Chapter Five

Given the choice, Asher Adams preferred darkness to light, and tonight was no exception. It had taken him Fourty eight hours to find the lady and her kiddnapers, but he had waited another Fourty Eight before going to rescue her—just so he could learn about their schedule and then go in the night.

He liked shadows, the silence, the fact that most people were asleep. Even those awake were on the low end of their energy cycle —although not his men. He made sure of that.

Asher checked the time, then glanced back at the two story house. After nearly two weeks of watching over the woman, the guards had grown sloppy and complacent. They patrolled the estate on a schedule now, instead of at random intervals. After so many days of quiet, they no longer expected trouble. All the better for him. He thought.

He reached for his night vision binoculars and trained them on the second story bedroom windows. The third one from the left had drapes open, which allowed him a view of the darkened room. A woman paced there —restless, worried, scared.

Not too tall, she moved with the grace of someone trained in dance... And the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Brown hair, beautiful and worth millions.

Oh yeah. He knew pretty much everything about her and he wasn't impressed. Even now, he didn't shift his binoculars to her. She was the target, but incidental to the moment. What he really needed to know was who else was in the room with her. How many watchers had been left on duty?

There were a total of five assigned to her—usually working in shifts of two. Except at night. From midnight until seven, there was only one woman keeping watch.

He scanned the room and saw the guard sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. From the tilt of her head, he would guess she had fallen asleep.

Very sloppy, he thought. If she worked for him, she would be fired. But she didn't, and her bad habits were his gain.

He turned his attention back to the prisoner. Kimberly Blake crossed to the French doors and opened them. After glancing over her shoulder to make sure her keeper continued to doze she stepped out into the night and walked to the railing.

Her life had taken a turn for the unpleasant, Asher thought without sympathy. Two weeks ago she had been living in her rich woman world and now she was held captive, threatened and never left alone. That was enough ruin anyone's day.

"Red two, go" a voice murmured into Asher's earpiece.

Asher tapped the tiny device by a way of response. He was the operative closest to the house. Until it was time, he wouldn't be doing any talking.

Kimberly lingered by the railing. Asher tucked his binoculars in his backpack. There was no point in looking at her—he had spent the past four days studying everything about her. He knew her age, her relationship status, distinguishing marks, where she liked to shop and what she did with day. She might be worth enough to keep a man in style, but she wasn't his type. Not her pedigree, not her life.

Rich women tended to be very high maintenance and spoilt.

He checked his watch again. Nearly time. He talked once on his earpiece, then reached for his gun.

The modified pistol in his hand shot strong, incredibly fast sedatives. They incapacitated in less than five seconds. He preferred something a little faster, but he couldn't risk the potentially fatal reaction to a quicker acting chemical. Mr Hillary Blake had insisted on no dead bodies.

Pity, Asher thought as he began to creep toward the glass doors on the side of the house. He didn't have much sympathy or patience for kidnappers. The outrageous ransom Fourty million of unmarked bills had annoyed him so much.

He hated when criminals watched too much TV and took their ideas from bad spy movies. To his mind they should either act like pros or stay out of the game.

He reached the glass doors and waited. In less than three minutes, two things occurred simultaneously. Tanner, their alarm maestro, tapped the "All clear" signal on his earpiece. A quick double click told Asher that the system was down. Tanner was good enough to keep the cameras moving back and forth while all the red lights continued blinking just as they should. The only difference was that the alarm wouldn't go off.

The second thing that happened was that a guard strolled by, right on time.

Dumb ass. Asher thought as he spun silently, popped the guy full of sedative and held him immobile for five seconds. He dropped the dead weight not too gently onto the patio and rolled him out of sight next to the planter. There wasn't any sound.

He touched his earpiece twice. Three more individual clicks followed.

"Red two, go" a soft voice came again.

James Wardwell, Asher's best sniper, sat up high in a tree, out of range of the action. He kept an eye on everything happening. Only an idiot walked into hell without an angel watching for trouble.

Asher moved to the locked glass doors and removed a small container from his utility belt. One minute later, the custom acid mixture turned the locking mechanism to mush and he was in. He pulled on night vision goggles, double clicked his earpiece to tell the team that he had completed the next phase of the operation and headed for the stairs.

At the top of the landing he encountered and immobilized another guard. But he didn't head to the door midway down the hallway. Not until he had heard three more individual clicks, followed by a soft "Red two, go"

Still clear.

Asher emptied his mind of everything unessential. The floor plan of the suite had been etched into his brain. When last he had seen Kimberly Blake, she had been on the balcony. Given her few freedoms in the past couple of weeks, he doubted she would have moved. Her guard would still be sleeping on the job. One shot would take of her. With a little luck, she wouldn't know what hit her.

He turned the container he still held and shot the second blast of acid from the back end. A slow count to ten, then he eased the door open.