Page 73 of Warrior Security
“Yeah. That’s good enough.”
“Good. Then let’s go take care of business.”
Beckett and Cooper pulled in fifteen minutes later. We gathered in the barn while Lark finished evening rounds, and Hunter walked through the plan one more time with everyone in the same room. I trusted him to do as he’d said and talk to the guys individually.
The afternoon bled into evening. Lark and I fed the animals together the way we always did, moving through the routine like it was any other night. She locked the barn early. I checked the water troughs. She made sandwiches for everyone, and we ate together, mostly in silence.
We all changed into our tactical gear and deployed once night settled. I moved through the tree line to the north approach with an earpiece and a weapon and the familiar weight of a vest across my chest.
Tova was in the house with Lark. She would have followed me into the field without hesitation, and tonight was no place for her. I still wished she could be with me.
I was looking at the Pawsitive property through different eyes tonight. The ridgeline was a sight line. The ditch was abarrier. The pine stand screening the shed was concealment, and the shed itself was the target. I settled into position behind a downed trunk on the north side of the ditch, fifty yards from the clearing, and let the night close in around me.
“Comms check.” Travis, precise and unhurried from the compound.
Each operator checked in.
Then Lark. “Relay is set. Barn is locked. Animals are settled.”
“Copy,” I said.
A pause on the line. Then, quieter, “Come back in one piece, Stroud.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Travis cut in. “Cameras are live, all positions confirmed. Now we wait.”
We waited. Hours of silence and cold ground seeping through my pants while the property settled into its night sounds around me. An owl somewhere to the west. The distant hum of the county road. My knees stiffened and my shoulders tightened against the bark of the trunk, and I kept my breathing even and my eyes on the clearing and my mind right here, right now, on this ground.
Finally, Travis came back on comms. “Movement. South camera. Two vehicles approaching on the access road from the county route.”
I shifted behind the trunk. My hand found the grip of my weapon, and my thumb moved to the safety. This was it. It was a little past midnight.
“Make that three vehicles. Third one running dark, about forty yards back.”
Three vehicles. We’d planned for two at most. Hunter came over comms immediately.
“Adjust. Logan, hold north. Beck, shift east to cover the second entry point. Coop, you’ve got the shed. Nobody moves until they’re out of the vehicles and committed.”
“Copy.”
“Copy.”
“Copy.”
The engines grew louder. Headlights cut through the pine trunks and threw long shadows across the clearing. The first truck pulled up beside the shed. The second stopped twenty yards back on the access road. The third killed its engine near the tree line, no headlights, just the tick of a cooling engine in the quiet.
Doors opened. I counted as they emerged. Six. We’d expected three.
“Six tangos,” Travis confirmed. “Two at the shed, two on the road, two at the south tree line.”
“We stick to the plan,” Hunter said. “Let them commit. Lachlan, you’ll have company heading your way when this breaks.”
“Copy. I’ll be here,” Lachlan said. “I’ve got officers with me, and if this goes to hell, we’ll all be flying in your direction.”
The assholes at the shed propped the door open. The first truck’s tailgate dropped, and they started pulling out duffel bags, heavy enough that each one took two hands and a grunt. The pair from the road moved to help. The two at the tree line stayed put, watching the road behind them.
My pulse was up. I could feel it in my neck, in my wrists, in the grip of my hand around the weapon. The air was cold enough to sting my lungs on the deep breaths I was pulling through my nose. Fifty yards between me and six people who didn’t know I was here and were using the property I loved to traffic drugs.
