“How far to the house from there?”
“Less than a klick.”
Barney moved to the rear tire on his vehicle, and a moment later Luis moved to the front on his. Travis glanced impatiently at his watch. Though it seemed like eons, it was only seconds later that Barney hustled back over and climbed in the backseat. He held out his open hand with a grin on his face, two valve stems nestled in his palm.
Red snorted. “Why didn’t you just slash the tires?”
Barney gave him a hurt look. “Tires are expensive, man.”
“We might need those vehicles later,” Travis said. “Good thinking, Barney. Okay, let’s go!”
Travis rolled down his window and waved to Kenny to follow. Fred quickly put the SUV in gear and drove around the curve. Travis scanned the terrain ahead and pointed to a break in the trees where they could hide the vehicles. Fred pulled in quickly, nosing the vehicle as far in as he could to give the other SUV room to maneuver in behind them. Travis hopped out before the SUV came to a full stop and waved the other vehicle in. As the men piled out of the vehicles, Travis checked over each one to make sure he was equipped with a communications unit, night vision monocular, and body armor. He knew all of them would have prepared as carefully as he had, checking and rechecking their equipment to make sure it would function as expected, but as their commander and employer, he was responsible for them.
They quickly opened the tailgates on each of the SUVs and pulled out automatic weapons and zippered vests with pockets for extra magazines and other munitions—grenades, flash-bangs, tear gas canisters, and whatever else each man favored. Travis had chosen the Heckler & Koch MP5SD3 submachine gun as the team’s assault weapon. A little different than the modified M4A1 assault rifle he’d used in the army, the HK was more compact, even with the sound suppressor. Navy SEALs used the HK, and Travis found he liked it better.
Red kneeled on the ground with the laptop, and the group huddled around him while Travis gave out assignments.
“Marcus,” he murmured, “you and Kenny take the right flank. Check the approach from the river. Luis and Red, take the left. Fred and Barney, circle around the back of the house, and be careful. I’ve got a feeling that if those vehicles back there indicate what we think they do, the main assault will come from that side. It’s all glass. Anyone inside is easily visible from there. I’ll go straight in the front. Okay, let’s move!”
The men separated into their teams and headed out onto the road. Luis waited a moment while Red threw the laptop in the backseat, and as soon as they headed out, Travis fell in step as they broke into a jog. The other black-garbed teams were already invisible in the dark though they were only yards ahead. Travis flipped his night vision monocular down in front of his right eye to get a better sense of the road ahead, the green glow of his men popping into view in the lens. He saw the road curve into the trees, the house not yet in sight. He flipped the monocular up again so he could run more easily, and fell into a steady rhythm.
As they rounded the bend and the dark shape of the house came into view, the men split off into the trees on either side and made their way to their positions as quickly and quietly as they could. Travis slowed his pace as they disappeared, approaching more cautiously as he drew closer. Suddenly, Travis watched the crisscrossing red lines of laser sights lock in on the house, and the night erupted in muffled gunfire.
CHAPTER 49
At the bottom of the stairs, Tess paused and felt for the digital keyless lock pad. She punched in a six-digit code, a little surprised that she remembered it so easily. Her parents had insisted that none of their birthdates be used, so committing it to memory had been hard. The deadbolt unlocked with a soft click, bringing back memories of the drills her parents had run. As laid back and fun-loving as both of them had been, both also had harbored a practical side they’d constantly impressed upon Tess. “Be prepared,” they’d said. “Plan ahead, and you’ll be ready for whatever happens.” That advice had extended to things like home fire drills and panic drills, though she had found them strange at the time. She turned the handle on a heavy metal door and pushed.
“Wait here,” she told Oliver.
She stepped inside the door and hugged the wall to her right. Putting her hands out, she quickly found a small table and the battery-operated camp lantern sitting on it. Be prepared . . . She didn’t need the light, but Oliver did. Though this room normally had lights, Oliver said they’d cut the power. She returned to the base of the stairs and put the lantern in Oliver’s hand. She heard the click of the switch and Oliver’s footsteps as he moved into the room. She closed the door and found the handle that slid the dual reinforced steel security bars into place.
“What is this?” Oliver said, his voice coming from the middle of the room.
Her mouth twitched up in a half smile as she imagined his reaction to the large room, an odd mixture of 1960s bomb shelter and comfortable rec room. A door in one wall led to a fully stocked pantry full of shelf-stable food and a small bathroom with a chemical toilet.
“A panic room,” Tess said. “Kind of like the secret office at home.”
“You mean your parents anticipated something like this happening? Your dad was that paranoid?”
Tess understood his incredulity. “I don’t know what he thought might happen. I just know that he and Mom were always prepared. If I was hungry on the ride home from school, Mom always had an energy bar tucked away. If I skinned a knee at the park skateboarding with Dad, he came up with bandage from somewhere.”
“Guess they were right. But what good does it do us? They know we’re in the house somewhere.”
“We’re safe down here. They can’t get through that door. At least not easily.”
“We could be here for weeks.”
“Help will come.”
“No one’s coming to help. No one else knows we’re here, Tess.”
“Well, there’s plenty of food.”
“There’s no cell phone signal down here, either,” Oliver said. “We can’t even call for help.”
“On purpose,” Tess said. “My dad designed it that way, but I think he figured on having an Internet connection.”
“Not without power.”
“There’s a generator somewhere, but I never learned how to use it. I was too little when they ran panic drills. I guess I never got around to learning.”
“We can’t stay here forever, Tess. The hidden panel in the closet is clever, but they saw us in the house. They know we can’t have gone far. They’ll find a way in, even if they have to blast the door down.”
Tess reluctantly had come to the same conclusion before Oliver said anything. She knew all she’d done was buy them some time, but suddenly that was more important than anything else in the world.
Time . . .
She hadn’t had enough time with her parents. And for many years, almost as long as she could remember, she’d wanted time to go faster, to rush her into adulthood, to be grown up, with all the privileges and perks that grown-ups enjoyed. The past year—and especially the last five days—had shown her the awful responsibilities that came with being an adult. Now, part of her wanted to cling to the safety and security, the carefree nature of her childhood.
But ever since she’d heard the awful, tinkling crash of breaking glass only minutes ago, something within her had changed. She felt it growing, filling her, giving strength to her limbs and her determination, adding clarity to her thoughts, her focus.
Rage. Blind rage.
She laughed at her own joke. No, it wasn’t blind at all. It was clear as air after a storm, sharp as a scalpel. She’d held in her anger for the past year and now it coursed through her and she thought of all the people she wanted to direct it at: her parents for dying on her, Toby for leaving her, Travis for controlling her. Most of all, she was angry at herself for allowing herself to be a victim. Terrible things had happened to her, but she knew she still had a lot to be grateful for.
She listen
ed to the muffled thumps of the men in the house overhead, destroying everything her parents had worked for. Not just the house they’d built, but their way of life. Everything they’d believed in, even the loyalty her father had felt to his country, as strong in its way as her uncle Travis’s, she realized.
She wasn’t a child anymore. And her parents weren’t there to protect her. It was up to her to carry on. Finding and uploading that last software file had been a start.
It’s time to finish this. The men upstairs have to be stopped. Caught and punished.
“There’s another way out,” she said quietly. “Two, in fact.”
Tess suspected half the reason her father had gone to such lengths to design secret rooms and passages in their homes had been the child in him, not the adult. Whatever the reason, she was grateful now.
“Two? Why two?”
“Contingencies,” Tess said. “Always have a Plan B. In the store room there’s a ladder that leads up to the garage—escape by car. Over there . . .” Tess pointed at the sound of Oliver’s voice and swung her arm about forty-five degrees to the right “is a passageway. At the end is another ladder that leads up to a trapdoor outside, closer to the river.”
“The car’s out front. Garage doesn’t do us much good.”
Tess nodded. “I agree. The farther away the better. Besides, if we can get across the river, there’s a bed-and-breakfast down the road where we might be able to call for help.”
“Okay, it’s settled. Are you sure you’re up for this?”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes.”
Oliver took her hand and walked her to the small, narrow door that Tess remembered thinking looked as if it had come out of the pages of Alice in Wonderland.
She ducked through the opening and gave his hand a tug. He didn’t move.
“Are you sure there are no weapons down here? Bazooka, maybe? Rocket launcher?”
She smiled. “Sorry. Paring knife, maybe.”
He sighed. “Well, at least I have you to protect me.”
She felt her way down the passage, memories of running through it when she was little going through her head. Even without her sight, the distance to its end seemed much shorter than it had when she was young. Almost before she knew it, her fingers encountered the cold metal of the door at the end. The security bars were disengaged, as she expected. She turned the handle and the heavy door opened silently. Through the opening was a space the size of a large closet. On the far wall, a steel ladder’s rungs led up a shaft.
“Why don’t you let me go first?” Oliver said.
“You’d better leave the light here,” she told him.
“Right.” He put it in her hands. “I’ll tell you when to turn it off.”
His shoes scuffed the rungs with muffled clanks as he ascended. At the top, his fingers scrabbled with the latches on the hatch that opened to the outdoors. From the outside, it looked like a cover to a septic tank. She didn’t think anyone would suspect them to emerge there, but she crossed her fingers.
“Okay,” Oliver called softly. “Turn it off and come up.”
She clicked the switch, set the lantern down, and gripped one of the steel rungs. Hand over hand, she climbed. When she reached the top, she extended an arm into the night air, expecting Oliver’s help. But no one was there. She felt the lip of the shaft and pulled herself up.
“Oliver?” she whispered.
She strained to hear. Not far away, she heard the sound of soft grunts of pain and then the smack of fist on flesh. She crawled over the edge and scrambled to her feet as the speed and impact of the blows increased. Suddenly, there was silence. Her heart pounded in her chest. She wanted to call out to Oliver, but didn’t dare. Even if she could make it to the river by herself—she could hear its burble and rush through the trees—she knew she’d never make it across without a guide. Heavy breathing close by intruded on her thoughts, and she steeled herself, closing everything else out of her mind. The breathing grew louder, closer, and someone grabbed her wrist.
“Just who we were looking for,” a gruff voice said.
She was pulled forward. Rather than resist, she stepped in, twisted her arm in the man’s grasp, and leaned toward him, bending her elbow and using it as a fulcrum against his own arm. The maneuver broke his grip. She pulled her arm away, took a half step back, and lashed out with an openhanded punch. The man grunted. Tess turned and ran, hands out in front of her to keep her from tumbling headlong into a tree. She’d only made it steps away before she was overtaken. Her attacker grabbed her shoulder and wrapped his other arm around her throat in a chokehold.
“Not so fast, girlie,” the man said.
Tess smelled his rancid breath and was repelled. The anger inside her bloomed, hot and visceral. His hold tightened, cutting off her air. Pinpoints of light danced in her head.
Suddenly, two loud explosions ripped through the night air and muffled gunfire erupted from the direction of the house. The sudden noise distracted her attacker, and she felt him turn to look. She quickly stepped backward, putting her hip behind his, dropped into a horse stance, and swept her arm back against his chest. He let go and fell over her hip. Tess turned her head, trying to focus on the sound of water. When she got her bearings, she took off. Within seconds, though, the man once again caught up to her and roughly grabbed her arm.
“You little bitch!” he snarled. “Don’t move!”
He pressed the hard barrel of a gun against her temple, ran his hand down her arm until he grasped her wrist, and twisted her arm up between her shoulder blades. Tess winced in pain, but she didn’t cry out. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Rage burned fiercely inside her. The man spun her around and shoved her toward the bursts of gunfire still raging near the house, never loosening his grip. The gun barrel dug into her head, breaking the skin, and Tess felt a trickle of warm, wet blood snake down her cheek.
“Tess!” a voice shouted over the din of the gun battle.
The man holding her jerked her to a stop and turned her toward the voice. “Don’t come any closer, or she dies.”
“You kill her and you’re a dead man,” the voice said.
“Kenny?” Tess said. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, Tess,” Kenny said. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you out of this.”
“Not a chance,” her attacker growled. “She’s dead anyway. We just want her to talk first and tell us whatever she knows.”
His words sent a chill up Tess’s spine, but her rage seared the fear until it shriveled away to nothing. Without thinking, she spun toward her attacker, bringing the arm he still gripped with her. She curled her hand over his wrist, broke his grasp, and grabbed his hand with both of hers, bending it backward and forcing him down on one knee. She heard the pop-pop of a gun firing, and the man’s arm went slack in her hands. She let go as if it was a snake. A moment later, Kenny’s arm curled around her shoulders and he pulled her close.
“Tess, are you all right?”
“Oliver . . . ” she said, suddenly remembering the struggle she’d heard earlier. “He’s hurt.”
“We’ll find him and see to him later,” Kenny said. “I need to get you someplace safe.”
Tess squirmed in his arms, but he held her fast and walked her away from the intermittent gunfire still coming from the direction of the house.
CHAPTER 50
Directly overhead the sky had cleared, unveiling a midnight-blue fabric stitched with glittering dots of light. Travis hadn’t seen stars like that since he was in Afghanistan. He hadn’t realized how much light pollution there was in the city.
No time for stargazing now, though.
He loped silently down the dirt road, staying close to one side along the trees for cover. He counted four men assaulting the front door of the lodge-style dwelling, and when the door crashed inward, three charged into the house, leaving the fourth to stand guard. Travis flipped the night vision monocular down and quickly scanned the edges of the circular parking a
rea in front of the house and garage. There, in the cover of a thicket of bushes, crouched another sentry, just as Travis suspected. But his attention was riveted on the house and the motion inside.
Travis changed his angle of approach. Using the natural foliage as cover, he circled quickly and quietly behind the outer sentry. The kill had to be fast and silent. Travis rushed him from behind and put an unbreakable chokehold around his neck. He knew it would take just nine seconds for the man to pass out. He went limp in six, but Travis held the grip for another ten-count. He stripped the man of his weapons, his eyes on the movement in the house. Another team had breached the house from the other side. He counted at least six inside now, all still working without light. He glanced down at the man at his feet. He wore night vision goggles. Travis thumbed his throat mic.
“Fred,” he murmured. “Flash-bangs. In the house. On my count.”
The stun grenades normally would incapacitate a person’s vision for at least five seconds, as well as disrupt hearing and sense of balance. Because night vision goggles amplified available light, flash-bangs would practically blind anyone wearing them for minutes—or even hours.
Travis quickly worked his way around the driveway circle and toward the front door, staying low and close to the building. When he had a clear toss through the front door, he stopped and crouched low. The other guard stood facing the road, but the sounds and movement coming from inside kept diverting his attention. Travis waited until the guard turned and looked through the doorway, then breathed into the communications unit, “Three, two, one . . . ”
He threw the stun grenade canister over the guard’s head and into the entryway. He saw it bounce once. He immediately squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the blast. It came almost simultaneously with the explosion from Fred’s. Before the echo even died away, Travis was up and running toward the door. The sentry turned at the sound of his footsteps, one hand pawing at his eyes. He raised his weapon. Travis fired. The guard wildly sprayed a volley of bullets into the night but collapsed in a heap as Travis’s shots found their mark.
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