He reached the front of the house and stood with his back against the wall, listening for any sound coming from inside. There were no burglar alarms; he had satisfied himself of that when he had called earlier. At first it struck him as casual, but who would hear it even if there was one? There didn’t appear to be any houses close by, and the nearest police station was four miles away in Lyme Regis. Just the same he would have expected some form of security but had not spotted any so far.
Keeping close to the wall, he edged his way down the side of the house to the back door and, as expected, found it solid and firmly locked. Squatting down, he pulled out a soft leather wallet which held a number of lock picks. After trying two or three he found the one that was most suited to the job. The house had probably been built in the late 1800s, and had wooden casement windows on both the ground and first floors. There was still no sign of the two dogs and he accepted that they were no longer near or around the house, which, as he saw it, was another reason to be extra wary. He was being lured in, or perhaps they were simply as harmless as they portrayed and strangely trusting.
The five levers inside the lock were one by one clicking into the release position. This he thought was a contradiction to the otherwise lack of security. The lock was a modern security five-lever Euro-lock which, luckily for Dillon, Tony De’Luca had shown him how to open. After a minute of jiggling around, Dillon was able to pull down on the handle and push the door ajar. He stayed where he was for another couple of minutes without anything happening or a sound from within the house. He drew out the Glock and screwed on the silencer.
He crawled back around to the front of the house, leaving the kitchen door open, and tried the window to the right of the front door. It opened easily. Again he squatted, waiting for something to happen. After five minutes he crawled off again, trying the other ground floor windows. Some were locked and some were not.
Dillon waited again and smiled to himself. It was all too easy and he was being guided in by predetermined routes. Time was passing but he wasn’t concerned. His instincts told him that the Conners wouldn’t return until they were instructed to. That they had been deliberately sent away until it was all over. He had many hours of darkness ahead of him and he was a life-long master of the waiting game.
After another five minutes he decided to open every window that was off the catch. There were three – one at the front, another down the side of the house and one at the rear. If anyone was waiting for him inside, they must surely have felt the cool air coming through and they must also be wondering what he was actually going to do next. Let them sweat, he thought.
He crouched down behind a timber shed at the rear of the house – completely out of sight of the first floor windows, the Glock held loosely between both hands, and his thoughts strayed to why there was virtually no security around the house. Why had Conner had been so particular about ensuring the garage door was firmly locked before leaving? His one act of security had been completely out of character. Keeping close to the house, he crawled down the side of the building and then over to the garage.
The main door was made of hardwood, as he’d noticed during his first visit to the property. It was held remarkably solidly with multi-point locking bolts and then the big padlock at ground level. Not so surprisingly, there was the single obscured glass window at the rear. It was virtually impossible to see anything on the inside, but was of a good size and would easily take two or three cars. Dillon had thought it strange that it had most likely not been built more than twenty years ago and that the size of it was completely out of proportion with the house. Dillon tried the window, but it was stuck fast. The casement frame was also of hardwood and firmly locked. As he turned to go back round to the front, the blue light high up in the apex caught his eye. Dillon studied the alarm bell box that was hidden under the deep soffit, which accounted why he hadn’t noticed it before.
An alarmed and heavily locked garage, but for a house that any would-be burglar could simply walk into without any resistance. He used the torch to take a closer look at the bell box, and picked out the wire running back to the house. As he searched for any other wiring he realised that the alarm was simply to warn those in the house if the garage was being broken into and he was almost certain that it wasn’t linked by a telephone line to the local police station. He killed the torch and started to look for a way in.
He went carefully around the outside of the garage again, took a closer look at the up-and-over door, and decided that it would be better to erase from the equation whoever was waiting for him in the house. After which he would be able to take his time and make as much noise as he liked without fear of interruption.
He gazed towards the dark outline of the house. Whoever it was in there was professional. Anyone else would have been tempted by now into some form of action with three ground floor windows open and no one coming in. It was a game of nerves and Dillon had played it many times before. His primary problem was that he didn’t know how many of them there were and, more importantly, where they were positioned. But there was one certain way of drawing them out. He crawled back around to the back of the garage and smashed the obscured glass window with the base of the torch. The alarm went off immediately, a siren wailing into the night and the blue light flashing above his head. He sprinted away from the garage and the house, made the edge of the woods and threw himself flat onto the soft ground.
Even then there was no movement or panic from those inside the house, as if they knew they had the situation well under control. They made use of the open windows and came from four different directions. It was difficult to make them out in the darkness and at first he had to rely solely on his hearing. They moved almost silently, the nearest just a silhouette running fast at an angle towards the garage, and Dillon was sure that he was wearing black and was completely hooded.
Dillon remained motionless, discreetly withdrew the automatic and held it loosely in his left hand. It always felt good to hold the cold metal; the power it brought and the devastation it dealt. Dillon spun out of his hiding place and into the path of a surprised black-clad figure; the Glock 9 mm slammed twice in his hand and the assassin was kicked from his feet. Blood immediately erupted from the two holes in his throat as he went down hard, and Dillon did a series of rolls away from the flash point. He came to a halt against a log pile and lay still. The man he had taken down was barely alive, drowning in his own blood, but drew no attention from the other three that Dillon had barely glimpsed.
Dillon would have felt a lot happier had he been deeper into the trees, but the men had reacted quickly as good pros should, and he had got as far away from the garage as their response had allowed. All that he could do now was to wait.
The siren was still wailing and he hoped that one of them would turn it off, but he guessed they had left it on to cover their own movements. But if the continuing sound helped his assassins, it also helped him. And bit by bit he edged back into deeper cover.
It became a cat and mouse game. They were not sure where he was and might even have missed the point of his shots as the silencer kept down the gun’s barrel flash to a minimum. But he had no idea where they were. He could no longer hear or see the man he’d shot. He edged back even deeper into the protection of the trees, for it would be easy for them to work their way around from the garage and outflank him on both sides and from behind.
There was a movement close to his left side. Like him they were not using torches, the more so since they now knew how devastatingly skilled he was with a gun.
Dillon rolled slowly over onto his back to get a better view. It became immediately apparent that a man was standing almost over him but didn’t really see him until he moved – the continuous wailing from the siren had been effective in covering both their movements. He rolled, the Glock out and in his hand as the gun above went off at near point-blank range. He felt the bullet tear through the
side of his jacket, only just missing him. He rolled again and again and again, knowing that he was completely invisible in the absolute darkness of the woods. The shots followed him, hollow plops, unearthly as the bullets sprayed up little puffs of dead leaves near him. And in the middle of this life-or-death crisis the alarm suddenly stopped and the silence was instant.
High on adrenalin, Dillon did not take any notice, but in one of his frenetic rolls he glimpsed just the slightest hesitation in the black-clad form pursuing him again when the alarm stopped. Dillon rolled into a crouch as the soft footsteps came close. His brain seized for a split second as the footsteps suddenly increased in pace. Roll, his subconscious screamed at him. He rolled, crouched again and then leaped clumsily, arms encircling the attacker, and they both hit the ground. Dillon felt the full impact of the blow to his face, slammed both arms down, the heels of his hands smashing into the assassins head. One blow; two; three; four; five. He felt something break within the hooded mask. Dillon staggered to his feet.
The assassin’s foot lashed up into Dillon’s groin and he stumbled back. The scene flashed red. The assassin was still wearing the hooded mask; the eyes unreadable. The figure lifted its arms above its head, as if in some martial-art preparatory stance. Dillon scrambled up and the figure’s stare fixed on him, eyes boring through him, and he grinned, bloodstained teeth bore through thick strings of saliva.
“You fucking surprised, motherfucker?” he snarled.
“We’ve danced for long enough,” came the whispered voice.
From hidden arm sheaths the assassin drew two short black blades and lowered his head. Dillon pulled his own darkened blade from his boot and spat blood onto the ground.
“But I like to dance, asshole,” Dillon said softly. “It’s just getting interesting. And you wanting to fight with knives... I will cut you, and you will bleed.”
The assassin charged, blades clashed, and Dillon came away having sliced the razor-sharp blade down the assassin’s bicep. He pulled away with blood weeping down his arm, and the freed muscle within sliced skin took the smile from his lips. They circled and Dillon edged the assassin closer. When he charged again it was with blind fury. Dillon sidestepped and came up behind the assassin. The assassin’s head was snapped to the left – a sudden impact movement, so fast that Dillon was shocked by the speed with which he’d carried out the dispatch.
Dillon was on his feet in an instant and searched around the body for its weapon. After a moment he found it: a silenced Uzi-K2. A lethal weapon in anybody’s hands let alone a professional’s. He went back to the body and pulled off the hooded mask, but the light was too poor for any kind of identification, and he realised then that he must have dropped the torch.
Two down and two to go. One of the others must have heard his colleague go down. Dillon faded once again into the woods and waited, and whilst he waited, he fervently hoped that the two men he’d killed did not belong to MI5. However, there were still two more men to deal with, and their nerves would be just as frayed as Dillon’s.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dillon crouched with his back to a tree and waited so long, he almost began to think that the two remaining men had gone. Both the house and the garage were out of sight and it was so dark that he had to keep a grip on his senses to know which way he was facing; he could barely make out the next tree.
He glanced at his watch. 11.15 p.m. He had been there for almost two hours. From the time he had smashed the garage window to the present must have taken up about an hour. The temptation was to move, but he resisted and remained where he was, slowly straightening up against the tree every now and then in order to ward off cramp.
It was a stand-off. If he was to discover anything at all, he had no option but to stay. The night stretched ahead. There was plenty of time, but the unrelenting concentration of listening was making him edgy.
The longer he stayed in the woods the more intrusive the natural sounds all around him became. Nearby owls were hooting high up in the trees, the sudden shriek of two foxes fighting brought with it a cacophony of noises from above and on the ground. He continued to stay rooted to the same spot, knowing that any movement would carry through the night to ears as attuned as his own.
It was about half an hour later that he heard the faint noise at about the same time his legs were losing feeling. Sound at night is almost impossible to place accurately. He stood perfectly still; even his breathing had become almost silent. It was quiet again. And then he heard the same sound a few minutes later – the faint rustling leaves. This could just be the light breeze that was blowing up from the coast, except that it appeared to be coming from only two directions: off to his left between him and the house, as well as from behind.
When he heard it next it was more prolonged and now he was certain that the movement was not natural. The next time he heard it, he moved his position, taking long strides and stopped after a few paces. He’d judged it almost perfectly as the sound stopped just after he did.
The game was becoming more dangerous by the minute. As it continued, Dillon detected confusion and a touch of panic as the movements became erratic and more drawn out. They were becoming less cautious and much louder. All the time they were moving closer to the tree line, where the stakes would become higher and the visibility would increase considerably.
Once Dillon was reasonably confident of the actual direction, he increased his stride, whilst still trying to synchronise with the others. He kept his travel to short bursts, but covered the ground to the edge of the woods. After a while, he lay belly down on the ground. He could just see the outline of the house now and, closer to him, the garage. It was then that both black-clad figures appeared at the tree line about ten feet from where he was laying, running at speed in a crouch towards the house.
It would be futile to attempt taking a shot at them. And anyway, they were travelling fast. Dillon waited until the two hooded figures had disappeared around the corner of the house and then sprinted as fast as he could. He went straight to the open window at the side of the property and slithered in over the sill. It was a risky move because Dillon had no idea where the two figures were, but one that he calculated was worth taking as he took a guess at what their next move might be.
Dillon was in the dining room. He crossed the carpeted floor, carefully opened the door and rolled himself round it into the hall just as he heard the digital beep of the telephone receiver being placed back on its cradle in the kitchen. He moved silently past the living room where Sheila had been watching her daily helping of a television soap earlier, and waited just outside the kitchen door. One of the figures was whispering instructions to the other as they moved across the room to the window, their backs to him.
“Put down your weapons or I’ll blow your fucking heads off!”
The figures continued to stand with their backs to him, Uzi machine pistols slung over their shoulders. It was impression rather than actual vision, for it was almost as dark inside the house as it was in the woods. They faced the window, remained silent and kept their weapons at hand, which made Dillon think that they were either stupid or extremely stupid. One of the men started to slowly turn around and Dillon silently moved to his right in a wide arc so that he was positioned on the same side of the man as the weapon slung over his shoulder. He could now see that the hoods had been removed.
The man suddenly spun round, brought the Uzi up in his left hand and fired a short automatic burst at where he had expected Dillon to be. There was the muted sound of the silenced weapon, and then dull thuds as the bullets slammed into wood and plaster. This sent flying debris everywhere, but Dillon was close enough to move in and hit the man at the nape of the neck with the butt of his own gun. With an almost simultaneous action he kicked the legs out from under the other man who was already bringing his weapon up to fire. As the man who had taken the pot shots folded into an unconsc
ious heap on the floor, Dillon laid in to the other one with a purposeful kick to his mid-torso. The pain was instantaneous, as two of his ribs snapped like twigs under the heavy blow, and as he went down, he curled up and squealed like a pig.
He went over to the phone, ripped it off the wall and stripped out the wire, using it to tie the still conscious man’s wrists behind his back. He then searched through the kitchen drawers for something to tie up the other one with, and found some binder twine – the type that farmers use to bind bales of straw with. Wrists and ankles were tightly bound and the unconscious man left on the floor. He picked up the two Uzis and released the clips from their magazines, put these in his pocket and threw the weapons out into the garden through the kitchen door. Walking outside, he concealed himself behind the garden shed and stood there for some time until he was satisfied that there was nobody else in the house. He went back inside and switched on the kitchen light.
The bulb was blinding after the long hours of darkness and he stayed where he was until he could tolerate the glare. Both men were still motionless. Dillon turned the unconscious man over to get a better look at his face, but he wasn’t anyone that he’d seen before. The same for the other man, who was still groaning and wheezing with the searing pain running down his side. He could see that both men were in their late twenties, or early thirties, with rather rough and brutal features. He searched around and found a pile of clothing in a corner, pulled out a shirt and cut it into two long strips with his knife and bound the other man’s feet together with it. When he straightened up he saw that one of the bullets had smashed a framed family photograph that had been hanging on the wall at head height by the side of the door he had come through from the hall.
Shroud of Concealment (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) Page 21