Drone

Suppressed weapons aren’t silenced weapons; their sound is only dampened. When the guards by the pool heard the two dull shots on the far side of the estate, they leaped to their feet and scrambled into defensive positions, facing the eastern side.

Pearce engaged the western boat. The guards stood taller now and their fully exposed bodies glowed eerily on the video screen. Their heads lit up like flares as adrenaline and exertion raised their body temperature, the additional heat venting out of the tops of their scalps.

The reticle squared on the first man’s glowing head just a moment before a bright-white blotch of fluid flowered on the other side of his skull. His corpse dropped silently on the monitor.

The other guard threw down his weapon and dashed in the opposite direction, heading for the western slope leading down to the water.

The Spartan’s automatic rifle tracked him as he slipped and twisted down the steep incline.

Pop.

Blood exploded in white petals on the slope behind him. The reticle tracked the limp corpse as it tumbled down the hill.

It almost didn’t seem fair to Pearce, despite the fact they were cartel scumbags. Even the best human snipers he’d ever worked with missed their shots sometimes. But not the machines. They never missed.

Human snipers were bounded by human frailty; the weapons systems they used were always superior to the operator using them. Hitting a target was a relatively simple algorithm with known variables: distance, friction, target speed, wind speed, projectile weight. New onboard computational systems and “smart” guided bullets were even solving those equations for human snipers. The profession was quickly becoming a “point and shoot” proposition. But human snipers contended with other variables, too: stinging sweat, the need to breathe, beating hearts, nagging doubts, sick kids back home, lack of sleep, fears. Most missed shots were caused by one or more of these all-too-human frailties.

Pearce disengaged both Spartan weapons systems as a safety precaution, then powered up his own small boat and motored toward the quay, where he tied up his craft next to Castillo’s yacht.

Pearce scrambled up the winding path. There was a quarter moon out tonight and he didn’t need his night-vision goggles. His pack was heavy and he sweated fiercely. When he reached the house, he ducked inside, carefully scanning for guards he might not have accounted for, but there were none. It was strange that there had only been four men protecting the head of the entire organization.

Was Castillo that confident of his defenses?

Pearce was certain that Castillo was locked away in his panic room bunker twenty feet below the estate. His security protocol would have called for him to immediately escape into the bunker if shots were ever fired.

Pearce proceeded to Castillo’s lavish office with its 360-degree view of the gulf and opened up the hidden panel showing the live video feed of Castillo in his panic room bunker. The drug lord carried his favorite gun in one hand, a chromed .50 caliber Desert Eagle encrusted with rubies and diamonds. In his other hand he had a phone connected to a landline that led to a satellite dish on top of the house. Old-fashioned copper wiring was the only way to get a cell signal down in that hole.

Pearce pressed a button on the video console so he could listen in on the conversation. But whoever was on the other end never picked up. Pearce thought that was strange. Either the person on the other end of the line had been asleep on the job or else they weren’t following the security protocol.

Pearce watched Castillo rant like a demon, then finally give up. The raging drug lord slammed the phone receiver so hard against the wall it broke in his hands.

Pearce checked his watch. He estimated he still had fifteen minutes before he would have to evacuate. Plenty of time.

The problem with hiring one of the world’s premier architectural firms was that they designed everything on high-end CAD systems, then stored the digital blueprints on mainframes for reference on current and future projects. That was Castillo’s fatal mistake. Ian had pulled up Castillo’s palace blueprints in no time. It was the bunker on the property that convinced Pearce that Castillo would choose this location for his final stand.

Pearce located Castillo’s small safe and opened it easily with a computerized lock pick. He pulled out all of the contents and stuffed them into a dry bag. What really caught Pearce’s attention was a sandwich baggie full of SD cards, the kind used in video cameras. He couldn’t wait to find out what was on them.