Marching Orders

Tommaso

The rented house displayed none of the chaos it had shown when I arrived this morning. The dozen cars sat in neat lines of six, all off and shut. Light blared from every window of the house, but even as I walked up to the front door, I couldn’t hear a peep. My stomach flipped. Had the spot been found?

I opened the door to see hundreds of men creeping from room to room, all armed to the teeth. My split-second of panic vanished. We’d planned this perfectly. Now, we just had to execute. I stepped inside and grabbed the nearest guy, one of Killian’s.

“Where is everyone gearing up?”

“Up there, second and third doors.” He jerked his chin at the stairs. “Killian said we had to because if we couldn’t walk down the stairs quietly, he’d send us to sit on the plane rather than letting us blow everything.”

That sounded like Killian. I patted the guy on the shoulder and headed upstairs. There was a little more activity here, men streaming into and out of the two indicated doors. I ducked i