“Yes, sir,” Lehman answered. They asked if they could maintain a communications link with us from another location.”
Dunn shook his head. “Not a chance. Until this is resolved, its Bureau-personnel only on comms.”
“Yes, sir,” Lehman answered. He looked over his shoulder. “Words out about what went down at the hospital. How’s Chris?”
The men watched Hanover open the doors to the second and third SUVs. He stepped aside as Emma and Aiden jumped out of the second escort vehicle, hugged their mother, then followed Marissa into the house. Paula Quest exited the third car, followed by her husband, David. Jordan joined her in-laws. Chris accompanied them into her parents’ home.
“Hanover’s Hanover,” Dunn replied. “No need to worry about him. The man’s as tough as they come.”
“Do we know who attacked him and Mrs. Quest?”
“Not yet,” Dunn replied. “Hospital CCTV’s pics weren’t clear. Quantico’s working on it.”
Carter surveyed over the property. “This place is enormous. There’s a ton of ground to cover. You want us inside or out, sir?”
“Out,” Dunn said. “You’ll take the rear and east side of the estate. Lehman, you’ve got the front and west. Hanover, Carnevale and I will be inside with the family. We’ll be checking comms frequently. Stay sharp.”
“Yes, sir.” The agents took up their assigned positions.
Andrew Dunn walked up the steps to the landing and watched the two LAPD escort vehicles exit the main gate. Carter and Lehman were right. The property was massive. He considered calling the Bureau to request additional personnel but changed his mind.
They had taken every precaution. Multiple units had been used to transport the family. Evasive driving procedures ensured they hadn’t been followed. The grounds had been vetted by a trusted advance team. He was worrying over nothing. The Quests were safe now and would remain so. He had called in favors and put all available resources into finding whoever was responsible for the death of the Farrows and the attempt on Jordan’s life. He wondered if he would have exerted the same degree of effort had the target been anyone other than Jordan Quest. Had he allowed himself to become compromised? Was he trying to keep the woman alive simply because she was a target in danger and that was his job, or was there more to it than that? Was it because she was Jordan Quest, the acclaimed psychic… and the only person he knew with the ability to shorten the window to help him locate his missing daughters? That was the truth, and it made him feel ashamed. But he was a father first, and nothing was more important to him than the safe return of his beautiful girls. If he had to compromise himself professionally to make that happen, so be it.
He stood under the portico and watched Carter round the west corner of the estate and disappear out of sight.
For reasons he couldn’t explain he drew his weapon and held it at his side. Thirty ounces of cold comfort.
Once again, he reminded himself that all precautions had been taken.
Trust your team.
God dammit Shannon, Zoe… where are you?
“Director Dunn?” Marissa DeSola stood in the doorway, a cup of hot coffee in her hand. The aroma was enticing. “Please, come inside,” she said. “I’ve put out some food. You and your men need to eat.”
“That’s very kind of you, ma’am,” Dunn replied. “Thank you. I’ll be right there.”
Marissa smiled. “De nada,” she said. “No problem.”
Despite the rain and the coming thunderstorm, the night seemed preternaturally still.
Dunn holstered his weapon and followed her into the house.
He couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched.
Thwup. Thwup.
Two rounds left the silencer of Rigel’s sniper rifle seconds apart and found their targets on the east and west grounds of the estate.
In an instant, FBI Special Agents Carter and Lehman fell dead.
43
THE TRIO KEPT LOW, moving cautiously through the forest until they reached the edge of the clearing. Emmett’s car, a late model Chevy Impala, was parked in the dirt driveway facing the road. The ATV’s sat in the backyard.
“I’m going for the car,” Zoe whispered to Shannon. “With any luck, the old man was dumb enough to leave the keys in the ignition.”
“And if he didn’t?” Shannon asked.
“I’ll hot wire it.”
“Do you even know how to hot wire a car?”
Zoe nodded. “My birth dad’s car was a piece of junk. It had no keys. No biggie. If you know which wires to cross, you’re good to go.”
Ahead in the damp grass, Shannon spied the stun stick she had dropped when she’d run back to help Zoe. She crept out of the clearing, retrieved the weapon, gave it to Lily.
“You know how to use this?” Shannon asked the girl.
“Yes,” Lily replied.
“Good. If we get separated and someone catches you, ram it straight down their throat.”
“Or up somewhere else,” Lily replied.
Zoe smiled at Lily. “Now who’s the badass?”
The girl smiled back. “I am.”
“Damn straight.”
“Now what?” Shannon asked.
Zoe opened her backpack, removed the emergency radio, set the volume level to zero, then rapidly cranked its charging handle, powering up its internal generator. The display glowed. “You two run to the back of the stables. Wait for me there.”
“What are you going to do?” Shannon asked.
“Create a diversion,” Zoe said. “When I do, all hell’s gonna break loose. They’re going to come after us. When you hear me call out don’t hesitate for a second. You haul ass to the car, and we get out of here. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good. All set?”
Shannon and Lily nodded.
“Go!”
Zoe ran straight ahead through the open field towards the back of the house. Shannon and Lily ran to the stables. Zoe slid to a stop under the kitchen window. She could hear the voices of the men inside, muted by the teeming rain. They were arguing, each blaming the other for losing their hostages in the dark woods. Lightning raked the low clouds. A tremendous boom sounded above her, so powerful that Zoe felt the concussive pressure of the thunderclap in her chest. The electrified air made her skin tingle. When she saw Shannon and Lily had made it safely to the stables, she executed her plan. She crawled on her hands and knees to the opposite end of the house. She’d already calculated approximately how much time she would need to run from where she sat crouched under the back porch to the car: eight seconds. If she tripped and fell or lost her footing and slipped on the wet grass, it would be game over for all of them. The success of her plan relied one hundred percent on her making it to the car in time. Zoe peered over the edge of the porch. All clear. She placed the radio on the wooden deck, pointed it toward the kitchen window, cranked the volume control knob all the way up and turned it on.
Bon Jovi’s, ‘Livin on a Prayer’ blasted out of the speaker.
Zoe ran as fast as she could. She circled the house and made it to the old Chevy.
The car was unlocked, the driver’s side window left down. No keys were in the ignition. Zoe jumped into the rain-soaked front seat, closed the door behind her, tucked her head down and reached under the steering wheel.
The music stopped playing.
Someone had found the radio, turned it off.
She fumbled in the dark. Where were the damn wires?
Zoe froze upon hearing the voice outside the vehicle. “I figured it was you.”
She raised her head.
A man stood at the door; his shotgun aimed directly at her. “Out of the car,” he said.
Zoe slowly sat up in the seat. The man was in his early twenties, tall, well built, with a hard, angular face and cold, deep-set eyes. Zoe stared at him. “Just curious,” she said. “Are you Ben or the other dipshit brother… Basil?”
“Does it matter?”
&
nbsp; “Does to me.”
The man set the shotgun muzzle on the window frame. “Why?”
“I want to know who’s left,” Zoe said. In one smooth motion she yanked up on the seat adjustment lever, collapsed the seatback of driver’s chair, pulled the Walther PPK out of her waistband, and fired several bullets through the door panel, then threw open the door, rushed out of the car, jammed the gun into the man’s stomach as he fell and emptied the remaining rounds into him. Dead, Zoe searched his pockets and found what she was looking for.
Shannon heard the gunshots and looked around the corner of the stable. Zoe was on the ground, straddling the man’s body.
Zoe saw her and called out: “Catch!” She threw the dead man’s cell phone to her sister. “Take Lily. Get as far away from here as you can, then call the police.”
Shannon caught the phone. “What about you?”
Zoe heard footsteps running across the back porch, coming her way. “Don’t worry about me,” she yelled. “I’ll find you. Go!”
44
HARRISON TASKER CONSIDERED making a move on the motorcade, cutting off the lead car, shooting it out with the agents assigned to protect the family, opening the doors to each vehicle and riddling its passengers with bullets, photographing the dead bodies of Jordan Quest and her family and emailing them to New York as proof he had completed of the first half of his contract, then pursuing Rigel, finding and killing him too, and finishing the job.
This was what he wanted to do. But in his state of waning vitality, he instead chose to follow the detail at a distance.
The same car that had pulled out of the apartment complex when he drove past Angel of Mercy Hospital was still ahead of him as they exited the interstate. Now four car lengths ahead, it followed the black SUV’s around the corner and down a long winding road flanked on either side by multimillion-dollar mansions. Most of the homes were occupied. Others were still under construction.
Tasker stopped the Mustang at the corner and watched the vehicle drive down the road. Was this nondescript car part of the motorcade? He hadn’t thought so. Perhaps it was an unmarked follow vehicle, its officers assigned to trail the detail, report on any suspicious traffic activity, and warn them if they thought the motorcade had picked up a tail.
Taskers suspicions were quashed when the car turned on its signal light and pulled into the driveway of an estate home under construction. Perhaps the vehicle belonged to a contractor checking on the progress of his workers. Coincidence. He watched the motorcade continue to the end of the street, drive through a pair of open gates, climb a hill, and park under the portico at the main entrance to the grand home. He realized he would need a better vantage point if he was to observe the activity taking place at the mansion. Tasker drove ahead and turned down an adjoining street which ran parallel to the road on which the brightly lit mansion was located. This street too was lined with luxury homes in similar phases of development. He chose a home for which construction was near completion, pulled into the driveway, and turned off the car. Rain battered the roof and windshield of the Mustang. Painfully he reached over, opened the glove box, and removed the night vision monocular. Summoning his strength, he forced open the car door and pulled himself out of the vehicle.
The unfinished mansion stood like a monolith against the backdrop of the bleak rain-battered night. A concrete balcony surrounded the building. Tasker struggled up the front steps, followed the landing around to the back of the house and peered through the monocular at the massive property.
Three men stood on the front steps of the estate. One of them appeared to be in charge, giving instructions, pointing to either side of the mansion. Tasker watched two of the men walk off in opposite directions; one to the west side of the estate, the other the east. The man on the front steps watched the motorcade leave, then removed his weapon and held it at his side. But why? Had something spooked him? Tasker scanned the estate for signs of movement but saw only the two men patrolling their assigned sectors. The grounds were quiet. A woman appeared in the doorway and spoke to the man in charge. He acknowledged her, then holstered his weapon and followed her into the house, but not before taking a long last look around.
Tasker surveyed the grounds once more, saw nothing.
A wooded hillside flanked the estate. Tasker slowly scanned the forested area with the monocular. A fiery heat signature blazed into view. The figure stood against a tree, arms elevated, head forward, body locked. Tasker recognized the shooting stance. The man who had been standing on the steps had reason to be concerned. He was in danger.
Tasker couldn’t hear the shots being fired. The silencer flared twice. The monocular caught the orange trail of the first bullet as it ejected from the weapon, followed by the second. The figure lowered the weapon, relaxed his stance, and began to walk through the woods toward the estate.
Tasker swept the monocular back toward the mansion, following the flight path of the rounds.
Two men lay on the ground, shot by the sniper, presumably dead.
“Rigel,” he said.
He returned the monocular to his jacket pocket, shuffled back along the landing, and struggled down the steps back to the Mustang.
He needed to get to the estate as quickly as his wounded body would allow, find Rigel, and kill him.
Somehow.
45
EMMETT AND BASIL ran from the back porch to the front of the house upon hearing the gunfire and stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of Ben laying crumpled on the ground beside the old Chevy. Zoe stared at the men, pointed her gun at them, fired.
Click.
Zoe felt her stomach drop. Seconds ago, in the moment of composed panic when she’d come face-to-face with Ben’s shotgun and fired through the car door panel to save her life, she had forgotten to count her shots. Every last round had been expended into Ben. The gun was empty.
Emmett yelled: “You fucking bitch!”
Zoe dove on top of Ben’s blood-soaked body for cover as the old man fired. The round whizzed past her ear. She fumbled in her pocket for the spare bullets. She could hear the old man and his son walking down the steps towards the car.
Emmett yelled above the teeming rain. “I’m gonna take my time with you, missy.”
Zoe ejected the clip from the gun, fished several of the bullets out of her pocket, tried to reload the clip, couldn’t. Fingers slick with mud, blood, and rain, she dropped both the magazine and the rounds. The men were less than twenty feet away. They would be on her at any second. No time to search for the bullets.
“Y’all didn’t just kill my boy and my nephew,” Emmett continued, spitting away the rivers of rain trickling down his face and seeping into the corners of his mouth. “Ya’ll fucked up my payday.”
Fifteen feet away…
“You know what you and your sister were worth?” Emmett yelled.
A bolt of lightning flashed across the sky. Zoe felt the ground shake beneath her as a peal of thunder shattered the night.
Ten feet away…
“Twenty-five grand,” Emmett yelled. “That was our cut. Twenty-five-thousand dollars. For a simple snatch-and-grab.”
Nine feet away…
“Your daddy made himself some downright nasty enemies during his time in the F-B-I. We didn’t give a shit about you. You two were just… what they call it? Payback.”
Eight feet away now. Basil had separated from his father. He was approaching Zoe from the other side of the vehicle.
Then she saw it.
Under the Chevy.
Ben’s shotgun.
Six feet away…
Zoe stretched out her arm, clawed at the gun, raked her fingers across the stock, caught the trigger guard, pulled it towards her, and grabbed hold of the weapon with both hands.
Three feet away…
Zoe heard the sucking sound of the men’s shoes as they sunk into the wet muddy ground.
“I’m gonna find out what you taste like, girl,” Emmett said. “Gonna peel you ba
ck, layer by layer…”
Zoe pulled herself out from under the car and rolled onto her back. She clutched the shotgun against her chest.
Emmett again. “… take you right down to the bone.”
Zoe leveled the shotgun and waited.
Fight or flight.
Life or death.
Live.
As the old man rounded the corner, Zoe pulled the trigger. The blast lifted him off his feet and sent him traveling through the air. Emmett landed flat on his back six feet away, very dead.
Without hesitation, Zoe scampered to her knees and threw herself against the side of the car for balance. She turned the weapon on Basil but could not react fast enough. The man fired. The bullet ripped through her right shoulder. As the shotgun fell from her grasp, she managed to catch the trigger and squeeze off one last shot. The upward trajectory of the round caught Basil in the neck, decapitating him instantly. His body stood in front of Zoe momentarily, hands and fingers twitching, then fell. Zoe turned away from the ghastly sight.
She recalled hearing a ping after Basil’s bullet tore through her shoulder. She struggled to her feet and inspected the section of the door against which she had been sitting and found the bullet hole.
Basil’s round had passed through her shoulder and into the door, a through-and-through. No bullet was lodged in her shoulder. Thank God for small mercies.
Zoe surveyed the corpses around her. “You two got off lucky,” she said.
Live.
She yelled, her words drowned out by the fierce rain. “Shannon… Lily… where are you?”
No response.
She had last seen them last running south, away from the stables, toward the county road.
Zoe picked Basil’s semiautomatic pistol up off the ground, wiped away the mud, checked the clip. Full. She grabbed her waterlogged backpack, slung it over her shoulder, shoved the weapon into her waistband, and started down the road in search of Shannon and Lily.
46
The Jordan Quest FBI Thriller Series: Books 1-3: The Jordan Quest FBI Thriller Series Boxset Book 1 Page 18