Torsten Dahl book 1 - Stand Your Ground (21 page)

Dahl skirted the man, taking long minutes to make just a few steps, noticing a bare window beyond him where he could at least get a peek inside the house. The maneuver completed, he raised his head at the side of the window, quickly glimpsing the interior. All he saw was a wood-paneled empty room, golden lights picking out brass fixings and light fittings. Hardcover books lined a ceiling-length bookcase, old-school reading for old-school men. Working his way along, he found two more bare windows before calculating he was now still some way from the edge of the house and unavoidable detection. He’d viewed only one person inside the house thus far — a man wearing an expensive suit and carrying a glass of champagne. A stranger.

Dahl sank down to his haunches, back to the wall, and stared out over the lawn. He was as safe here as anywhere, unmoving and shadow-draped and pressed into a man-size gap offered by a jutting extension to the house.

Life had turned since he first met Nick Grant, both men revolving around different axes. For Dahl it had been about strict morality, hard work and loyalty. Grant’s axis ran through the bones of others, drenched in blood, fixed with a hatred for Dahl so intense it was tangible. It occurred to Dahl now that he’d lived under the shadow of Grant’s projected guilt for far too long.

The Facilitator, as was his wont, had made a deal with a faction of the Russian
mafiya
. Back then, Grant had a family – a wife and daughter – wholly unaware of who and what the man they poured every ounce of their trust into actually was.

“Did you return it?” Dahl whispered into the darkness, no louder than the flight of a passing mosquito. “As best you could?”

This had been years after the Amazon jungle episode. Dahl’s team had become aware of the Russian gang and their crimes. No mention of Grant had been made. As their surveillance of the Russians became more complete, they learned the true depths to which the
mafiya
members were plummeting – human trafficking, body-part acquisitions, assassinations.

A man in a lofty office crunched some numbers and slid his order down the long chain – they had to act. Dahl’s team prepped and went in and, for the most part, the operation went as expected.

One or two Russians escaped, their boss among them, and went into hiding.

“Never saw you,” Dahl whispered again to the dark night in place of Nick Grant. “Never even knew you were part of it.”

When the dust settled, everyone moved on. Months passed. It was only later that Dahl heard how the surviving Russians meted out their vengeance. Never renowned for having the best grasp of whole situations, they blamed everyone but themselves for the
lapse
, as they called it, the failure to safeguard their business. Heads rolled, literally. Dahl learned of the fallout, but the mysterious Man on High never ordered any further payback.

Probably didn’t fit his business plans at the time.

The Facilitator’s reputation had been, to that point, unblemished. Luckily, most of his clients trusted Russians about as much as they trusted their own mothers, but unluckily for Grant, the Russians were uncomplicated about whom they took out their anger on. Everyone got a taste. When Grant made himself scarce, they sent men to take vengeance on the Facilitator’s wife and daughter.

“I’m sorry,” Dahl whispered into the Barbadian night. “Not for you, Grant, but for the innocent.”

Grant blamed Dahl – the initial takedown team’s leader – for the Russians’ vengeance and let it be known, globally, that one day, one way or another, he would claim back all he had lost. Dahl had made quiet investigations, trying to learn the reason for this new threat against him. In doing so, he’d discovered Nick Grant’s role in the
mafiya
operation that his task force and he had dismantled. And learned how the Russians had spent weeks tracking Grant, losing him, and then turning their attention to his family, so that they could carry out their abominable version of justice. Not that they themselves lasted long. A couple of years later they vanished from all knowledge, evidently victims of Grant’s own wrath. But in their decision of allowing Grant to live they had unknowingly wreaked a kind of vengeance upon Dahl, giving birth to Grant’s undying vendetta.

Allowing Grant to live turned out to be the surviving Russians’ real revenge on Dahl.

The Facilitator grew and grew after that, a warped solar flare, bringing incalculable sins to every place he touched. Each success fed the greed, inviting in worse nightmares that crawled and slithered and crept as they begged to be unleashed. Grant became a legend, and Dahl let it pass.

He checked his surroundings again. Still no sounds or movement nearby.

Enough thinking. He couldn’t delay the inevitable.

He had to get inside.

He turned to the nearest window, tested it. Of course, it wouldn’t budge, not even a millimeter. On the plus side, no sudden scraping noises gave away his position. He tried each window in turn, but to no avail.

No way in.

For normal people, anyway.

Dahl spun as footsteps crunched along the ground behind him.

THIRTY SEVEN

The shadow within shadows was a man, broad and chewing gum as he walked almost point-blank into the motionless Dahl. Though he had the advantage of surprise, Dahl was so shocked himself that he didn’t put as much as he should have into the first punch. Consequently, the guard only went down to his knees, eyes glazed and weapon dropping from one limp hand. He batted up at Dahl weakly, then opened his mouth to sound an alarm, but the Mad Swede already had it covered. He landed a foot in the center of the man’s face, kicking hard, and followed up without losing ground. His knee came down hard on his opponent’s sternum, his large hand clamping the bloodstained mouth.

Relieved to see he’d lost nothing after today’s rigors, he made sure the guard was out before dragging him into deeper darkness. Now the clock was well and truly ticking. He wouldn’t kill this man, a fellow soldier and likely an innocent security staffer, which meant he now had a finite amount of time until the guard awoke. He checked the guard for communications devices and found that he was hooked up to a Bluetooth transmitter. Dahl took the man’s weapon and broke the Bluetooth device, hoping that if it were tested in any way, it would initially be seen as a glitch and buy Dahl a little more time.

Holding the guard’s weapon – a reliable, simple and accurate 9mm Glock 19, the bodyguard’s perfect weapon, with a blued finish – down along his thigh, Dahl applied logic to the problem at hand. Of course the guard would have access to the house itself –but in what form? He patted the man down, finding a simple oblong of plastic like a credit card in the unconscious man’s back pocket. This would be a slide-reader then, allowing access much like a hotel key card . . . the question being exactly how much access?

A veteran, armed guard like the downed man should have almost total access, Dahl reasoned. He used the man’s leather belt to secure him as fully as he was able.

Let’s test that theory then.

First problem: which door? He couldn’t just waltz in through the front, and even if he did manage to don the guard’s clothing, he would look like an impostor. The odds were dire, but Dahl had to try.

No way did this house possess only one or two doors. Dahl inched his way around another sliver of property, slipping past another guard before finding a black alcove beneath a strip-window. The thick metal door had a card reader, which Dahl quickly utilized. Some men may have waited, worried, or backed off, but the Mad Swede’s dogma had always been to keep moving forward. Reach the end and take the prize. Finish it.

With silent efficiency, the door cracked open. Dahl pushed slowly, still holding the gun low. The interior hall was narrow and dimly lit, probably adjusted to aid the guards’ eyesight when they entered during the night. He slipped along the first hallway and then paused. A high-ceilinged reception room stood before him, trimmed exactly the same as the others he’d seen, dark and deep and polished. A two-flight staircase doubled back on itself to give access to the second floor. Dahl paused, seeing the yawning gap to the foot of the stairs as a deadly no-man’s-land. He surveyed up and down and skimmed over every panel, seeing no sign of CCTV cameras. Yes, some versions were so small these days that he might not spot them but, as before, the soldier could only deal with what he knew. Dahl had seen them all, worked with them all, even watched as they were installed in his team’s new offices. Gut instinct told him he was safe.

Footsteps rang out across the floor. Dahl slunk lower as a man passed by the opening and turned up the stairs. He wore waiter’s attire and carried a silver platter upon which stood three full glasses of champagne.

Interesting.

But by no means conclusive. Sealy could entertain his guests in any one of the rooms of the house. Dahl allowed the waiter time to press ahead and then broke cover, slipping around the internal wall and into another offshoot. The way ahead was again little more than a pool of darkness, but Dahl scooted down the hallway and listened outside every closed door, just in case. The man he’d knocked unconscious wouldn’t be stirring yet, but time remained short. Dahl finished with the first corridor and then hurried to try a second. The third led to the kitchen, if the muffled sounds of pans shifting and utensils clicking were anything to go by. Dahl ignored that door, though his stomach rebelled.

Another wing beckoned. It took him three minutes of intense skulking to rule it out. Not a soul stirred. On the way back, he had to pause when a clerk suddenly appeared ahead, seeking out a room and disappearing inside. Late for somebody to be working, he mused, but then governments never stopped. Silence drifted all around him and the old, polished walls watched broodily. Dahl stalked the halls, counting the minutes down in his head.

Cutting it bloody close.

Now for the staircase. Dahl waited in the shadow of a huge, ticking grandfather clock, growing accustomed to the house’s noises again before making his move. A swift dart back and forth and he was on the top-floor landing, seeking refuge with swift, practiced eyes. An alcove gave momentary respite and a chance to reconnect with the house.

Footsteps approached.

Dahl didn’t panic but flattened his back into the alcove and reached behind for a door knob. Finding it, he turned, readied the gun and pushed his way into the room. Expecting the worst, he found himself in a black space, the only light granted by undrawn drapes fastened back at an angle, allowing the stars to lend a silvery hue to the room. Dahl didn’t have time to close the door, so left it open a crack and held his breath.

The footsteps stopped right outside.

He sensed that the door was being studied, proven right a moment later when it was pushed from the outside, swinging wide open. He fell to the floor instantly, as soundless as a dust mote, but inclined the barrel of the gun to a 45-degree angle.

All this, only to fail now
.

But Dahl stayed professional, assuming nothing. The door struck the wall bumper softly, a slender figure outlined against the darker hall. Dahl crouched in silence, only a few feet away and to the woman’s right. Hopefully she wouldn’t look down. Hopefully she’d go about her duties. Dahl could tell by her uniform and the heap of bedding she held that she was a house cleaner.
Bad luck
. She’d probably just made up this room and remembered closing the door.

He could hear her gentle breathing and the soft swish of her clothing as she turned to survey the rest of the room. Her legs below the hem of her skirt were so close he could have blown on them, no doubt giving her the shock of her life. For one moment, he thought she might turn and walk away, no harm done, but then some deeper sense must have jarred her brain, as it often did with civilians, and made her look down.

Dahl rose alongside like a bad dream, anxious to clamp her mouth and stop the scream. One hand covered her lips, the other pressed firmly against the back of her head. Frightened, flitting eyes stared over the top of his fingers; the rest of her stayed immobile. Carefully, he bent her head so she could see the gun he’d left on the floor. Her neck muscles fought against him but he took care not to manhandle her.

With a gentle foot, he eased the door shut, then whispered into her ear.

“I have no issue with you. I’m not here for you. Do you understand?”

A slight nod.

“Also, I don’t trust you, love. Not one bit. Do you understand that?”

Another nod, this time with a stiffening of fear through her body.

“I won’t hurt you unless you fight me. But I have to do this.”

Dahl kept one hand over her mouth and pushed her further into the room with pressure at the small of her back. He made her pause and reached down to pick up the gun, noticing how still she went. This seemed to be the right time to tell her to remove her nylons – an order he’d not been looking forward to, since he wanted her to feel less threatened, not more. He kept his tone even and used the weapon as an obvious counterpoint. It worked. She bent slightly, raised her skirt and worked the hose down. Dahl looked up at the ceiling, making it obvious, trying not to break into an aimless whistle.

“Sorry,” he said as she handed him the warm material. “Aren’t you bloody hot in here?”

“I am local,” she mumbled. “He sets the air too low.”

“Ah.”

Dahl held the nylons and cast around for the one other item he would need. Something from one of the drawers, probably. An interconnecting door stood to the left, offering further possibilities. Steering her over, he rummaged through the first set of drawers, found nothing except a few dog-eared books, and moved to the next. Here he found a man’s vest and gave it a quick sniff.

“We’re okay,” he said. “It’s clean.”

Working against a nagging conscience, he tied the vest across her mouth to make a gag and then tied her wrists behind her back with the nylons. The woman’s eyes flinched and jerked around as her fear rose, but Dahl consistently held out a palm and tried not to pinch or trap any skin. When he was finished, he turned her around to face him.