by Thomas Perry
Aluminum ladders appeared at windows on that side. Two of the climbers got as far as firing weapons into the second floor before Remi or Wendy shot them. Pete pushed the ladders off the house. Sam kept cranking down shutters.
There was a screech of wood against metal, and the piano jammed in the stairwell moved a little. Sam shouted, “Get the refrigerator!”
Pete, Wendy, and Selma ran to the open kitchen and laboriously wheeled the big wide stainless steel refrigerator along the hardwood floor toward the stairs. Sam picked up the .308 rifle he had set down when closing the shutters and ran to the stairs. He stalked around the opening for the well, peeking around the gym equipment for a target, but seeing nobody peeking back. He detected movement at the piano, as though someone were trying to push it. He aimed the rifle at what he guessed was near a leg of the piano and fired through the wood. There was a hush from the stairs so deep that he sensed men must be gathering there. He fired twice more through the piano.
He turned just as another man on a ladder broke a window and stepped toward the windowsill. He shot the man and then saw yet another man on a ladder coming up the opposite side of the house. He shot that man before he could break the window and saw him fall away from the house. He fired twice more through the beautiful mirrorlike finish of the piano into the stairwell.
The others had the refrigerator at the top of the stairs now. He gave them the signal to hold and they moved around behind it and waited. Sam used the time to close more shutters to prevent cross fire from outside. They all heard the sound of the engine of the pickup truck at the front door. Sam sprang to his feet, ran to the edge of the stairwell, and replaced the magazine in his rifle.
The engine outside roared and the piano screeched and then banged down the stairs, dragged by the truck, its strings making an awful noise. It had been holding the gym equipment, which now began to tumble down after it. Sam waved and the others pushed over the big refrigerator. It toppled, crashed, and then slid down and gathered speed like a steel sled. A few men below seemed to get bowled over, but it was hard to see what the damage was.
“Couches,” Sam said, and they pushed two big couches into the well together. This blocked the stairs, but a burst of fire came up through them and they had nothing in them that could stop a bullet.
Sam said, “Selma, go up to the third floor and boil water in the kitchen. As much as you can boil, as fast as you can do it. Take a shotgun with you and a pistol, and make sure they’re loaded.”
“What’s that for?” asked Remi.
“We’re going to lose this floor too when they clear the stairs. We can make it cost them, but then we have to get upstairs. Those extension ladders won’t reach the third floor.”
* * *
ÉTIENNE LE CLERC, Sergei Poliakoff, and Arpad Bako sat on comfortable chaises on the deck of the yacht Ibiza with their feet up and smoking fine Cuban Cohiba cigars. The warm offshore breeze blew the smoke over their shoulders and out to sea.
The second yacht, the Mazatlan, was anchored about a thousand yards to their left now because her crew was sending up fireworks from a raft they had spent the afternoon loading.
Through powerful binoculars, Bako watched the distant house above Goldfish Point. “This must be what it was like watching a conqueror like Attila take an ancient city—scaling ladders against defenders with poles, storming the lowest levels of the fortress, and forcing the defenders higher until they surrender and die.”
Poliakoff glared at his watch. “Our side had better step up the pace or the distraction of the fireworks will wear thin and someone who lives near them will figure out what’s happening.”
Le Clerc shrugged. “We cut the power and the telephone in the boxes at the end of the street, and the jammers will keep any sort of phone or Wi-Fi useless for some distance.”
Bako said, “There are also men at the intersections to warn our forces if the police come. If necessary, they can close down the roads for a few minutes.”
“I just hope Sam Fargo is beginning to feel my hand,” said Poliakoff. “What he did to my house in Nizhny Novgorod is exactly what I’m doing to his. And when it’s over, if they’re not both dead, I’ll bring them back with me and make Fargo start where he left off—reclaiming the treasures from the museums and bringing them to me and laying them at my feet to keep his wife alive.”
“Don’t forget this isn’t just you,” said Le Clerc. “You’re just one of the partners.”
“I was going to say that,” said Bako. “The treasures were mine to begin with. I just shared them with my partners.”
Poliakoff smiled and took a puff on his cigar. “You called me in only after you had failed and been defeated,” he said. “I took over when you had done everything you could and lost.”
Bako chuckled nervously. “Well, we’ve all committed ourselves and we’ll have them in a few minutes.”
There was another volley of shots from the house and then another rocket shot up from the raft in the cove and burst in a ball of blue streaks and gold stars. Each of the little gold stars popped loudly and sent a spray of exploding sparks into the sky above the ocean. Bako said, “Who would believe that the gunshots were not part of the show?”
* * *
SAM AND REMI pushed a weight-training machine over into the stairwell as Selma, Wendy, and Pete carefully carried the big pots of boiling water to the railing above.
They waited until the attackers had dragged most of the furniture away and the first men had dashed up the stairs from the first floor to clamber over the weight machine.
Sam made a single downward motion of his arm and Selma, Pete, and Wendy poured the big pots of boiling water down on them. The men shouted, turned and bumped into the men coming up the stairs behind them. The momentum of the others pushed them ahead and some went down on their bellies rather than go under the scorching cascade. As the attackers tussled on the steps, Sam fired his rifle above them, making the retreaters stronger than the chargers. “Go!” he shouted.
Remi, Pete, Selma, and Wendy rushed up the stairs to the third floor. At the top of the stairs, Remi lay on the floor and waited. While Sam backed his way up the stairs, she fired rounds into the second-floor stairwell to make the invaders keep their heads down.
As soon as Sam had cleared the last step up to the third floor, the others pushed over a big wooden sideboard that fell heavily across the stairway like a trap door. They were out of the line of fire for the next few moments, but they could hear the heavy footsteps of the enemy below them rushing up to occupy the second floor.
THE THIRD FLOOR
SAM TURNED TO PETE. “WE CAN’T KEEP FIGHTING THEM on these stairs. We’ve got to sabotage the one that leads from here to the fourth floor and then make our stand up there. It’s held to the steel I beam by bolts—six of them, I think, but you can check. Before you do anything to the stairs, get a climbing rope and tie it to something solid up there and run it down here.”
“I understand,” Pete said. They were on the third floor where Pete’s and Wendy’s bedrooms were. He hurried into his room and then the kitchen, collecting tools and equipment, and then climbed the staircase.
Remi walked past Sam and he reached out and held her. “Where’s Zoltán?”
“I closed him in our bedroom upstairs. He would have gotten killed down there. He doesn’t understand strategic withdrawal. Up there, he thinks he’s guarding something important.”
“He is,” he said. He turned to Selma. “Let’s see if the boiling water works again. Get some started in the fourth-floor kitchen.”
To Wendy he said, “Wendy, go up and bring more ammunition down. Load all the empty magazines one more time. Load the shotguns too.”
Remi was close to Sam’s shoulder as they stared hard at the big sideboard covering the stairway, waiting for it to move. “What are they doing?” she whispered.
“We hurt them badly on the last staircase. I think they’re tending to the ones who got burned and any who might have been
shot. Probably evacuating them.”
“What’s our strategy now?” she asked.
“We’re buying time,” he said. “We couldn’t call the police or e-mail anyone, but somebody must be figuring out that this isn’t just the sound of those fireworks. Probably the ones closest to us don’t have phone service either, but farther away they must.”
Remi picked up one of the .308 Match rifles and went to the south-side windows. She looked out at the Valencia Hotel backed up to the hillside. She adjusted the mil-dot scope for a thousand yards, adjusted the windage to account for a left-to-right offshore breeze of five miles an hour, unlatched the window, and pushed it open a few inches. She raised the rifle to her shoulder and aimed at the big lighted rectangle of the dining room window of the Valencia. She waited, making sure that there were no people behind it, then squeezed the trigger. Pow!
She didn’t move, just watched the window through the powerful scope. Two diners who had been hidden by the wall to the left ran across the window toward the doorway. She could see the woman’s mouth open in a silent scream. A waiter and a hostess in a cocktail dress appeared, looking up at the broken window with great concern, and retreated out of sight.
“What did you see?” asked Sam.
“The Valencia. I’m pretty sure they’re calling the cops about us as fast as they can hit the numbers.”
“I should have thought of that.”
“We couldn’t see the hotels from the windows on the lower floors. The trees were in the way. Now they’re not.” She picked out a restaurant that was a bit closer but was also brightly lit. After a few seconds, she fired again. “Make that two callers. That makes it more believable.”
“Remi,” Sam whispered. “I’m hearing movement.”
She turned and saw him staring down at the big sideboard over the stairwell with the rifle to his shoulder. She came closer and picked a spot to aim at. “Shouldn’t we shoot through it?”
He shook his head. “We’re buying time, so any delay helps us. Besides, we don’t have enough ammo to shoot people just because they deserve it.”
“Just in case we can’t buy enough time, I hope I remembered to thank you for rescuing me in Russia.”
“You did. Your thank-you was more than adequate.”
“And for Zoltán.”
“Him too. If anything, you’re ahead of me on thanking. Thank you for anything I forgot to thank you for. I’ve been kind of preoccupied with people trying to kill us.”
“Understandable. I just think that Russia thing was really romantic, and if we die tonight, I don’t want to have been at all cavalier about it. You should know it was sort of a world-class turn-on.”
“If we die, I won’t hold it against you. Getting you back was pretty nice too.”
“Thanks.”
“Of course, I don’t plan to die tonight.”
“Me neither.” She leaned close and kissed him.
Wendy and Selma came down the stairs, carrying loaded magazines for the pistols and the two rifles. “Keep your eyes on the people you don’t like, you two,” said Selma. “And, by the way, everything is loaded, but this is the last of the ammunition.”
Pete came down the stairs, holding the railing and walking lightly. “If we do have to retreat to the fourth floor, be careful and hold the rope. It’s nearly ready to go. Just one turn per bolt.” Wendy handed him a reloaded shotgun and a full magazine for his pistol. “Thanks.”
“Use it wisely. This is all there is.”
Selma went to the wall of windows on the south side of the house. “Do you hear something?” She listened. “It sounds like cars.” She looked out, then quickly pulled her head back. “Oh, no,” she said. “They’ve got those lift things the power company uses.”
“What?” said Wendy.
Sam turned to look in Selma’s direction. As he did, there was a loud, rapid barrage of fireworks soaring into the sky and exploding into popping starbursts. “Something’s coming,” he said. “Remember—make your shots count.”
The fireworks had certainly been set off to cover this fresh attack. The sideboard began to rise up and Sam fired into the opening the men on the stairs had created by raising it. The sideboard fell back down with a thud.
Two seconds later, Selma fired three pistol shots at something outside the open window.
Wendy and Pete ran toward her just as she ducked to the floor and two windows were blown inward by automatic-weapons fire. Pete crouched behind the stairway and raised the shotgun.
Just outside the window, a shooter was standing in the bucket at the end of the hydraulic arm of a cherry picker. Pete fired, the shooter slumped over and dropped his weapon, and someone below took over the controls of the cherry picker, and lowered it out of sight.
Pete pumped his shotgun and ran to the window. He aimed it downward at the yard and fired, then pumped it again. He jerked back inside and crouched. A burst of automatic fire peppered the ceiling above his head.
Selma was running to the other side of the house. She looked out. “They’ve got another one!” She and Wendy opened windows along the north side and fired pistols at the man who was in the bucket being raised up to the third-floor window. They couldn’t see whether he was hit, but the hydraulic arm lowered rapidly.
At the staircase, the intruders were trying a new tactic. One of them fired a tight burst of bullets through the back of the wooden sideboard to make a splintered hole and then another pushed a Škorpion auto pistol up through the hole and fired wild bursts at floor level, hoping to hit anyone standing near the stairs. Sam was closer to the hand than the pistol, so he hit the hand with the butt of his rifle. The hand quickly withdrew, leaving the Škorpion behind on the sideboard. Another Škorpion appeared a few feet away and Sam kicked the hand that held it hard enough to make the pistol fly across the room. He then stepped away from the sideboard just as a dozen shots punched upward through it.
The third time, Sam and Remi were ready. Three Škorpions appeared at once. Sam and Remi were widely separated, both on their bellies, aiming rifles from behind steel pillars. They each fired at a hand, and then Remi hit the final one.
Sam said to Remi, “Pick up the Škorpions from the floor and go upstairs.” He fired a shot at the sideboard, then another at a spot where he suspected men were lurking below.
He turned to look for Selma and Wendy, saw another man rise up to the window on the cherry picker, fired, and saw him collapse into the bucket. “Selma, Wendy!” he called. “Upstairs, one at a time. Remember the steps are loose.”
They ran for the stairs, and first Selma, then Wendy, held the climbing rope and climbed to the fourth floor on the rickety steps.
Sam continued putting an occasional shot through the sideboard to keep the men below away from it, and then he heard Pete fire the shotgun again. Sam turned toward him and saw him fire out the window. “Pete!” he called. “Up the steps, and get ready to drop the staircase.”
He sensed motion and turned to the stairs from the floor below him. The leading edge of the sideboard popped up and two hands extended from beneath it, holding Škorpions, and began to fire wild bursts onto the third floor.
Sam sprang to his feet, ran and jumped on the sideboard. The sudden impact of his weight brought the heavy piece of furniture down on the two arms and made the hands unable to hold their pistols. Sam used his momentum to make a second jump to the far side of the sideboard, fired three shots into it randomly, scooped up the two automatic pistols by their slings and backed up to the stairs.
He could feel the stairs shaking and wobbling with each footstep and knew the bolts must be working their way out of the nuts that held them to the I beam, but he knew he had to keep firing now and then to hold the attackers off and keep them from charging.
When he reached the top, Remi knelt beside him and fired once, twice, to keep the men below at bay. Sam set his rifle aside on the floor and pulled out his pistol. “Pete!”
Pete, lying flat on the fourth floor, rea
ched down under the narrow staircase with a socket wrench and began to loosen bolts. As each one came loose, he let it fall, then moved to the next one. Sam reached down from the other side and began to unscrew bolts with his hand.
The sideboard below them on the second floor popped upward abruptly and slid aside. Men slipped out from under it and ran to both sides, where they couldn’t be seen from above. Just as one of them got his foot on the lowest step to the fourth floor, Pete turned the final bolt and the staircase fell with a horrific crash. The third floor belonged to the enemy.
THE FOURTH FLOOR
SAM GRASPED PETE’S ANKLES AND TUGGED HIM BACK from the edge of the opening just as the men below began firing wildly upward through the rectangular hole in the floor that once had held the staircase.
The opening was much narrower than the stairwells on the lower floors because the stairs were narrower up to Sam and Remi’s floor. Sam said, “They’ll be bringing the aluminum ladders up next. What have we got that will seal that opening?”
Remi said, “How about the safes?”
“Brilliant,” said Sam. “Pete? You okay?”
“I’m still alive.”
“Then help me with the safes. They’re bolted into the wall from the inside. Everybody else, stay back from the opening, but don’t take your eyes off it. Fire a shot now and then to remind them we’re still here.”
Sam went to the wall, pressed the spot to reveal the hidden corridor, stepped in, and opened the safes. He and Pete unbolted the two now-empty gun safes and Sam opened the third one, which held papers. Pete removed the bolts from this last one and then he and Sam pushed all three, one at a time, across the hardwood floor to the edge of the stairwell. As they pushed the last and biggest one, a deep scratch appeared on the floor. Sam said to Remi, “Oops. Sorry.”
“It’s too late to make Architectural Digest, Sam,” she said. “The whole place is decorated in vintage Kalashnikov.” They pushed the safes over, one by one, across the stairwell. They had sealed the opening completely.
