Killer Instincts v5

by Jack Badelaire

  "Looks pretty, if you didn't know better," I said.

  "Even if you did, it still looks pretty. Pretty can be a cruel fucking bitch when she sets her mind to it."

  The area was deceptively quiet; not a lot of traffic, no kids playing in the yards, only the occasional dog-walking pedestrian. We made two passes through the neighborhood, cutting up streets one way and then coming back the other. Jamie drove while I took note of homes near the Paggiano estate that appeared unoccupied at the moment, without cars in the driveway or other signs of habitation. We found three possible candidates within a five minute walk of the estate, and a couple more further away. Not ideal, but acceptable if given no other choice in the matter.

  We found a place along the shore to park and eat lunch. We didn't say anything while we ate. Rather, we just looked out over the ocean, watching the gulls swoop along the rocks and the sand, the occasional beachcomber wandering past. I thought back to our meal along the beach in Calais a lifetime ago, remembered how I imagined looking across the Atlantic Ocean somehow to gaze on the Paggiano estate, and now I turned that telescope in the other direction, looking back in time and across the water to see my uncle and I sitting there looking at us.

  "At no point in my life, " I said, "did my father ever sit on a shoreline with me and share a packed lunch."

  "Does that bother you?" Jamie asked.

  "I don't know. I guess my dad just wasn't that kind of person. He was always so formal, so meticulous in everything he did. This would be too outside the lines for him to be comfortable."

  Jamie nodded and took a bite of his sandwich.

  "Michael was a serious child. He was very little when our father supposedly died, and your grandfather, Thomas, well from what I gather I'm much more like him, while Michael was raised by our stepfather. He was a banker and was all about etiquette and decorum. I couldn't stand it, and maybe that's half the reason I signed up for the Army when I turned eighteen. He never really treated us like his own children, and we never would have gone on a seaside picnic, either."

  "So I guess his brand of parenting rubbed off on my dad?" I asked.

  "Yeah, and you have my sympathies, " Jamie smiled. "My brother was never a really fun guy to hang out with, anyway."

  On the way back into Boston, we pulled into a gas station in Chelsea and used the payphone to contact Richard. After a couple of minutes being routed to wherever he was, I finally got him on the line, filled him in on the details of the last twenty-four hours.

  "Glad to hear everything worked out in the end," Richard said.

  "Everything didn't work out, at least not for everybody," I replied.

  "I would have thought by now you understand that winning and losing in this game have very real and permanent consequences. She got dealt a bad hand and she lost out. She was in the game, and - "

  "She was in the game because of you. She knew you'd be the death of her, and she was right. I suppose you can sleep with that knowledge, but it's wearing me a little thin."

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Finally Richard spoke.

  "Son, you need to get one fact real straight in your mind. That little girl, she was a professional. She worked for me because I paid her well, and she took risks because I paid her very well. If she had called me up five minutes before Julian found her and told me she was done working for me, forever, I would have wished her the best, told her to keep the advance fee I'd given her, and then shredded her file the moment I hung up the phone. You can go on and believe whatever you want, but that's the truth."

  I stood there silently contemplating his words for a long moment.

  "We're going to finish this business tonight. I just wanted you to know," I said.

  "Do you need anything from me?" Richard asked.

  "Just wish me luck, and have the apartment dealt with by tomorrow morning. We're not going to be going back there."

  "Asking for luck is just an excuse for poor planning, but I'll wish you luck regardless. Someone will take care of the apartment by 5 AM."

  "If we don't speak again..."

  "Just aim low and keep moving, and you'll do fine."

  "Goodbye, Richard."

  "Be seeing you, William."

  We got back to the apartment around three in the afternoon. Jamie recommended we settle in and take a nap. Throughout the day I had marveled at how well I was holding up considering the drinking and lack of sleep the night before, but as I considered tonight's agenda, sleep made sense. We set the alarm for eleven that night, and although I feared I'd not get to sleep, I must have nodded off moments after hitting the pillow.

  When we awoke, we both took a quick shower and ate a small dinner, packing sandwiches and sports drinks into our travel cooler as provisions for the next day. After eating, we broke out my weapons trunk and the hardware Jamie had brought with him, and spread it all out on the bed.

  Each of us would carry a suppressed Uzi submachine gun, and we would wear Kevlar tactical vests holding six spare magazines apiece, just like I wore when Richard and I attacked the meth lab. We'd each have a gunbelt with a suppressed Glock 19 automatic and two spare magazines, a small LED tactical flashlight, and a tanto-bladed fighting knife, just in case.

  Rather than anything overly dramatic, we both wore dark blue jeans, dark long-sleeved shirts (mine was green, Jamie's was gray), and we each had a windbreaker we could wear over our tactical gear just in case we were seen moving to or from the estate. Rather than any kind of combat boot, we wore dark-colored trail shoes, sturdy enough for the job but with soles that allowed for a quiet step. With our windbreakers zipped up, at a casual glance no one would think twice about us.

  In the last few minutes before we left, Jamie and I gave the apartment a final sweep, making sure that nothing of a criminal nature remained. I used the de-gausser to wipe the laptop's hard drive, and I packed up any of the documents Sophia had provided me. By the time we went out the door, the apartment looked no different than when I had first walked in weeks ago.

  We pulled out of the parking lot at 1:15 AM.

  TWENTY-TWO

  By two in the morning, we were driving past the Paggiano estate, lights on, normal speed, just another neighbor coming home late. I used a pair of night-vision binoculars Jamie kept in the Jeep to scan the residences nearby, and we settled on one of the three homes we'd earmarked earlier as being uninhabited. A single light was left on visible through a downstairs window, but there was no garage and no car in the driveway. The light was simply a poor deterrent against burglars, and of course we weren't looking to break in, just use the driveway as a place to park the Jeep so it was out of sight.

  We pulled into the driveway slow and with the lights turned off. Once we parked, I let myself out of the car, very carefully closed the door, and gave the house a quick once-over around the perimeter with the night vision binoculars. Satisfied that no one was home, I came back to the Jeep and gave Jamie the thumbs up. Time to get dressed.

  We hadn't worn our tactical gear while we drove, so now we each pulled on a pair of thin neoprene gloves, then strapped on our vests and our gunbelts in the dark, giving the pistols a final brass-check before slipping them into their holsters. Magazines were loaded into our Uzis, but we left the bolts closed for now. Jamie slung a canvas satchel over his shoulder, similar to what Richard had carried out in the desert, and Jamie told me to leave the night-vision binoculars behind.

  "Why? They might come in handy," I asked.

  "William, I spent years in the jungles of Vietnam. I didn't need that toy then, nor do I need it now. In combat if you rely on those gadgets too much, you stop paying attention to everything else, and that's when you die."

  I tossed the binoculars onto the front seat.

  "What's in the satchel?" I asked.

  "Some special-purpose munitions," Jamie replied.

  "Like what, exactly?"

  Jamie reached into the satchel and produced a small, round, dark object.

  "Is t
hat a fucking hand grenade?" I asked.

  "Got a couple of frags, a flash-bang, and an incendiary. I keep a few around for special occasions."

  "What, like a bottle of champagne in the fridge, just in case?"

  "Yeah, but when you pop the cork on one of these bastards, you can lose more than an eye if you're not careful. That's why I'm holding on to them."

  "Good to know."

  Jamie reached into the back of the Jeep and pulled out a heavy-looking box with a collapsible antenna sticking out of the top.

  "Here, you get to carry this instead."

  "What is it?"

  "A portable RF signal scrambler. It'll fuck up any cell phone, cordless phone, radio, anything like that in a three hundred meter radius. Might help give us a bigger window of operation time."

  "You'll get no argument from me."

  "Good, because you're also carrying this."

  Jamie pulled another item from the back of the Jeep, a black fabric bag with something coiled and lumpy inside.

  "What's this?"

  "That's how we're getting over the fence. Now, enough questions, let’s get moving."

  I slung the scrambler over one shoulder, the black bag over the other, hefted my Uzi, and we set out across the lawn, looking to cut through the neighboring properties and strike at the Paggiano estate from the flank. We moved low, slow, and smooth, hoping to avoid attracting any unwanted attention from curious insomniacs. There was enough cover along the street that with a little planning, we could move and keep exposure to a minimum.

  Ten minutes later, we had the wrought-iron fence in our sights. Jamie turned to me as we crouched next to a tree.

  "The dogs are probably going to notice us any moment now. Attack dogs like those, they don't bark when they come at you, so you don't know they're on your ass until their jaws clamp shut. We pull 'em in while we're on this side, and I'll pop them with singles from the Uzi."

  "I still don't like the idea of shooting dogs. I wish we could use tranquilizer darts or something," I said.

  Jamie shook his head and eased back the bolt of his weapon.

  "Save that shit for the movies, William. Besides, we pull this off, the cops show up, those dogs are going to be put down anyhow. At least this way, they get a soldier's death."

  Jamie stalked across the lawn, keeping low and behind a hedge, until he was within a few feet of the fence. Getting down on his belly, he crawled right up to the edge, then softly dragged the suppressor of his Uzi across the wrought iron several times.

  It took a few seconds for me to notice them, as they made no sound even at a dead run. Two lean, dark shapes flashed across the lawn heading in our direction. I eased back the bolt on my own Uzi until I heard it click home, despite the fact that I didn't think there was any way the dogs could get over or through the fence.

  At a distance of about thirty feet, Jamie fired three fast shots at one dog. The animal tumbled into the ground and rolled tail over head, coming to rest in a boneless heap. The second dog didn't even break stride, arrowing in on Jamie like a Tomahawk cruise missile. Just as the dog pulled up to keep from slamming into the fence, Jamie fired a single shot that tore through under the animal's jaw, blowing out the back of its head and dropping the corpse to the ground, twitching.

  "Hold position," Jamie whispered back to me.

  We waited. I could see thin wisps of steam rising in the cool night air from the crater in the dog's skull. Nothing moved, no sound reached us. A minute passed, then another.

  Jamie motioned me forward. I moved up next to him, scanning the grounds for a target.

  "Let's get over the fence," Jamie said.

  I unslung the black bag, and Jamie pulled out its contents. A black nylon rope ladder uncoiled onto the ground. Taking one end, Jamie threw it over the fence. Giving the ladder a tug, one of the rope rungs caught the spikes at the top, anchoring the ladder.

  "Cover me," Jamie said.

  Slinging his Uzi, Jamie climbed up the fence and gingerly swung a leg over to the other side. As he put weight on the other end of the ladder it slid down a foot until another rung caught and stopped his fall. Jamie maneuvered his other leg over the spikes and climbed down onto the ground.

  "Your turn."

  I followed Jamie's example. Except for the moment when my weight shifted the ladder's position, I made it to the ground without a hitch.

  "We're going to leave the ladder in place," Jamie said. "Remember this location, because we're going to exfil from here if at all possible."

  I nodded.

  The groundskeeper's cottage was thirty meters away. Because of the information Sophia provided us, we knew there were two cameras at the cottage. One faced the grounds back up the driveway towards the main house, and another faced the gate. Given their angles, we hoped that coming straight at the cottage from the side would minimize our chances of showing up on either camera.

  Jamie went first. Crouched with the Uzi up to his shoulder, he raced silently across the lawn and the driveway, coming to a stop at the corner of the cottage. We waited, neither of us moving, for a full minute before I saw Jamie motioning for me to cross the grounds.

  I followed his example again, moving across the manicured lawn in a combat crouch, my Uzi sweeping from side to side, eyes always looking where the muzzle was pointing. I was waiting for the shout, the floodlights coming on, like something from a prison movie, but nothing happened. I tucked myself next to the building with Jamie and listened for any movement from inside the cottage, but all I could hear was the quiet murmur of a television set. Something seemed unusual about the sound, and it took me a moment to recognize it for what it was - sex.

  "They're watching porn," I said.

  Jamie chuckled and checked the bolt on his Uzi.

  "At least they'll be distracted."

  "So how are we going to get in?" I asked.

  We came around the side of the building, staying directly under the camera that looked back up the property towards the house. There were three low steps and a small porch in front of the door, a sturdy wooden affair with a curtained glass window. Jamie pointed at the doorknob.

  "No deadbolt. Let's see if we can be subtle about this."

  We both creeped up onto the porch. Reaching into a back pocket, Jamie produced a small pouch. Inside were a number of small metal picks and wires. It was a lockpicking kit.

  "Jesus, you know how to pick locks?" I asked.

  "My career became rather colorful after the war. Now cover me, this takes concentration."

  For the next two minutes, Jamie quietly worked at the lock. I remember talking to a kid in college once who had a friend from MIT. Apparently over there, lockpicking and sneaking into places you shouldn't go was common practice, and so he told me a few things about how the process works. You need to insert one wire to put tension on the tumbler from inside, meaning the pins in the lock will stick inside the tumbler when you poke them, and another pick fitted inside the tumbler to do the poking. The key is that once you maneuver all the pins into their proper alignment, you then have to use the picks to turn the lock without letting the tension slip, popping all the pins back where you don't want them.

  I had no idea how long it had been since Jamie worked a lock, but he apparently never lost his touch. With a deft twist and a roll of his wrists, the wires turned the doorknob just as easily as a key. Jamie looked at me, and I reached up with my free hand and held the doorknob in its open position so Jamie could remove his picks and put them away. Jamie then raised his Uzi and nodded to me. With infinite care, I eased the door open, cringing, waiting for a telltale squeak or creak to give us away.

  But there was nothing. As soon as there was enough room, Jamie slipped through the entrance, and I followed him in, easing the door shut as quietly as possible before bringing the Uzi up again in a two-handed grip. We were in a dark entrance way just off the kitchen, where a single dim bulb over the stove illuminated the room. Straight ahead there was a hallway that led, as best as
we could see, towards a dining room and the front door. There was another doorway to the left, and through that we could see the flicker of the television coming from further inside the cottage. As best as we could tell, our quarry was in the corner of the first floor, opposite from where we were standing.

  We glanced through one doorway, then the other. It seemed like off to the left of the front door, the glow of the TV was more pronounced and the sounds of a ridiculously faked orgasm a little more audible. With nods and hand gestures, we both agreed that the television was facing in our direction, meaning our prey was looking towards the front of the cottage, away from our avenue of approach.

  Jamie stepped in close and whispered in my ear.

  "One of them is probably asleep, the other one watching his fuck show. The guns are going to be too loud even with the cans attached. I'm going to do the jerkoff artist with my knife. You cover the stairs in case it gets loud."

  “Works for me,” I said.

  "I'm going to come up on him low and from behind. I want you to work your way down the other hall so you can see him from the side. I'm guessing the stairway comes down towards the front door, so you'll be right at the base of the steps and to the side in case this goes badly."

  I nodded and gave Jamie the thumbs up. He smiled and gestured that I should get going. We were separating from each other for the first time today, and despite the fact that we'd be less than twenty feet apart, this made me incredibly nervous. I had originally thought to do all of this on my own, but now that I was working with my uncle, I couldn't imagine how I'd have gotten this far tonight without him.

  Jamie went to the left and began creeping down the hallway towards the living room. I moved ahead and slowly padded my way along the hall, past the bathroom and next to the staircase, into what appeared to be the dining area. A long dining table was pushed against the wall, and a number of television monitors, VHS tape recorders, and other electronic gear was set up as a surveillance center. Everything was turned on and the video was recording footage from the two cameras mounted on this house. In addition, another set of monitors provided the feed from the cameras mounted around the mansion. There was also a monitor and intercom that covered the front gate and another VHS deck that recorded the feed.