Intruders (A Jordan Quest FBI Thriller Book 1)

by Gary Winston Brown

  “To be honest, I’m wet, cold, tired, pissed off and could use a stiff drink or three. Other than that, I’m good.”

  Carmichael broke in. “Sir, we have a lock on the phone. HRT is in the air. They’re en route to the location.”

  “Help is on the way, Zoe.”

  “I heard.”

  “Stay where you are. Do you think you can signal the chopper when you see it?”

  “Don’t worry. They won’t have any trouble finding us.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  In the background of the call, Zoe heard gunfire. “Dad?” she said.

  No reply.

  “Dad… are you okay?”

  Nothing.

  “What’s happening?”

  The line was dead.

  Three rounds ricocheted off the corner of the wall behind which Chris had taken cover. The gunman was proceeding up the stairs, his shots calculated, timed to keep the agent pinned down and unable to return fire.

  Hanover turned to Dunn and Carnevale. “Get them out of here! Now!”

  The agents fled down the corridor with the family. A metal canister bounced off the wall and rolled to rest at Chris’ feet. It started to spin.

  A cloud of tear gas hissed out of the OC fogger. Chris covered his mouth. The noxious vapor stung his eyes, seared his lungs.

  Hanover fought his body’s desire to surrender to the incapacitating cloud. He swung his arm around the corner, firing blindly at the intruder.

  Then he ran.

  CHAPTER 48

  TASKER LEFT the site of the unfinished home, drove the Mustang GT to the end of the street where he had a clear view of the mansion and parked the car. He fumbled through the contents of his medical kit, removed the emergency vial of Morphine, ripped the syringe out of its plastic wrapper, filled it with the drug, forced out the air bubble, jammed the needle into his thigh, pressed down on the plunger and injected the contents into his thigh. Within seconds the drug produced the desired effect. The firestorm of pain coursing through his body began to subside.

  Three muzzle flashes, followed by concussive gun blasts, drew his attention to the upstairs balcony inside the mansion. A floor-to-ceiling window pane at the back of the mansion had been blown out. Smoke swirled at the top of the stairs. Tasker watched as the man who taken cover at the top of the stairs turned and ran as his pursuer closed in on his position.

  Rigel.

  Tasker tested himself, moved his fingers, hands, arms, and legs. The drug was working. His body was by no means as functional as it had been before the attack, but at least he was mobile. He had no idea how long the pain suppressing effect of the drug would last in his grossly debilitated state. Based on the extensiveness of his injuries, logic dictated he had only minutes before the pain returned with a vengeance. Fueled by adrenaline, pain suppressed by the Morphine, motivated by revenge, Tasker climbed out of the car, forced himself over the low border wall of the estate and shuffled up the hill to the back of the mansion. He stood in the shattered window frame on the shards of broken glass, pulled the Tec-9 out from under his jacket, and listened.

  The great house had become as still and silent as death itself.

  Hanover, Dunn and Carnevale moved the family into the upstairs study. Chris locked the ornate solid brass doors behind them.

  The room was twenty feet tall, circular and filled from floor to ceiling with books. Polished mahogany bookshelves wrapped around the upper and lower floors. Ten feet above, a brass walkway divided the room into two levels. Access to the walkway was made possible by a wheeled ladder attached to the second level railing. The ladder moved freely and could be rolled across the floor to any point in the room to access the bookshelves above.

  Hanover turned to Carnevale. “A library?” he said. “How the hell are we supposed to defend ourselves in here?

  “We don’t,” Jordan said.

  Frustrated, Hanover looked at Jordan. “I’ll need a better answer than that.”

  Jordan turned to her children. “Kids, you know where to go,” she said. “Don’t be scared. We’ll be right behind you. Paula and David, you’re next.”

  The agents watched the children scamper up the ladder and run along the brass walkway.

  “Jules Verne!” Emma yelled at her brother.

  “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!” Aiden replied. “I know, I know.” He found the novel and pulled it towards him. The panel of the bookcase labelled “Classics,” popped open. The children pushed it back and disappeared behind the shelves.

  Hanover turned to Jordan and smiled. “That is too cool.”

  “Everybody up,” Carnevale said. “Follow the kids. Hurry!”

  Rigel waited for the tear gas cloud to clear, then rounded the corner fast and wide, finger on the trigger. He expected to be met by retaliatory fire but instead found the corridor empty. The agents and the family were gone. Rigel listened to the acoustics of the hallway. His footsteps made a hollow sound on the marble floor, a slight reverberation. The sound in the corridor carried. Which meant the lack of any sound right now indicated they were close by. If they were still on the run, he would have heard their footfalls in an adjoining corridor. He walked down the hall and assessed the floor for possible escape routes or hiding places.

  The door to the guest bathroom was open. Rigel looked inside. It was big, but not big enough to accommodate six adults and two children.

  Clear.

  He entered the media room next. Stocked bar. Four rows of seats; eight in the first row, then six, then four, finally two. A two hundred and sixty-two-inch C Seed flat screen television, one of the biggest in the world, was mounted on the wall. Who the hell needs a home theatre with a seating capacity for twenty and a TV that big, Rigel thought. Ostentatious asshole.

  Clear.

  One room remained at the end of the hall. Twin brass doors, both closed. Shadows danced in a slit of light at the bottom of the doors, then darkness fell upon the room.

  Rigel opened fire as he advanced on the door. Pling… pling… pling… pling… pling… pling… pling. The bullets failed to penetrate the solid brass, merely deflected off the metal. The ejected rounds tinkled on the marble floor.

  Rigel had one tear gas canister left. Gas them out, he thought, then make entry.

  He positioned the OC fogger at the foot of the door, jammed the nozzle into the narrow gap, then pulled the pin and waited for the gas to take effect.

  Five seconds elapsed, then fifteen, twenty. No choking, coughing, screaming or pleas for help came from inside the room. Only silence.

  Somehow the family had escaped.

  Rigel knew they were still somewhere within the mansion. They had to be.

  A noise downstairs. Footsteps on broken glass.

  Rigel turned and ran back along the hallway.

  Had the targets somehow evaded him, made their way downstairs and were now escaping through the blown-out kitchen window?

  Rigel became enraged. If this was the case, he would find them and shoot them down faster than they could run.

  Every last one of them.

  CHAPTER 49

  ZOE HANDED the cellphone back to Shannon.

  “What’s wrong?” Shannon asked.

  “Nothing,” Zoe lied. “Bad connection. We’re good.” After all they had been through, she wasn’t about to tell her sister of the gunfire she had heard in the background and the abrupt termination of the call.

  “Dad’s sending a chopper,” Zoe said. “C’mon. We need to go back.”

  “To the house?” Lily asked. “What about Uncle Emmett and the boys?”

  “They’re no longer a concern.”

  Shannon and Lily stared at Zoe. They understood what she meant.

  Zoe put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “I told you they’d never hurt you again, Lily,” she said. “You’re safe now. The FBI are on their way. They’ll need a place to set down. It’s almost pitch black out here. If the phone dies they’ll lose our signal and might fly right over u
s. We’ll wait in the clearing between the house and the woods and wave them down with our flashlights.”

  The girl’s clothes stuck to skin. Her teeth chattered. “You have clean clothes in the house?” Shannon asked.

  Lily nodded quickly.

  “Good,” Shannon said. She rubbed Lily’s arms, tried to warm her. “Let’s get you into something dry. Sound good?”

  “Uh-huh,” Lily said.

  “Cover her eyes,” Zoe told Shannon as they approached the driveway. “Lily doesn’t need to see this.”

  They walked around the old Chevy past Basil’s headless corpse, Ben’s bullet riddled body and Uncle Emmett, who was missing the middle of his chest. Shannon forced down the rising gorge in her throat.

  “Better them than us,” Zoe said.

  “I know,” Shannon replied.

  They reached the back of the house. “Take Genius Girl inside to change,” Zoe said. “I’ll wait out here and listen for the chopper.”

  Shannon turned to her sister. “You okay, Z?”

  Zoe forced a smile. “Never better.”

  “Bullshit.” Shannon hugged her. “I love you. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah…” Zoe replied. There was a catch in her voice. Even in the driving rain Shannon saw a glisten in her eyes. Her smartass-attitude returned. “Stop wasting time. You’re gonna make us late for our own damn rescue.”

  Lily changed quickly. She didn’t want to spend a minute longer in the house than she had to. Shannon waited in the doorway. Although the immediate threat to their safety had been resolved, she couldn’t help but feel they were still in danger. The rain hammered on the roof. A flash of lightning lit the room, followed by a peal of thunder. The ceiling fixture above her shook. To Shannon, it felt as if the storm was feeding on the dark energy of the house. She could tell Lily felt it too.

  “Hurry,” Shannon said.

  “I’m ready,” Lily replied. She had changed into jeans, a T-shirt, white sneakers and a bright yellow jacket. She held her wet backpack in her hand.

  “All right,” Shannon said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Lily followed. “Wait!” she yelled. She turned and ran back into the room.

  “What is it?”

  Lily dropped to her knees in front of her dresser, rummaged through the bottom drawer and removed a framed picture of her parents. She looked up at Shannon. “It’s all I have left.”

  Shannon nodded and held out her hand. “Come on, sweetheart.”

  The lights in the house flickered. The power went out. The house fell into darkness.

  Shannon removed the flashlight from her backpack. Lily did the same.

  “Follow me,” Shannon said.

  Zoe jumped when the door opened behind her. Residual tension. Shannon and Lily joined her on the porch.

  “Everything okay?” Shannon asked.

  “Yeah,” Zoe replied. “The place just creeps me out.”

  “Six dead bodies on the property will do that to you. Any sign of the chopper?”

  “Not yet.”

  “We should move into the clearing. They’ll see us if we flash our beams.”

  “I have a better idea,” Zoe said. She opened her backpack and removed the kerosene lamp, spare bottle of fuel and the lighter she had taken from the fallout shelter. “We’re gonna make damn sure they see us.”

  Zoe ran down the stairs to the stable and opened the main doors. The horses whinnied at the intrusion. She opened their stalls and yelled. Shannon and Lily watched the animals trot out of the building and run into the open field.

  Zoe walked to the porch and poured a jagged line of kerosene over the deck and back wall of the ranch house. A dirty sweatshirt lay on the seat of a wicker deck chair. Zoe used it to wipe her fingerprints off the lamp clean.

  She asked Lily, “Was Uncle Emmett left- or right-handed?”

  “Right.”

  “Wait here.” Zoe ran back down the stairs to Emmett’s corpse, wrapped his right hand around the lamp, then ran back.

  “We watched the bastard set fire to the house,” Zoe said. “Right?”

  “That’s what I saw,” Shannon replied.

  “Me too,” Lily said.

  “Good,” Zoe said. She lit the wick. “It’s best if you two go to the clearing. I don’t exactly have a ton of experience in the arson department.”

  Shannon took Lily by the hand and walked with her into the open field.

  Zoe wrapped her damp sleeve around the metal handle and stepped off the porch. When she was a safe distance away she looked over her shoulder at Lily.

  The girl nodded, as if giving Zoe permission to burn her family’s home to the ground. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t her home anymore. It had stopped being her home the day Emmett and his boys walked into her life, murdered her parents, and made her their slave.

  Zoe tossed the burning lamp. Its glass globe shattered against the wall of the house. Its flame found the trail of combustible fluid. Whoosh! A line of fire erupted across the porch.

  Zoe turned, walked into the clearing, and held Lily’s hand. Shannon took hers.

  Above the noise of the torrential downpour the house crackled and popped. Fiery embers cast off from the structure and drifted upward, like fireflies dancing in the rain. The wooden porch was the first to go. They watched the fire climb the walls, claim the roof and seep into the home. Before long the ranch house was fully engulfed. The crackling had become a roar. The flames grew stronger and reached high into the night sky. The brightness of the fire illuminated the property. From where they stood they could feel the heat of the fire.

  Shannon turned to Zoe. “You hear that?” she said.

  Zoe recognized the blade-churning thrum of an approaching helicopter. She nodded. “Our ride’s here.”

  CHAPTER 50

  RIGEL QUIETLY set down the sniper rifle on the marble floor, removed the Glock 19 from his tactical vest, and peered around the corner.

  Clear.

  He brought the weapon to his eye, trained the front sight over the balcony railing and looked down. Shards of glass from the blown-out window had been tracked inside the home. The twinkling path crossed a fine Persian rug, led into the Great Room, past the fireplace and out of sight. He had not been in that room. When he breached the house he immediately followed the screams upstairs. If the family and their protective detail had made it unheard downstairs to the first-floor, why wouldn’t they have just continued out the door? Something was wrong. Perhaps a third sentry had been patrolling the grounds. Had he missed him? Had he heard the shot and followed him into the house? Impossible. His surveillance had been thorough. Hadn’t it?

  He needed to know.

  The mansion was immense. Finding the family and their guardians was proving to be more of a challenge than he thought. But first he needed to investigate the glass trail, find out where it led and who had made it.

  Rigel kept his back to the wall as he descended the staircase, stopping on each step, listening.

  Silence.

  He entered the Great Room, swept it with the Glock and took cover behind a six-foot marble reproduction of the famed statue, Venus de Milo. No gunfire. Fragments of glass in the doorway led to an adjoining room. Rigel stepped out from behind the statue and moved towards the room, keeping the entranceway in his gunsight. A tray of candies sat on a side table beside a reading chair; Werther’s Creamy Toffee, his favorite. Rigel unwrapped one of the treats and popped it in his mouth. He pocketed the rest, reached the wall and glanced around the corner.

  The Music room was decorated with guitars and signed photographs of the artists who had played them. Some instruments stood inside locked display cases. Others hung from neck rests anchored to the walls. Rigel recalled reading an article on the Huffington Post website a few months ago in which Michael Farrow had shared his appreciation for the instrument. He had reached out to some of the greatest guitar players in the world and gained their endorsement for the establishment of the Farrow C
enter for the Performing Arts. The artists had signed their instruments and Sotheby’s had facilitated the auction. In one evening, he and the world’s musical elite had raised ten-million dollars. The project now funded, Farrow matched the donation dollar-for-dollar. One-hundred musically gifted but financially underprivileged children were admitted into the exclusive music education program. The guitars in this room were not for sale. This was his private collection. Which is why, had he still been alive, Farrow would have been devastated to watch the first five of the priceless instruments splinter into pieces by the rounds fired from the Tec-9.

  Rigel dove for cover as the bullets shattered the display cases, felled instruments from their mounts, and cut through the wall above him. He scrambled behind a wooden display case in the middle of the floor. The sound was a machine pistol. He remembered the Mustang outside the kid’s house, the tear gas and Tec-9 foam cut-outs in the false compartment under the seat and the identification in the glove box: Harrison Tasker.

  The assassin had followed him here. But how? He had destroyed the SIM card in his phone and thoroughly inspected his car for GPS tracking hardware, found none. Yet here he was, in the Farrow home, trying once again to kill him.

  Rigel shook his head. Some guys just don’t know when to quit.

  He called out. “That you, Harrison?”

  No reply.

  A shiny metal pick guard from a splintered guitar lay on the floor beside him. Rigel picked it up and angled it around the corner of the case. Its mirrored surface reflected the room. He searched for Tasker.

  No luck.

  “Is this because I broke into your car?” Rigel taunted. “Don’t blame me. You left it unlocked.” He slid to the other side of the case, angled the pick guard once more. “I’ve got to give you credit, though. The compartment under the seat? Brilliant. Wish I’d thought of that.”

  Nothing.

  “I’m guessing you’re here ‘cause I pissed somebody off. Mind telling me who?”