Vann's Victory by Sydney Presley Read Free Book Online

taller—maybe six-five. Dark, shaved hair. You can see his scalp. His eyes are blue, but a light color that borders on white. Fucking—excuse my language—eerie. And they bulge, like when someone’s angry. Red rimmed too. And he’s got this weird thing going on with his skin, like he’s scarred on both cheeks but I think it might be from having acne years ago. Or maybe he got into a fight, I don’t know.” Vann shivered again. “But the most distinguishing thing is he has a cleft in his chin, a deep one, and in the middle of that is a large mole.”
    Dillon narrowed his eyes. Maybe he was visualizing the man in his head, or maybe he was already thinking about his next question. Whatever he was doing, Vann got the sense Dillon had several contingency plans stored in that brain of his and that the Highgate group would all get out of the mission alive with Dillon running the show.
    I have to believe that. The alternative… No, I won’t go there. Kip may pick up on my fear and I can’t stand that.
    “Where does he hang out?” Dillon asked, pushing the Crossways drawing into the center of the table so everyone could see.
    “There.” Vann pointed to a study just off the main foyer. “He calls it his control room. His job, before Bennett got caught, was the same as yours. Head of Security. So he has monitors that show all directions of the compound. He stays up late into the night, so there’ll be no worries about speaking to him when we arrive. But that study… I hate the damn thing. It brings back horrible memories.”
    “So you’ve been in there?” Dillon took a sip of water, eyeing Vann over the glass rim.
    “Once. Almost got caught. Wickland had gone to speak to the guards and hadn’t locked the door. I wanted to see where the cameras were trained so me and Kip would know where we could get out without being seen.” That time had had him fraught with anxiety. His blood had gone cold, his skin clammy. He’d asked himself what the hell he was playing at but there had been no choice if he and Kip were to get away successfully.
    Dillon stroked his chin. “Yeah, you mentioned that. The way we get in is here, right?” He pressed a finger to a row of hedges that, with Vann’s limited artistic ability, looked like puffy clouds. A kid’s drawing.
    “Yes, sir—er yes, Dillon. The cameras don’t quite cover that whole area, so there’s a gap between images that get transmitted. As the view on screen showed me, we’ll have about twenty feet before we’d appear on either of those monitors.”
    “So we’ll be seen regardless, because we’ll be breaching that twenty feet.” Dillon’s face showed no expression.
    “Which is why we agreed I’d enter the compound the proper way—via the front driveway.” Vann squeezed Kip’s hand under the table after feeling Kip’s slight apprehension sliding through him. “It has to be this way, Kip. You know that. You may answer me.”
    “I know, Sir, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
    “I don’t either, but—”
    “So you think you can pull it off without fucking it up?” Dillon asked.
    “Yes.” Vann smiled to project confidence to the group. To himself. I have to pull it off. There’s no other choice.
    Dillon stood. He rested his fingertips on the table, leaning onto them. “We all have our phones, our Tasers. Any one of us gets into trouble, hit the ‘off’ switch on your phones if you can. They’re programmed this way because usually, when someone’s caught, the captor switches off the phone. Works as a double alert.”
    Vann wondered where Dillon had got phones like that but didn’t feel it was his place to ask. Dillon gave as little information as he could from what Vann had seen so far. He reckoned only Sergeant would know exactly who the real Dillon was.
    “So.” Dillon pushed off the table. He glanced at his watch. “Time to get going.”
    Vann’s stomach churned. Excitement and nervousness squirreled through him. He let go of