A Blued Steel Wolfe (15 page)

“Johns,” Justin whispered. He continued before the man could answer. “Toss out a flash-bang.”

“Aye, aye sir,” came the whispered reply in his ear. Five second later, a bright flash and loud bang echoed from the front of the house.

“Go, go, go,” Justin whispered the command to his squad as he pushed the sliding door open. He moved in quickly, scanning and shooting one of the Bratva thugs in the back. His men filed in behind him, scanning in their assigned sectors. More muffled pops sounded as the men fired their MP-5s into their enemies.

Adrenaline pumped through Justin as he moved purposely forward, through the dining room and kitchen. He quickly scanned to his right, shooting the Russian just coming out of the downstairs restroom. The man fell back, blood blossoming from his chest. The two hollow point bullets blew large holes out the Russian’s back.

Gonzo took his squad up the stairs, not worrying about those on the ground floor. They had to clear the entire house, so that meant both floors. They rounded the corner and met a hail of gunfire from down the hall. Gonzo went low into the prone position, snapping off a double tap into the man. The Bratva gunman fell and died, with his head a bloody mess. Brain matter splattered against the wall. He signaled his men to advance, and they did so quickly and efficiently. They cleared each room, but found no more Russians.

On the ground floor at the same time, Justin and his team lit the Russians up. They moved swiftly and shot their enemies with deadly accuracy. When it was all over, every Russian was dead.

“I got a basement here,” Deck said quietly, the earbud picking on the transmission. “Going down to check it out.”

“Hold up,” Justin replied. “Let’s get the whole team in place and we’ll clear it together.”

“Negative sir,” Deck whispered back. “If there’s anyone down there, a whole group going down just gives them more targets. Trust me on this.”

With that, he slung his MP-5 and drew his silenced Beretta. He held it in a weaver grip as he slowly descended the staircase. The basement was pitch-black, so he lowered the night vision monocle on the tactical helmet over his left eye.

He could see the greenish tint on everything in the basement. With the infrared light on, it illuminated the entire area for him. He descended quietly, keeping to the sides of the staircase with each quiet footfall. The middle of the stairs would be more prone to creaking. He scanned the basement slowly as he crouched at the bottom of the stairs. He controlled his breathing, staying silent in spite of the adrenaline still flowing through him.

As his field of view passed the water heater, he spied a set of eyes. He held his fire, scanning a little further to find a second set of eyes shining with the reflection of the infrared light. Both figures held pistols, aiming at where they thought he would be standing.

Deck moved sideways in a slow crouch. When the enemies’ guns no longer stood a chance of hitting him if they fired back, he took a knee and aimed down the sights. He squeezed off two quick rounds, and both heads seemed to explode in a spray of green.

“Two tangos down,” Deck reported simply. Then he spotted something that made the hair on his neck stand up. “Evac
now
!”

With that command, he sprinted for the stairs and took them three at a time up to the ground floor. “GO!” he shouted again as he sprinted towards the living room.

“What happened?” Justin demanded, hearing Deck’s uncharacteristic urgency. Even as he asked, he motioned for his men to evacuate out the back.

“Bomb!” Deck shouted back as he turned the corner. He joined the evacuation, and they made it outside before the house turned into a fireball.

The explosion sent debris flying, and the shockwave knocked them all down just as they reached the fence. As they regained their feet, they looked back at the destroyed house.

“It was a trap!” Justin growled through gritted teeth. “Somehow they knew we were coming!”

“What happened in there?” Johns shouted as he moved with his team into the backyard through what was left of the gate.

“It was a trap,” Justin repeated with a look of determination on his face. “They knew that we were coming, damn it!”

“Sir, we need to un-ass this A/O ASAP!” Deck said as he heard the distant sirens. They all nodded and helped the walking wounded back to the panel van. Deck made a beeline for his Harley and put on the helmet. He kick-started it and gave the driver of the van a thumbs up.

Once everyone else was inside, the driver hit the gas. The van moved leisurely down the street to avoid unwanted attention. Deck pulled out and followed the van out of the neighborhood.

“How many injured?” Justin asked as he looked around the van.

Four men raised their hands. Nunez, Hobart, Stanley, and Hawley all winced if they tried to move too much. They’d been the last four out of the house when it exploded. Justin mentally sighed in relief that Deck disobeyed his order and did what needed to be done.

He went over the raid in his mind, down to the last detail. During the inspection of the bodies upstairs, he noted that Salvatore wasn’t among them. He knew of the Russians’ “scorched earth” policy going back centuries, and had to shake his head. They still practiced it, only on a smaller scale in this instance.

Napoleon and Hitler learned that hard lesson when they tried to take Russia almost a century and a half apart. As the Russians fell back under each assault, they burned their farm fields so the invaders had nothing to eat but their own rations. Then the Russian winter set in, and the invading forces had to retreat or die.

What these Bratva soldiers did wasn’t the same, but it was similar. They were willing to die rather than risk capture. They’d rigged the house ahead of time, though. That showed that they were expecting trouble. That meant that somehow, they knew of the raid ahead of time!

***** ***** *****

Ray typed furiously at his keyboard, trying to figure out what went wrong. The satellite imagery showed no signs of explosives, and he
knew
that the NSA satellite should’ve picked them up. He scanned every line of code and found nothing wrong.

How the hell did those bastards know that we were coming?
He asked himself. Then he noticed something that shouldn’t be there. His eyes widened as he started shouting over the earbud.

“Justin, you and your team need to get back here
ASAP
!” Ray yelled. “I need to shut everything down! We’re going to need
everyone
!”

With that declaration, he said a silent prayer and hit the emergency shutdown button on his system. He grimaced as every screen went black and every node of his own supercomputer went silent.

“What the hell did you do that for, Ray?” Trina asked, shock registering on her face.

“Someone
else
was inside my system, and whoever it was, they locked the cameras into a feedback loop. I saw the same car appear in the middle of Camera 11 that went by five minutes ago. We need every enforcer we have on the perimeter
now
!” Ray exclaimed. He picked up his phone to make a call to Mr. Wolfe, but found that it had no signal. He then picked up the landline in the command center, but no dial tone sounded. He felt a cold pit open in his stomach. “Trina, we have to get to Mr. Wolfe now and warn him if we aren’t too late. If those assholes aren’t already in the building, we’re about to get invaded!”

“Ok, let’s go!” Trina replied as she pulled her pistol and started for the exit. Ray grabbed and slung his laptop case over his shoulder, drew his gun and followed closely behind her.

As soon as they entered the main hallway, they knew something was wrong. Trina saw them first, lifted her pistol and snapped off two rounds. The shots sounded deafening, but two thugs dressed in black died with one round through each of their foreheads.

Ray glanced to his left and saw three more thugs coming down the hall. They took aim at Trina, but Ray body checked her as he fired. Ray’s first round missed slightly to the enemy shooter’s left, but his second bullet took the thug through the neck. His third and fourth shots hit the second shooter, and his fifth shot hit the third man in the head.

Trina turned to see Ray fire the fifth shot and the third enemy crumpled over. Ray always insisted on using full metal jacket 9mm rounds. They required more precision shooting, since they didn’t do much damage when they went clean through a human body. She looked at him in disbelief, but Ray still held his smoking pistol as he gazed at the downed bodies.

Then they heard more gunshots from the direction of the offices, and with a quick glance at each other, they sprinted in that direction.
Why the hell did I insist on soundproofing the command center?
Ray asked himself. He just shook his head as they kept running.

Just before they rounded the corner, Trina held out and arm to stop him. He stopped, and she held a finger to her lips. Ray nodded his understanding and followed her hand signal to crouch. Then they advanced slowly, and she aimed her pistol around the corner.

Three men stood over a fourth man’s body, laughing. One said something to the other two in Russian, and they laughed even harder. Trina aimed quickly and fired three more rounds in quick succession. The first bullet caught the enemy facing them in the forehead. The second caught the second Russian in the side of his head as he turned, and the third round penetrated the last gunman’s neck, severing the jugular.

“We have to get to Mr. Wolfe,” Ray hissed.

“We will. Let’s go!” Trina replied.

Then two more Bratva thugs came out of Jared’s office with the attorney between them. He was barely alive, but he saw them and smiled.

Trina and Ray brought their guns up simultaneously and fired one round apiece. Their bullets pierced the thugs’ chests, killing them instantly.

“Jared!” Ray yelled as he ran towards the attorney. “Hang on. We’re here to help!”

Jared Hartman looked bad. He’d lost some blood from the bullet wound in his right shoulder. He moved as he struggled to rise, and Ray knelt on one side of him while Trina knelt on the other side. They lifted him to his feet together, and went back into the office.

“Jared, do you know where Mr. Wolfe is?” Ray asked once they were inside.

“The last I saw of him, he was heading towards the safe room. He had Linda, Cammie and five of his security team with him,” Jared replied with a wince as they sat him in Cammie’s chair. “I… stayed behind with two others to cover them.

Trina looked around the office and nodded in appreciation. The two Wolfe security men were dead, but so were twelve of the Russian Bratva thugs who invaded the mansion.

“This is as good a place as any, then,” Ray shrugged as he sat down in another chair and opened his laptop case. He pulled a USB Wi-Fi internet hotspot out of his pocket and plugged it into the laptop as he booted it up.

“Trina, get Jared patched up as best you can,” Ray said without looking up. Trina looked at Jared.

“There‘s a first aid kit in my office. Bottom left drawer,” the attorney said and winced. Trina went into his office and pulled the kit from the desk. She then hurried back into Cammie’s office with the kit in hand.

As she stopped Jared’s bleeding and bandaged his wound, she looked at Ray. The tech expert’s fingers flew over his keyboard, as he frowned in concentration.

“Ray, what are you doing?” Trina asked urgently.

In answer, Ray tossed her his gun. “Give that to Jared and watch the door. I’m trying to find the piece of motherfucking shit son of a motherfucking bitch that compromised
my
Goddamn command center!”

***** ***** *****

Salvatore took a moment to bask in his own genius. He allowed a triumphant smile to play across his face. It was so easy! He hired a hacker known as a cyber-mercenary to hack the “un-hackable” system that protected the Wolfe estate. When he succeeded in that regard, he changed his plans. It took the hacker longer than expected to penetrate the firewall. Once he was in, the hacker then started gathering information, though.

When the hacker found the street camera footage of Salvatore and his Maserati, the ex Mafia Capo started to formulate a plan. When he found the satellite surveillance footage of Salvatore’s Calabasas hideout, the hacker alerted his boss. Salvatore wasn’t frightened, though. He saw it as an opportunity. They procured some C-4 for “demolitions purposes” and wired the house.

Salvatore felt a slight pang of remorse over not telling Johnny about the charges. Johnny was the only remaining holdover from the Lupo-O’Hara alliance that stayed with him through everything. The rest of his former team refused to join him when he became a Brigadier in the Russian Bratva. He knew that Johnny wouldn’t sacrifice himself as the Russians would, though.

He knew that as soon as the Wolfe enforcers breached the house, the two former Spetsnaz soldiers in the basement would start the timer on the bomb. If everything went as planned, Johnny and the Bratva soldiers would keep the Wolfe soldiers occupied for two minutes. Once every Wolfe enforcer entered the house, the bomb would explode.

The news reports that the “8L00D5C0UR63” picked up on his phone confirmed the destruction of the house and the death of everyone inside. Salvatore smiled as he remembered the News Helicopter’s view of the burning house. Those brave Russians and his last Italian friend became acceptable losses in his personal war against Antonio Lupo, AKA Anthony Wolfe.