They weren't supposed to handle any jobs inside the United States, of course, but there was worlds of room between "supposed to" and reality. No bunch of Senate snoopers could prevent the Company from doing what it was designed to do: protecting the security of the United States. If they believed that all the enemies were on the outside, that the boys from Justice had domestic radicals in hand, well, they could think again. These days the FBI was busting more subversives in its own damned locker room than in the streets, and Lindsay was acquainted with the dangers that had long been overlooked, deliberately ignored.
He didn't know the rationale behind this thing with Hal Brognola didn't need or want to know the motivation. It was adequate for him that someone up the ladder had identified a threat and chosen him to deal with it. The bastard must be dirty, or the Company would never have selected him for termination. As for rubbing out the wife and kiddies, well, like some renowned American had said, nits make lice. A traitor's brats would grow up pissing on America, bet your ass, and you could never nip the problem soon enough. If you could solve your problem with a swift preemptive strike, you never had to fret about the bastards sneaking up behind you later on.
Whatever Grymdyke might be up to, he had blown it, and it would be Lindsay's job to save the play. If Milo couldn't do his job, that didn't mean the operation had to fall apart. The Company was full of men who pulled their weight, and there was still room for advancement.
The thought of seeing Grymdyke busted even terminated for his failure to perform was satisfying. The idea of moving up to take his place beside the honchos at Clandestine Ops was something else entirely, something Lindsay had been playing with for longer than he could remember. Power came with rank, and if he played his cards right, starting now...
That was the problem. Starting now.
Disposal of the hostages had top priority. They had to go, and Lindsay didn't want to waste another minute with them at the safe house. They had been here too long already, and his scalp was tingling the way it did when danger was approaching, as it had before the ambush in Angola, or before the roof fell in around him in Nicaragua.
Time to move before the tingling got any worse. A few more moments, and it wouldn't matter; anyone who traced them could surround an empty house and blast away until the cows came home for all he cared.
He stood up, knee joints popping like two muffled pistol shots, and he suppressed a smile as his two accomplices jumped. They had been advertised as top professionals, but that was mafiosi for you. Stick a gun in some pathetic bastard's hand and let him drop some bozo on the street, they started calling him a soldier, like he'd been through Benning or the CIA academy. The average button man was long on muscle, short on brains, and these two most emphatically were no exceptions to the rule.
"It's time," he told them, reading the relief on both their faces. "Gino, bring them out."
"Awright."
A few more minutes and they would all be in the car and tooling out of there, en route to an abandoned auto graveyard that the Company maintained for such emergencies. The place had not done active business in a dozen years, but it maintained a working crusher and a furnace more than adequate to finish off the job. Brognola's wife and children would not simply disappear; they would have ceased, quite literally, to exist.
A few more minutes, and he had it made.
The only problem, if it was a problem, would be taking out the two torpedoes while their backs were turned. That made five bodies for the crusher, and Lindsay knew that he could do it standing on his head.
It was the kind of job he relished, after all.
23
"Gino, bring them out."
She heard the shuffling footsteps, recognized the sound of death, and pressed a finger to her lips before she took her place behind the door. The children nodded understanding Jeff with something very much like eagerness, Eileen with trepidation written on her face.
They had no chance at all, but if they surrendered meekly, they would only be cooperating in their own destruction. Better to make a stand right here, inflict whatever injuries they could, and by their deaths create a further inconvenience for their captors.
Someone would be forced to clean up afterward, remove all signs of violence. The house was meant to be a prison, not an execution chamber, and it pleased her now to think that by seizing the initiative she might destroy the careful plans of men who meant to harm her family. The longer she delayed them, forced them to remain behind scrubbing bloodstains and patching bullet holes, the better chance there was that Hal would find them. And justice would be done.
She stopped herself.
Not justice.
Justice would have seen her children safely out of there, alive, unharmed. If there was any justice in the world, Eileen and Jeff would never have been taken hostage in the first place.
No justice, then... but there was retribution. And revenge could be the next best thing, especially if it was the only course of action still available.
The footsteps paused outside their door, no more than eighteen inches from her now, and Helen realized that she was trembling. She bit her lip and clutched the makeshift spear against her chest, prepared to strike the moment the gunman showed himself. As planned, Eileen was standing to the left, her weapon clutched behind her back, and Jeff was seated on the bed, the staff concealed beneath the bed frame at his feet. It would require precision timing if they hoped to pull it off, but...
Helen stopped herself before the thought could form. They didn't have a hope in hell of pulling anything off, and she knew it. At best they were engaged in a delaying action that was certain to spell their end. Any victory would lie in taking one of their abductors with them.
But if they could take him fast enough, if she could seize his gun, then what? Then kill the others, dammit. Or at least attempt to kill them. Anything was better than waiting to be snuffed out like some pesky insect.
She heard the doorknob turn, and braced herself. The bedroom door swung inward, and she felt her enemy as he surveyed the room, a heartbeat's hesitation on the threshold.
"It's time to go," he growled. "Where's Momma?"
"In the bathroom," Eileen told him meekly.
"Get her off the pot, sweet thing. We got a schedule here."
Just one more step.
He cleared the doorway, visible to Helen now, and she was moving, pushing off from her position in the corner, knowing he would hear her, feel her coming at him from behind, not caring anymore. She held the makeshift lance in both hands, leveled from the waist, her target area the roll of flesh above his belt, right side.
There was a kidney there, the stomach, liver, small intestines. Could she skewer him? Or would the homemade spear glance off, producing no more than a bruise?
The gunman sensed his danger and swiveled to meet her as she charged, his movement altering the target area an instant short of impact. He was bringing up his submachine gun, but she did not flinch. Peripherally, she saw her children closing for the kill as she made contact below the rib cage. She felt her metal shaft punch through the fabric, flesh, and then it kept on going, in and in.
His scream was punctuated by the rapid-fire explosions in her face. The muzzle-flash of Gino's weapon seared her cheek, and Helen caught a whiff of burning hair before the weapon's recoil drove it up and backward, riddling the ceiling. Traveling on sheer momentum, she collided with the gunman, knocking him off balance. She recoiled and went down on one knee. He kept falling and spastic fingers released the submachine gun as he hit the floor.