by Ty Patterson
Zeb gave the signal when they had slapped on their night vision, and they started jogging toward the airstrip, Zeb ahead while Roger and Broker lugged a heavy kitbag behind.
Starlight and the pale moon observed their every move.
Every fifteen minutes they rotated the lead and shared the bag. It contained what Roger called, straight-faced, ‘essentials.’
Roger grinned at Zeb, a white flash in a dark night, as they ran steadily at a pace they could sustain the whole night if they had to.
‘You plan to blow the whole danged ranch?’
Zeb’s face was all shadows when it turned to him.
‘Just the right parts.’
Ten p.m. and they dropped to the ground and observed the tiny airstrip.
There wasn’t much to it, a long stretch of tarmac on which the white aircraft was secured by nylon lines, and further away was a small hangar, its door shut. There didn’t seem to be any patrol about.
Ranch is too big for them to patrol every inch. They’ve got a perimeter around the central lodge, most likely, Zeb guessed.
When he was sure they were alone, he slapped a Leupold scope on his AR-15, sighted, and the aircraft jumped out at him.
‘Ready,’ he murmured in his mouthpiece, and two shadows darted out and approach the aircraft.
Eleven p.m. and the airstrip and the hangar were behind them, and they were approaching the first line of cabins.
There were seven of them, two of them on either side of the pool and closest to the central building, two others laid out in a line behind the first two, and the remaining three laid out parallel to the lodge.
Accommodation for help, visitors, one of them a repair shop, another a store, Zeb thought.
Tractors and SUVs lay silently in the night parked close to the outlying buildings.
The last three cabins were about four hundred yards away from the central lodge.
They ghosted inside the ones that were open, checked that they were empty, and when Zeb whispered, moved forward.
Eleven thirty p.m., almost five hundred yards away from the central lodge, the first of the remaining cabins two hundred feet away from them, and they slid to the ground.
Still no one.
The perimeter, if there was one, hadn’t extended to the cabins.
I would do the same in his position.
Zeb gave the signal to proceed and froze suddenly.
He saw why there wasn’t a perimeter.
Zeb was carrying one of Broker’s toys, an infrared alarm detector; the device vibrated in his hand, and when Zeb looked down, he saw the perimeter bathed in infrared light less than a hundred feet away from them.
The Voice had set up an electronic perimeter further away from any human perimeter. Infrared light bathed the area like floodlights, and it was too risky for them to cross without setting off alarms.
He motioned for them to turn back.
‘So much for our plan.’ Roger ran his fingers through his hair in frustration once they’d reached the sanctuary of their vehicle.
Zeb knew the frustration wasn’t directed at him. Plans often failed when they came up against ground reality. In every other mission they had backup plans. In this one, the lack of time meant that they had no fallback option if Plan A failed.
Which it had.
They fell silent as they thought through their options, and Broker finally looked at Zeb.
‘We’ll have to do it the hard way, buddy.’
Zeb nodded.
They rolled up to the ranch at nine a.m. the next day and were immediately covered by three guns. They were searched thoroughly, their comms gear ripped off, and were shoved inside the central lodge, where two more men trained their weapons on them.
Five men so far, Zeb counted.
The men were armed with assault rifles and wore combat trousers like the three of them. All five of them moved with an assured air that spoke of experience. None of them spoke a word to their captives.
They were shoved through the doors, and they got their first look at the lodge from the inside.
They were in a large living room, chandeliers hung from the ceiling above, and thick carpet muffled their shoes. Couches were spread across the room, with an old stove that crackled away at one side. The other side had a mantelpiece on which were arranged various photographs and hunting trophies. Three large windows faced the drive, and next to the stove was a fourth window that looked out at the side.
Family home.
A door next to the mantelpiece opened, and three men shoved the sisters in. Their wrists were bound in front of them, and tape ran over their mouths.
Eight men.
Beth saw the three of them, and her eyes widened.
When she saw that they were unarmed and captive, hope began to recede from her eyes.
Zeb saw their swollen and split lips, Beth’s reddened and ballooned cheek, and the flame leapt in him, and when one of the men shoved the women forward, the flame turned to ice.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked them.
A gunman behind him swung his rifle and struck Zeb between his shoulder blades.
He fell and lay gasping for some time before he hauled himself upright.
He looked at the women again. ‘Are you all right?’
This time a captor backhanded him across the mouth, a hard blow that started a trickle of blood from the side of his mouth.
He wiped it away against his sleeve and asked again, ‘Did they manhandle you?’
This time the rifle butt hit his left temple, and he staggered sideways and fell, and his vision dimmed. He lay there for a minute, swallowed, and slowly got to his knees.
The women were wide eyed and pale.
Behind them, alongside the three gunmen, stood another man.
A masked man who was watching silently.
Chapter 25
Zeb ignored him.
‘Did any of these guys lay a hand on you?’ he asked the twins.
He took a step sideways and arrested the approaching gunman with a raised hand. ‘If you hit me again, I’ll rip your arm off and stuff it down your throat.’
The gunman stopped. In the world he occupied, captives didn’t talk back, especially when they were under a gun.
The hitter stepped back at an invisible command from the masked man.
He stepped forward and addressed Zeb. ‘Very impressive, Major, but quite pointless. What exactly are you trying to prove?’
Zeb saw the way he moved, the calm sureness in him, saw the imperceptible stiffening in Broker and Roger. They read the man the same way he had.
This one is bad, very bad. And very good too.
The masked man read his mind and chuckled.
‘You thought I was just another kidnapper? I am disappointed. I have outwitted you all along, and by now you should’ve known I am not any of the ordinary guys you’ve gone up against.’
Zeb ignored him and looked at Beth and Meghan. ‘Do you know who he is? Did you work it out?’
They shook their heads silently. Their eyes reflected fear and shock at witnessing Zeb’s beating.
Zeb finally looked at the masked man. ‘You plan to tell them?’
The man considered for a moment; then his hand reached below his chin and the balaclava came off in one smooth move.
He was as tall as Zeb, dark wavy hair slicked in a neat style, dark eyes in a tanned face, and his perfect white teeth sported a mocking smile.
His smile grew broader when he heard the women gasp. The smile turned into a laugh at the inarticulate sounds behind their tape.
His was a face they knew well.
He nodded at his men, and two of them stepped forward and ripped the tape from their mouths.
‘You?’ Beth shouted.
‘Ryan Taggart?’ Meghan echoed in incredulity and disbelief.
Taggart stood for a few seconds, basking in their shock.
‘Why?’ Beth demanded. Her voice came out high pitched as she struggled to rein in her emotio
ns. ‘What did we do to you?’
‘You could ruin my life,’ Taggart replied, and when Zeb started to reply, he snapped, ‘Enough. All in good time. Where’s the laptop and the camera?’
His eyes narrowed when Zeb kept silent.
‘Don’t play this clichéd game, Major. Where are they?’
Zeb nodded in the direction of their ride, and two men went outside.
Taggart glided to a corner of the room and came back with a waist-high stool and awaited the return of his men.
Zeb saw a faint motion from the corner of his eye and turned his head slowly to meet Meghan’s gaze.
She looked at him, her green eyes back to their normal size, and her eyes fell. She repeated the motion, and he followed her gaze.
Her bound hands were spread out in front of her, and one of her fists opened.
Five.
It closed and opened again.
Five.
She met his eyes and fractionally nodded in Taggart’s direction, and her fist flashed again.
One.
Five. Five. One.
Eleven men including Taggart. Smart girl. To anyone else looking, it will seem she’s flexing her fingers.
He caught her eyes and looked at the carpet and looked back at her.
Hope she got that.
Taggart had missed the byplay, and when his man returned, he pointed at the stool. His gunman placed the devices and stepped back.
There were five men behind Zeb, Roger and Broker, all of them with their backs to the entrance.
Three men ranged behind the sisters, to Zeb’s left.
Taggart sat facing them.
He gestured grandly at Zeb.
‘Major, the show’s yours. Why don’t you show the lovely Petersen sisters what you’ve discovered? What this is all about.’
Zeb didn’t move and looked at Taggart contemptuously.
Ten.
‘Is this how you go about securing a room? Is this all you learned in SWAT?’
Taggart’s eyes narrowed, and he looked at a tattooed man who was standing behind the women.
‘They’re clean, boss,’ Tattoo answered his glance.
‘Of course we’re clean, you scumbag,’ Roger growled. ‘But did it occur to you or your boss that the laptop or the camera may not be clean?’
Nine.
Roger’s voice dripped with scorn as he addressed Taggart. ‘It’s not their fault. You should’ve recruited better help. But I guess all those years living the high life in D.C. has dulled your smarts. Assuming you had any.’
Eight.
The five men behind Zeb and his team took an involuntary step back. Bomb would be running through their minds.
Taggart’s gaze fell to the devices on the stool, and something turned in his eyes.
‘He’s bluffing,’ he snapped at his men.
‘Why don’t you turn on the devices for us, Major? If you have booby-trapped them, you’ll be the first to go.’
‘Do it yourself,’ Zeb said indifferently. ‘You wanted those two gadgets, there they are.’ He glanced through the corner of his eyes and saw Meghan point to the floor and sign a discreet thumbs-up.
Seven.
Tattoo grabbed Beth’s hair and pulled her back. ‘Don’t fuck with us or this bitch dies. We’ll still have one more.’
Broker held his palm up. ‘Whoa, no need for all that. They aren’t rigged. Here, I’ll show you.’
Six.
It started with the windows shattering, then followed a tremendous explosion that rocked the house and made the mantelpiece tremble, and with it came a blast of air that swept through the room like a tornado.
Zeb, Roger and Broker had set the Piper, three cabins and several vehicles to blow up at half past nine; they moved even before the explosion arrived, diving at the three nearest men behind them.
Zeb’s shoulder crunched into a hood’s abdomen, and his right arm went numb as his joint crashed into the man’s assault rifle; his momentum carried them toward the window and out of it.
Zeb risked a split-second glance back and saw Taggart shouting as he hauled the women up – they had hugged the ground when the glass shattered – and shoved them out of the side door.
A blow to Zeb’s chin brought his attention back to the man struggling below him. The man was still dazed from the explosion, and his movements were uncoordinated.
He head-butted him, twisted the man’s rifle, and knocked him cold with it.
He grabbed the man’s assault weapon and handgun, ducked below the window line, ran along the outside, and when he rounded a corner, came up against Broker and Roger. They were standing over two bodies.
Three down. Eight left.
They had gone out the side window, taking an extra second from the three to four second advantage they had bought for themselves with the explosion.
They silently bumped fists and split. They didn’t have their comms gear anymore; that restricted their ability to coordinate.
Zeb whistled at the two of them, and they looked back.
He mouthed, ‘Nine men were with us; the other two could be patrolling outside. Watch your back.’
Roger gave him a silent thumbs-up and ran low and swiftly in the direction of the kitchen.
Zeb turned back in the direction of the living room and headed to the game room. Broker headed to the outer cabins where they had stashed their C4 bricks. He planned to blow up more parts of the house.
Once they had come across the infrared beams, they had to ditch their plan to attack in stealth.
Broker had come up with the idea of blowing up everything outside the infrared perimeter. ‘We can rig the cabins to blow so hard that they’ll shake the lodge. That’ll buy us a few seconds of surprise, and that should be enough for us to take out a few of them.’
Roger agreed. ‘We can then go flush out the rest of them in the house.’
Zeb shook his head. ‘We’ll take three guys outside through the windows. As long as Taggart has the women, he’s trapped inside, hostage to his own plan. We’ll re-enter it and whittle them down.’
Roger grinned at Broker. ‘Once he starts talking, he doesn’t stop, does he?’
His eyes turned serious, and Zeb knew what he was thinking. His plan had more holes in it than a slice of Swiss cheese, but they didn’t have a better one. And as long as Taggart had the women, he was in control.
Zeb paused below a living room window and risked a quick glance inside. It was empty.
He looked at the door through which Taggart had entered and departed.
There may be a couple of men behind that door.
He fired a long burst into the room to make the men inside think of an imminent breach and sped to the game room.
The house had several rooms; they had picked on the kitchen and game room to re-enter since they both had low windows and would have blocks of furniture that would offer cover.
The front stretch of the central lodge ran a good four hundred feet and was curved gently inward. Zeb sped past the door, ducked below windows, and just as he rounded the curve, he came up against a hostile.
The man was running toward the living room, his rifle stretched out ahead of him.
Ten feet of air separated them.
Zeb saw the man’s rifle straighten, and he was moving even before his brain had processed his sight.
His feet left the ground in a dive, below the rifle line, and before the man could lower it, Zeb hit him in the groin. The man went down with Zeb on top, and before the hostile could defend himself, Zeb delivered a crushing blow to his neck.
He pocketed the man’s magazines, grabbed the knife hanging off his belt, and continued.
Four down, seven to go.
His target, the game room window, was visible from where he was and was a hundred feet away. It was large, about five feet tall and four feet across, and was framed in white against the brown wooden outer walls.
He checked his rear.
Clear.
There wasn’t anyone ahead of him. There was another window, a bedroom window, twenty feet further.
He took a deep breath and set off.
He ducked beneath his target window, swung his arm and threw the knife against it. The glass shattered satisfyingly, but he didn’t stop to watch.
He moved on, and when he reached the bedroom window, he blindly swung his rifle inside and fired three bursts.
Even before the echoes had died, he spun around.
Four strides and on the fifth he lifted off his right foot and dived head first, making his shape as small as possible, through the target window.
Not an ideal angle. Can’t be helped.
He landed on his right shoulder, slid a couple of feet, and his left arm straightened into his rifle.
Clear.
The room was twenty by thirty feet and had a pool table as its centerpiece.
The table was a single block of wood with a green top. The room had framed posters and signed prints of various basketball and football players. On the walls hung baseball bats, mitts, a few tennis racquets and other sports equipment. At the other end of the room, a basketball hoop dangled from the wall.
A bar ran along one end of the room.
Zeb took all this in a single glance, and when he was sure the room was empty, he ghosted to the door.
The door opened into a hallway about ten feet long, a dead end behind him, and the other end led to another hallway that ran perpendicular.
He stepped into the passage, and a figure darted across up ahead. He heard a muffled shout and knew the figure, a hostile, had spotted him and would return.
The gunman just had to angle his rifle in and spray the passage and Zeb would be peppered.
He glanced back in desperation and found no cover. He could head back into the game room, but he would be trapped there too. Going out and retracing his steps wasn’t in him.
Roger stepped cautiously in the kitchen through a window that was already open. The house was heating up, and the central air-conditioning either didn’t extend to the kitchen or was turned off.
The kitchen was enormous, about twenty by forty feet; a central island dominated the room. Roller chairs were placed around the island, and it also doubled as a dining table. The central island had burners and a large sink, and one end of it caught Roger’s eye.
