Page 27 of Her Chosen Protector

“Do you have a charger?”

“No,” the man reluctantly admitted.

“We’re going to need some back-up phones to communicate from. I’m going to give you this number, and someone needs to go and see which phones have the capability to dial out to this number.

Then bring all of those phones into wherever you are.”

“I’ll also check desks to see if any of the bank employees left behind chargers,” Eden volunteered. “It’ll take more than a minute though.”

“This is important. Take as long as you need,” Asher responded. Please God, say that there’s a family code word, and she understood what I was saying. He needed to talk to her away from Carlson.

“Okay, I’m going to go see what I can find,” Eden said.

“Yeah, yeah, do whatever,” Carlson bellowed. “Meanwhile, this guy can fill me in on what kind of plan him and his team have come up with.”

“No. First, Torres is going to tell me what he found out about the number of men who are surrounding the bank,” Ash answered.

A new voice spoke up. “There are five jeeps with long-range mounted machine guns. From what my man could see, there are at least three men with RPGs. Our reinforced gate couldn’t withstand two grenade shots at the same spot. But I don’t think the secret police would want to risk that. It would mean that within minutes, the entire city would know that the secret police were mounting an all-out assault on the bank. Maduro would have to come up with quite the story to explain away why he approved that.”

Shit. RPGs, long-range machine guns. We are so fucked.

Asher looked over at Leo and Kane—they looked as grim as he felt.

“What the hell are you going to do about this?” Carlson demanded.

“Excuse me, what was the other gentleman’s name? Was that Senor Torres?” Asher asked calmly.

“Yes, I am Angelo Torres. I manage the guards here at night. I have worked at Banco de la Gente for the last seventeen years,” he said proudly. “Señorita York has explained things to me, but I still do not understand how you Americans are going to help us.”

“That makes two of us,” Carlson spat out. “Thorne, you heard the man, there’s an army out there.

What in the hell are you planning?”

“Torres, is that all your man told you?”

“No, there is more. The good news is that we are the tallest building for blocks, but there are snipers on other nearby low buildings that are targeting our courtyard. We don’t have anyone there for the time being, but one of the safety precautions when this building was built, is that there is at least a six-foot perimeter between the building and the gate.”

“We have the specs, Angelo. But even with the six feet, there are some angles that are going to be almost impossible for Maduro’s men to get off a shot, aren’t there?” Leo asked.

Asher nodded. Leo was seeing things exactly right as they looked at the blueprints up on Rafa’s screen. Especially at the corners—there wasn’t a chance in hell that Maduro’s snipers could make that shot.

“You’re right,” Torres finally spoke up. “I need to get up on our roof and check things out myself.

Then I’ll be able to give you positions of the jeeps and snipers.”

“That would be perfect. How soon do you think you could have that for us? Can you draw us a map?” Asher asked.

As Torres started to answer, there was an incoming call. It was a US area code he didn’t recognize. He held it up to Kane.

“Montana,” he mouthed.

Jackpot!

“Carlson, we have an urgent call from one of our contacts that we have to take. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

“But—”

“Later,” Asher said as he hung up on the man.