I didn’t see any camera surveillance, but I knew there had to be some. Once I had satisfied myself with the layout of the grounds, I told Freeze to give me five minutes and then drive to the gate and I would join him there. I made my way around to the gate. I put the silencers on the guns and waited in the brush for Freeze to pull up. As he approached the gate, the guard came out and stopped him.
"Good evening, sir. Can I help you?"
"No, but he can." Freeze pointed at me.
"What?"
He turned around and I put two shots in his head. I dragged him into the guard shack and opened the gate. Freeze drove through the gate, I got back in the truck, and we headed for the house. He stopped the truck around the side of the house. "Well what’s the plan?"
"Give me five minutes, then come in after me."
"You got it."
I moved toward the house, staying in the shadows. The lock was no problem. I moved quickly through the house, guns drawn, looking for my objective. Checking each room, before moving on to the next. The thought did occur to me that the bastard might not be there. If he wasn’t, I’d burn the bitch down.
"Monika would like that," I said to myself.
I heard footsteps coming toward me. I got out of sight. Once he passed me, I put two in the back of his head. I dragged his body into the first room I came to. I recognized him. He was Lieutenant Commander Snow. He was in command of a different Special Ops unit, but he was a part of our little community. At that point, I knew I was in the right place. I had been through all the downstairs rooms and was making my way up the steps, when I heard more footsteps coming. I put my guns in their holsters and went over the rail. I would hold on until they passed.
I watched as they stopped at the top of the steps and talked. I hoped it wouldn’t be a long conversation. My arms were starting to hurt. They started down the steps. I was in a bad spot if they saw my hands. I gave some thought to letting go if they did. I looked down. "Bad idea."
Fortunately, they passed me by. Once they were out of sight, I came back over the rail and continued up the stairs. I could have shot them too, but I figured it would give Freeze something to do. He always did like to compare body counts.
I walked down a long hallway until I saw a light coming from an open door. As I got closer, I heard voices. I heard his voice. My heart began racing, I moved faster. I came through the door and there he was, Uncle Felix, seated behind a marble desk. I should have blasted him on sight. But first I had to know why.
"Come on in Nick, we’ve been expecting you," Felix said smiling. "Have a seat."
I took a step closer.
"Why don’t you just put those guns down, nice and slow while you at it, Nick." I recognized that southern accent. I turned to see General Peterson seated on the couch with an M-16 pointed at me. He was my commanding office for our last tour of duty. It was all starting to come together. I took a deep breath and complied with his orders.
"That’s a good soldier, Nick, but you always were," The general said, laughing. "Shit, I got half a dozen men in this house and one at the gate. But you walked right by them like it wasn’t shit, didn’t you, Nick?"
"Sit down, Nick. Take a load off." Felix said.
"I told you he was the best soldier I ever commanded Felix. Made you a damn good operative, didn’t he?"
"Yeah, he was good."
"Tell me about it Felix, why’d you do it?"
"Do what Nick? Oh, you mean Jett and Monika, don’t you?"
"Yeah, Monika was too good to be taken by any of Chilly’s boyz without gettin’ off a shot. It had to be you."
"No, Nick, it was me," the general said. "Monika let me in, no problem. Perkins, that was the boy that Bronson cut up, well she made him while she was out on her little date with Chilly. Once he was compromised, it wouldn’t take her long to put it all together just like you did. So we had to kill her. Then Bronson showed up. Perkins covered while I left. His orders were to kill Bronson. But you see how that turned out."
"Then you brought in a cleaner to clean up after Jett. Who killed Jett?"
"Lieutenant Commander Snow had that honor," the General said. "Bronson saw us when we were coming out of the house where he
killed Perkins. So we let him follow us to Chilly’s house. Your boy was careless, Nick. He let Snow walk right up on him and shoot him with a .22 in the ear. Very effective."
"I just want to know why?"
"Well, for that I got to take you back a ways," Felix said as he got up and poured himself a drink. "You see, Nick, the whole time you were in South America, you may have been under the General here’s command, but you were working for me."
"Just what were we doin’ down there Felix?"