The Warrior Code (23 page)

He glanced back in desperation and found no cover. He could head back into the game room, but he would be trapped there too. Going out and retracing his steps wasn’t in him.

Roger stepped cautiously in the kitchen through a window that was already open. The house was heating up, and the central air-conditioning either didn’t extend to the kitchen or was turned off.

The kitchen was enormous, about twenty by forty feet; a central island dominated the room. Roller chairs were placed around the island, and it also doubled as a dining table. The central island had burners and a large sink, and one end of it caught Roger’s eye.

That end had a minibar.

He paused to hear above the ambient noise of the lodge and got nothing.

His eyes swung back to the bar, to the bottle that had gotten his attention.

What the hell.

He hefted the bottle in his hand, Balcones Texas Single Malt Whisky read its label, sniffed at it and shrugged.

Some things are worth dying for.

A hostile rushed through the room and raised his rifle.

‘Wait,’ bellowed Roger. ‘Let me drink before I die.’

He looked at the man, who was eyeing him back in disbelief and caution. Roger took a delicate sip and closed his eyes as the warmth spread through him. He sighed in pleasure.

‘You tried this?’ he asked the gunman, who was standing wary and alert.

He shook his head and lifted his gun when Roger looked questioningly at him.

‘You should try this, buddy. Best whisky out of Texas. Best damned whisky in the world, I say,’ Roger told him proudly.

He threw the glass at the man and ducked before his arm had finished its swing, just as bullets burned the air where he’d been.

He angled his rifle and fired blindly in a cross-stitch pattern. He heard the heavy impact of bullets against flesh, fired again, and heard the man shout in agony.

He waited till the room fell silent, reached an arm up, pulled another glass and hurled it in the direction of the man. The glass shattered on impact, but there was no response from the man.

He threw another glass.

Silence.

He crawled to the other end of the island, risked a split-second glance, and then stood up. His attacker was dead.

He looked at the man for a second and shook his head.

He should’ve shot first. Good help is hard to find these days.

He pocketed the Balcones bottle and headed out.

He had taken a step out of the kitchen when a rifle burst sounded, and he ducked back in.

A second rifle joined the first, and he realized the gunfight was a corner away.

He moved cautiously down the passage, fell prone, and peeked out and saw Zeb.

Zeb was bent over the body when he heard the soft step behind him.

Fall, turn, fire.

The move came as smoothly as ball bearings sliding in grease, only hours of training and experience that formed habits stopped him from firing into Roger.

He levered himself up awkwardly as Roger grinned down at him. Roger held a finger up in response to Zeb’s raised eyebrow.

Six down. Five to go.

Roger glanced down the passage Zeb had come from, worked the gunfight out in his head. ‘Holy shit, how did you get out of that?’

Zeb pocketed the dead man’s magazines and grunted. ‘All those Jackie Chan movies.’

Roger shook his head in bemusement, moved down the passage, saw the heel marks high up on the two walls enclosing the passage and understood.

Zeb had timed his leap up to the hostile’s arrival, had bounced off the walls and picked him off from above.

By now they had a good idea where Taggart, the sisters and the rest of the men would be.

There were only two rooms in the house that had no windows, a library and a second living room. No windows meant no entry points for Zeb and his team.

Another explosion rocked the house, Broker at work on one of the outer cabins.

Roger glanced at Zeb. The other cabins would follow soon, and then their partner would blow up the living room. They were running out of time.

Library
, Zeb mouthed at him, and they set off, Zeb in the lead.

They checked out two more rooms on the way.

Clear.

The library was large and had just one entrance. Taggart and his men could be waiting just behind the door to riddle them.

He waited a few feet away, ran through his options, turned to look at Roger, and the dead hostile on the edge of his vision gave him an idea.

They hefted the body up, sinews straining with the dead weight, and crept back to the door.

His idea would work, or they would both be dead.

They would know soon enough.

He stood to the right of the door, balanced on his right leg, bunched the man’s shirt in his left fist and kicked the door open with his left leg, a sideways kick that didn’t have much force to it.

The door swung open and crashed back against the wall.

They waited for firing, any response. None came.

He stamped his feet to mimic a man running, and the two of them swung their arms and hurled the body inside, head first.

The body crashed against furniture, something fell, a table lamp, and silence fell.

He signaled to Roger.
One last try.

He lay prone in the passage, Roger upright behind him to provide cover, and stuck his head inside the door.

Humans saw what was at eye level first and then their vision moved up or down. Trained operatives took in the whole, but Zeb was counting on Taggart’s men not being as well trained as he or Roger were.

He withdrew his head and shook it at Roger.

Lots of shelves, seating, fireplace. No people.

He looked in Roger’s eyes and telegraphed his message.

Now.

He went in a rapid crouch, his rifle swung where his eyes swung; Roger, a few feet behind him, provided cover.

No one in sight.

The library would have been the envy of any small town. It had fifteen racks each on Zeb’s left and right, heading from the door to the far wall. Chairs, table lamps, and couches were strewn throughout the library. Lamps hung from the ceiling, and when lit they would create a warm ambience in which one could spend hours.

The racks could hide an enemy force, though, and the two split, Zeb taking the right, Roger taking the left, and they started clearing the racks.

The first three racks hid no one.

Roger gave him the thumbs-up from the far end.

The next three were clear.

So were the rest of the racks.

They came to the center aisle and knew what the other was thinking.

Second living room.

They turned around and stopped.

Taggart was a few feet inside the door, his gun pointed at the sisters.

Two men flanked him, both of them covering Zeb and Roger.

A bitterness washed through Zeb.

He had lost.

Chapter 26

‘I didn’t expect to take you so easily, Major,’ Taggart mocked him. ‘I read your file. I was expecting a tougher opponent.’

Another explosion rocked the house, and they heard the sound of glass falling. Taggart’s lips thinned.

‘Call your partner. Get him to stand down.’

‘Can’t. Your goons took away our comms gear.’

‘This your family home? Your old man knows about all this? Or is he in with you?’ Roger asked him.

Taggart’s face flushed, but he didn’t reply. He snapped a command at one of the men, and the flunky disappeared and came back with a laptop.

‘I’m sure you have a memory stick on you with the video file. The laptop was empty. I hope you weren’t stupid enough to come without the file.’

Roger laughed. ‘Why would we bring it? You’re going to kill us in any case.’

Roger’s on the same page. Keep him talking. Buy time till Broker distracts them.

‘Why should I? I can reach these women anytime I want. You can see that.’ Taggart waved his gun contemptuously at the women. ‘That should be sufficient motivation for y’all to keep your mouths shut.’

‘We could–’

Taggart waved him quiet. ‘You could what? Show the video to the cops? To news channels? You fool, as long as the women are alive, you won’t do a thing.’

We aren’t getting out of here alive.

Zeb took a step closer. ‘In that case, let’s go. I’ll guarantee our silence.’

He tossed a memory stick in their direction; one of the men caught it. ‘File’s in that.’

Beth spoke up fiercely. ‘No. We want to see what’s on that. This man was a friend to us; I want to know why he turned traitor.’

‘This was on Beth’s phone and got downloaded to my laptop?’ Meghan demanded.

Zeb turned to her, and one of the men swung his gun like a baseball bat and hit Zeb in the left thigh. It was a giant swing, and the force of the blow made Zeb stagger to the right and fall. For a second he thought he had been shot.

He grunted, clutching his thigh as a lancing pain bloomed through him, and struggled fiercely to control his body. The pain turned into a roaring blackness as the man hit him wickedly between the shoulders. Dimly he heard the sisters screaming.

He squeezed his eyes shut, took shallow breaths that became deeper, willed his mind to take over. He lay there for long minutes as the thing in his body that woke up at such times assessed the damage, created a compartment for the pain, squeezed it shut, and spoke to him dispassionately
.

Not shot. Not the first time you’ve been hit. No bone broken. No skin broken. No bleeding. You won’t die of it. Even if you do, you have a job to do. Get up.

He rolled over to his right and levered himself up using his left hand. He lost his balance once and recovered and transferred his weight to his right when he was upright. His left leg felt like it was on fire, and his back felt like there was a hole in it. He blinked the sweat away from his eyes and saw Taggart staring at him dispassionately.

Taggart’s lips moved.

Sound came to Zeb from a distance.

‘Next time he’ll shoot you in the leg. Play the video.’

He shuffled to the stool and inserted the memory stick in the laptop. He could hear Beth and Meghan breathing harshly, or maybe it was his own breathing. He couldn’t be sure. In the distance he heard guns firing, two of them.

Taggart smiled. ‘That’s your man taken care of.’

Zeb’s fingers tightened on the memory stick. He fumbled before it slid in the slot.

‘This isn’t good,’ he told the women hoarsely.

‘Save the sympathy act.’ Taggart’s eyes glittered.

The voice in Zeb spoke impatiently
. Pull yourself together. If he’s lost it, he’s even more dangerous.

Zeb hit play.

The video was jerky, of a classroom with two figures in front of the camera.

‘Record it,’ a voice told the camera. A sandy-haired young man came into view. He wore a white T-shirt over jeans and scraggy sneakers. An assault rifle swung in his hand.

‘Record it, bitch,’ another figure screamed. He was the same height as Sandy, dark-haired and flabby, and wore a Grateful Dead T-shirt. His semiautomatic pointed at the camera.

The video shook and a voice trembled. ‘I am recording. It’s happening.’

‘You’d better make sure you get this,’ Flabby warned Beth.

The video followed Flabby unsteadily. He moved to stand in front of two students who shrank as he approached.

‘Please don’t shoot us. Please don’t shoot us. We’ll do whatever you want.’ The words fell out of them fast. One of them looked at the camera, his eyes and mouth wide. He jerked back to the gunmen as one of them approached him.

Beth prayed. ‘Don’t shoot them. Please don’t shoot us. We haven’t done anything to you.’ Her voice broke; trembling breathing filled the video.

‘Shut up,’ roared Sandy. Spittle flew off him, some flecks landed on the camera.

‘You take one; I’ll take another,’ Sandy told Flabby.

One of the male students closed his eyes, moaned, swayed, his lips moved in a silent prayer. The other clasped his hands, begging, ‘Please, please, please don’t do this.’

Flabby shot him several times.

The phone clattered; the video swung crazily. Beth’s face filled it, disappeared. Sounds of retching came.

‘You stupid bitch, you can’t even hold a phone? You want to be next?’ Flabby screamed at Beth.

Beth sobbed. ‘It slipped from my hand. I swear. Don’t shoot, please. Don’t do this. Let us go.’

Flabby came into focus. His eyes shone as he punched Sandy in the shoulder.

‘Hot damn, man. That was something. Your turn now.’

The second shooter hesitated, and Flabby goaded him, ‘Don’t have the balls for it?’

The second shooter fired. The video slipped away to focus on a wall.

A long wail escaped Beth.

Flabby laughed. ‘That’s more like it. Let’s kill her now.’

Sandy stopped him. ‘Hold it. We’ll need a hostage.’

The shooters stood in front of Beth and discussed her fate as if she wasn’t there. The video shook, then righted as Flabby glanced at her.

An explosion sounded. The camera darted to the door.

A cloud of smoke hung around it. Two SWAT officers rushed in, shouted something, their guns leveled.

The students screamed. The officers roared their command.

There was a thud; the video panned to the ceiling.

Layers of voices came, and through them Beth’s desperate praying.

Shots cracked, two bodies fell.

The room turned silent.

Footsteps came nearer. An officer’s face, helmeted and goggled, filled the camera.

‘Are you okay?’