Blind Rage (42 page)

I wasn’t sure what I expected to happen after we’d uploaded the fourth and last piece of the program that someone had so desperately sought they’d enlisted the help of a blind girl and her somewhat clueless new employee. But I didn’t expect
nothing
. No fanfare, no confetti, no congratulatory slap on the back—no nothing.

The disappointment, the letdown was just settling in when something
did
happen. The computer shut down and the lamp went out, throwing the room into pitch darkness. Momentarily confused, I stood and went to the doorway. The entire house was dark.

“Power’s out,” I said softly.

As I peered into the great room, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Somewhere out beyond the glass, a faint green glow caught my attention. As I focused on it, I saw a flash of red, too, a ruby thread that sliced through the air as it moved toward me.

“They found us!” I shouted.

I ducked back into the study just as glass shattered in the great room, accompanied by the same muffled chatter of weapons fire I’d heard when Helen had been killed. Instinctively, I reached out in the darkness, my fingers finding fabric. I grabbed it and pulled Tess to the floor. The sudden silence was louder than the gunshots. Tess hadn’t made a sound, and sudden fear gripped me with the thought that she might have been hit.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

“Fine,” she murmured.

I let out the breath I’d been holding and tried to slow my racing heart.

“I can’t see a thing,” I said. “I don’t know how I’m going to get you out of here.”

Tess scrabbled up onto all fours. “Can you see the door?”

A glittering red thread shot through the blackness, outlining the opening’s black rectangle.

“Yes,” I said.

“Point me there.”

I turned her in the right direction.

“Follow me,” she said. “I can get us out.”

“We haven’t got much time,” I hissed. “By now they know we’re unarmed. They’ll storm the house any minute.”

Without answering, she crawled through the doorway and turned right, making her way across the cold, hard stone floor of the foyer.

“Stay down,” she breathed over her shoulder. “You coming?”

“Right behind you,” I muttered.

I saw more flashes of red, and across the great room a green glow seemed to grow brighter as it bobbed up and down. Tess reached the other side of the entryway. I nearly bumped into her as she stopped and reached out with one hand to feel the wall. There was barely enough light to see the outline of a door. Tess’s fingers found the edge and traced it up until they found a handle. She pulled herself up, opened it, and slipped inside.

“Come on!” she hissed.

I scrambled over to the black opening in the dark wall and dove through. Soft fabric hit me in the face, and I bumped into another wall. The door clicked closed behind me. When I tried to stand I kept bumping into Tess or walls and realized that we’d ended up in a coat closet under the stairs. Now the darkness was so complete that I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.

“We’re in a freaking closet!” I grumbled. “You don’t think they’ll find us here?”

“Shut up!” she whispered.

Her back was turned to me, and I heard her hands brushing the walls, searching for something. Seconds later came the simultaneous sounds of shattering glass from the great room and a resounding crash close by as the front door was smashed in. I heard men shouting and boots stomping the hard floors as they spread out to search the house. Suddenly, Tess was gone.

Her whispered voice came from a few feet away. “Oliver, come on!”

I pushed past some coats and put my hands out to feel for Tess. In the pitch-black confines, my hands discovered that a wall had suddenly become an opening. The sounds of shouting and running feet still reverberated through the house around us. Tess reached out and felt me, grabbed my arm, and pulled.

“Watch your step,” she said softly. “There are stairs here going down.”

My groping hand found a banister, and I quickly stepped through and down a step. Tess stopped me with a touch, and I heard the click of the door panel moving back in place behind me. Tess took my hand, and we hurried down the stairs.

The SUV’s tires chattered over the ruts in the dirt road, trees close in on either side rushed past at breakneck speed. Fred was pushing the vehicle to its limits. When vehicles parked on the grassy shoulder loomed suddenly in the headlights around the next corner, Travis instinctively braced one hand against the door pillar as Fred stood on the brakes. The SUV slewed and fishtailed in the dirt and loose gravel. At the last second, Fred gave the four-wheel drive a shot of acceleration and wrestled the SUV around what had been impending disaster. He quickly brought the SUV to a halt. Fortunately, Kenny had seen Fred’s brake lights, giving him more time to slow, and he pulled up right behind.

Fred craned his neck and peered at the vehicles parked half on the shoulder. “Fishermen?”

“This time of night?” Travis said. “Someone got here first. The kids are in trouble.”

“Then let’s go.” Fred gave the accelerator some gas.

“Wait, wait!” Barney said, halfway out the back door.

Fred stomped on the brake, jerking the vehicle to a stop. Travis turned and watched Barney slither over to the closest empty vehicle. He crouched next to the front tire. A figure jumped out of the SUV behind them and ran to the vehicle parked in the rear. Now illuminated by the headlights, Travis saw that Luis had joined Barney at work on the parked SUVs.

In the backseat, behind Travis, Red peered at a map on the laptop screen. “There’s a turnout around the next bend,” he said quietly. “We can pull the vehicles into the trees under cover.”

“How far to the house from there?”

“Less than a klick.”

Barney moved to the rear tire on his vehicle, and a moment later Luis moved to the front on his. Travis glanced impatiently at his watch. Though it seemed like eons, it was only seconds later that Barney hustled back over and climbed in the backseat. He held out his open hand with a grin on his face, two valve stems nestled in his palm.

Red snorted. “Why didn’t you just slash the tires?”

Barney gave him a hurt look. “Tires are expensive, man.”

“We might need those vehicles later,” Travis said. “Good thinking, Barney. Okay, let’s go!”

Travis rolled down his window and waved to Kenny to follow. Fred quickly put the SUV in gear and drove around the curve. Travis scanned the terrain ahead and pointed to a break in the trees where they could hide the vehicles. Fred pulled in quickly, nosing the vehicle as far in as he could to give the other SUV room to maneuver in behind them. Travis hopped out before the SUV came to a full stop and waved the other vehicle in. As the men piled out of the vehicles, Travis checked over each one to make sure he was equipped with a communications unit, night vision monocular, and body armor. He knew all of them would have prepared as carefully as he had, checking and rechecking their equipment to make sure it would function as expected, but as their commander and employer, he was responsible for them.

They quickly opened the tailgates on each of the SUVs and pulled out automatic weapons and zippered vests with pockets for extra magazines and other munitions—grenades, flash-bangs, tear gas canisters, and whatever else each man favored. Travis had chosen the Heckler & Koch MP5SD3 submachine gun as the team’s assault weapon. A little different than the modified M4A1 assault rifle he’d used in the army, the HK was more compact, even with the sound suppressor. Navy SEALs used the HK, and Travis found he liked it better.

Red kneeled on the ground with the laptop, and the group huddled around him while Travis gave out assignments.

“Marcus,” he murmured, “you and Kenny take the right flank. Check the approach from the river. Luis and Red, take the left. Fred and Barney, circle around the back of the house, and be careful. I’ve got a feeling that if those vehicles back there indicate what we think they do, the main assault will come from that side. It’s all glass. Anyone inside is easily visible from there. I’ll go straight in the front. Okay, let’s move!”

The men separated into their teams and headed out onto the road. Luis waited a moment while Red threw the laptop in the backseat, and as soon as they headed out, Travis fell in step as they broke into a jog. The other black-garbed teams were already invisible in the dark though they were only yards ahead. Travis flipped his night vision monocular down in front of his right eye to get a better sense of the road ahead, the green glow of his men popping into view in the lens. He saw the road curve into the trees, the house not yet in sight. He flipped the monocular up again so he could run more easily, and fell into a steady rhythm.

As they rounded the bend and the dark shape of the house came into view, the men split off into the trees on either side and made their way to their positions as quickly and quietly as they could. Travis slowed his pace as they disappeared, approaching more cautiously as he drew closer. Suddenly, Travis watched the crisscrossing red lines of laser sights lock in on the house, and the night erupted in muffled gunfire.

At the bottom of the stairs, Tess paused and felt for the digital keyless lock pad. She punched in a six-digit code, a little surprised that she remembered it so easily. Her parents had insisted that none of their birthdates be used, so committing it to memory had been hard. The deadbolt unlocked with a soft click, bringing back memories of the drills her parents had run. As laid back and fun-loving as both of them had been, both also had harbored a practical side they’d constantly impressed upon Tess. “Be prepared,” they’d said. “Plan ahead, and you’ll be ready for whatever happens.” That advice had extended to things like home fire drills and panic drills, though she had found them strange at the time. She turned the handle on a heavy metal door and pushed.

“Wait here,” she told Oliver.

She stepped inside the door and hugged the wall to her right. Putting her hands out, she quickly found a small table and the battery-operated camp lantern sitting on it.
Be prepared . . .
She didn’t need the light, but Oliver did. Though this room normally had lights, Oliver said they’d cut the power. She returned to the base of the stairs and put the lantern in Oliver’s hand. She heard the click of the switch and Oliver’s footsteps as he moved into the room. She closed the door and found the handle that slid the dual reinforced steel security bars into place.

“What is this?” Oliver said, his voice coming from the middle of the room.

Her mouth twitched up in a half smile as she imagined his reaction to the large room, an odd mixture of 1960s bomb shelter and comfortable rec room. A door in one wall led to a fully stocked pantry full of shelf-stable food and a small bathroom with a chemical toilet.

“A panic room,” Tess said. “Kind of like the secret office at home.”

“You mean your parents anticipated something like this happening? Your dad was that paranoid?”

Tess understood his incredulity. “I don’t know what he thought might happen. I just know that he and Mom were always prepared. If I was hungry on the ride home from school, Mom always had an energy bar tucked away. If I skinned a knee at the park skateboarding with Dad, he came up with bandage from somewhere.”

“Guess they were right. But what good does it do us? They know we’re in the house somewhere.”

“We’re safe down here. They can’t get through that door. At least not easily.”

“We could be here for weeks.”

“Help will come.”

“No one’s coming to help. No one else knows we’re here, Tess.”

“Well, there’s plenty of food.”

“There’s no cell phone signal down here, either,” Oliver said. “We can’t even call for help.”

“On purpose,” Tess said. “My dad designed it that way, but I think he figured on having an Internet connection.”

“Not without power.”

“There’s a generator somewhere, but I never learned how to use it. I was too little when they ran panic drills. I guess I never got around to learning.”

“We can’t stay here forever, Tess. The hidden panel in the closet is clever, but they saw us in the house. They know we can’t have gone far. They’ll find a way in, even if they have to blast the door down.”

Tess reluctantly had come to the same conclusion before Oliver said anything. She knew all she’d done was buy them some time, but suddenly that was more important than anything else in the world.

Time
. . .

She hadn’t had enough time with her parents. And for many years, almost as long as she could remember, she’d wanted time to go faster, to rush her into adulthood, to be grown up, with all the privileges and perks that grown-ups enjoyed. The past year—and especially the last five days—had shown her the awful responsibilities that came with being an adult. Now, part of her wanted to cling to the safety and security, the carefree nature of her childhood.

But ever since she’d heard the awful, tinkling crash of breaking glass only minutes ago, something within her had changed. She felt it growing, filling her, giving strength to her limbs and her determination, adding clarity to her thoughts, her focus.

Rage. Blind rage
.

She laughed at her own joke. No, it wasn’t blind at all. It was clear as air after a storm, sharp as a scalpel. She’d held in her anger for the past year and now it coursed through her and she thought of all the people she wanted to direct it at: her parents for dying on her, Toby for leaving her, Travis for controlling her. Most of all, she was angry at herself for allowing herself to be a victim. Terrible things had happened to her, but she knew she still had a lot to be grateful for.

She listened to the muffled thumps of the men in the house overhead, destroying everything her parents had worked for. Not just the house they’d built, but their way of life. Everything they’d believed in, even the loyalty her father had felt to his country, as strong in its way as her uncle Travis’s, she realized.