“A deuce,” Sandofur replied. He was on Whitman’s left flank, with a far better angle on the outlaws, their name for enemies. “AK-47s, for sure, and bandoliers.”

Slowly, carefully, Whitman crept to his left.

“Engage?” Sandofur asked.

“Negative. They’re on a course away from us.” Whitman made a futile gesture to wipe rain off his forehead. “We detour west, then continue on.” He glanced at his GPS, whose history could be erased at a moment’s notice. “We’re almost to the ranch. We’re here for a snatch, not a slaughter.”

“Roger that.”

Whitman could hear the disappointment in Sandofur’s voice. He was a good man, an excellent armorer, and there was no one Whitman would rather have at his back in a firefight, but Sandy had a bit too much of a taste for blood for Whitman’s liking. In another era, he would have made a first-class berserker.

No point in reiterating what his men already knew: if the outlaws were outliers from the compound, as seemed likely, they’d be in periodic touch with their home base. It was far too risky taking them out. Better to leave it all quiet on the western front.

Heading southwest, they came over a hillock so rocky it looked like an old man’s rotten mouth. Lights glimmered through the rain in the swale below. They had reached the compound at last.

* * *

“No electronics on the perimeter,” Flix informed them as they crouched behind a line of rocks that snaked along the swale. They had made three complete sweeps around the periphery of the compound, which was defined by a six-foot stone-and-mortar wall, crumbling in three places.

“No sign of the outlaw outriders,” Sandofur said as they made their sweeps.

“Let’s roll then,” Whitman said, and the raid commenced.

* * *

It was Whitman who chose the spot to breach the wall, but it was Sandofur who went in first. He had scented the dogs on the humid night air, their musk rank and bitter. Whitman had chosen the break in the wall that was the least damaged. Through their night vision goggles they had seen movement behind the part of the wall that had crumbled to almost half its height. The section they chose was perhaps three hundred yards from where two guards stood smoking, talking in whispers.

The dogs—Pakistani bulls, white as ghosts and bred for fighting—charged Sandofur as he entered the compound. He raised his gun, shot them both with tranquilizer darts. They went down as if poleaxed, which was a pity because Sandofur loved dogs—dogs of all kinds, even Pakistani bulls, though he’d seen only one before this. It was a puppy, just twelve days old. How cute was that!

A high-pitched yelp from the second bull before it succumbed brought Sandofur’s attention back to the present. To his right, the pair of guards swiveled in his direction, their AK-47s leveled. He shot them both with the same tranquilizer and they fell to their knees before toppling over, mouths open in surprise.