Lady Death

by Brian Drake

  “The body count keeps rising.”

  “And this may be our last shot,” Hayden said.

  “Glad to have you here, Hayden.”

  “Call me Joe.”

  “Sam.” They shook hands a second time.

  Hayden said to Misty, “What’s the British interest in this?”

  “Any attack on the US hurts the UK,” she said. “If we don’t stop Tanya Jafari now, she may hit London next.”

  Mike Cutter returned with a laptop. He put the computer on the hood of the Ford. “Here’s the target.”

  Hayden moved away, explaining he’d seen the photo already. Raven and Misty stepped close to Cutter. Raven examined the daytime satellite picture of Horn’s mansion. The kind of home only blood money could buy.

  The layout of the mansion resembled one side of an octagon. Main house in the center, three stories according to Cutter. Sections extended at an angle from either side of the house like outstretched arms. They connected with tower structures. Each tower featured round tops and spires. The second level of each “arm” was topped with a canopy of curved glass. Through the glass, the walkway between the house and tower showed. Each tower had a wrap-around balcony. Concrete courtyard in the center. Hedges lined the front walls of the house.

  Cutter pointed to a separate multi-car garage on one side. A tennis court/swimming pool combo sat on the other.

  The forest continued up the hill until it stopped at the tall green grass surrounding the property.

  Raven said, “Nice house.”

  “Shame to blow it up,” Misty added.

  Cutter checked his watch. “Black Hawks arrive in ten minutes. Let’s get you geared up. We all hit at the same time.”

  Raven and Misty didn’t get camo uniforms, but they did get the combat vest and associated gear. The weapon of choice for the assault surprised him. Cutter handed him and Misty a Haenel MK 556 automatic rifle. It was the latest and greatest from the German company with ergonomics and controls similar to the M16/M4. It felt immediately familiar to Raven. Each rifle had an optic sight mounted on top. The buttstock extended or contracted. Misty preferred her stock short; Raven extended his all the way.

  “It’s a good rig,” Hayden commented as Raven examined the weapon.

  “You ask for this assignment?” Raven said. He slung the rifle.

  “Yeah. I want payback.”

  “Do me a favor,” Raven said, “and take it easy. We both have a score to settle, but we need to save American lives first.”

  “Not my first rodeo, Sam. I get it.”

  Cutter said it was time to get moving. The crew cleaned up the site and loaded into the Jeeps. The four CIA shooters climbed into one Jeep, while Raven, Misty, Cutter and Hayden piled into the other. Cutter drove. The engines rumbled to life. The off-road vehicles moved along the dirt road with four car-lengths between them.

  Raven and Misty sat in the back. Even with Cutter driving slowly they jostled against each other at every bump.

  Raven felt sweat on his palms. He wiped his hands on his pants. He didn’t want to feel nervous, but he had no idea where they stood in terms of Operation Triangle’s timetable.

  Success or failure depended on getting information out of Dante Horn.

  “Here they come!” Cutter shouted. He stepped on the gas and the Jeep surged forward.

  Two Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters thundered overhead. As the two-lane road began to level out, the Horn mansion came into view. Raven saw the tips of the towers first, each one bathed by ground lights.

  Muted machine gun fire hammered above. The first Black Hawk made a pass over the courtyard and front of the house, strafing the exterior. The heavy slugs plowed into the stonework, shattering windows. The second chopper hovered at the edge of the grass.

  Cutter steered the Jeep at the driveway. Horn didn’t have a security gate, but Raven gave it no further thought as return fire smacked into the Jeep like dozens of enraged hornets.

  Raven pushed Misty down and bent over her, Hayden shouting for Cutter to go right. A burst of fire shattered the front windshield. Cutter screamed once. The Jeep lurched left. Hayden shouted, “Hang on!” Steel crunched as the front end of the Jeep plowed into the left-side tower. The sudden stop rocked the vehicle.

  Raven and Misty lurched forward as if shoved violently, their bodies whipping back under the strain of the safety belts. Raven looked up as Misty pulled away. Cutter’s head leaned forward on his chest, his face a mash of blood and tissue. Hayden yelled, “Get out!” and Raven didn’t waste another moment on the late Mike Cutter.

  Raven slid out, yelling for Misty to follow. The Jeep covered them from the return fire, but all it would take was another lucky burst and they’d join Cutter in eternity. She dropped beside him. Hayden crawled over the front seat and scrambled out the back as well.

  The three squatted at the rear fender. The second Jeep had stopped a few feet away. The four gunners had spread out in the grass, firing at the house. The Black Hawks disgorged more shooters who dropped on rappelling lines. The thunderous rotor blades and the chatter of automatic weapons fire forced Raven to shout.

  “We can’t stay here!”

  “Up the tower!” Hayden shouted.

  “On me!”

  Raven ran from the Jeep as more slugs slammed into the body. A tire popped. Raven forced the sounds from his senses. The tower loomed large in front of him. He paused at a doorway, the MK 556 at his shoulder. The bottom of the tower contained no threats. A spiral staircase of stone steps followed along the wall to the upper level.

  “Clear!”

  Raven started up the steps. His shoes scraped on the stone, and he kept his head up. He had no idea what waited on the top level. Horn’s defenders could very well be on their way to intercept.

  Machine gun fire from the choppers and the crackle of small arms continued outside.

  Raven focused on putting one foot in front of the other. A glance back showed Misty and Hayden behind, Hayden bringing up the rear with Misty in between. Raven pushed on. Another step, and another. He neared the top landing. He pressed the rifle stock deep into his shoulder and rested his finger on the trigger.

  They had to get to Horn before the Black River CEO had a chance to escape.

  12

  Raven set foot on the landing. An arched doorway on his right led to the balcony encircling the tower. He was steps away from the glass-canopied walkway.

  He shifted left and stopped at the wall. “Clear.” Misty and Hayden finished their climb.

  The walkway ahead wasn’t lit. Glare from the still-on outside lamps filtered through the glass. One of the Black Hawks roared over the top. The gunfire outside didn’t let up.

  “On me,” Raven said again. He moved forward at a quick pace, stepped onto the carpeted walkway. Another large arch waited at the end. A second step—

  Overhead fluorescent lights snapped on. Raven shouted, “Get back!” and hit the floor. Automatic weapons fire ripped through the glass. Panes shattered; glass dropped. Raven twisted around and crawled over the shards back where he started. He wiped blood from his left hand onto his pants. Misty and Hayden were already flat on the landing.

  “See them?” Hayden said.

  “Third floor balcony.”

  Tiger Joe lived up to his name in that moment. He jumped up. “Cover me, Sam! Misty, shoot the lights!”

  Hayden ran for the first doorway off the landing, the one to the wrap-around balcony. Raven joined him as he squatted behind the iron rail. Raven had a clear view of the third-floor balcony where several gunners fired at the CIA ground force. Staying a foot back from the doorway, he opened fire with short three-round bursts.

  Hayden kept his MK 556 on single shot and chose targets carefully. He fired with precision. Raven kept the shooters hopping between them and the ground force. Unaimed return fire peppered the tower with ferocity, tearing chunks out of the brick. Hayden’s rounds knocked the gunners down, one after another, like bowling pins. A he
avy machine gun salvo from one of the Black Hawks finished them off. The big steel slugs ripped into the balcony, shearing it from the house. Chunks of concrete and broken bodies crashed to the courtyard.

  Raven and Tiger Joe ran back to the walkway. Misty had shot out the overhead light and remained on the landing to cover them.

  Over the com units jammed in their ears, the commander of the CIA ground team gave an update. The falling balcony took the fight out of the defenders at the front of the house. The two teams were splitting up to enter. Raven radioed back they were approaching the second floor.

  Raven, Misty and Hayden reached the entryway on at the end of the walkway. Raven told his companions to spread out. The gunfire outside had lessened but sporadic shots crackled on the first floor.

  Raven studied the room they entered. It looked like a large sitting/group dining area with furniture and tables throughout. Art on the walls. Raven hoped they weren’t about to shoot up rare paintings.

  Raven, Misty, and Hayden traveled the length of the long room but found no targets. Another wide doorway led to a hall overlooking the main entrance to the ground floor. Raven shifted left and right. Behind him, the hall continued with a line of bedrooms. Ahead, staircase to the third floor.

  The three checked the bedrooms, easing open each door for a quick look inside. No hidden threats. No shooters under the beds or in the closet.

  “First floor clear,” reported the CIA team commander. The gunfire had stopped, but Raven hadn’t noticed.

  “Second floor clear,” Raven radioed in return. “Any further casualties?”

  “Two wounded.”

  “Copy.”

  “I’m sending two men up to you.”

  “We’re expecting them.”

  Raven, Misty and Hayden went back to the open section of the hallway. Raven looked at the staircase to the third floor.

  “What?”

  “If Horn hasn’t escaped and isn’t upstairs, where did he go?”

  Hayden said, “None of the choppers reported an escape. They were supposed to take out the garage to keep him from getting away.”

  “Yeah,” Raven said. “So, where is he hiding?”

  The night had been going so well!

  Dante Horn almost had perky Caroline out of her pink tank top thanks to a game of “strip darts” in his den.

  Each had won a game and lost a game, so they were both sans pants. It was hard to focus on the target with Caroline standing in her tank top and white strawberry-dotted panties.

  She stood with her hands behind her back, smiling coyly as he raised a dart. She thrust out her ample rack to further distract him. No. Uplifted round tits would not distract him. He had to score higher than her and get her out of those strawberry bottoms. He threw the dart and the projectile sailed across the open space to the dart board. Smack. An eight.

  “Not enough!” Caroline said. She laughed and jumped and clapped. “Take something off!”

  They weren’t playing by any standard game of darts rules. They were both too drunk to follow the 501 rules and subtract to zero. Easier to base points on where darts landed. Three darts each round, and whoever came up short shed something.

  Horn grinned sheepishly as he took off his shirt and draped it over the back of a leather chair. His slacks were already there. He knew of faster ways to get a 25-year-old doe-eyed DTF hottie naked and on her back, but the game made it more fun.

  Getting Caroline out of the pub had been easy. The driver and bodyguards made her frown, but she stayed cool. The detached garage with his exotic car collection made her squeal with delight, but then she noticed the armed security force.

  “I think I should go home,” she said. “You’re a drug dealer or something, right?”

  Horn laughed and went into sales mode. Overcome the objection and get the sale.

  “Nothing of the sort,” he told her. “I do work for the American government.”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  “Dangerous and secret, know what I mean?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “You’re like Jack Bauer or something?”

  Another laugh. “Kind of. These men are here for my protection. This is the safest house in Antwerp.”

  “Well,” she said, her pitch increasing the way young women often spoke, “okay, I guess.”

  He took her up to the third floor and his game den. It was a cozy room with dark carpeting and walls, various pieces of colorful abstract art, game tables, a sitting area of leather furniture, and a glass-enclosed floor-to-ceiling cigar humidor.

  Sans shirt, Dante Horn plucked his darts from the board and stepped back. Another round. Caroline, with her three darts, wobbled in front of the board as she tried to aim and laughed. “I’ll fall over as soon as I throw this,” she said.

  She threw the dart and indeed lost her balance. Horn grabbed her and held her upright.

  “Hey,” she said, laughing up at his face, “what’s poking me?”

  “Oops,” he said. He didn’t let go. She grinded her rear end against him. The soft plumpness of her rear end, with nothing between him and her bare skin but their skivvies, stirred desire in his lower region. He let her go. She licked her lips, then turned to address the board for her next throw.

  At the end of the round, she lost. He told her to ditch the strawberries. She said no and reached up her back to unhook her purple bra. She pulled it out through one side and let it fall on the floor on top of her jeans.

  The house shook with the unmistakable roar of large helicopters. Horn knew the sounds well. Caroline screamed and ran under a Foosball table. Machine gun fire hammered the house.

  Horn jumped into his slacks but ignored his shirt. “Get dressed!” he shouted. Caroline stared at him with a blank face, but then it dawned on her it wasn’t time to get caught in her knickers. She moved quick to her jeans and pulled them on. She bundled the bra in her left hand.

  More gunfire outside. A lot of gunfire.

  “What’s going on?” Caroline shouted.

  Flame flashed outside the wide window overlooking the detached garage. Horn dived at Caroline and forced her to the floor. He covered the back of her neck as the crack of an explosion followed. The window shattered. Chunks and glass whooshed into the room and peppered the floor. The heat from the explosion followed.

  There go my cars!

  “What’s happening!?” Caroline shouted as she squirmed under him. “Get off me!”

  He moved away. “Come on. Get up, I have a safe room.”

  “A what?”

  “A safe room, come on!”

  He pulled her to her feet and half dragged her to the other side of the den. A line of wainscoting divided the wall in half. Above, artwork. Below, blank space. He punched a combination into a small panel on the wall. A section under the center line slid open. He gave her a shove, but she dug her feet into the carpet.

  “No!”

  “You’ll be safe, it’s okay.”

  Another explosion shook the house. All argument stopped. She dropped to her knees and crawled through the gap. He hit the combo again and the section of the wall slid closed.

  She’d be fine. The room was lit, and a button on the inside would open the door in the worst-case scenario.

  Horn turned away with a grim set to his face. There was a war outside and no mistake. The helicopters above the house continued their passes. His cars were gone, and with them his means of escape. His only remaining option was to run. They’d cut him down for sure if he tried.

  His two bodyguards entered, both out of breath. They carried automatic rifles. One of them held two and passed the spare to Horn.

  “What’s outside?” he asked.

  Horn listened to their description and it meant only one thing. The Americans. And not Sam Raven playing solo. The entire CIA clandestine group was outside blasting their way in.

  And he had no way out.

  He faced a choice. He only had his bodyguards with him. The rest of his force wasn’t going t
o turn the tide. He could make a last stand or choose another option.

  Surrender.

  13

  No.

  Horn knew many things the Americans would want to know, but they’d never make a deal after his previous subterfuge.

  “Let’s go,” he said. He pushed through the two bodyguards and took the lead out of the room. He didn’t care if he was shirtless. This was his endgame. He’d be blown to smithereens so it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  Horn stopped at the corner at the top of the stairs. A line of American shooters approached the staircase. He brought the automatic rifle to his shoulder and pulled the trigger.

  Somebody screamed and fell. The other four spread out. Two ran for the stairs. He ignored them. The narrow hallway restricted the movements of those who remained. Like him, they had nowhere to go. He charged down the steps, keeping low, his bodyguards firing overhead. Return fire cracked. Horn’s narrowing tunnel vision blocked most of the view, so he fired at the nearest threats. His weapon kicked and spat flame. He pivoted, fired, turned, fired another burst. One body fell. Somebody ran by on his left. He pivoted with the muzzle of his rifle tracking, then a series of punches smacked him in the back. They weren’t from fists, but bullets. Horn felt his body hit the floor hard. Breath left him. He tried to move and couldn’t. Then his darkening vision faded forever.

  Raven rose from his squat and didn’t take his eyes off his sights.

  His MK 556 chugged some more, and he shifted his aim with each burst. The two men at the top of the stairs tumbled down and stopped in a heap atop each other.

  “Clear!” he shouted.

  The stench of cordite hung in the hallway. Hayden joined the two CIA men on the staircase. Raven heard an agonized wail. He spun around and saw Misty bleeding on the carpet.

  He ran to her as Tiger Joe began calling for more help. “One down!” he shouted. Raven didn’t think he meant the bad guys.

  Misty rolled onto his side. Several of Horn’s slugs had punched through her leg and stomach. Blood trickled out her mouth. Her face was twisted in pain.