by Logan Ryles
The front of the house faced a gentle slope that led to the lakeshore, and the rear faced a small gravel parking lot with trees all around.
Reed pivoted the crosshairs across the front porch of the home. He took note of the absence of furniture or decorations at the front door, then swung the scope to the back of the house, where a late-model Range Rover and a couple European sedans were parked.
Reed drew a breath and repeated the sweep, searching for signs of Gambit, his goons, or David Montgomery. So far, there was nothing.
“You told him to meet us at the south bank,” Maggie whispered as she lay beside him, peering through a pair of binoculars. “What makes you so sure he’ll use this house?”
The house sat over two miles off the primary blacktop that served this part of the parish. It took almost an hour to find, even with the aid of the address Reed had pulled from the terrified office manager of BANO earlier that day.
“This house wasn’t meant to be found,” Reed whispered. “Whatever’s going on here, it’s linked to Gambit via his chain of shell companies. In fact, this house is owned by a shell company—some distant cousin of ABC Consultants. This place is a key part of Gambit’s operation.”
“Right,” Maggie whispered. “So, you’d think he’d want to isolate us from that. Keep us as far away as possible.”
Reed nodded, still surveying the house with the scope, his finger resting just above the trigger guard. “That’s why I kept the time frame so short. Gambit will need reinforcements if he plans to gun us down, which I’m sure he does. I didn’t give him time to find any, so he’ll have to use whatever resources he has close to hand. This house is close to hand.”
“So, he shows up . . . What then?”
Reed wiped sweat from his forehead, momentarily marveling that he was sweating at all this late in the year.
“Once he arrives, I’ll work to eliminate the primary guards. With luck, we can isolate my father while remaining at a distance. Then we’ll move in.”
Maggie nodded and turned toward him.
“Reed.”
He looked away from the rifle, meeting her gaze. “What?”
“I’ll need Gambit for my investigation. Take him out of the fight, but don’t kill him. Are we clear?”
Reed chewed his lip, searching the dark depths of Maggie’s iron stare for a moment, where he saw fire, rage, and a tinge of hatred. This was Louisiana’s governor, and Gambit was Louisiana’s enemy. Muddy Maggie was at war.
He grunted, then settled behind the scope. Gambit wasn’t the end of this war—Aiden Phillips, Gambit’s boss, was. If Maggie wanted Gambit, that was fine with him.
He shut his left eye and resumed surveillance of the house. It was already six o’clock, with only a half hour standing between them and their scheduled appointment with Gambit. For better or for worse, something was about to happen.
“I have movement!” Maggie hissed.
Reed used his peripheral vision to identify which direction she was looking in, then spun the rifle to follow her line of sight. He gently disengaged the safety with a flick of his index finger.
Bingo.
A dark shape moved toward the house from the far side of the driveway, maybe two hundred fifty yards out and closing.
“There’s another,” Maggie whispered.
“I see it,” Reed confirmed, sliding the crosshairs from the first dark figure to the second, then a third, and then a fourth, each moving through the trees and toward the house.
“Can you make out faces?” Reed asked.
Maggie didn’t reply, so he opened his left eye, using his peripheral vision to check on her. She slowly lowered the binoculars from her line of sight and shot him a sideways glance.
Reed redirected his gaze through the optic and zoomed in, magnifying the crosshairs over the face of the lead individual. As the clouds parted in the dark sky and the moon shone down from overhead, his heart leapt into his throat.
Banks.
Banks crept through the trees, taking care to place each foot on the most solid section of ground she could find as she worked her way toward the house. The Smith and Wesson .38 from T-Rex’s van was tucked into her waistband, and the bandolier of 20-gauge shells hung across her chest while the shotgun rode in a two-handed grip, ready for action.
“Slow up,” Lucy whispered. “You’re making too much noise.”
The group stopped a couple hundred yards from the house, and they knelt behind the low brush blocking their path. Other than the whistle of Kelly’s obstructed breathing, they remained quiet. Banks cast a glance around her small band of warriors, although calling them warriors was a stretch. Kelly was now dressed in black pants and boots but still wore the headdress that covered everything but her vision. In her skintight leather bodysuit, Lucy had both swords strapped to her sides and two long knives fitted to sheaths across her abs.
Wolfgang brought up the rear, dressed as he always was in leather evening shoes, grey pants, and his peacoat—never mind the fact that it was over eighty degrees in the swamp. He carried an M4 assault rifle equipped with a red dot sight, a high-capacity drum magazine, and a flashlight. Of the four of them, he was by far the best equipped, yet Banks felt as though he were the least committed.
“Okay,” Banks hissed. “Here’s what we’re gonna do—”
Lucy held up a finger. “If I may, sweetie, this is more my area of expertise than yours.”
Banks hesitated, momentarily perturbed that Lucy had usurped control of the operation, but she acquiesced. Lucy was, in fact, an actual assassin who probably knew all kinds of things about tactics and sneaking. Now that the four were finally at the house, Banks was less fearful of the operation being canceled.
Lucy squatted in the dirt and raised a night-vision monocular to her right eye—provided courtesy of Wolfgang. She scanned the house, then lowered the monocular.
“Okay, I’m not seeing any guards. We have no reason to think Reed is inside, but before we start World War Three, we really need some solid intel. Agreed?”
Wolfgang and Banks nodded, and Kelly continued to pretend that she was the only person on the planet.
“Right,” Lucy continued. “So, let’s close in to about fifty yards. Wolf, you’ll set up there and provide cover fire, if necessary. Banks and Kelly, you’ll provide perimeter support to block any attempted escapees. I’ll make an intrusion into the house and scope out the situation.”
“I want to go,” Banks hissed.
Lucy shook her head.
“No, honey. Don’t be offended, but you’re much too loud. This is my specialty. Trust me, if shit goes down, you’ll see some action.”
Banks opened her mouth to offer further protest, but Kelly held up her fist, and they all crouched lower into the undergrowth.
Tires crunched against the gravel driveway only a moment before the bright gleam of headlights broke through the trees.
Wolfgang raised the M4, his finger stiff next to the trigger guard as he traced the progress of the vehicle with the red dot sight. Banks could see it now—a bulky SUV, black with dark windows, aggressively rolling up the driveway and crashing through mud puddles.
It wasn’t Reed, she knew that. Reed would never drive that way, making so much noise and remaining so exposed. Whoever it was, they were familiar with this place and possibly even owned it.
The SUV slid to a stop adjacent to the back steps of the house, and the engine cut off. A beefy man with bulky arms stepped out of the driver seat, followed by another from the passenger seat, both men armed with shortened assault weapons. They circled to the back of the SUV and opened the hatch while a third man slid out of the back seat. Tall and trim, he was dressed in a three-piece suit and wore sunglasses, despite the darkness.
The first two ducked into the back of the SUV and hauled out a fourth figure—another man, gagged, and bound hand and foot. His body was limp, and his head rolled on a loose neck, but he stood on his own two feet after being hauled out of the SUV.
Lucy handed him the monocular.
“That’s David Montgomery,” Wolfgang whispered.
“Are you sure?” Lucy asked.
Wolfgang nodded, following the progress of the four men as they ascended the steps and ducked inside the house. “Positive. I reviewed his prison file. Plus, he looks just like Reed.”
Wolfgang lowered the night vision and turned back to the three women.
Lucy bit her lip and continued to stare at the house, then pivoted to the group.
“We should call this off. If David is inside that house and there’s even a chance that Reed knows about it, he’s about to light this place up.”
“I agree,” Wolfgang said quickly.
Banks stood up, fire shooting through her veins. “Are you kidding me? You’re all a bunch of bitches! If they’ve got Reed’s father, we need to rescue him!”
Lucy grabbed Banks’s hand and pulled her back into the brush. “Sweetie, nobody here is scared of a fight. But we’ve been in enough of them to know that tactics and patience win the war, not passion. We need to consider—”
A man’s shout broke out from the house, followed by the sound of breaking glass.
“What do you mean the client came early?”
“Please! Don’t hurt me, boss!” cried another voice. “He’s upstairs, okay? I wanted to tell you—”
A gunshot rang out, sharp and clear, followed by a meaty thud.
“Search the house! Throw the client in a cell, and get rid of the girls.”
Banks leapt to her feet, already running toward the back door. She didn’t care if the others followed her, and she didn’t care who was inside. This was the man she had been hunting—maybe the man who killed her father. He was killing again, right now, and she wasn’t about to watch it happen.
Forty-One
Reed watched as the Tahoe crashed toward the house and slid to a stop, leaving its passenger side fully exposed to his rifle. The windows were tinted, preventing him from making out the faces of anybody inside, but he slipped his finger onto the trigger and held his breath as the doors flew open.
Two big men, with assault rifles swinging from one-point slings, stepped out first. He recognized them as Gambit’s personal goons. The driver disappeared on the far side of the vehicle, but the second guy remained visible as he circled to the back of the Tahoe and threw open the hatch.
Reed could’ve dropped him with a press of the trigger. At two hundred yards, it would’ve been as easy as taking out soda cans with a BB gun, but if he fired now, the other man would have time to respond, and he still didn’t know where David or Gambit were.
He could see a slight glint of light in the passenger side rear window. Maybe Gambit was climbing out the other side. The goon’s partner joined him at the rear of the SUV, and they bent over, momentarily obscuring his shot as they dragged somebody out.
It was David, no doubt about it. His father pivoted on his feet, now obstructing his view of the goons. David stood unassisted, but his head lolled downward, his chin riding against his chest.
Rage surged through Reed’s mind, and he pivoted the rifle, searching for a target.
“Do you still have Banks?” he said.
“Negative,” Maggie said. “I lost them in the brush.”
The men hauled David to the far side of the SUV, and for a moment, they all faded from view. Reed caught flashes of arms and shoulders as they passed into the house, but the bulk of the SUV still blocked a clean shot.
The screen door smacked shut, and Reed cursed. He pivoted the scope across the front of the house, checking each window, searching for a shot. Through the blinds, he could see the silhouettes of occupants inside, but he couldn’t be sure which ones were targets and which one was David.
“We need them outside,” he said.
“It’s a quarter to six,” Maggie said. “He’ll have to call us soon.”
A commotion broke out from the house, and Reed snapped the rifle back to the windows.
“Are you sure she’s not in there?” Reed said.
“I just saw her! Nine o’clock, maybe seventy yards from the house. She’s ducked back into the brush now.”
Reed cursed every flavor of bad luck that was rapidly taking control of his night. How the hell had Banks found this place? The only possible explanation was that she somehow discovered the address, probably the same way that he had. Maybe Wolfgang or Little Bitch helped her. Both were smart enough to get it done, but why were they helping her? Why were any of them there?
More screams, and a gunshot ripped through the night as loud and sudden as a nuclear blast. Another chorus of shots, and Reed laid his finger on the trigger again.
Maggie put a hand on his arm.
“Wait!” she snapped, still staring into the binoculars. “She’s running!”
“What do you mean she’s running?”
“She’s running toward the house. I think she’s got a gun. Wait! The others are following.”
Reed took his finger off the trigger and set the crosshairs over Banks’s progress. He could see her blonde hair waving in the breeze as she dashed toward the house with what appeared to be a shotgun cradled in her arms. Little Bitch followed, moving like a wraith with a sword in each hand. Just behind them was the third woman in the burka he’d seen earlier that day in New Orleans.
She no longer wore the full-body dress but was clothed in tight black pants and a T-shirt, with a black headdress obscuring her face. Something about her silhouette was familiar—hauntingly so—but he couldn’t place it.
Then he saw Wolfgang moving behind the others and to the left, taking up a position behind a fallen log. He carried an M4 assault rifle with a one-hundred-round drum magazine, and only a moment after falling behind the log, he opened fire on the house.
As she broke into a run, Banks didn’t give a damn about the shouts from Lucy and Wolfgang. The bandolier slapped against her stomach and she slammed the pump action of the shotgun back and then forward, ramming a load of buckshot into the chamber. Brush and mud slapped and splashed against her legs, and she almost fell, her breath coming in heavy bursts punctuated by the pound of her heart.
“Wolf, cover fire!” Lucy shouted from a couple yards behind. The command was followed only a moment later by the sheenk sounds of Lucy’s twin blades clearing their respective scabbards, and then the clicking of Kelly chambering her pistol.
They were with her. The thought sent a fresh surge of adrenaline into Banks’s body, and she cleared a log, throwing herself forward onto the gravel of the parking lot as the sharp snarl of Wolfgang’s automatic rifle opened up on the house.
Bullets slammed into the roof as Wolfgang’s raking fire ripped through the trees. Reed pivoted the rifle to follow the progress of the three women. Banks ran with the lumbering ambition of somebody who rarely ran but wouldn’t be stopped by hell or high water. Just behind her, Little Bitch and the woman in the burka kept pace, both armed, both ready for war.
“These are your friends?” Maggie said.
“I don’t know who they are!” Reed snapped as another swath of gunfire ripped over the heads of the three running women and blasted the back side of the house.
Wolfgang was smart, placing his shots at sections of the house unlikely to result in any unwanted casualties but certain to make everybody inside think twice about sticking their heads out long enough to return fire.
“Reed, front door!” Maggie said.
Reed pivoted the rifle just in time to catch the front door bursting open as David Montgomery was shoved out. Gambit followed close behind, a nickel-plated revolver clutched in one hand and jammed against David’s temple as Gambit’s panicked eyes darted through the trees, his face flooded with terror. The two goons followed just behind Gambit, pushing each other forward with the muzzles of the assault weapons sweeping the forest around them.
“Cover your ears!” Reed shouted. He swung the rifle to the left, his fing
er already depressing the trigger as the crosshairs passed across the sternum of the left-hand goon. The Springfield boomed like a cannon, spitting a 165-grain bullet out of the muzzle at over 2,800 feet per second. The projectile made impact before the goon even heard the shot, shattering his chest and blowing out his spine as he toppled to the ground.
Reed swung to the right, searching for the second target, but Gambit’s other goon was better trained than Reed anticipated. The big man hit the dirt and opened fire at the same time, launching a string of automatic gunfire around them. Reed grabbed Maggie, and the two of them hurtled to the ground as a few close shots zipped through the air only inches over their heads.
“Stay down!” Reed barked, grabbing the fallen rifle and maneuvering to the far edge of the log for a follow-up shot. Another burst of gunfire shredded the trees and sent a shower of bark and dead limbs raining over them as he squinted into the scope.
Gambit had disappeared into the forest where the edge of the lake lapped against the mud. Reed took a quick shot at the second goon as the big man followed his boss into the woods, but the bullet smacked into the trunk of a tree, missing by mere inches.
“Damn!” Reed searched for another target as more commotion rose from the house, but he no longer cared about that. David Montgomery was somewhere out there, and he had to find him.
Reed jerked himself to his feet and started to step over the log, rifle in hand. He heard other sounds that gave him pause—a grumbling and coughing, followed by a ripping roar.
It was a boat engine.
He yanked the scope back to his eye and searched the woods at the far side of the yard. Everything was drenched in shadow, and he couldn’t make out any specifics at the lake edge, but the motor sound was clear and growing louder as the boat gained speed and moved away from the bank.