Hammer (Regulators MC 2)

Setting our operation for broad daylight is a gamble, but it gives us the advantage of not being expected. Sandoval lessens his guards during the day; that’s mistake number two, motherfucker. Number one was taking the girls in the first damn place.

From the camera feeds we hacked into, the building looks like a warehouse or a storage space. However, what we find is actually an old hotel owned by a local plastic surgeon who also owns the private hangar Sandoval used for all our previous transactions.

Part of the facility is set up like a deluxe spa for the doctor’s patients to recover after procedures. The other half of the building holds some downright dark business and the bastards who partake in it.

Apparently, Sandoval spreads his money out to cover all of his operations under the guise of truly legitimate commerce. Smart man. This is one of the reasons he has lasted as long as he has in such a brutal and uncompromising business. The main reason he survives and thrives is because he is one sick and twisted fuck who is feared by many.

Thoughts of why Sandoval is so feared and how many innocents have suffered at his hands make my trigger finger itch to squeeze and unload a few rounds of justice into his sadistic ass. The women he has tortured, raped, and killed, the countless other civilian lives he has snuffed out on his selfish path to his dirty fortune. It all makes me want to leave the man looking like a human piece of Swiss cheese. There is something I learned years ago that keeps me from losing my cool, though.

After I went into the Army, I heard one of the recruits ask a drill instructor why he was such an asshole. It took a lot of balls for the man to say that, because he could have received worse than just the hundred push-ups.

Our drill instructor gave him this answer: “It is better to be feared than loved if you cannot be both.”

I stood there and watched the frustrated recruit force out those push-ups after we had trained all day with our weapons and sixty pound rucksacks on our backs. I knew he had to be exhausted. There were a few times his arms shook from the overexertion. Still, that recruit’s body steadily rose and fell as he performed his punishment. That wasn’t the thing that stuck with me, though. Nor was it what the instructor had said to the man.

No, the bit of memory that helps me through is how that recruit pushed himself back to his feet after finishing his pushups and asked the instructor for permission to speak freely.

Curious, the drill instructor granted it.

The recruit looked him dead in the eye and said, “Sir, perhaps one should prefer to be feared if they cannot be loved, but Machiavelli also stated, ‘If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.’ ”

That recruit later became one of the best snipers the military has ever produced.

There were many nights I wondered if that drill sergeant shit himself when things went bump in the night, worried he pissed the wrong man off. Lord knows I would look over my shoulder if I were that instructor.

It also taught me that, if I had to unleash my rage on someone who deserved it due to their actions, then they sure as fuck didn’t deserve to breathe by the time I was done.

Knowing Sandoval has his end coming today keeps my mind on the mission and our need to rescue the teenage girl he took.

The location of the feeds has narrowed our recovery efforts to a janitor’s closet. It happens to have an underground parking garage next to it for our vans.

We can see the cameras as we enter, but our resident computer guru, Screech, has scrambled their feed.

The lack of guards on the garage is the mistake we plan to exploit the most. They didn’t want to put suspicion on the building having guards visible in the parking or outdoor areas. That is a fatal flaw in protection, and they are about to find out just how fatal.

Exiting the four vans, we each prepare our teams for their tasks. Ice and his team ready themselves to enter the service room. Coal and his team move in to make the ascent through the stairwells to find Sandoval himself. My team is on stand-by outside the garage’s exits to assist either team inside should the need arise. Our job is to move the vans we brought to carry the women out once it is secure to do so. We also serve as additional coverage to make sure not one bastard makes it out of this building alive.

Securing the vans and our support location, we wait.