PROLOGUE

      Cancun, Mexico

      Death watched from high above.

      It was a scorching tropical night, the heat unforgiving in spite of a cool breeze coming off the ocean. A thumping techno beat filled the air with a palpable presence, the lyrics indistinct over the laughter of the drunken college students cavorting on the white sandy beach.

      Standing on the balcony of his penthouse suite, Dalton Greene looked down on the raucous party with the impersonal gaze of a surgeon preparing to cut a tumor from the body of a patient.

      “Enjoy yourselves while it lasts,” Greene whispered, checking the load of the 10 mm Falcon pistol before tucking the weapon into its shoulder holster.

      Neither handsome nor ugly, Greene was simply plain with an ordinary, easily forgettable face and nondescript features. Except for one. The man was huge, not fat, although he would have disagreed on that point, but genuinely enormous, well over seven feet tall and as broad as a gorilla.

      Most people the billionaire did business with called him The Jolly Greene Giant, but never to his face. The one person who had been foolish enough to do that disappeared the next day, and was found a year later. From what the New York coroner could ascertain, the man had been tortured, then allowed to heal, and tortured again, over and over, for weeks, until his head was smashed.

      Whether the horrid story was true or not, the billionaire had done his best to circulate it worldwide, and the tale certainly fitted Dalton Greene’s profile. He never got angry or upset, only even, and somehow he always managed to make a profit. Even from death.

      “They call it spring break, right?” Greene asked over a shoulder, dispassionately watching the dozens of campfires blazing along the beach.

      Hundreds of college students reveled in drunken celebration, singing to the techno beat, the combination creating a low growl.

      “Yes, sir, spring break,” Samantha LoMonaco answered, carefully loading a 12-gauge Neostead shotgun.

      The lights were off in the palatial suite, making it easier for them to discreetly observe the party below. A dozen other people were in the suite, all of them checking a weapon, or adjusting the straps on military body armor.

      “Ridiculous. A break from what?” Greene demanded. “The strenuous task of sitting in a comfortable chair in an air-conditioned room reading books?”

      Working the pump-action on the Neostead, LoMonaco shrugged. “Americans are a ridiculous people, sir.”

      Easing a clip into an F88 assault rifle, a bearded man scowled. “I thought you came from America, Ms. LoMonaco?” he asked in a thick accent.

      “I’m Australian now,” LoMonaco stated with an air of pride. “Just like the rest of you.”

      A diminutive brunette with a full luscious figure, Samantha “The Hammer” LoMonaco was a stunningly beautiful woman with lovely dark eyes and a smile so sweet that she often managed to talk her way out of traffic tickets and past security checkpoints.

      Her long hair was tied in a ponytail to keep it from her face, and more importantly out of the breech of her weapon. Her nails were cut short, almost to the quick, to make it easier to reload her weapon.

      She was also covered with tattoos. Although born in America, she had been raised in the slums of west Canberra, and at a very early age had started getting a tattoo for each confirmed kill.

      The first killing had been done in the dark alley behind a bar where a drunken man was trying to assault her friend. LoMonaco grabbed a loose brick and pounded him to death. The next day her friend took LoMonaco to a tattoo parlor and paid for both of them to get matching stars on their wrists so they could always remember that night. As news of the incident spread, LoMonaco was quickly dubbed with the nickname The Hammer because of her assault with the brick.

      Then another friend asked for her help with an abusive boyfriend, and LoMonaco earned a second tattoo, then a third, fourth, fifth.... Soon, she learned the terrible truth: blood was like whiskey. After enough of it had flowed, you didn’t want the river ever to stop.

      These days, LoMonaco carried a Gerber combat knife sheathed at the small of her back where it couldn’t be easily seen. A boxy Glock 18 machine pistol was holstered at her side, and in her wallet was a fake credit card that contained a ceramic razor blade undetectable through airport security.

      Officially, LoMonaco was registered as a professional bodyguard, and thus was allowed to carry firearms in places where other people couldn’t. In reality, she was an assassin, a hired killer for Dalton Greene.

      “Mr. Greene, the truck has arrived!” announced David Thomas, adjusting the pipe in his mouth. Still in the long process of trying to quit smoking, the man was chewing on a briarwood pipe these days to help control his urges.

      Rolling out of the dunes, an electric flatbed truck was trundling along the beach. The driver stopped at each bonfire to drop off a plastic cooler, and briefly speak to whomever was in charge.

      As he drove away into the darkness, the eager college students dragged the coolers out of the light and into the darkness. Minutes later, swarms of people descended on the area, many of them still talking on their cell phones. In rapid order, the party escalated to a new level of debauchery, as the students reeled about smoking what looked like homemade cigarettes. Their laughter became disjointed, and soon items of clothing started coming off, which was a short procedure as most of the students were wearing only bathing suits and flip-flop sandals.

      “Is that marijuana?” Thomas asked curiously, clipping a grenade to his belt. Dashingly handsome, the man was an expert hacker, and always carried an Australian army combat laptop slung at his side.

      “I ordered zooters,” LoMonaco replied.

      He scowled. “What’s that?”

      “Marijuana soaked in formaldehyde.”

      Thomas was stunned. “Isn’t embalming fluid poisonous?”

      “Extremely.” She laughed. “But first you get incredibly high.”

      “How much did you get?” Greene asked, raising an arm to shoulder height. He flexed his hand and a small .44 derringer slapped into his palm, then back out of sight.

      “Five kilos.”

      Greene frowned. “Do we really need that much?”

      “Probably not,” LoMonaco said with a shrug. “But I assumed it would be better to have too much than too little.

      “Agreed. Failure isn’t an option,” Greene said, then he turned and shouted the phrase. “Failure isn’t an option!” Inside the darkened suite, the men and women of Operation Daylight repeated the words over and over as if it was a battle chant.

      “Where are the whores?” Thomas asked, walking over to the balcony.

      “They’ll be here soon,” Greene replied, strapping on body armor. It was as supersized as himself, but fitted perfectly, molded to his specific contours.

      “And