Sandy was crossing the dirt driveway, moving now at an all-out run. Then she, too, entered the barn.
Grunn appeared in the living room doorway. “What’s up?”
“Someone’s coming in.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wounded?”
“Yes.”
A moment later, a vehicle turned into the driveway and began to slowly roll past the house toward the barn.
As the vehicle stopped at the oversize door, Sandy and Kevin rushed out to greet it.
Sandy went around the nose to the driver’s side, Kevin around the rear to the door behind it.
Valena entered the kitchen and stood beside Grunn. “What is going on?”
Grunn told her that someone was here.
The driver’s door opened, and a person Stella did not recognize got out.
Opening the kitchen door, she moved through it and stepped onto the small porch.
Sandy seemed to know the driver.
He was young, dark-haired, handsome.
He had a middleweight boxer’s build and moved fast.
Stella knew Hammerton, and this wasn’t him.
She heard the driver say to Sandy, “He’s in the back.”
Kevin moved to open the back door, and Stella stepped off the porch.
Drawn forward, she was desperate to see who exactly was in the backseat.
Desperate to know whether or not it was Tom.
Kevin opened the rear door but blocked Stella’s view.
She took a step, then another, was ready to break into an all-out run toward the car but stopped short when she heard a clacking sound.
The sound of a suppressed gunshot.
Kevin dropped to the ground, and before Sandy could react, the driver grabbed her and placed one hand over her mouth.
In the other hand was a subcompact pistol, which he pressed to her temple.
Face-to-face with her, he told her to shut up as the occupant of the backseat emerged.
The man with the suppressed firearm—another man Stella did not recognize.
But there was a second man inside the vehicle, and he had gotten out of the passenger side the instant the driver had grabbed Sandy. As this man came around the rear of the vehicle, Stella saw him and felt her gut tighten.
His face was hidden behind a mask.
A mask depicting a grotesque and grinning human skull.
The mask of death.
Turning, Stella ran back to the kitchen door. Valena was standing there, looking past Stella at the driver.
Stella could tell by the look on the girl’s face that she had reached the door after the shooting.
“That’s Dante,” Valena said.
She seemed pleasantly surprised to see him.
But her look of surprise was replaced by recognition that something was not right when Stella grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her into the kitchen, then closed the door and locked it.
Valena could see through the parted curtain the men with weapons drawn coming toward them.
She could see, too, Ballentine with his pistol held to Sandy’s head.
Rushing for the kitchen table, Stella grabbed the .357 and said to Grunn, “Help me get the table to the door.”
Grunn met her at the heavy table. Together they began to push it across the floor.
Valena watched, confused, but then she joined in.
Her added strength made the difference.
They got the table to the door, then flipped it onto its side, setting it up as a temporary barricade.
The phone flew off the tabletop, landed on the wood floor, and slid under a hutch.
And only then did it ring, indicating an incoming call.
But there wasn’t time to get it.
Stella grabbed Valena and guided her to the pantry, pulling her through it and to the hidden door at its far end.
Opening the door, she pushed Valena through. “Go up the stairs. Lock the door behind you. Don’t come out for anything, okay?”
Valena nodded and climbed the steep stairs.
Closing the concealed door, Stella first made sure that it fit flush with the wall before returning to the kitchen.
Men were already at the door, though she had no idea how many.
Grunn was waiting at the entrance to the living room, Krista’s HK45 in her hands.
She whispered, “C’mon,” but just as Stella began to cross the kitchen, someone kicked the door.
Two kicks were all it took to splinter the wood around the dead bolt.
The door opened a few inches, and in the space between it and the door frame was the masked man.
That limited view was more than enough for her to see that he was a large man with a powerful build.
And he was readying for a third kick.
Raising her .357, Stella took quick aim and applied smooth pressure with her index finger to the trigger.
The hammer moved back, then sprang forward, striking the cartridge primer and firing the round.
But the masked man had seen her and used the time it had taken her to work the double-action trigger to move from her line of sight just as the revolver went off.
Stella recovered from the recoil and was re-aiming when a breaching shell fired from a shotgun shattered the top door hinge.
An instant later, a second shot did the same to the bottom hinge.
Flying wood splinters struck Stella in the face. Ducking and turning away, she didn’t see the door being pulled outward, leaving an opening that was obscured only by the upturned table.
As heavy as the thing was, it wouldn’t be much of an obstacle for that man.
The masked man kicked the table back and was poised to enter, but that changed when he saw something off to the right of the kitchen.
Grunn was on the move, firing the HK one-handed as she rushed toward Stella.
The pistol was large for her hand and heavy, plus the recoil of the .45-caliber round was too much for one-handed shooting.
But it was suppressing fire she was laying down, so accuracy didn’t matter.
Reaching Stella and pulling her to her feet, Grunn backtracked toward the living room as she continued to fire toward the kitchen door.
The full-size HK held a thirteen-round mag, so with a round chambered, she had fourteen rounds at her disposal.
Grunn had unleashed eleven by the time she had gotten Stella to the living room, leaving only three.
And she spent those last three as she moved through the door.
But she had no backup mag, so she dropped the pistol and guided Stella farther into the dimly lit room.
Mounted on a wall was a cabinet containing a half dozen hunting rifles. Grunn hurried to it, opening the glass door and removing a double-barreled shotgun.
Stella’s cheek had been cut by the flying fragments of door and hinge, but she rubbed the blood away with her left hand and aimed the .357 at the door with her right.
Opening the break-action weapon, Grunn proceeded to search the drawers beneath the glass cabinet for ammo.
It was the third drawer she opened that held what she was seeking.
Lunging for the box, she grabbed two cartridges and was feeding the first one into the shotgun when they heard the sound of footsteps in the kitchen.
Forty-Two
Heavy footsteps, closing fast.
Grunn had gotten only one shell loaded, but there wasn’t time for the other, so she swung the breach closed and shouldered the shotgun.
The first hint of a shadow appeared and she fired, the double-aught buckshot taking chunks out of the door frame.
Grunn pushed the top lever aside with her thumb, opening the breach and ejecting the spent shell.
She was loading the second one, her eyes on the door. Stella was looking there, too, her .357 now held by both hands.
Neither of them saw the man making his way down the hallway that led past the small office and to the front entrance.
> The entrance neither had paid attention to.
The man took a step into the room, raised his pistol—a Walther PPK—and aimed at Stella.
Right behind him was the driver, the man Valena had identified as Ballentine.
He was holding Sandy roughly by one arm and pressing his subcompact to her temple.
“Drop the shotgun,” the first man said.
Stella had heard that accented voice before, outside their home as it had burned around them, set afire by men who had come to kill them.
Grunn laid the shotgun, still unloaded, on the floor.
“Now you,” the Algerian said to Stella. His voice was calm to the point of monotone. “Put the revolver down. Please.”
As Stella did, the masked man entered the living room from the kitchen.
In his hand was a pistol fitted with a suppressor.
Stella recognized it as a 1911, similar to Tom’s but newer, its finish a glossy black.
The masked man walked up to her, and she saw tucked into his waistband yet another 1911.
The wear pattern on its walnut grip was identical to Tom’s.
The Algerian said to Stella, “Where is the girl?”
Stella didn’t answer.
Taking a step back so he was beside Sandy, the Algerian placed his PPK to her head as well.
The masked man moved even closer still to Stella and raised his 1911, aiming it between her eyes.
Looking at the women, the Algerian said to Ballentine, “Is she here?”
Ballentine lowered his pistol and reached into his jacket, removing a smartphone. Looking at the display, he said, “She is.”
“Where?”
“The signal is coming from the back of the house.” He nodded toward the door to the kitchen. “Through there.”
“Go,” the Algerian ordered.
Ballentine went into the kitchen.
The Algerian pushed Sandy to where Stella and Grunn were standing.
Sandy was in shock, Grunn defiant.
Stella couldn’t take her eyes off the masked man.
But the three women stood together, facing the men.
A moment passed before the Algerian called out and asked what the holdup was.
Ballentine returned to the doorway. “The signal says she’s there, but I can’t find her, can’t get to where it says she is.”
“Maybe she is upstairs or down below.”
“GPS only determines location on the map, not height. Anyway, there aren’t any stairs off the kitchen. The only door opens to a pantry.”
The Algerian crossed to the three women.
He looked at Grunn. “You again.” Then he faced Sandy. “This is your house, no?”
When Sandy didn’t answer, he aimed his PPK at Grunn but kept his eyes on Sandy. “Where is the girl?”
Sandy was frozen, more by shock than fear.
The Algerian thumbed the hammer back and placed his index finger inside the trigger guard.
Stella thought of her hours with Tom in that hidden room, the voices below at times clearly audible.
She thought, too, of the compact Smith & Wesson in the top drawer of the table by the bed.
“I’ll get the girl,” she said.
The Algerian nodded to Ballentine. “Go with her. Secure the device. Bring me the girl.”
Ballentine pocketed the smartphone, held his Beretta subcompact ready as he followed Stella into the kitchen.
She entered the pantry, but he waited outside, watching as she walked toward the back, wary that it was some kind of trap.
Stella reached the back wall and pushed against one side of it, causing the wall to swing back on a hinge like a door. She stepped aside so Ballentine could clearly see the darkened stairs beyond.
He gestured into the pantry, said, “After you.”
She climbed the stairs as he followed, making no attempt to walk softly on the old planks.
Each step creaked, each creak echoed in that narrow stairwell.
At the top, a small landing, three feet long, was all that stood between them and the closed door.
The stairwell they’d climbed had been narrow, but the hallway was even more so. Ballentine brushed against Stella as he moved around her to the door.
She was certain that he did so more than was necessary to get by her.
For a second they locked eyes, and he almost smiled.
Facing the door, Ballentine said, “Valena, it’s me. Come out, everything’s okay.”
But he got only silence.
Ballentine knocked on the door gently, then tried the knob, but it wouldn’t turn.
“C’mon, Valena, open up. It’s me. We’re going to get you out of here, to someplace safer. The two of us. I promised you and your mother, remember? I promised I’d take care of you. So let me take care of you.”
Nothing at first, then the sound of the door being unlocked.
Yet the door remained closed.
Ballentine hesitated.
Stella thought of the bedside table, envisioned it just inside the door and to the right.
If she could get to it first . . .
“I’ll go in,” she said.
Ballentine moved around Stella again, brushing against her, then positioned himself behind her, using her as a shield.
Stella turned the knob and opened the door.
The windowless room was pitch-black.
Stella stepped through and shifted slightly to the right, feeling for the bedside table.
She found it, but what she felt didn’t make any sense at first.
The top drawer was open. And it was empty.
The dim light spilling into the room from the hallway barely diminished the darkness, but Stella knew it was enough to make clear silhouettes out of herself and Ballentine.
He remained behind her, though, the muzzle of his pistol pressed into her lower spine.
“Turn on the light,” Ballentine said.
Stella felt for the lamp on the table, found the small chain, and pulled.
She knew the room, knew that there was only one bare corner for the girl to back into, so she saw her a split second before Ballentine did.
Not cowering but down on one knee, the .380 held expertly in a two-handed combat grip.
But Stella’s advantage didn’t last long. Ballentine saw Valena and had enough time to grab Stella and pull her in front him.
Then he aimed his pistol at the cornered girl.
He could only grab Stella with one hand, though, was holding the pistol with the other, and that meant Stella had two hands free.
She needed only one.
Pivoting her hips slightly, she had a clear path to his groin and took it, striking him there with a swift backfist.
Then she lunged for his right arm, threw her torso against it and pushed his pistol off target.
Driving farther to his right until she was no longer in front of him, Stella left Ballentine a wide-open target for the daughter of Ula Nakash.
Valena did what her mother would have done.
What her mother had no doubt taught her over the years they had pursued the man who’d killed her father.
Valena opened fire.
Forty-Three
The shots echoed sharply through the farmhouse.
Two, one right after the other, then two more.
This was followed by the unmistakable sound of a body dropping to the floor.
The Algerian glanced at the masked man, who kept his eyes on the two women before him.
A few seconds passed but no more shots came.
The Algerian said to the masked man, “Go and see.”
Following his orders without hesitation, the masked man left the living room and entered the kitchen.
His suppressed 1911 raised, he scanned the room before moving to the door he had broken down.
Standing to the side of it, he peered through.
He detected no movement, saw only the dead man in a heap on the driveway.
&nbs
p; Turning back to the kitchen, he identified no other means of egress or entry. The only door at all was an open one that led to a narrow pantry, the two long walls of which were lined with sturdy shelves.
He made his way to the pantry, stopping just outside it when he heard a sound from somewhere within.
A creaking sound—specifically, a wooden step bending under the weight of a foot.
Entering, he paused to listen, heard the sound again, though this time it ceased abruptly, as if someone had stopped midstep.
The only explanation was that the wall straight ahead was a false one and someone was behind it.
The only question that remained was whether it was the woman and the girl or his kid brother.
He took a step closer, then another, only to hear another creak.
But this one didn’t come from behind the wall. It came from beneath his own boot. He realized his mistake, but it was too late.
The wall dead ahead began to burst as multiple rounds were fired through it.
Rounds fired from Ballentine’s Beretta by Stella.
Several of the initial shots missed, and the masked man turned and ran, bent at the waist. He was nearly clear of the pantry when his luck ran out.
A hollow-point round caught him in the shoulder, another went into his back.
It was the third one that did the most damage, piercing his right lung and lodging in his ribs.
He staggered for a few more steps, enough to clear the pantry, but then dropped face-first onto the kitchen floor.
Stella pulled back the door, keeping the girl behind her as she moved through the pantry.
Blood was flowing from the motionless man’s chest as she and Valena stepped over his body.
Stella was aware that the Algerian was still in the next room—just steps away.
She quickly led the girl to the kitchen door and gestured for her to go through it.
Valena didn’t move.
Stella mouthed, “Run,” but the girl shook her head and remained.
From the living room, the Algerian said, “Frank, what’s going on?”
The man was moving.
Stella placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder and led her through the door and onto the porch, then made a shooing motion with her hand.
The girl looked at her, but she wouldn’t run.
There wasn’t time, so Stella reentered the kitchen and positioned herself, taking aim at the door to the living room.
The Rogue Agent Page 26