by Judith Leon
“Roger,” Tito answered. “Any other buildings?”
“Looks like a four-car garage east of the building. One story.”
“Can you see the rear of the ‘witch’ tower?”
“Not from here,” Marko answered, “but give me two minutes.”
“Go.”
Ferris, T-3, scurried over to the area they had decided would be their “secure” site first, carrying an MGL-140 and a bag along with his backpack. In the deep grayness, he looked like a fast-moving white ball, about to become a snowman. At twenty-second intervals, the rest of the team members also crossed to the site. Lindsey trudged double-time through the newly trampled snow, ran along the tree line and joined the group. Sam arrived last. The team proceeded to set up the secure area according to Marko’s plan.
Two canisters of extra rounds of red OC balls, Oleoresin Capsicum, the size of large jawbreakers stood out even in the grayness. They were extra rounds for the PepperBall launchers, and looked like giant timed-release medicine capsules. It was amazing how quickly the gear piled up. Their secure area site took on the appearance of a mini HQ. Lindsey helped the team build up a hasty snow wall to avoid being seen by the guards from the crenellated “castle” tower, now within ballistic range.
Tito turned to Lindsey. “You were inside the chateau?”
“Yes.”
“You and Marko have worked together?”
“Yes.”
“Teal has seen you?” Tito looked toward the eastern gray horizon, growing ever lighter.
“Yes.” It was 6:16.
“We need to hurry,” Tito said. “You there, T-2?”
“T-2 here,” Marko answered. “‘Witch’ tower juts out from main building in back. Rear door is padlocked. Snow buildup indicates it’s unused. Guard on a balcony, second floor.”
“Other entries?”
Marko was silent a moment. “Not on rear north wall. I can’t see the east wall, but if it’s like the west wall, there is nothing. Unless it’s under the snow.”
“We don’t have time for full recon. We go with what we know.”
Marko explained a modified plan, choosing Tia as his accomplice.
Tito agreed. “New coordinate objective. Witch 2. Go.”
Sam helped Tia with the necessary gear, and Tia loped off to join Marko. A twinge of jealousy stopped Lindsey for a moment: Why had Marko chosen Tia over Lindsey? Was he keeping his distance from her? She didn’t like it, but had to let it go for now.
Marko waited for T-5, the exotic and stunning Amazon-like woman.
“Slip farther back into the trees, T-5,” Marko said into his earwig speaker. “The guard looks through binocs into the woods every so often.”
When Tia reached him, they moved through the woods together, absolutely silent in spite of zigzagging to stay concealed by evergreens. Lindsey, lacking the hours of training required to reach such silent perfection, might be pissed that he’d asked for Tia’s help, but if Lindsey chewed him out later she’d also understand when he explained. Another great thing about Lindsey—for her the op was the point, success the goal, not personal stuff.
In back of the chateau, they turned toward one of the trees that stood maybe a hundred and sixty feet tall, like a giant Christmas pine, snow piled on its sagging branches. It stood only about thirty feet away from the second-floor balcony where a guard sipped from a steaming mug, staying close to what glowed like a camp heater.
Marko had also specifically asked for Tia because of her height. He knelt for her to climb up onto his shoulders, knees first, and then as she pulled herself onto him, she also carefully pulled up on pine boughs. An avalanche of snow tumbled from the branch, despite her care. Damage done, she stood, and Marko moved with her to their combined height of twelve and a half feet. They stood among the tree branches, frozen until Tia could see what the guard would do.
She whispered into her earwig. “He heard it. He’s looking around.”
A raucous call not ten feet away nearly made Marko leap out of his skin. Black wings flapped nearby. Tia gasped. A raven was leaving its nocturnal perch, croaking, unhappy about the intrusion. Crows soon joined in, and a small migration started of black rags flapping noisily in the grayness. Marko’s pulse normalized.
“The guard is looking our way with his binoculars,” Tia breathed.
Seconds ticked away.
“He put them down and is…not reaching for his weapon.”
“Okay, proceed,” Marko whispered back.
He’d clipped the PepperBall launcher onto his belt on one side, and on the other Tia’s specially modified “less-lethal” twelve-gauge shotgun. The shotgun was fitted with a silencer and loaded with rubber bullets. The plan was to make the rescue but leave no dead bodies behind, nothing that might force Czech authorities into asking hard questions. K-bar had also adopted this policy for NSI. But just in case, all of them also carried very lethal handguns on their belts. Along with other goodies.
Slowly, so slowly, Marko passed the launcher upward, not disturbing a single snowflake. The thing looked like a kid’s giant space-blaster squirt gun with a hopper full of red balls that some said looked like a gumball machine.
“Guard rubbing his hands by the heater,” Tia whispered.
Marko felt her weight on his shoulders shift subtly and knew she was taking aim.
Pop!
The guard grunted loudly as if hawking up phlegm. Marko could see the harsh powder that rose up around the man, who coughed repeatedly.
Pop!
“Guard on his knees, voiceless, but…”
The guard produced a choked “okkk” sound.
“He’s down!” she said softly into her earwig.
Marko turned, stepped away from the tree, and Tia jumped to the ground and handed him the launcher. They took off running toward the witch tower.
At the base of the tower, Tia pulled out her handgun and aimed it up at the struggling guard. “Don’t move,” she said clearly into her wrist unit. “Translate, E to C,” she added.
“Neopovaz se podrazdit,” said the speaker inside the device, but the man already seemed still, just sort of croaking in agony.
“First entry contact secure,” Marko said into the earwig. A voice came from secure base. “T-2, T-5, put on goggles and half masks now, before approaching PepperBall area. T-6, over.”
Marko pulled down safety goggles from inside his helmet and pulled up the lightweight mask from inside the knit collar of his turtleneck. Tia did the same. Tia pulled out the Natick retractable grappling hook from a pocket on the leg of her jumpsuit. Marko untied a lanyard holding fifteen feet of tubular nylon rope and attached one end of the rope to the grappling hook and the other end of the line to a climbing pulley on his belt. He hit a button and the hook sprang into a claw with three strong talons. He heaved the hook seven feet upward to the ledge where it caught instantly, and then tugged at the line for safety. The connection proved solid; he scaled up the wall and over the balustrade, then dropped the line down to Tia.
The guard was thrashing around, working his way blindly toward his Kalashnikov near the great wooden door to the tower’s interior. If the guard pounded the door it would boom like a drum. Marko kicked the weapon aside, pulled his own handgun out and held it on the man, whose cheek and forehead had purple-red welts on it the size of grapefruits. The guard squeezed his swollen eyes shut.
Tia scrambled up the rope and climbed onto the balcony, as well. She took the man’s weapon, heaved it into a snow-covered shrub below, then took dead aim at the man with a device Marko hadn’t ever seen before, let alone used. It looked like an extremely heavy, pointed flashlight.
As if Tia were Spider-Man, a white wad shot out and immediately enveloped the guard in a tough Kevlar Capture Net. She secured it in back. If the guy could talk, he’d probably say, just shoot me and be done with it.
Quickly retrieving the grappling hook and rope, Marko said to the man, “Some day soon, when you realize you’re okay, you will than
k me for this.”
The guard began sputtering what sounded like someone trying to curse in Czech.
“E anche tua madre!” Marko replied.
Tia grinned at him flirtatiously and said, “Translate, I to E” into her wrist.
“And so is your mother,” her wrist answered mechanically.
Marko smiled and threw the grappling hook to the next level. “T-2 to T-1,” he said into the earwig cosa. “Witch 2, secure. Proceeding to Witch 4.”
“Double-quick,” Tito said back. “We’re losing the cover of darkness. Hustle.”
Marko checked his watch. 6:36. Still almost a half hour until dawn. They’d only used up ten minutes since Tia joined him.
He and Tia encountered no one on the second tower balcony—from which they could step off onto the steeply angled roof that looked badly in need of patching. They scaled the roof quickly to the top level where a balustrade encircled the whole tower. The two guards there, now watching the front of the chateau, stood a mere twenty-five feet away and slightly below on the roof of the three-story “castle” tower. Smiling, Tia boffed his shoulder. We did it, she was saying.
0639 hours. The climb had only taken three minutes.
“T-2 to T-1. Witch 4, secure,” Marko said. “In position to take castle tower.”
“Copy that. All team, alert,” Tito said. “Execute plan to storm front.”
Chapter 35
L indsey crouched with Sam, T-6, beside the southwest corner of the front of the chateau waiting for Tito’s signal. Monique, T-4, was at her station on the east side of the chateau, near a midsize building that was clearly a garage. To the south, Tito waited by the nearest linden tree on the road beyond the octagonal building.
Lindsey wondered how close Teal had to be to pick up thoughts. She spoke to Teal in her mind. Do you know we’re here for you, Teal?
Could this beautiful, smart, talented strong girl feel the presence of her rescuers? Lindsey tried mentally to tell Teal to be ready to roll. Their plan counted on the fact that Jeremy would never hurt Teal; she was too valuable a property. But now that Lindsey had found her, he must absolutely be prevented from sending Teal elsewhere. And then there were the disks—the lives of sixteen other girls were also at stake. Jeremy must be taken alive and the disks recovered.
At Tito’s alert, Lindsey rose, tense, ballistic stun shield ready on her left arm, her Beretta handgun ready but holstered. Her stun shield, a cutting-edge device invented by an Athena grad, could stop any bullet fired from greater than ten feet away and under ten feet, it could stop anything except armor-penetrating ammo. The plan was for her and Sam to immediately enter the house, where Jeremy and the others wouldn’t be heavily dressed. So she held, instead of the Beretta, an Advanced M 20 Taser in her right hand, aimed at the chateau’s entry. Sam carried their entry ram on her back.
Tito’s command sounded. “Execute attack! Go!”
From the secure base, Ferris fired the grenade launcher twice. The first round hit with a stunning blast in the middle of the driveway area between the octagon building and front door. Almost immediately after, a second blast struck the drive in front of the garage. Tito shot a flash-bang through the window beside the chateau’s door and followed up with a smoke bomb.
Balls of fire puffed up as high as the castle tower. Blasted snow melted into a shock wave of rain. Gravel shot out like shrapnel, pelting the chateau, O building and garage, and breaking off every icicle that hung from the pair of snow-covered fountains on either side of the door. Then from the south and east, Tito and Monique fired flash-bangs in rapid sequence, aiming near the doors to the chateau and O building, producing earsplitting noise and a terrifying fan of flame from a metallic powder that exploded harmlessly the instant it came into contact with oxygen. For Lindsey, and hopefully anyone inside, the overall effect was pretty spectacular. It looked as if a full-scale lethal assault were taking place.
At 6:40 a.m., and wearing his parka, Pietro slipped into Jeremy’s den having already tied, gagged and bugged the girl. She was ready to be moved. Pietro needed only the disks. He had watched Jeremy placing things in his safe often enough to have memorized the combination.
A blast, like a dropped bomb, jolted him upright. Then another and another. Shock and panic stopped his heart a moment and sent its own blast of pure adrenaline. In overdrive, he frantically twirled the dial on the safe. Wrong turn. He started over again. Mother of God, another wrong turn. Slow down!
Jeremy burst into the room, wild-eyed, mouth agape.
He gasped when he saw Pietro. “What are you doing here?”
Shit! “I’m saving the disks. We’re being raided.”
Jeremy’s face flushed from white to purple, his sarcasm venomous. “Reeeeealllly! Do you think so?” He whipped out a gun and pointed it directly at Pietro. “Get away from my safe.”
What the hell was Jeremy to make of Pietro? Was Pietro responsible for what was clearly a major assault on the chateau? In this moment, Jeremy could not think, could not move.
“Bring the disks!” Pietro said, his face flushed. “Then we grab the girl and get the fuck out of here. Through the cellar door.”
Jeremy brushed Pietro aside and started turning dials, keeping the gun trained on Pietro.
“That big bush by the side door to the garage,” Pietro said. “We make a run for it. Then the garage.”
The safe opened. Jeremy snatched up the fake disks and stuffed all of them in the pockets of his slacks. These fakes were CDs that appeared to be the real thing, but were, on careful inspection, useless and nonsensical. They were fabricated from bits of truth, procedures, names and addresses, but fatally garbled and even he would have to study them a bit to discern the fraud. Jeremy had made them for the demonstration and just in case he needed to fool someone temporarily. Well, it looked as though that moment would soon be upon him.
Running ahead of Pietro, he dashed for the kitchen. He would grab his jacket, then the girl. As they reached the bottom of the stairs to the cellar he felt Pietro bump into him hard, almost as though on purpose.
“Keep the fuck away from me,” Jeremy said. “I don’t know whether to kill you now or later.”
Great, just fantastic! Pietro thought, waiting for the sound of gunfire as he pulled his hand away from Jeremy’s coat pocket. Was this Foo Hai double-crossing a double-crosser? You could never trust anyone.
As Lindsey sprinted along the chateau wall toward the front tower entry, she heard excruciating yelps from the tower roof above. Marko was up there. A part of her brain registered worry that he might be the one suffering pain, though logic told her he’d most likely inflicted it. She and Sam were halfway to the “castle” tower door.
A mechanical voice spoke over a bullhorn in Czech, coming from Tito’s direction. It was Tito’s message translated by his wrist translator and electronically magnified. The intimidating effect was to make it sound like a robot was leading an invasion. She told the guards that they had a chance to surrender peacefully now or be attacked on the count of three.
“Jeden…dva…tn…”
One man yelled something in Czech as he fled the octagonal house, one hand raised, the other throwing down a Kalashnikov. Another man followed him out of the octagon, also leaving behind his automatic weapon.
Apparently seeing the capitulation, two more guards stepped out of the front of the chateau, coughing and rubbing their eyes, seemingly ready to surrender, as well. Because neither was wearing a heavy jacket, Lindsey kept the Beretta holstered and trained her Taser on one. Sam did the same, holding a Taser on the other man.
At the same instant, Monique emerged from beside the garage, her handgun trained on the heavily clad guards at O building. Tito ran up the driveway, carrying an assault rifle. One of the door guards—Lindsey’s man—who’d been in the act of setting his weapon down slowly, suddenly whirled toward Tito.
Lindsey fired the Taser. Two darts, probes attached to wires, shot 50,000 volts into the man’s back. He jolted
straight up and fell over, squeezing off a few rounds harmlessly into the snow as he fell. The Taser’s takedown power was supposed to be more effective than a handgun, and Lindsey believed it. To reload, she immediately removed the spent air cartridge and snapped in another.
Sam said, “Cover my man,” and she ran to the fallen guard, kicked the Kalashnikov away, pulled out a strange weapon Lindsey had never seen before, aimed and fired at the man, instantly encasing him in a net. He began moving a little and moaning.
Staring wide-eyed at the amazing net, Lindsey aimed her Taser at the other guard. Having secured one guard, Sam reloaded her gizmo and similarly secured the other guard.
Tito shouldered his rifle. Lindsey heard him say in English, “Anyone else want to try anything?” Tito then raised the bullhorn clipped to his waist. The translated robot voice posed the same question in Czech. The two remaining men shook their heads.
Next Tito said, “Front guard takedown complete. T-4, secure the prisoners. T-2 and T-5. Your status?”
“Secure and coming atcha,” Lindsey heard Marko say.
Thank God, Marko was okay. A sense of relief like a physical wave surprised her. She looked up and almost directly above her, Tia and Marko were rappelling down the tower wall, Tia with a Kalashnikov slung over her shoulder, obviously taken from a guard.
The house was quiet. Lindsey thought, ominously quiet. Seven guards were down. Counting Slick Hair and Jeremy, at least four armed men were probably inside. The team must keep up their momentum. She guessed that from the time of the first firing of the grenades, not more than two minutes had passed.
The chateau door stood open so Sam ditched the entry ram—having it on her back would only hinder her movements. Stun shields at the ready, side by side, Lindsey and Sam rushed the door.
Chapter 36
L indsey faced a guard running down the stairway. He stopped at the base, about ten feet from her, a slick-looking Glock waving back and forth between her and Sam.
