Laura 02 The God Code (17 page)

“Yes, he has a wife and two children,” George says emotionless, knowing full well that once the men are done with the wife, they will sell her and the kids as sex slaves.

“Where are they?”

“She is only 10 minutes away from Horst. We can have him at her house with two men within half an hour.”

“Send them, I want that bitch. We will use her to flush out those bastards, think they can come in here and screw with us.”

George nods and starts dialing a number.

“Yes?” The voice is harsh from too much smoking.

“Horst, get Estevan and Chas immediately, and go to the address I am sending you. There are a woman and two children in the house. Put them to sleep, tie them up, and take them to your house. Do not hurt them, yet. Give me a call when you are done.”

“What do you want them for?”

“We have a Navy Seal team snooping around here. The woman is the leader’s wife. We will use her to persuade her husband to give up. Go as fast as possible.”

“And afterwards, whose is she?”

“Yours to do as you please.”

“Understood. Consider it done.”

“Good”. George has a sadistic grin on his face as he replies, then cuts the call and forwards the details he received on Ernest to Horst. He knows that Horst always finishes his jobs and will not let him down.

***

Shayna rolls over in her bed and grabs Ernest’s pillow, bringing it close to her body. She takes in his scent left on the pillow, and slowly falls asleep, unaware of the Ford XLT Premium Transit Connect Wagon coming to a stop in front of her house. Three men dressed in gray overalls and black balaclavas quickly get out and make their way to her front door. A smile breaks on Shayna’s face as she dreams of Ernest, just as the men reach her front door.

“Chas, they have a security system, can you disable it?”

“Let me see.”

Chas moves past Horst and looks at the keypad next to the front door, then replies, “Piece of cake. I install many of these in a month. Give me five minutes.”

Chas unshoulders a bag from his back and takes out electronic gear he uses in his day job to install and test alarm systems.

Carefully, he opens up the keypad and connects four wires from an electronic diagnostic’s device to the keypad. After entering his employee code into the device, the device displays a message on the screen “
Diagnosing system
“. A minute later the message changes to “
Diagnostic complete, system secure
“, with a smaller message below asking if he wants to disable the system or not. He taps on the touch screen, disabling the alarm system. As soon as a message appears on the device informing him that the system is disabled, he removes the wires and reassembles the keypad.

“It’s done. We can open the door now.” Chas proceeds to remove a small electric drill from his bag after replacing the electronic device and drills out the door lock. As soon as he breaks the lock, he steps back and lets Horst and Estevan enter the house first.

Horst and Estevan have a long criminal record, and have been friends from kindergarten. For them, the job is nothing new, but for Chas it is his first job. He only agreed because he has financial problems and borrowed money from a loan shark, who happens to be George. Chas is unable to pay George back, and was told by George that he is now in the service of George until his debt is paid. For Chas, it is either ending up in hospital with broken bones, or helping with the kidnapping. Lending money to people who have no hope of paying it back is one of George’s recruitment methods. Horst moves to the left of the door while Estevan moves to the right. They are in the living room, with the kitchen to the left. A small hallway leads to a bathroom and the back door. The stairs to the bedrooms on the second floor are directly in the middle of the room.

Chas enters the house and closes the door behind him.

Each of them has a pistol with a silencer fitted, courtesy of contacts in the US Army. Horst nods for Estevan and Chas to search upstairs while he covers the living room. Suddenly a light from outside enters through the living room windows and lights up the place. Quickly the men drop to the floor and remain motionless.

Outside the house, a police cruiser slowly moves forward, Sergeant Walker controls the spotlight on the roof of his cruiser, letting it slowly go over the house. All seems fine, yet he cannot shake the nagging feeling that something is amiss. As an ex Texas Ranger, he has come to rely heavily on his gut instinct.

The vehicle parked outside the house checks out as it is not reported stolen. Shrugging his shoulders he switches off the spotlight and slowly drives off. It is 20 minutes to the end of his shift. He must be tired, probably imagining things.

Inside the house, the men slowly get up, shaking their heads at the close call.

“You two go upstairs. I will secure the area down here.” Horst moves to the small hallway and downstairs bathroom as he speaks. Estevan and Chas make their way up the stairs, towards the bedrooms.

As soon as they reach the first door, Estevan takes out a cloth and a small bottle of chloroform. After putting some chloroform on the cloth, he gives the go ahead to Chas to open the door. Chas very gently turns the round doorknob, being careful not to make a sound. As the door opens, the men enter stealthily. There are two beds in the room, one for each of the girls. Estevan hands the cloth to Chas and indicates to the first bed.

Reluctantly, Chas moves over to the first bed and Gillian, who is only 2 years old. With care, he reaches forward, bringing the cloth to the little girl’s face.

Gillian squirms a little as the cloth touches her face, but Chas holds his left hand behind her head while holding the cloth against her face with his right. Within 10 seconds, Gillian’s body goes limp and Chas knows that she will be out for hours. This is easy, just the little sister and the mom, then they are out of here, and no one got hurt. He is unaware of Horst’s intention with the family, and was told the family will be well cared for until her rich banker husband pays up. Chas thinks about clearing his debt with George, and being free. A sound in front of him pulls him from his thoughts. Looking up, he locks eyes with a set of brown eyes.

“Fu-” the rest of his words are cut off as a powerful jaw closes on his throat, teeth crushing his windpipe. Chas tries to get his gun, but Lionheart gives one fast jerk with his head and rips Chas’s throat out, severing his carotid arteries in his neck. Blood spurts all over the bed and Chas stumbles backwards, falling against Estevan who takes aim at Lionheart, now jumping over the bed from his sleeping mat between the two beds.

Instinctively Estevan puts his left arm out to protect his face, and Lionheart bites into it. As the two fall backwards, crashing into a wall unit, sending items flying, Estevan fires into the dog’s chest, three rounds.

Yet Lionheart does not let go, but shakes his head from side to side, ripping flesh out of Estevan’s arm.

Estevan fires another four rounds into Lionheart, and slowly the dog lets go of Estevan’s arm and slides to the ground, breathing heavily. Estevan’s arm hurts and blood drips from the open wound. As he looks at his mangled arm, anger fills him. Estevan looks down at Chas lying on the floor, his throat ripped out; his life leaving him fast with every spurt of blood pumping from his neck arteries. With difficulty Estevan reloads his pistol and turns his attention back to Lionheart. With care he takes aim at Lionheart’s head.

Slowly Estevan pulls the trigger as he speaks. “Die you piece of-” The sound of a shotgun drowns out his words and the impact of the pellets throws him forward over the bed. The shotgun pellets take Estevan low on the right side, partly in his bum and thigh. Shayna is standing in the doorway, having been awoken by the noise when Chas and Lionheart crashed into the wall unit. With hatred in her eyes, she slides the bottom of the pump action shotgun backwards and forwards, reloading the gun. Carefully she takes aim again, targeting Estevan’s legs. Suddenly an arm circles her neck and starts to choke her. Horst heard the shot downstairs and quickly came up. Even though Shayna fights with all her might, she cannot move, and darkness starts to pull her in. Within seconds, she passes out.

“Estevan, you okay?”

“Chas is dead. The bitch shot me in the ass and leg, man. Can you believe that shit man, being shot in the ass!”

“Can you walk?”

“Yes.” The two men look on as a baby starts to cry on the second bed.

Celestia is only six months old, and woke up with the noise of the gunshot.

“Okay Estevan, I will get the woman. You take the baby, and then I will come back for the second child.”

“Police. Hands in the air, let the woman go!”

Sergeant Walker stands on the last step of the stairs to the second floor, pointing his service pistol at Horst. He just could not let the nagging feeling go that something was wrong, and turned around and came back. After sitting outside the house for a few moments he almost drove off, but then decided to take a walk around the yard. As soon as he got to the front door, he noticed the damaged door lock and immediately decided to call it in. Just as he was about to call it in, he heard the gunshot in the house. Walker quickly requested backup and then entered the house, where he heard the men talking upstairs.

Horst, still holding Shayna in a choke hold, slowly turns to face Walker.

“Let the woman go!”

Horst just smiles as he brings Shayna’s shotgun up and pulls the trigger. The shot takes Walker full in the chest, flinging him backwards against the wall and causing him to lose his grip on his pistol. As he slowly slides down the wall to the ground, he starts to lose consciousness. He mentally curses himself for not wearing his bulletproof jacket. As his hands touch the ground, his left hand comes to rest on his service pistol.

Horst drops Shayna as he speaks, “Screw you pig,” then reloads the shotgun.

Just as he lifts the gun to shoot Walker again, Walker quickly brings up his service pistol and shoots Horst in the head. Feeling his world start to spin and knowing he is about to pass out, Walker presses the button on the radio attached to his shoulder. “Officer down, shots fired, unit 10…” then he passes out.

Inside the room Estevan painfully gets up and peeks around the corner. Seeing Walker and Horst down, he decides to grab Shayna. Painfully, he throws her over his shoulder, accidentally bumping her head into the wall. He is not going to leave empty handed, and he is going to have his way with her for shooting him. With a struggle, he manages to limp downstairs, carrying Shayna. Angrily he jerks the front door open, and is greeted by a blinding light and four police cruisers parked outside the house.

“Put the woman down, and get on the ground!”

Estevan looks on as two more police cruisers pull up. Slowly, he puts Shayna down and steps forward a few paces, looking for an escape route; there is none. He has done time before, and swore he would rather die before ever going back inside again.

“On the ground now!”

Estevan looks from one police officer to the next, all aiming their service pistols at him; it is jail or death, an easy choice for him. It’s only a question of how many he can take with him.

“Fuck you pigs!” Estevan draws his gun as he yells.

Six policemen open fire, riddling him with bullets. As soon as his body hits the ground, they move forward.

Two men secure Shayna, while the other four go into the house after making sure Estevan is dead.

Shayna is slowly coming to as two ambulances pull up. While medics attend to her and her daughters, she sees them bring out Sergeant Walker and Lionheart, both still alive. Shayna rushes over to the men carrying Lionheart and puts her arms around the dog’s neck while crying. Weakly he opens his eyes and looks at her, and satisfied that she is safe, he closes his eyes again and dies, paying the highest price. Shayna hugs Lionheart tightly, shaking from crying and emotion while thanking Lionheart for saving her children. Lifting her head up, she looks at the medics attending to her children, then lets go of Lionheart to go to them, hugging each one tightly, giving each a kiss.

***

Ernest scans the streets below the building carefully with his night-vision device, to make sure that no one has been alerted to the movement behind the low wall on the roof. His men are already in position, and have activated the bombs. Each bomb can be detonated by a remote detonator, normally held in the bomber’s hand, or by shock to the device, a failsafe that was put into the design in case the suicide bomber gets shot before he can press the button on the remote.

Ernest had the bombs split up so that on the sides of the building where they will not exit, the men will drop four bombs each, saving eight bombs to clear the street where they will exit.

Ernest plans on having the men on the roof drop four bombs on each side, then Sam will remain on the roof with his .50-Cal sniper rifle providing cover, while the rest make it down and exit the building. Sam will then drop the remaining four bombs, two on each corner, to cover their escape and will then follow, providing rear cover.

Still scanning the men below, Ernest finds who he is looking for. 100 feet from the main entrance stands a man smoking a cigar, giving orders to the men around him. Ernest watches as yet another man walks up to Carlos.

“George, have you heard from Horst? He should have found the wife and kids by now.” Carlos is getting impatient. The scenario has been dragging out far too long, he needs the bombs within the next hour to get them to their destinations in time.

“No, none of them are answering their cell phones.”

“Then they are dead. How many men do we have?

“Just over 200, most have done the basic weapons course, about 50 have done the advanced four week program. They are ready.”

“Good,” Carlos replies smiling, finding it funny that America is fighting terrorists in other countries, when there is a massive terrorist training camp right under their noses. It took him five years to build the underground shooting ranges and workshops for bomb building and weapons training, including hand to hand combat.