There was no straight shot to Howick. The eastern suburbs were well away from any motorway off-ramp, but approaching through arterial roads would have taken too long. I took a big chunk out of the distance by screaming down the Southern Motorway and merging with slow-moving afternoon traffic on the South-Eastern Highway.
I kept the police radio off, but my pager gave a pathetic single attempt to contact me. Hart wasn’t trying very hard; just dotting his Is and crossing his Ts as per procedures. They knew where I was going, and they’d follow. At least I had backup on the way.
But by the time this was over, they’d be too late. Either Weston would be mine and Carole and Stretch would be safe, or…
It didn’t bear thinking about.
I parked the Commodore on Bleakhouse Road, a block away from Castleton Drive, where Trevor Jones’ vehicle had stopped moving. I checked my surroundings and then exited the vehicle, locking it behind me. Bleakhouse Road wasn’t a main thoroughfare, but it was a collector road, unlike Castleton. So traffic was flowing freely, and the police sedan was lost in amongst the high volume of parked cars.
One of which I completely overlooked until I was right alongside it.
I stared at the Audi Q7, which wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary for the suburb and then let out a slow breath of air and opened the passenger door, climbing up into the SUV itself. Damon was turned in his seat and waiting for me, a scowl on his face that spoke volumes.
“How did you beat me here?” I asked.
“Flack responded to a suspicious house fire from Pitt Street, and I slipped in behind him.”
I stared at him; that wasn’t a good enough explanation.
He sighed. “We might have assigned the Ladder to it as well.”
The Ladder was the largest specialist fire engine in the Fire Service. There were exactly three of them left in Auckland City. One of which was at Pitt Street Fire Station. It parted traffic like nothing else could. If you saw a great big red beast barrelling towards you in your rear vision mirror, you’d pull over, too, believe me. Damon would have tucked in behind it easily.
And it would have got here on the arterial routes and not the motorway because it couldn’t risk getting stuck in a fender bender and strangely big red vehicles on little streets seemed to work.
“Where’s the fire?” I asked.
He grinned at me. “Put out before we got there. False alarm.”
“Damon,” I said, sighing.
“You didn’t tell me. I had to hear it from Pierce.”
Pierce had given me backup the only way he could.
I forced myself to look Damon in the eyes.
“This could be a disaster in the making,” I told him.
“Why would you think I wouldn’t be there at your side?”
I shook my head. The clock was ticking.
“When do the AOS get here?” he pressed, reading me like a bloody book.
Dammit. I couldn’t protect him and save Stretch, free Carole, and end this.
“Are you armed?” I asked.
He pulled out a stun gun; a restricted weapon under the Arms Act of 1983. Being in possession of one could result in a four-year jail sentence or a $5,000 fine. Or both.
I said nothing. At least it wasn’t a Glock.
I checked that my Glock was in its holster and then nodded my head.
“OK, Dirty Harry, let’s do this.”
“You’ve got a plan?”
“Yeah. Get in, get the hostages, and get out again afterwards, preferably alive.”
“Lara, that’s not like you.”
“I didn’t have time to draw a fucking diagram,” I snapped, thinking of Pierce’s back in CIB. It did help to have a picture of the property’s layout in my mind, though. “But if it helps you sleep at night, there are two rooms at the rear of the house we believe he’ll hold Stretch and Carole in. We’ll approach from the rear of the property and see if we can go in by stealth.”
“He’ll expect that.”
“He’ll expect the AOS and a cordoned off street out front.”
“I hope you’re right,” he murmured and stepped out of the vehicle.
I followed suit, searching the nearby houses and cars. Nothing stood out; we were still far enough away to make this work. I had a mental map of the area in my mind and led us in the direction of the property that bordered the back of the one in question, accessed by Chilton Place; a cul-de-sac that ran off Castleton Drive. There was a risk Weston would have eyes on the length of Castleton, but Castleton was quite long and even with King’s assets reactivated, watching every stretch of the road would be quite a tall task. CCTV cameras weren’t as prevalent in suburbia, either.
I glanced up and thought I might have spotted something glint in the sky. Narrowing my eyes, I pulled my cellphone out and texted Nick at ASI.
Is that you in the sky?
Eight hundred feet and you spotted us?
Matt paint. Try it.
Fuck you. You’re clear, BTW.
Guards on property?
Across street, watching the front. Two round back. ? inside.
House at rear?
Clear.
That was all I needed to know.
“We’ve got two hostiles to deal with in the back,” I told Damon, pocketing my cellphone. “And an untold in the house, but he’s concentrating on the front of the property like we thought he would.”
“That seems shortsighted.”
We made it to Chilton Place and started to pick up speed now we were out of the more dangerous stretch of road.
“Like I said, he’s expecting the AOS. Which is mobilising as we speak, something I’m sure he is aware of.”
“Jones.”
“Yeah. Can’t keep a good cop off the secured police radio network.”
“I still don’t like this,” Damon muttered as we approached the house in question.
I didn’t reassure him. What was there to like about any of this? Our only advantage was getting in before the AOS. I had to hope that Trevor was fighting his PSYOPS and leading Weston to believe I wouldn’t break form. Until recently, it might have been the truth.
But Weston was an ex-spook. He wouldn’t be easy to fool, no matter what. We had to tread carefully.
I strolled up the footpath to the house that bordered the back of Weston’s property and knocked on the door. No one answered, which was a relief, but also a little too convenient. Sweat had started to coat my palms; I rubbed then dry on my trousers.
“Stick together, or split up?” Damon asked.
I didn’t want to let him out of my sight.
“You go left; I’ll go right. Meet at the back. Stay alert.”
“You too, love.” He offered me a smile; the smile he reserves for only me. And then we parted ways and circumnavigated the house.
My heart thundered in my chest; my ears rang with tension. I rolled my shoulders and counted to three inside my head. A bird sang in a nearby tree. Cars on Bleakhouse Road roared in the distance. A lawnmower started up. Someone shut a door too loudly. Everything sounded as it should sound in a somewhat sleepy Auckland suburb.
It wouldn’t be long before residents started returning home from a hard day at work.
It wouldn’t be long before the street was cordoned off and they were cut off from their houses.
One by one, the AOS would go door knocking, scaring the hell out of the occupants of each home. Black-clad men in black tactical vests with black Kevlar helmets; carrying either M4A3 carbines or Remmington 870 shotguns. Their Glock 17s in a thigh holster. It would be a frightful sight.
But it might just save their lives.
Declan King had raged a decade long war in Auckland using every available weapon he had to achieve his goals. Any assets he’d had wouldn’t be afraid to use lethal force. This neighbourhood could soon be a war zone.
But as I stepped out from behind the house I’d just rounded, nothing nefarious jumped out and shot me. Damon stepped out at the sam
e time as me and scanned the backyard before meeting my eyes. I drank him in. Dark chocolate pools of intense fire. Broad shoulders and thick thighs. He was wearing jeans and sturdy boots, his obligatory long-sleeved Henley under a well-worn suit jacket. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did.
He was also not wearing a stab-vest. I felt overdressed. I felt a little panicked.
Damon cocked his head and studied me as I approached.
“What is it?” he whispered when I was close enough.
“I didn’t get you a vest,” I said, starting to take my jacket off. My vest wouldn’t have fitted him, so I have no idea what I was thinking.
“Stop, love,” he said, halting the removal of my jacket. “There isn’t time. I’ll be careful. I promise.”
I looked up at him and swallowed past a dry throat. I wasn’t above admitting that I was shit scared.
“Lara,” he said, emotion making his voice thick. “We can do this.”
We had to. Weston wouldn’t hesitate to kill Stretch if he hadn’t already. And the AOS would be on their way by now.
I checked my watch. Settled my breaths with even counting. And then nodded my head.
My eyes scanned the rear fence. It was six foot plus high, taller than Damon. And any means to scale it was on the other side. The fence belonged to Weston’s property, not this one. He’d chosen a base as secured as he could get in Howick.
It wasn’t far from here to Mellons Bay Cliffs. Once he’d known I was heading there, he could have killed Carl and simply taken a leisurely drive to the lookout. I clenched my fists; checked my surroundings again, and then crossed to the fence perpendicular to the behemoth I couldn’t quite scale without Damon giving me a leg up.
The side fence had cross beams which worked well as a ladder. Weston wasn’t fallible. I climbed up and peered over the six foot plus fence and spotted the two guards. They stood on either side of the back deck. Nearer the side fences than the rear of the property. I could shoot them, but handguns even from this distance were notoriously inaccurate. Not to mention loud as fuck and would set off house alarms, and Weston’s own alarms, in a heartbeat.
“We have to split up again,” I told Damon. “One down each side property and then over the fence in tandem.”
“OK.”
I looked down at him from where I was crouched halfway up the fence.
“Five minutes OK?”
“Three,” he replied, and I smiled.
Time was definitely not on our side.
He reached up and kissed me soundly, and then he was running across the rear of the property we were on and scaling the neighbour’s fence without pausing. In seconds he was out of sight.
I moved farther down my side fence, so I wouldn’t be seen by the two goons on Weston’s property, and climbed over, landing in a crouch on the other side.
They had a dog. Of course, they did. It barked. I reached down and picked up a chew toy that happened to be right where I needed it, and the threw it.
The dog scampered after it with wagging tail held high.
Letting out a breath of air, I considered our stealth approach might have been shot down in a hail of dog barks. Still, I took care scaling the rear fence, the dog watching me with chew toy in mouth and puppy dog eyes begging for another game, and landed in another crouch. This time no dog greeted me. But the residents were home, and a woman watched me from the kitchen window with her mouth hanging open.
I pulled my badge and held it up as I made my way to the fence that bordered Weston’s property. Once the woman nodded her head slowly and backed away from the window, I replaced my badge with a taser. I’d leave the gun for Weston himself.
I checked my watch. Thirty seconds seemed like hours.
And then I scaled the fence, using a pot plant the woman had conveniently beside the once again over-height fence, and landed on the other side right when Damon did.
Two bolts of fifty-thousand volts of electricity arced out and hit our respective guards in the chest. We raced up and caught them before they could thud to the ground on the hollow sounding deck. Once safely on their sides, we moved in tandem to the back door of the house.
I spotted cameras in the eaves. And a tripwire over the threshold of the rear entrance. I wouldn’t have put it past Weston to have had the windows wired to blow if tampered with. But the guards had to get in and out, so the tripwire was all that blocked our ingress.
It didn’t matter. He knew we were here.
I looked up into the nearest security lens and smiled.
Then I kicked down the back door and stormed inside.
Damon was right there with me. At my side. Covering my flank.
Walking into the spider’s web willingly.
Tricky things spiders. They hunt with patience. They sit and wait for their prey to come to them. You should try it, Keen. Sometimes you can catch the spider as he spins his own web.
The trap sprang closed behind us.
Chapter Thirty-Two
"Expect The Unexpected, Sport. Then They Can't Use Your Surprise Against You."
He used gas. Not triggered by the tripwire, but by the closing of the door at our backs. I tried to hold my breath, but my eyes stung, and the world became blurry and precious seconds ticked by as we felt around uselessly for doorways or obstacles or threats.
Eventually, I had to breathe; the hallway seemed to go on forever. The first lungful of smoke-filled air burned. The second sent me to my knees and then down to the wooden floor. I felt Damon’s hand on my shoulder; his fingers as they dug in trying to gain purchase on my jacket.
And then the weight of his body as he too succumbed to the inevitable and collapsed across my lower legs.
It had taken less than a minute.
I woke in small increments. Sounds came and went like some demented playground fair music on a warped merry-go-round. My lips felt cracked and dry. My throat parched. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes before the AOS would have closed off that street and suburb when we breached Weston’s back door. But the state of my dehydration told me it had been longer.
Some of the dehydration could have been blamed on the gas Weston had used. But I was pretty sure he’d been waiting for us and simply had an escape plan ready to put into action.
He just didn’t leave anyone behind, including Damon and me.
I blinked open gritty eyes and worked through hazy vision to take in my surroundings. The ceiling was white. The walls were blue. The window of the room I was in was covered in chintz curtains. Light crept in through a gap between them. I stared at that gap, at the small glimpse of freedom it provided. And I thought perhaps that Weston hadn’t been as thorough as he should have been.
The gap also provided a glimpse into the prison, too.
I strained to hear sounds, other than the whacky music my mind was conjuring, but if the sea was nearby, I couldn’t hear it. Had we left the eastern suburbs?
Would the gap in the window coverings even matter?
I licked my lips and turned my head. I was on a bed. Strapped down. Damon was on another one, also restrained. And Stretch lay out beside him. A double or queen, by the looks of it. I half expected to see Carole beside me on mine, but I was alone on my bed, and Carole was sitting beside Stretch biting her lip, washcloth in hand, tears filling overlarge eyes.
“Carole,” I whispered, but my voice was weak.
She heard me, but other than flicking a glance my way, she didn’t react. All her attention was on Stretch and tending his wounds with that stained washcloth in her shaking hand.
He looked terrible. Weston hadn’t bothered to restrain him the way Damon and I were. Our ankles and wrists were tied tightly to each corner of the bed. But Stretch was in no fit state to fight back. His skin was mottled and bruised. Blood coated his face. His nose looked crooked. His eye sockets were swollen and blackening. The haematoma looked days old. Some newer ones on top of older ones. He’d been beaten and then beaten again — a rough and uncontrolled
type of torture.
Had Weston lost his cool? Was it something I could use?
I looked down at my restraints and sighed.
Tugging on them did little other than chafe my skin. I rolled my shoulders, trying to feel my weapon in its holster. It wasn’t there. I’d been stripped of arms but at least left dressed for the occasion.
“Carole,” I tried again, my voice stronger. “Where’s Weston?”
She blinked at me and then bent down and continued tending Stretch’s injuries. She didn’t even seem to be aware that her brother was lying out cold beside them.
On that thought, Damon woke up with a start. He sucked in a lungful of air, trying to sit bolt upright but failing due to the restraints, and then started coughing.
“Damon,” I said as calmly as I could manage. “Slow and steady.”
He slowed his respirations down with apparent effort and then tugged on his restraints. His eyes darted around the room, finding me and relaxing marginally, and then landing on his sister as she hovered over an unconscious Stretch.
“Carole,” he said, sounding awful.
She ignored him completely.
“Stretch,” he tried and got nothing. “Shit,” he spat and then turned his head to look across the room to me. “Where’s Weston?”
“Not made an appearance as yet,” I said. “But I’ve only been awake a few minutes.”
“This isn’t the same house, is it?”
“No. I don’t think so.” No sea salt on the air. And the length of time that had to have past made me think we were somewhere other than where the AOS was.
I closed my eyes briefly and accepted that I’d walked us blindly into a trap. Weston might have been rattled by me, but he was still an ex-spook. I’d been stupid to think I could outwit him. He’d outwitted me.
Expect the unexpected, Sport. Then they can't use your surprise against you.
I was ashamed to admit I had been caught by surprise. But that didn’t mean I was down and out yet.
Lying here and waiting wouldn’t solve anything, and as much as I’d like to think I could have got myself out of my binds, that wasn’t happening either.
A Lick Of Heat: H.E.A.T. Book Four Page 28
