Page 77 of Iron Crown

“The lead element will have to very carefully approach, and in a very coordinated attack, eliminate the guards on the perimeter. A team will mark and disarm the mines on the perimeter at these four points, where there are doors and gates. Our hackers here will disarm their security system, so the cameras will begin to loop the same footage, which will render them blind to what we do.” He took a laser pointer and showed a few sections of the screen. “No one is to cross the perimeter in any other fashion, other than the front. We don’t need the place blowing sky high.”

He sighed, then went on. “Then the fun truly begins in what we can assume will be an Alamo standoff.”

He turned around, his brows going up for a moment, before he cleared his throat. “This element will be absorbing the riskiest part of the entire endeavor.”

He shook his head. “Due to the sheer numbers, the main effort will need to wait for me and the Paradigm forces to come back you up. The timing must be adhered to at all costs.”

“What are Cosima’s potential courses of action?” I asked.

“Her most likely course of action is that she will barricade herself in the most guarded part of the home.” He used the red laser pointer again, and circled a small office that was on the interior of the house. “It’s also a heavily fortified office, and I’m sure there are weapons safes on the inside. This is where our Urban Warfare training comes in, people! We clear every room, one by one, and we must be meticulous. All it takes is one rogue element to catch us by surprise, and we open ourselves up for a secondary attack from her men who might not be at the property.”

“And her most deadly course of action?” I asked.

Blink let out an aggrieved sigh. “Suicide, by fire.”

Shit.

“I’m not familiar with that one,” Flanagan said, a small notepad in front of her.

“It’s like suicide by cop, but we’re not cops,” Blink explained. “Her most deadly course of action is that she fights to the death, taking her, her entire household, and her family, along with her.”

“How do we mitigate that?” I asked because I had read through the overall plan. There were just small details I wanted hashed out before we jumped into this thing.

“Keep her hoping there’s a chance things will go her way,” Eoghan said beside me.

I looked up at him, and he was staring at me.

“She will not use this option if she thinks she can live to fight another day, or if her kids can fight for her,” he expounded. “You heard her yesterday. Vendetta is an Italian word. She will make us pay.”

I let out a low whistle. That was a tall order.

Eoghan surprised me as he came to his feet. “I will be in the main element, with Flanagan as my second, O’Malley as my third. We’ve been briefed on our part. Should anything go differently than what we’ve predicted, it is imperative that I be one of the first to speak to Cosima Durante.”

He went up to stand by Blink, and the two of them exchanged a collegial nod before Blink yielded the floor to him.

“The preference is that Cosima and her family are made to surrender,” Eoghan said, looking out at the nearly four dozen faces in seats in the room. Every single one of us was a leader of something, whether it be Paradigm, the Bratva, which were practically the same thing at this point, or Green Fields Enterprises. “We do not want to martyr her. For the long-term mission of ending crime, her surrender is optimal. If she is killed, she’ll be made into a saint, and a Durante capo will take up her banner.”

“You’re leading the main effort?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

I looked through the pages, realizing that no one’s names had really been assigned to any particular element. That wasn’t unusual in a multi-agency movement. At least not based on what Blink had told me. It allowed flexibility within elements to change people, and improvise.

“Aye, sweetheart,” he said, a small smile on his lips, his eyes softening considerably as he looked at me.

I shook my head, flipping through the pages again and again, taking in the whole plan, the elements, the movements, the timing…

“Eoghan,” I said, quietly, “You would be in the house, exposed for—”

I looked up at him, then back down at the pages.

“Your element is the most exposed during this plan,” I said again. “It’s the highest risk endeavor in this whole thing with so many unknowns.”

I kept flipping the pages, as if I had missed something.

“Is there no way to mitigate this?” I asked, looking up.

“Kira, love,” Eoghan smirked, looking down at his feet. “We’ll talk about this after, but the short answer is, no. Jericho, Andres, and I went through this plan, and we’ll just have to take the risk.”

“Youhave to take the risk,” I said, my tone pointed. Accusatory.

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