Duke: Alpha One Security: Book 3

by Jasinda Wilder

  The nice thing about throat mics is that they can pick up a whisper in the middle of a firefight; I whispered as I fired, hoping they wouldn’t know who I was talking to.

  “Anyone gets near that bathroom, you shoot and don’t stop.”

  “O-okay.”

  I rolled to one side and fired again, but my rounds hit the ceiling. My first bursts had founds targets, though, dropping one of the mercs and sent the others scrambling for cover.

  “You have incoming,” Anselm said. “Zu viele, zu viele. I cannot help you in there.”

  I’d found my feet now, and the hallway was empty. I switched mags again, stuffing the partially empty one into a pocket with the other. Crept toward the nearest doorway, swung out to the opposite side of the frame, carbine sweeping the interior of the room, Harris’s study. The operative was in the far left corner, hoping to get the drop on me as I rolled in—dumbass, thinking he could get me with that trick. When you clear a room, you always start at the corners, exactly where that fucker was hiding. I was firing before I even fully registered his presence, ducking into the room to use the doorway as cover.

  I heard the Mossberg’s sharp belch, and then a second shot, and then Temple screaming.

  Thought and training and caution bled out of me instantly, and I darted out of the room at full speed. I heard an HK chatter behind me as I passed the half-bath adjacent to the study, felt a round whisper past my neck. I hit the far wall of the hallway, twisted in place, fired a handful of rounds to push the shooter back under cover, and then scrambled into the spare bedroom.

  Two bodies dressed in tactical black were on the ground in front of the open en suite bathroom door, blood pooling beneath them.

  “It’s me,” I shouted, “It’s Duke.”

  I heard scrambling on the tile, and then Temple rushed out and slammed into me full force. She was coated in blood spray, but seemed unhurt.

  “You got ‘em, babe,” I cooed. “You got ‘em. Good shooting.”

  “He—he yanked the door open so fast I didn’t know what had happened. He just stared at me for a second, and I—I froze, I froze. But then the shotgun, it just—went off. I wasn’t holding it right, I didn’t have it against my shoulder like you said, and it almost jumped out of my hands when I shot it. The guy—the shot—” she shuddered, convulsing in my arms. “His head, it’s—”

  I glanced down, and realized that she’d shot him at an upward angle, the slug going under his helmet and up through his skull, splashing gore soup all over him, and thus all over Temple who must have been less than a foot away.

  “Yeah, a twelve gauge slug will do that.”

  Temple gazed over my shoulder, her eyes widening, and I reacted instantly. I threw us both to one side, shoving Temple back into the bathroom as I hit the floor outside it. I fired lying down, took out his knee, adjusted my aim and put two rounds through his facemask. Red sprayed, and he dropped.

  It wasn’t over, though. Not by a long shot. I heard footsteps in the hallways, boots on hardwood.

  The carbine was too big for close quarters, so I switched out for the HK MP7, a much smaller firearm. The steps were close, now.

  I crept toward the doorway, whispering into the throat mic— “Stay there, Temple.”

  I took a deep breath, and then rolled out into the doorway, opening fire. The hallway was black with mercenaries. How many? A dozen? Jesus. Fuck, fuck, fuck. My initial burst took down the lead, my second dropped the guy behind, and then they were firing back and I had to crouch and keep firing, feeling bullets whine overhead to smash into the wall behind me, peppering the window and the floor and the bed.

  A bullet bit into the floor between my feet, and then splintered the doorframe by my face—time to retreat. Good thing about such numbers in a small space is that they can’t all fire at once, or I’d be dead. I had the last flashbang hanging from my pocket—I pulled the pin and tossed it into the hallway, waited till I heard the whump and saw the flash, then pivoted out into the doorway, firing into the pall of smoke.

  I heard a thump as a body hit the ground, heard shouting, stepped out into the hallway and pressed against the right hand wall—just in time, as bullets raked the doorway from several rifles. I darted forward, strafing the hallway with a long burst, then let the HK hang by its strap and drew my Glock.

  The smoke was still skirling in the hallway, concealing everyone, but I saw a body in tactical black and grabbed him by the front, stuffed the pistol under his helmet and fired, saw another body, fired into the face mask, and then everything was a whirling scrum of chaos, guns going off, cursing and screaming. I was a devil, then, unstoppable, a tornado of death.

  Ever see John Wick? I could give that chump lessons.

  I yanked a body in front of me, felt him flinch and jerk as bullets hit him, then I fired around him. Threw him into the weltering chaos of moving bodies, and then went in after him. I moved like lightning, then, breaking arms, snapping kneecaps, putting rounds through soft skulls.

  Within thirty seconds, the hallway was void of living bodies.

  On a quick scan, I counted thirteen, plus the two Temple took out, back in the bedroom.

  My face stung, and there was a dull hot throb in my left leg, but I didn’t have time for pain. I heard Anselm firing still, but the sharp crack of the .308 was absent, so I assumed he’d taken the sniper out.

  I jogged back into the bedroom to snag my carbine. “Temple, stay here, babe. Same rules as before—lock the door and stay put, and if I don’t say it’s me, you shoot. Got it?”

  “Got it.” A brief pause. “Duke? I lo—”

  “Don’t say it,” I cut in, leaning into the bathroom doorway to look at Temple. “When you say that to me, we’re gonna be naked and I’m gonna be balls deep in that tight pussy. Until then, don’t say it.”

  “Okay, Duke.” Her eyes were wide with fear, her lips trembling, sweat on her forehead, chest heaving.

  “You’re fine.”

  “I killed them.”

  “You did what you had to.”

  Anselm cut in over the radio. “Apologies, but this is not yet over.”

  I heard a helicopter overhead, low, close, and loud.

  “They’ve got a fucking helo?” I shouted. “Motherfucker!”

  “They are remarkably well equipped, but unprepared for an encounter with operatives of our caliber.”

  I hustled to the front door. Bodies littered the gravel driveway and the front lawn, the Suburban was smoking and on its roof, the Hummer still burning. And yet there were still mercs behind the Wrangler and another Suburban, and now a helicopter was descending, two descent lines dangling from each side.

  I angled out the front door, which had been blasted open. Black-clad figures with rifles on their backs slid down the descent lines—I heard the Barrett speak, and one of the bodies went flying. I fired at another and watched him drop. Carbines and HKs chattered from the line of vehicles, rounds smashing into the front porch and the wall and the door, forcing me to duck back under cover.

  I heard a truly terrifying sound, then: the chainsaw buzz of a door-mounted SAW.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I groaned, throwing myself away from the doorway.

  The SAW rounds disintegrated the front wall of the house, shredding the door and the porch and the roof, punching holes to reveal spears of daylight.

  I heard the Barrett again as I scrambled for the kitchen door. The SAW went silent momentarily, and then started up again, the massive rounds chewing up the house. I threw myself out the kitchen door and came face to face with a stunned merc who’d been trying to do an end-run in through the door I was exiting—my trigger finger was faster, and he fell backward, choking on the hole in his throat. Once again I found myself at the front left corner of the house, staring down a numerically superior force—which now included a fucking helicopter and a goddamned SAW.

  The helo was hovering a good two hundred meters away, less than fifty feet off the ground—well wit
hin range of my 203, right? I took a knee, calculated the trajectory best I could, and squeezed the trigger.

  Kick—thunk—silence—crumpBOOM!

  Apparently I’d calculated the trajectory pretty damn accurately, since the grenade smashed into the side of the helo’s engine just beneath the rotor, belching yellow-orange flame, the rotor shredding and tangling. It hit the ground behind the line of vehicles in a blinding, deafening explosion, sending shrapnel flying in every direction. A jagged chunk of metal spun past my head, barely missing my face, to bury in the trunk of a tree several hundred meters away.

  I sprinted across open ground, carbine barking three-round bursts, target after target dropping. I deked and juked side to side, throwing off their aim, and even then rounds whined past me, one snapping so close to my ear I felt the sting as it burned past me. I hit the side of the Suburban, hunkering behind it.

  “That was an amazing shot, mein Freund,” Anselm said over the radio. “But you have a problem.”

  I leaned around the front of the overturned Suburban and poured fire on the operatives. “What’s that?”

  “Look behind you.”

  I slid to my haunches with my back to the SUV, and my heart sank. A line of mercs were emerging from the woods, having circled wide to flank me. They had the drop on me, ten of them all with rifles trained on me; they were holding their fire as they jogged toward me, which meant they wanted me alive, even after the number of corpses I’d created.

  “Can you take ‘em out?” I asked.

  “Nein. My angle is no good. I might hit you. By the time I move to a better angle, they will have you.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Ja.” There was a pause. “But I have a line on the interior of the house, so I can see the doorway where Frau Kennedy is hiding. I can protect her from here.”

  I raised my hands over my head, the carbine in one hand. “Take care of her, buddy.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Go with ‘em.”

  “They will kill you.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” I watched them approach with my heart in my throat. “I got away once, so I’m gambling I can again.”

  “Duke?” Temple’s voice in my earpiece. “What’s going on?”

  “Hit a snag, sweetheart,” I said.

  “What’s happening?” She was shrill, panicked.

  “Stay where you are.” They were ten feet away at that point, and closing in fast, rifles trained on me, fingers ready to pull the triggers, ready to drop me if needed—they wanted me alive, but would settle for me dead if necessary, clearly. “Anselm will take care of you. Don’t worry, baby. I’ll be fine.”

  “Duke? No! No—don’t…don’t let them take you!”

  “No choice, honey. Only way to keep breathing at this point. I’ll get away, okay? I promise. Just stay where you are. Swear to me.”

  “I swear. But—”

  “No buts. Stay put. Wait for Anselm.” I switched off the radio, ripped off the headset and throat mic off, and then tossed the radio aside.

  The ten operatives were in front of me, then. A rifle butt smashed into my gut, knocking the air out of me, and another cracked against my skull, dropping me to the ground, agony firing through me, my breath gone, head pounding, stars flashing behind my eyes. I could have fought, but I didn’t. Maybe if they took me, they’d leave Temple.

  It was a gamble, but I really didn’t have a choice. Surrender, and live to fight another day. It galled me, though.

  I felt the cold O of a rifle barrel against my temple. “You’re a hard man to bring down, Duke Silver,” said a rasping, guttural voice.

  “You have no idea,” I growled.

  He laughed. “Get him up.”

  I was hauled to my feet and stripped of weapons and body armor, a gun to my head the whole time.

  The man who’d spoken, the one with the gun to my head, was the ugliest motherfucker I’d ever seen. He was short, squat, and powerfully built, with a jaw so square he looked like a cartoon character. His face was acne-pocked and ribboned with a knife scar from beneath his left eye across his mouth, with deep-set, beady brown eyes and a huge nose. He’d removed his helmet, revealing lank black hair and oversized Dumbo ears.

  Ugly stared up at me, standing a good foot shorter than me. “I’m Rayburn, Cain’s second in command.”

  “And I’m Duke Silver, the man who’s going to kill every last one of you motherfuckers.” I jutted my chin at him. “You first, you ugly fucking piece of shit troll.”

  He just laughed again, that hoarse, raspy voice of his like sandpaper over stone. “Big words, my friend. Big words.” He stepped close to me, his expression dead, cold, hard. “Big, but empty. Like you.”

  He swung his rifle at me so hard and fast I had no chance of ducking, dodging, or blocking. Not that it would have done any good, but still, my pride’s on the line, so I have to point out that I couldn’t have dodged even I’d wanted to. The butt smashed against my kidney, causing such fierce sudden pain that I dropped to my hands and knees, dry heaving from the agony of it. Rayburn kicked me, his foot slamming into my gut, tossing me onto my back. I tried to curl in, instincts forcing me to try and protect my core, but before I could, he lashed out with the rifle again, bashing the butt against my left forearm. I heard the crack first, then felt the fiery razors of excruciating pain searing through me, centered on my broken forearm.

  “You suck,” I growled. “But I’m still gonna kill you.”

  “You’re even dumber than you look,” Rayburn said. “Cain wants you alive, so if I were you I’d shut your damn mouth. Because trust me, I’d be happier to leave you dead.”

  He crouched, drawing a knife from a sheath on his armored vest. Rayburn reached up, snagged the sloppy ponytail I’d made of my hair in my rush to get dressed, and sliced it off, then showed me the stump of my hair.

  I laughed in his face. “Ooooh, scary. You cut off my hair. Whatever will I do?” I was still having trouble breathing past the pain from my broken forearm; I could see white points of bone stabbing through the skin, so I knew it wasn’t a minor break, but I had to keep playing tough. Well, I wasn’t playing, I am tough, but you know what I mean.

  “Why taunt me?” Rayburn asked.

  “Why cut off my fucking ponytail? It’s just hair. What’s that prove, other than your lack of imagination?”

  “I could cut off your ear. Is that creative enough for you?” He dragged the tip of the knife along my skin where my ear met the side of my head, sending blood trickling down my neck. “Maybe cut out your tongue.” He slid the blade flat between my teeth, grabbed my jaw where it hinged and forced it open.

  I just stared at him until he let me go, wiping the blade on my arm. When he stood up and backed away, I rolled to my back and sat up. “Quit the games, Rayburn. Cain wants to use me as bait? Fine, but get on with it. Kill me, don’t kill me, torture me, don’t torture me. I don’t give a fuck. Just quit your goddamn yapping.” I stood up, cradling my fractured arm against my belly. “Let’s go, Quasimodo.”

  This earned me a laugh from Rayburn. “You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that.” He sheathed his blade and stood behind me, the barrel of his rifle to the back of my head. “To the vehicle. And if your friend with the Barrett out there pulls that trigger, you die.”

  I’d tossed the radio, so I couldn’t tell Anselm to hold fire, but I hoped—and was gambling with my life—that he’d correctly read the situation.

  I was marched across the yard to an undamaged vehicle, shoved in hard enough that I toppled across the seat, landing hard on my broken arm; the sudden lance of agony sucked the light out of the world, sent dizziness rushing through me, shoving me under the surface of consciousness.

  The last thing I heard was Rayburn’s voice, speaking to someone else. “Yeah, it’s me. I got him. I’m down to maybe a dozen guys, but I got him….yeah, that many of us. Told you it’d be costly, Cain…the girl? No, just Silver, no sign of the girl. Yeah, well, you were
n’t here, boss. It was a fuckin’ bloodbath. I hope this is worth it, that’s all I’m gonna say…”

  I passed out, then, the pain too blinding to ignore, the darkness too powerful to resist.

  10: NEW FRIENDS

  I sat huddled in the corner between the toilet and the tub, clutching the huge, heavy, cold shotgun in shaking hands, my breath in my throat. The gunfire had stopped, and Duke had gone radio silent. Fear and worry boiled in my throat, warring for supremacy. I heard engines roar, the sound fading.

  After a moment, I keyed the radio. “Anselm? What’s—what’s going on?”

  “They have taken Duke, and are now exiting the compound.”

  “Did they hurt him?”

  The hesitation told me everything. “He is an extraordinarily tough and resourceful person, Miss Kennedy. If anyone can survive this situation, it is Duke.”

  “Where are they taking him?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Are you going to rescue him?”

  Another hesitation. “I am going to contact my employer first. This rescue will require more than just me, I believe.” Silence, then, for a minute, almost two, in which I tried to exert some control over my breathing. Anselm’s voice startled me. “I am entering the house, now. Please, do not fire your weapon.”

  I stood up slowly, gingerly, shakily, and warily pulled open the bathroom door. Mistake, big mistake—the two men I’d shot were laying on the ground in a huge pool of blood. Nausea shot through me; I dropped the shotgun at my feet, barely making it to the toilet in time to empty my stomach, tears trickling down my cheeks.

  I heard footsteps. “It’s me, Miss Kennedy,” I heard Anselm say from behind me.

  His hand gathered my hair and held it aside. “It’s all right.”

  I shook my head, coughing bile and spitting. “It’s not. He’s gone, they took him. And I just—we just—Duke and I—”

  “I understand. I know things are not okay. I meant it is no shame to be sick the first time you end a life.”