But this day, El Toro meant to bring him down.
The place was built for status and appearances instead of defense. A six-foot decorative wall surrounded the acre of grounds, and the house was set well back behind a manicured lawn, partially screened by trees. But this was not a fortress. They could encounter danger there, even death, but not before they made their way inside.
In seconds, all of them had left the Cadillac and scaled the wall, regrouping in the shadows and waiting for instructions from their leader. Toro went through all of it again, to be on the safe side, substituting hand gestures for words whenever possible, keeping his eyes and ears alert for the danger of dogs or watchmen.
He had deliberately timed the raid to coincide with sunrise, from knowledge of Ornelas's plans for the morning, and because the early morning brought a natural sluggishness to men on watch. A sentry's natural defenses lagged at sunrise, and with his meager force behind him, Toro knew he could use every single advantage available.
Ornelas had sentries posted, but they were all immediately around the house, and they were not alert enough to save themselves from death as it came creeping toward them through the morning mist.
Toro and his five warriors fanned out, moving low and fast across the lawn like silent shadows, gliding in the face of sunrise, closing on the house with lightning strides.
Emiliano took one sentry with his silenced Ruger automatic. One shot, with the bulky suppressor almost touching the base of the target's skull, and the little .22-caliber round cored through bone and muscle, clipping the stem of the brain.
Toro made the second kill himself, slipping a noose of piano wire over a young man's head and bringing it tight around his throat. The wire bit deep, cutting off his wind and releasing a Niagara of blood as the soldier struggled briefly in Toro's grasp, finally relaxing into death.
Toro's group circled back around the house, encountering no more resistance, and they found a service entrance in the rear. Ornelas was coming up in the world, the Cuban warrior thought. High time that someone put him back in touch with the grim realities of their unending war for freedom.
In a war you executed traitors, yes. But sometimes, given opportunity, a trial could be instructive.
They pushed on through the service entrance, barging into a combination kitchen and pantry with Juanito leading, his Uzi probing out ahead of him and seeking targets. He found them in the kitchen, three more pistoleros, chowing down on breakfast prior to relieving their comrades on the outside watch.
In the heartbeat before everything exploded into chaos, Toro recognized one of the men, a former follower who had defected to Ornelas, seduced by his promises of action and material rewards.
The guards were digging for sidearms, fanning out quickly, professionally. Juanito snarled and held the trigger down on his little Israeli stuttergun, raking the kitchen from left to right and back again, riddling pots and pans, puncturing the microwave oven and refrigerator with 9mm parabellum rounds.
He caught one of the guards retreating through a connecting doorway, helped him get there with a blazing figure eight that split his spine and blew him away. A second figure was peeling off to the left, crouching behind the dining table as he brought a gun to bear upon the small invasion force, but he was not quite fast enough. Another Uzi burst removed his face with something less than surgical precision, scattering his brains across a wall.
The third man actually got a shot off before the weapons of all six invaders bore down on him, opening fire as one and blowing him backward, a riddled, leaking straw man suddenly devoid of any life.
They swept on past the human ruins, robbed of their surprise advantage now, knowing that they might run into anything beyond the pantry door. What Toro had not quite expected was the sumptuous living room, complete with curving staircase leading to the upper floor and bedrooms. Everything was hardwood, dark, crushed velvet, carpet deep enough to hide in if you bellied down.
A shotgun boomed its greeting from the stairs, and Toro's squad scattered, going to ground behind the ornate pieces of furniture. Mano was slow, and the second shotgun blast caught him in midstride, lifting him off his feet and spinning him around before dumping him facedown on the carpeting. He was dead before he hit the floor, and from his place of bare concealment, Toro could already see the small soldado's lifeblood soaking down into the nylon shag.
Above them and across the room, the shotgunner was getting overconfident. He showed himself, looking for another target. It was his last mistake. Toro raised the .45 he carried, sighting quickly down the slide and squeezing off a double punch, even as Juanito stroked a burst out of his lethal Uzi from the other side of the room.
The shotgunner was crucified to the wall, leaving long streaked traces of himself as he slid away, finally coming down head over heels, landing in an untidy heap at the foot of the staircase.
Toro and his survivors took the stairs in a rush, mounting them swiftly. They were alert to danger, but the final gunner took them by surprise, looming around the corner of the second-story landing, banging away almost in their faces with the nickel-plated revolver that he carried.
Juanito took a round between the eyes, another in the Adam's apple, dead before his trigger finger clenched, unloading the Uzi's magazine in one last, long ragged burst. He took the gunner with him, riddling the man right where he stood and sweeping him away. His job completed, little Juanito collapsed facedown on the risers, his Uzi trapped beneath his lifeless body as he fell.
They took the bedrooms one by one, crashing each in turn until they reached what was clearly the master's room. Toro gave the door a flying kick and they edged back from the open portal, waiting for a burst of fire that never came.
The room was empty, rumpled bed and scattered nightclothes bearing testimony to the fact that their quarry had been there only moments earlier. Without speaking, El Toro began a rapid search of the room, looking under the bed, into the adjoining marble bath, moving out onto the veranda that overlooked a swimming pool in back.
Nothing.
The Cuban commando was frowning as he reentered the bedroom, but his expression changed at once when he beheld the folding closet doors. Moving swiftly across to stand in front of the closet, he raised the .45 autoloader, braced it in both hands and pumped three rounds waist high across the double doors.
It was a gamble, but his aim was true. A strangled little cry from inside the depths of the closet rewarded him, and Toro closed the gap, flinging the door wide, no longer afraid that Ornelas would pose any physical threat to his men.
The traitor was crouched in a corner of the closet, hidden in among perhaps fifty expensive-looking suits. And Toro did not have to ask himself where the money for these clothes, this house, had come from. Ornelas had sold his people and his honor, sold himself to the highest bidder like a puta on the street... and it was time for him to begin paying his dues.
Toro leaned inside the closet, grabbed a handful of his quarry's hair and dragged him out into the middle of the room. Ornelas was sniveling, crying now, a man afraid of death when it came calling at his door. He looked from one face to the other, always coming back to Toro, still afraid to speak although he plainly longed to beg for mercy.
Toro did the talking for him.
"Stand up, Raoul," he snapped. "It's time to meet your people."