Chapter 231 - :

The hatch on the rooftop suddenly opened and confirming what Hans warned the team, a man finished ascending the ladder and stood up. Fishing in his pocket, the kidnappers took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Once he had lit his cigarette, Lina clearly saw that he had a handgun on his belt and he was moving in the direction of the two dead guards.

"Hans, how far are we from the building? Exactly." She asked, taking a more optimal position.

"What? Lina, what do you want to do?" He asked, looking at her surprised.

"What do you think!? You heard Nathaniel, if the alarm is triggered, we will never get the hostages alive."

"We are not ready for this and you know it! You've never shot anyone before, this is insanity!"

"We don't have a choice in this matter, this is not about if we are ready, it is about doing what needs to be done! Now, start doing your fu**ing work and give me the information I need. I have five seconds to shoot him before he arrived near the end of the rooftop and realized something is not right. " She said, irritated.

Seeing that she was determined, Hand hurriedly grabbed a notebook where he had put every data they needed. Even if he thought they were just there as a backup and would not intervene, he liked to be ready and like Lina said, this was his job. He wasn't dumb enough to skirt what he needed to do in a mission considering the risk at stakes.

"455 yard away." Hans read the sketch he drew earlier that day.

"Wind?"

"Variable, 20-25 MPH coming from the North East."

Acknowledging the information she was given, Lina adjusted her sight on the target. Her heart was beating like crazy and her mind was in turmoil but she still did her best to calm herself. Controlling her breathing the best that she could, her index finger started to put pressure on the trigger.

'Slow and steady Lina, slow and steady.' She whispers inside her mind before pulling the trigger all the way.

Tanking the recoil of her sniper rifle, the bullet flew true, hurling itself to the man who was looking down and hitting him in center mass. The force of the hit made the man topple backward and touch the ground hard. Looking through her sight, Lina made sure that he wasn't moving anymore before calling in the com.

"Target eliminated." She said in a much calmer voice than what she was feeling inside.

There was only silence in the com until Nathaniel answered a few seconds later.

"Good job Lina." He called in a soft voice.

"Alright, it's time for you two to get the hell out of dodge." Scott ordered. "Jon, go pick them up and then come here, we unlock the gateway so you can park in front of the door."

Even if the suppressor did a good job to muffle the sound of gunfire, and there was music raging near them on the beach bar, there was still a chance that someone picked up the unique sound of a gun firing. Lina quickly took apart her sniper rifle and stuff in an empty guitar case, Hans doing the same before closing it and slinging the guitar case on his back. After that, they run on the opposite side of the rooftop and toss a rope they had installed earlier that day to exit quickly.

If it was even last year, the both of them would never have had the confidence or the courage to do rappel on the side of a five storey building at night time. A year later after extremely hard and demanding training, they did so with surprising ease. Touching the ground, a mini van stopped on the side of the building and they quickly got in, nodding in Jon's direction.

Inside the house, Nathaniel and Camilla were busy going room to room and killing everyone they met with silent efficiency. Three people already died in their sleep, their throat slit and one had his neck broken when he was coming back from the shower. Arriving in front of the last door, Nathaniel silently opened it while Camilla followed him inside. They were going to slit the man's throat when Nathaniel raised his hand in the air.

"That's the one who we were looking for." He whispers to her.

"Then let's wake him up." She answers.

Nathaniel could not see her smile but he was sure it was there, which was confirmed when she hit him on the side of the head with the butt of her gun to wake him up. Let's just say that her method was effective when the man took instantly a sitting position and put his hands in front of him to protect himself. From Nathaniel's perspective, it seems to be that it wasn't the first time he was woken up like that, most likely when he was in jail.

The guy looked quite pissed off to be awakened like that but his protest was instantly stopped by two automatic weapons strained on his face.

"Morning sunshine."

"What do you want? Let me tell you now, I will not tell you anything you want to hear so don't even bother asking about it!"

"Yeah, I'm sure you would say that." Nathaniel said. "I don't care about you or your closed ones, no. What I want to know is who helped you get out of jail and target the daughters of Senator Livingston. Tell me that and you will be free to join hell with your dead teammates. Don't tell me that and things are going to get messier and very painful for you."

"This is where you are wrong, when I launched myself in this adventure, I swear to myself that I will not go back to jail and you bet I'm not going to let you torture me either. No, this is the end of the road for me and you." He said, determined.

Nathaniel was starting to think that someone wasn't right with the situation and what happened next confirmed it. The man lifts his only hand still under the cover and shows a hand grenade missing it's pin. Nathaniel reacted instantly pushing Camilla out of the room. With a cruel smile, the kidnapper made a move to launch the grenade in the hallway but Nathaniel was quicker.

He made two shots with his HK416, the first hit the man shoulder and the second his elbow. The grenade fell from his hand and the hatch released, falling into the man still on his bed. Nathaniel made a third shot in the man's head, killing him instantly before gripping the edge of the bed with his two hands and flipping it over. After that, he ran out of the room and taking Camilla with him, ran as far as he could from the room.

"Everybody down!" Nathaniel shouted on the com.

The next moment, the room they were just in exploded, throwing plaster and wood everywhere around them. Getting back to his feets, Nathaniel shook himself, trying to make his ears stop ringing. Even if he had protected them before the explosion, they were still too closed of the location to avoid being hurt by it. Stretching his hand, he helped Camilla to get back on her feet.

"Who the hell is sleeping with a frigging hand grenade on their bed!?" She shouted way too loudly in Nathaniel's opinion.

"Someone who really doesn't want to get caught."

"Yeah, is this what I think this is?" Camilla said, looking at the room who just blew up.

"I'm afraid it is indeed five millions dollars burning away." Nathaniel laughed. "Come on, we need to move." He said.

Pulling a very recalcitrant Camilla who was looking at the money with chagrin away from the fire that was gaining intensity, Nathaniel realized that someone was calling him in his earpiece.

"Nathaniel, Camilla, come in! What the hell was that?" Scott asked in the com.

"A kamikaze, we are alright tho. The top floor is clear, we are coming to you right now." Nathaniel answered.

"Glad to hear but now we need to get the hell out of here, we have five minutes top before the cops storm the place. We have a problem here, we clear the ground floor and find the hostages in the bas.e.m.e.nt, the entry is behind the kitchen, you need to come ASAP."

"Coming."

Running downstairs, Nathaniel and Camilla easily found the entry to the bas.e.m.e.nt thanks to Scott's instruction and once down there they stopped abruptly, shocked to see what was in front of them. What they saw were makeshift cages made with a mix of steel bars and wood panels. The stench inside the bas.e.m.e.nt was horrendous which wasn't surprising considering there was no toilet in there and the hostages were all covered in dust, sooth and worst things.

Nathaniel understood instantly why Scott called. There wasn't only the Senator daughters detained here but almost ten more people were locked in those cages. Nathaniel had to lock his jaw in anger when he saw two teenagers among the hostages, feeling better when he knew that everyone beside them was dead right now. His team was busy freeing everyone right now and were giving them some water and proteins bars they had on them.

"My god." He heard Camilla murmur near him as Scott came near them.

"What do you want to do Nathaniel? Our assignment is only for the girls of the Senator, we could leave the others to the cops." Scott said.

"You know full well that we have evidence suggesting that local authorities knew about it and turned a blind eye on this. There is a risk that they would just kill them and make their bodies disappear to avoid problems. No, we are taking everyone Scott, it's not even up to discussion." Nathaniel said.

"We can't take everyone." Hans arrived and said categorically.

"What do you mean?" Scott turned to him.

"We will be too heavy for the boat we have. Not mentioning the fact that we would risk lacking fuel to arrive at our destination and overweight like that, we would also risk mechanical failure. That would also be impossible for us to check off pursuers if we were to be followed by Police or worse."

That piece of information made the three of them turned silent for a couple of seconds, realizing the risk at stake.

"Based on our current situation, how much of them could we take safely?" Nathaniel finally asked.

Turning to the hostaged, Hans starts calculation.

"There are nine hostages, two teenagers, one elderly, two womens and four mens in their twenties. If we were to take the two teenagers and the elderly and based on the approximate weight of the others, we could add three more of them, four if we were to push it more than I am comfortable with."

"You mean we would have to leave three of the hostages here to their fates." Scott summerized somberly.