“Right. At the bottom of the gully.”

The steep two-hundred-meter climb ahead of them had taken Charlie Wicker seven and a half minutes to cover, full-gas and under ideal conditions. But the assholes weren’t Charlie Wicker and Coleman had the power to make conditions less than ideal. A lot less.

Maslick touched his earpiece for a moment, listening to someone talking over it.

“We have more contacts west.”

“How many?”

“Looks like four. A hundred yards out. They might have handheld rockets. Hard to tell for sure.”

A diversion. They’d make a lot of noise while their main force attacked up that gully. Or so they thought.

“Pull our guys off the west wall. Those berms should be enough to handle a few rockets. Tell Wick to take a few men outside the perimeter and get in position to neutralize those assholes. Not until I give the signal, though. I want them to do a little shooting first.”

When Coleman reached the east fence, Maslick had already climbed to the top. Dirt had been tamped into a path behind it that allowed fast movement from sandbagged gun placements set up every twenty feet.

Not that they’d likely be necessary.

Coleman jogged to something that appeared to be a massive chain gun but was actually a water cannon. They had good flow from a well at the center of the compound and the diesel pumps they’d brought in were capable of blasting a jet seventy-five yards down the gully in question. Like the gun placements, though, that would probably be overkill. Unless things went very wrong, it would be the mines that Nicholas Ward hated so much that would do the majority of the work.

“Should I give the order to evacuate Mr. Ward and the rest of the civilians?” Maslick asked, though his tone suggested the question was just a formality. Of course he should.

Coleman didn’t answer immediately, instead staring out into the moonlit trees. The air was barely moving, highlighting the rhythmic drip of a loose fitting on the water cannon. He’d always loved the calm before battle. It was a moment of serenity with an intensity that was impossible to reproduce in civilian life. These were the rare moments that he could fully clear his mind of all the garbage that had piled up over his half century of life.

“No. Not yet. We’ll wait for the shooting to start.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I’m not sure I did, Scott. You’re saying you want to wait until people are shooting rockets at us before we put our client on a chopper?”

“Correct.”

“Our client, who happens to be the richest man in the world, and might be able to make disease a thing of the past?”

“Yes.”

Maslick let out a low breath. “You know what you’re doing, right, boss?”

Coleman kept scanning the trees despite the fact that there was nothing to see. “Probably.”