“Right, then straight,” she said. “The pool is just through the double doors. Be advised, there are four guards keeping watch over the target, one in each corner of the room.”
“Acknowledged. I’ll take the left, you take the right, good?”
Murdok’s voice answered: “Sounds good to me, boss.”
Rona took another big drink from her straw, then she focused on the display. Her heart was pumping hard and fast inside her. She knew the Mercs were going to be okay. Over the past eight months, they’d done a couple dozen missions together, and in that time, none of her guys had sustained so much as a scratch. Still, that didn’t keep her from getting a bit nervous whenever it was time for shit to hit the fan.
She said one of the prayers Zeth had taught her, murmuring it under her breath so as not to distract the Mercs.
Aeron and Murdok crashed through the double doors with guns blazing. Their suppressed rifles made softphut-phut-phutsounds as they fired. All four guards dropped before they had a chance to shoot back, but one of them died with his finger on the trigger, and his rifle sprayed a half-dozen bullets up into the ceiling.
That just left one person. The target. Dietrick.
It was Dietrick who had been behind the whole Riadne Mine fiasco. Brundage had given him up after the villagers had questioned him. Rona didn’t know what method of interrogation the villagers had used, and she didn’t know what they had done to Brundage after. She only knew that the little man hadn’t been around anymore when she and the Mercs had gone back to collect their paycheck. At that point, Riadne stocks were riding high, and the villagers had been willing to fork over a little extra money to put out a contract on the man responsible for the deaths of their friends and colleagues.
It had been Rona’s idea to do a deep dive on Dietrick’s business practices. Turned out the man had an M.O. He would intentionally tank the stock prices for a business, often through the use of violence. Then he would buy up the shares at a low price and reap the benefits later, after the price came back up. Over the past couple weeks, Rona and her guys had been able to pick up a few more contracts on Mr. Dietrick.
And tonight, they would fulfill them all.
Rona watched as Dietrick surged up from the far end of the swimming pool and started to make a run for it. He was wearingnothing but a tiny little black thong, and his wet hair was slicked back on his head. He was, Rona supposed, technically sexy, but he definitely wasn’t her type. Not at all.
She only had three types, and tonight all three of them were down there in Dietrick’s condo, trying to kill the man.
It was Murdok who went for the money shot. He dropped to one knee and took aim on the fleeing trillionaire. Just as he pulled the trigger, however, Dietrick’s feet slipped on the wet tiles and he tumbled to the floor. The bullets missed by inches, shattering the glass in the double doors on the other side of the room.
“Shit!” Murdok cursed.
Aeron was currently in the process of reloading. By the time he’d slapped a fresh magazine into his rifle, Dietrick had managed to scramble through the doors and around the corner.
“He’s a quick little fucker,” Murdok said. “I’ll give him that.”
“Bionic implants,” said Aeron. “Overwatch, are you tracking him?”
“Affirmative,” Rona answered. “He’s heading for the hangar, just as we expected.”
“You hear that, Zeth? He’s coming to you.”
“Acknowledged.”
Rona darted her eyes to the section of the map depicting the security center on the lower floor of the condominium. As she’d feared, the guards there had heard the ruckus in the pool room, and now they were rushing upstairs to check it out.
“Guys, be advised, you’ve got ten units heading your way, and they look pissed.”
“We’ll handle the guards, sweetheart. You just get the ship to the extraction point.”
“Yes, sir!”
Rona switched off the display and took hold of the controls. When the Mercs had first brought her on boardthe Talionis, she’d fantasized about flying the ship. Now, after eight months of practice, she was actually able to do it, and she was pretty darn good at it too. She nudged the control stick forward, and the ship dove toward the city below.
Dietrick’s penthouse was on the upper floors of the tallest building in the city. Until a few moments ago,the Talionishad been hovering two thousand feet above that tower. Now, in one smooth swooping motion, Rona brought the ship into position, with the nose pointing right at the eastern face of the building.
She took another drink from her straw. The tube gurgled as she drained off the last of her smoothie. She would have to remember to make a bigger batch next time.
Directly in front of her, set into the wall of the tower, she could see what appeared to be a massive metal door. Now, as she watched, that door started to open like a mouth, revealing the brightly lit hangar within. There was a sleek, white flier parked inside. A man in a skimpy thong bathing suit was climbing into the cab.
As expected, Dietrick had fled to the hangar, which was his quickest means of escape. Rona could have easily blasted him to smithereens with her forward cannons, but she didn’t do that.
Dietrick had a quieter death in store.
