The Shadow Project

by Scott Mariani

  The first door she came to was the master bedroom, and she grabbed the chrome handle with both hands and jerked it open. Staggered inside just as the man came sprinting down the corridor after her. He shoved his hand inside the door, and she slammed the edge of it hard on his fingers.

  He let out a sharp cry. She yanked it open and slammed it again hard enough to sever those damn fingers – but he’d jerked his hand away and was roaring with pain outside the door as she braced her weight against it and remembered the password Adam had told her.

  ‘Lock!’ she shouted.

  The house responded and the bedroom door instantly clunked as the mechanism engaged.

  Sabrina stood there panting, her hands shaking, doubled over with the pain from the stitch in her side. She looked around her. She’d never been in Adam’s bedroom before. There was a big leather bed, a bookcase filled with science and architecture books, a bureau and a sofa. Next to the sofa was her brother’s prized candy-red Fender Stratocaster guitar, leaning up against an amplifier. Nothing she could use to defend herself. If this had been the States, there’d have been a pistol or a shotgun for home defence.

  Calm. Calm. Pull yourself together. She’d read that in these situations, barring a loaded .357 Magnum in the bedside table drawer, the best thing to do was stay out of the way, let the thieves take whatever the hell they wanted and not confront them. She was safe in here. The locks were sturdy. Everything was fine. Stolen TVs and silver were easily replaced.

  But how had he got past the security? This place was tighter than Fort Knox. Panic welled up like a tide. Her mobile was downstairs. She was stranded up here.

  She glanced at the window. Rain was lashing on the outside of the glass. Maybe if she could get out onto the balcony and run round the outside of the house, she could scramble down the fire escape and get away.

  At that moment she realised the sounds of pain had gone quiet outside the door. Suddenly she heard his voice again, just the other side of the thick wood. He didn’t scream, ‘I’m going to get you, bitch.’ That would have been bad enough, but what she heard was even worse. He spoke one word, in a normal tone that scared her almost to death.

  ‘Cassini.’

  And the lock clunked open.

  The lock clunked open and she stared at the handle in horror. Watched it turn, and before she could react or think to shout ‘lock!’ the door opened. And he was in.

  She backed away across the bedroom, past the sofa towards the window. He padded in towards her. She could see the fire in his eyes and the bunched muscles under his rain-speckled shirt. The fingers of his right hand were bloody. His teeth were bared in a fierce grin as he stalked across the room.

  Her hand brushed something hard. Adam’s guitar, propped up next to the sofa. A big, heavy lump of solid wood, like a musical axe. She wrenched it up in both hands and swung it at his head.

  The man stepped back out of the arc of the blow, and the momentum of the heavy guitar almost carried Sabrina off her feet. It smashed into the bookcase. Glass flew everywhere.

  The man came at her. She recovered her balance and swung the guitar at him again with a grunt of effort, and this time it caught him hard on the shoulder. She was sure that she’d have shattered a normal man’s collar bone, but with all the muscle on his upper body the blow just glanced off and he pawed the guitar out of her hands as he rushed her like an angry bull. He lashed out and backhanded her across the face, and she shrieked and went sprawling back across the bed. He grabbed her by the hair, hit her again.

  Then he clambered on top of her, driving the air out of her with his weight, straddling her hips and pinning both her arms behind her head with one strong hand. She fought back, spat in his face, but he was heavy and powerful and there was little she could do to resist him. With his free hand he started ripping at her clothes, fumbling at the fastening of her jeans and yanking down the hem of her waistband. Started grabbing at his zipper.

  No, no, no. Please. Not this.

  He had her jeans down past her hips and she was screaming for him to stop when the bedroom door burst open and a woman and a tall man walked in. The woman was holding a stack of plastic CD cases.

  Sabrina’s attacker twisted round to look at the two of them, and muttered angrily in a language she didn’t understand. The woman froze, taking in the scene, then stepped across to the bed. Her arm shot out and she grabbed a fistful of the stocky guy’s hair. Jerked his head back harshly, making him cry out in pain, and dragged him off Sabrina.

  Sabrina rolled off the edge of the bed, pulling up her jeans and trying to cover herself up. Her hands were shaking so violently that she could barely do up the button of her jeans. Across the bedroom, the woman still had the man’s hair bunched up tight in her fist. His eyes were popping with pain. She wrenched his head back and forth a couple of times in disgust and then let him go.

  Cowering by the side of the bed, Sabrina was on the point of thanking the woman for saving her from being raped. But then the woman turned to stare at her, and the cold look in her eyes made Sabrina recoil.

  ‘Who are you?’ Sabrina asked her.

  The woman’s stare bored into her. ‘Shut up,’ she said in English. Then she turned to the men and made a sharp gesture as she headed for the door. The tall man followed.

  The stocky guy knew what to do. He scooped Sabrina up in his arms and dragged her out of the bedroom, ignoring her screams. She was powerless in his grip, and could feel the suppressed fury pulsing out of him. The woman led the way down the open-tread staircase, across the glass-roofed rear atrium and through the tall glass doors onto the rear terrace overlooking the lake. Rain was slashing down onto the concrete, driven diagonally by the howling wind and hitting so hard it was bouncing. In the pale light Sabrina could see beyond the terrace and garden to the grassy slope down to the lakeside. The wind was churning up the water, and white-crested waves were rolling up the shore and breaking against the little wooden jetty where Adam kept his rowing boat.

  Sabrina’s bare feet hardly touched the ground as the powerful man hauled her out across the terrace. The woman turned to him, her blond hair plastered across her face by the wind, and issued stern, authoritative commands. He just nodded. Then the woman gestured to the tall man and led him away, up the flagstone path that skirted around the side of the house towards the front yard and out of sight.

  The man dragged Sabrina closer to the lakeside. They were on the grass now, and she could hear his boots squelching on the sodden ground. Her hair was in her face and the rain stung her eyes and she could barely see. She writhed in his arms. It was like being clasped by a machine. His hand was pressed hard over her face, muffling her cries of protest. As he walked, half-dragging and half-carrying her, he stumbled on the rough ground and his fingers slipped an inch and she could open her mouth.

  She bit hard, felt her teeth break skin and flesh.

  He ripped his hand away and slapped her, then again. And again. She could feel his blood on her face. Heard the rasp of his voice close to her ear as he spoke to her in that strange language. Then he laughed.

  She knew what the woman had told him to do. His job was to drown her in the lake.

  She felt her heels drag on the stones as they neared the shoreline. His feet splashed into the water, and the icy shock took her breath away and made her heart stutter as he dumped her body into the waves. She screamed again, but it turned into a gurgle as he pressed a big flat palm against her face and drove her head down under the surface.

  The water roared in her ears and filled her nose. Bubbles streamed out of her mouth. She flailed desperately with her hands, managed to fight free of his grip. Broke the surface and filled her lungs with air before he pushed her back down under the icy black water. She battled to hold her breath as her fingernails raked at his hands and wrists. But he was just too strong.

  She knew she couldn’t hold on much longer. In a few short seconds the water was going to come pouring into her lungs and he was going to hold her th
ere until she drowned.

  She was going to die. This was it.

  Then suddenly she was gasping and wheezing and tasting air as her head burst free of the surface again. The man had let go of her. Through the coughing fit that racked her body she saw him go down on his knees, the water surging up to his neck and over his shoulders.

  She blinked the water out of her eyes. A dark figure was standing behind the man, with an arm locked around his throat. A brutal twist, and Sabrina heard the crack over the roar of the wind as the stocky guy’s neck snapped like a branch.

  Then a hand was grasping her tightly by the arm and pulling her out of the lake.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Ben hauled the coughing, spluttering woman up onto the shore. In his right hand was the automatic pistol he’d taken from her attacker’s belt.

  To come to an idyllic lakeside retreat to talk to a retired physics professor and find a gang of armed killers trying to murder a woman – Ben wasn’t even trying to figure it out. The questions could come later, after he’d got himself and her out of this.

  It had been on the approach to the house, the Audi’s windscreen wipers batting away the thundering rain on full speed, that he’d spotted the beige Citroen Picasso parked at the gate. Innocuous enough, but a woman’s scream of terror was a sound that could carry a long way, even through a stormy night. He’d killed his lights and engine and coasted the last few yards to the house, left the Audi hidden among the trees and come in over the wall. He could still hear the screaming as he’d sneaked through the grounds. Crouched behind a flowery shrub, he’d wiped the rain out of his eyes and watched the blond female and the tall man walk away around the side of the house and head back towards their car.

  He’d been more interested in the woman. Everything about her cool, imperious bearing said that she was the leader. As she walked, she’d kept glancing at something in her hand. Hard to tell from that distance, but Ben had thought it looked like she was holding a pile of CDs.

  Then, as Ben had sat watching, his attention was quickly diverted to the second guy, the squat one with the muscles. It was becoming increasingly obvious that he didn’t have good intentions towards the woman they’d dragged from the house.

  In situations like that, it was hard to remain a passive observer.

  Wishing there’d been time to conceal the attacker’s body, Ben helped the frightened woman up the bank to the cover of the long grass, laid her down and crouched beside her in the shadows. Any minute now, the other two were going to be wondering what was keeping their friend so long, and they’d be back.

  She shrank away from him, fear in her eyes. Water was dripping from her hair, and her clothing was soaked. Ben could feel his own wet shirt clinging to him, and the wind chilling his skin. He knew he had to get the woman inside the house quickly. Even in summer, hypothermia was a dangerous reality.

  ‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said softly. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Sabrina.’ She wheezed, coughed up lake water. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Sabrina, you’re going to have to keep your head down. Don’t do anything unless I say. Understand?’

  The sound of car doors. Shouts carrying on the wind, right on cue.

  ‘Slatan?’ The woman’s voice, harsh and edged with anger. The name and the accent sounded Bulgarian or Estonian to Ben.

  He peered up over the long grass. The rain was moving on quickly. The wind tore a hole in the dark clouds and in the pale moonlight he saw the two figures approaching from the path along the side of the house, scanning right and left as they walked a few yards apart. Both had a grim, hard look and moved cautiously. Professional killers, Ben thought. And as they crossed the terrace to the edge of the grass, he saw the stubby black weapons they were holding in their arms that looked worryingly like Israeli Mini Uzi submachine guns. Sound suppressors, extended thirty-round magazines. The bright crimson dots of laser sight beams swept the lakeside. Whatever it was these people had come out here for, somebody wasn’t taking any chances.

  He quickly checked the pistol he’d taken from the dead man. Even in the dark, he could tell by touch what it was – a big-framed, old-fashioned Colt .45 automatic, maybe a Gold Cup or a Government model. It was a fancy piece, with an extended beavertail grip safety and a muzzle compensator to control recoil by diverting part of the gas blast from the barrel. But all the buttons and bells in the world couldn’t disguise the fact that he had only eight rounds at best and barely visible iron sights that were next to useless for shooting in the dark, against state-of-the-art laser optics and the high-capacity firepower of two machine guns. It didn’t seem quite fair.

  He shrugged to himself. One thing the SAS had taught him was that you did what you could with what you had. And he was lucky he had anything at all. He press-checked the breech. Glanced across at Sabrina and put a finger to his lips. Saw the whites of her eyes in the moonlight.

  The woman and the tall man were about fifteen yards away when the woman suddenly stopped and pointed at the lake.

  The floating dark shape in the water was exactly what Ben had been hoping they wouldn’t spot. His stomach tightened like a fist as he watched and waited for their reaction.

  The woman did pretty much what he expected. She was definitely the leader, and a decisive one. It took her less than two seconds to scan the long grass, jerk the cocking bolt on her Uzi with a ferocious snarl and let loose a ripping spray of gunfire that churned up the ground dangerously close to the grassy clump where Ben and Sabrina were hidden.

  The ball was rolling. No choice. Ben could hardly make out his sights against the target but he fired back anyway. The flat punch of the .45 stabbed his ears and he felt the recoil kick back against his palm. Shooting almost blind, but he’d hit something, because the woman cried out and staggered back a step and fell, clutching her arm. The tall man instantly opened up with his Uzi, lighting up the night with his muzzle flash.

  The sustained burst of fire drove Ben back down the slope, dragging Sabrina with him as clumps of earth and bits of grass showered down over them. Sabrina rolled in the dirt, wrapping her arms around her head for protection.

  Ben scrambled back up the bank just in time to see the tall man helping the woman to her feet and the two of them retreating back towards the side of the house. He chased after them. Saw blood on the ground where the woman had fallen, and a trail of bright red spots along the path.

  At that moment the moon was obscured by another black cloud and the grounds were plunged back into darkness. The man and woman were little more than shadows up ahead. Ben broke into a sprint. As he ran he pointed the Colt and let off three more blind shots that he instinctively knew all went wide of the mark. The flitting shadows darted around the side of the house and into the front yard. He heard running steps on the wet gravel. The sound of doors slamming and the Citroen’s engine revving high, the rasp of spinning wheels.

  Ben rounded the corner of the house and emerged into the yard just as the car was taking off at high speed. He fired at the taillights as they sped away from the gate and up the road, but they were already out of effective pistol range. He lowered the Colt and watched the headlamps carve through the bends, and then the Citroën was gone and the road was as black as the hills that merged into the night.

  He turned away and started running back to Sabrina.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The sky was clearing and the wind was dropping as Ben took Sabrina back to the house. He wasn’t quite sure whether her passivity was a sign of trust for him or a symptom of shock, but her body was limp as he carried her in his arms, and her dripping hair nuzzled against his shoulder. She didn’t seem able to speak, and the only sound she made was a weak sobbing as he carried her up the stairs to look for a bathroom. His first priority was to get her warm and dry. They could talk later.

  He found the bathroom he was looking for on the first floor, and kicked open the door. Lights came on automatically as he carried her in, and he remembered what L
enny Salt had told him about Adam O’Connor’s smart house technology business. He laid Sabrina gently down in a big cane chair in the corner, tore three fluffy cotton towels off a heated rail and wrapped them around her as he ran the bath to a temperature just warm enough to get her blood circulating again.

  He kneeled down beside where she sat, checked her pulse and spoke softly to her. She murmured back. Her face was still pale, but colour was returning quickly. Once he was satisfied that she wasn’t about to keel over, he left her alone to get out of her wet things and into the warm water, and went downstairs to check all the doors and windows. Everything had electronic locks that clunked like a car’s central locking at the touch of a button. He checked each room in turn, the house sensing his movement and lighting the path ahead everywhere he went.

  He could see no signs of a struggle anywhere, until he walked into the master bedroom back upstairs and found the rumpled bed, smashed bookcase and the electric guitar lying on the rug. Moving up to the second floor, the first door he tried led into what was obviously the bedroom of a young teenager. A single bed with an X-Men duvet set, a collection of electronic gadgets scattered across the floor, posters on the wall. He closed the door.

  Across the broad, lushly carpeted landing from the boy’s room was a darkened room with a half-open door. Ben went inside cautiously. Again the lights went on automatically for him as he entered, and he saw that he was in a large study.

  Someone else had visited the room, and not long ago. Ben crouched down and felt the shoeprints on the carpet. They were still damp from the rain. Two sets of them, one larger and one smaller. The tall man and the woman had been here.

  He stood up and looked around. The ultra-modern furnishings were sparse and tasteful. The walls were lined with framed black and white photos of space-age-looking houses in a variety of settings. Below a window overlooking the lake was a black leather swivel chair and a broad desk in ebony wood.