The big armored rig backed up and then sped at the steel gate and blew it off its hinges. Agents inside the truck fired from portholes at the guards, who’d retreated up the hill into the trees toward the compound. Mahoney followed the armored truck, driving across the downed gate, with us trailing.
“HRT?” Mahoney said.
“Two hundred yards out, SAC,” came the reply. “No visuals on the shed yet, but you have lights going on up the hill.”
The breaching rig sped up on that news, disappeared around a curve in the long serpentine driveway. By the time we reached the edge of the compound, spotlights were blazing on the courtyard between the main house, the carriage house, and the barn.
Ten FBI agents in full SWAT gear poured out of the armored vehicle, divided into teams of two, and fanned out toward the mansion, a modern building made of stone, redwood, and glass.
The doors of the carriage house at the far side of the yard were up. The interior wasn’t lit, but there was enough light from the exterior spotlights to reveal a white Range Rover and a black pickup truck in the first two bays and several ATVs and dirt bikes in the third.
Black pickup truck, I thought. Bet it has a window with a bullet hole or two in it.
In front of us, Mahoney got out of the Tahoe. Caught in Batra’s headlights, he blinked, held up a hand, and signaled for her to shut them off. Bree and Sampson got out. The radio chatter from the raiding team and the HRT forces started coming nonstop. I got whining feedback in my headset for a moment.
Four agents went to the front door, used a battering ram to break it open, and then vanished inside.
In the woods to our north, the HRT unit had the plywood-faced building surrounded. Thermals showed the four people were still inside, still lying flat or curled up. That didn’t seem right to me; they should have been sitting or standing. But maybe they hadn’t heard the gunfire? Or maybe they were restrained?
“HRT, go in and get them out,” Mahoney said over my headset. “Now.”
“Lower front hall clear,” said an agent inside the house.
“Walkout basement clear,” said another.
“Where is he?” Rawlins said from the front seat of Batra’s car. “Don’t tell me Edgars isn’t here.”
Even with the windows up, even with the heater going and the radio chatter in our ears, we all heard the first explosion.
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“HRT AGENT DOWN,” the rescue commander said. “Repeat, HRT agent down. The place is booby-trapped.”
“Back out and contain,” Mahoney said. “How bad?”
“We’ll need Life Flight ASAP.”
“Calling now.”
On the radio, the search commander inside Edgars’s mansion said, “Watch for booby traps, gentlemen.”
“Kitchen clear,” said another.
“Home theater clear,” said a third.
“All first-floor closets and bathrooms clear,” said a fourth. “First floor cleared in full,” the commander said.
Bree and Sampson left Mahoney and started toward the mansion. I got anxious, felt claustrophobic, and opened the car door.
“You’re to remain in the car, Dr. Cross,” Batra said.
“I’m going to stand outside.” I got out and shut the door.
My wife and my partner entered Edgars’s house with the FBI agents inside already moving to clear the second story. Mahoney told the HRT commander that Life Flight was eleven minutes out and then he headed inside as well.
I caught some of the communications between the hostage-rescue commander and the incoming Life Flight medic. The agent had opened a door to the building and triggered a small explosive. He had shrapnel in his right thigh and a severed femoral artery. They’d applied direct pressure to the wound so he wouldn’t bleed out and were preparing to move him from the woods to the county road for pickup.
“Roger that,” the medic replied. “We are seven minutes out.”
An agent in the house said, “Second-floor landing and hallway clear.”
“All bedrooms cleared,” another said. “Place is empty, Cap.”
A high-pitched tone screeched through the headset, so loud I thought my eardrums would burst. I tore the headset off, stuck it in my pocket.
The dark second-floor windows facing the courtyard suddenly flashed as automatic-weapon fire broke out inside the house. Two guns, three, maybe more.
I took several limping steps toward the courtyard and the mansion, wanting to see Bree, Sampson, and Mahoney retreat out the front door. But they didn’t, and the shooting went on in bursts and waves, and—
“Dr. Cross!” Agent Batra yelled behind me.
I ignored her, pulled toward the violence, wanting to end it. But the gunfire stopped as I passed Mahoney’s Tahoe and entered the courtyard. I caught a flicker of motion in the third bay of the carriage house just before a second bomb exploded, much closer, on the other side of the mansion.
At the blast, the spotlights flickered and died. The shooting stopped too.
Then I heard a noise I’ll never forget—shrill, primitive, and terrified—coming from the carriage house.
I pulled out my weapon and flashlight and hobbled fast in that direction as something large and boxy tore out of the third bay. I got my flashlight beam on it as it was leaving the courtyard for the woods: a red-and-black side-by-side Honda Pioneer 1000 utility vehicle.
I caught only a glimpse of the driver and the front-seat passenger before it disappeared, but the blond teen in the bed, blindfolded, gagged, and hog-tied, was plain as day. Gretchen Lindel was writhing and trying to scream, and then she was gone.
“Batra!” I yelled, flashing the light around and seeing a Kawasaki ATV in the third bay. “Batra!”
The shooting started again inside, drowning my second cry.
Ignoring the pain shrieking in my ankle, I hobbled to the ATV, yanking the radio from my pocket and tearing free the headset cord, figuring to stop the feedback. But it was worse, and I had to turn the squelch almost off.
My flashlight found the ATV ignition but with no key in it. I lifted the seat, revealing a storage for helmets, and located the key. I straddled the seat, looked at the controls, turned on the headlights, and started the engine.
I roared out of the garage, praying Batra could see me, turned onto the two-track lane that went from the compound to the woods, and accelerated.
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BREE, SAMPSON, AND Mahoney had gone into a large, open, and vaulted space on the main level of the mansion to wait while the upper floors were cleared. The room contained Edgars’s state-of-the-art kitchen, a rustic dining area, and several leather couches set before a massive stone fireplace that was flanked by built-in wooden cabinets and shelves crammed with books.
Sampson said, “Place looks spick-and-span.”
Mahoney nodded. “Ready for that Architectural Digest photographer.”
Their radios crackled: “Second-floor landing and hallway clear.” “All bedrooms cleared. Place is empty, Cap.”
Empty? That felt wrong to Bree. She’d been on edge since hearing the bomb explode in the distance. Why booby-trap the outer building and not—
A piercing whine went off in her earbud, the worst feedback ever, and she tore it out. Sampson did the same.
Across the room, Mahoney threw his down too. “What the hell is—”
Automatic weapons began to bark and rattle upstairs. Bree instinctively dived behind the kitchen counter with Sampson right beside her.
The shooting stopped, leaving them shaken and going for their guns.
“Agents down!” someone shouted upstairs. “Arthur and Boggs. Bedroom five. Far east end of upper hallway.”
The search commander at the bottom of the stairs bellowed back over the shooting, “How many? I thought the place was cleared!”
“It was, Cap! Shooters must have been—”
An explosion outside shook the house. The lights died.
“It’s an ambus
h!” Mahoney yelled from over by the couches. “They’re jamming our radios and cells. Bree, take Sampson and get out of here, establish communication with—”
Bree was about to turn on her flashlight when sound-suppressed automatic weapons lit up. She covered her head as slugs ripped into granite countertops, splintered cabinets, and shattered dishes.
The bullets moved left to right and then right to left, punching holes in the stainless-steel appliances, ten, maybe fifteen shots in all, raining debris down on Bree and Sampson before stopping.
Bree shook from fear and adrenaline. Smelling the burned gunpowder, she felt nauseated, but her mind whirled. Where was the shooter? Where had he hidden? Those cabinets weren’t big enough to hide a grown man, were they?
She felt a tug on her leg.
“Chief?” Sampson whispered. “You okay?”
“Fine. Where’s the shooter?”
“Hit,” Mahoney croaked.
The fear fled her. Bree flicked on her flashlight and belly-crawled across the kitchen tiles, calling, “How bad, Ned?”
Mahoney gasped. “Gut. You tell me.”
Somewhere a generator coughed and hummed. Dim light returned. Agents upstairs were shouting, but Bree ignored them.
“Where’s the shooter, Ned?” she called, louder.
“Behind me. Cabinets.”
Bree turned her flashlight off, inched forward, and peered around the bottom corner of the kitchen cabinets. She could see well enough to tell Mahoney was sitting upright on the floor by one of the leather couches, but there was no sign of the shooter.
“We have to get him out, Chief,” Sampson said behind her. “Now!”
“Not until I know where that shooter is. I won’t get us all killed.”
She thumbed on her flashlight again, peeked around the corner, and let the beam play over Mahoney about forty feet away. He was hunched over and squinting. Bree focused on the large patch of dark blood showing on his white shirt, just below his armored vest.
Low liver hit, she thought, and fought to swallow down the panic creeping in the back of her throat. They did have to get him out fast. But the shooter …
Bree shifted her light toward the stone fireplace and the cabinets and shelves to either side. The beam flickered over doors far too small for a child, much less a man, and then over rows of books before stopping cold on a small open cabinet.
“Jesus Christ,” she whispered.
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THE ATV WAS equipped with a heavy-duty muffler, so the engine barely made any noise as I drove on the two-track deeper and deeper into the estate.
Edgars’s side-by-side was no more than three or four minutes in front of me. I couldn’t see tracks in the frozen mud, but the leaves were broken and shiny where it had passed.
Snowflakes hit my face. With my free hand, I tugged out the radio and turned it up. There was no longer screeching coming over it, just a dense hiss.
“This is Alex Cross,” I said. “Copy?”
Out of the static, I heard clicking and fragments of an unfamiliar voice. I turned it off, stuffed it back in my coat, tried my cell. No service.
The snow flurries turned to thick heavy flakes.
They’re going to get away, I thought. The sadistic bastards are going to get away.
There was an intersection ahead, and I stopped. The snow covered the leaves, making it impossible for me to say which way Edgars had taken Gretchen Lindel.
I tried to recall the satellite view of the property. The shed and the wounded HRT agent were somewhere to my left. The knoll at the rear of the property—where Mahoney had sent four agents—was somewhere straight ahead of me. That unidentified smudge on the satellite picture was down the right fork in the trail.
I went with my instincts, twisted the ATV throttle, and went right. The snow slapped my face, got in my eyes, and forced me to drive at a crawl.
Ten minutes later, the snow squall ended as abruptly as it had started. I rolled downhill to a wide, shallow, iced-over creek, seeing where Edgars’s machine had broken up the ice. My instincts were dead-on. I drove across the creek, noticing the sky brightening in the east.
How far ahead were they? Were those four people back in that booby-trapped building all dead? The HRT guys said they hadn’t moved when the booby trap went off. Or was Edgars taking Gretchen to where he had the other blondes stashed?
One hundred yards beyond the creek crossing, I lost the tracks and drove on through virgin snow to a turnabout walled in by pines. A dead end.
But Edgars had come this way. I was positive. That ice had absolutely been freshly broken, and those tracks …
I drove back, shining the headlights on the crossing, seeing ice covering the creek upstream. I used my flashlight to look downstream. The ice there had been broken up to where the stream disappeared beneath a steep embankment, eight, maybe ten feet high, and covered with green and tan vegetation frosted with new snow.
Where the hell had they gone? I couldn’t imagine any machine climbing straight up the side of that wall of …
I looked closer at the embankment. Green plants? That was impossible. The leaves had fallen. The ferns were dead.
I drove into the creek and rolled slowly to the embankment, headlights on and my flashlight playing around. Even through the frosting of snow, I could see I hadn’t been looking at plants but at thin strips of dull green, gray, and brown cloth, thousands of pieces sewn into a huge swath of camouflage fabric that hung from a stout length of black metal bolted into the rocks above me.
I grabbed the radio again and turned it on. The static was weaker. I triggered the transmit button, said, “This is Alex Cross, come back.”
Almost immediately a garbled, oddly familiar voice answered.
“Batra?” I said.
The voice replied, but I couldn’t understand a word.
I said, “Repeat, this is Alex Cross. I am in pursuit of Edgars, who has Gretchen Lindel. I am somewhere in the northeast quadrant of the estate.”
The voice came back even more garbled.
I almost stuffed the radio in my pocket but then had a moment of inspiration and said, “If you can hear me, track me by Find My iPhone.”
I put away the radio that time, traded it for my service weapon. Staring at the camouflage curtain, I hesitated, anxious about what might be waiting on the other side. I killed the headlights, teased the throttle. The bumper touched the fabric and then ripped apart the Velcro that had been keeping it closed.
I held my pistol in my left hand, rested the barrel on the handlebar, eased off the safety, gave the throttle more gas, and went through into darkness.
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BREE GAPED AT the smoking Uzi machine pistol mounted on a thin metal post inside the open cabinet. A long banana clip hung below the gun, too big for just ten or fifteen shots.
Mahoney coughed and shifted. The gun pivoted his way, and she saw the thin scarlet line of the laser sight fixed to its barrel pass six inches over the wounded agent’s head. It stopped.
“What the hell’s going on?” Sampson whispered, crawling up beside her.
She pulled back, said, “Remote-control Uzis. Unless …”
Bree peeked around the corner again, flashed the light at the machine pistol and the cabinet, looking for a camera.
Mahoney groaned and shifted, and the couch moved, hitting a table behind it. The lamp on the table wobbled.
The Uzi opened up again, that same left-to-right, right-to-left spray of bullets; it cut the lamp in half, and then the gunfire continued on toward the kitchen. Bree looked up after the shooting stopped, saw that the slugs had hit some of the same things they’d hit during the first barrage.
No, she took that back. They had ripped into the exact same things at the exact same height.
“No one’s operating that gun, Ned!” Bree shouted. “I think there’s a motion detector involved. See it?”
“No,” he grunted, sounding weaker.
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An agent yelled down from upstairs that he had to move his wounded men.
“The whole place is booby-trapped!” Sampson yelled. “Hold your position!”
“One’s critical! He’ll die if we don’t move him!”
“You’ll all die if you come down those stairs,” Bree shouted as she wriggled back past Sampson and crawled to a low line of untouched cabinets next to the stainless-steel stove.
She looked in three cabinets before she finally found the items she wanted. She grabbed them and scooted back to Sampson.
“What’s with the cookie sheets?” he asked.
“Motion,” Bree said, then she called out, “Ned, if you can, get down.”
She flung one of the cookie sheets over the counter that separated the kitchen from the living area.
The Uzi lit up, rattling bullets left to right, right to left again. She threw another cookie sheet and then a third before the action of the machine pistol locked open, the breech and barrel smoking hot.
She stood up cautiously, saw Ned lying on his side by the couch. His eyes were open but glassy, and his breathing looked shallow.
“We’re clear!” she shouted to the FBI agents upstairs as she ran to Mahoney. “Get your men out!”
Kneeling by Alex’s old FBI partner, Bree refused to cry. “You with me, Ned? Talk to me.”
Mahoney nodded and blinked. “Gut shot.”
“I can see that.”
Sampson came up behind her. “We’ve got to get him to a hospital, and the jamming’s still going on.”
“Help me get him up,” Bree said.
They lifted Ned to his feet. Mahoney passed out from the pain, becoming deadweight, and Sampson got him up on his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Bree ran in front of him to the front door and stepped out into the falling snow, shouting, “Alex? Agent Batra?”
A flashlight went on. Keith Rawlins called timidly, “Just me, Chief Stone.”
Sampson came out the door with Mahoney over his shoulder.
The snow fell in big flakes and coated the pavers as they hustled across the courtyard to the Tahoe Mahoney had driven into the estate. Rawlins stood outside it, looking as bedraggled as a cat in the rain.
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