Nightstalkers (21 page)

Ready, Nada slipped out the back door and was startled as the floodlights above his head automatically came on. Motion detector. Cursing, Nada went back in the house and turned off all the switches next to the door. He exited and this time, no lights.

There was a pool, almost big enough to take in the Snake. There were enough permanent security lights all over the place that his night-vision goggles weren’t needed.

Nada moved around the pool to the back fence. There were woods behind the house, so at least they had a way to move in and out. The neighbors on either side were about fifty meters away in their own hulking McMansions.

He looked for dead zones, places where they could operate unobserved. There was a pool house—he guessed that’s what it was called, because it was on the other side of the pool. It had a bar with the biggest built-in grill that Nada had ever seen. It was outside the range of the Wall around the home. He went over to it, opened the metal grate door, and looked around inside. There were steel shutters that could be cranked down. He pondered what their purpose was for a moment: hurricane protection? It was too far inland for a hurricane. Then he realized it was to secure the grill and the other stuff inside. He looked about and spotted a switch. Flipping it, the shutters slid down with a rattle, leaving only the door as an access—or egress—point.

This could be useful.

Nada left the pool house. As he stealthily made a circuit of the perimeter of the Winslow mansion, he noticed something doing a perimeter of its own. A small dog was shadowing him, about ten meters away, just outside the range of the Wall. It was a dog that obviously absorbed lots of bathing and trimming.

Nada went around the front of the house, then pressed his back against the wall, drawing his machete.

He waited, something he was very good at.

But the dog wasn’t coming.

Smart dog, Nada thought. Too smart.

He risked peeking around the edge. The dog was motionless, waiting for him outside the Wall.

“I got a possible,” Nada whispered on the team net. “Small dog, east side of house.”

“Roland,” Moms’s voice came over the radio. “Back up Nada.”

The dog was staring at Nada with unblinking eyes and he was shifting his evaluation from possible to probable. Of course, he’d met some crazy dogs.

He heard a door open and a light went on down the street. A woman called out in a half whisper, half yell: “Skippy! Skippy!”

Nada checked out the dog. It was focused on him.

“Skippy!” The woman’s voice was an octave higher. “Treat! Treat!”

“I’ve got the dog in sight,” Roland reported.

“Roland. See the pool house?” Nada asked.

“The what?”

“The thing on the other side of the pool with the steel shutters that are closed.”

“Roger. Understand.” Roland might not know pool houses and he might be nervous around dolls, but he was quick with tactics.

Nada extended the stock of the MP-5, then tucked it tight into his firing shoulder. He stepped around the corner of the house, pulling the trigger fast, semiautomatic. The suppressor made low chugging sounds as rounds left the barrel. The clicking sound of the gun’s mechanisms was like music to Nada’s ears.

Every round hit the dog, knocking it back.

It did not die.

Nada kept shooting. The dog darted right, growling and snapping its teeth.

The bolt on the MP-5 locked open, but Nada had been counting his trigger pulls and was pushing the eject button for the mag as it did so. He slammed home another mag of subsonic without missing a beat.

But the dog was faster. Nada got three rounds from the second mag into the dog, aiming for the head, before it launched.

It hit the Wall just six inches from Nada’s face and bounced back.

Stupid Firefly.

Nada flipped the switch and fired the rest of the mag on automatic at the stunned thing on the ground just in front of him, ripping shreds out of it.

Moving out of the darkness to the right, Roland was walking steadily forward, firing his MP-5 one-handed, adding to the carnage. In his other hand he held a recycle bin. The Flamer was on his back, the pistol grip secure in its asbestos sheath.

The dog rolled, trying to get to its feet, except Nada had severed both front legs with that automatic burst.

Nada reloaded one more time, fired half the mag into what remained of the dog, then dropped the weapon to the end of its sling while drawing his machete. The dog’s head was still moving, teeth snapping, and the rear legs scrambling. Nada slammed the
point of the machete down through the dog’s chest and flipped it right into the recycle bin.

Roland slammed the lid shut on the bin.

They could hear the dog scrabbling around inside. Teeth ripped at plastic and a hole appeared.

Nada and Roland ran for the pool house. The hole grew bigger as Skippy shredded plastic. Roland skidded to a halt in the doorway of the pool house and threw the bin in. Nada fired over Roland’s left shoulder, riddling the bin and Skippy inside.

Roland pulled the pistol grip and fired the flamer.

The steel shutters contained the flame, and the dog was ashes in seconds.

The Firefly rose, hovered, and then dissipated.

“One down,” Nada reported. He looked at the pile of ash. “Sorry, Skippy. You might have even been a good dog.”

He tapped Roland on the shoulder. “Good job. Go back in and take over watch. I’m going to finish my perimeter sweep, then I’ll be in.”

Roland nodded.

Nada went back to the front of the house, then moved around, staying inside of the jungle of plantings that blanketed the front. He was almost to the front doors when he froze as he noted a glow to his right and up. He saw a teenage girl seated on the sloping roof on top of the garage of the house across the street, smoking a cigarette, an open window behind her. The room behind the window was dark. She was looking straight back at him, even though he knew she couldn’t see him in the shadows and without night-vision goggles.

She gave a little wave.

“We’re being observed,” Nada reported. “Front, across the street, on the garage roof.”

Inside the house everyone stopped what they were doing, grabbed weapons, and crawled to windows, except for Eagle, who maintained security to the rear.

“How many?” Moms asked.

“One.”

The girl looked to be around sixteen or seventeen. Nada saw three red dots fix the girl: laser-aiming beams. Moms, Mac, and Kirk.

“She’s a girl,” Nada said.

The dots didn’t move.

The girl did, taking one last deep drag on the cigarette, then did something Nada had only seen on army posts. She field-stripped the cigarette. She blew the shredded butt off her hand into the air where it dissipated much like the Firefly had just done.

“It’s just some kid smoking,” Kirk said, and one of the dots disappeared. “You said they can’t get into people, right?” The other two dots also disappeared.

“Not just some kid,” Nada muttered. “A smart kid.” He wondered for a moment if Skippy had been her dog, but it had been an older woman’s voice calling out for the dog, not a girl’s. Still.

The girl stood and disappeared into the window just as the light in the hallway to the left of that window came on. The girl slid shut her window and the room stayed dark for a moment, then there was a faint glow in her room: the doorway opening and someone checking on her.

Nada finished his perimeter sweep without further incident and came inside via the back door. Moms was seated at the kitchen bar, her MP-5 on the granite top, her head cocked, meaning she was talking to Ms. Jones, laptop open in front of her. Kirk was at one of the front windows, peering out with his goggles. Doc was checking the old laptop, performing mechanical surgery with small instruments.

Moms cut the connection with Ms. Jones. “Support is moving more Assets in.”

“I think we might have an Asset in this enemy village,” Nada said.

“The kid?” Doc asked without looking up. “She probably still wears a retainer at night.”

Moms nodded and spoke over the net so everyone could hear. “Ms. Jones gave me some info on places like this from someone she talked to. This whole community is full of what are called helicopter parents with nothing to do but follow daily schedules full of ballet classes and violin practices for their kids.”

“I like the violin,” Doc said. “I used to play as a kid.”

Moms ignored him.

“What do you mean, helicopter?” Eagle asked from rear security upstairs.

“They hover over their kids and keep watch all the time when they’re not working.”

“The girl across the street didn’t get observed by the helicopter,” Nada noted. “I get the feeling privacy around here is as rare as an old clunker on cinder blocks.” He walked over and looked at the dark window. He suspected she was still there, standing back away from the window, the way an experienced sniper would keep the muzzle of his weapon well inside the room. Only idiots in movies poked the gun out so it could be spotted.

“Fifty percent security,” Moms ordered. “The rest, get some sleep.”

Nada quickly broke the team down into guard shifts that would get them through the next few hours until dawn. “Remember, there’s five Fireflies out there and a lot of civilians. We’d like to keep most of them alive.”

Eagle spoke up in a falsetto, because Eagle liked to leave things on a high note: “
I can’t think about that right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about that tomorrow
.”

“Shut up!” Roland and Mac and Kirk shouted over the net in unison.

Outside the gate to Senators Club—across the road, hidden in the forest—Burns had watched the Snake fly by earlier, three figures dangling below. Then the two SUVs came not much later, which meant the FOB was close by.

Protocol as always.

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.

The person who answered wasn’t happy about being woken up so late.

He was even less happy at Burns’s words: “You need to get out. The Feds are moving into Winslow’s house.”

The voice on the other end cursed in Russian, then asked a question.

“I’ll tell you about your investment soon,” Burns said. “I’ll call you. Stay in the local area.”

He flipped the phone shut. His skin itched where he’d been flayed and punctured.

He forced himself to wait and was rewarded when two large Chevy Blazers raced out of Senators Club, tinted windows hiding the occupants.

Another piece that could be used when needed.

THE NEXT DAY

Despite the quality of the accommodations, the team spent a restless couple of hours waiting for sunlight. As those off duty rose just before dawn for Stand-To, a military tradition as old as the military, they explored the house.

“There are more toilets in here than in my entire town,” Eagle reported over the net as he took care of his morning business.

Moms had taken over the master bedroom as her new CP. “They got two in the same bathroom up here.”

Eagle and Mac then got into an earnest discussion of the Freudian implications of that many toilets and Moms simply told them to shut up and stop clogging the net. She came downstairs where the rest of the team was gathered and brought a deafening silence when they saw her.

“We got to blend in here,” Moms said. “There are plenty of clothes upstairs. Improvise, gentlemen.”

She was wearing a tennis skirt and some top that made her look much more attractive than she wanted. They were all staring at her long, toned legs. No one really noticed the tennis bag slung over one shoulder.

“Everything else in the closet was impractical,” Moms defended with little conviction. “This is athletic and allows me to move around and not be noticed.”

Nada shook his head. “Give it up, Moms.” They all knew the outfit stripped her of the appearance of competency, but ultimately everything a person wears is some sort of uniform. They knew it had cost her a lot to take off her cammies and put on those little socks with the pink fur ball above the ankle.

“Actually, there
is
a practical aspect to this,” Moms said. She dropped the tennis bag on one of the sofas and unzipped it. Her MP-5, suppressor screwed on, lay inside along with extra magazines, grenades, her suppressed MK-23, a knife, and other goodies.