He studied the notes and the dates on the page. It was a narrow river valley in Spain. A town had been circled. The name rewritten in ink beside it. It had to be.
Robson ripped the page out of the atlas, closed the book and turned back to Snipe. “Time to go.”
* * *
—
Up on the roof, Kappa and his men had cleared the spires and turrets and worked their way to the center, meeting in the middle. “We’ve covered every inch of the place,” one of the men said. “They’re not here.”
“They didn’t grow wings and fly away,” Kappa insisted. “Keep looking.”
“Over here,” another of the men shouted.
Kappa jogged to the edge of the roof and looked down. A painter’s scaffolding hung next to the wall. “What floor is that?”
“I’d say third,” the man who found it estimated. “Back side of the house. Dead center.”
“From both sides,” Kappa said. “I want no mistakes this time.”
The groups divided once more and backtracked to the individual turrets. Rushing down the stairs to the third floor, they slowed as they entered the hallway, moving quietly along the carpeted corridor.
Kappa pointed to a pair of doors aligned roughly with the center of the house. Readying his weapon, he silently counted down with his fingers. When he curled his index finger into his fist, two of his men kicked the doors open simultaneously.
Concussion grenades were tossed inside, with the mercenaries turning away and closing their eyes as the flashes went off. In the aftermath of the explosions, they rushed in, quickly covering every section of the room.
“No sign of them,” the team leader reported.
Kappa’s blood began to boil.
“We’re way off schedule,” one of his men said. “Five minutes over and counting. Every minute we stay makes it less likely for a safe departure.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Kappa snapped. “We cannot return to Barlow and tell him we’ve failed.
“Spread out and check every room,” he said. “Stay on the radios. Any sign of them, call out. The sooner you find them, the sooner we leave.”
Chapter 29
Kurt heard the commotion from inside a dark, vertical tunnel. He was suspended with his arms and legs spread outward in an X formation, each palm pressed firmly against a smooth wall, each booted foot wedged tight in an effort to defy gravity.
Below him, Joe was holding fast in similar fashion. Farther down, Morgan and DeMars had already reached the bottom of the tunnel, where a large hopper of unfolded laundry caught them.
The sound of Kappa shouting at his men carried through the wall and into the chute. He was yelling at his men, ordering them about. The stress in his voice was obvious. It brought a smile to Kurt’s face. “We’re getting to them.”
“As long as they don’t get to us,” Joe whispered back.
Kurt doubted they’d be found. The door to the laundry chute was hidden behind a panel that looked exactly like the rest of the wall, the wainscoting and wallpaper matching identically. Even DeMars had found the opening difficult to locate.
Outside, the argument ended and the mercenaries fanned out. Kurt heard the angry soldiers starting to lose their discipline. Their boots pounded the floorboards as they went from room to room. Furniture was noisily shoved aside and flipped over, belongings smashed. They’d given up any pretense of stealth and were now acting like a marauding army.
The noise only made it easier to escape. “Slide down,” Kurt said.
Joe began to move, sliding a bit, stopping and then picking up speed over the last several feet until he dropped into the pile of sheets and overstuffed down comforters.
Kurt came down in a more controlled fashion, landing beside Joe.
Down in the basement, it was pitch-black. Kurt pulled out his phone, allowing the glow from the screen to illuminate the laundry room. “Excellent idea,” he said. “Brilliant, in your English vernacular.”
“Earlier, I saw the maid carrying a bundle of sheets,” Morgan said. “She went down the hall with them and came back with nothing in her arms. I assumed she wasn’t tossing them out a window. My biggest worry was whether we’d fit.”
“Mine as well,” DeMars said. “I was nine years old the last time I slid down this chute. Never thought I’d be repeating my escapades as an adult.”
“I’m just glad there was laundry in the hopper,” Joe said, looking comfortable amid the pile. “What’s next? Underground tunnel to the forest?”
Kurt climbed from the basket and looked at DeMars. “I don’t suppose you have one.”
DeMars shook his head. “Sorry, nothing like that.”
“What do you propose we do?” Morgan asked.
“They’re still looking for us upstairs,” Kurt said. “But they’ll work their way down eventually. Before they get here, we should surprise them. Rising up like phantoms in their midst.”
“The ground floor is the last place they’d expect us,” Joe said.
“And that’s exactly where we’ll be.”
Chapter 30
Under the light of Kurt’s phone, DeMars drew a rough map of the basement. “You can take the servants’ stairs from the pantry to the kitchen and then move through the scullery to the servants’ hall, which connects directly to the east rotunda.”
“Won’t they see us?” Kurt asked.
“No,” DeMars said confidently. “The servants’ hall is back of the house. It runs behind the main wall.”
“That’s handy,” Morgan said.
DeMars nodded. “When this home was built, the lords and ladies of the day wanted the servants to keep out of sight. Halls like this were common. They allowed cleanup and food service to happen without the two classes bumping into each other as they moved about. When you get to the formal dining room, you’ll exit through a hidden door. It’s designed to look like part of the wall, just like the opening to the laundry chute. From in there you’ll be almost directly across from the stairs. You should have no problem taking them by surprise.”
“Okay,” Kurt said. “Joe and I will go. You and Morgan stay here and—”
“Not a chance,” Morgan said.
Kurt wasn’t having it. “If they get the jump on us, you’re the last line of defense for DeMars. Besides, if things go sideways, Joe and I might need you to rescue us.”
“Again,” she added.
“What?”
“Rescue you again.”
“Right,” Kurt said. “Thanks for reminding me.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll stay here. But I can’t promise you for how long.”
Kurt and Joe moved to the door, sliding it open and ducking out into the hall. With no lights, they had to feel their way along the wall. The stairs were where DeMars had promised and they climbed them to the kitchen.
Emerging into the open room, Kurt was surprised how easily he could make out the confines. By now their eyes had become so used to the dark that the filtered moonlight coming through the windows was enough to navigate by.
“Must be all those carrots I’ve been eating,” Joe said.
They passed through the large kitchen and found the servants’ hall. Even after hearing DeMars’s description, Kurt was surprised at how narrow the winding passage really was. “How did they carry trays of food through here?”
“Carefully,” Joe replied.
Kurt grinned and continued until they found the door. He eased it just wide enough to look out.
He’d been expecting Joan of Arc, but they were on the opposite side of the house. Here, a bust of Napoléon took center stage. The General, depicted in his classic bicorne hat, was staring directly at them from a marble pedestal in the center of the rotunda. The man assigned to guard the stairs crouched beside it, but he was looking upward.
Kurt saw DeMa
rs’s butler sitting against the wall nearby. His hands and feet were bound, his mouth gagged. And his face, neck and white shirt soaked with blood.
“Is he alive?” Joe whispered.
The butler’s head had lolled over to one side. “Can’t tell,” Kurt said. “That’s a lot of blood. Even if he is alive, he won’t last much longer without medical attention.”
Switching his attention to the mercenary, Kurt focused like a wolf in the forest targeting a kill. The man had a hand pressed to his ear. He was listening to the radio traffic as his teammates cleared the rooms above. His eyes worked in precise fashion. Scanning the stairs, then checking the hall, then glancing at the doorway to his right and then back to the stairs. A Heckler & Koch SP5K machine pistol rested in his hands ready to use. The weapon fired 9mm ammo and normally operated on semi-automatic mode, but after what Kurt had experienced upstairs he assumed this and the other weapons had all been modified to fire on full automatic.
One shot would have to do.
Kurt pressed his foot against the base of the door. With his hands free, he leveled the .45, holding it with a two-handed grip, exhaled calmly and pulled the trigger. The shot hit Kappa’s mercenary in the face, shattering the night vision goggles and killing the man instantly. He slumped without uttering a sound.
“One down,” Kurt said.
If Kurt had been in possession of a silencer, no one would have noticed. But the report echoed. No one came. In the shadow of that delayed reaction, Kurt and Joe rushed forward. Kurt went to the mercenary and took his gear while Joe ran to the injured butler and dragged him back to the servants’ hall.
Kurt ducked in behind him and closed the door. Hidden once again, Joe checked the injured man for signs of life.
“He’s hanging on,” Joe said. “Looks like they cut off his ear. With his hands bound, he couldn’t even stanch the bleeding.”
“We need to chase them out of here and call for help,” Kurt said.
As Joe wrapped the wound, Kurt picked through the mercenary’s equipment. He’d needed to fire the lethal shot but now regretted destroying the night vision goggles.
Clipping the mercenary’s radio to his belt and putting the headset over his ears, Kurt listened in on the chatter. He heard orders from Kappa and each member of the team checking in. They were waiting for the dead man to respond. When he didn’t answer, they knew where the shot had been fired.
“They’re coming,” Kurt said. “Let’s be ready.”
He cracked the door a centimeter and put one eye to the gap. Someone was racing down the stairs. His approach slowed when the man saw his associate sprawled out and the butler gone. He stopped half a flight up and got on the radio.
“Gunther’s dead. The butler is missing.”
Kurt watched the man as he looked around in confusion. There was a jerky panic to his motions. Fear was creeping in as the hunter realized he’d become the hunted.
Another man joined him and then a third came running along the ground floor. They gathered beside Napoléon’s bust, one on each side of the General.
Kurt yanked one of the concussion grenades he’d taken off the dead mercenary. He pulled the pin, waited a second and then flung it out toward them. It hit the floor, skipped and exploded directly in front of the three men.
The concussion grenade did its job, blasting the men backward and knocking them into states of delirium if not complete unconsciousness.
With the men on the ground, Kurt and Joe rushed forward, securing the men’s weapons and ripping off their goggles. As the mercenaries regained their senses, one man went for a safety pistol hidden in his pant leg.
Joe spotted him. “Look out!”
Kurt turned and kicked the gun away, but another man went for a knife. Joe blasted the man’s hand at point-blank range. A scream ended the rebellion, but the shooting was just getting started.
Without warning, gunfire rained down from above. Kurt and Joe dove out of the way. The mercenaries left behind took several hits. One was shot as he tried to crawl out of the way.
“They’re shooting their own,” Joe said.
“Dead men tell no tales,” Kurt replied.
When the gunfire ended, all three men at the bottom of the stairs lay dead.
More gunfire upstairs ended with the sound of shattering glass.
Over the radio Kurt heard someone shouting, “Jump!” and then, “Get to the van!”
“They’re making a run for it,” Kurt said.
He pushed out into the main hall and took off running for the foyer. At the main entrance, he rushed outside onto the driveway.
Kurt was too late. The smaller van was already speeding down the driveway while the larger van had just peeled out from the side of the château and was gathering speed.
There was no chance to follow. And, in truth, it was best just to let them go. After clearing the ground floor and linking up with Morgan and DeMars, they flipped the breakers, got the lights back on and discovered the jamming transmitter, which was immediately switched off.
With the cell phone signal restored, DeMars called the Sûreté and the Gendarmerie Nationale. An air ambulance arrived and took his injured valet to a hospital in Toulouse. But the men on his security team had all been killed.
“These men are savages,” DeMars said.
“They come from a savage world,” Kurt said. “Arms merchants selling death.”
“Which is exactly what we’re trying to stop,” Morgan added.
DeMars seemed almost overcome. He fought to regain his composure and then presented his grandfather’s journal to Kurt. “I’ve written the name of the town inside. Good luck with your search.”
Chapter 31
Villa Ducal de Lerma, Spain, population 532
Paul and Gamay Trout arrived in Villa Ducal de Lerma after a long flight from Washington to Madrid and a three-hour car ride through the mountainous region of central Spain. The last hour took them on rutted dirt roads through an area of the country where the population had been dwindling since the ’50s when everyone left the hill country and moved to the metropolitan areas.
The open land was both beautiful and desolate, with rolling hills and long-abandoned farmhouses and tumbled-down stone walls waiting quietly for someone to return and bring them back to life. After miles of such forlorn scenery, arriving in Lerma felt like returning to civilization from the great unknown.
“Look,” Paul said. “A shining metropolis.”
Ahead of them lay a collection of standing stone walls, cobblestone streets and quaint wooden buildings with stucco-covered walls.
“Not sure I’m ready for the crowds,” Gamay replied with a wink.
Paul and Gamay had been together since grad school, dating while attending classes and getting married shortly after graduation. They’d joined NUMA on the same day, being hired together, though Gamay always insisted she had seniority as her employee ID number was one lower than Paul’s.
Since then, they’d traveled the world on various expeditions and adventures, making up a one-two punch of scientific knowledge, with Gamay’s background in marine biology complementing Paul’s expertise in ocean sciences and geology.
Equally at home in the field and the lab, they traveled well together, even when those travels took them to places with difficult working conditions.
Stepping out of the car into the cool, dry air of Villa Ducal de Lerma, Gamay sensed this trip would be less difficult than most. She stretched, shook out her dark red hair, which had been tucked under a cap, and took a deep breath. “The air is so clean.”
Paul unfolded himself from the passenger seat. He was six foot eight. Traveling in what passed for a large SUV in Spain was a tight fit for him. He looked around. “I think I can see the whole town from here.”
“It’s that high vantage point of yours.”
“Unfortunatel
y, I don’t see a tourist office.”
Gamay laughed. “We’re probably the first tourists to come here in years,” she said. “Any word from Kurt and Joe?”
Paul checked his phone. “The last message says they’re still dealing with law enforcement officials in France and won’t be here until this afternoon.”
“That’s what they get for shooting up a luxurious home in the wine country,” Gamay said. “Let’s see how much we can get done before they arrive.”
Locking the car and walking down a quiet dirt road, they saw only a few locals, all of whom kept to themselves. Admiring the beauty of the hills and the architecture of the old buildings, Gamay felt like she was on vacation. “We lucked out on this assignment,” she said. “Remember when we were in Alaska two summers ago? And the mosquitoes reached levels of biblical proportions?”
“How could I forget?” Paul said. “I was down two liters of O positive by the time we got home. Not sure which was worse, that trip or six weeks in Antarctica in the middle of winter, all because Kurt and Rudi wanted us to study that subsurface lake. I’m still wondering what we did wrong to make them send us there.”
Gamay smiled at the memory. It had been oddly romantic for her. “The two of us in an ice cave for six weeks. I enjoyed that one.”
Paul laughed. “You know you have a strong marriage when you can survive for six weeks without a shower.”
Gamay couldn’t help but laugh. Perhaps she’d blocked that part out. “Maybe this is our reward for those other trips. I mean, when have we ever been given an expense account for buying shoes and dining at fine restaurants?”
“I don’t recall anything about shoes in our instructions.”
“We were told to blend in,” she said. “That means shopping for shoes, along with eating tapas, drinking sangria and dancing lots.”
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