by Tom Grace
The boy was strong and healthy, his body fought for any advantage it could wrestle from Palmer’s drugs. It detected the change in chemistry as soon as the first molecules reached his brain. A layer of mental fog slowly thinned. The ghost that inhabited the physical machinery of his body—the collection of thoughts, emotions, and memories that defined the boy—felt disconnected flickers of sensory input. The charges flashed like static off the wool blanket on his bed on a dry winter night. His mind groped its way in the darkness, the impotent sparks like fireflies in place of the noonday sun.
“Open your eyes,” Palmer said gently.
Young’s eyes twitched and fluttered, his mind reacquiring rudimentary control of a few facial muscles. Eventually they settled in position slightly above half open. Both pupils dilated equally, which Palmer recognized as a good sign. Young stared absently at the underside of the van’s roof.
“That’s better. I have an exciting night planned,” Palmer said. “You and I are going to pick up your mother. She will be so pleased to join us at long last.”
Palmer tousled the boy’s hair, then buckled himself into the driver’s seat and switched on the van’s electric motor. The vehicle was eerily silent. He put the van in gear and headed back toward the lane that fronted Toccare’s beach house.
Lights off, he rolled at a crawl up the road and parked near the corner of the lot beside a wooden utility pole. He began mapping the wiring leading to the beach house. That it was the only home occupied on that side of the road made it easy to identify lines drawing significant power. Palmer then noted the same problem he had encountered at the Young farm. Toccare’s property contained a collection of separate buildings and the wiring to these ran underground. Wiring looping in and out of a small building near the main house indicated the presence of an emergency generator. The shunt-trip breakers and surge protection accompanying such equipment could again affect the pulse from his disruptor.
The number of variables involved in breaching the estate’s perimeter, entering the house and regaining Deena stymied Palmer for a moment. But as Alexander the Great solved the problem of the Gordian knot by slicing through it, so Palmer would attack the problem directly.
“Sometimes,” Palmer said to the boy as he retrieved the suppressed pistol and a spare magazine from a concealed storage compartment, “the simplest solution is best.”
He switched on the van’s headlights and drove up to the gated entrance of Toccare’s property. Lights tied to motion detectors immediately switched on, illuminating the van. A guardhouse abutted the hedge, concealed discreetly from the road. He honked and soon saw the guardhouse door open. Just as one of Toccare’s men stepped out, Palmer discharged the disruptor. Static crackled and the complex electrical field generated by Palmer’s invention incapacitated the man. The guard fell, blocking the door open with his body.
Palmer initiated a recharge of the capacitors powering his disruptor—it would take several minutes before the device could be fired again. He exited the van. As he stepped over the fallen guard, he fired once into the man’s head, then proceeded inside.
The room immediately inside the door had a wall covered by a large board with dozens of numbered hooks. A pair of wooden bar stools were tucked beneath a narrow built-in desk, and an open closet featured a row of coat hooks and a storage shelf. A box on the shelf read VALET TAGS.
This room is for the hired help during the summer party season, Palmer deduced before moving on.
Down a hallway, he noticed a strobe-like flickering in one of the doorways. He approached the opening with a pistol held level in a two-handed grip—eyes and pistol always tracking in tandem. Turning at the doorway, Palmer saw a second guard slumped in a desk chair. The man sat at a wall-mounted work surface before an array of flat screen monitors. The disruptor surge had momentarily interfered with the signals from the estate’s closed-circuit cameras. Palmer aimed at the side of the man’s head and fired. At this range, the 9mm bullet drilled straight through the guard’s head, ricocheted off the floor and lodged into the wall.
Exiting the security office, Palmer searched the remainder of the building. In the break room, he found six unconscious men either seated or toppled around a poker table. He ground a smoldering cigar into the carpet and put a bullet into each of the men.
The attic level of the guardhouse was a large open room with dormers. The two remaining men sat in comfortable lounge chairs in front of a static-filled flat screen television, both unconscious. A DVD case on the table indicated that they had chosen a Tarantino film. Palmer ended each man’s life with a shot to the forehead, then replaced the pistol’s empty magazine with the loaded spare.
From the darkened attic, Palmer stared through a dormer window at the main house. The lights were still on. Then a phone rang, and he quickly followed the sound downstairs to the main security office. Caller ID indicated someone inside Toccare’s library was on the other end. Palmer ignored the phone and considered his next move.
The monitors came back online with feeds from the estate’s security cameras. Palmer studied the images and determined that only Deena and three men remained inside the main house. The phone stopped ringing.
Palmer pulled the key ring off the dead man in the security office and opened the armory. Any hope of a vast arsenal laden with every fire-breathing, projectile blasting weapon known to man quickly evaporated. What Palmer found instead was a respectable assortment of pistols, small automatic weapons, and short-barreled shotguns. And in addition to ample supplies of ammunition for each weapon, he discovered several ballistic vests and half a dozen stun grenades. He donned one of the vests, grabbed a Beretta PM12-S2, several preloaded magazines of ammunition, and the stun grenades.
On his way out of the guardhouse, Palmer pressed the button to open the main gate. It parted, revealing the closing distance of his long journey. He put the van in gear and drove slowly up the driveway. Seashell fragments crunched beneath the tires as he moved closer to his goal.
SIXTY-TWO
“Damn!” Nolan said as the lights flickered throughout Toccare’s beach house. He was on his feet.
“Don’t worry about it,” Toccare said. “That’s just the emergency generator kicking in. A squirrel probably fried his nuts on a transformer.”
“Maybe, but just a few hours ago, I was in a farm house and right after the lights flickered like that, Palmer attacked.”
“No way,” Toccare said dismissively.
“Don’t underestimate Palmer. Deena says he’s some kind of mad genius.”
“Even if by some miracle he did manage to track her here, I got ten armed men guarding the place. He wouldn’t get past the front gate.”
“It might be nothing, but I just saw two quick flashes of light in a window of the building by the front gate.”
“If it’ll calm your nerves, I’ll check.”
Toccare picked up the phone and tapped the four-digit code for the guardhouse. He let it ring several times. No one answered.
“I see a pair of headlights moving up the drive,” Nolan said.
“Come with me,” Toccare said.
Nolan followed Toccare to a small, windowless room just inside the servant’s wing. Four flat screen monitors were mounted on one wall, each cycled through images from the security cameras. Toccare quickly cycled one of the screens through cameras on the property, stopping when he caught sight of the approaching vehicle.
“That’s not one of mine,” Toccare said
“It’s Palmer. It had a different logo on the side, but it’s the same kind of van.”
“What the fuck is that thing on the roof? Looks like a flying saucer.”
“Not sure, but he used something to knock out a dairy farmer and a lot of cows. That could be it.”
Toccare cycled through several more camera feeds, stopping at one near the main gate. Both the gate and the door to the guardhouse stood open. He zoomed in on a shadowy mass lying in the guardhouse doorway and recognized one of his guar
ds. The man’s head was surrounded by a halo of blood.
“Son of a bitch killed my man,” Toccare growled.
“I’d bet he killed all of your men, just to take them out of play.”
“He’s not getting in my house without a fight. You know how to shoot?”
“Yeah. What have you got?”
Toccare opened a door in the back wall of the room to reveal a walk-in gun safe. Built-in cabinets lined the walls. The lower half was a mix of closed doors and drawers, the upper half openly displayed an impressive collection of vintage and contemporary shotguns, rifles, pistols, and revolvers. The room included a neat, well-lit workstation for maintaining the firearms.
“The weapons my security uses are kept in the guard house. This is my personal collection for hunting and sport shooting. Take your choice.”
Toccare opted for a 12 gauge Benelli Super Black Eagle II and quickly inspected the weapon. Nolan perused the racks and settled on a classic Winchester Model ‘95.
“You going after big game?” Toccare asked.
“If this was good enough for Teddy Roosevelt on safari, then it’s good enough for me. And if that thing on Palmer’s roof put down all of your men, I don’t want to give Palmer a chance to use it on us.”
“Good thinking. The cartridges are in the cabinet under the rack.”
Nolan quickly checked the rifle’s mechanics, getting a feel for the weapon before loading it with the powerful .30-06 Springfield rounds.
“Here,” Toccare said, handing Nolan a Beretta pistol. “In case you need a back up.”
Nolan checked the safety and pocketed the pistol. He and Toccare then rechecked the security monitors for the van’s progress up the driveway.
SIXTY-THREE
“We’re almost there,” Roxanne said. “Thanks for your help.”
“Just holler if you need anything,” Grin replied, his voice piped via Bluetooth through the Mustang’s sound system. “I’ll sit tight until I know you and Nolan are safe.”
Roxanne slowed as they glided down the winding, narrow lane. After running the length of Long Island well over the posted speed limit, the muscle car’s engine hovered just above idle speed.
“The address your associate provided is ahead on the right,” Peng said.
The light from the Mustang’s headlamps grazed the dense hedges that shielded the beach estates. A break in the wall of foliage had revealed a discreet sign indicating only the property’s street address. As they approached the driveway, they noted that the gate had been left wide open.
“A vehicle is moving toward the main house,” Peng said.
“I see it.”
She switched off the Mustang’s lights and turned into the driveway. Then she saw a man’s body lying in the guardhouse doorway.
“If your criminal associates brought Dr. Hawthorne here for safe keeping,” Tao said, “they aren’t doing a very good job.”
“Palmer appears quite formidable. Keep watch while I search this building.”
Roxanne lowered her window to better hear her surroundings as Peng slipped into the guardhouse. He returned a few minutes later.
“What did you find?” she asked.
“Many dead men—all shot at close range in the head. No indication they resisted. I found an open room with weapons. Palmer is armed. Also, I believe this gate was left open for a reason—this is the only way a vehicle can leave the property. We should deny Palmer this path.”
“I’ll pull ahead. See if you can close the gate and I’ll block it with the car. Find us some weapons, too.”
Peng nodded and returned to the guardhouse. As soon as Roxanne pulled clear of the gate, it swung closed. She tested the tightness of the Mustang’s turning radius by maneuvering the car into a parallel position almost touching the gate. As she stepped out of the car and locked it behind her, Peng returned with a pair of Beretta submachine guns and extra magazines.
“Xie xie,” Roxanne said reflexively as she checked the Beretta and looped the strap around her shoulders.
“You are welcome,” Peng replied with a faint smile.
Roxanne studied the deep landscaped lawn between them and the beach house. She had thankfully changed into her running clothes—a decision that now seemed prescient. She pocketed the extra ammunition and pulled out her phone.
“With Palmer here, I must call the FBI,” she explained. “I’ll try to keep you out of this, officially, so to speak.”
“We are well beyond the boundaries of official sanction. Make the call.”
Roxanne understood why Nolan liked the pragmatic Peng. She selected a direct dial number for the Sandman team at the FBI’s New York office.
“Special Agent Hunley, please,” she said to the young man who answered the phone. “Tell him it’s Roxanne Tao.”
Barely a few seconds passed before Hunley was on the line.
“Any news, Miss Tao?”
“Palmer is in Stonehampton, as is, I believe, the woman he’s after.”
“What’s the address? I’ll have a tactical team airborne in five minutes.”
Roxanne recited the street address from memory. “It’s a beach house on a huge piece of property. I’ve blocked the front gate to make it hard for Palmer to get away.”
“We’re bringing up some aerial images right now. Big place, all right. Plenty of room to land a helicopter,” Hunley paused as he read a crawl of property information running across the screen. “This place belongs to Dante Toccare, the mobster?”
“Toccare?” Roxanne asked Peng.
Peng nodded.
“Toccare is involved, so I guess that’s right,” Roxanne replied.
“Got it. My team is about ready to go wheels-up. We’ll be there in an hour.”
“Faster would be better. Palmer’s pulling up to the house now.”
“Understood.”
Hunley rang off and Roxanne pocketed her phone.
“Unless something has changed, I believe Palmer is working alone,” she said to Peng. “We are dealing with an armed man who is holding a young boy hostage and help is an hour away. We don’t know how many people are in the house or what they have to defend themselves.”
“Our role is clear,” he replied. “Help Kilkenny in any way we can and prevent Palmer from escaping.”
Roxanne nodded and led their stealthy dash toward the beach house.
SIXTY-FOUR
Nolan stood in the darkened library studying the approaching van as Toccare moved through the house switching off lights.
“I told Walter and Deena what’s happening and to stay out of sight,” Toccare said when he returned to Nolan’s side. He looked out the window at the approaching van. “Why’s he taking so long?”
“After what he did to your men, you want him to get here sooner?”
“Not what I meant.”
“Everything Palmer does has purpose. Teasing this out may be nothing more than him trying to unnerve us—”
“Done.”
“Or something to do with how he’ll attack. He knows that we’re waiting for him.”
Palmer’s van followed a gentle curve on the driveway and its headlights washed the library window. Both Nolan and Toccare pulled aside into the shadows. Nolan noted an odd distortion as the light passed through the window glazing, then noticed the thickness of the glass. He rapped a knuckle against the pane.
“Are these bullet resistant?”
Toccare nodded. “Just like the White House. Cuts my insurance rate for hurricane damage, too—we do get some bad storms out here.”
“Good to know. I got an idea. Can you trigger the garage doors without Palmer seeing you?”
“Yeah, sure. Why?”
“Once his van gets past the door farthest from the house, I want you to open it, like we’re making a break for it. I think it’ll make him stop. Then I’ll take out that thing on his roof.”
Toccare nodded and disappeared into the east wing of the house that connected to his six-car garage. Nola
n ascended a service stair to the second floor and found a bedroom window overlooking the forecourt and driveway. He carefully slid the bottom half of the double hung window open, the increased weight of the sash more than offset by counterweights in the walls.
With the window slightly open, he could hear the approach of Palmer’s van on the crushed-shell driveway. In the shadows of the bedroom, he stood and took aim through the narrow slot between the open sash and the sill. Palmer’s van entered the forecourt and rolled past the first of the garage doors.
On cue, the sixth door began to rise as the van passed and a spray of light appeared in the growing opening. The van abruptly stopped. Palmer shifted into reverse and moved to bar any attempt to escape. Toccare swung from behind the pier between the fifth and sixth garage doors and took aim at Palmer through the driver’s side window. Palmer looked straight at him and Toccare squeezed the trigger.
The Benelli bucked in Toccare’s hands and let loose a tight spray of double-aught buckshot. He racked another round and fired again. Thirty steel spheres the size of chickpeas peppered the van’s window and door. Holes appeared in the sheet metal skin, but the glazing in the driver’s window was barely scratched. Palmer stared back at Toccare then smiled with an amused chuckle.
Dumbfounded by Toccare’s bold move, Nolan paused for a second, and then fired at the toroid-shaped device. The heavy round punched into his target’s outer metallic casing. Nolan followed the first shot quickly with two more. Arcs of blue-white plasma sprang from the damaged toroid accompanied by a low, droning hum of electrical discharge. Strobe-like flashes illuminated the van’s interior.
Palmer turned from Toccare—who had fled back into the house closing the garage door behind him—and looked up in the direction of Nolan’s fire. He spotted the partially open window just as Nolan fired again, this time at Palmer’s head. The .30-06 round hammered into the windshield at a speed just shy of two thousand miles-per-hour and abruptly stopped. The windshield around the point of impact turned opaque from crazing in the layers of the bullet-resistant sheet. The deformed steel slug imbedded itself in the center of the damage.