by Jeff Gunhus
A man from the courtyard screamed and a shadow passed by the window, falling from above. He landed with a heavy thud.
“Let’s work together on this,” Anna said. “We all want the same thing here. I’m coming in.”
Mara shook her head. “Are you crazy?”
Anna gave her a wink. “A little bit.”
As she turned the corner and walked into the room, Mara fell in behind her, ready to react if Kolonov’s men fired.
“Hold,” Kolonov said.
Mara sighted Kolonov’s thug, a younger man who looked completely out of his depth. His eyes flitted between the two women entering the room and his boss, fear and uncertainty painted on his face. A combination that could easily lead to a mistake.
“How about you tell your man to lower his weapon?” Mara said. “He looks a little nervous.”
Kolonov seemed to agree. He pushed on the man’s shoulder, turning him toward the windows.
“Did you see him?” Kolonov asked. “Did you see Scarvan?”
Anna answered. “He has to be upstairs. But that gives him visibility down into the courtyard. Makes getting to the car a risk. What egress points do we have available?”
Kolonov’s thug leaned forward in the window, craning his neck to look up into the courtyard. Suddenly, a stream of bullets strafed the room from the outside, blowing out two of the windows.
The man fell back, his own gun going off as his hand spasmed. The bullet took out a chunk of plaster directly over Kolonov’s head.
They all took cover from the flying shards of glass. Kolonov crouched to the ground.
“Fucking amateurs,” he said.
Mara was thinking the same thing. No way Scarvan was indiscriminately shooting up the place. He was a surgeon, not a carpet bomber. Kolonov’s own men were shooting at anything that moved.
“We need to get the hell out of here,” he said. “You two are going to help me.”
Mara grinned. Men always wanted to feel like things were their idea. Whatever. She turned to Anna and spoke to her in a low voice for her ears only. “You get him out of here. Keep him in pocket in case Scarvan gets away.”
Anna wrinkled her brow, not happy with the plan. “Scarvan’s here. That’s what we wanted. We need to take him out. This was the plan all along.”
What they wanted was to surprise Scarvan in a trap of their own making, at a time of their choosing. Playing defense to an onslaught hadn’t been the plan at all. She left that alone. It didn’t matter now. “If he aborts, if he decides it’s too hot and slips away, he’ll come for Kolonov again later. We need Kolonov alive and in hand in case that happens. Scarvan could already be gone for all we know.”
“What’s going on?” Kolonov said. “What are you two talking about?”
Anna locked eyes with Mara for a long beat, a silent battle of wills. Finally, she turned and strode toward Kolonov. “Come on, we’re getting out of here.”
Mara’s phone chirped. She dug an Airpod out of her pocket and put it in her ear. The Apple engineer who’d designed it likely never thought his tech would be used to coordinate firepower in a shootout.
“Go,” she said.
“Coming in hot,” he said. “Where do you want me?”
“Through the main arch.” She peered out through the window, confirming that the metal security post was still down, careful not to show too much of herself. “The gate is closed, but it’s just decorative. The inner metal barrier is open.”
“Roger that.”
“We’re straight across from the gate, floor level. We have Kolonov.”
“Do you have eyes on Scarvan?”
“Negative,” she said. “Multiple hostiles on site with itchy fingers.”
“Sounds great, be right there.”
Outside, she heard a horn, imagining her dad careening down the street outside as pedestrians scrambled to get out of his way.
Anna slid to the window next to her.
“Cover,” Mara said.
They both raised their guns.
A second later the front gate leading into the courtyard blew off its hinges and a black Mercedes SUV roared through it.
Both Mara and Anna laid down a barrage of gunfire at the second-floor areas. Indiscriminately at first, but then the muzzle flashes gave away positions of the few men Kolonov had left in the building.
Mara adjusted her fire and one of the men dropped when her slug tore through his shoulder.
Anna ran to the nearest door and pulled it open.
The vehicle reacted, swinging out wide to the right, then heaving back left. The rear tires slid out on the cobblestones and the entire vehicle slammed sideways into the side of the building. Driver’s door lined up with the opening to their room.
Scott opened the door and spilled out of the car as bullets pinged off the roof and hood. He dove and barrel-rolled into the room.
He ended up at Anna’s feet.
“Hey there,” he said, grinning.
Anna shook her head, doing her best to look annoyed. “Dinner. A play. These are the normal things people do.”
Scott turned to Mara. “Isn’t she great?”
Before Mara could respond, Kolonov got all of their attention.
“I see him,” Kolonov said, on the floor, carefully glancing up through a window at an angle. “I see Scarvan.”
Sirens wailed from the street outside, getting closer. The gunfire and Scott’s SUV slamming through the gate hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Scott, Anna, and Mara all turned deadly serious.
“Where?” Mara said.
“Second floor, west wing of the building. Third window in,” he said. “He’s just standing there in full view.”
Anna was in position first, next to Kolonov. “I see him,” Anna said, raising her gun.
“Take him,” Scott said.
Mara leaned out from the doorway, only needing a split second to acquire the target.
Scarvan stood at three-quarters angle at a tall window that exposed him from knees to head. The wild beard Mara had seen on the boat in Paris was gone, trimmed back into a goatee, but it was him.
He stared back at them, unafraid, shoulders relaxed, head cocked as if curious what they would do next.
Like he was in a zoo watching animals interact.
“Do you have the shot?” Scott asked.
“Something’s wrong,” Anna said.
Mara felt it, too. But she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
Scarvan held up his right hand, purposefully showing them what he held.
It was a detonator. But for what?
Anna fired. Three quick shots.
Instead of buckling over, Scarvan first splintered and then shattered into a thousand pieces.
A full-length mirror.
“Oh shit,” Mara said.
A concussive blast thumped from the opposite end of the courtyard. The archway leading to the outside road lit up and then crumbled inward. Three stories of sixteenth-century brick and plaster collapsed and blocked the only way out.
Scarvan had waited until Scott had gotten there to lock them in. And keep out any chance for backup.
This wasn’t only a trap for Kolonov.
It was a cage designed for her and her dad, too.
She spun around to formulate a plan and her stomach dropped.
Only her dad and Anna were there.
Kolonov was gone.
CHAPTER 37
“Where the hell did he go?” Mara asked.
Anna looked to Scott. There were two interior doors and a spiral staircase to the upper and lower floors. Scott shrugged, with no idea which one Kolonov had taken.
Anna launched into action first. “I’m going this way.” She pointed to the door in front of her. “You two figure out the rest.” Without waiting for an answer, she ran out of the room.
“I like her,” Mara said.
He gave her a smirk, but he spoke quickly, all business. “Scarvan’s not leaving here until h
e settles this score with Kolonov. If you find him first, let the bait sit. Be patient. If you don’t have a sure thing on Scarvan, don’t force it.”
“I got it,” she said.
Scott grabbed her arm. “I’m serious, Mara. Be careful.”
She nodded, wondering at the last time she’d seen her dad actually scared of another operative. She put the Airpod back in her ear. Their regular gear would have been better, but this would have to do. “Check check.”
Scott nodded. “Com-check good. Let’s go get this asshole.”
Mara jogged to the spiral staircase, looking both up and down for any movement, straining for any tell of which way Kolonov had gone. Scott brushed past her and took the stairs up.
“I guess I’ll take down,” she said.
While the stairs up were decorative wrought iron, the ones going down were solid stone, like in a castle going down to the cellar.
She moved quickly, crouching low in the hopes that anyone sitting in wait around a corner would have their weapon trained on where they expected her head to be.
The temperature dropped with each step and the air tasted musty and damp. The lower level was far deeper than she expected, perhaps going to the original ancient foundation of the home.
“Status?” came her dad’s voice in her ear. It crackled as the stone around her disrupted the reception.
“Nothing but spiders and ghosts down here,” she whispered. “I’m going to . . . wait a minute.”
The corners of the staircase this far down were covered with spiderwebs, but not a single one crossed the stairs. Mara didn’t think that was from the spiders being polite. Someone had been down these stairs not long before. Didn’t mean it was Kolonov, but it meant she needed to keep going.
“What . . . it?” her dad said, breaking up.
“Someone came down here recently,” she said. “He might be down here. Copy?”
“. . . ara . . . come in . . .” And then the signal was gone completely.
She allowed herself to feel the frustration, but only for a second. She hated the idea that her dad and Anna might engage Scarvan at any minute and she’d be crawling around a cellar, far away from the action.
A noise came from below.
She stopped, wondering whether or not her footsteps had been too loud. Or if her whispered voice might have carried.
The noise came again.
A dragging sound. A grunt of exertion.
Definitely human.
Crouching even lower, Mara eased herself down the last few steps until she saw a landing on the bottom. The corridor ran both ways and she imagined it traced the outline of the villa above. Stacks of chairs lined the wall in front of her, protected against dust with cloth coverings.
One of the coverings had a swath of blood smeared across it.
Mara’s heart sank. Kolonov had not been injured. She was likely following one of his goons hiding out from the firefight above. If so, the man was not only worthless to her, but dangerous as well. A brutal combination.
Still, she had to be sure.
“Kolonov,” she called out. “Is that you?”
Shots erupted, deafening in the enclosed space of the cellar.
There were several lights strung overhead in the corridor and three switches at the base of the stairs. She put her hand on them.
“I’m just looking for Kolonov,” she said. “I’m trying to help him. I can help you. You’re injured. Let me assist you.”
“Kolonov not here,” came a voice, deep and edged with pain.
Mara wanted to believe the man, but that just wasn’t how things worked.
She clicked the lights off, sending the entire corridor into darkness. Staying low, she glanced around the corner and put the lights back on.
As she expected there to be, there was a man at the far end of the corridor, about thirty feet away. He slouched against the wall, left hand to his stomach, right hand hanging at his side, holding a gun.
Disoriented by the lights turning off and on, he was slow to react.
With great effort, he tried to raise his gun toward her, but without much success.
The man gave up and leaned harder into the wall.
“I said Kolonov not here.”
Mara caught movement behind the man. Her first thought was that it was Kolonov and the man had been covering for his employer. That split-second hesitation cost her.
Instead, someone else materialized from the shadows behind the man. Face covered by night-vision goggles, it didn’t register at first who she was looking at.
But as one hand reached out to the light switch at the far end of the hallway and the other raised a gun at the injured man before him, the alarm bells rang in her head.
Scarvan.
The lights went out and gunfire tore through the darkness.
Mara threw herself left, finding the opposite wall with her shoulder. Crouching down, she lifted her gun, recreating the scene from seconds before in her head.
Then she sprayed the corridor with an entire mag, thirteen shots sent downrange with a hope and a prayer, given that she couldn’t see a thing.
He had night vision.
The thought screamed at her and her body immediately reacted.
She barrel-rolled to her right, misjudging where the wall opened to the stairs, slamming her knee into the stone. She found the opening and scrambled into the stairwell. Her hands moved automatically, ejecting the magazine and slamming a new one home.
She considered trying the phone but decided against it. If the stone had cut off service halfway down, then it certainly wasn’t going to work now.
Scarvan was looking for Kolonov, just like she was. There was a chance he’d already found and killed the man. If that was the case, then he might pursue her. Kolonov was certainly still his primary target so, not finding him here, he would continue the search instead of tangling with her.
He was either already gone or creeping up the corridor toward her.
Playing it safe wasn’t in her blood, so she put a hand on the light switch. If Scarvan still had the night-vision gear on, the lights should blind him momentarily, giving her the advantage.
If she was lucky, she could get off a disabling shot before he recovered.
She took a deep breath, tensed her legs to propel herself forward, and then flipped on the lights.
Going from dark to light even disoriented her, but only for a split second. She covered the hall, staring down the end of her Glock’s sights, every nerve raw and ready.
Empty.
He’d taken option two and run the other direction, away from Mara. Which likely meant Kolonov was still alive.
She was about to run after him, hoping to at least track him through the footsteps in the fine coat of dust that covered everything, when she felt her hair stand on end.
Just thinking about tracking the footsteps made her look to the floor.
A single track was there, leading from the stairs down the corridor. Kolonov’s injured henchman.
But along the far wall, spaced far apart from someone running, was another set of prints.
Coming toward her. And past her.
She spun around, knowing her mistake was going to cost her.
She just didn’t realize how much.
CHAPTER 38
Scott wasn’t happy.
He’d lost coms with Mara not long after they’d separated. She was a big girl and could take care of herself, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
As he worked his way room-by-room on the second floor, he tried to tell himself he’d feel the same way if he was paired with any operative, that good coms were a requirement on a search-and-destroy mission through a building to be effective. But he knew that was only partly true. Yes, the lack of coms made the job harder and more dangerous. But as much as he tried to compartmentalize their professional roles, Mara was still his daughter. The anxiety over her safety was just a different level.
Scarvan had wreaked carnage
throughout the villa. The rooms were staged with museum-quality furnishings, ornate wood furniture resting on finely woven rugs. Oil paintings and tapestries depicting pastoral scenes. Even the ceilings were showcases of art, covered with plaster medallions and painted frescoes.
Only now, these rooms contained periodic tableaus of violent death. A splash of red blood against a wall. A toppled table, its contents now piled onto a hulking dead body with a halo of blood around it. Another room with a dead man sitting on a settee as if waiting for an audience with an important dignitary, except that his head was lolled back, exposing a knife slash across his throat deep enough to show his vertebrae.
Scott knew the stories about Jacobslav Scarvan and, unlike most tales told about his adversaries, he actually believed them.
It was why he believed that if the man’s intention was to bring massive devastation to the world order, Scott took it seriously.
The intensity with which he was settling his old scores first showed the man’s mania and his ruthlessness. But it also exposed a weakness. Each of the missions to exact his revenge put his larger mission at risk. That meant it was too personal with him. And Scott knew he had to find a way to use that to his advantage.
But he couldn’t do anything if he couldn’t find the man.
He reached the northwest corner of the villa. The turn to the right here brought him parallel to the street below and directly in line with the section destroyed by Scarvan’s explosive device. From here, the sirens on the street were distinct. They were close. The rubble that filled the courtyard entrance would keep them at bay for a while, but not for too long. Time was running out.
Scott cleared a bedroom, moving his gun from corner to corner, seeking out any sign of his target. He wanted Scarvan, but Kolonov would do for now. He just hoped to avoid some low-level henchman with an itchy trigger finger hiding under a bed or in a closet.
The next room was only half there. The other half lay in a pile of brick, plaster, and red roof tiles one floor below. A gap nearly twenty feet across opened between one side of the villa and the other. Somehow, the wall on the street side had remained mostly intact, but the roof was gone, exposing the open sky above.
Some of the most flammable materials had either burned or were still smoldering, filling the air on both sides with a heavy smoke that swirled in the slight breeze coming from above.