Read The Recruit: A Taskforce Story for Free Online

of Peruvian squatters was crammed into a guesthouse. Situated on the outskirts of the main house like the short end of an
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, it wasn’t physically connected, and the woman was the only human in the expansive primary residence.
    He’d watched the comings and goings and had determined that the squatters weren’t allowed to leave, with the exception of some sort of squad leader occasionally approaching the main house. Apparently, he was the only one authorized to bug the German national.
    The compound itself was large, with a swimming pool in the cup of the
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, a garage set back from a sliding iron gate at the front, and over a half acre of landscaping spilling down a hillside. Landscaping that had seen better days.
    The area was becoming overrun, leading Knuckles to believe the woman was renting the place and didn’t care, something that would help with the infiltration later in the night.
    After the sun had set, he’d come back to the hotel to find Decoy looking like a mad scientist, NODs on his head and a ton of lock components lying around. They’d selected what they thought they’d need from the electronics they’d brought, then had impatiently watched the clock until three in the morning. When it came, they’d slipped out the back of the hotel, following Decoy’s GPS route through the scrub, threading between the mansions in the hills.
    Knuckles locked the truck, shouldered his pack, then screwed a suppressor on a Glock 30. He said, “All right, Romeo. Your beach landing.”
    Hoisting his own pack, Glock in hand, Decoy grinned and said, “Let’s see if you still remember how to patrol.”
    They slipped through the scrub, reached the wall, then climbed over, one man pulling security while the other moved. Once on the inside, Decoy began slinking at a pace like drying paint. Slowly, ever so slowly advancing on the first location. The guesthouse.
    He paused in the rocks, an overgrown bush hiding his form. Once a cultured piece of landscaping, it had returned to the wild, growing with abandon in the hardscrabble ground.
    He whispered, “Got an angle to the window. I say set the laser and repeater here.”
    Knuckles said, “Let me check the Wi-Fi.”
    He pulled out a small device, let it register, then whispered, “We got signal. Encrypted.”
    He pushed a couple of buttons on the device, then set it on the ground, saying, “It’ll take a few minutes to crack. Break out the laser mike.”
    Decoy pulled out a small device that was the size of an overgrown pencil, and a pad about three inches across. He mounted the device to a standard portable camera tripod and aimed it at the window of the guesthouse. He pressed a button, the laser light springing out in the glow of his NODs. He worked the beam until it reflected off of the pane of glass and was caught by the pad at their location. He backed his hands away from the tripod, seeing the beam still hitting the pad.
    He said, “Okay. It’s set.”
    Knuckles ran wires from the pad to a box the size of a hardback book, then extended an antenna. He picked up the original handset and said, “Hack done. Type this in.”
    Decoy leaned over the keyboard of the book device and said, “Send it.”
    N-A-Z-C-A 4-6-8-9
    Decoy watched the screen for a second, then smiled. “Nothing like US technology. We’re in.”
    Knuckles nodded, his own grin breaking out. He draped the tripod and other equipment in burlap and foliage and said, “Okay. Now the easy part.”
    They began the stalk to the main house, moving so slowly it made Knuckles think of a glacier. Or an operation he’d conducted in the Hindu Kush stalking a Taliban killer of men. Eventually, they reached the sliding door opposite the small pool. Knuckles took a knee, waited a beat for anything to appear, then whispered, “You’re up.”
    Decoy slid forward, pulling a sleeve from his pocket and extracting two tools. He focused on the lock for all of five seconds, then turned back to Knuckles, nodding up and down