Authors: Gayle Lynds
“What’s wrong with that?” Danny said reasonably. “We want Ryder, so it’s convenient if he comes to us. It’s efficient.”
Eli glanced up at his brother, hiding his annoyance. “The gunshots are what’s wrong.”
“Kyle isn’t answering his cell, sir!” the door sentry called out.
So the man they had sent downstairs was off the grid, too, thought Eli.
“Keep trying, dammit.” Reaching the bookshelves, Chapman glared at Troy. “How in hell could Andersen and Ryder get past your security?”
Troy straightened all the way up to his impressive six-foot-five height. “I don’t know, sir. But there are five of us in this room, plus there will be six new men in the house any minute to start their shift. I called to tell them what’s happened. Even if the rest of our people are down, there are eleven of us against two of them.” His shoulders seemed to grow more broad, and his muscular face took on a feral caginess. “They can’t win.”
“I want Ryder alive,” Eli reminded him sharply.
“Yes, sir. Everyone knows that, sir.”
“You asked about weapons,” Chapman said and gestured at Troy.
Expecting a secret door in the bookshelves, Eli watched the big guard press his thumb against a spot inside one of the uprights. There was a moment of silence, then the floor beneath Eli’s feet began to move. Swearing, Eli stepped away.
Danny leaped back as if a rattlesnake had lunged at him.
As Eli watched the floor, a six-by-five-foot section lowered some five inches. Dividing in half, the two parts slid silently away from each other. He felt a wave of excitement as a dozen gleaming M4s came into view. Arranged uniformly, the weapons lay in a rifle rack inside a polished wood cabinet. Boxes of ammunition were stacked alongside them. For Eli, the weapons were a sight more beautiful than a Michelangelo painting, more impressive than a Cambridge degree, more inspiring than a rabbi’s sermon.
“This is how protection is secured,” Chapman advised. “Preparation is key, but preparation no one knows about.”
Danny grumbled, “I’d rather have my Kalashnikov.”
But when Troy handed up the first M4, Danny was the one who grabbed it.
While Tucker hid in a room across the corridor, Ryder hunched at the base of the servants’ stairwell. Listening as footsteps padded toward them, Ryder took a small mirror from his pocket and extended it—there were three men. One was in the lead; the two others followed single-file, moving warily, knees bent, pistols up. They wore neither green sweats nor white snowsuits but instead ordinary street clothes—jeans and shirts. Their cheeks were red, their skin shiny, as if they had just come in from outdoors. They were probably with the next shift of guards, and somehow they knew there was trouble in the house.
With a gesture, the leader directed the second man toward the kitchen door. Then he and the other continued on through the shadows. Ryder could almost smell the tension.
At the door that led to the short hall, the lead gestured again. But as his man started toward it, it opened, and the second guard reappeared, apparently having gone into the kitchen at one entrance and leaving from the other. Shaking his head to indicate he had found no one, he grinned and held up three M4s, probably taken from the guards’ locker room. In moments, all were armed with the rifles.
Little is more unnerving than the sound of M4s being cocked. As the ominous noise filled the corridor, Ryder checked across it, to his right. No light showed in the room where Tucker had ducked. The guards would reach Tucker before they reached him, and he was worried Tucker might not hear them.
But as he stared, the spymaster’s face appeared and faded back into darkness. A pale hand gave a thumb’s-up signal. Tucker was saying he was on top of the situation—not to worry. But Ryder liked neither his wan color nor that he had reacted slowly to the guard who had run at them earlier. Tucker was not moving as fast or as agilely as he usually did.
Tucker’s door closed slowly, leaving a two-inch opening.
Peering into his mirror again, Ryder saw the trio had broken into a run, focused on the guard he had shot. The lead dropped beside him and bent his head low. Even if you despised a brother in arms, you did not want him to go down—it reminded you, reminded everyone, that all of you were vulnerable.
Above the lead, the two others surveyed the corridor.
Jumping back up to his feet, the lead glanced at them and shook his head. He spoke quietly into a cell phone.
“Kyle’s unconscious … nothing we can do for him … downstairs back hall. Yeah, sure. If they’re still here, we’ll find them.”
The lead cautiously opened the first door they came upon—the security office, where Ryder had knocked out Matty and broken up the security equipment. The man slid inside low, M4 first. Within seconds the office was alight, and a snort of disgust sounded. Soon he reappeared, his expression sour.
The trio ran again. One after another, they opened the next two doors and inspected. Ryder glanced across to Tucker’s door just as it closed completely. He texted Tucker:
They r coming.
The guards closed in on Tucker’s room. The lead turned the doorknob and pushed. But instead of swinging open, the door slid off its hinges and slammed heavily down into the dark room, bouncing twice, making two loud
bangs.
From the depths of the lightless room, three gunshots rang out.
All three men were hit, the lead in the knee, another in the shoulder, and the third on the right side. Blood sprayed.
Ryder slid around the corner, putting him behind the wounded guards as they scrambled for position. The lead had dropped to his belly and was pulling his M4 around to shoot. The guard with the side wound threw himself against the wall beside the door, propping himself up so he could peer inside and fire. The third was closest to Ryder. The back of his beige flannel shirt was soggy red—the bullet must have gone all the way through. He was stumbling away, to where Tucker could not see him.
As he took in the situation, Ryder heard two sets of footsteps hurrying downstairs. He made a tough decision: If Tucker and he were to survive, there was little chance they could keep one of the trio here conscious and available for questioning, not with more arriving.
Two of the wounded men were shooting into the dark room. Bright muzzle flashes responded. The man with the shoulder wound who was out of the line of fire seemed to hear the footsteps on the stairs, too. He swung his M4 around—and spotted Ryder.
Ryder shot him in both thighs. The noise attracted the attention of the two others, and they turned. As they fired, Ryder did, too, explosive bursts from his M4. He had known precisely where they were, while they had shot on the move, looking for him.
His bullets cut ragged lines across their mid sections. As they went down, the man he had shot in the thighs managed to squirm around, lift his torso up onto his elbows, and fire. The rounds burned past Ryder’s right ear and slammed into the wall. Plaster dust exploded.
Before Ryder could return fire, one of Tucker’s bullets hit the shooter’s rib cage. It must have pierced his lungs. He exhaled loudly and dropped, gasping.
There was no way Tucker could know about the men coming downstairs, and Ryder did not have time to tell him. Instead he grabbed the clipboard he had confiscated earlier, jumped up, and sprinted to the foot of the stairwell.
Dressed in regular clothes and armed with handguns, two men were about halfway down. More relief guards. They must have come in the front door. They quickly registered his uniform and clipboard—then frowned at his face.
“Who in hell are you?” one demanded.
Before he could ask another question, Ryder interrupted. “We’ve got a bad situation here. We were able to take down four of theirs, but there’s got to be ten more out back. A couple of our people are completely out of action, including Matty and Kyle.”
The second one’s eyebrows went up. “Jesus Christ.”
“They’ll be inside any moment,” Ryder warned.
The first man gave a curt nod. “Let’s get this problem taken care of before it gets any worse.”
As the men rushed downstairs to help, Ryder asked worriedly, “What about Mr. Chapman? We’ve got to protect him. Is he on the second floor?”
The first nodded. “In the library as usual.”
A shoulder slammed Ryder aside, and Tucker was beside him, firing bursts of three rounds into each man. Surprise then pain contorted their faces. Wounded in the chests, they wove and fell.
Tucker gave him a sharp look. “We know where Eichel and Chapman are now. Let’s go.”
The narrow stairwell was claustrophobic, the stench of cordite stinking the air. Ryder and Tucker climbed. Ryder saw Tucker was sweating so much his eyeglasses had slid down his nose. With an irritated expression, the older man shoved them back up.
“You win a gold medal for those last two guys,” Ryder said in a low voice.
“I figured they probably had their guns on you.”
“You figured right.”
There were soft sounds above. Ryder peered up again. The doorknob was turning. Tucker saw it, too. The rotation was slow and deliberate, cautious. Without speaking, they separated, flattening back against opposite walls. They aimed their M4s.
The door opened. But instead of more weaponized guards, in the frame stood a woman with long red hair, wearing a thermal winter coat. The unbuttoned coat showed jeans, a pullover sweater, and a cardigan, Eva’s favorite winter clothes. She just stood there, hands helpless at her sides. No weapon. No purse. A strained expression on her oval face.
Ryder stared. His heart pounded. “Eva,” he breathed. For a moment he was overcome by memories, the little things about her that delighted him so. And now here she was, standing there, waiting. And in trouble.
Tucker peeled himself off the wall. “Christ, Eva, what in hell are you doing here?”
“Have you lost your mind?” Ryder’s fear for her erased relief. “We’ve got to get you out of here!” He sprinted up the stairs.
“Hello, Judd. Tucker.” Her voice was too hearty. “I’m really sorry to do this to you—”
The men froze as two armed guards appeared on either side of her. One guard wore a regulation white snowsuit, his face unseeable behind the usual matching white balaclava. He was pointing an M4 at her, his eyes shining black and hard. Wearing khakis and a plaid shirt, the other one aimed an S&W 9-mm at Tucker and Ryder.
“Let’s go, Ryder,” said the one in civilian clothes. “You, too, Andersen.”
So the gunman knew their names. They were expected, which explained why the second shift had arrived ready to fight.
“Move it,” the man in the snowsuit ordered Eva.
When she did not go instantly, he grabbed her arm. She shook it. He pushed his M4 into her side. Her face collapsed. She let him pull her out of sight.
Ryder ran up the last few steps. His throat was dry, his chest tight. Keeping his eye on the S&W, he heard Tucker breathing hard behind him. At the top of the stairs, they stepped onto plush carpeting the dark color of blood. The hall was wide, with antiques placed along the wainscoted walls. A few feet distant, the man in snow gear released Eva’s arm.
“Come here.” He nodded at Ryder and Tucker. “Give me your weapons.”
“I’ll take them,” said the other. “You’ve got your hands full with her.” He gestured at Eva.
The man in white hesitated, then nodded.
Without comment Ryder and Tucker turned them over to the guard wearing indoor clothes.
Tucking them under his arm, he asked the man in the snowsuit, “Why in hell don’t you take off those snow clothes? You’ve got to be hot.”
“If you’d been outside as long as I was tonight you’d want to bake, fry, and broil yourself any which way you could. I can’t get the cold out of my bones.”
The other man gave a curt nod of understanding. “Okay, cocksuckers. Gotta search you. You’re mine, Ryder. Don’t try anything cute. You won’t like the price your friend Blake pays.”
“You”—the guard in the snowsuit nodded at Eva—“sit on the floor. There. No, dammit, you’re in no position to argue.
Do it.
”
Her face a thundercloud, Eva slid down the wall beside a sideboard. Calming his feelings for her, Ryder gave her a quick smile of encouragement. She closed her eyes a moment and smiled in return, a small one, but real.
While hands roughed him up, Ryder thought about summer camp on the Chesapeake the year he turned twelve, long swims in the cold bay, pounding nails into siding as he helped to build a shelter. He glanced over at Tucker, who had a faraway expression on his face as he endured being frisked, too.
“Shit, all he’s got is a billfold and a smartphone,” said the man in white, who had done Tucker.
“Yeah, that’s what mine has, too. Let’s go, morons. Time to meet the boss.”
Tucker was having trouble getting his jacket zipped. With a shrug, he gave up.
Ryder and Tucker walked ahead, the S&W at their backs. Eva and the guard in the snowsuit brought up the rear. Somewhere a clock ticked, one of those monotonous noises that made jumpy nerves worse.
“Stop, fuckers,” the guard behind them ordered. “Turn left and face the door. Ryder, stand in front of the peephole.”
The wooden door was broad, paneled, classic. Judging by its location, it opened onto the room Ryder and Tucker had seen alight from the road. He faced the peephole.
The guard in khakis pressed a cell phone to his ear. “I’ve got Ryder. And I’ve got Andersen and Eva Blake, too.” There was a pause. “Of course I’m damn sure. They match the photos you e-mailed. Check out Ryder in the peephole. He’s alive, just like you wanted.”
With Ryder in the lead, they walked into a bibliophile’s dream. Thousands of books lettered with decorative inks and paints filled three tall walls. Ryder stared. His father had had a private library like this, a library that both of them had loved.
Turning away, he focused on the men who were waiting with their M4s. His gaze locked on to Chapman. The mogul’s silver hair was swept back in waves, and he was as aristocratic-looking as ever. His stance was relaxed, his smile confident, as if handling both a multibillion-dollar equity firm and a lethal M4 were everyday tasks. Fury rose bitter in Judd’s throat. A painful sense of loss swept through him, for his father, for Eva’s years in the penitentiary. For the many people Chapman had ruined or killed.