Ryan looked to me, then Marcos, then Sarah.
“We can’t take her with us,” I said. “We need you here.”
“Okay,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Keep that shotgun, for one,” I said. “You look handy with it.”
I was gladdened by his smile. Sarah laid her hands on his shoulders and he reached up and patted her hands.
“I’m glad you’ll be here with me,” she said.
I took Marcos and Rake into my study and opened my safe. Marcos shook his head in disbelief.
“You sure pack heavy for a travel writer,” Marcos said.
Rake picked up an MP-5SD suppressed submachine gun and ran his hand over it. “I haven’t shot one of these in a long time.”
“They armed you?” I said.
“We were forward deployed and fully operational, Frank. We had special operators whose sole job was to take care of us while we viewed, but we had to prepared to take care of ourselves if they were engaged.”
“You did search and rescue too?”
“Just like this.”
“How come you left, Rake?” Marcos said.
Rake shrugged and looked at me. “I got tired of the way things were done. Got tired of lying to people, pretending to be something I wasn’t. Out here, I hang my shingle, I deal with people who believe and pay me well for being just what I am.”
He studied my reaction carefully.
“Where did you get all these guns, Frank?” Marcos said. “What the hell are you into?”
I handed him a M-4 carbine. “Remember how to use this?”
“I’ll never forget that,” Marcos said. “You going to answer me?”
“I haven’t always been a travel writer.”
“What are you now?”
“In between the military and the civilian world.”
“Quit fucking around.”
“I’m a spook.”
“That’s just fucking great,” Marcos said. “A military psychic and a spook with a safe full of automatic weapons. And we’re going to go out and break every law in the books? Are you official?”
“You really want to get into it?” I said.
“No,” Marcos said. “I don’t. Can you bring any official heat on these people?”
“My people don’t even know I’m involved. If they found out…”
“I don’t want to know,” Marcos said. He set the rifle down on the bed and clapped his hands to his ears. “Don’t tell me a fucking thing.”
We laughed. Marcos shook his head, then picked up the rifle.
“You got magazines and ammo for this, or do I just go bang bang?” he said.
I pulled a trunk out of the closet. Inside was a variety of tactical gear. I handed him an Eagle Industries chest pouch that held nine empty magazines. “There’s a case of .223 under the bed.”
“There’s a case of .223 under the bed?” Marcos said. “Man, you don’t fuck around when you come out of the closet.”
Rake checked the action on the MP-5. “What have you got for this?”
I threw him a thigh carrier that held three thirty-round magazines.
“Guns alone won’t get us in there,” Rake said. “What’s the plan, Frank?”
“Keep it simple,” I said. “We go out there, recon the house, work our way to the door, make entry. We take out anybody that gets in our way. If they fight, we put them down. They give up, we tape them up and leave them. We break the cell doors…”
“With what?” Marcos said. “We can’t just hammer them open.”
“With these,” I said. I pulled out a wooden crate from the bottom of my safe and eased the top open. Nestled in foam were narrow strips of explosive.
“Door charges? You’ve got lock cutters?” Marcos said.
“Never know what you might need in this neighborhood,” I said.
“The liberals and the yuppies would run for their lives,” Marcos said. “Maybe we should let them know.”
“We’ve got the equipment,” I said. “And we’ll keep it simple. Get there, get in, get to the cells, bust the cells, take the people out, retreat to our rally point, pick up our vehicle and go.”
“That’s a big mission for three men,” Rake said.
“That’s all we’ve got,” I said.
“We could use Ryan on the wheel,” Rake said.
“No. Somebody has to stay here with Sarah.”
“What if they do come?” Rake said in a low voice. “Do you really think Ryan is going to slow them down?” He looked down the hall at the closed door of their bedroom.
“He’s got a point,” Marcos said. “We take them with us, at least we’ll know they’re okay. And we’re going to need two vehicles anyway. You got Luella, the kid, the man in the other cell, that other girl…maybe more. We could pick up two mini-vans. Ryan and Sarah could drive them.”
I didn’t like the thought of those two so far forward. But in this fight, where was forward? They knew where I lived, knew my vulnerability to be the people who were here. It made better sense to take them with us.
“You’re right,” I said. “They can drive and wait for us. That will work. Bring them in here.”
Marcos nodded. “They’ve earned a seat at the table, mano. I’ll get them.”
He went down the hall and brought them back. Sarah and Ryan were holding hands, looking eager, a little scared.
“Marcos tell you what we need?” I said.
“Yes,” Ryan said. “We want to help.”
“Sarah?” I said.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” she said. “I’m here for all of you.”
“So it’s settled then,” I said. I looked at my team. “Let’s do this.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
i.
It was well into the night. We eased the vans onto the dirt shoulder of the country two-lane just off the main road that lead to Miss Emerald’s estate. The buildings were hidden from view by a low rise. We’d driven without lights for half a mile, guided by the faint light of the sliver moon. I opened the door and got out and listened. Only the sounds of night, a few insects, the wind. Marcos and Rake got out, weapons in hand, their faces blackened with paint. We geared up. Marcos and I carried M-4s, Rake had the silenced MP-5. In my small rucksack I carried the lock cutter charges, duct tape, and bolt cutters.
I’d selected this spot along the road because of a stand of trees that made a perfect hide for the vehicles. Once we went over the low wooden fence on the other side of the road, we only had a quarter mile walk to the estate building. For communications we had Motorola handsets I’d bought at Radio Shack. They were fine for the short distances we were working. Sarah and Ryan had one each, just like the rest of us. Their job was to stay with the vehicles and monitor the radio, and keep watch on the road and the driveway entrance.
It was straight forward from here. Cross the road, move tactically across the grounds, recon the area immediately around the house, make entry, go to the cells, get the prisoners and bring them out.
And if Miss Emerald or any of her crew showed up, I intended to put many bullets in their faces.
Marcos and Rake stood watching.
“Rake…?” I said.
He shook his head no.
“Nothing?”
“We’re safe to move forward,” he said.
I turned to Ryan and Sarah. “Back in the trees with the vans, you two. Stay down, keep quiet, don’t panic if you hear shooting. Listen to the radio and wait for us. You’ll know everything that happens.”
“Okay, Frank,” Ryan said.
“Be careful,” Sarah said.
“You too,” I said.
They pulled the vans deep into the stand of trees, concealing them. My assault team crossed the road and stepped over the low wooden railing that bordered the estate. Now we were in enemy territory. A chill ran up my spine, and I thought of all the times I’d crossed a line of departure into enemy country. We moved forward quickly but tactically, st
opping every few steps to listen and look, and then continuing. Marcos and Rake flanked me on my right and left, their weapons held at the ready. Every so often Rake paused for a moment, as he sent his strange consciousness forward, probing the shadows, the perimeter of the hill and the house.
We were good to go.
I worried about Ryan and Sarah in our rear, but quashed that. It was too late for second thoughts now. We were committed and I knew just exactly what I was there to do.
Kill those who needed killing and set free their captives. Return Luella Pound and her baby. And set myself free of this evil connection.
Why me?
Something in me called out to Miss Emerald in her madness. Maybe it was the spirit of the insane calling out to one of it’s own, in the same way an operator recognized another one, or a police officer recognized another cop. Something about us was the same and that connected us at a deep level. I didn’t want to think about the things that might connect me to Miss Emerald and Manfred Wollheim. Part of my anger at them, the rage I channeled into a cold plan to kill them, was an anger at myself. I hated having the same weaknesses they thrived on and reveled in. I wanted that out of me. I wanted to expunge it in blood and gunpowder and make a clean slate in my soul of souls. The catharsis of blood is what I wanted. I avoided this kind of emotion about the targets my job brought me; my only emotion there was the satisfaction a plumber might feel after successfully unstopping a toilet. A nasty, dirty job well done, and then on to the next. But this was different. Miss Emerald had taken a part of my heart and I wanted it back. They’d forced an emotional connection on me, one forged in hatred and anger and revulsion, and I wanted to cut that out in the same way a surgeon wants to cut an ugly cancer. This was like the worst kind of cancer, the kind that built slowly, in plain sight, where you didn’t even notice it until the ugliness was too large to be ignored.
I remembered the faces in the audience. Avidity and fascination and lust as they watched the stylized rape of a pregnant teenager. Bidding to use her body or worse. Bidding on her child. How I’d longed in that moment for a weapon and plenty of ammunition to kill them all and spare Luella Parsons the thought that there were people walking the earth who’d paid to see her used and degraded.
I stroked the safety of my M-4. I knelt behind the hedge and looked up at the house. Rake and Marcos moved into a tight 360 with me.
“Rake?” I said.
“Not clear now,” Rake said. “I think we’re okay.”
“Think or know?” I said.
“I can’t tell, Frank. Not without spacing out right now. I’m working on it,” Rake said.
“Okay. Marcos?”
“Oh, yeah,” the ex-Ranger whispered. “I’m down for this.”
There was a BMW, a Lexus and a Cadillac Escalade SUV parked by the front entrance. They might be residence cars, or maybe visitors. We continued on, skirting the hedge and moving to a position where we saw the window I had escaped out of. The plate glass had been replaced with a plywood panel.
I pointed. “I know the way in from there. We can go right through the plywood and clear the hallway, hit the cells. You know, we clean this out, we could have the kids bring the vans right up to the front door.”
“One thing at a time, bro,” Marcos said. “Phases, man. Phases.”
He was right. We had a phase line to follow.
The lights were on in the living room. We watched, but we saw no one inside. The upper floor of the right wing of the house was lit up. I didn’t know what was up there. I studied the avenues of approach. It would be best to circle the house, check out all angles, and then work our way back to the window where I knew the direct line to the cells.
What I really wanted to do was walk right in the front door and kill everyone who got in my way.
But that wasn’t the best thing to do. There were only three of us and even with our firepower the numbers were against our play. But we had speed, surprise and violence of action on our side.
I was eager to get on with it.
We crept along the trees, inching along the driveway towards the house. We watched the brightly lit front entrance for a time. Our vigilance was rewarded. Two men came out and stood on the front steps. I didn’t recognize either one, but they carried themselves like security, dressed in jeans and pullovers and holding radios. One lit a cigarette and took a few short puffs before crushing it out and shredding the butt. Then they went back inside.
“Rake?” I whispered.
He stared into space. “She’s here. I count eleven.”
“Eleven?”
“Security.”
“What about the prisoners?”
“Three.”
“Are they in any condition to run?”
“No. Not far.”
“Then we’ll have to bring the vehicles in,” I said.
“They’ve got cameras,” Marcos said. “They could be taping all that.”
“I doubt they got tape running,” I said. “But we can find the camera monitors and deal with that. The van plates are taped off and we’re painted up. I think we’ll be okay.”
“When do you want to go for it?” Marcos said.
“Right now,” I said. “We’ll go around the long way, follow the back of this wing around to the other side. Back to the window and make entry there.”
“Lead on, hermano,” Marcos said.
I did.
We crept away from the driveway and made our way around the house to the back. There was a big set of double doors with a concrete driveway running to it. It looked like the delivery point for the kitchen. We skirted the lawn, lingering in the shadows cast by the bright house lights. It was possible they had infrared or night vision on their cameras, but that was a chance we were going to take. We reached the far wing of the house and passed a separate garage with what looked like servant’s quarters above it. We left it alone. No time for that.
There were cameras set up around the house, but so far we were well concealed in the shadows. Now we had to leave the cover of darkness and make entry through the boarded up window. That took us right under the eye of one fixed camera. I studied it for a moment.
“Rake,” I said. “Lend me your weapon.”
He handed me the silenced submachine gun. I waved him to a crouch in front of me, then I steadied the MP-5 on his shoulder and aimed at the camera. I squeezed off a round. The only sounds were the phfft of the silenced bullet and the clacking of the bolt. The camera housing shattered.
I handed him back his weapon. “Now we’re committed. Let’s go.”
Our weapons at the ready, we jogged right under the shattered camera to the boarded up window. The room was partially lit. The hallway was bright in the background. I ran at the plywood-sheathed center frame and kicked it hard. The bottom came loose but a few screws held the top in place. I kicked it again and the plywood sheet fell into the room.
We were in.
I took point and the other two fell in behind me in a tactical stack. A bulky man in pullover and jeans ran into the front room.
“What the fuck?” the guard shouted. He went for a weapon beneath his pullover.
Rake stepped out and said, “Acquired.”
He fired a silenced shot and the guard’s head bloomed red.
“First blood,” Rake said.
We stepped over the body and jogged down the hallway towards the cells. Two more guards appeared and the time for silenced weapons was over. I fired my M-4 twice, the report deafening in the close quarters.
Scratch two more.
Then we were in the hall of cells. Rake went ahead, his head tilted to one side as though listening to the radio. He pointed at the first door on the right, the third door on the left, and the next door to that one. I slid my backpack off. Rake stood near the big double doors at the end of the hall that led to the theater, and Marcos stood at the other end of the hall. I set the lock cutter charge against the door between the handle and the steel reinforced door jamb.
/> “Stay away from the door!” I shouted. “We’re here to help you!”
I blew the lock. I yanked on the twisted remains of the handle and pulled the door open. Huddled on the metal bunk was the young black man I’d seen before. His hands were bloody, and I saw dried streaks on the inner door surface.
“We’ve come to take you home,” I said. “C’mon.”
He was younger than I’d thought, maybe Ryan’s age or younger.
“Who…what?” he said.
“Come with me if you want to live,” I said. I grabbed and dragged him out into the hallway and shoved him down on the floor. “Stay down.”
I went to the next door and set the charge and blew the lock. Inside, the little boy was curled up, unconscious on the bunk. He didn’t stir when I shook him. I thumbed open one eyelids. The eyeball lolled back, the pupil huge. Drugged. That worked out just as well. We wouldn’t have a panicked toddler to control. I slung him over my shoulder and went into the hallway and handed him to the teenager.
“What’s your name?” I said to the teenager.
“Cyrus.”
“Cyrus, hold this little boy and don’t let him go. Can you do that?”
“I can do that.”
I went to the last door and pounded on it. “Stay away from the door, Luella! We’re coming in!”
I blew the door and entered the cell. She was huddled on the floor in the corner. “Luella, my name is Frank Lovelady. I was a friend of your father’s. I’ve come to take you home.”
Tears ran down her face. She was groggy, maybe still drugged. “My father?”
“We don’t have time to talk.”
There was a flurry of shots in the hallway.
“Let’s go!” I pulled her to her feet. She gripped my hand fiercely. Her belly swelled against the oversized denim smock she wore. “Coming out!”
I let go of her hand and stepped into the hallway, my weapon ready. Marcos knelt, smoke curling from his rifle muzzle.
“Scratch one,” he said.
“We’ve got them all,” I said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Rake backed down the hallway to us. Marcos went on point, followed by me, Luella behind me and Cyrus, carrying the unconscious child, behind her. Rake was last in the tail gunner position. We moved like an unwieldy snake down the hall.
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