When the instructions came back, Olivera drove to the specified location and played the vehicle-mounted spotlight over the water.
It looked as calm as ever.
“Nest, are you sure about the location? There’s nothing here.”
“Roger, that’s the spot. We got a decent hit off units 238 and 239.”
Olivera checked his tablet again and confirmed that he’d come to the right place.
“Cover your ears, Nest. If anyone’s in the water, I’m gonna wake ’em up.”
He pulled the pin of a grenade and tossed it into the water. A fountain erupted, but the ocean quickly settled back to its usual tidal pattern. He gave it a minute, then unclipped another grenade and threw it farther out to sea. This time, the spotlight caught movement, and Olivera followed the shape for a few seconds before losing it.
“It was a mako,” he told Nest.
One reason the beaches were off limits was the number of sharks that inhabited the reef half a mile out. It wasn’t uncommon for large predators to activate the buoy alarms, especially when they were thrashing around while feeding. Tonight, one had strayed too far toward shore, and Olivera had just given it the mother of all headaches.
“Roger that. There’s nothing else showing. Stand down.”
With the morning’s excitement already over, Olivera ordered his disappointed troops back into the Jeep and they drove inland to continue their patrol.
CHAPTER 35
“Damn, that was close,” Rees whispered.
They were treading water a hundred yards from where the grenades had exploded, and five yards from a sheer rock face. Far enough away that they wouldn’t easily be spotted from the beach.
“Good call, Tom,” Len added. “That could have been us.”
Gray was happy that he’d foreseen the danger, but he needed their luck to hold out a little longer.
“We’re not there yet,” he said. To their left was the beach, while ten yards to their right was a rocky outcrop. “How should we go in?”
“If they’re expecting an attack from the sea, they’ll have trip wires or motion sensors on or near the beach.”
“Maybe,” Gray said, “or they might think the sonobuoys are enough.”
“When you’ve got as much money as Langton, there’s no such thing as overkill.”
Gray didn’t doubt Eva’s words. She knew more about the old man than he did.
“Okay, we go over the rocks, but be on the lookout for anything manmade.”
They swam slowly to the outcrop, where they dumped their flippers into a crevice and removed the plastic covers from their weapons. With his NVGs on, Gray scanned the climb ahead closely. It appeared to be about sixty yards to the top, but he could see plenty of handholds even after the boulders transitioned to a smooth cliff face.
“Sonny, up you go.”
Sonny climbed on to the nearest rock, then slung the HK over his shoulder and made his way up the cliff like a mountain goat on a promise. When he got to the top, he paused, stuck his head over the summit, and scanned the other side. Seconds later, he motioned for the rest to follow.
It had been a while since Gray had been mountain climbing, and he felt it. The others were quickly leaving him behind, but he told himself it wasn’t a race. He took his time, making sure he got good handholds before inching closer to the top.
When he got there, he was blowing harder than he’d expected.
“Tom, I think you’re—”
“—getting too old for this shit,” Gray said, finishing Len’s sentence for him and catching his breath. He made a promise to himself that when he got back, he would add upper-body work to his daily exercise routine. A three-mile jog clearly wasn’t enough.
While he got his breath back, Gray looked up at the mountaintop mansion, its roof visible above the nearby treetops. It appeared to be a bit more than half a mile away, as the crow flies.
“Ready when you are,” Eva said.
“I’ve been thinking,” Gray said. “We should split up.”
“Seriously?” she asked. “We’ve got no comms. How do we stay in touch?”
“It doesn’t matter. I just think it gives us two chances to reach the girls. If one team trips an alarm, the others are still on mission. If we get caught together, it’s over.”
“Do you want the first team that reaches the house to wait or go on in?”
Gray thought it through and decided to have them wait. If one team got there intact, the other might, too.
“If you’re there first and hear the other team engaging, go in. We’ll do the same. Otherwise, meet you there.”
Gray selected Len and Sonny to go with him, and they set off first. He chose a straight path to the house, which led through thick foliage. He was working on the assumption that any cameras or tripwires would be set in the most accessible places, though skipping the trails would make for slow going. It also meant that if anyone was listening for them, their movement through the vegetation could give them away.
Gray checked his watch. Langton had threatened to kill the girls in the next forty-five minutes if Harvey didn’t give up Eva’s location.
They’d moved two hundred yards through the foliage when the sound of gunshots reached them. It was coming from up ahead, and he didn’t need to tell Sonny and Len to join him.
They ran through the trees. Their presence was known, so there was no further need to remain quiet.
The gunfire grew louder and more intense. Gray could see muzzle flashes coming from his right and left, and it was clear that his friends needed help. It looked to be three against eight or more. He signaled for Sonny and Len to follow closely as he aimed to flank the island’s defenders.
An explosion ripped a tree apart as Eva’s team sent a grenade from an M203 toward the enemy, but the incoming fire didn’t falter. That told Gray that they were facing seasoned fighters.
Through his NVGs, he could now see the closest of the defending force. To his surprise, they were only ten yards away, nearly invisible in the greenery and darkness.
At least, the defenders he knew about.
Gray waited for Sonny and Len to get in position, then opened up on the nearest figure. Through his NVGs, he saw a puff of green explode from the man’s head, and Gray moved forward in search of the next target. A hail of bullets slammed into the tree next to Gray, sending splinters flying. He answered with a round from the underslung M203 and saw body parts separate in the air. Len and Sonny also engaged the opposition; with fire coming from two directions, it wasn’t long before the last defender was mopped up.
“Eva!” Gray shouted.
The other team ran over, swapping out magazines on the move.
“What the hell happened?”
“They must have cameras,” Eva said. “We were in cover and silent when they opened up.”
A groan came from behind them, and Gray jogged over to find that one of Langton’s men was seriously wounded but still alive. He’d taken rounds to the abdomen, and blood was bubbling from his mouth. He was going to die, and it would be painful to the end.
“How many men on the island?” Gray asked. “Tell me and I’ll send for help.”
“Fuck you . . .”
“Please yourself.”
Gray ripped the comms pack from the man’s belt and pressed the Send button. “I need twenty men here, now!”
He waited, looking at the rest of his team, wondering whether the people on the other end of the radio would detect the ruse.
“I’m not sending everyone. Eight are on their way.”
That was all Gray needed to know. He put a bullet in the survivor’s head, then put on the earpiece and stuffed the enemy radio into his wetsuit. The others had gathered radios for themselves, and Gray led them in the direction of the house.
“There are more on the way. Eight of them. Let’s try and find a road and get to the house as soon as we can.”
CHAPTER 36
“What the hell is going on?” La
ngton demanded as he kicked open the door to the control room. “I heard gunfire!”
“Sir, we have intruders on the island.”
“Intruders? Who? How many?”
“At least half a dozen. One of them’s a woman.”
Langton looked up at the large screen on the wall. “Show me.”
Eckman played the recording he’d made when the trio had first been caught on camera and Langton recognized her face instantly.
Driscoll.
“Why the hell didn’t you call me?”
“We’ve been busy organizing the defenses. We engaged them and had them pinned down, but Oscar One reported at least three more on his left flank.”
Langton wondered how the hell Driscoll had been able to find him, but it was a question that would have to wait until later. Right now, he needed to stop her.
“Where is she now?”
“We don’t know, and Oscar One isn’t responding.”
“You don’t know? We’ve got a hundred cameras on this rock. Find her!”
The team flicked through the array of cameras. Sixteen at a time could be seen on the big screen, and they soon detected movement.
“She’s three hundred yards from the house,” Art Barnaby said.
“How many men have we got left?” Langton asked.
“Twenty-two. Eight are on their way to intercept them as we speak.”
“Send another ten and leave four to protect the house. Send two of those to me now.”
They found a road leading to the house, and Gray put his hand up to listen to what was being said over comms.
“They’ve got eighteen more men coming our way now,” he told the group, “and they know where we are.”
“Then let’s give them a warm welcome,” Len said.
Back in the day, they’d have had the chance to choose their ordnance before departing on the mission, and Claymore anti-personnel mines would have been near the top of the list. Now, however, there was little time to do much more than dig in defensively or push the attack.
Gray preferred the latter. The house was now only three hundred yards away, and his daughter likely in it, but the numbers remained in the enemy’s favor.
He had to even the odds a little.
“Let’s get two grenade launchers up the road as fast as we can. Once we see them coming, we let ’em have it. The rest of us will stay in the trees and move up on their left and right.”
Eva and Rees Colback had two of the M4A1s, and they jogged up the road a hundred yards, sticking to the trees and ready to dive for cover at the first sign of trouble. It wasn’t long before they found it. Four men ran into view, and the instant they appeared, grenades flew their way. All four were blown off their feet, the two moaning survivors finished off with bursts from the rifles.
Gray and the others took the opportunity to move up. They’d split into pairs, two on each side of the road, ten yards into the treeline. It wasn’t long before they found targets.
Gray saw three men creeping along the side of the road, and he and Len tore into them. The targets dropped to the floor, one looking for cover, the other two dead.
Twelve defenders remained, and they all opened up at once. Gray’s team answered immediately with volleys of their own, and Gray added a couple of M203 grenades to the mix, the resulting screams confirming hits on two of them.
Gray saw movement out of the corner of his eye. “They’re trying to flank us!”
He sent another grenade in the direction of the flankers and followed up with a burst of 5.56mm, and four more men fell. The numbers were now in their favor, and Eva and Colback piled on the pressure with their grenade launchers. They took out two more, leaving only a quartet between Gray and his daughter.
That’s when time stood still.
In green-tinged slow motion, he saw a man thirty yards away stand and hoist a large tube on to his shoulder. Gray raised his rifle and fired, the bullet hitting the man in the chest, but not before an RPG round flew with a fiery tail across the road and into the trees.
The resulting explosion was devastating.
“LEN!”
Sonny ran to where his best friend had been taking cover.
His body language said it all.
After looking down at Len Smart’s body for a few seconds, Sonny marched directly at the enemy line, spraying them with lead and turning the air blue with his language. Gray and the others covered him, all the while shouting for him to get down, but Sonny wasn’t listening.
Gray used the last of his grenades and emptied his magazine into the enemy, then stooped to switch it out, but by that time it was all over. His explosives had done most of the damage. Sonny cleaned up.
Gray jogged over to him as Sonny inserted a new magazine and emptied it into the corpse lying next to the RPG-7. When the firing pin clicked on an empty chamber, Sonny reached for another mag.
Gray put his hand on Sonny’s shoulder. “Save it. We’re not done yet.”
Sonny spun, and Gray barely recognized him. His youthful looks had fled, his face contorted in fury.
“Sonny! Listen! We need you.”
Sonny clapped him on the arm and turned, walking toward the house.
Gray turned to find the others, and saw Eva standing where Sonny had moments earlier. He trotted over to her and saw the reason why.
Carl Huff was lying a few yards from Len Smart, the two of them on either side of a crater. Len had lost his legs below the knees, and half of Carl’s face was missing.
A thousand emotions flooded through Gray’s body, anger and grief battling for dominance. His hands began to shake, and he gripped his rifle tightly so that it wouldn’t show.
“We’ve got to go,” he said. “We’ll mourn them after the battle, not during.”
Eva took a deep breath and nodded once. “Let’s go get them.”
CHAPTER 37
They got to within fifty yards of the house before they came under fire again. Two men were using huge ornamental lions as cover outside the main entrance, and their first volley missed Gray by inches.
“Spread out!”
The quartet dispersed so that they had a better angle on the shooters, and Gray threw himself behind a tree and returned fire. Eva used the last of her grenades to take one of them out. The one that remained tried to backpedal into the house, firing as he went, but Sonny hit him in the chest with a three-round burst.
Gray sprang to his feet. He sprinted to the door and put the muzzle of the rifle through the opening. He knew there were at least two more guards standing between him and his daughter. He had no idea how many other people might be in the house.
Sonny tapped him on the shoulder, the signal to go in. Gray stepped inside and Sonny followed. Eva and Colback were not far behind. Gray gestured for them to check the rooms on the right while he and Sonny went left.
The first room Gray and Sonny came to was a reception room that looked like something from a royal palace. It was sixty feet long, and at the far end was a door. Gray skirted the antique furniture, checking behind the sofa as he went, but the room was empty. He got to the door and put his back to the wall as he tested the handle. Open. Gray kicked it and stepped back to allow Sonny to check for targets.
“Clear!”
They heard gunfire from somewhere in the house, and the pair ran toward it. They were back in the entrance hall when another burst rang out. They crossed into another reception room decked out like the first, and saw Eva emerge from a doorway.
The moment Eva and Colback approached the door, they heard raised voices inside. Eva kicked it in and stepped into the room, just in time to see one of the people inside reach for a pistol. She put a burst in his chest and dropped him, and the others in the room threw their hands up in surrender. They looked to be techies, and posed no immediate threat.
“How many are there?” she shouted. “How many left?”
“F–f–four. Two soldiers, Linda Myers, and the old man. Oh, and the housekeeping staff.”
“Where?”
“Housekeeping? In the basement.”
“The others!” Eva barked.
“I don’t know.”
Eva looked at the screens they monitored. She’d seen similar operations rooms at CIA headquarters, and they served one purpose. These were the men who had tracked Farooq to Lyon and had been instrumental in the kidnapping of the two girls. If it weren’t for them, Langton would be blind, impotent, and she and Carl would be sitting in a Munich café enjoying lunch right now. Instead, the only man she’d ever loved was lying dead with half his brains missing. They might only be armed with computers and radios, but they were still responsible for Carl’s death—as culpable as the man who had fired the rocket that killed him.
Eva pointed her rifle at the youngest one. “How much is he paying you?”
“T–two grand a day,” he stuttered.
“When you get to hell, ask yourself if it was worth it.”
The analyst started pleading for his life, but Eva had already tuned him out. She’d been trained to kill, not empathize or exercise her conscience. She’d made her decision, and no amount of begging was going to change her mind. She emptied the magazine into the techs, each bullet a small slug of revenge.
“They were unarmed!”
Eva looked at Colback with contempt. “These people were Langton’s eyes and ears. They guided those men in to kill me in Lyon. They found Farooq and reignited all this. The girls were put in danger because of their actions. Do I have to go on?”
“I was just saying that—”
“Well, don’t. If you dance with the devil, you get burned.”
She walked out of the room, leaving Colback shaking his head.
“Did you find the girls?” Gray asked Eva.
She shook her head. “That was the control room,” she said. “Only two men left, plus Myers, Langton, and the household staff.”
“Where are they?”
“The staff are in the basement. No idea about the others.”
“You two clear the ground floor,” Gray said. “Sonny and I will take upstairs.”
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