<<< Chapter Two >>>
Randy Lefleur, LexCorp’s director of security, was worried. The operation his boss had ordered was well-planned, but three of the ten people on the assault team had not participated in the most recent live exercise with the rest of the team. They were good, he knew, but it didn’t matter how good an officer was if he stepped unaware into his buddy’s line of fire. And the last live exercise had been five months before, which was plenty of time to forget any little details. Not to mention that the original plan called for an early morning jump-off, not a start time in the middle of the afternoon.
The briefing had been almost too quick and too easy. His people hadn’t asked many questions about the mission, which either meant that they were ready or that they didn’t know enough to ask good questions. It wasn’t apparent which was the case. Randy hoped it was the former but feared that it was the latter.
And Randy didn’t know if the target had upgraded her security in the upstate New Troy complex since the most recent report was filed, nor did he know if more people than the three bodyguards armed only with pistols were protecting the target. All in all, it made for a dangerous mission and a recipe for complete disaster if he wasn’t extremely careful.
Randy took center point and waved a two-person team around to the left side of the house, away from the four-car garage. He motioned for the four-person fire cover team to take up positions overlooking the right and back sides of the house. The other three spread out to cover the front of the building and the front of the garage.
Now the only ways for Arianna Carlin to leave the house were to surrender to them or to die in a shoot-out. And Randy desperately wanted to avoid a firefight. He’d seen too many operations just like this one during his FBI days which had gone south in a hurry, and every time that had happened someone had gotten hurt.
Sometimes some of the good guys died, too.
He looked at his watch and spoke into the microphone beside his mouth. “This is Team Leader. Communications check. Sound off in order.”
“Team one, check.”
“Team two, check.”
“Team three, check.”
“I copy all teams. Team one, any movement?”
“Negative. No action.”
“Team two, anything to report?”
“There’s a gardener in the back yard raking leaves. Older man, dressed in worn overalls and floppy hat, does not appear to be armed. Nothing else that I can see.”
“Team three?”
“Far garage door is open. I can see a late model dark blue Corvette Stingray facing outward but no movement.”
“Roger, three. Anything upstairs?”
“Negative – wait. Movement at one of – correction, two adjoining windows on the top floor. Looks like curtains being pulled back.”
That wasn’t a good sign, thought Randy. “Hold positions, repeat, hold positions. Watch those windows. Everybody look for any movement or anything out of the ordinary.”
*****
Beth-Ann was irritated. The movement sensors on the estate grounds had been triggered again. She hadn’t liked this new addition to the security net, since they could be set off by deer coming to feed or even large birds flying low over the grounds. And if she was on duty, it was her job to check the outdoor cameras to determine what was moving.
Nighttime was the worst. She hated getting up in the middle of the night because Bambi wanted a late-night snack. And she hated having to go outside and shoo them away because it messed up her sleep cycle. Dr. Carlin was jealous of her privacy, even from the local wildlife. Even though this was late afternoon and Beth-Ann hadn’t been awakened from a deep sleep, she still didn’t like it.
Beth-Ann checked the sensor grid. Funny, she thought, it looks like the deer have us surrounded today. Maybe they’re just –
No. The sensors had all been tripped at about the same time. Deer didn’t move in formation like that. She flicked on the video monitors and looked for wildlife.
No deer. No foxes sneaking around the grounds, no birds diving on snakes in the grass, no nothing.
Her attention snapped to a dark outline which looked like a pile of leaves with a stick poking out of it. The stick didn’t quite look natural – it was too straight and even. She dialed the lens in for a closer look.
The stick was not a stick. It was the barrel of an assault rifle.
She reached down and pressed the silent alert. She knew that two other women and two men in the house, all with good marksmanship skills and the willingness to use them, would take up positions in the house within moments. They’d check in over the intercom as soon as they were ready.
Beth-Ann began going through the camera feeds in order. She counted five – no, six bundles of fake leaves with rifles ringing the house. And surely that wasn’t all of them. Someone had them surrounded, and whoever was out there hadn’t come to sell them Girl Scout cookies. They were outnumbered and maybe outgunned. It was time for her to earn her generous salary.
She pressed another button. “Dr. Carlin? We have a serious problem.”
*****
Randy keyed his microphone again. “This is Team Leader. Anybody see any more movement?”
“Team two. The gardener just dropped his rake and hustled to the back door. I think they know we’re here, boss.”
Great. Just great. That was all they needed. Almost any position could be defended against an attacking force at least twice the size of the defending force if the defenders knew the attackers were coming, and this house was designed and built to be defended. He didn’t know how many armed defenders were in the house, he didn’t know how they were armed, and worst of all he didn’t know how they’d been spotted. Now they’d lost the element of surprise, and alert defenders were three times more dangerous than if they hadn’t been alerted to the assault.
He switched frequencies and keyed the mic once more. “Base, this is assault team leader. We have lost the element of surprise. Repeat, the target is awake and ready. Request permission to withdraw.”
He waited ten seconds, then called again. “Base, this is assault team leader. Do you copy this transmission?”
“Roger, team leader, we copy. Stand by.”
Stand by? He needed to get his people out of danger right now, not wait for some desk jockey to decide what he should do. This operation had all the makings of something going bad very quickly, and he didn’t want the responsibility for any more serious injuries or deaths on his conscience.
He made a decision. “Base! This is team leader! I am aborting this mission and withdrawing all personnel. Repeat, I am aborting this mission and – “
“Ah, negative, team leader, negative. Zeus Leader is out of contact. Hold your position and stand by.”
“No, you idiot! They know we’re here and they’re ready! I don’t want – “
A single rifle shot rang out from one of the windows in the upper story of the house. Randy looked up but couldn’t see where it had come from or where it had been aimed, and before he could switch frequencies to call to his team leaders, at least four of his people opened up on the house.
Each of the shooters aimed his or her military-grade M16 and sent two three-round bursts of fire on the target, just as they’d been trained. When the bullets stopped flying, the second front window from the garage side of the house on the upper level had been reduced to glass fragments and shredded wood chips.
He finally got the frequency switch set correctly. “Cease fire! Repeat, cease fire! Move back and take cover!”
“Boss!” called a frantic voice. “Denise is hit! They shot Denise!”
“Get a hold of yourself! Team leaders, check your people now and report in! Everybody else get off the comm net! And stay off!”
He sensed as much as he heard his people shuffling backwards away from the house. Some would shift behind trees, some into natural hollows in the ground, and the team on the side away from the garage would slide behind a low decorative stone wall. Silence descended on the grounds as he waited for a report.
“Team leader, this is Team One. No casualties.”
“Team leader, this is Team Three. No casualties.”
Another long moment, then a third voice said, “Team leader, this is Team Two. One casualty.”
Randy keyed his mic. “Status?”
The silence stretched out again. “Officer is – is dead.”
No.
He keyed the mic again. “Confirm last message, Team Two.”
There was a pause, then, “Message confirmed. Bio-sensors read no activity. Officer is dead.”
He’d lost another person. Denise something, one of the new people on the team, one who’d asked no questions during the briefing, one who’d exuded a steely confidence and nodded at each of Randy’s points. She’d been young and focused, stern and determined, clear-eyed and eager to do her job.
Now she was dead. And he didn’t even remember her last name.
He decided he’d weep for her privately.
*****
Beth-Ann Reynolds was furious. She almost ripped the headset off and threw it across the room, but instead shouted into the pickup. “Everybody move back and take cover! Now! And check in when you’re secure!”
She waited, fuming. She knew, without being told, who had fired the first shot from the house. It was that slightly crazy guy who Nigel was training to be his personal assassin. Paul Snider was a dead shot with a scoped rifle and murderously effective with a knife in close, but he could barely hit the floor with a pistol in his hand. Beth-Ann thought it had something to do with his eagerness to kill someone, anyone, and because of his attitude she’d objected to placing him at the house. But Nigel had wanted his skill with a rifle available to defend Dr. Carlin should it become necessary.
She’d hoped that the people out there were police officers, because they had rules to obey and procedures to follow. Police officers would have reacted to a single shot by moving backwards and trying to open negotiations. But these guys had started shooting right away and clobbered Snider’s position without a word or a phone call. And they hadn’t opened up with everything they had, shooting wildly all over the house. They’d targeted the shooter’s location and stopped shooting after hitting it.
They were well-trained and disciplined. That meant that they were paramilitary, probably mercenaries hired to assault the house and eliminate its occupants. She didn’t know who they were, but it had to be someone or something important. Maybe Intergang had decided to stop waiting for Dr. Carlin to respond to their latest offer. Maybe the local mobsters were trying to eliminate a rival, although this wasn’t their usual style.
Maybe it didn’t matter who they were. Maybe the attackers were going to bring the whole house down around their heads and burn the rubble. Maybe it was time for Beth-Ann to update her resume and find a less dangerous position, like holding targets for beginning shooters at a firing range, or playing catch at a porcupine toss.
The call in her ear startled her. “Beth-Ann? This is Roger. I’m back in the armored closet in bedroom four.”
She took a deep breath before responding. “Good. Anyone else?”
“This is Yvette. I’m safe in the kitchen downstairs. Mr. Carson just ran past me to the escape tunnel.”
“Who?”
“The gardener. He was raking leaves before somebody started reenacting the shootout at the OK Corral.”
Beth-Ann frowned. “That’s enough, Yvette. Keep your transmissions short and on topic.”
“Roger that.”
“This is Karen. I’m looking out of the garage. Don’t see anyone.”
“Okay, you three, hang on,” responded Beth-Ann. “Paul? Are you there?” No answer. “Paul? If you can hear me, respond now.”
Silence. “Beth-Ann, this is Roger. Want me to go check on him?”
She considered for a moment, then asked, “Can you get there without exposing yourself to fire?”
“I think so. Hang on, I’m going to go slow.”
The intercom went silent. As Beth-Ann waited and fumed, Dr. Carlin opened the door and slipped in. She lifted her eyebrows in query, and Beth-Ann lifted one hand in a ‘wait’ gesture.
“Beth-Ann? This is Roger. I found Snider.”
“How is he?”
“They put at least four rounds in his chest and a couple in his head. Looks to me like multiple shooters got him. He’s dead as a hammer. And the window is completely wrecked. We can’t use it at all.”
“Copy. Get back to your position and stay low.” She clicked off her mic and turned to Dr. Carlin. “Nigel’s pet psycho fired at our guests – without my authorization – and they killed him for bothering them. I don’t know who they are, but we’ve got some serious trouble on our hands. You might think about using that fancy new escape tunnel.”
Arianna nodded slowly. “Where are they now?”
Beth-Ann turned to the monitor and flipped through the camera views again. “They seem to have pulled back a little, but just to better cover. Wait – there’s one who hasn’t moved.” She turned to her boss. “Looks like Snider shot straight to the end.”
Arianna frowned. “Can you reach them with the machine gun on the roof?”
“What? You want to turn this into a full-on firefight?”
“They killed one of our people. We should respond with force.”
“They shot at us because Paul Snider took a shot at one of them! I think he killed whoever he shot at, too! If we start firing a machine gun at them there’s no telling what they’ll hit us with!”
“If they had heavier weapons, they would have used them already. Go up to the machine gun cupola and try to take them out. The other three will support your position.”
This time Beth-Ann did rip off her headset. “Are you nuts? These guys are pros! That machine gun isn’t your salvation, it’s your death!”
And mine too, she added mentally.
Carlin leaned closer. “Go up there and drive them away. Kill as many as you can. I will not allow my home to be shot to pieces without any response.”
“Dr. Carlin – “
“Now, Beth-Ann. Remember who is paying your salary.” She paused before adding, “And who pays the salary for the people watching your brother and his family.”
Jack. She’d threatened Jack and Jeannie and their two kids. And Beth-Ann knew it wasn’t a hollow threat.
She took a deep breath, then put on the headset again. “Hey, gang, it’s me again. Any movement out there?”
“This is Karen. No movement.”
“This is Yvette. Not that I can see.”
“This is Roger. They’re just sitting there – wait, two more are coming across the far side of the front yard.”
Great. More of them coming to the party. “Are they carrying anything, Roger?”
“Yes, but I can’t tell what it is. Might be just more rifles.”
Might be a pool cue or a rocket launcher, too, and she wouldn’t bet on them trying a three-cushion bank shot. She almost cursed, then said, “I’m moving to the attic position. When I open fire, all of you aim to the garage side and open up. That’s where most of the rest of them are. I’m going after their center.”
For a moment, there was no response. Then Yvette asked, “You’re going to use the machine gun?”
“Orders. Everyone ready to go?”
She heard someone breathe into the mic, then Karen said, “Ready.”
“This is Roger. I’m ready.”
“This is Yvette. Are you sure – “
Beth-Ann cut her off. “Get set, all of you! Live fire from the top of the house about two minutes from now.”
There was no more chatter. Beth-Ann pulled off the headset and turned to Arianna Carlin. “I hope this works out like you want it to.”
Carlin nodded. “It will. Tell everyone to make their way to the secondary base as soon as they can. You’ll make the call to withdraw.”
“What? Me? Why am I – “
“Because you’ll have the best view, and because you’ll be able to tell when it will be safe to break away. Now go on and do your job. I’ll be listening in but I won’t interfere with your instructions.”
Beth-Ann nodded and spoke into the headset. “One more item, people. Be ready to bug out to the secondary safe house when I give the word. But not until I give it.”
She dropped the headset on the desk before anyone could answer and strode past her employer without looking back. Once more she was putting her life on the line for a greedy, selfish, cruel and calculating inhuman woman who cared for no one other than herself.
Beth-Ann ran up the staircase to the second floor, then pulled down the attic ladder and scrambled up. The machine gun emplacement was set up in the middle of the roof, atop the gables, and disguised to look like a typical old-fashioned rooftop gazebo. But it was well armored and a gunner could cover either the front or the back of the house, along with most of either side, simply by swiveling the gun.
Beth-Ann snarled to herself. Should have taken that job as a bouncer at that night club, she thought. Then all she’d have to deal with would have been drunks and groupies, not armed mercenaries. If not for the threat against her brother, she’d leave right now.
This was no way to make a living. It was just a very colorful and violent way to die.
*****
Two more people ran to the command position. A wide-eyed young man slid down beside Randy, puffing from the adrenalin rush. “Yeah – we got it – right here – Candy!”
For a moment Randy thought he was asking for chocolate, but then he realized that the second figure – a tight-lipped young woman whose face was whiter than any refrigerator – was carrying a long tube. She handed it past the young man and to Randy, then lifted her head to get a better look at the house.
He grabbed her shoulder and yanked her down behind the slight incline. “Keep your head down!” he snarled. “You want to commit suicide, do it on your own time!”
The young man blurted, “They told me – to bring this to you – you’d know how – to use it.”
“Easy, kid, take a couple of slow, deep breaths before you hyperventilate on me.”
“Yessir.” He did so, then he dragged a shoulder bag in front of him. “I brought eight rounds, too. I can go back for more if you need me to.”
Randy closed his eyes for a moment and grimaced at the boy’s enthusiasm for blowing things up. When he opened his eyes, the young man was frowning at him. “You do know how to use it, don’t you, sir?”
Randy nodded his head. Of course he knew how to use the AT-5 shoulder-fired rocket launcher. It was far better than the old American bazooka and a definite improvement to its single-use predecessor, the AT-4. The Swedish-made weapon was easy to load, easy to aim, easy to fire, and the shaped charge in the projectile it fired was effective against armored vehicles smaller than a heavy tank and against gun emplacements.
It was also effective against houses, which was probably the reason someone in the rear had decided to give him the option of having one. With this weapon, he could drop the house almost to its foundations with three or four rounds. “I’d rather not have to fire it at all, kid,” he said. “Those rockets can – “
The young man’s head all but exploded in a shower of blood and bone. Randy ducked back and felt an anvil hit his right foot. People were yelling at him from around him and on his comm unit, and he realized that someone in the house had decided to raise the bet in this little game of ballistic poker.
*****
Beth-Ann released the trigger on the M60 machine gun and waited for some movement in her target area. She thought she’d hit at least one of the attacking force, maybe two, and as she glanced to either side she saw others trying to burrow into the ground. This was the first time she’d fired this gun at human targets, and it was simultaneously an exhilarating and terrifying experience.
Rifle bullets began pinging off the right side of the cupola, so she swiveled the gun in that direction and raked the base of the trees. The fire from the ground stopped and she turned back to the center. She looked for another target but couldn’t spot anyone else exposed.
She tapped her intercom. “Okay, people, everybody get ready to move. I’m going to lay down a long burst at – Ow! Crap!”
More rifle fire, this time from the left side of the front yard, distracted her. One round had found the gun slit and ricocheted around her position at least twice before finding her left calf.
Beth-Ann howled into the intercom and grabbed her leg. “I’m hit! I’m hit!”
“This is Yvette! How bad is it?”
Beth-Ann yanked a compression bandage from the first-aid kit in the floor of the cupola. “Ricochet got me in the left calf.” She tightened the bandage on her leg and groaned. “Hurts a lot. But I’m okay.” I think, she added mentally.
She wiped bloody fingers on her pants and turned the gun to the left, then ripped off a long burst into the trees. Before she was firing to keep people’s heads down. Now she was hunting them.
The ammo belt ran out and she quickly opened and loaded another. “Okay, people, let’s try this again. I’m going to let off a long burst in the center. When I do, everyone fire three rounds at whatever targets you have, even if they’re not clear, and then head for the hills. Got it?”
“This is Roger. Check.”
“This is Yvette. Check.”
“This is Karen. Received and understood. Do you want me to wait for you? Those stairs can be tricky, especially if you have a leg wound.”
“Thanks, but no. You guys get out through the tunnel and meet at the secondary rendezvous point. Escort Dr. Carlin to the safe house on the coast and make tracks for the beta site in upstate New Troy.” She checked the bolt on the gun again and aimed. “Ready? Fire!”
*****
As soon as the machine gun fired again, he opened the rocket launcher and yanked open the ammo bag in front of the dead boy and pulled out a round. He loaded it into the tube and checked the electrical connections from the tube to the propellant charge, then squirmed closer to the top of the rise.
He moved to his left and found a little dip in the small ridge, then looked up and found the machine gun. It was on the top of the roof, and at the moment it was firing into the woods on his right. One of his teams was taking a pounding and he couldn’t help them.
Not without using the rocket launcher.
A woman’s frantic voice caught his attention. He glanced back at the young man whose brains were splattered on the ground. The young woman who’d come in with him – Candy – was shaking the dead boy, yelling at him to wake up. She was crying so hard she was nearly incoherent.
Randy ground his teeth. This had to stop. They hadn’t come to this house to kill anyone, but they’d been fired on and had already lost at least two people. Two of his people, Denise something and the young man whose name he’d never heard, were dead. He shifted and pain shot up his right leg. A glance at his boot told him that a bullet had hit the side of his foot, which was now slowly dripping red.
No more.
The machine gun began firing at his position again. He turned to aim the launcher, but not before he’d seen Candy take a bullet to the top of her shoulder. She screamed in agony as Randy peered through the sight.
He pressed the launch trigger.
*****
Beth-Ann saw one of the attackers jerk and roll to one side. Another hit. She only hoped it was enough for all of them to get away. She pointed the gun slightly to her left and kept firing.
Movement to the right of her aiming point arrested her attention. Someone was pointing something at the house, so she decided to do something about it. The machine gun spat more lead as it swiveled to attack this new threat.
But before she could walk the bullets to her new target, a puff of white smoke appeared in front of the man on the ground. She wondered what he was shoo–
*****
The rocket hit the base of the machine gun position on the roof exactly where it had been aimed. The shaped charge penetrated the light armor around Beth-Ann’s position and the force of the explosion crushed her body as if she were a department store mannequin.
Her death was immediate.
She never felt the structure around her give way and fall all the way to the ground floor. She wasn’t aware that the roof behind her position was shattered and blown into the back yard. And she didn’t feel the rubble from the roof and the second floor cover her body.
Beth-Ann would never update her resume. She’d never get that chance to turn her life around. And her brother Jack would never know that she’d given her life not in defense of a violent criminal, but to protect his life and those of his family.
*****
Randy grabbed his comm handset and screamed, “Go! Go! Go!”
Two rifle teams charged the house from opposite sides. One team burst through the front door and slid inside. The other cautiously approached the garage, then leapfrogged each other as they sprinted in. His team, the one in the center, watched the house, ready to give supporting fire if needed.
But there was no more shooting, not from anyone inside or outside. Randy kept listening, not willing to distract any of his team leaders with a demand for information.
The waiting was almost worse than the shooting had been.
Finally he heard a call. “Team two reporting. There’s no one alive in the house. One body upstairs in the room where we took fire earlier. The machine gunner is dead, too.”
“Roger, team two.”
“Team three reporting. No one outside, but we captured one woman alive and unhurt. She did not, repeat, she did not fire at us. The captive is under control and isolated.”
“She can ride in the back of the withdrawal vehicle with your team, Three.”
“Roger. The back yard is empty. Looks like the rest of whoever was here went out an escape tunnel in the kitchen floor. Thing’s built like a watertight hatch on a ship, hinges on the inside where we can’t get to them, and it won’t open from this side. We’ll have to cut through it with a torch.”
“Negative, team three. Both teams withdraw to the front yard and link up with team one. We have some casualties to take care of.”
“Team three, roger.”
“Team two, roger.”
As soon as Randy saw his people coming out of the house, he switched frequencies. “Base, this is assault team leader. We have one captive and we need medical help on site right now. We have several casualties.”
“What? Casualties? You weren’t supposed to start a war, Randy!”
“You stupid – “ Randy controlled himself with an effort. “We didn’t start it, you moron, we got shot at first! Now get those med teams here! And send a couple of ambulances right now!”
He pulled the headset off before the controller could respond. Then he lay back and tried not to make his foot hurt any more than it already did.
What a FUBARed operation this was.
