by Heskett, Jim
Chapter Forty-Three
EMBER
Ember and Layne piloted the car up the road at a snail’s pace. Downed trees, icy patches, the occasional gust of wind stirring up the snow and cutting visibility to zero. She hoped their plan was sound enough to work. It didn’t need to be perfect — no plan was — but it needed to be good enough, or they were all dead. No pressure, or anything.
That plan was sitting in the backseat of the car now.
As soon as she could see the lights from the house, Ember touched Layne’s arm. “Stop here.”
He eased the truck over to the side of the road, short of actually crossing over the open gate toward the edge of the property.
Ember turned around to their additional passenger. “You okay?”
The passenger coughed and nodded. “Doing fine, thank you.”
“Do you know what to do?”
The backseat person slipped on a tac vest and attached various velcro implements, then held up a blanket. “I’ll be in position. Don’t worry about me.”
She nodded, knowing this part of their plan was the easiest. Plenty left to go wrong, she thought.
Ember and Layne exited the vehicle and opened the trunk to collect their gear. Heavy vests with ceramic plates, shotguns, pistols, grenades. They attached as much gear as they could to their bodies and then looked around at their surroundings. In front of them, the gate to the house was open, inviting, dormant. Instead, Ember pointed at the hill to their right, and Layne nodded his consent.
They ascended the hill, their legs sinking eighteen inches into the snow. They used tree limbs and half-buried shrubs as guide ropes to help them reach above the fence line around the house.
Once in a spot with flat earth beneath their feet, Ember hunkered down and Layne huddled next to her. The sun was rising to their right, burning through the cloud cover. But, with the constant snowfall, a brightening sky didn’t make it easier to see.
“Before I forget,” Ember said, calling Layne’s attention to her.
“Yes?”
“Back in Denver, there’s a local gangster guy named Tyson Darby. Ever heard of him?”
Layne nodded. “I have, actually. A friend of mine has butted heads with him more than once.”
“I was hoping to use him to establish a link between Marcus and Omar White, but it didn’t pan out. Would you mind looking into him? I think he’s up to something nasty.”
“Sure thing. He’s slippery, I know that for sure.” Layne pointed a finger through the dense snowfall. “What do we have here?”
The house sat a little ways back on the property, nestled next to an open canyon behind it to the north. The thing was massive, like a movie star’s house. With two main wings, all the windows were dark in the wing to the west. A handful of illuminated rooms glimmered in the east wing.
Ember pointed to the darkened west wing. “That’s our best bet.”
“You want to split up? I’ll take east and you take west? We can meet up in the middle and reassess if we don’t find anything.”
Ember thought about five weeks ago, walking the 29th Street Mall with Gabe to draw out a sniper, starting from opposite ends and meeting each other in the middle. It should have been him here, instead of Layne. Ember was grateful to have the help, but it should have been Gabe.
“Works for me,” Ember said.
A set of four towers were spaced out along the property, and although Ember couldn’t see movement, she had to suspect Marcus had men stationed in them. Even if he was inside the actual house sleeping, he would still have guards out at dawn.
In order to sneak in and steal Marcus’ phones, they had to stay out of sight. If this all went well, not a single shot would be fired.
“We should keep outside the fence on our approach,” Ember said. “We’ll split up now and go wide from here, then I go over the fence at 2 o’clock and you go over at 10 o’clock. That keeps us close to the house, but away from those towers.”
Layne nodded as he pointed down below. “See those alternate entrances?”
There were craggy peaks to the east and west of the house. Below each, there were breaks in the stone fence surrounding the property for gates. Each of these gates also stood open.
Layne narrowed his eyes. “Why are those gates not closed?”
“Feels wrong, doesn’t it?”
Layne grumbled. “Definitely feels wrong.”
Ember chewed on her lower lip. “Let’s say it’s a trap. Let’s say Marcus is waiting for us. Assuming he has men in those towers, plus men positioned around the house, plus maybe a couple tanks ready to come through those open east and west gates, would that change our plan of attack?”
“I don’t think so. We still go at the house at an angle, we still meet up in the middle. We just might have to shoot our way through instead of sneaking.”
“Then it doesn’t matter if it feels wrong. We go for stealth, and if that doesn’t work, we still follow the plan. Deal?”
Layne slipped on a black cap and folded up the collar of his jacket to cover his pale neck flesh. “Deal. I’ve always liked coaches who go for it on fourth down.”
“Football,” Ember said, musing. “I kinda get that reference.”
“How’s your cell reception?”
She checked. “One bar, but it’s flickering.”
“That’s what I figured.” He took out two walkie-talkies and set them to the same channel, then handed one to Ember. Without reliable cell reception up here, walkies were their best bet.
“Since we’re probably about to die here,” Ember said, “I feel like I should tell you something. And don’t take this the wrong way, because I have a boyfriend, but damn, you’re a handsome man, Layne Parrish.”
He snickered, and she thought maybe she detected a hint of blush coloring his cheeks. “Thank you. You’re not so bad, yourself.”
“You and Serena doing it?”
“Excuse me?”
“You and Serena are two of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met. If you’re not doing each other every chance you get, then you’re missing out on a golden opportunity. Just think of the gorgeous babies you’d make.”
Layne pursed his lips and nodded, but made no reply.
“You ever get tired of this?” she asked.
“Tired of what?”
“Operations. Putting your life on the line.”
He tilted his head back and forth. “Technically, I’m retired. I’m just not very good at staying retired. There always seems to be a reason to go back, you know?”
“Not for me. Not anymore.”
“That’s because you’ve been retired for about five minutes. Still, look at yourself — you’re on an active operation right now.”
She smiled. Okay, good point Layne. “That’s fair. But not after this. After this, it’s over.”
“You talking about the FBI?”
She nodded. “I’ve been living in a dream world out here in Colorado for the last six months or so, ever since I cut off contact with Isabel Yang. Part of me knew it would come to an end at some point.”
“And now, you’re stuck between, not sure which world to choose?”
She shook her head and thought of Zach. “Not anymore. I’ve made my choice, and I’m okay with the consequences. It’s time to go.”
They fist-bumped, and Ember crossed to her right, to take the eastern path around the fence. She wrestled with snow up to her knees—and sometimes deeper—sapping her energy with every step. Each move came with careful consideration of the terrain. She didn’t want to end up drenched in sweat and shaking from the cold.
In five more minutes of slogging through tree limbs and underbrush concealed by autumn muck, she had moved far enough east to then make her way north past the fence. Still no activity at those gates. No hint of motion in those wooden towers.
Ember descended the hill and pushed up against the exterior of the stone fence. She walked north along the length of it until she came to the ope
n eastern gate. If there were guards hidden in those towers, they would see her as soon as she stepped out into the open. The snow was heavy and relentless, but there was no way to hide herself while she crossed the fifteen bare feet of no fence line in front of that gate.
With clenched fists, she rushed past it, scrambling until she arrived safely on the other side. Breaths coming rapidly, she paused, waiting to see if anyone would react to her crossing the open snow in front of the gate. Nothing happened.
From far away, Ember thought she heard the grumble of truck engines, but she couldn’t be sure. With the snow falling and wind whipping around, she distrusted every sound. Due to the sheer number of distractions, she was actively trying to ignore most stimuli around her.
Ember pushed along the boundary of the fence, honing her ears for more truck sounds. Maybe they were growing louder, but she couldn’t be sure. Not even sure if they were trucks she was hearing. Too much to focus on. She needed to don virtual blinders to reach her destination.
Ember approached the point along the fence where she had decided to cross from outside to inside. She found a foothold in a stone jutting out, then she climbed the thick fence. At the top, she kept her body flat and moved as quickly as possible to start her descent.
She slipped down the other side, landing in a puff of snow. Hands up and ready, feet spread apart, she swiveled her head around, looking for surprises.
Now, she could see the lights. Headlights. It had been trucks. There were four of them, all rolling through the open eastern gate. And then, across the other side of the property, a collection of cars entered through the western gate. At least ten cars parked within a hundred feet of each other. All these vehicles, and none of them had markings or insignia on their sides. Not uniformed cops, for sure. But, as far as Ember could tell, these were two separate groups. And, quite a coincidence they had arrived at the same time.
Ember knew it couldn’t be a coincidence at all. More like an orchestrated simultaneous arrival.
More like a bunch of people with guns, ready to fight.
Chapter Forty-Four
EMBER
She watched as the two hordes parked and began exiting their vehicles. She saw weapons, mostly guns and pistols, brandished by people on both sides.
Ember looked toward Layne, but couldn’t see him. She imagined if she could see his face it would register the same unreadable expression he liked to wear. Still, she could guess from here what he was thinking. This is a bit more than we bargained for.
And it was just the sort of chaos someone like Marcus loved to engineer.
Armed men and women poured out of the trucks and cars, weapons up, each side pointing at the other. Some began shouting across the space, but their voices were lost to the wind. The two groups solidified into two separate forces as they faced off against each other across the open expanse of the house’s front yard.
She saw that their clothes were mostly plain, jackets and pants or jeans, prepared for the weather, but many also wore tactical gear. Masks, helmets, vests, even a few with NVGs, which were now worthless due to the snowfall.
Ember recognized some of the people on one side. They were DAC members. Probably forty of them. Some had broken off to gather together, clusters huddling behind the line of cars. She knew they weren’t doing it for warmth — they were making a plan. They were likely trying to figure out who the hell the other guys were.
Ember turned her eyes toward the second group, the one that was also now forming up behind the trucks they’d fallen from. She scanned their faces, not able to recognize anyone until her eyes fell to the second man in the line.
A gasp chilled the fillings in her teeth. There, among the empty trucks, she saw Helmut standing in the midst of twenty men.
Like a slap across the face, Ember understood the plan.
This isn’t going to end well, she thought. Layne was probably thinking something similar, but it was far too late to do anything about it. They were in it now. She kept herself as solid as a rock, observing without the slightest movement.
Then she looked up toward one of the towers. She saw something move, something difficult to notice against the backdrop of the sky.
It moved again, ever so slightly, and she could now make out the tower’s occupant. Inside it, inching forward, a man dressed in all black emerged from a crouched position, holding a sniper rifle.
Shit.
She knew exactly what the plan was. What Marcus intended to do here. She was about to be trapped right in the middle of it, too.
But there was nothing she or Layne could do, not from here. She watched the man in the tower, trying to anticipate his next move. Before she’d landed on a plausible option, the man aimed and took a single shot into the crowd of assassins.
Then he pivoted and shot one more high-caliber round toward Helmut’s men.
The effect was instantaneous. Within two seconds the stalemate between the two groups ended, and they started shooting at each other. No one bothered to check the angle of the shots, to notice that the two downed soldiers’ heads had simply ceased to exist, only possible from a massive rifle perched far higher.
None of that mattered — each side had been set up to believe that the other was attacking them, and both had been ready and eager to start fighting. This was a manufactured battle. No surprise that it had been a trap; Ember had anticipated that. But not of this magnitude. Not in this way. Marcus had arranged for all of this to happen. There would be limitless anarchy and violence and dead bodies littering the snow within seconds.
A bullet zipped by her head and took out a chunk of the fence. Whether an accidental ricochet, misfire, or intentional shot at her, she couldn’t tell. No one seemed to be actively pointing weapons in her direction, but it didn’t matter. She had no interest in being gunned down out here, and she didn’t want to see Layne eat a bullet, either. She ducked, crouching a bit deeper in the snow.
If she showed herself, the situation would likely change. Both sides wanted to kill her, and she had no doubt that in spite of the massive battle heating up, she would still be considered the ultimate prize.
No reason to unite both these forces against her.
As the bullets flew from one side to the other, there didn’t seem to be much discrimination in target selection. Assassins fell, Helmut’s men dropped. Men and women danced around, fired shots, tossed grenades, and the battle waged on. Only seconds had passed, but time seemed to slow.
An image of Zach blipped in front of her face. Then another bullet zipped in her direction.
Insanity. Pure insanity, and it was getting worse with each passing second.
None of it mattered, however. She still had a mission to accomplish, and a limited window. She didn’t know what else to do besides check the safeties on her guns and sprint toward the mansion.
Chapter Forty-Five
LAYNE
Layne flattened himself against the exterior garage seconds before the shooting started. The moment he’d seen the headlights of the trucks arriving, he knew the deal. He knew exactly how they had been screwed.
Marcus had arranged all of this, including feeding Serena misinformation to then relay to Ember. He’d even known what time they would arrive. He must have had lookouts on the highways reporting back to Marcus to make the timing work out.
Layne recalled one hectic spot on the journey here when Ember and Layne had needed to leave the car and shovel snow to clear the road. Had Marcus and his people manually created that roadblock?
A man in a dark suit ran in Layne’s direction. Most of the fighting was over toward the large open space to the south of the house, in the area where the three fence gates converged. But there were pockets of gunfire erupting from everywhere. The burgeoning daylight above provided some illumination through the clouds, but not enough.
The man sprinted, a frenzied look on his face. In another ten paces, he would run right into Layne. Snow churned up under his feet as he tried to cross the side yard.<
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Layne stayed put for as long as he could, then he popped out and put a bullet in the man’s forehead. He hadn’t even seen Layne. But now that he had fired, others would come. Layne watched a few eyes point in his general direction.
The hulking mansion stood a hundred yards to his left. Out on the southern grounds in front of the house, there were about sixty combatants shooting at each other. Maybe seventy or eighty, as some were likely hiding out of sight. Limited visibility made picking out details nearly impossible. Not only were they at over eight-thousand feet and in the middle of a snowstorm, but some areas were also drenched in fog, shifting with the winds. Weather-wise, everything had gone wrong.
Some combatants had taken cover behind open truck doors, some were prone in the snow. Many were spreading out, now attacking the men in the towers. A few ran toward the house. Full on madness out here, with bullets slicing the air in a nonstop barrage.
A few of them barked orders, trying to control the the uncontrollable. Layne didn’t know how they could tell their own teams from the others in all this mess. He had to assume that had always been Marcus’ design.
Layne plotted a course toward the house, through the snow and to a side door. It would take him less than two seconds to reach it, but he would be exposed the whole time. And there was also a chance he might run right across a covered swimming pool that had not yet fully frozen and suddenly find himself in the icy water.
He readied the shotgun and took off. Five steps toward the house, a woman with a machete appeared in his peripheral.
“I’m not going out like this, not to a bunch of feds!” she shouted as she locked eyes with him.