Search and Destroy by JT Sawyer (top non fiction books of all time .TXT) 📗

to control himself in the presence of such an exquisite being as the leggy brunette following him up the stairs, but his stomach was on fire from another bout of anxiety that even his prescription meds could no longer keep at bay.

With the three mercenaries turned bodyguards watching him and the state-of-the-art security system wired throughout every window, door and entry point onto his property, he tried to reassure himself that he would remain out of Shepard’s grasp.

The man should have been put down already, like the rabid dog he is.

His employer in Texas had assured him that Shepard didn’t know enough yet to alter their upcoming plans in Venezuela, but Landis didn’t like waiting for a wild card like the former agency operator to rear its head.

Disgraced agency operator is more like it. And number one on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

He entered his rectangular suite at the rear of the hallway, the woman’s heels clacking on the marble floor as she trailed behind him. Landis saw her reflection on the floor-to-ceiling mirrors behind his bed.

He motioned with his hand for her to go to the bed, then he went into the bathroom, removing a nearly depleted bottle of anti-acid from the medicine cabinet and crunching down on a handful of tablets. When he was done, he picked up a finger-sized glass vial and tapped a fine line of unadulterated Colombian cocaine onto the counter then snorted the substance.

The woman remained silent, as she had been instructed to do, keeping her gaze low. Landis wiped his nose of the powdered brain candy, walking towards her. Now, he could see the girl in her beyond the makeup and lip gloss used to cloak her underage appearance.

His hands trembled as his eyes drifted along her soft neck, a feeling of dominion washing over him.

An hour after the call-girl left, Shepard saw the master suite on the north side go dark. He leaned back, unzipping the main compartment of his daypack on the ground beside him and removing a small palm-sized drone. It was a newly developed model fashioned in the recesses of the CIA’s R&D division, and even he was impressed with the tech that was packed into the tiny device.

After activating the drone, he pulled out his iPhone, the dimmed screen showing a keypad and camera-eye view. He enabled the infrared beams that would flood the grounds around Landis’ home, blotting out the security cameras.

Shepard depressed the timer, which began counting down from sixty seconds, then he set it on the ground in an open spot outside the canopy of the grove.

He crept from his wooded perch down the grassy slope and through more bushes until he was at the base near the inky-black street. There was no sidewalk or lights, and the curb abutted the preserve. He paused, crouching in the waist-high shrubs, watching the pre-programmed drone leaving its resting spot and heading towards the south end of the property directly across from him.

Shepard counted to twenty, waiting for the drone’s IR beams to kick in as it hovered in place twenty yards from the side entrance of the house, then he sprinted across the street to a spot where the eight-foot-high wooden fence met a drain culvert that had just enough wiggle room to squeeze through.

With the first obstacle out of the way, he removed the suppressed Glock from his pack then placed three spare mags in the left cargo pocket of his pants. Shepard wound his way past a water fountain, pausing beside the trunk of a large Italian cypress tree, then he made his way for forty yards to a gray faux rock, which covered the utilities box for the house. He counted off six paces, stopping at a sandstone slab. Unlike the other slabs in the hedges, this one’s edges were free of overgrowth, which he had noted during a previous flight with the drone.

Shepard hooked the fingers of his free hand under the corner and lifted the slab, staring down at the secondary utility box for the panic room. He removed the palm-sized shape charge from his pack and set it along the side of the box, depressing the timer then replacing the heavy sandstone.

He swiveled his head around, listening for movement, then retraced his steps back towards the outer edge of the swimming pool, hunkering down in the hedges.

The two henchmen had moved, with one standing near the rear corner of the porch while the other man was patrolling near the sauna adjacent to the pool. The span of thirty yards between them would require accurate pistol work and minimal expenditure of rounds if Shepard was going to drop them both before the second man could react.

Shepard had pulled off precision low-light shooting in more demanding parts of the world, but he always had his team for backup, along with Predator support and a sniper for overwatch. Now, it was him against three ruthless mercs and with every police department along the East Coast searching for him. And if this went south fast, there’d be no helicopter extraction to whisk him away in the night back to friendly forces.

But the past week of being on the run had taught him that there were no more friendlies.

He raised the Glock, lining up the red dot sight, then steadied his breathing, feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline pulsing through his veins as it had a thousand times in the past before an engagement where well-honed fighting skills and overwhelming violence were about to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting enemy.

Shepard squeezed off a single round, striking the burly guard to the right in the temple. The bullet blasted a chunk of bone splinters and red mist onto the ivory-colored wall behind him. Shepard swiftly swung his weapon to the left, squeezing off two rounds at the second man. The bullets found their home in his nose and forehead, dropping him backwards onto the grass.

Shepard leapt up, rushing to the back porch then picking up