Breach
Three guards were visible on the front and east sides of the mansion. Probably more in the back and west side. Maybe someone on the roof. The whir of a panning surveillance camera at the top of the poll Lloyd squatted beside told him all he really needed to know: Tyson was expecting him.
“Company’s coming,” he whispered. “Better quit counting your blood money and start counting your heartbeats you son of a bitch, ‘cuz there aren’t that many left.”
Or maybe, Lloyd thought, he should take his own advice.
Nah.
Eyeballing the beefy bouncer-type patrolling the front door with a choke-chained rotty who growled and sniffed the air for signs of life and death, he briefly considered computing the opportune time and order in which to cap the goons that would maximize the amount of time he had to cross the open acreage to the house.
“Fuck it,” he said, unslinging the silenced and scoped Bushmaster that he had boosted from the veritable arsenal contained in the trunk of Derek’s ’69 Chevy Impala.
Sighting the lean and mean creep at the east wall, he chambered a round, flicked off the safety and squeezed the trigger.
It was like a video game with the sound off. A muffled phwump jumped the gun and then 200 yards away, the creep fell.
One down, he sighed.
He took out the centerpiece next, and the guy’s head snapped back with the bullet’s impact. The dog got one startled bark out before Lloyd dispatched it as well. The odd bark was enough to bring the westside guard trotting around the corner, and in another phwump, he was fertilizer.
Lloyd grabbed a deep breath and held it, listening intently and heard no further movement. He scanned the roof line. Nothing. Calling card time, he thought, and he aimed the rifle high, sending a round through the surveillance camera housing.
“They’re heeeeeere,” he whispered with an almost joyful glee that frightened him, but only for a moment. But it was moment enough to realize that something had changed deep within him. Something that once was was now gone. Fear? Love? Kindness? All of the above?
He’d just killed a dog for hell’s sake. Two weeks ago, he never could’ve done that.
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