by Chris Ryan
‘But why bother with the fake news?’
‘They want us to think we got away with it, mate. They want us to get fucking sloppy.’
Porter nodded, grasping the implications. Dozens of FBI agents were probably combing the crime scene at that very moment. Sooner or later they would turn up something linking them to the killings. An eyewitness in the woods or one of the neighbouring cabins. A piece of forensic evidence they’d missed. Security footage. Anything. ‘We’ve got to hit that border as soon as possible,’ he said.
‘Aye.’
‘Get Stillman. Now. We need him to point out the route.’
Bald hurried out of the room and disappeared into the basement. Several moments later he emerged with the housekeeper. Stillman swept into the kitchen, shaking his head.
‘Sorry, lads. Comms unit is working fine now. Bloody thing’s always playing up. Move over, I’ll get the route up.’
Porter shuffled along, giving Stillman the floor. The guy opened a new browser window, accessed Google Maps and started tapping keys and swiping on the trackpad. Over by the French doors, Cooper had nervously plucked a fag from his pack and stepped outside. He stood on the patio steps, smoking his cigarette, checking his watch.
That’s the third time Cooper has done that, Porter thought.
His phone suddenly buzzed.
He dug the ghost phone out of his back pocket. Bald and Stillman were focused on the laptop screen. Stillman was zooming in on an area of Buffalo, pointing out the Peace Bridge.
A number flashed up on the ghost phone display. Porter vaguely recognised it. The same number Moorcroft had used when calling him a few hours earlier. He tapped the screen and answered.
Moorcroft’s voice came down the line, urgent and serious.
‘John? Can you talk?’
Porter said, ‘I’m here.’
‘Where are you?’
‘At the safe house. We’re leaving soon.’
‘Listen to me very carefully. You need to get out of there right now.’
‘Why? What’s going on?’
‘Your location has been compromised. The Russians know where you are.’
The blood instantly turned to ice in Porter’s veins. On the other side of the breakfast counter, Bald looked a question at him. Cooper had stepped back inside the kitchen, a faint smell of cigarette smoke wafting across the room. Porter shut everything else out and focused on the voice on the other end of the line.
‘How the fuck did they find us? How do you know?’
‘The chaps over at GCHQ picked up chatter in Moscow,’ Moorcroft said. ‘A Kremlin officer with known underworld links just mentioned your address on the phone. Someone told the Russians where to find you. They’re sending people over there now.’
Porter felt his stomach muscles constrict. He stared at Bald and Cooper in turn, dread seeping into his guts.
Someone sold us out.
‘The safe house is blown,’ Moorcroft said. ‘Get out of there, man!’
Porter was about to reply when he heard another noise.
Coming from beyond the house.
The roar of an approaching car.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The engine roar grew louder.
Stillman glanced over his shoulder at the front door, twenty metres away from the kitchen, at the other end of the long hallway. ‘That’s weird. The alarm didn’t go off.’
‘You expecting someone?’ Bald asked.
‘No.’
Bald swung around to face Porter. They didn’t need to say anything to one another. It was all right there on Porter’s face. They both heard the motors barrelling up the driveway and instantly realised what was happening.
Unexpected visitors.
A safe house no one else knows about.
We’re under attack.
They knew what they had to do. There was no messing about. No valuable seconds lost debating their plan. They just reacted to the situation, trusting in their decades of training.
Bald turned to Stillman. ‘What’s the code to the gun safe?’
Stillman didn’t hear him at first. He was staring with a puzzled look at the front door at the other end of the hallway, a kid trying to work out how to solve a Rubik’s cube.
‘The code,’ Porter repeated.
Stillman snapped out of his trance. ‘Three-seven-two-nine-five.’
Bald repeated the code and sprinted out of the kitchen. He raced down the hallway, towards the ground-floor bedroom to the right of the staircase. Porter moved after him, grabbing Cooper by the shoulder and shoving him into the corridor. ‘Into the strong room. Now.’
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Cooper rasped.
‘There’s no time. Move yourself.’
Cooper saw the look on Porter’s face and got moving, running ahead of Porter as they scrambled out of the kitchen. Ahead of them Stillman was moving towards the front door, scratching his head. Porter and Cooper were eight metres from the bedroom now.
The roar outside became deafening. At this distance he could hear at least two individual motors. More than that, possibly. There was the clatter of loose gravel being flung about as the vehicles skidded to a halt in front of the safe house, before the engines abruptly cut out.
They’ve arrived, thought Porter.
We’ve only got a few seconds to get our shit together.
Four metres ahead of him, Bald ducked into the master bedroom. Cooper was a couple of steps behind.
Porter was about to dart into the room when he glimpsed a figure at his ten o’clock. He stopped in front of the bedroom door and glanced over his shoulder at the staircase.
Street stood at the foot of the stairs, dressed in the same long-sleeved shirt and trousers as Bald and Porter, his body stiff with terror as he looked towards the front door.
‘In the strong room, now!’ Porter shouted.
‘Four cars here, lads,’ Stillman called out from the entrance. ‘Bloody loads of ’em.’
Porter spun towards him. Stillman had stopped at the window to the left of the front door, fifteen metres away. He cracked open the blind between his thumb and forefinger, peeking through the gap as the cars rocketed up the front drive.
‘Some of them are going around the back, by the looks of it,’ Stillman went on.
‘Get away from there!’ Porter thundered. ‘NOW!’
Stillman started to turn towards him.
Which was when the bullet took his face off.
The round shattered the glass, whacking into the housekeeper’s left eyeball and punching out of the back of his skull an inch or so above the nape of his neck. Blood and grey matter sprayed across the magnolia wall. Instant death. Like someone had yanked out the power cord.
Street looked on, body tensing with horror, as Stillman melted to the floor. Mouth gaping, a moist black hole where his left eye used to be.
‘Jesus, no,’ whispered Street. ‘Oh, God.’
There was no time to waste. Porter rushed over to the stairs, clamped a hand around Street’s arm and pulled him towards the master bedroom as two more bullets pierced the window, thudding into the wall to the right of the stairs, a metre away from where Street had been standing.
Another pair of cracks rang out as they scurried across the hallway. Behind him, Porter heard glass shattering as the rounds smacked into one of the paintings on the wall, putting holes in the frame. More bullets thudded into an antique cabinet, ripping through the wood.
They hit the bedroom before the next shots rang out. Porter found Bald crouching inside the strong room, working the gun-safe keypad. Cooper hung back by the security door, casting nervous glances in the direction of the hallway. Porter swept past him and joined Bald, his heart drumming erratically.
Four cars, Stillman had said. Maximum of five guys per motor. Which meant they could be up against anything from four to twenty X-rays.
The Russians must really want to get their hands on that dossier.
Porter heard a distinct
beep as the gun-safe keypad unlocked. Then Bald wrenched the safe door open.
‘Grab us a couple of longs,’ Porter said.
‘Where’s Stillman?’
‘Dead.’
‘The fuck—’
‘There’s no time. Hurry.’
Bald reached in and seized two of the Colt AR-15s from the vertical rack. He chucked one of the rifles at Porter, took the other for himself and plundered the bottom shelf for ammo. Grabbed half a dozen clips of 5.56x45mm NATO rounds and passed three of them to Porter. They were the box mag type, with a twenty-round capacity. All the clips were full.
Beyond the foyer, Porter heard voices. Thick, guttural accents. Eastern European. They were shouting at one another with the urgency of professionals who knew they were against the clock.
Porter tried to put himself in the enemy’s boots. They wouldn’t want to get bogged down in a prolonged firefight. If he was attacking the safe house, he’d look to go in hard and fast. Use the element of surprise to overwhelm the defenders before they had time to get organised. They would be looking to attack multiple entry points, using their superior numbers to press home their advantage. The French doors at the back of the kitchen and the windows at the front and sides of the stronghold were the obvious weak points. All of them would need to be defended.
Some of them are going around the back, Stillman had said.
His hangover faded to a dull ache as he turned to Bald, adrenaline taking over. ‘We’re gonna have to cover the front and back approaches. I’ll take the front. You cover the kitchen.’
‘What sort of hardware do you think them lot are packing?’
‘If they’re Russian mafia, it’ll be gun-show kit. Pistols, submachine guns. Grenades. Fucking everything.’
‘What about us?’ Cooper asked, anxiously glancing at the hallway.
‘Stay here in the strong room. Keep your heads down and for fuck’s sake don’t move until we come get you.’
‘It’s them, isn’t it?’ Street said, stiffening with fear. ‘It’s the Russians. They’ve found me.’
‘Get in,’ Porter ordered. ‘Unless you want to get fucking dropped.’
Fear of death was a wonderful thing. Cooper and Street hustled into the strong room. The surrounding breeze-block walls and reinforced steel door would protect them from any stray rounds coming through the windows and walls. Locking it would have given them an added layer of protection, but there was no time to retrieve the key from Stillman’s body. They would just have to hope they could keep the enemy pinned down outside the house.
If the X-rays breach the entry points, Porter told himself, we won’t stand a chance.
He nodded at Bald and stepped out of the strong room, the spare twenty-round mags tucked into his back trouser pockets. Porter inserted the other clip into the underside of the AR-15 mag well. He depressed the release on the side of the receiver. Pulled the charging handle all the way back and let it shunt forward, chambering the first round of 5.56 brass.
He didn’t even think about it. Muscle memory. A decade of training in the Regiment. It never leaves you.
The voices outside gave way to a loud splintering thud. Coming from the far end of the foyer. Fuckers are kicking in the door, Porter realised. They’ll be crashing inside any second.‘Stay here in the strong room. Keep your heads down and for fuck’s sake don’t move until we come get you.’
Bald emerged from the strong room gripping the other Colt long. He smiled grimly at Porter. They both knew the score. They were trapped in the safe house, surrounded by an unknown number of X-rays, with weak points at both sides of the safe house. If they were going to stand any chance of survival, they would have to fight like madmen.
‘Let’s fucking do this,’ Bald said.
They charged out into the hallway.
TWENTY-NINE
They moved fast.
Bald peeled off to the left, setting off in the direction of the kitchen with his Colt long, ready to slot the X-rays manoeuvring around to the rear of the safe house. Porter gave his back to his mucker. He sprinted past the staircase, heading towards the foyer, fifteen metres downstream from the bedroom doorway.
He was twelve metres from the foyer when a loud crack split the air. The front door crashed open, swinging back on its hinges as a pair of figures burst inside.
The first guy bulled through the door. He was a fat fuck, as wide as he was tall, wearing a dark black t-shirt, black trousers and matching boots. He looked like a bruised testicle. He held a Heckler & Koch HK416 assault rifle in a two-handed grip. The Bin Laden killer. A SEAL Team favourite, chambered for the same 5.56 round as the rifle Porter was using.
The second X-ray swept into view a half-step behind Testicle. Also armed with the same HK416 rifle. He was a foot taller than his mate, with the jacked upper torso of someone who had taken way too many steroids. He was decked out in a light blue tracksuit, with a white vest underneath and a gold chain draped like a garland around his neck.
Porter reacted to the threat sluggishly. The alcohol in his system slowing him down. As if he was moving through treacle. His muscles felt heavy and weak as he dropped to a knee, making himself a smaller visual target. With his left hand gripping the underside of the barrel, Porter thumbed the fire selector on the side of the rifle, moving it from SAFE to FIRE. By the time the first shooters had both feet inside the foyer, Porter had lined up the target.
Testicle was ten metres away now. A better shooter would have raised his weapon before breaching the door, scanning the entrance for targets. But Testicle had charged inside without bringing his weapon to bear. Which was a mistake. He looked like he was in a big hurry to get inside the safe house, full of misplaced confidence, still mentally celebrating his head-shot on Stillman. Thinking he’d won the battle all by himself.
Then Testicle realised his error and started to heft up his weapon. Porter depressed the trigger before the guy could finish raising it.
The Colt rifle made a satisfying crack. The gunshot boomed inside the foyer. Like a million car engines backfiring.
Porter’s shot was off-target. He’d been aiming for the chest but the round struck low, nailing Testicle in the thigh. The guy grunted in pain as he staggered forward, bent at the waist.
Porter fired again. The second round went where he intended it to go, smashing into Testicle’s forehead. The guy’s rifle clattered to the tiled floor as he fell away, slumping down beside Stillman’s lifeless corpse.
Tracksuit was next through the door.
He stepped around his dying mate, bringing his weapon to chest height. He was determined not to repeat his friend’s mistake, clearly. From his assured grip Porter could tell the guy had received some basic military training. Stock tucked against his shoulder, eyes locked on the target. Finger tensing on the trigger.
Tracksuit squeezed off a round before Porter could zero in. He felt a streak of hot air grazing his cheek as the bullet whipped past his face two or three inches to the left, embedding itself in the banister post at the foot of the staircase, spitting out wood.
Tracksuit adjusted his aim. Porter had a second to get his shot off. Plenty of time for a seasoned Regiment operator, aiming at a human-sized target nine metres away. But not for an ex-Blade nursing a killer hangover. Porter fought off the pain in his head as he lined up the Colt long with Tracksuit, focusing on the guy’s overdeveloped upper body, aiming for mass over any specific point. He pulled the trigger half a second before Tracksuit could loose off another shot.
The Colt barked.
The round missed.
It struck high and wide, slamming into the door next to Tracksuit. A piss-poor shot. Like a striker missing an open goal. Tracksuit half-flinched, momentarily throwing his aim off. Then he drew the HK416 level with Porter’s head. A smile crept spider-like out of the corner of his mouth.
Porter rolled to the right as the muzzle flashed, a desperate last-ditch manoeuvre. He heard the crack of the rifle as the bullet discharged. It took a ch
unk out of the floor, ricocheting off the tiling as Porter came up into a kneeling stance a metre to the right of the stairs.
Tracksuit was swivelling towards him. There was no time to aim properly. Porter centred the muzzle on Tracksuit, pushed aside the hangover and fired again. Two rounds in a controlled burst. The first one missed completely, thudding into the door. But the next one did the damage. It slammed into the guy’s left shoulder, exploding his joint in a shower of blood and tendon and bone.Tracksuit howled in agony as he jerked back a step, teeth clenched as his left arm flopped uselessly by his side. The rifle fell from his limp grip. Porter depressed the trigger again, sending him over to the dark side with a bullet to the throat. He landed on his back next to his fallen mate.
Porter took a breath as he stared at Tracksuit. Two rounds out of four had missed their target. If the guy had been sharper, or if Porter had failed to roll out of the line of fire, he would be dead by now. The X-rays would have swept inside the foyer and surrounded Bald.
Christ, he thought. I nearly lost it there, because of the booze.
I’ve got to raise my fucking game.
He glanced back at his six o’clock. Bald had dropped low beside the jukebox in the kitchen, ten metres back from where Porter was kneeling, his rifle pointed at the rear entry point. The French doors facing out to the patio were open, and Porter realised Cooper must have forgotten to shut them when returning from his fag break.
Twenty metres beyond the open doors he glimpsed a couple of figures racing across the garden towards the patio. A guy in a Ducati motorcycle jacket, and a second figure in a Spartak Moscow replica shirt. Both of them were gripping the same Heckler & Koch assault rifle as the two dead X-rays in the foyer.
They ran fast, like two sprinters competing in a race. Ducati had the lead. He was on the pool deck. Spartak was a few metres behind, racing up the steps to the patio.
Ducati was fifteen metres from the doors as Bald put down a three-round burst at them. Flames lashed out of the rifle snout, lighting up the room. The brass jackets dinked on the kitchen floor. The first round glanced off a stone water feature to the right of Ducati. The next two bullets nailed him in the upper chest in a close grouping and sent him belly-flopping into the pool, spilling chlorinated water across the deck.