by Tom Grace
SIXTY-FIVE
Palmer dove from the driver’s seat into the rear of the van, using his body to shield Kirk Young from the shower of sparks raining down from what remained of his disruptor. He swatted at those that had fallen on the boy, flicking away embers that might burn any exposed skin.
The boy did not stir, uncomprehending of the sounds of gunfire or the damage to the van. His conscious mind detected only the faintest impressions of the world around him. Movement appeared as streaks of light and dark. Sound distant and muffled. He felt pressure against his body, but could not associate the sensation as contact, as touch. Palmer’s chemistry made the boy’s mind a prisoner in his own body.
The sparking quickly subsided as the capacitors discharged. Palmer unfastened the Velcro straps and maneuvered the boy into a seated position on the van floor. The boy offered no resistance and, once set, remained in place.
“I’m going to move you,” Palmer said clearly, “so your mother can see you.”
He carefully lifted the boy, placed him in the passenger seat and buckled him in place.
“Your real mother is in that house. I bet you’d like to talk to her.”
Kirk stared vacantly at the darkened mansion and offered no reply.
“Say: Yes, father.”
The boy’s mouth opened awkwardly as if its use was unfamiliar to him.
“Yes-s-s, fa-ther,” the boy parroted back.
“Good.”
Palmer pulled out the circular seat in the back of the van and went to work on his equipment. He first powered down any remaining elements of the disruptor, safely rendering the device inactive. The safeguards he had built into the van protected the rest of his equipment from a catastrophic failure.
A scan of electromagnetic signals in the broadcast spectrum radiating from the house revealed a satellite television system, a Wi-Fi network and four cellular phones. He noticed two additional cell phones in close proximity but not inside the house. Panning back on a wireframe plan of the estate, Palmer noted the phones were halfway across the front lawn and heading toward his position.
A preprogrammed routine interrogated the cell phones, extracting system ID codes, electronic serial numbers, mobile ID numbers, and the names of the phone’s owners. Of the two phones approaching on the lawn, one belonged to a Roxanne Tao and the other was a disposable burner phone. Deena and her father owned two of the cell phones inside the house. Dante Toccare’s name came up for the third phone, but the name associated with the fourth, to Palmer’s surprise, was Nolan Kilkenny and not Grant Egan.
Palmer selected Kilkenny’s name, which initiated an Internet search. A page drawn from the MARC website appeared with a photo of Kilkenny and a brief biography. The image matched the man Palmer knew as Egan. Kilkenny managed high technology projects for the consortium in fields ranging from quantum physics to biotechnology and possessed a resume of scientific and engineering experience Palmer had to grudgingly respect.
Palmer hacked the estate’s network and worked his way into the server that managed its VoIP phone system. He quickly located a list of the physical and IP locations for every phone on the property and selected the one labeled Library/Office. The van’s speakers emitted the dull electric purr of a phone ringing. It rang several times with no answer.
Palmer leaned over the driver’s seat and flashed his lights at the house. He saw shadows move behind the glass, and a sudden click on the line meant his summons had been answered.
“What do you want?” Toccare growled.
“Mr. Toccare, I presume. Are the others with you?” Palmer asked.
“No.”
“You have ten seconds to fetch them. What I have to say is for all concerned parties with an interest in survival.”
Palmer heard footsteps through the phone handset as Toccare left the library. Through what clear patches of the windshield remained, he saw a shadow pass the front door sidelite. The library phone faintly captured Toccare’s shout in the two-story foyer.
“Hey, that sick fuck outside wants to talk to all of us. Kilkenny, bring ‘em down the back way, but hustle.”
The footsteps grew louder as Toccare returned to the library. Palmer heard an electronic click, then the sound of additional footsteps.
“We’re all here,” Toccare said. “And I got you on speaker. So, again I ask, what do you want?”
“I want my beloved Deena.”
“You can’t have my daughter,” Jamison shouted.
“I’m not yours,” Deena said in a quavering voice.
“Have we been apart so long that you’ve forgotten what we meant to each other?” Palmer asked. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you. Still, I understand that we are not the same people we were the last time we saw each other, so much water under the bridge, so to speak.”
“I remember what you did, what you took from me.”
“Ah, but I have found what you took from me, the child that we created together—our offspring. If you look out the window, Deena, you just might see him sitting here beside me. We have a handsome son, surely the best of both of us.”
“What have you done to him?” Deena pleaded.
“To him? Nothing. But for him, why I have restored his birthright—the truth of his lineage. It is my obligation as his father and his right as our son.”
“But he’s not our son!”
“I understand,” Palmer said soothingly. “You were alone and with child, doubtless feeling confused and abandoned. You did what you thought was best, and I forgive you for not having faith that we would be reunited—that I would be there for you and our son. I am here for you now, we both are. What happens next is up to you.”
“Are you offering us a choice?” Nolan asked.
“Ah, the fourth member of your little group. I don’t know the exact nature of your relationship with my lady, but is she aware that you have not been honest about who you really are?”
“She knows who I am and my relationship with your lady is simply to protect her from you.”
“Your performance, thus far, has been less than stellar” Palmer chided.
“Sorry about your van,” Nolan shot back.
“It served its purpose. We are at something of an impasse. I propose that in exchange for your lives, Deena returns to me.”
“Not a chance,” Nolan said.
“Toccare, I assume that you have something suitable for family transportation in your vast garage—an SUV perhaps. If you’d be so kind as to give Deena the keys and open the door. Do this, and my family and I will be on our way to a new life and this whole ordeal will be over.”
Palmer noted on the display that the two cell phones moving across the lawn had slowed as they neared his position.
“I give you thirty seconds before I withdraw my offer and things become unpleasant.”
“Like you’ve been a joy to deal with so far?” Nolan asked.
“My proposition is an all-or-nothing deal. I either leave with what I came for, or I’m the only one who leaves.”
“You’d kill the boy?” Deena stammered.
“A boy needs his mother,” Palmer replied
“Palmer,” Nolan said, his voice steely, “if anything happens to Kirk Young, I will kill you.”
Palmer heard an abrupt click and then a dial tone.
“Well, son, I believe we have our answer.”
He switched off the phone connection, then accessed the power company’s electronic meters and cut the main power feed to the estate. Sensing the abrupt loss of power, a backup generator immediately came on. Palmer hacked the estate’s network and plunged it into complete darkness, leaving power only for the Wi-Fi nodes. The van’s headlights eerily illuminated the once-grand foyer.
Palmer retrieved a contractor’s tool bag from a rear storage bin and the weapons he took from Hank Young and the estate’s guardhouse. He stowed the weapons and ammunition in the bag and wedged it between the front seats. He then switched off the air bags and checked that t
he boy was securely in place.
After buckling himself into the driver’s seat, Palmer switched on the high beams, put the transmission into drive and depressed the accelerator to the floor. The electric motors nested within the van’s four wheels quickly spun up to speed, transforming electricity into motive power. The tires struggled to find purchase against the crushed shell drive, and the van slid sideways until all four found a solid grip.
Palmer and the boy were both pressed back into their seats as the van surged forward. He corrected for the initial drift and aimed the van directly at the house’s inviting front door. A low granite slab served as a front step—an obstacle the van could easily surmount. At the outer corners of the rectangular slab stood a pair of Ionic columns that supported a pediment roof above the door. Palmer aimed the van into the space between the two columns.
The van raced across the forecourt, the facade of the house growing larger by the second. Palmer gritted his teeth and tensed as the van hit the granite step. The impact was bone jarring. Both side mirrors snapped free of the doors, sheared off by the sturdy wooden columns.
In the final second, all Palmer could see through the damaged windshield was the wide front door and its side and transom lights. The nose of the van crumpled against the wood panel door, but the momentum of the vehicle continued to move forward. Sheet metal wailed in protest and glass shattered. The headlights were gone and all was darkness. Palmer heard a loud crack as the wooden jambs yielded and snapped. The huge door and three slabs of bullet resistant glass sprang from their frames and danced crazily across the foyer’s marble floor.
The van passed through the outer wall of the house and into the foyer. Palmer felt his body strain forward against the seat belt as the van came to an abrupt stop before he did. He tested the accelerator and discovered the van was tightly wedged in the opening it had created. Palmer turned off the electric motors, unbuckled himself, and checked that the boy, though still in a semi-conscious dream state, was otherwise unharmed.
“Stay here, son,” Palmer said in a commanding tone. “I’ll soon be back with your mother.”
Palmer opened the contractor’s bag and removed the submachine gun and a modified pair of night-vision goggles. He placed the stun grenades in one compartment, the spare magazines in another. A third compartment held a flat black metal cube. He felt for a concealed button on the cube’s side and activated it. He strapped the submachine gun to his chest then donned the night vision goggles. Palmer checked the goggle display and saw the device was both providing enhanced night vision and received signals from the black box. Seeing no movement in the foyer, he carefully stepped out of the van and locked the doors behind him.
SIXTY-SIX
“Upstairs, now!” Nolan shouted.
Toccare led the exodus with Nolan protecting their rear.
The whole house shuddered when the van crashed through the front door. The impact was so jarring that Deena and her father both stumbled near the top of the stairs. Nolan tightly grabbed the railing and kept his balance. Dishes and glasses fell from cupboards in the kitchen, shattering against countertops and the floor. Throughout the house, pictures, books, and other objects fell from walls and shelves in a cacophony of sharp crashes and dull heavy thuds.
“I hope he splattered his damn brains across his dashboard,” Toccare grumbled.
“If only we could be so lucky, but don’t count on it,” Nolan said in a low voice. “This house got a panic room?”
“Panic room? The whole fucking house is supposed to be a panic room.”
“We need a safe place to stash these two before we can go after Palmer.”
Toccare thought for a moment.
“We got a couple spots to hole up for tornadoes and that kind of thing. There’s the walk-in cooler in the kitchen,” Toccare said, “and the wine cellar in the basement. Both can be locked from the inside, and the cooler has a vent so you can get fresh air.”
“Comforting,” Jamison said. “We won’t suffocate while waiting for a mad man to kill us.”
“Death is better than what Byron has planned for me,” Deena replied.
Nolan was the last one off the stairs, joining the others in the hallway out of view from anyone looking up the staircase. The sound of falling objects diminished as the house settled, then he heard something metallic roll across the library floor.
“Grenade!” Nolan shouted. “Get down!”
He threw himself over Deena, toppling Jamison as well. Toccare dove for the floor. An intense flash of bright light flared around them, coupled with a deafening roar. Nolan shook his head, painfully recalling his training with stun grenades. Smoke billowed up the staircase, staining the air with the acrid scent of cordite.
“Everybody okay?” Nolan shouted, his ears still ringing.
“I can’t see,” Deena said.
“It’ll pass,” he assured her. “Be careful getting up. You’re going to be unsteady for a minute or so. We have to move. Palmer’s coming. If he chucks another one of those things at us, close your eyes and cover your ears.”
Nolan helped Deena to her feet as Jamison and Toccare struggled to stand. Nolan moved close to Toccare.
“How do we get to the cooler or cellar?” he asked.
“Best way—back down those stairs.”
“Not an option. We need another way.”
Toccare led them past guest bedroom suites, down a corridor, and into the central mass of the house. The wide hallway opened on one side as the upper landing to the grand staircase. Paintings lay where they fell, some frames split at the corners. They carefully stepped around a shattered bust, ceramic fragments crunching under their shoes.
“Good riddance,” Toccare mumbled. “I always hated that ugly thing.”
A faint light glowed from below, casting eerie, web-like shadows on the walls. Nolan held up his hand to halt their forward progress, then indicated his companions should remain in the shadows while he risked a look over the railing. Below, he saw Palmer’s van wedged in the doorframe. The windshield glowed like backlit crackle glass. He saw no sign of Palmer or the boy, but hoped the latter was still safe inside the van and not being dragged around by the madman.
Nolan looked at Toccare and shook his head, then motioned that they should continue moving.
SIXTY-SEVEN
Roxanne watched in horror as Palmer crashed his van through the front door of Toccare’s beach house. She and Peng had been near enough to the forecourt to see the boy strapped into the passenger seat, oblivious to what his captor intended. They raced through an obstacle course of burlap-wrapped shrubs, fruit trees, and trimmed clumps of ornamental grasses to close the remaining distance to the house.
Both kept low and moved cautiously along the front of the house. As Roxanne reached the passenger side of the van, something inside the house exploded. The bulk of the van shielded her and Peng from an incredible flash of blinding white light. Dust and debris rained down on them from the damaged pediment roof.
Roxanne motioned that she would swing around to the back of the van and that Peng should cover her. Peng nodded and both moved as one. She found the recessed door handle and tested it—the door was locked. Assuming that Palmer was the cause and therefore near the explosion, they retreated back behind the exposed passenger side of the van. The vehicle’s side door was tightly pinned by a wood-clad, structural steel tube used to frame the front door opening.
Peng moved into the landscaped bed to the right of the front door and peered around the side jamb of the nearest window. Seeing no one, he tested the window’s bottom sash. It was locked and did not budge. He then moved a half-step back, adjusted his stance to balance his weight, and executed a forward heel kick at the center of the lower pane. The rebound off the glass sent Peng stumbling backward on one leg as the other went nearly numb from the impact. Roxanne rushed to steady him and pulled Peng to the side of the van.
“You okay?” she asked.
“That is not a normal window,” Pen
g replied.
“Nothing about this is normal.”
Peng flexed his stunned leg several times before testing its ability to bear weight. It would soon be fully recovered.
“We must find another way in,” Peng said.
“Nolan will be trying to keep Hawthorne away from that maniac Palmer. If he’s in the east side of this house, let’s see if we can find a way in on the west side. And maybe we’ll spot Nolan.”
Peng nodded and followed Roxanne in a search around the perimeter of the house.
SIXTY-EIGHT
Nolan followed Toccare through a pair of ornate French doors with beveled panes of frosted glass into the sitting room of the master bedroom suite. Even in the dark, it amazed him what an architect and interior designer could do with a nearly limitless budget. The sitting room provided access to the bedroom, his and her master closets and bathrooms, and a small laundry.
“Where to?” Nolan asked.
“Between the laundry and my bath is a spiral staircase that goes down to the lap pool. Then we cross back through the house to reach either the stairs to the basement or the kitchen in the servant’s wing.”
“We have to draw Palmer upstairs and distract him long enough to hide Deena and Jamison.”
A short burst of bullets splintered wood and shattered several glass panes in the French doors. Nolan took cover behind a chaise lounge chair and aimed at the opening. From the darkened hallway, Palmer lobbed a stun grenade into the room.
“Grenade!” Nolan shouted.
As he had advised, his companions protected their eyes and ears from the coming sensory assault. The grenade erupted with all its fury. A blinding flash glowed red through their eyelids.
“Son of a—” Toccare cursed.
The mobster stood, aimed his shotgun at the French doors and fired, obliterating the center of the doors. Palmer’s response came through the wall of an adjacent room. Two short bursts flew through the drywall at Toccare and Nolan. Toccare shuddered as two bullets hammered into his torso. Others lodged in the thick upholstery and wooden frame of the chaise that Nolan had been crouching behind. One 9mm round caught the curvilinear edge of the chaise and shattered. The sharp, hot fragments sprayed Nolan’s left cheek and shoulder, causing only superficial damage. Toccare dropped to his knees and then slumped onto the floor.