“Nice ring.”

“Mi padre gave it to me.”

“I’ll be seeing you, Diego.”

“But how will I find you?” asked Diego.

“You won’t have to. I’ll find you.”

CHAPTER

19

THE HOME WAS one of the largest on the Emerald Coast, ten acres on prime waterfront on its own point with sweeping views of the Gulf across an infinite horizon. Its total cost was far more than a thousand middle-class folks collectively would earn in a year.

He pushed lawnmowers and hefted bags of yard debris and loaded them onto trucks parked in the service area behind the mansion. The landscape trucks were not allowed to come through the front entrance with its fine cobblestone drive. They were relegated to the asphalt in the rear.

There were two pools in the rear grounds, one an infinity pool and the other an Olympic-sized oval. The grandeur of the grounds was matched only by the beauty of the interior of the thirty-five-thousand-square-foot home with an additional twenty thousand square feet in various other buildings, including a pool house, guesthouse, gymnasium, theater, and security quarters.

He had seen one of the indoor maids venture outside to receive a package from a FedEx driver, who also was relegated to the service entrance. She was a Latina dressed in an old-fashioned maid’s uniform complete with white apron and black cap. Her body was slim but curvy. Her face was pretty. Her hair was dark and luxurious-looking.

At the end of the dock that ran straight out into the Gulf was a 250-foot yacht with a chopper resting on top of an aft helipad.

He labored hard, the sweat running down his back and into his eyes. While other workers stopped for water or shade breaks he continued to push on. Yet his tasks had a purpose. They allowed him to circumnavigate the grounds. In his mind he placed all of the buildings onto a chessboard, moving pieces in accordance with various scenarios.

What he focused on most of all was the deployment of the security forces. There were six on duty during the day. All seemed professional, worked as a team, were well armed, observant, and loyal to their employer. In sum, there didn’t seem to be many weaknesses.

He assumed there were at least a fresh half dozen deployed at night and maybe more, since the darkness was a more apt time for an attack.

He drew near enough to the main gate coming in to see the alarm pad and surveillance camera mounted there. The gates were wrought iron and massive. They looked like the ones in front of the White House main entrance. The walls surrounding the front of the estate were stucco and over six feet high. The homeowner obviously wanted privacy.

He dropped to one knee and was performing some pruning tasks around a mound of bushes when he saw a Maserati convertible pull up to the gate. Inside were a man and a woman. They were both in their early thirties and had the well-nourished and pleased looks of folks for whom life had held no hardships.

They punched in the code and the gates swung open.

As they passed by him neither of them even looked at him. But he looked at them, memorizing every detail of their faces.

And now he also had the six-digit security code to the front gate, beacuse he’d seen the man input it. The only remaining problem was the surveillance camera.

He drew closer to the gate and worked on trimming back a bush. His gaze ran up the pole to which the camera was attached. The power line was enclosed in the metal pole, a standard practice, he knew. But once the pole was set in the ground the power lines had to go somewhere.

He stepped through the gate before it closed all the way and started to work on a patch of lawn running back from the camera post to the fenceline. As he got down on his hands and knees and clipped at weeds and picked up an errant leaf that had had the effrontery to land on the lush grass, he studied the slight hump in the ground. This was where the trench had been dug for the electrical line running to the gate, which also powered the camera, voice box and security pad.

He eyed the rumpled contour of the lawn to where it disappeared under the fence. If one had not been looking for it, the evidence of the trench would have been almost invisible. But not to him.

He had to assume that the power line would be encased in a hardened pipe, but maybe not.

He rose and walked around the perimeter of the property. He could not go back through the gate without revealing that he now knew the code. He also wondered how often it was changed. They were in the middle of the month and also the middle of the week. If they changed the code at the end of seven or thirty days, which was probable, he still had time.

He reached the rear of the grounds and saw the vastness of the Gulf spread out before him. Seagulls swooped and dove. Boats either flew across the water or slowly puttered along. People were fishing, sailing, motorboating. That was during the day.

At night they were moving other kinds of product. The kind he had once been. But luckily he had escaped. Others had not been so fortunate.

He put his bag of lawn debris in one of the trucks and paused to drink from a cup of water he had filled from one of the large orange water coolers. He glanced at two other men who were working on a tree just inside the fenceline. They were Latinos. There was also one white man, two blacks, and then there was him. He was of indeterminate origin. Technically, he was Caucasian.

Technically.

He had never categorized himself that way. He belonged to an ethnic group, a strong one, judging by his features. There had not been many people looking to come to his country and breed with the ones already there. It was remote, it was harsh, outsiders were welcomed not with open arms, but only with suspicion. His people were proud, and they did not take kindly to insult or injury. Well, that was putting it mildly. They never turned the other cheek.

He crumpled up the paper cup and threw it into the garbage bin on the back of the truck. He walked through the rear gate and made his way over near the infinity pool area.

The Maserati was parked nearby. Lounging next to the pool was the woman who’d been in the car. The man was not there. She had slipped off her sundress and high heels, which sat next to her as she lay back on the chaise. Her bathing suit was tiny, a strip of fabric up top, a thong below. As she rolled over on her stomach he could see nearly all of her revealed buttocks. They were mostly firm, but still soft enough in places to be intensely feminine. She undid the straps on her top and let them fall to the side. Her legs were long, smooth, and toned. Her light blonde hair, done up in a ponytail while in the car, now cascaded along her freckled shoulders.

She was a very beautiful woman. He could understand why the man in the Maserati had been smiling so smugly, as if she were his property.

His musings stopped when he realized he’d made a mistake.

He had watched the woman a few seconds too long. He heard footsteps behind him and felt the tug on his arm.

The voice said, “Move your ass. Now!”

He turned to see one of the security men there, earwig inserted, squiggly cord running down to the power pack hidden in his waistband behind his jacket. Though it was hot, they all wore jackets. And under the jackets were their guns.

“Now!” the man said again, staring up at him. “You’re not here to admire the view, lawn boy.”

He moved off at once. He could have killed the man with one strike to his neck, but there would have been no point. His plan would have been ruined. But his time would come.

He looked back once more at the woman to find her turned slightly to her side—not enough to reveal her breasts, but nearly so.