by L. T. Ryan
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s great.”
“No, it’s not great. Something major is about to happen. These two are financing what could amount to yet another crippling attack. I have to notify a whole host of people to this information.” She paused a beat, trying to get in front of Bear’s shifting gaze. “Are you listening to me? What is so important in the backyard that you can’t appreciate the fact you’ve uncovered evidence that a terrorist attack is in the works and it’s related to what you’ve been doing with Jack?”
Bear glanced at Sasha then back to the yard. Had he seen something?
“Do whatever you gotta do to notify them right now,” he tapped the counter, “then pack it up.”
“What?” She straightened, slipped off her stool, and went to the back door. “What’s going—”
Sasha dove to the floor as the glass above her head shattered. Two more rounds burst through the pane, clearing all but the most stubborn parts of the window. The jagged remains hung there, reflecting the light.
She crawled on her belly until she was out of view and next to Bear. He had reached for the laptop before dropping for cover behind the island. He handed it to Sasha and armed himself.
“Who is out there?” she said, flinching at the next burst of gunshots. More glass scattered across the floor. Splinters raced through the air.
“I got a call that I believe came from Brandon a couple minutes ago. He said, ‘Get out now.’ I got a feeling we’re surrounded.”
Sasha flipped the laptop open and hammered on the keyboard.
“Now’s not the time,” Bear said. “We gotta get you into the bunker.”
She didn’t look up from the screen. “I want to see who’s doing this.”
Bear peered around the island, pistol extended, ready to fire. “You think they sent you a damn instant message ahead of time?”
She glared up at him. “Let me do my goddamn job, Bear.”
He liked it when she used his nickname, though now wasn’t the time to think about such things. Bear grabbed the laptop and slammed the lid shut. Sasha protested as he grabbed her under the arm and dragged her through the hallway into the windowless waiting room. Sasha protested the entire way, demanding he return the laptop.
Bear pulled the pocket door closed and secured it. Behind him Sasha shifted several books out of the way on the third shelf of the bookcase. Once a large enough section had been revealed, she pulled off the thin paneling. The dull blue glow from the access screen brightened the hidden compartment. She entered the eight-digit security code.
“We really should update this to a biometric system,” she said.
Bear put his finger to his mouth as he crossed the small room. Together they pulled the right side of the bookcase away from the wall. Sasha slipped into the darkness. The opening was hardly wide enough for Bear to squeeze through, but he’d done it before and that was when he weighed ten pounds more.
Bear managed to make it into the tunnel. After ten feet, he stopped. “Take your computer.”
Sasha turned and retrieved the device. Her footsteps echoed after she disappeared into the dimly-lit tunnel. The only lights were fixed where the wall met the floor, and they served to brighten the immediate area. They were not strong enough for someone at the entrance to discern a target even thirty feet away.
“Are you coming?” she called out.
“I’ll be down there in a minute. Need to make sure this is secure. Get in the room and lock it down until I’m there.”
But he only went as far as the armory. The cutout was six-wide by six-high and two feet deep. If you didn’t know it was there you’d never spot it. Bear had memorized the exact amount of steps it took him to reach it should something like the current event — or a zombie outbreak — ever occured.
He grabbed an HK MP-5 and a backup Beretta 92FS 9mm pistol and strapped a tactical knife around his lower leg. Was it enough? He tried to guess how many men were out there. An exercise in futility. All he could figure was that it had to be a significant force for Brandon to have picked up on it. Whoever it was wasn’t afraid of a mid-day showdown either. The unsuppressed reports from the shootout in the backyard would have been heard all around them. These bastards planned on hitting hard and hitting quick and knew exactly what they wanted to take from the estate.
The soft thud coming from the dark end of the tunnel confirmed that Sasha had made it down the fully-extended fourteen-foot ladder and had secured herself in the safe room. It had been built in the forties and reinforced several times since then as the potential threats dictated. The hidden chamber was loaded with supplies, including additional arms and ammunition and enough food to last six months. What it lacked was reliable communications equipment. It was something Sasha said she had meant to take care of — like the biometric readers — but had failed to do so.
Maybe tomorrow.
And that was why instead of waiting for backup in the form of police or MI6, Bear moved quickly and quietly down the corridor toward the bookcase.
He would face the threat head on.
CHAPTER 44
I gulped at the air that flooded my face like a Great Egret emerging from the water after escaping the fishing net that had trapped it while it dove and struck its prey.
There was a constant whoosh of wind surrounding me, drowning out all other noise. My ears rang. My mouth tasted like metal. My eyes burned. Blackness engulfed my sight. Was I blind? Or blindfolded? I reached for my face but my arms wouldn’t move. Were they bound or did I lack the ability? I couldn’t feel my wrists or hands. Come to think of it, I had no sensation other than the feeling of the wind splashing my face.
Panic raced through my veins as I tried to recall what had happened. I took a slow, deep breath and relaxed my mind. There had been an accident. Someone slammed into the driver’s side of the BMW, and I felt a subsequent flash of pain in my head. Had I broken my neck?
No, it wasn’t my neck. I remember moving after the accident and being outside the vehicle.
I willed my fingers to move even the slightest amount but nothing happened.
“He’s moving,” the guy said. I remembered the voice. Still couldn’t place the accent.
I felt a sharp pain, like a pinch, on my arm. A minute later my heart pounded against my chest wall so fast and hard it ached. I couldn’t tell if I was breathing anymore. The blackness burst into bright white and I was out again.
***
I came to feeling as though I was on a vibration plate that occasionally jostled me against a hard surface. I had the distinct feeling of sitting upright. My head rested against something solid and cool. Occasionally I banged against it.
I no longer felt the breeze, but the air around me was cool. It smelled fresh, like being on the porch after a spring rain. But it wasn’t that nice. Something chemical about it. I still couldn’t see anything, though I sensed others around me. I reached for my eyes. My arms didn’t move. Restraints bit into my wrists. I was happy for a second that the feeling in my hands had returned. At least then I knew for sure that I hadn’t snapped my neck.
Of course it also meant someone held me captive.
“He’s up again,” a different man said in heavily accented English.
I felt a pinch on my arm, presumably a needle. The liquid entered cold. Heated up after a few seconds of making its way through my circulatory system. This felt different. I guessed that my previous tolerances remained, albeit a fraction of what they used to be. They couldn’t control me with one drug so they were using multiple. The sensation spread and by the time it reached my chest, I was out.
“Sleep well, Mr. Noble,” a woman said. It was the last thing I heard.
***
We were no longer moving when I awoke. The air smelled salty. A flock of seagulls carried on a cackling conversation nearby. I recalled taking aim at them with a .22 when I was about eleven years old. Dad didn’t like that. He knocked the rifle out of my hand and threatened that I wouldn’t use it again un
til I was eighteen. That was the last time I thought about killing a bird.
I expected darkness when I opened my eyes. I was half-right. The light faded to the east. Out over the ocean the sunset turned the sky into a panoramic painting of purple and pink and dark orange. My vision blurred the longer I focused on one thing, so I swung my head the other way. The muscles in my neck ached. I stared at the occupied seat next to me.
The slender legs were barely covered. The right was adorned with an intricate tattoo. I recognized it instantly.
Lifting my gaze, I came face to face with Katrine Ahlberg, the woman I’d been sent to kill a decade earlier who had somehow managed to evade my bullet and spent the next ten years evading detection while assuming the quiet life of her sister Birgit.
She glared at me through narrowed eyes. Her dyed brunette hair was pulled back into a high pony tail. I couldn’t deny that she was a gorgeous woman.
“Mr. Noble.”
“Katrine.”
She smiled, uncrossed her legs, supposedly in an attempt to lure me in. Her gaze dropped to the needle filled with red liquid in her hand.
The hangover hit with full force. What the hell were they drugging me with? And why? The easy answer was that someone had sold me out. So why go through the trouble of taking me along for the ride? Kill me and be done with it. I swept my gaze around the vehicle. We were alone. Just the two of us parked alongside a quiet beachfront road. Through the windshield I saw lightning in the dark storm clouds bunched together to the south.
“We gonna do this here?” I shifted in the seat, bringing my left ankle under my right knee. I was surprised I could do it. I turned my torso toward her. My fingers grazed the door handle behind me. Ahlberg sat stone-faced without any reaction to any of my movements. She was either the most unaware person I’d ever met — and considering how she’d spent the last ten years I doubted that — or someone was watching us.
I decided I’d take that chance.
I grabbed the handle and pulled it while throwing my weight back to expedite the process of opening the door and rolling out.
Only I didn’t roll.
My skull banged against the window, sending a flood of fresh pain around the front of my head and circling my eyes.
The door didn’t budge.
Laughing, she brought the needle up and plunged it into my thigh. I’d made it easy for her to do it, too.
“Child locks, Noble.” She retrieved the now empty needle and lifted it up for me to see. “Christ, some top assassin you are.”
I faded away again.
CHAPTER 45
“Brandon, I presume.” Frank Skinner appeared relaxed as he took in the sights of the small room. He lifted his phone. “We get it all?” He waited a beat, nodded. “Need him brought in?” Another few seconds passed. Frank looked down at Brandon and smiled.
Brandon found it hard to breathe at that moment. He tried to convince himself that he’d heard incorrectly. If they got the data, they needed him. Frank wouldn’t smile about that, though.
It felt as though an elephant sat on his chest. He wanted to lift his arms and surrender, throw the gun on the floor, anything to let Frank Skinner know that Brandon was not a threat. But he couldn’t move. The edges of his vision darkened. It felt a lot like the time he was five years old and his brother’s friends tossed him into the deep end of the pool. Toughening him up, they had said. Survival of the fittest, they had said. He almost drowned that day had it not been for the cleaning lady diving in after he’d been face down for three minutes.
But this was a different feeling.
Why was his chest so heavy?
He gulped air like a guppy out of water as Frank lifted his Sig and aimed it at Brandon.
“Guess before you go,” Frank said, shaking his pistol so the red dot circled Brandon’s heart, “I should let you know your friends aren’t gonna be around much longer. But I do have to thank you.”
More men entered the room and dismantled the computers and carried them out.
The wheezing sound coming from Brandon’s throat was uncontrollable now.
“You really helped Noble and his stooge sidekick figure things out. In fact, they’ve done enough that I really don’t need you around here anymore.” Frank squeezed the trigger, unloading a single round.
Brandon felt the burn and pain radiating. He expected it to be much worse. Was that because he was already dying from the heart attack?
“Oh, one more thing,” Frank said, leaning forward with his hands planted on the desk. “We’re gonna have to take in that girl you’ve been seeing and bring her to the Farm for a couple weeks.” His lips thinned and he sucked in air, making a whistling sound. “It’s doubtful she’ll make it out alive.”
Brandon looked down at the crimson bloom spreading out from the hole in his chest. There was no pain anymore. It was like he was looking down on the situation from above. His body went numb. He could no longer detect his heart pumping.
One of Snakeeye’s partners kicked Brandon and his wheelchair over sideways. He landed with his head near the wall, leaving him with a view of the men filing out of his office. They had left him there to die.
Brandon felt his strength fade quickly. He tried to hold in the blood seeping from the wound on his chest, but it did little good. It poured through the tiny cracks between his fingers. However, in the process he managed to trigger the switch on his medical alert necklace, the one he had hidden inside his shirt because he was too embarrassed to let Kimberlee see it when they video chatted.
CHAPTER 46
The chemically-created fog inundated the hallway, providing cover and concealment for a team of operators who had entered the house through the back. The front door remained intact and unlocked. The time spent in the tunnel had left Bear under-prepared for the situation. How many men had penetrated the house? Who were they? What were their capabilities?
They knew how to throw a smoker, he knew that much.
They had started the assault by shooting out the window near where Sasha had stood. Did they miss her on purpose? Were they warning shots? Perhaps they had orders not to take the woman out due to her position within British Intelligence. Or maybe they were a ragtag team of misfits who had no business running a takedown.
Bear missed the feeling of holding an HK MP-5. The powerfulness, preciseness in a closed combat situation such as the one he faced.
One at a time, he ascended the stairs to the second floor, keeping his footfalls and his shoulder against the wall to his right. He imagined a cat prowling.
While Bear was unsure of the overall size of the team, he was confident they had split into smaller units. He would find at least two at the top of the stairs.
At the first landing this was confirmed.
He heard one of the men issue a whispered command. It turned out to be a fatal mistake.
Bear stopped on the last step. He steadied his breath and tuned into his sense of hearing. Skills erode over time, but he refused to believe that so many days had passed for him to have lost more than a small fraction of a step.
The creaking floorboard in the middle of the hall had been a giveaway on a number of nights when he had snuck downstairs for a late-night snack. Sasha had heard him leaving or returning and either chastised him or disrupted his plans.
On this afternoon it was the man clad in black tactical gear who found himself giving his position away by stepping on the loose piece of wood.
Bear eased himself to the corner, MP-5 at the ready. He swung around and knew exactly where to shoot. He squeezed the trigger for a half second and three rounds exploded from the barrel and hit the man in rapid succession. The first landed dead center, but the guy’s vest stopped the bullet. The next two found their way into his neck, tearing through flesh and destroying the important network of arteries and nerves that resided there. The guy went down without so much as raising his weapon. The shots had achieved both intended effects as the man’s partner emerged from the bedroom on the
right. The guy never looked at his fallen comrade. He kept his sights on Bear.
Another squeeze of the trigger. Three more rounds left the MP-5. The cluster of shots hit the guy in the upper right arm and shoulder, spinning him around but not doing enough damage to take him down. His wounded shoulder smashed against the wall. A patch of blood trailed across and dripped down the wall as the man recovered and turned with his sidearm raised in his left hand. He fired wildly. Must’ve been a righty who never drilled with both hands. Plaster erupted from the walls and ceiling a few feet from Bear. The dust coated his face.
He took an extra second to aim and fire the next three-round burst. They hit the guy in a tight line starting between his eyes and stopping an inch above his brow. The man jerked back and fell at his partner’s feet, his left hand still clutching his Sig.
Bear searched the bodies and came away with an MP-7 equipped with a suppressor, an extra magazine, the second man’s SIG, and a handheld radio. He nearly chucked the unit into the bedroom when it came to life with a burst of static.
The gunfight had drawn some interest.
“Blue, report.” The voice was grainy but Bear easily discerned the southern-American accent. He pegged the attackers for a team of Mercs. Former soldiers hell bent on making the most they could before their skills eroded. He couldn’t blame them for trying. Too bad this would be their last op.
“Report, Blue. Report.”
Seconds passed and then Bear heard pounding on the steps. He smiled and armed himself with the MP-7. He hovered in the bedroom doorway where he could duck for cover if necessary.
With his sights five feet above the floor, he nailed the first guy up. He only had to adjust his aim a fraction of an inch. The first shot destroyed the man’s cheek bone. The next two went in near the temple. The man hadn’t bothered to pause at the top of the steps. He came around the corner, eyes cast downward at one of his partners. Now he joined him dead on the ground. Someone reached out, grabbed the guy by his feet and started pulling. At the same time Bear saw a third arm, smoker in hand — there was no way they were going with a live grenade in the house. Bear fired a shot that nearly severed the limb at the elbow. The smoker fell to the floor. The pin remained around the guy’s index finger.