Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
THE NINE OF us who would be going up top exited the control room and headed through to the armoury. I pulled on a black turtleneck over my “bad girl” T-shirt as I walked. There was no sense in sticking out like a sore thumb if I had to go outside.
Now to pick up my toys.
Bradley handed me my custom-made thigh holster, and I strapped it on, selecting a Glock 9mm for the right-hand side and a silenced .22 for the left. Extra magazines clipped onto the back of the belt, then I added a knife to each side. Those slotted in neatly next to the guns.
Blanco’s team may have been more heavily armed than us, but I didn’t plan on getting into a “my gun’s bigger than your gun” contest with them. There was simply no point in weighing myself down with half a ton of lead when one bullet to the head would do the job. Two if I wanted to be really sure. In situations like this, I preferred to keep the manoeuvrability.
“ Now you look like the Black Widow,” Bradley said, the queen of inappropriate comments. “I’m not sure about those boots, though.”
“I don’t need fancy boots to shoot people.”
“Just try not to get blood everywhere, okay?”
I checked the laces on my rubber-soled combat boots one last time then clipped on a headset for communications. We tended to run with open channels most of the time rather than messing around with push-to-talk buttons, and Mack’s specially modified software automatically reduced the volume of anything noisy like gunshots.
All our earpieces were custom moulded, so they fitted closely with little sound escaping. As I turned my radio on, Mack’s running commentary came through loud and clear, and I learned Blanco’s men had breached through the back and sides of my home. Apparently, they’d tried to blast through the front door as well but got defeated by the reinforced steel. Score one for Team Blackwood.
Carmen, Jack, and Alex took off through the tunnel for Riverley Hall. I should probably mention that as well as being my personal trainer, Alex used to be a major in Spetsnaz GRU, a series of special forces units controlled by Russian military intelligence. I’d worked with him on a few jobs over the years, and he scared the poop out of me. In terms of unarmed combat, he was the best I’d ever seen, although I was in two minds over whether I wanted him to use those particular skills today. Like Bradley said, blood was a nightmare to clean up.
Black’s basement housed a second, smaller control room so Jack, Alex, and Carmen could take another look at what was going on before they went upstairs. Once they’d confirmed it was clear, a hidden staircase would take Carmen all the way to the roof.
I’d considered the possibility Team Blanco might also have a sniper, but it seemed unlikely. The only position with a good line of sight and enough elevation was Black’s roof, and the pressure sensors said nobody was up there yet. There was no point in reminding Carmen to be careful—I’d only be insulting her intelligence if I did. She’d been doing this for enough years and with enough success to know how to operate safely.
In the gloom on the monitors, Team Blanco prowled through the house, and I forced myself to tuck away my anger at violation of my home and replace it with the cold detachment I was famous for. Squinting at the screen, I noted they were wearing headsets too.
“Luke, could you try and listen into whatever frequency they’re using? It’ll probably be secure, but Mack’s got software that’ll help.”
“Sure thing, I’m on it.”
At least Luke hadn’t flipped out. I’d been worried he might—I mean, having pizza and a ball game interrupted by a fourteen-man assault team had to be unsettling for anyone—but he seemed remarkably calm, all things considered.
I watched for a bit longer, learning more about our enemy with every passing second. The pair who killed Black had been freelance, hired in for the job, but seeing these men glide around the house, I could tell they weren’t just a team of mercenaries thrown together at the last minute. No, they were far more polished, moving in pairs, each man interacting with his teammate in a way that indicated they’d done this many times before.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
Then again, nothing in my life had ever been easy.
And far from shying away from the difficulties, I’d learned to embrace them, using each nightmare I lived through to grow stronger. For me, the outcome tonight was never in any doubt. No matter what Team Blanco slung at us, Team Blackwood would throw it back tenfold, plus we had the advantage of being on home turf.
Team Blanco cleared the ground floor and split, with four men heading to the basement and eight upstairs. The remaining two stayed in the kitchen, no doubt ready to assist wherever they were needed. Their initial body language showed confidence, no doubt bolstered by our lack of retaliation, but that soon turned to confusion when they couldn’t find us. Anywhere.
Luke managed to patch into their radio channel. Their communications were brief and, interestingly, in Spanish. The fact they’d chosen that dialect in such a pressured situation indicated it was their first language. But no matter. All of our team, with the exception of Luke, spoke fluent Espanol . Even Bradley, although he was more likely to ask si esos zapatos vienen en púrpura at Madrid Fashion Week.
“ Hay alguna senal de ellos ?” one of them asked. Any sign of them?
There was a burst of static, then, “ Nada .”
“We are sure they are here?”
“We saw them go in. They couldn’t all have left, not when we’ve been watching the house for the entire day.”
I suppressed a shudder. Knowing they’d been so close while I relaxed with my friends gave me the creeps. Time to upgrade the security system, at least, if there was anything left to upgrade. The current one covered the house, the outbuildings, and the driveway but not the woods. Last time we’d tried motion sensors in the trees, we spent most of our nights chasing deer, but we couldn’t keep relying on my intuition.
I winced as an intruder caught sight of his reflection in a polished kitchen cabinet and shot a grenade at it. Seconds later, the sprinklers came on downstairs, making the mother of all messes.
As I watched a river running through my lounge, I tried to stay positive. If the intruders had been outside all day, they wouldn’t be fresh. And now some of them were dripping wet as well.
Another of the men spoke up from the basement. “There is fresh food down here and it is still warm. They cannot have gone far.”
“Then they must be hiding. We’ll have to go through the house again. And remember, the boss said they will have weapons.”
It was time. Carmen confirmed she was in position on the roof, covering the east side with her infrared scope and rifle. Alex and Jack were hiding to the north, watching the back, and Evan and Logan had snuck out of the guesthouse to take the front and west sides. Those four were ready to pick off anyone leaving the house or come inside if we needed them.
My team took one of the hidden staircases, with Nate and Dan going to the second floor and Nick and me taking the first. Jed kept us informed while Mack did the same for Nate and Dan.
Adrenaline was fuelling me nicely by the time I reached the top of the stairs. My resolve was rock solid, and despite the disaster befalling my house, I had a smile on my face. I know I shouldn’t have enjoyed moments like this, but let’s be honest, I did.
I glanced sideways at Nick, and his lips quirked upwards at the corners too. We were one pair of sick puppies.
It was hard relying on someone else to be my eyes, but I’d known Jed long enough to trust his judgment, and in any case, I had little choice. CCTV covered the whole house, but normally the internal cameras were turned off when the place was occupied. I mean, who wanted their bedroom antics recorded?
Nate had originally planned to install a simpler system, but Black insisted on gold standard. “Just in case the house ever gets invaded, Diamond,” he’d told me at the time. Some might have called it paranoia, but I called it foresight.
The staircase Nick and I took led to a narrow passage that came up between the study and the sprawling master suite Black and I had once shared.
“One’s in Black’s bathroom, the other’s in your dressing room, Emmy,” Jed told us. “He’s looking in your underwear drawer.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Pervert. It’s not as if you’re gonna be hiding in there, is it? The other one’s in Black’s bedroom now.”
I slid the panel in front of me open a few inches. It moved silently on hidden tracks, and the large, abstract painting on my bedroom wall shifted a little to the left. When I peered through the gap, I got a good view of the doorways to both Black’s bedroom and my dressing room, but crucially, I wasn’t in line of sight for anyone exiting either of them. Come on, come on . I slowed my breathing and sighted in my silenced .22 on the nearer of the two, the bedroom doorway. The moment a black-clad figure appeared, I took him out with a double tap to the head.
One down.
Even a silenced pistol makes a noise, and his colleague rushed out of the dressing room.
Two down.
I wanted to say first blood to me, but I still didn’t know the fate of Seth and Mick in the guardhouse which was another reason to get this situation resolved as soon as possible. Five seconds later, I’d melted back behind the painting.
On the radio, I heard the zip of a bullet as Nick took out a guy in the study. Now we just needed to deal with his teammate, who’d stayed outside in the corridor, and preferably before he found the body. There was a third exit to the small vestibule I stood in, which led in the right direction.
“Is my exit to the hallway clear?” I asked Jed.
“Confirmed clear. Your target’s around the corner to your left, facing away from you.”
“I’m going for it.”
“Good luck.”
Luck? I didn’t need luck. Not when I had two guns and a megaton of anger fuelling me.
I slid back another panel, this one fronted by a nearly life-size oil-on-canvas of my horse, Stan, painted by an old friend half a decade ago. Half a lifetime, it seemed like. Time had slowed since Black died.
There were no lights on in this corridor, but shards of moonlight came through the windows and a faint glow glimmered from the master suite. Five steps, ten, and I rounded the corner in a crouch. And there he was—visitor number four, walking away from me.
Heeding my own advice not to shoot anyone in the back, I whistled softly, and he spun around. Dark hair, a goatee, and a faint expression of surprise right before I put a bullet between his eyes. I followed up with a second, just to be sure, and he crumpled to the carpet with a soft thud . Four down, I couldn’t help smiling.
Heartless?
Of course I was heartless. I’d given my heart to Black, and when he died, he took it with him.
But I didn’t have time to dwell on sentimentalities because I had a dead body at my feet, right where one of his buddies would undoubtedly trip over it. I started to drag it into the linen closet, only for Jed to interrupt.
“Emmy, incoming. Middle staircase from the second floor.”
I didn’t have time to go back the way I’d come, but I didn’t want to go forwards either because I’d be boxed in. And worse, the only room that lay ahead was Bradley’s bedroom. Most people slept as far away from me as possible, but Bradley had insisted on having that one because it had the best view of the sunset.
Think, Emmy, think!
That particular hallway was quite narrow, so I braced my shoulders on one wall and my legs on the other then climbed upwards, wedging myself near the ceiling. Awkward, but it worked.
A few seconds later, my opponent came into view, dashing towards his dead buddy. Medical attention was a waste of time since the man’s brain had a couple of new lead accessories, but in the darkness, he didn’t know that. Instead, he stooped to check for a pulse, cursing under his breath when he didn’t find one.
The newcomer straightened, and I saw the moment he realised he was a sitting duck. His back stiffened, his gun came up, and he looked both ways. Trying to get out or searching for me? Well, he wouldn’t manage either successfully because he didn’t look up and he chose to go forwards.
I dropped to the floor behind him and followed, catching him as he came out of Bradley’s en-suite.
Another one down.
It should have been a moment to celebrate, but I groaned instead. There was blood on the carpet, splatters and a pool spreading out from under the guy’s head. The metallic tang assaulted my nostrils.
Great. I’d never hear the end of that. No way would Bradley ever sleep in this room again. In my head, I could hear him muttering about death cooties and the guy wasn’t even cold yet.
Why did this stuff keep happening to me?
Nate announced over our secure channel that he’d tagged the last one upstairs, coming out of my housekeeper’s sewing room. She loved making quilts, and apparently the light was good in there. Now? There was only darkness.
Eight down, six left. Six walking dead, roaming my first floor and basement.
“They’re starting to panic,” Jed told me. “They can’t get a response from the others, and they don’t know what to make of it.”
Excellent. I slipped back in behind Stan’s portrait and met up with Nick, Nate, and Dan to go downstairs for the Battle of Little Riverley: Part Two.
But as we descended inside the walls, we missed one of the remaining hombres coming to look for his amigos . He must have stumbled across a body or two, and he must also have been a less experienced member of the team, because he hurtled back to the ground floor, yelling in rapid Spanish.
The others whispered furiously over the radio for him to shut up, and he seemed to come to his senses and did so. I sighed. The lion was out of the wardrobe now, and I stowed my .22. With the need to remain secret no longer an issue, I might as well have the stopping power of the Glock.
Given that four men had checked the two visible rooms of the basement—the movie theatre and a large games room—and found nothing, I figured they wouldn’t expect anyone to come from down there. So I did exactly that.
Water trickled down the basement stairs as I snuck up to the ground floor. The sprinklers had stopped the fire from taking hold, but the smell of smoke still grated at my throat. One of Blanco’s men came out of the lounge, and when I shot him with the Glock, half of his skull disintegrated thanks to Carmen’s hand-loaded ammo.
“That was for my kitchen, you monkey-flunking goofnugget.”
Not to mention my husband.
I hustled back to the basement, ready and waiting for my next victim, but when Team Blanco found the headless dude, they’d had enough.
“Fall back,” came the cry over the radio, and the five remaining soldiers tripped over themselves to get out.
“Heading for you, Dime,” Mack told Carmen.
Nate had given her that nickname years ago because when she picked up a rifle, she could hit a coin from a thousand yards every time.
“What, all of them?” she asked.
“Yup.”
No way, surely? But yes, the pressure had got to them and they stupidly left through the same door, walking right into Carmen’s sights. She waited for the last man to get outside before letting loose.
One sharp crack followed another, then a third and a fourth, before a muttered expletive came over the radio.
“How many did you get?”
“Three. The others ran around the east side.”
“Now they’re going north,” Jed said. “Heading towards Alex and Jack.”
That left two of them against eight of us. I liked those odds. So much so that I decided to delegate their capture.
“Okay, you guys take the final two. I’m going to the guardhouse with Nick. How’s it looking?”
“Fire’s out, but no signs of life.”
Shoot. “Carmen, we’re coming out your way.”
Nick was right behind me, one hand on his gun and the other on the small of my back. That light touch told me he didn’t think this was going to end well either. So much death, and for what? Drugs? The ongoing vendetta of a man who hid in the shadows?
Well, I had news. I lived in freaking darkness now, and I was coming for him.