Chapter 24 #2
“Precise number unknown,” Girard answered. “Two groups, each of twenty or more at best guess. One group affiliated with individual identified as Nicholas Rigg, the other with individual with first name Jonah, no known last name.”
“All received. I’ll relay the intel. Last update here is the tac team were on standby for immediate departure. Are you in imminent danger, sir?” Jasper asked.
“Affirmative,” Girard said, even as the zauber flared a warning at Hallie’s hip.
“We’ve got company,” Hallie called over her shoulder.
She didn’t hear what Girard said to the radio, all her attention on the sensation of movement somewhere in the rest of the house.
And outside. The zauber had caught it first, but as she listened she could hear them, too.
“Outside and in,” she added, voice tense.
Girard appeared at the other side of the doorway, handgun ready.
“How long will it take for back-up to get here?” Rhodda asked from somewhere behind them. She sounded miserable and nervous.
“A few hours at best,” Girard answered in a low voice.
“We’ll be dead by then,” Rhodda whispered. Hallie risked a glance over her shoulder and saw the other woman huddled down on the sofa, hands between her knees, head bowed. “We should have left when you suggested it,” she added, looking up at Hallie. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. We’re not dead yet,” Hallie told her, frowning slightly. She’d seen Rhodda in various stages of fear and defiance before now, but this seemed something new, as if she’d given up all hope.
Footsteps coming through the house snapped Hallie’s attention away from Rhodda and back to the very real danger posed by Jonah and his men.
“I’m telling you, I heard something,” a low voice was saying. The speaker probably didn’t think he could be heard, and if Hallie had been human, she might have missed it. But she caught the words clearly.
“Then shut up and we’ll check it out,” another voice answered.
Heavy boot treads sounded and then two men appeared from under the staircase.
They were carrying their weapons down by their sides, not ready to use.
Girard fired. He caught the first one in the shoulder.
The second man squealed in fright and ducked back into the shadows as Girard fired.
The further shriek suggested that Girard had hit him, but not killed him.
The first man stumbled back, a furious yell erupting from his throat.
He brought his weapon up, aiming towards Girard.
Hallie fired. She was aiming in the general direction of the man, just trying to get him to back away. Her bullet missed him, but from the further shriek of the second man she thought she might have hit him instead.
The first man reached into the shadows, grabbing his companion, and pulling him back to where the kitchen was, sending up a shout. One word. Intruders.
More shouting. Intruders. Office. Radio.
Before Hallie could do anything else, glass shattered behind her and something smacked into the wall not far from her head.
She ducked down, huddled close to the floor and turned away from the door, looking through the now broken windows to see the vague shapes of people outside, emerging from the forest. Jonah’s men must have reached the top of the stairs.
Moving as fast as she could, she headed for the shelter of the enormous desk, Girard with her.
“You watch the door, I’ll take the window,” he told her.
With her blood roaring in her ears, Hallie focused on the doorway, gun levelled towards it, and tried to pretend her hands weren’t shaking.
The desk wasn’t going to provide them with cover for long, not now that Jonah and his men knew where they were.
For a horrible moment she wondered if Rhodda had been right and they were all going to die.
More shots came into the room from outside.
Glass flew through the air and Hallie felt something bite into her skin.
She risked a glance and saw a shard of glass poking into her upper arm.
It wasn’t all that big, so she ignored it, turning back to the doorway in time to see a shape appearing.
She fired. Two shots, one low, one high, and the shadow moved back at once.
The roaring in her ears was so loud she couldn’t hear her own rapid breathing, just felt the thudding of her heart in her chest and the tight, awful knot in her stomach.
Then she realised that the roaring wasn’t inside her head.
“What is that noise?” she asked, as more shots sounded from outside.
“Sounds like a helicopter,” Girard answered.
“It can’t be ours, can it?” she asked, a dangerous sliver of hope loosening some of the knot. “It’s way too close.” If she could hear it that clearly, it must be almost at the island.
“Maybe. They’d have had to be on their way long before the radio call.” Girard paused to send a few shots outside.
“Will they know about the armed men?” Hallie asked. She had no idea how quickly Jasper might have been able to relay the information to Director Roth.
“Probably not,” Girard said. “We need to try and warn them.”
“Alright,” Hallie said. She looked around, measuring the distance between the shelter of the desk and the radio. Even as she tried to work out distances and how she might get a message out, another volley of shots rang out, bullets thudding into the radio. “Radio’s broken.”
“I’ve got flares,” Girard said. He lifted his head, peered over the desk, and muttered a curse. “No good. I’ll need to get outside for a decent throw.”
“Then we move,” Hallie said. She fired another few shots at another shadow that appeared in the doorway. “Through the window?”
“Too many people out there,” Girard said.
“Front door,” Hallie suggested. If she could make it out of the room, the house’s front door wasn’t far away.
“Can you run? I’ll cover you,” Girard suggested. He paused between shots and pulled something out of a pocket. “You need to snap it as if you’re breaking it in half, then throw it. It will send out smoke.”
“Got it,” Hallie said, taking the stick from him.
It was made of smooth, hard plastic and had some kind of a warning label on it that she couldn’t read in the poor light.
She shrugged out of the two rifles that she was carrying, leaving them on the floor by the desk, and put her handgun back in the holster, gathering herself to run.
When she was ready she gave Girard a nod.
He rose to his feet and sent a volley of shots out through the window then immediately turned and fired into the house, moving with Hallie as she ran out of the room, sprinting across the shadowed entrance hall to the solid wooden front doors.
It was only when she reached them that she wondered if they were locked.
Luck - or Jonah’s lax housekeeping - was on her side, as the door yielded under her shove, letting her out into the night.
She ran down the shallow stone steps and then stumbled as her cold, bare feet encountered the sharp gravel in front of the house.
She swayed as she stopped, using both hands to snap the plastic stick in two then fling it out in front of her.
As it flew through the air, it began to glow.
Faintly at first, then an increasingly vivid red, trails of smoke billowing out of it until when it reached the ground it was a mass of brilliant red smoke that would be easily visible from the air, and probably in New Hope as well.
She turned, biting back a cry as the gravel dug into her feet, and headed back into the house.
Or planned to. As she reached the open doors, more shadows moved in the hallway.
She fumbled for her gun, tucked herself down next to the solid stone door surround, firing into the group inside, aware of Girard standing next to her, firing away from the house.
Bullets thudded into the heavy wooden doors and splintered chips of stone over her head.
She ran out of bullets, ejected the magazine and reloaded as smoothly as if she’d been handling guns all her life, then began firing into the house again.
Single shots, carefully aimed and spaced out, trying to conserve her ammunition.
A couple of yells and cries of pain let her know that she’d hit at least two people.
Then the sound of helicopter engines became a deafening roar.
She risked a look up and saw an enormous black shape overhead.
It hovered in the air over the red smoke and against the darkening sky she saw two people appear, one on either side of the enormous vehicle, dropping down to the ground in the midst of the vivid red smoke.
She wanted to cry out, sure that the people were going to smash against the hard gravel surface, but they didn’t.
Instead, they landed lightly on the ground and immediately began firing at the men around the house.
The Conclave Investigators’ tactical team, she realised, and they’d used ropes to get down from the helicopter.
Looking back up she saw another two people also dropping down from the helicopter.
A blinding flare of light snapped through the sky and slammed into the helicopter, sending it spinning in a wild arc that had Hallie’s mouth open in a silent cry.
The two people who’d been descending on the ropes were shaken off, tumbling down into the forest. Even as the helicopter turned right side up, still hovering in the air, another flare of light, and another, rose into the sky and slammed into it again.
The combined hits sent the vehicle into a spin that made Hallie sick just to look at it.
She was sure she screamed when the helicopter fell to the ground in front of the house.
No gentle descent, but a free fall that had it smashing into the ground, tilting to one side, the giant rotor blades biting into the earth, churning up the gravel and soil as the engines whined and squealed.
Trying to keep the blades spinning even as the ground resisted.