by Bob Blink
"Once we get their door open without alerting them, we'll set the gas canister inside and let the air-conditioning circulate it through the house," Thomas said. "It'll probably work even better than at the house we were planning on hitting, since this one has been closed up and is probably stuffy and warm. The AC will be running full-time trying to cool it down and will circulate the gas more effectively."
The GPS unit in the Hummer led them unerringly into the neighborhood where Jake lived. The convoy split into three components and parked on several side streets. The men quietly climbed out of the vehicles, their long guns left behind. Even in the dark there was enough light that the weapons would be easily distinguished by anyone who happened to look out their windows. The handguns each man carried would have to be sufficient tonight, but given the expected element of surprise and the fact they far outnumbered their intended victims, they should prevail easily.
Aaron led the way to the house. The three vehicles that had brought the agents from Half Moon Bay were parked in the driveway. A quick check verified the hoods of the cars were still warm. The man who checked nodded at Paul, and Jeff pointed to the Nevada plate. Once the group was located in the copse of trees that bordered the street in front of Jake's place, Aaron triggered the small unit that should cause the alarms inside to fail to detect the opening of the door adjacent to the driveway.
"It's done," Aaron said, monitoring the display lights on his unit.
"Jeff, help Murray put the gas canister inside," Paul ordered. "Listen carefully for any alarm or indication that they are aware that the door has been breeched. We should be prepared to pull back if they have."
When Jeff and Murray returned, they indicated that Aaron's efforts had been successful.
"How long for the gas to do its work?" Paul asked.
"We'll give it ten minutes," Thomas said. "There isn't enough to put them under, and given the way it's being distributed we can't be certain how effective it will be. At the very least it should make them groggy, and slow down their response to our break in."
Impatiently, Paul monitored his watch. Finally, he sighed and said, "Okay. It's time. Natalie stays out here on the cell phone until we indicate it's clear. The prime targets are this Jake fellow and the guy from Reno. Either might be the one we need to neutralize. No shooting unless absolutely necessary until they are down. Even suppressed, these folks will know that they are hearing weapons fire. I'd like to take the others alive so we can ask questions, understand?"
Moments later fifteen men moved quietly through the door that Aaron had neutralized. He waited outside with Natalie, ready to respond to any call that Paul might make based on what they found inside. Natalie stood behind a stout tree, just to ensure that no one had a shot at her. She was very much aware these people were seeking her, just as they were seeking the FBI's Backslider.
Paul wasn't certain where the people might be inside the house, but he expected they would all be on the lower level. The upstairs was probably a family area, mostly bedrooms and play areas for the kid. They wouldn't be retiring this early, especially after the events at Half Moon bay, so somewhere downstairs was most likely. Aaron had looked through the windows when he had been here before, and they had a rough idea of the layout of the lower level. Paul guessed they would be in the living room, which would be to their left as they entered, or in the kitchen in the back and on the far side of the house. Aaron had noted a closed room with double doors which probably indicated a study, but Paul doubted that was large enough to hold the five people they expected to find here.
As Paul moved into the house, his gas mask in place and his suppressed Glock held ready, he noted the lights in the back of the house. The living room was only dimly lit, which suggested there was no one there. Jeff and Thomas stepped in immediately after Paul, and a dozen others followed after them, all with weapons ready. Paul turned right deciding he wanted to pass by the living room to be certain it was empty before converging on the kitchen area in back. Thomas directed five of his men to circle to the left, coming at the area from the opposite direction.
The living room was empty as expected, but Paul noted the double doors to the study were open. Even as he rounded the corner and spotted the doors, he heard a voice and saw the man he sought stepping into the hallway.
"Something isn't right," Jake said, his voice thick as if he'd been drinking heavily. "We need to open the windows and get some fresh air."
Following directly behind him was the man they hadn't been able to identify up to now.
Paul grinned. It couldn't be this easy, he thought. He signaled to Jeff and pointed to the identified man as his target. Paul wanted Waters for himself.
Nearly simultaneously, they fired a series of two shots each. Paul was pleased to see both of his shots struck close to where he intended, solidly in the center of mass. Jeff must have done as well, and both men dropped without a sound.
Even as they crumpled. Paul and Jeff, followed by Thomas and a couple of his men hurried forward toward the study. Just as he turned the corner he spotted Jim Laney, reactions slowed by the gas he'd breathed, drawing his service Glock. A couple of quick shots dropped the agent, although Paul was certain the hits weren't immediately fatal, but the agent had lost his weapon and was out of action for the moment. Carlson and her boyfriend were caught still reaching for their weapons, and they slowly raised their hands in the presence of Paul and his men.
Seeing the situation was under control, Paul walked over to the two bodies he and Jeff had shot initially, and carefully placed a shot in the head of each. A close examination showed that the one he knew as Bob Trask, or more correctly Jake Waters, was dead. He turned back to Carlson.
"He's the one, isn't he?" he asked.
She didn't need to answer. He could see the answer in her eyes.
He spoke into his phone, which he'd had connected to Natalie all the time.
"We're good here. We got him, and it's the one known as Bob Trask as we suspected. He's the one we want. You can do your thing now."
Natalie was supposed to backslide to the time they arrived in San Francisco. They would immediately turn around and return to Livermore. By the time they arrived, the plane would be refueled, and they'd head back East. Once back home she'd Backslide some more, and they'd get to an earlier time where they could eliminate Trask, or Waters to use his real name, and clean up this mess before it got out of hand.
"Not yet," she said. "I want to see for myself."
Paul was going to object and tell her they didn't have time, but she'd already hung up.
A few minutes later she came in escorted by Aaron, who shrugged and looked at Paul as if to say, what could I do? neither was wearing a mask, but the gas was supposed to be dissipating by now anyay.
"That's him, all right," she said, the satisfaction clear in her voice.
She turned to her brother and took the gun he still held out of his hand. Then she turned toward Carlson.
Anticipating the woman's intent, Norm attempted to step in front of Susan to protect her, but his movements were slowed by the effects of the gas and he was too late. Natalie fired three shots into Carlson, who gasped and fell to the floor. Then Natalie shot Norm in the head.
"Let's go," she said to Paul and she handed Jeff his gun back with a satisfied smirk. "I've been thinking. Maybe we should let it end this way. We won. Why risk changing it?"
"Uh, Nat," Paul said. "We have to do it the way we planned.
"We can talk about it later," Natalie said, her eyes moving quickly toward Thomas and then back.
Paul knew this wasn't the time to argue, and after a quick check to verify that Laney had expired, he signaled it was time to go. As they left, Aaron walked over and whispered in his ear.
"Shit!" Paul muttered, but after a quick glance back, followed the others out of the house. He expected sirens after the shooting, since even suppressed it was distinctive, but for the moment all was quiet.
Chapter 43
Sat
urday Night, May 21
Paul was a little annoyed and a great deal frustrated that Natalie hadn't simply agreed to perform one of her Backslides as they had initially planned should matters work out as they had hoped. There was something on her mind that she wanted to talk about, and from the little that had been said she was considering leaving things as they stood. That simply wasn't going to be acceptable, but they wouldn't be able to talk about the matter until they had some privacy, which meant after they were in their quarters back at the estate in Mission Bay.
Thomas interrupted his train of thought.
"You said you have a problem with some people. I thought you were talking about someone you had run into conflict with doing business. But those people were Feds, weren't they? I saw the badge one of them was carrying, and the last three killed were all carrying the standard FBI issue sidearms. I haven't understood some of what you two have been talking about, but killing so many FBI agents is going to create a major shit storm. I'm not certain how my father is going to react to this."
"What's done is done," Paul said. "You shouldn't have anything to worry about. They are East Coast agents, and they have had nothing to do with your people out here. There's nothing to connect you to them. Also, no one knows we were even on this coast. There should be no repercussions."
This was a lie, but one Paul hoped would satisfy Thomas for the time being. He didn't want to get involved in an uncomfortable exchange to justify what had been done to the other, and given that Natalie eventually did as they'd planned, this would never happen, so it wouldn't matter. If for some reason she didn't agree to Backslide, the problems ahead of them were going to be far more significant than the little lie he'd just told.
Thomas stared at Paul for a long time, uncomfortable with the answer and not certain he believed what he was being told, but as Paul had said, what was done was done. There was no chance to change the situation, and he'd have to hope his father, who had been reluctant from the beginning to extend the support Thomas had offered his friend, wouldn't react too angrily. Several attempts to probe what the killings had been about resulted in little useful information, beyond the fact the Feds were after them for a couple of murders back East. Finally, Thomas gave up his attempts to probe for information and sat back, watching the familiar scenery as they returned home to Mission Bay.
"Natalie, you've got to Backslide so we can clean this mess up as planned," Paul insisted once they were alone in the room. Part of him wondered if the room might be bugged, but they had little choice. They needed to talk this out, and they couldn't very well leave the house to do so.
"Maybe we should leave things as they are?" she asked. "It's been one close call after another ever since this started. More than once you have been killed. Jeff also. But now we have won! All of them are dead, and maybe we shouldn't risk going back where there's a chance that things might go wrong. As you've pointed out, I don't really need the fame and money coming from the new serum. I can make all the money I want using my ability. I've thought a lot about that since you explained how the talent could be used. We could flee to another country and there's nothing they could do to us. I doubt they will even be able to prove the deaths of their agents was our doing."
"Natalie, we can't," Paul said softly. "We'd done things that aren't going to be forgiven."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"To start with, we'll have a problem with Uncle Carlos. He doesn't like to be manipulated. I never asked him whether we could use the plane. I simply told his people he had approved the flight. They know me and my relationship with him. They had no reason to doubt my word, but eventually he is going to find out. When he does, he will take it as a sign of disrespect. He is going to want to know why, and there will be a serious reckoning to follow. I'm not certain my position within the Organization will survive his anger."
"Then there's Thomas and his father. Thomas is a friend, but our support here has been based on the agreement of his father, who believes he is doing a favor for another Don, my Uncle Carlos. They are going to be even more unhappy when the truth comes out, and will call for recompense for our actions. They have put themselves at risk based on my lies. While the cops and the Feds may be limited in their reach, the Organization sees no such limitations, and we may just find ourselves the subject of a contract we can't run from, no matter where we go."
"But," Natalie tried to speak, but Paul held up his hand.
"The number of Feds that have been killed is going to make normal business difficult for some time. The costs to the Organization will be immense. Who is going to compensate them for this? Us? How would we be able to do so without revealing your ability, and I've already told you how Uncle Carlos would view someone with your Backsliding ability."
"There's more," Paul said. "You are wrong that we can't be linked to the killings. Aaron told me just before we left that the house had a number of hidden cameras which were active and transmitting video to someplace outside the house. We can't be positive, but his belief is that video of everything that happened at the house will be in the hands of the FBI Director before long. This Jake Waters had some kind of special relationship with the Bureau, and it's likely the links were in place to facilitate his interactions with them."
"Finally, don't forget the men we failed to discover back at the house near Half Moon Bay. They had a couple of men, two minimum, that our people failed to discover. They also will know about us, and once they discover what we have done, they will be seeking retribution. Thomas says that our sniper was killed at over five hundred yards in low light conditions. Whoever did that is good, and is not a Fed. They don't operate that way. The explosives in the cars are another example. Whoever those people are, I don't think we want them coming after us for revenge."
Natalie had been silent for most of Paul's pointed arguments. When he finally stopped, she said, "I'm afraid of what might happen. I wanted it to be done. When I saw them all dead, I felt we were finally free."
"We are anything but free," Paul informed her. "The way things stand now we'll have people within the Organization, the FBI, and some unknown people, all after our heads. There is no choice but for you to Backslide, carrying back the knowledge we have learned so we can selectively target this Jake Waters fellow, and then Carlson, before any of this gets out of hand. With their Back-Tracker gone, and Carlson dead before she makes the connection to you and Anne, we can walk away clean."
With an exasperated sigh, Natalie sat on the bed.
"It's not that easy," she said finally.
"What do you mean?"
"It's almost Sunday. We planned on going back to last Sunday to take action. That's what you were talking about. Make our move when Waters was alone following Jeff. He wouldn't be expecting us to be onto him then."
"I'm not so certain he was really alone, but that's another matter. What's the problem?"
"I've told you that six to seven days is as far as I can Backslide. I'm not certain I can even get that far after everything that has happened in the past week. I've used my ability more than ever before, and the ability degrades with frequent use."
"So, if you can't go that far, there are other opportunities we can select. We know what has worked and what hasn't. We'll find an opportunity."
"Okay," she said finally. "I Backslide to the time we arrived in California yesterday afternoon, and we take the plane back East. Once there we decide what to do based on how far back I can jump, right?"
Paul nodded.
"Hopefully I can sleep on the plane. That might help me recover somewhat. It's also fortunate that this first jump is just a short one, a little over a day. It might be good if they can take us directly to New York, so we don't have to deal with a drive from Baltimore. Remember, we were in New York in the morning last Sunday before we headed to Atlantic City."
"Good. I can't see any point in waiting. You know what we came to find out. How about you do it now? Any more waiting simply increases the gap you say is getting too
great between now and when we want to act."
"I can't," Natalie said.
"Why not?" Paul asked, getting frustrated again.
"We're too far from Livermore," she said. "When we were driving to the city from the airport yesterday, I realized I lost the link to my earlier self as we were crossing that long bridge across the bay. If I'm going to make the link, we need to get someone to take us back there so I'm within range."
"Shit!" Paul cursed. "How are we going to explain this to Thomas? It's nearly midnight. What reason would we want to go out now?"
"There's another thing," Natalie said nervously. "You and Thomas were discussing in the car the fact that someone had to be watching this place for them to realize we were coming. What are the chances that sniper of theirs might be waiting outside hoping to take a shot at us when we leave the estate?"
"Most of the cars Thomas has available have tinted windows. I doubt they'd be able to tell who was in a car, and they wouldn't simply take shots at random."
"And if they do?"
"I'll drive. You lay down in the back seat where the chances of getting hit are minimal. If something happens, you Backslide to now, and we'll change our plan."
"This all assumes that we can get Thomas to give us a car. Even if he does, he'll want to provide a driver. What do we tell him?"
"Tell him we have some business to conclude now that the agents have been taken care of. It is something we need to keep personal, and his people shouldn't be involved in."
"He'll buy that?"
"I don't know. In the worst case, he'll send a driver. It won't matter ultimately, because at some point, none of this will have happened. The main thing is getting the car so we can get you in range. Where do you need to be to act?"