I ignored her, pulled toward the violence, wanting to end it. But the gunfire stopped as I passed Mahoney’s Tahoe and entered the courtyard. I caught a flicker of motion in the third bay of the carriage house just before a second bomb exploded, much closer, on the other side of the mansion.
At the blast, the spotlights flickered and died. The shooting stopped too.
Then I heard a noise I’ll never forget—shrill, primitive, and terrified—coming from the carriage house.
I pulled out my weapon and flashlight and hobbled fast in that direction as something large and boxy tore out of the third bay. I got my flashlight beam on it as it was leaving the courtyard for the woods: a red-and-black side-by-side Honda Pioneer 1000 utility vehicle.
I caught only a glimpse of the driver and the front-seat passenger before it disappeared, but the blond teen in the bed, blindfolded, gagged, and hog-tied, was plain as day. Gretchen Lindel was writhing and trying to scream, and then she was gone.
“Batra!” I yelled, flashing the light around and seeing a Kawasaki ATV in the third bay. “Batra!”
The shooting started again inside, drowning my second cry.
Ignoring the pain shrieking in my ankle, I hobbled to the ATV, yanking the radio from my pocket and tearing free the headset cord, figuring to stop the feedback. But it was worse, and I had to turn the squelch almost off.
My flashlight found the ATV ignition but with no key in it. I lifted the seat, revealing a storage for helmets, and located the key. I straddled the seat, looked at the controls, turned on the headlights, and started the engine.
I roared out of the garage, praying Batra could see me, turned onto the two-track lane that went from the compound to the woods, and accelerated.
CHAPTER
105
BREE, SAMPSON, AND Mahoney had gone into a large, open, and vaulted space on the main level of the mansion to wait while the upper floors were cleared. The room contained Edgars’s state-of-the-art kitchen, a rustic dining area, and several leather couches set before a massive stone fireplace that was flanked by built-in wooden cabinets and shelves crammed with books.
Sampson said, “Place looks spick-and-span.”
Mahoney nodded. “Ready for that Architectural Digest photographer.”
Their radios crackled: “Second-floor landing and hallway clear.” “All bedrooms cleared. Place is empty, Cap.”
Empty? That felt wrong to Bree. She’d been on edge since hearing the bomb explode in the distance. Why booby-trap the outer building and not—
A piercing whine went off in her earbud, the worst feedback ever, and she tore it out. Sampson did the same.
Across the room, Mahoney threw his down too. “What the hell is—”
Automatic weapons began to bark and rattle upstairs. Bree instinctively dived behind the kitchen counter with Sampson right beside her.
The shooting stopped, leaving them shaken and going for their guns.
“Agents down!” someone shouted upstairs. “Arthur and Boggs. Bedroom five. Far east end of upper hallway.”
The search commander at the bottom of the stairs bellowed back over the shooting, “How many? I thought the place was cleared!”
“It was, Cap! Shooters must have been—”
An explosion outside shook the house. The lights died.
“It’s an ambush!” Mahoney yelled from over by the couches. “They’re jamming our radios and cells. Bree, take Sampson and get out of here, establish communication with—”
Bree was about to turn on her flashlight when sound-suppressed automatic weapons lit up. She covered her head as slugs ripped into granite countertops, splintered cabinets, and shattered dishes.
The bullets moved left to right and then right to left, punching holes in the stainless-steel appliances, ten, maybe fifteen shots in all, raining debris down on Bree and Sampson before stopping.
Bree shook from fear and adrenaline. Smelling the burned gunpowder, she felt nauseated, but her mind whirled. Where was the shooter? Where had he hidden? Those cabinets weren’t big enough to hide a grown man, were they?
She felt a tug on her leg.
“Chief?” Sampson whispered. “You okay?”
“Fine. Where’s the shooter?”
“Hit,” Mahoney croaked.
The fear fled her. Bree flicked on her flashlight and belly-crawled across the kitchen tiles, calling, “How bad, Ned?”
Mahoney gasped. “Gut. You tell me.”
Somewhere a generator coughed and hummed. Dim light returned. Agents upstairs were shouting, but Bree ignored them.
“Where’s the shooter, Ned?” she called, louder.
“Behind me. Cabinets.”
Bree turned her flashlight off, inched forward, and peered around the bottom corner of the kitchen cabinets. She could see well enough to tell Mahoney was sitting upright on the floor by one of the leather couches, but there was no sign of the shooter.
“We have to get him out, Chief,” Sampson said behind her. “Now!”
“Not until I know where that shooter is. I won’t get us all killed.”
She thumbed on her flashlight again, peeked around the corner, and let the beam play over Mahoney about forty feet away. He was hunched over and squinting. Bree focused on the large patch of dark blood showing on his white shirt, just below his armored vest.
Low liver hit, she thought, and fought to swallow down the panic creeping in the back of her throat. They did have to get him out fast. But the shooter …
Bree shifted her light toward the stone fireplace and the cabinets and shelves to either side. The beam flickered over doors far too small for a child, much less a man, and then over rows of books before stopping cold on a small open cabinet.
“Jesus Christ,” she whispered.
CHAPTER
106
THE ATV WAS equipped with a heavy-duty muffler, so the engine barely made any noise as I drove on the two-track deeper and deeper into the estate.
Edgars’s side-by-side was no more than three or four minutes in front of me. I couldn’t see tracks in the frozen mud, but the leaves were broken and shiny where it had passed.
Snowflakes hit my face. With my free hand, I tugged out the radio and turned it up. There was no longer screeching coming over it, just a dense hiss.
“This is Alex Cross,” I said. “Copy?”
Out of the static, I heard clicking and fragments of an unfamiliar voice. I turned it off, stuffed it back in my coat, tried my cell. No service.
The snow flurries turned to thick heavy flakes.
They’re going to get away, I thought. The sadistic bastards are going to get away.
There was an intersection ahead, and I stopped. The snow covered the leaves, making it impossible for me to say which way Edgars had taken Gretchen Lindel.
I tried to recall the satellite view of the property. The shed and the wounded HRT agent were somewhere to my left. The knoll at the rear of the property—where Mahoney had sent four agents—was somewhere straight ahead of me. That unidentified smudge on the satellite picture was down the right fork in the trail.
I went with my instincts, twisted the ATV throttle, and went right. The snow slapped my face, got in my eyes, and forced me to drive at a crawl.
Ten minutes later, the snow squall ended as abruptly as it had started. I rolled downhill to a wide, shallow, iced-over creek, seeing where Edgars’s machine had broken up the ice. My instincts were dead-on. I drove across the creek, noticing the sky brightening in the east.
How far ahead were they? Were those four people back in that booby-trapped building all dead? The HRT guys said they hadn’t moved when the booby trap went off. Or was Edgars taking Gretchen to where he had the other blondes stashed?
One hundred yards beyond the creek crossing, I lost the tracks and drove on through virgin snow to a turnabout walled in by pines. A dead end.
But Edgars had come this way. I was positive. That ice had absolutely been freshly broken, and those tracks …
I drove back, shining the headlights on the crossing, seeing ice covering the creek upstream. I used my flashlight to look downstream. The ice there had been broken up to where the stream disappeared beneath a steep embankment, eight, maybe ten feet high, and covered with green and tan vegetation frosted with new snow.