconds later, his chest on fire, burning as if a hot iron was branding him, and Sharon screaming nonstop in his ear. He fought the need to rip his vest off and shut the woman up at the same time.
Movement caught his eye, and his legs still tangled with Tansy’s mother, he rolled, the gun rock steady in his hand, instinct staying his finger on the trigger. Don Meadows froze from where he was trying to slither across the floor, his gaze fixed on the knife at Kadan’s waist.
“I’ll fucking put a bullet in your throat,” Kadan warned, feeling deadly with his chest on fire, fighting for every breath. “Go, Gator,” he managed to order into the radio while he extricated himself from the woman’s flopping limbs.
Sharon’s screams would draw everyone for miles. Calmly, Kadan pulled out an air syringe and pressed it against her neck. He didn’t bother to untie her hands. The drug worked fast, halting her scream in mid-shriek so blessed silence fell.
“You bastard. What the hell have done to her?” Don demanded.
Kadan sent him one quelling look, and the man was smart enough to stop talking. Kadan’s chest hurt like a bear, still painful with every breath he drew, but the fire was beginning to subside a bit. He still wanted to rip his vest off, along with the shooter’s head. He pushed down his need to put another bullet in the dead man’s head, most likely Watson’s, and instead, he took care to insure the room was cleared of all enemies so he had only to contend with Tansy’s parents.
“Any more guards in the house?”
“Most are outside. Several are on the roof.”
“Then they’ll be coming at us eventually. Are you going to give me trouble?” As a rule Kadan could read minds in close proximity, especially in a situation like this one where fear and anger were strong emotions, but Don Meadows had some kind of barrier that blocked his thoughts and emotions from escaping.