The Survivor (22 page)

Near the end of the hallway, he paused again. The question was whether to take the wide-open stairs that dominated the front of the building or the less prominent servants’ access he and Gould had come
up. Neither option was good, but he calculated his odds as slightly better on the main staircase. The other offered no room to maneuver and his gut said it was being covered.

On this rare occasion, his gut was wrong. He eased down the steps, staying low behind the railing and searching for targets. Nothing. In the ground-floor entryway, he slipped by an elaborate flower arrangement and passed the entrance to the service stairs unchallenged. With their limited remaining manpower, the mercs appeared to have retreated to prearranged defensive positions—probably concentrated on the front and rear entrances.

Outside, there was still silence. Coleman was stuck and Obrecht’s men were satisfied to turn this into a stalemate. Time was on their side. The local authorities were likely already on their way.

Rapp slid with his back against the wall until he came to the closed door leading to the basement. Obrecht would either be down there trying to figure out why he couldn’t get his safe room door open, or he’d be in the tunnel heading for Joe Maslick’s position. Either way, that little Swiss prick was going to spill everything he knew before Rapp put him in the ground.

He reached out and twisted the knob, throwing the door open. The sharp hiss of a silenced weapon followed immediately and two holes appeared in the wall across from him. Obrecht? Probably not. Based on the speed of the trigger finger and the tight grouping, one of his security team.

The light in the basement was on and Rapp slapped a hand around the jamb, sliding it down the wall and catching the switch. A round hit close enough to send splinters of wood into his unprotected forearm. He ignored the superficial wound and retreated behind a heavy sideboard, using his shoulder to shove it toward the open door. More shots sounded as he squeezed it through the opening, but they couldn’t penetrate the thick mahogany. He followed it inside, pushing it along the landing until it tipped partially down the stairs. Movement became audible below as the shooter tried to find an angle.

Rapp grabbed one of the night-vision-enabled helmets he’d hidden
by the stairs and slammed the door behind him. The darkness closed in and he heard the man below freeze, suddenly unable to navigate the cluttered space. After toggling the goggles’ power switch, Rapp gave the sideboard one last shove.

The heavy piece of furniture careened down the stairs with Rapp following inches behind. The puff of silenced shots joined the crackle of splintering wood as the man below attempted to aim by ear. He was effective enough that halfway down Rapp ducked under the railing and took the short drop, landing next to a stack of decaying pallets.

The sideboard hit the floor a moment later, barely holding together as it came to a stop. Rapp moved right, holding his breath and watching his foot placements to remain completely silent. Everything was bathed in a computer-generated false light and he immediately picked out two separate targets in the bright orange that denoted body heat. The one near the safe room was slumped against the closed door in a seated position. The other was lying in the dirt holding something that Rapp’s goggles painted half blue and half red. The cool metal of a gun tipped with a hot silencer.

Every man had his breaking point and the prone merc finally reached his. Trails of color streaked from the hazy image as he switched to full automatic and started spraying bullets randomly around the basement. Rapp ignored the rounds flying past him and ricocheting off the stone walls. He squeezed off a single shot and a moment later the only sound in the basement was emanating from a nicked water pipe.

He approached the mercenary carefully despite the fact that he was picking up specks of body-heat orange spread out around what a moment ago had been the man’s head. Satisfied that he was dead, Rapp moved silently toward the tango near the safe room.

It was slow going, but he managed to come within three feet without making any sound at all. Once in position, he reached out and touched his silencer to the side of the man’s head.

Nothing.

Rapp retracted the night-vision gear and fished a small penlight
from his pocket. He switched it on and found exactly what he’d feared: Leo Obrecht with his throat slit ear to ear. Whatever had been locked up in his head was going to stay there.

Rapp used the penlight to find the tunnel entrance and punched the code Gould had given him into the keypad. The chances of it working were close to zero but it was worth a try. He still needed to retrieve Hurley’s body and if he could slip it out this way, there was a good chance his entire team could be on a jet back to the States before sundown. The surviving mercs would tell their story and at the end of a multiyear investigation, the German authorities would chalk this up to Obrecht getting in over his head with a professional assassin.

Of course, Gould’s code didn’t work. So that left the hard way.

Rapp skirted the sideboard at the bottom of the steps and ascended to the door again. There was no sound on the other side, so he eased it open. A quick check in both directions suggested that Obrecht’s guards either were ignorant of what had just happened to their comrade or didn’t care enough to come to his aid. Probably the latter.

The servants’ stairs still appeared to be unguarded, so Rapp ran for them, ascending the tightly winding steps three at a time. He continued until they dead-ended into a bare wood door leading into the attic. The way it was aligned meant that it should open directly onto the west-facing dormers where the rifleman worrying Coleman would be set up.

Snipers tended to work in teams, so Rapp assumed two men. Based on their vantage point, it would make sense for the spotter to be at the dormer to the right. That would also put him in a reasonable position to cover the door. Based on the architectural plans he’d studied, Rapp put the spotter at two o’clock with the sniper dead at twelve. What would be between him and the two mercs was impossible to know for certain. Even if the attic was as cluttered as the basement, though, he guessed he’d have a shot. They would have moved anything obstructing their line of retreat.

Rapp took a few steps back and charged the door, throwing a foot
out into the ancient wood. As expected, it gave easily, and he went sailing through, gun stretched out in front of him.

The spotter was right where he expected him to be. Also as anticipated, he’d been paying close attention to the door. Rapp saw a muzzle flash and felt the sting of a bullet grazing his right shoulder. He lined up his sights and fired, twisting in the air without bothering to confirm if he’d hit his target. When he landed on the wood floor, he was facing the sniper who was spinning in his direction. The rifle was far too unwieldy for him to move quickly, though, and Rapp’s shot hit him directly between the eyes.

Rapp got to his feet and moved to the edge of the window, careful not to expose himself to Bruno McGraw, who would be watching for movement. He activated his throat mike, mindful that the frequency had been compromised. “Ended like Herat, too.”

Coleman would understand. Rapp had resolved their sniper problem in that Afghan town by scaling the wall and shooting the man through a broken window.

“Roger that.”

Rapp was now able to move to a better vantage point without worrying about being taken out by McGraw. He could see the damage to the wall was as impressive as the guy from Raytheon had promised—a burning hole that you could drive a semi through. Other than the two dead men on the ground, none of Obrecht’s mercs were in evidence. The Gatling gun was bolted to a platform on the north end of the wall. There was no operator visible, but various cables and flexible hoses were. Definitely remote controlled. But from where?

Rapp started for the exit but then spotted an iPad lying on the floor next to the dead spotter. He was going to stuff it in the waistband of his fatigues for Dumond to examine but stopped when the screen came to life.

It displayed four squares arranged vertically on the left. Three were blank and one was feeding video of the tree line west of the wall. Alongside each square were arrows for up, down, right, and left, as well
as a green and red button. He pressed the right arrow next to the live image and it tracked obediently north.

Rapp moved to a position where he could see the Gatling gun placement and tapped the arrow again. If the only man who could help them figure out Joe Rickman’s plan weren’t lying dead in the basement, he might have actually smiled. The gun obeyed his command.

Now the only question was how cautious the engineers who had set up the weapon were. Rapp would have had its range of motion limited but most people were less suspicious of technology than he was. It turned out Obrecht’s men fit into the latter category. By pressing and holding the right arrow, Rapp was able to spin the gun 360 degrees.

He ran a finger down the green buttons on the iPad and watched two of the three other camera feeds come to life. They were gray at first, scanning the interior surface of the wall as the guns rose on hydraulic lifts. In a few seconds, both had cleared the barrier and were showing high-definition images of the surrounding forest.

Using the arrows, he spun the guns to aim at the ground floor of the building, concentrating on the points of entry.

“Get ready to move,” he said into his throat mike.

Coleman sounded a bit confused at what he saw as Rapp knowingly giving away their strategy. “This frequency’s being monitored. I repeat, this frequency’s being monitored.”

“In a second, it’s not going to matter,” Rapp said, swiping the red buttons pulsing on the screen.

•  •  •

“South corner clear. One tango down,” Wicker’s voice said over the radio.

“West corner clear,” Bruno McGraw followed up. “One man dead. All civilian employees uninjured and accounted for.”

Rapp could feel the blood flowing down the back of his flak jacket as he fireman-carried Stan Hurley’s body down the stairs. The dust on the ground floor was thick enough to make it hard to breathe. There was a hole about nine feet in diameter next to the door, and a significant portion of the wall to the right of it had collapsed. Scott Coleman
was putting flex cuffs on a man lying facedown in a bed of shattered glass. At the other end of the room, the upper half of a torso was on its side in the fireplace. A quick scan of the demolished room didn’t turn up the rest of the body.

“One more over there,” Coleman said, shaken by the sight of -Hurley’s body, but trying to hide it.

“That leaves one unaccounted for,” Rapp responded.

Charlie Wicker came on the comm a moment later. “There’s a man running east toward the wall. I have a shot.”

Rapp gave a subtle nod and Coleman brought a bleeding hand to his throat mike. “Take him.”

“Affirmative. Tango’s down.”

The man at Coleman’s feet craned his neck around and looked up. Rapp didn’t know him but the recognition—and fear—were clear in his eyes.

“You speak English?” Rapp said.

“Yes.”

“Louis Gould brought in a team to take out Obrecht,” Rapp said to him. “Your men killed Gould but not before he got to Obrecht. The rest of his team got away to the east. You’re the only survivor.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? Because if I find out there was any confusion, I’ll come looking for you.”

“There’s no confusion.”

A siren became audible in the distance and Rapp started for the hole next to the door. “Cut him loose and get your men out of here, Scott. Rendezvous at location bravo. And get hold of Maria. Tell her about the change in plan and give her an ETA.”

Coleman nodded and Rapp jogged out into the sunlight. He had five miles of hard terrain to cover with a marginal knee and a hundred and fifty pounds of dead weight bleeding all over his shoulder. Somehow he’d always known that Hurley would get the last laugh.

R
OME

I
TALY

I
SABELLA
Accorso’s nausea reached its peak when her daughter’s school came into view through the windshield. She fought the urge to vomit, reminding herself that Bianca had promptly returned her text, as she always did. Still, for the entire drive, she’d been unable to fight back thoughts of police barricades, ambulances, and a single human form lying beneath a bloody white sheet.

The swaying of the car as she turned into the parking area -almost pushed her over the edge, but then she saw her daughter leaning safely against the building. She was clutching her backpack to her chest, an expression of concern etched into her normally smooth face. Isabella had given no explanation when she’d requested that Bianca be pulled from class. What explanation could there be?

“Mom?” she said as she opened the car door and slipped inside. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

Isabella pulled away a little too quickly, once again checking the rearview mirror.

“Seriously, Mom. You’re scaring me. Why are you here? Why aren’t you at work?”

Isabella felt a tear starting down her cheek and wiped it away, trying to hide the emotions overwhelming her.

The man she’d met that day was deeply evil. She could feel it every time he turned his black eyes on her. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to get what he wanted. He would have murdered her daughter and a thousand like her without a second thought. There had been no choice but to follow his instructions exactly.

“Is Dad okay?”

“Of course he is, honey.”

She didn’t know that for certain, but saw no reason why he wouldn’t be. They’d been divorced for four years now. Bianca’s father wasn’t a bad man, but he’d taken a job in Sweden and their marriage hadn’t been strong enough to handle the distance.

“Is it because Dad’s getting remarried?”

Isabella smiled. “No. I’m happy for him and Agda. Are you all right with it?”

“Sure. It doesn’t matter. I hardly ever see him.”

“He’s your father, Bianca.”

“I know. And I love him. But he’s up there, you know? And we’re here.”