“This is a good idea why?” Manny was splashing the window frames as instructed, Tegan strapped to his front safely so the man looked like a two-headed person.
“It’ll be hard to see anything but this house when it goes up.” Adam took the containers from them and proceeded to douse the front foyer. “It’s our best chance to proceed to the extraction point while the fire obscures the lines of sight from the main gate.”
Victoria had her weapons lined up on the desk in the study alongside Adam’s. She began arming herself with the rest of her arsenal, above and beyond her normal conceal-and-carry. Her small pack had waterproof bags with GPS, burner phones and backup ammunition.
“Everything from here on out will happen quickly, and it is not going to be fun,” she warned Roland and Manny.
The first had gone pale. The second nodded grimly.
“We are in your hands.” Manny took hold of Roland’s, and the two of them waited for her next orders.
Adam returned from the foyer. “Ready for initial contact.”
They gathered in the study. Adam had his laptop open and a drone aloft to provide supplemental vision. Just as well.
Two trucks were coming up the small private road. One slowed, allowing the lead truck to approach the exterior gate. The lead truck stopped just shy of the gate interface.
Four people, a fire team, poured out the sides of the truck. Each member moved quickly, taking up a firing position in strategic locations with direct view of the gate and the main house far beyond.
The driver had remained in the vehicle.
“That truck is probably armored.” Adam shook his head. “I’m surprised they didn’t bring unmarked black SUVs. Would’ve made the same statement.”
“Trucks are more common on the island,” Roland offered hesitantly.
Victoria paused, then reached out and gave the man an awkward pat on the shoulder.
Adam watched and spared her a small smile. She made a face in return. She was working on her people skills, and obviously it was a work in progress. As for Roland, he was going to be all right.
The driver rolled down the window and reached for the gate intercom. He didn’t even make any pretense. “We can make this easy.”
Adam snorted. None of them moved to give a response. Instead, Adam patched a clip of video taken earlier in the day of Roland pacing in the front foyer and staring at the front door.
The truck driver kept his finger on the gate intercom. “Look, we already know you’re in there.”
A pause. A muttered “Target confirmed.”
The microphone on the gate intercom was better than the truck driver knew, though they didn’t need to hear his mutters to anticipate the next moves. The waiting fire team shot out the obvious security cameras that had been a part of the old system. They also took out two of the newer infrared and night-vision cameras installed in less obtrusive spots.
These people had some knowledge of the initial stages of the security upgrade, thanks to Jay.
Adam sighed. Finally he pressed down the space key on his laptop and leaned forward. “Last chance to back away.”
The truck driver hit the gate intercom again. “This is your last chance, Safeguard. All of you are done.”
“I’m sorry.” Adam looked to Victoria.
Solemn, she nodded.
Adam toggled a set of switches he had set up to wires extending off the desk and out the one window they’d left open. To the people in the room, he said, “Charges one and two blowing, get low, get low, get low.”
Victoria pulled Roland and Manny down into crouches.
Land mines planted all around the gate area went off. The speakers erupted with the sound of the explosions, bringing the sound right inside with them. When the air cleared, the area around the gate was still. The lead truck lay on its side. No movement.
The second truck pulled forward and a second fire team disembarked, immediately opening fire with a non-targeted surpassing fire.
“Fully automatic weapons.” Adam stood from his chair and grabbed his pack, slinging it across his shoulders. “They are very determined to take us out.”
“This is Edict, they can’t afford to come out of this without their mission objectives complete.” Victoria met the gazes of Roland and Manny where they remained crouched. “It’s what we’re counting on.”
* * *
Victoria went out the window first, ensuring there were no other trespassers on this side of the property. There would be, she was sure, but they hadn’t come this far yet.
Adam stood at the window, keeping an eye on his laptop screen as the remaining Edict fire team progressed forward cautiously. Now that they’d encountered land mines their little mole hadn’t warned them about, they were taking precautions. It would give Adam and Victoria the time they needed to proceed to their next phase.
She gave the signal for Manny and Roland to follow her. Once they made it out the window and onto the ground beside the house, she pulled them away from the cover of the house wall and into a nearby dead zone created by a gathering of landscape shrubs Victoria had hated. When they were hidden from the house, Adam picked up a pair of incendiary grenades.
“This won’t burn as much as we’d wish for,” he warned her over the comm. “Not enough furniture for fuel.”
“Copy.” Victoria responded. “We’ll have to hope the doors and basic structure are enough. Kayaks are waiting.”
He turned then and tossed the grenades, one at the front door and one up the stairs. Then he dove out the window.
“What?” Roland was starting to ask as Adam reached them.
Both Adam and Victoria overrode him. “Go, go, go!”
They put as much distance as they could between themselves and the house, reaching another dead zone and diving into the partially excavated ditch where a large tree used to be. When the house went up, the sound of the explosion was tremendous. The oxygen in the near vicinity thinned and air rushed past them toward the house, clearing the scent of burning fuel and tempting them with the smell of the bay instead.
Victoria led the way, running toward the waterfront, crouched as low as possible.
Adam shoved Roland and Manny ahead of him.
This was the not-so-fun part of the plan. The open ground stretched in front of them, and while their enemies didn’t have clear line of sight on them, they definitely didn’t have the time to get line of sight on their enemies.
As they approached the water, Roland panted. “There were only four more, right?”
Victoria shook her head.
Behind them all, bringing up the rear, Adam hurried them down the length of the dock. “There will be eight more people at least, maybe ten. Those were just the ones that came to knock on the front door.”
“Eight more?” Roland’s voice had gone faint.
Victoria didn’t take the time to turn to check on him. Adam would let her know if the man was falling behind. She kept her gaze front, watching the night for shadows that didn’t belong.
Adam’s voice came low and quiet. “Minimum. We know Edict has at least one sniper too, but we don’t know if she is deployed on this mission.”
Considering the last two instances where Safeguard had crossed paths with Edict, Victoria was guessing not. The sniper in question had a conflict of interest with the Safeguard team and Edict wouldn’t risk her unpredictable behavior.
Besides, Safeguard had a sniper too, and Lizzy was out there in the dark. Somewhere.
Victoria spoke into her comm. “Twenty-five seconds since contact. Was the flame enough?”
“We’re alive.” Adam’s response was terse.
There’d been no contact from Lizzy. If she’d encountered Edict, she might not initiate comm. The worst fight imaginable was a sniper versus another s
niper. If it was going on, they wouldn’t be engaged with the rest of the activity on the property. They would be engaging each other.
“Best to assume we are on our own.” Victoria sent out a silent hope for Lizzy. They’d worked together before, and the not knowing never got easy.
“Well, shit.” Adam wasn’t used to it yet. Maybe he hadn’t worked with a sniper in his unit in the past.
They hustled along the length of the dock and into the tiny boathouse at the end.
Roland was gasping for breath now. “This, I don’t understand. Shouldn’t we be taking one of the motorboats? Aren’t you supposed to get us out of here safely?”
“You need to get down,” Adam advised.
“Why? The house already blew up.”
Secondary charges in the safe room went off and up on the hill, the main house ignited a second time.
Chapter Twenty
“Stay here.” Victoria pressed Roland and Manny in the doorway, sheltered from any vantage points. The approach up the dock was clear but there were trees to either side.
Adam stepped back outside the boathouse with another unmarked container.
“More jet fuel?” Manny asked.
She shook her head. She didn’t blame him for asking. “No, this fuel will burn more normally. The kayaks are smaller and we need them to burn for a long time.”
“But—” Roland started, thought better of it and stopped.
In the distance, weapons fire proved they hadn’t taken out all of the fire team that’d approached the main house. Either that or another fire team was approaching. She shoved the two men back into the boathouse and pressed them flat on the floor.
Adam dove in, cursing, as the long-distance-weapons fire hit the boathouse. Wood fragments flew and from the cursing around her, every one of them had taken damage.
“Anyone seriously hurt?” she asked, but pushed herself up to check Roland and Manny over herself. Manny had curled on his side rather than lay on top of Tegan, and the dog whined at her, giving her palm a brief reassuring lick.
The dog was up for sainthood.
“We have two,” Adam said, his voice audible within the boathouse and on her comm.
As two men breached the boathouse, Adam pressed another remote trigger and a claymore exploded at the end of the dock, sending the other two in the fire team flying.
Victoria stepped into the lead enemy’s guard, closing with him in close hand-to-hand.
Adam took down the second man, the two of them grappling on the floor.
Tegan let out a short bark and Manny wrapped his arms around the brave corgi. Now was not the time.
A gun skittered across the floor as Adam disarmed his opponent. Victoria cursed as she saw Roland pick it up, but she had to focus on her man. Each time he tried to strike her, she trapped his hand or forearm and returned a quick blow of her own. At this close range, she wasn’t able to get enough power behind her hits to be definitive, but she was able to keep him off balance and drive him back and away from Roland and Manny. She trapped his arms twice more, finally creating enough space between them to get a good right hook in to his jaw. In the split second it took for him to recover, she lifted her leg and drove her foot into the inside of his knee. The man went down with a scream.
A gun fired and Adam grunted. His opponent slumped to the floor.
“Is he dead?” Roland asked.
“No.” Adam disentangled himself from the other man. “And thanks, but don’t ever shoot in the direction of a friendly ever again.”
His movements were stiff and her heart stuttered inside her chest. His shoulder, clear of the bulletproof vest, was slick and shiny. Roland had shot through Adam.
Adam’s gaze met hers. “I’m fine.”
Victoria knelt, unable to look at Roland for the moment. There was no time to think on Adam being injured, no time to pause. She’d have to trust him to get through this. She could trust him.
Instead, she reached for the heavy iron ring and pulled up the trap door.
Adam pulled a semiautomatic off one of the prone men on the floor. He turned to one side and began firing randomly in short, controlled bursts. Then he turned and did the same in the other direction.
“What are you—?” Roland’s voice was edging toward high-pitched panic.
A man came up through the trap door and Victoria shot him, point blank, in the head. His eyes didn’t even have time to widen behind his scuba mask. “We’re making it look like the fight is continuing much worse than it is.”
She stepped down through the entry. No other opponents. The diver had been a just-in-case sentinel, not part of a fire team. She reached up and tugged at Manny.
In moments, Roland and Manny were with her, treading water beneath the boathouse.
Adam was doing a good job of simulating a firefight above him. Moments later, the kayaks floated away from the dock and went up in flames. The waves pulled them farther out into the bay.
Victoria reached for crates tied under the boathouse and untied them from the pilings. She shoved them out in various directions, letting several float before setting loose others.
Finally, she gave Roland and Manny each one. “Keep these between you and the land. Swim with me. Watch Tegan’s muzzle. Keep both your heads above water.”
Manny wasn’t having any trouble swimming and Tegan’s short legs were working in the water as if the little dog was helping. She had no idea if the dog would know to hold his breath should Manny have to go under, but she was hoping for the best here.
As they floated away among the other crates, Adam entered the water. He let loose more crates, then tossed something up into the boathouse before diving below the surface.
“Crates, stay behind the crates.” They were far enough out, but she was taking no chances.
The boathouse went up as the grenade exploded. More fire obscured line of sight as they swam.
* * *
It wasn’t hard for Adam to find them. He knew where they were going. As he approached a set of crates, harsh breathing told him he’d rejoined the group.
“It’s me.” He swam close behind one of their clients.
“D-d-d-” Roland was close to losing it.
Adam swam close and helped the man keep his grip on the crate. “We’ve got you. Not far now.”
Far out over the water, the kayaks were easily visible as the flames lit the night. Dark shadows made their way across the destroyed dock toward the boathouse. But they’d find a mess of equipment and wreckage. They’d have no idea if there were bodies.
There was enough of an undertow with the tide going out that they wouldn’t ever be sure if the bodies had gone out into the deeper part of the bay.
Long minutes and hard swimming went by, but they reached a sheltered area along the shore of the neighboring park. Sirens in the distance announced the approach of local law enforcement. Edict would have to withdraw.
Roland was a shivering mess. Between the cold of the water and shock, the man was going to need attention as soon as possible. Adam rubbed his hand in circles between the other man’s shoulder blades. “Soon. We’re almost clear.”
Once they were safely within cover, Victoria sat Manny on the shore. The man had pulled his knees up, his arms around Tegan. The small dog looked the worse for wear.
Moving quickly, he helped Victoria open the crates. Unwrapping the contents, they spread out the inflatable kayaks and started the pumps to get them ready.
As she got their two clients settled in the kayaks, he set about obscuring any prints or other tells they might have left behind. In minutes, they were floating out over the water, paddling silently and following the cover of the shoreline. The flames of Roland’s property faded as they put distance behind them.
Victoria’s voice c
ame across the comm. “Alpha team clear. Ready for extraction.”
“Copy that, Alpha team.” Another voice came up on the comm. “We have you. All clear.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“You cut that close.”
Victoria nodded. Seated in the infirmary at Centurion Corporation’s training facility outside Seattle, she waited impatiently for the tech to finish cleaning up the variety of small cuts and abrasions she’d acquired in the night’s activities. Lizzy stood at the opening in the curtains. The infirmary only had one or two other patients from random training incidents, but the curtains allowed for a measure of privacy.
“Where are the others?” She almost laughed at herself. Adam. She wanted to know where Adam was, but they were still partners, and with this mission to close out, she needed to approach everything as professionally as possible. Besides, after Adam, she did want to know how Roland and Manny were faring. And Tegan.
Though when the Safeguard team had come for the extraction, the corgi had seemed to be in the best shape of all of them. He’d been a ball of wiggles and licking people and making new friends. That was one lucky dog.
“We put Adam in a private room because of his gunshot wound.” Lizzy stepped into the area as the tech finished up and left. She pulled up a stool and sat. “It looks to be fine. Being in the cold salt water of the bay cleaned it out and kept bleeding to a minimum. He’s just getting an IV as a precaution. It’ll take maybe another hour for the bag to finish.”
“Good that it’s not worse.” She’d worried. It hadn’t kept her from carrying out her part of the mission, but it’d tugged at her attention. Compartmentalizing her concern to a back part of her mind so she could focus on her objectives had been harder than ever in her experience. She’d even had lovers on her teams in the past, and none of it had distracted her like this.
It was going be a problem.
“We’ll be looking for a full debrief later, but for now, how was Adam on this mission?” Lizzy was watching her carefully.
Contracted Defense Page 18
