“Savage doing another great impersonation,” Honey’s voice sounded raw. “God. I should’ve figured she’d pull this. They had no idea she wasn’t me. She didn’t have to do a damn thing to bypass millions of dollars’ worth of security, they just opened the door and welcomed her in. Shit!”
“I’m not sure right now, that you’re not the same person!” Amber told her, her cheeks flushed.
“Don’t even try it,” Rafael told her as her gaze skittered briefly to the shotgun leaning against the wall.
“How many people did she bring with her?” Honey asked calmly. Impatience hummed off her like a live wire.
“I lost count at about two dozen. I was out here checking Sophie’s f—Never mind that!” She glanced at his covered face, then back to Honey. “Are
you
okay?” she asked pointedly.
“Yeah. Is everyone else inside?”
“I think they took the men. Not sure, everything happened so fast it was hard to tell what was actually happening, and I kept my head down. Everyone thought you’d come home unannounced. I was about to cross the yard, when the cab pulled up. Some weird sixth sense, made me back up. When I saw you all bandaged up, and I thought crap- I’d better go help- Then Cindi and Stephanie came racing out to help because you—well, not
you
, obviously—were clearly badly hurt.
They’d barely gotten her into the house when the men showed up. I went up into the loft to see what was going on. Couldn’t see much inside from up there but enough to make me stay put.”
“You did the right thing. Was he hurt?” Honey asked evenly.
“He was okay when I saw him several hours ago— I was waiting for it to get fully light, and I was going to take my chances with the cameras and alarms and ride for help.”
“We parked a couple of snowmobiles back near the machinery shed. Take one and head toward the ridge; there are more people waiting up there. You’ll be safe until this is over. Don’t worry about cameras or alarms. Let them trip away.”
While she was talking, Rafe called team two, letting them know a civilian was on her way up.
“Go,” Honey instructed. The stable manager hesitated, looking at the horses, visibly torn. “Go,” Honey repeated impatiently. “They’ll be okay, and I don’t want to worry about you getting caught in the middle of what’s coming next.” She paused, breathed, and her voice was softer when she added, “Thanks, Amber. It’s good to know they”—she waved her hand at the horses—“have such a good guardian. But you’re officially off duty as of now.” Miss Dye took her gun and ran.
Honey turned and kept walking. The horses greeted her, and she touched each one like a lodestone or worry beads as she passed. “Nothing between here and the house,” she reminded him, again unnecessarily.
Rafe could see that her controlled demeanor was shot, even more so after her manager told her that Savage had Pollack. Before, the situation was theoretical. Now it was a reality. She was scared, and her nerves showed even more. It brought out every protective instinct he had, since he knew she hated to be vulnerable. “Got it, Winston.”
She stopped abruptly, and he reached out, curving his arm around her waist. “Take a moment. Center yourself. Tell me what she’s up against.”
Honey sucked in a shaky breath. “Biometric security matrix, fingerprint with heat-sensor recognition, trip wires, secondary and tertiary levels of encryption—” She sucked in a slow, deep breath then let it out even more slowly. “Better. Thanks.”
“So, one mistake and she’ll lose everything, including a hand.”
“Anyone logging on without using
all
the failsafes will destroy the hard drive in minutes.”
He watched her chest as she breathed heavily. “Get your shit together, sweetheart. We both
know
all this. Time for talk is over. We go in, kill the bitch, and we’re done.”
She turned to touch his face with her bare hand. “Thank you, yeah. I know. The closer we’ve gotten, the more freaked out I’ve become. God. I never had an imagination before, not even a bad one. Now all I can picture is—”
“Picture your feeling of satisfaction seeing the entry wound in Savage’s forehead.”
“Botoxed.” She slipped her glove and mask back in place.
“Botoxed forehead?”
“Yeah.” Behind her goggles, her eyes sparkled. “Go!” She spun around and hauled ass across the thirteen hundred feet of uncovered, calf-deep snow between the barns and the house.
Weapon in hand, Rafael ran in her footsteps.
THIRTY-TWO
R
afael stood so close behind her they cast one shadow. She sensed, rather than felt, the heat of him. She knew that wasn’t possible through the LockOut; it was more a firing of her blood with awareness. She’d had other partners, and yes, she’d trusted them to cover her ass. But with Rafael, she felt a deeper sense of connection, one she’d never had before.
They were looking up at the enormous picture windows, which were positioned for spectacular mountain views and endless vistas, and would showcase any activity beyond their bulletproof panes. The moon, still bright enough to throw sun-like shadows, would illuminate those outside clear as day. From ground level, she couldn’t see inside; she just presumed people would be looking
out
and acted accordingly.
Rafael ran beside her, and they slipped around to the side, evading moonlight and vigilant eyes. The only room facing their direction was the triple-car garage, and for security reasons, it had no windows.
Leaning against one of the massive, smooth lodge poles holding up the roof of the deck, she watched the computer countdown in the tiny transparent square above her right eye.
In five, four, three, two, one—All hell broke loose as the first siren went off. T-FLAC teams one and two intentionally tripped wires near the ridge, creating shrill noises that bounced off the mountains to flood the valley. A deep-throated
whop-whop-whop
preceded a squad of choppers materializing like magic from behind the ridge, rising over the trees.
Simultaneously, the roof lights blazed on, strafing the night sky and surrounding land. The powerful floodlights, on and around the house and outbuildings, were assisted by floodlights strategically placed around the entire property, also activated by the tripping of the first alarm. The moonlight dimmed in comparison.
White-garbed operatives poured over the eastern ridge, emerging from tree cover, on skis or snowmobiles, converging on the house. A few minutes later, Savage’s people dashed from inside the house, guns blazing with pops of light brighter than the floodlights. Honey nodded in satisfaction as they left her house. They had no way of knowing that the front door would slam shut and lock behind them. “You’re outside for good, now, assholes.”
Rafael chuckled.
Once activated, the system would blare until someone turned it off. Herself or Pollack. Everyone else would just have to cover their ears and deal.
Seconds later, the sounds of more gunshots echoed in the shallow bowl of the valley. Dolan had been right. The lights and sirens were a nice, effective deterrent. Or, in this instance, an excellent distraction.
“Aw, look. Isn’t this sweet? They tried to break in,” Honey said unsympathetically, indicating the various attempts with assorted instruments to jimmy the locking device on the main door of the garage, and numerous and sundry points of contact along the frame of the smaller side door.
Sliding aside the hidden panel, she took off her glove and passed her palm over the sensor, punching in a series of numbers before scanning her palm again. Made a mental note that it took too long as the door opened soundlessly. Something else to address–
after
. “Quick.”
Stepping inside, she waited for Rafael to join her in the semidarkness then used the pad inside the garage to deactivate the alarm. If this entry was breached, and the second device
not
activated or deactivated within seven seconds, a metal cage dropped from the ceiling, trapping the intruder. As she’d told the other operatives, she’d leave the door unlocked, giving them a clear entry point.
“Hang on,” Rafael, took her upper arm.
“What?”
He shoved up his goggles, and pulled down his facemask, then reached over and did the same with hers. Instantly, their breath showed white in the darkness. “This.” He kissed her hard. Too short. But it delivered a jolt that shot all the way through her. “For luck.”
“Preparation will meet opportunity.” She pulled her headgear down around her throat and shoved the goggles on top of her head.
They walked between the Lamborghini and her go-to ranch vehicle, a bright red, four-wheel-drive truck. The garage led into a mudroom, then into the large kitchen.
The mudroom was gloomy and empty. The outside lights reflecting off the snow shone through the window, covered with fingerprints. They’d tried the windows and found them impossible to breach.
Savage, impersonating her, had let them in.
Voices in the kitchen.
She indicated Rafael go left, she right.
There was no magic to survival. LockOut would protect them as well as, if not better than, a bulletproof vest. But a bullet at close range could very well penetrate the thin skin, if fired at the right angle, and a bullet to the head would do plenty of damage, even if it didn’t go through the fabric. Nobody was invincible except Superman. Even he had his vulnerable moments. Pollack was her Kryptonite.
She’d been rated excellent in her hand-to-hand urban warfare training. She’d practiced the techniques again and again, not because she’d thought, as a cybertech, that she’d need the knowledge, but rather because it had interested her, and if she did something, she figured she might as well do it well. Plus, she’d wanted to show her old trainer how wrong he’d been about her. She could do anything a male operative could do and many things a whole hell of a lot better. Now she was glad for that training and for the extra hours she’d put in.
Weapons ready, they kicked open the doors.
In a split second, she assessed who was in the brightly lit kitchen. Five tangos, clearly interrupted by the noise and lights while playing cards at the scrubbed wood table, getting ready to do whatever the hell they thought they could do with their weapon harnesses hanging on the backs of their chairs.
No friendlies. Honey took out the two on her right, while Rafael efficiently dispatched the three on the left before they could fumble their weapons into their hands.
They deserved to be shot for their ineptitude alone.
Honey froze for a second, recognizing the thought as sounding much too much like Savage.
Glancing around her warm, cozy kitchen, she frowned at a shattered clay pot, the dark soil scattered near one of the guys bleeding on her polished terracotta-tiled floor. “Damn. I’d been growing that avocado for
months
.”
Cowl shoved down around his throat as hers was, Rafael grinned at her. “I’ll buy you a tree.”
Bending down, she checked her two tangos. “Nicely dead. What’s your score?” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the annoyingly piercing trill of the sirens as Rafael moved away to check his three. He gave her a thumbs-up.
The kitchen led into a large dining room. Empty. But signs of rude people helping themselves to her food were everywhere. Dirty dishes and glasses and dozens of soda cans littered the huge, reclaimed wood, harvest table large enough to seat thirty. The glass doors in the massive antique sideboard across the room were all broken. Her china was in jigsaw puzzle pieces all over the floor. “Pigs.”
A brief glance through the large picture windows showed dozens of ant-like figures descending the foothills, more traveling across the flat fields toward the house. The bad guys were out there too, firing at the cavalry. White garb for the good guys, black for the bad. Appropriate. And an indication that Savage hadn’t thought of everything.
“Asses
will
be kicked,” Rafael said with satisfaction, his mouth curved in a smile as he, too, watched the action for a moment. “Names taken for headstones. Move it, Winston. That lasagna looks good, and I’m hungry.”
“Don’t they know smoking kills?” The lasagna in question had two cigarette butts in it. She pulled the protective hood back up to cover her head and lowered the goggles, as he did the same. “Yeah. Let’s find her and get this over with.”
“We win.” Not merely survive this but
win
. All in the mindset. Trounce Savage and her tangos so they can’t rise again from the ashes. Savage wanted scorched Earth? They’d show her how it was done.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “We win. Just say when.”
Honey indicated she’d go into the next room low, shoving open the double doors.
She took in the cavernous great room with a sweeping glance.
Fast
.
Her
people bound, held at gunpoint on the left by the fireplace.
“When!”
She fired off a succession of shots into the cluster of black-garbed guys on the far right. She and Rafe had the advantage of the “startle” reflex. The noise and action outside hadn’t prepared those left behind for an attack
inside
the house. Their fight or flight chemical response to imminent danger diminished their motor skills, narrowing their visual and audio focus. It was obvious they didn’t know from which side of the huge room they were being attacked.