Chapter 16 #2
“Shit.” He ended the call. That Russian idiot was lucky there was a good measure of ocean between them right now.
“Damn. They might—” Cap didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence before they heard the loud cracking sound of the front door crashing in.
Dane flew past Cap, grabbing his Glock 17 from the counter and ducked behind the wall in the hallway with two men in black T-shirts and Makarov MP-443 Grachs held high. They walked forward slowly, shouting in Russian for their surrender.
Dane knew once he fired there would be a shit storm of bullets flying.
He needed to know how many of them there were before he fired, but he couldn’t afford to let them get out of his sights and lose his tactical advantage—however temporary it was.
As they approached the kitchen area, he was about to pull the trigger, when another splintering crash sounded—at the backdoor—in the kitchen. Where he’d last seen Cap. Damn.
The two men immediately stopped moving and crouched, shouting more Russian that told their compatriots where they were.
Dane lowered his sight to adjust to their crouch and before the two took another step, he fired.
Rapid fire, six shots, two men down. He’d hit them in the shoulders and arms, not center mass.
They were out of commission but would likely live to stand trial.
Dane wasn’t official law enforcement anymore so he couldn’t afford to kill people when he took the first shot—not even after they’d crashed in the door. He’d thought all this and done all this within the space of three seconds.
Then all hellfire broke loose and the shouting was barely heard over the loud cracking of automatic weapons shooting bullets too fast to know how many.
Dane collapsed down low and retreated to Shana’s bedroom.
They’d planned for Cap to retreat to Dane’s room.
Each of the rooms had an escape hatch in the closet.
One to the basement in his room and the other to the attic in Shana’s room.
If needed, there were always the windows. He hadn’t heard Cap and was worried. Two men shouted as they slowed down their fire and he placed them in his living room. He heard the destruction of his furniture.
He and Cap had moved all his hardware and important papers into the basement. The rest of what these men were destroying could be easily replaced—including the old computer on his kitchen table—a decoy.
Turning to the surveillance camera in Shana’s closet, he watched the grainy figures of the two men circle around the dining room, shooting up the computer and the table.
He noticed the men had two-ways. Looking closely, he recognized the smaller of the two men, the one in the lead, as Spartak’s main thug.
According to the intel he’d looked at earlier, the man’s name was Yakov.
He stopped in the hall, glanced back at the two writhing men on the floor, and gestured for them to stand.
One of them, whom Dane had managed to hit in the thigh, couldn’t stand and seemed about to pass out.
He might very well bleed out without attention.
The question about whether Yakov would take care of his wounded men was answered in the next second.
Yakov lifted his gun and shot the man in the head.
He was a pretty good shot—at close range.
Maybe he was being merciful. Maybe it was his leadership style.
He gestured to the other two men to get low and lifted his radiophone to speak quietly into the crackling two-way when it came to life.
Dane couldn’t hear what he was saying and couldn’t be sure who he was speaking to—but it didn’t bode well for Shana.
While Yakov regrouped and apparently studied the three closed doors confronting him, Dane switched his monitor to the other rooms to find Cap.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he found Cap in the bathroom, the closest door to where he’d last seen him when the men entered.
He must have seen the two men approaching from the rear on the outside monitor in the kitchen.
Dane shook his head and reminded himself that all the surveillance monitoring in the world was useless if you didn’t watch them.
He and Cap hadn’t been watching the front door monitor.
And apparently the motion sensors were either disabled or malfunctioning.
But he and Cap were still in good shape.
Or he was. Cap was at a disadvantage. Chances were Yakov would go in the bathroom door first since it was first in the hall.
Cap didn’t have a surveillance camera in there.
Dane would have to intervene from the rear—unless they split up and took all three doors at once. That’s what he would have done.
He switched the monitor back to the hallway to see what Yakov would do. And his brain buzzed with the possibilities for his response. Defeating an incursion to the room where he stood crouched and to the side would be easy. But to save Cap’s skin would be a much closer call.
Yakov’s back was to the camera as he spoke quietly and gestured to his men.
Dane couldn’t tell what their plan was. The two-way on Yakov’s hip chirped and he lifted it and spoke urgently to the man on the other end.
Dane heard him distinctly. He said, “No sign here yet of anyone. You were right--the baby is at your location.”
Dane’s blood turned glacial. He had to assume they were at Cap’s house.
Yakov put his radio away and gestured with his Grach for the men to move forward. They each turned to a different door and aimed their weapons.