Somewhere in rural Pennsylvania…
The three men were dressed in black and blended in with the darkness of the early morning hour. Armed with night vision glasses, Colt AR-15 Carbine 9mm rifles slung over shoulder, and automatic handguns holstered at the side, they softly moved on to an enormous deck.
On their bellies, the shadows slid over to an enormous sliding-glass patio door with the natural creepy, cleverness of snakes in predation mode. As promised, the butler had done his job. The door was unlocked. To maintain a healthy level of uninterrupted anonymity, the silent, stealthy stalkers communicated through hand signs and directional gestures. Although the men easily blended into the element by dress, they were clearly distinguishable by height and size. The taller one seemed to function as the brains of the group.
One wave in the air, the men stood to their feet. One quick, simulated eye gouge dispersed them in different directions, all playing a very vital part at this thing going down smoothly. Other issues had to be neutralized before they could take out the intended targets, like slitting the throat of the heavyset black guard inside the guardshack in front of the property.
The door to the shack wasn’t stubborn with noise, so it slid back without any resistance. A dark shadow surged up inside the night’s blackness, brandishing a huge stainless steel Rambo blade. One swipe across the throat was enough to bleed the guard out—straight ear-to-ear job.
The short, stocky, armed security guard standing on the front porch, bumping his gums on a cell phone, didn’t fare too well, either. From the background of darkness, an anorexic-thin razor wire was smoothly slipped over his throat. The dark figure pulled it tightly and hung on for a few moments until the struggling guard fell limp. The guard’s lifeless body was then tossed over the banister and into a gathering of bushes.
The supervisor guard nearest the north end of the property must’ve smelled the stench of death in the air; felt a heavy, troublesome disturbance in the atmosphere. With his two-way radio, he tried to get a handle on his officers. He hadn’t seen them since the briefing that had taken place three hours ago. Standing at an imposing six-eight and tipping the scales at nearly 300 pounds, the guard easily moved through the orchards with the cocky swagger of one who’d been battled-tested and survived the worst that the hood had to offer. Simply put: he feared no man. And he wasn’t even startled when he stumbled upon what appeared to be a huge man dressed in black. It didn’t take the guard long to figure out that this fool wasn’t there to perform random sprinkler system inspection. The assault rifle slung over the man in black’s shoulder was no instrument to gauge water pressure. The owner of the estate was rumored to be heavy in the game, so the guard automatically knew the intruder’s intentions. When the guard had taken on the job, he knew the risk of running security for the estate’s owner. But the rather generous paycheck he’d receive at the end of the week more than relaxed the consequences.
The ski-mask worn by this intruder didn’t leak one bit of identity. The two men knew that a battle to the death was imminent. The best man left standing. The officer didn’t know if that combatant would be him, and if he was victorious, would that be a good thing? Because poverty had taught him an honest lesson: a warning that where there was one roach—by lifting a dirty dish in the sink almost-always sent more scurrying. There were more shadows around here.