On the hallway table Ben’s phone stopped ringing and Barton’s voice came on, “You’ve reached Douglas Barton, leave a message and I’ll return your call as soon as possible.”
As the tone beeped to leave Barton a voicemail, Mimi came through on Aila’s speakerphone “Hello dea—”
“Hey Meem,” Ben said, cutting off his grandmother, “Is Kelcy back yet?
“Well no sweetie,” Mimi said, “she took-”
“Get Uncle Hamish,” Ben said, interrupting her again, “Fast.”
Into his phone Ben said, “Barton this is Ben Hogan, the clinic’s a front for Orthus, call us back.”
He disconnected the Barton call and scrolled down to dial another number on his phone. He set his phone back down on the little table next to the other two as he rummaged in his backpack.
Dan’s phone connected and they heard Kelcy’s voice come from the speakerphone, “Hey, this is Kelcy, leave it.”
They all stared at the phone as Kelcy’s voicemail beep filled the quiet hallway.
Ben reached out and cut off the call. He looked up at his parents’ concerned faces, and even in the dim light he could read their looks. He knew they had just assumed Kelcy had gone to Mimi’s after work, but it was getting late and she should have answered her phone.
Ben had feared his sister wouldn’t pick up. He didn’t want to explain it to his mom and dad yet and went back to digging in his bag to avoid their looks.
Aila read her boy’s face. She turned her penlight back to the closet and nudged Dan to continue. “In a minute,” she said, “let him finish.”
Outside on the front walkway Lum yapped, and darted away from Spot. The little hunter ran through the light snow and crossed the road. As he found a hiding place in the dark he scanned the street in both directions and gave the all clear sign. Spot nodded, and ran back up the front porch steps and into the house to stand next to Ben.
As Aila and Ben put on their bulletproof vests Dan reached into the back of the closet and pulled out his large golf club bag. He tossed away the leather club sock that covered the muzzle of an assault rifle. He lifted the gun carefully out of the bag, checked the scope, and inserted the magazine.
“Ben? Here’s Hamish,” Mimi said from the speaker on Aila’s phone, and a second later his great uncle said, “How’s your whatsit lad?”
“One sec, Unc,” Ben said as the second call he’d made from his phone connected. It started to ring over his speakerphone as the parents looked down at the number on the display. It was the emergency backup number Barton had given them.
At that instant they also heard a phone ringing in the background of Hamish’s call.
“Unc,” Ben said, “Whose phone’s ringing?”
“Lad, that’s Lindsay’s phone,” Hamish said.
“Tell her to answer it,” Ben said.
Ben’s phone stopped ringing and connected.
“Hello Ben,” Lindsay’s voice said over the speaker.
“Hello Lindsay, who are you really?” Ben asked.
Spot looked up at him. As soon as she had said hello the voice sparked a connection in Spot’s head. He recognized it as the same voice he and Smudge had heard in Barton’s ear at their kitchen table. Spot stomped the floor, cursing himself for not putting it together sooner. Gifted my furry black ass, he thought as he shook his head.
“This is Special Agent Loyal Comina,” Lindsay said.
As Ben read his dog’s disappointment, and his parent’s confused, scared looks Lum let one of his hair-lip barks fly from across the road.
Spot turned, and at that same moment he heard another bark in the background of the phone calls. It was the young hunter Racket. He was policing the woods near the farmhouse, and raising the same alarm as Lum.
Spot signed to Ben.
“Get your gear, Unc,” Ben said, “and hurry. The clinic’s dirty and Kelcy’s not answering her phone. I think we’re both about to get hit. Keep Mimi safe and we’ll be there soon, love you guys.”
Chapter 43
The black van slowed to a crawl on the road near the Walker farm. Katia leapt out and ran into the trees before the van pulled forward and backed into the driveway. It was following Lindsay’s small pickup truck.
Katia held the assault rifle up and used the night vision scope to navigate through the black woods. She thumbed her mic as she ran and said, “Flash bangs and then tranqs only. All of them alive and unharmed, no exceptions. This is a milk run people, two minutes tops and we’re out. Incendiaries on exit. T-two is twenty seconds to station, be ready for my go.”
A mile to the east Harley stopped the other black van on the dark wooded road near the Hogan house. He clicked his mic and the teams heard him say, “Roger that, T-one is waiting your go.”
Back at the farmhouse Hamish cracked opened the refrigerator door and then flicked off all of the light switches near the kitchen door. The goat pen and the driveway went dark, as did the kitchen except for the sliver of light from the fridge.
Mimi had darkened the rest of the farmhouse and handed Hamish his bag as she came into the dim kitchen. She went to the coat pegs behind the kitchen door and tossed Comina her jacket before putting on her own.
As Comina quickly slipped an arm into her coat sleeve she said, “Jean, I—“
Mimi cut her off, “We’re going to have that chat later young lady. You’ve got one job now, agent, make sure my granddaughter and her dog are safe…and you bloody well better not fuck it up.”
Mimi yanked her bulletproof vest on over her coat, and eyeballed the tall FBI agent who was removing a black pistol from her purse.
The women watched each other as Comina quickly checked her gun’s clip and Mimi flicked open the tumbler of her pistol, spun it with her thumb, and snapped it closed with a flick of her wrist. She dropped the handgun into her pocket and cracked open Papa’s double barrel shotgun while Comina put a second clip into her jacket pocket and quickly raised her knee. She checked her backup revolver as slid it back into its ankle holster. Mimi confirmed the shotgun was loaded and snapped it closed while still holding the agent’s stare.
Hamish held back a smile, and turned to nudge the kitchen door open a crack. He saw Racket dart from the woods at the front of the house and stop near the goat pen. The coyote turned to Hamish, nodded to the driveway, and pawed the ground. He tore off again, heading towards the back of the house.
“We got vehicles coming up the drive,” Hamish said.
In the dim light of the kitchen Comina said, “You two should leave through that rear window, head into the woods.”
They heard a small yap and a growl from the back of the house. “I’m afraid that ship has sailed agent Comina, or whatever the hell your name is,” Hamish said, “We’ve been flanked already. If you see a coyote don’t bloody shoot, they’re with us.”
“I’m aware,” Comina said as she moved to the opposite side of the kitchen door.
Hamish turned to Mimi. He touched her face, and as he tapped the fridge door closed with his foot and the kitchen went dark he said, “We’ll get to the clinic and the house as soon as we can, Jean, but don’t you dare leave this damn kitchen ‘till I say.”
Hamish flicked on his scope’s night vision. He paused for Mimi to grab the back of his pack and they moved next to Comina at the back door.
On the porch of the darkened Hogan house Spot watched as Lum spun and bobbed, warning him about a big vehicle that had rolled to a stop just out of sight down the road.
Spot shot the wild dog some instructions, and the small hunter disappeared into the snowy woods.
Spot turned and kicked the front door closed. He quickly signed to Ben and then ran to the back of the house, yanked open the back door, and tore off into the back yard.
They followed Spot to the back deck. He had already disappeared into the woods as Aila helped Dan wrestle their large gas grill from the back porch. They rolled it through the kitchen and into the living room where Ben opened its stainless stee
l doors and wedged the ANFO tubes between the dual propane tanks.
Aila flicked a switch on the small black detonation control box and the box taped to the pack of explosives light lit up green.
They moved to the back door again. Father and son stood side by side and raised their assault rifles as Aila twisted off the penlight and leaned against their backs with Liko’s dragon engraved cannon. Ben and Dan hit their night vision scopes, and through the screen door saw Spot staring back at them.
He was standing in front of the large stacks of firewood lined up at the back edge of the lawn. Spot raised a paw and beckoned them forward. As Dan started to push open the screen door they heard Lum bark loudly with his lispy yap from the south side of the house.
Jixi flinched hard when the dog barked right next to her. It was a strange bark, almost more of a chopped, loud huff. The branches snapping behind her went quiet just as the barking stopped. She flicked her scope from night vision to thermal, and quickly scanned the trees around her. There was only the pale whites and grays of the cold woods. She swept the gun back and forth for a few more seconds. There had been no movement as she approached this position so she assumed the dog had been lying in wait, and now it was hiding again. It must be behind a pile of snow or the trunk of a tree to avoid detection by her thermal sight. She thought that was odd behavior for an attack dog acting alone. She raised the scope and did a quick sweep, looking for a handler. After dealing with the crazed dog at the clinic, and given what Harley had said about the family’s dog training business in Canada where aunt Jia had disappeared, she wasn’t too keen on tangling with more of the same kind of security dogs.
Harley’s voice clicked in her ear, “T-one report, waiting on your positions.”
“Ten seconds,” Boba said. They could hear the large man puffing as he ran.
Jixi knew Harley’s call out had been meant for her and Boba was trying to cover for her. She had been the first one dropped off and she was late getting into position. She swung back towards the house and thumbed her mic. “Three seconds,” she said as she flicked the scope back to night vision.
The pale blue screen showed the black outline of trees in front of her, and behind them the ghostly grey of the south side of the dark house. As she approached the edge of the woods she heard another loud yap right behind her. She jumped and swung the gun back towards the woods, but the noise from the animal’s snapping branches immediately went silent and it had disappeared again.
She clicked on her mic and quietly said, “Be advised T-one, there’s another security dog in the south woods, I can’t zero it.”
“Fuck the dog, tranq it, T-one are you in position yet?” Katia said over her mic.
Katia wasn’t the team one leader and Jixi thought the spoiled slut should have let Harley handle it. “Wait one,” Jixi whispered into her mic as she turned back to the house and continued towards the edge of the lawn. As she leapt over a fallen tree she grumbled to herself, “Give me five minutes alone in the ring with that bitch.”
In the kitchen the Hogans had heard Lum’s second raspy bark. They watched Spot look down both sides of the house, sign to them, and then sprint off to the south.
Aila pushed on her husband’s back and whispered, “We gotta get out of here and get to the clinic, and the farm.”
Through the glow of his scope’s night vision Ben watched his dog disappear into the trees and said quickly, “I know, but Spot doesn’t think we can make it all the way to the woods without being seen. He wants us to go for the wood pile in seven, six, five…”
From his hiding place behind a large pine tree Lum saw Spot crossing the lawn, and using the edge of the woods for cover. His Alpha slowed as he reached the female human, and then walked quietly right below the muzzle of her weapon. The runt appreciated Spot’s aggressive maneuver and readied himself, wiggling his bum back foot into the snow for traction.
Spot nodded to Lum and then lunged. He barked a sharp loud bark as he slammed into the woman’s knee and then darted off again into the dark.
An instant later Lum shot forward as she swung her weapon to follow Spot. The little hunter hit her low in the back and pushed off, barking once before disappearing into the brush and stopping behind a large tree trunk.
“…two, one,” Ben said, and the family shot through the screen door and ran down the back porch steps. They crossed the back yard and darted low and fast to the wood pile. As they heard Spot and Lum barking again in the south woods Ben held up the heavy tarp covering the logs and they all dove under it.
Jixi rolled from the hit and recovered quickly, spinning in a circle with her gun raised. Both dogs had disappeared. She clicked on her mic and said, “Listen team one, there are definitely more dogs out here fucking with us.”
Spot saw his family barely make it to the wood pile when the quick woman sprung to her feet. She was only about Ben’s height, but she was muscular and very fast. It was pretty clear she was a pro, and she was also in radio communication with an unknown team so they’d have to be careful.
As he watched her scanning the woods and the house through her scope Spot’s ears swivel and he faced north. He nodded for Lum to stay put before shooting off low through the trees. As he came out of the woods on the far side of the house he saw the other shooter. It was a large round man, and Spot saw him puffing through the pine trees with his small assault rifle raised. He recognized this man, just as he had recognized the woman in the south woods, or rather he recognized their close relatives. Spot thought for a second he could have been looking at Liko and Jia.
That’s not exactly accurate, he corrected himself, this guy is bigger than Liko, and the woman looks like a Smudgified version of Jia and Mina.
Fabulous, he thought, A family of professional assassins looking for revenge might be a real problem.
Spot wasn’t crazy for any of his options. He estimated how much time the family would need to get from the wood pile to the safety of the woods, it was a long time to tie up these two heavily armed attackers. They were relatively safe behind the stacks of cut hardwood, and the snowy tarp would keep them hidden from the night vision and thermal sights but they couldn’t effectively defend that position from two shooters. They would be pinned down if detected, and if they had to blow the ANFO the wood pile was still pretty close to the house. Hamish had said the two propane tanks would make quite a show, and he cautioned them to not be anywhere nearby.
Spot also wasn’t sure if there were only two shooters. He could see most of the front of the house, but he didn’t see the vehicle Lum had indicated was somewhere out on the road.
Ideally he wanted to take one of these two alive but he didn’t want to risk getting the family into a gunfight to do it. The Tzeng’s assault rifles were small but looked plenty lethal, and the strange attachments mounted under them worried Spot. If they wanted the family dead they could have just shot up the house, or worse. He thought about Johann, the men jumping rope, and the stool sampling robots at the clinic and he didn’t like the horrible picture his mind was painting.
Regardless, they had to get to the clinic and the farm, and fast.
The big man had just loaded something into the tube mounted under his rifle. Spot wiggled his back feet, and readied himself to charge.
He knew Ben could see him from under the tarp. Just as Spot was about to sign for him to start another countdown the black van pulled quietly up to the end of the driveway and stopped. A man jumped out and aimed his rifle at the front of the house.
As Harley walked up front path Katia’s voice came over his headset, “T-two is go.”
Harley hit his mic as he loaded the grenade launcher. “Roger that,” he said, “T-one remember we don’t know how many targets might be here so don’t take any chances…On my mark. Three, two…”
Chapter 44
Comina and Mimi stood side by side in the dark with a hand on Hamish’s backpack. Comina had thought about taking point, and the assault rifle, but Hamish seemed adept w
ith the weapon and she hadn’t trained on that exact model. She also wasn’t familiar with the combo scope. She knew it had both night vision and thermal imaging but didn’t recognize the controls. It was a Chinese weapon and she knew Hamish had confiscated them from Jia’s thugs in Canada, which meant Hamish had somehow transported them across the border. More and more Comina was realizing this family was not to be trifled with. She resigned herself to a support role for now, especially considering the coyote asset outside appeared to be able to effectively communicate with Hamish.
Comina was starting to get that whiplash Hamish had mentioned to Barton.
She wanted to touch base with VB as soon as possible. The cape was more than an hour away but he would have a plan. He always had a plan. She also thought about calling in the cavalry but didn’t know how compromised their Boston team was. Even the local law enforcement or the state police could be tainted if Katia had her claws in deep enough. The agent was fighting hard to not beat herself up about the clinic, but Barton’s voice kept whispering to her, Right under your damn nose Loyal, right under your God damn nose.
She cursed him, but needed his voice now more than ever. For the first time Comina was entering a fight without backup. Even when she’d been deep undercover she always felt VB was there with her, and the entire bureau was at her back. She feared that was gone now, and she felt alone and exposed.
VB’s voice came roaring back again, So now you have a small taste of what this family has been dealing with. Suck it up agent, and see the forest. Jean Walker’s right, you got one job now...
Hamish cracked open the door and leaned out into the light snow. He saw headlights coming up the driveway and pushed the women back into the house. He closed the door as Lindsay’s small pickup truck pulled into the turn around.
Let Slip the Pups of War: Spot and Smudge - Book Three Page 19