She bent over and whispered, “Welcome to my world. You should’ve taken my offer.” She reared back and kicked him in the groin again, this time hard enough to rupture his nuts.
This wasn’t over. The gunman who’d nailed her with the TASER must still be outside. Why hadn’t he attacked? Maybe McBride was already here.
Wishful thinking, LG. You need to pretend McBride’s not coming and fight your way out of this.
She took a few seconds to listen for sound. All she heard was Glen’s raspy breathing, growing more strained and weak with each passing second. He’d be gone inside a minute.
The only other sound in the house was the muffled baying of her dogs.
Her husband’s voice startled her.
“Linda, I’m sorry . . .”
“Breathe, Glen, just keep breathing.”
“Our dogs . . . Get them out . . .” He coughed up blood.
He’s dying and he’s worried about our dogs?
“Love you . . .”
“I’m calling an ambulance.” It was a white lie she could live with. Calling 911 wouldn’t save him.
How could this be happening? A few minutes ago, she’d been asleep in her bed. Now, Glen bled out on the kitchen floor. She’d doled out her share of death, but she’d never been on the wrong side of it so personally. It felt so brutal and unfair, Glen being murdered for something connected to her past.
Another wave of anger swelled, but she couldn’t grasp the feeling with much force. She ought to be able to tap its red energy and use it to harden her resolve, but it slipped away.
The Ketamine.
Stay focused, Genneken.
What were her options? More gunmen remained. At least two more. She thought it unlikely any of her neighbors had heard the flash bangs, given the rainy weather, the distance between the houses, and the fact that the detonations occurred inside. And even if they had, the sounds could easily be dismissed as kids playing with fireworks. Smart idea, her attackers choosing New Year’s Eve for their assault.
She found another set of disposable handcuffs in her attacker’s backpack and secured the guy’s hands behind his back. She then took a dish towel and gagged him, tying it tightly around the back of his head.
To her horror, a wave of warmth grabbed her.
No. Not yet . . .
CHAPTER 4
Nathan felt it, the butterflies of mortal combat. This wasn’t a video game where you morphed back to life. This was the real deal.
Real bullets.
Real death.
Understanding the danger allowed adrenaline to do its vital work, preparing him for battle.
He wished he could advance through the canyon more quickly, but he had to keep clearing his surrounding area. If the enemy got eyes on him first, the result wouldn’t be good. Even if his vest stopped a bullet, he’d be in a bad way.
At the base of the vertical bluff below her backyard, he took a few seconds to listen and swore he heard the faint pop of suppressed handgun fire.
He moved west along the cliff over to the stairs. A small locked gate guarded the landing, but he easily hopped it.
Nathan kept his Sig Sauer nine millimeter in his hand and tested a step. The wood didn’t creak and he began his ascent.
Near the top, he slowed and peered over. Detecting no one, he hurried up the last seven treads and ran over to a line of oleander bushes along the fence, screening Linda’s pool from prying eyes. Beyond the fence, groups of patio furniture sat on the concrete deck. He used the NV to scan the house and saw a shattered French door. Other than that, things looked undamaged. He caught the faint odor of burned power, probably left over from the stun grenades. He reached into his waist pack for his thermal imager, but didn’t find it. Crap. In his haste to get up here, after seeing Linda’s windows ignite, he’d forgotten to grab it.
Way to go, McBride.
Without warning, the entire ground floor of Linda’s house flashed at the same instant he heard the thump. At least if the intruders were still deploying bangers, it meant they hadn’t killed or captured her yet.
Nathan estimated her house stood a good fifty yards away from his current position. He considered making an all-out sprint, but without knowing how many gunmen he faced or their locations, it could be the last thing he ever did.
He paralleled the oleander bushes, working his way toward the western boundary of the property, where an eight-foot stucco wall separated her place from the neighbor’s. Planted along the wall, a row of citrus trees offered him a good way to advance toward the house with some cover.
He looked at the shattered French door and froze when he heard a suppressed pistol shot from somewhere inside. His night vision picked up more flashes from suppressed shots, followed by several more. In Spanish, a man yelled a crude string of words about LG’s mother. Nathan didn’t hear a sixth shot over the hollering, but his NV registered the flash. The foul language ended.
Linda was likely alive and, from the sound of things, engaged in a handgun battle.
The next thing he heard was glass breaking and a different kind of sound. He couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like a TASER. A distinctive pop-like sound, quite different from a suppressed handgun. If the intruders were using nonlethal grenades, it made sense they’d also be using nonlethal handguns, with the intent to take her prisoner.
Thirty feet ahead, the pool fence changed direction and ran north toward the house. Fortunately, the oleander bushes followed the fence. If anyone were inside the pool area, the bushes gave Nathan good concealment.
He’d been about to dash over to the line of citrus trees when he sensed immediate danger. Call it intuition, or ESP, or just dumb luck, but something made him look to his left.
Good thing he did.
On the expanse of grass, Nathan saw the faint outline of a man running toward the shattered French door. Nathan knew the gunman had spotted him because the guy stopped and didn’t fire. The man needed a few seconds to determine whether Nathan was a friendly.
A costly delay.
In the NV image, Nathan saw the gunman’s laser come to life and sweep across the grass directly toward him.
Nathan dived to a prone position, ignored the punch to his stomach from the waist pack, and brought his Sig to bear.
Nathan fired first.
And missed.
Damn it! He should’ve made that shot.
Although his bullet flew off-target, it caused the gunman to flinch, which bought him half a second for a follow-up shot.
His opponent shuddered as the bullet punched his body armor.
Not wanting to risk missing a headshot at this distance, Nathan drilled him again. And again. Subsonic rounds didn’t pack the energy of their supersonic counterparts, but they still hurt like hell. The gunman dropped to the grass to stop the assault on his rib cage.
Nathan didn’t oblige him.
He bench-rested his pistol and fired three more rounds as fast as he could accurately pull the trigger. One of them found the gunman’s neck.
His cervical column severed, the gunman stopped moving. Taking no chances, Nathan aimed just under the guy’s NVGs and fired his eighth bullet. The gunman’s head jerked from the impact.
Not knowing if anyone had lined up on his muzzle flashes, he rolled left. Fortunately, no return fire came his way. He sprinted across the open expanse of lawn toward the first citrus tree along LG’s western property line.
After reloading his Sig, he heard it: a female scream of pure rage.
Linda felt the sensation arrive in the form of a gentle surge, like the end of a foamy wave soaking into the sand. She knew the next one would be bigger and longer. An intramuscular injection took five to ten minutes, maybe less, depending on the dose. There was nothing she could do. Medical chemistry couldn’t be defeated through willpower alone.
She had a date with oblivion.
Making matters worse, Glen’s labored breathing stopped.
Doing CPR on him might extend his life by a few minutes, but
she couldn’t do that and fight the intruders at the same time. And what was the point? CPR would only delay the inevitable. Glen wasn’t coming back.
She wiped a tear and focused on her threat vectors: the dining room, the kitchen door, and the stairwell’s landing. She believed at least two more gunmen still stalked her property. Or was it three? How many had she killed?
Another feeling of warmth engulfed her.
Linda looked at the microwave’s clock: 12:07 a.m. Within five minutes, she’d be semiconscious and quite helpless. With a little luck, her white knight would arrive by then. She hoped he’d find more than bloody smears on the floor.
Her assailant moaned and tried to get to his knees. Keeping her head up, she approached the kitchen counter where a wooden block of Cutco knives sat next to the toaster. She grabbed the block and shook the knives onto the floor. Shit, the clanging sounds were too damned loud. Screw it. Like swinging an axe to split firewood, she drove the block of oak onto the bound gunman’s jaw and felt bone crack. The man went slack.
Who’s begging for death now, asshole?
She turned from the guy and grabbed the biggest serrated knife.
What she needed to do wouldn’t be easy or quick. Working against the clock, she held the knife between her feet with its sharp edge pointing upward. Annoyingly, the knife kept slipping because of the blood from her punctured foot. She used the dish towel she’d stuffed in her waistband to wrap the knife’s handle, which seemed to do the trick. Leaning forward, she began moving the plasticuffs back and forth along the blade, sawing through the plastic. If she used too much downward pressure, she ran the risk of the blade slipping sideways—into one of her wrists. Not a bad way to go, given the alternative.
She made progress, but disposable cuffs weren’t like common zip ties. They were thick and tough.
What was that salty taste in her mouth?
She tried to think.
It had something to do with her thigh . . . Her thigh? That didn’t make sense. Then she remembered being kicked, spinning toward the island. Her nose had smashed into the cabinet.
It happened without warning.
A massive swell of light-headedness took her to a place she didn’t want to go, but it felt oddly compelling to drift with it. Oh, man, that feels good. Something else . . . All of her pain had vanished. She closed her eyes but snapped them back open. Behind the descending curtain of fog, she knew the Special K had wormed its way into her brain, slowly peeling away her will to resist.
The knife slipped from between her feet and she stared at its strange form.
What’s that knife for?
She reached for it, but both hands moved forward at the same time.
Weird . . . Why did both hands move?
Her wrists.
They were bound by disposable handcuffs.
She’d been using the knife to cut through them.
Casting caution aside, she re-braced the knife between her feet and forcefully sawed back and forth. In a last-ditch effort, she gritted her teeth and pressed harder. The plastic gave and her hands smacked the floor. She reached up, found the tiny wires connected to the back of her neck, and yanked the prongs free.
She slumped against the cabinets, exhausted.
The pool of blood under Glen’s body looked too small. Why did that matter?
Think, Linda!
His heart. It wasn’t pumping with much force. If he had any hope of living, the puddle ought to be bigger.
Wait, his heart wasn’t pumping at all.
He’d been shot.
When her eyes started to roll back, she whipped her head from side to side, trying to clear her mind.
It only made things worse.
The kitchen’s cabinets looked out of kilter. She straightened her head and cabinets leveled out.
This really sucks.
Any second now, another gunman was going to appear and take her prisoner. Would he laugh at her? Kick her around first?
Her Beretta seemed so far away. She reached out, but her hand fell to her lap. What’s that charred odor? It smelled like burned wiring and sulfur. Was the house on fire? No, not fire . . . stun grenades.
Were those fireworks outside?
One of her neighbors must be popping off firecrackers or bottle rockets.
Idiots, she thought. Don’t they know about the wildfire danger? Oh, wait, it’s raining. Brilliant thought, Linda . . .
More pops.
From outside.
If she could hear the neighbor’s fireworks, then maybe they’d heard the bangers and called the police.
Sadness washed through her.
This was so unfair to Glen. He hadn’t been a bad man. They’d had some really bad arguments, but she’d try not to remember him that way.
Keeping her eyes open became its own battle as she felt her world begin to compress. She hoped Glen’s death wouldn’t be in vain.
I’ll see you again . . . but not tonight.
She needed to remember something, something important.
Someone was coming.
Someone really big.
A few pops from nearby fireworks broke the silence.
With his night-vision scope still deployed, Nathan sprinted across the open lawn and stopped at the broken French door.
If he didn’t warn LG he was coming in, he might get shot. But warning LG meant complicating her situation. She’d have to worry about shooting a friendly and might hesitate at the moment of truth. She knew he was coming; she just didn’t know when. Weighing the consequences both ways, he made the decision.
Staying to the side of the door, he yelled, “LG! Friendly coming in!”
He waited for a barrage of small-arms fire, but nothing happened. Maybe they’d already taken her and bugged out. It hadn’t been more than a minute since he heard the suppressed pistol shots. Only one way to find out.
He peered around the edge and scanned the interior. This part of LG’s house was a library. He remembered it from when he and Harv had installed her security system. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the walls, augmented by three-sided alcoves.
He saw the upper half of a downed man. The rest of the body lay inside one of the book alcoves. He adjusted the focus and saw the same digital camo, armored vest, and backpack that the gunman he’d killed at the pool wore. A small puddle of blood encircled the man’s head. At least LG had gotten one of them. He moved deeper into the library and ducked behind the pool table.
The acidic odor of burned powder hung in the air. Somewhere from deep inside the house, a dog barked. Check that, several dogs. It wasn’t vicious sounding, more like frustrated.
So far, LG hadn’t responded. He’d announced his entrance and he wouldn’t do it again. If LG were still alive, she might be engaged and responding to his call would reveal her location.
He’d hold position for a few more seconds before advancing. He summoned a mental image of Linda’s house. He hadn’t been here in years, but her house was one of the first to employ their MSS, multi-sensor system, linked to mobile devices. It still baffled Nathan why the motion sensors hadn’t been triggered. Maybe LG had turned the system off once the thermals picked up the threats.
Working his way deeper inside, he stopped at a short hallway that led to the kitchen and dining room.
Ahead, three bodies lay at the landing of a stairwell and he couldn’t help but notice her marksmanship. The spray patterns on the walls were a reminder of how deadly LG was.
And still is, it seemed.
He needed to make a second announcement and had an idea. It was worth a try. He offered a warbling whistle, like a whip-poor-will.
The response came in a loud, slurred whisper. “McBride . . . is that you?”
“Yes.”
“In the kitchen.”
Her tone sounded oddly relaxed. He peered around the corner, saw the island but no sign of LG. She had to be on the opposite side.
Keeping his head up, he circled the island and found an
other dead gunman in front of the sink. Two more men lay next to Linda, one of them looking exactly like the guy near the sink, but this one was still breathing. The other man, not breathing, had to be her husband. His bloodstained T-shirt told Nathan why.
Slumped against the island, Linda rested her head against a cabinet door. Her face and white Sea World T-shirt were smeared with blood. She’d changed her appearance from what he remembered. Her dark hair, weaved in cornrows and hanging braids, accented her facial features perfectly. The ends of her braids were secured by metal beads the size of small marbles. Severed plasticuffs encircled her wrists. He hated the visual of this woman being slowly tortured to death.
From what Nathan could gather, she’d gone hand to hand, and the gunman at her feet clearly lost the bout; his mouth still oozed blood.
“Is the house clear?” he whispered.
“Probably not.” She sounded drugged.
“Can you walk?”
She shook her head and motioned at the syringe next to her. “Special K.”
Nathan squinted at the term. The street name for Ketamine.
“How long ago?”
“Dunno . . . What took you so long?”
“I stopped for coffee.”
She nodded at the unconscious gunman. “Finish him.”
“Linda, he’s out of the fight.”
“Going to rape me . . . they all were. He . . . murdered Glen.”
Nathan stared, his mind working. Clearly, this man had committed murder and planned to sexually torture Linda. He didn’t know what was going on, or why these men had attacked her, but murder was a capital offense and this guy had a date with a needle.
Gut check time.
Who was Nathan McBride? Judge, jury, and executioner? Or a Marine with ethics and a code of honor. Yes, he’d executed men in the past; but was it justified now?
She pointed to her pistol. “Use mine.”
He didn’t like the idea of killing a helpless man, but Linda wouldn’t lie about Glen’s murder or that this man intended to rape her. His trust was absolute. If Linda wanted him dead, that was good enough.
He picked up her pistol and tried to flip his mental switch, but it wouldn’t budge.