A trap.
This was a trap.
Adrenaline surged through her veins, screaming its warning at her. She froze, only her gaze roving quickly in all directions. She saw no cameras. No microphones. No other surveillance equipment. Her gut said she wasn’t missing anything. The threat she sensed was more human than machine.
Holy sh-
Was she alone in here or not?
Was this why the H.O.T. Watch had seen no hostiles outside? Were they already inside? Was their ambush about to be turned on them? She eased her hand down to her belt and pressed the transmit button three times fast, three times slow, and three times fast, sending out a clicked S.O.S.
Jeff’s response was immediate in her ear. “Are you injured?”
Two clicks for no.
“Are you in danger?”
One click for yes.
“Are you under attack?”
How was she to answer that? She wasn’t yet, but if there were hostiles in here, she very well could be soon. Did she want the Medusas to come roaring in here with guns blazing, or sneak in and possibly catch whoever else was in the house?
She gave two clicks for no.
“That was a long pause before you answered. Are you about to come under attack?” Jeff asked quickly.
An quick, emphatic single click.
“Do you request backup?”
Again, a single click.
Jeff gave the Medusas a flurry of orders to move in and enter the house through various doors and windows. Jennifer Blackfoot came up on frequency and ordered Bravo 51 to stand by to hit the house with all it had, jamming all electrical function of any kind within the mansion.
And then Jennifer said, “We’ll have a Predator drone on sight in two minutes. It’s equipped with structure-penetrating radar. Stand by for insertion, Medusas.”
Jeff acknowledged her.
Kat hunkered down in the hallway, thinking fast. She couldn’t stay here. She was completely exposed and had no cover if this turned into a shoot-out. She glanced around for options. With nothing but the glue-filled foyer before her and an empty hallway behind her, she didn’t have much to work with. And then she looked up. Time to use her secret weapon and go vertical. She eased back into a shadow and quickly pulled out her climbing claws, donning them over her shoes and on her hands.
She climbed the hallway wall first, and then eased around the corner into the foyer nearly ten feet up. As soon as she entered the open space, she worked her way higher, crawling up the wall, spiderlike, until she was well above the sight lines of anyone looking from the adjoining rooms into the foyer. She headed for a shadow and awkwardly resumed her game of twenty questions with Jeff.
She laboriously tapped out the Morse code to spell, “Trap. Foyer.”
He replied immediately. “Should we avoid the foyer?”
She clicked an affirmative, and he amended Karen’s point of entry to the dining-room window instead of the front door.
Kat double-tapped a negative to that. If Karen came into the dining room, she’d have to cross the foyer to get to anywhere but the kitchen.
Jeff understood immediately. “Will it work if Python comes in through the living room?”
Isabella was already scheduled to come in the living room window. That would put two Medusas in there simultaneously. Kat’s best guess was that would be where the hostiles would be hiding. They’d surround the painting that the Ghost was after.
Kat clicked a yes to Jeff’s suggestion that Karen enter the living room.
Astutely, Jeff asked, “Should I concentrate more force than I already am on the living room?”
She clicked a relieved affirmative.
Yet another adjustment to the entry scheme was made, and all the Medusas were massed outside the windows.
Then Jeff asked, “Where are you now, Cobra? I don’t want your teammates shooting you.”
She looked down at the foyer. Up here, she’d be clear of any bullets flying into the foyer. She reviewed the house layout quickly in her mind. But if she wanted to join the fight at all, she’d be squarely in her teammates’ fields of fire. She had to move.
She tapped out, “Foyer. Moving to living room.”
Jeff’s response was quick and sharp. “Don’t go in there by yourself! Wait for backup!”
He didn’t understand where she was at the moment, and although his advice was sound, she needed to ignore it. She sent one last message. “Am on ceiling.”
That caused a stir as Jennifer Blackfoot and Aleesha came up simultaneously to ask what the heck she meant by that.
A chuckle was evident in Jeff’s voice as he explained. “Cobra straps claws to her feet and hands and can crawl upside down along a ceiling like an insect. Medusas, keep your field of fire at eye level or below and you won’t hit her. She’ll be overhead when you enter the room.”
Jennifer retorted, “Are you kidding?”
Jeff answered, “Nope. I’ve seen her do it. It’s for real.”
A male voice interrupted. “The Predator is approaching target. Switching on cameras now. Stand by for real-time photo intelligence analysis.”
Kat didn’t know if the analyst would be at H.O.T. Watch Ops or sitting on the nearby helicopter, but she didn’t care either way, as long as the analyst knew his stuff.
A female voice came up. “I have eyes on target. I show one human heat signature…” A long pause. “Near the ceiling of the foyer, moving down the wall toward the living room entrance.”
Jeff murmured, “That is correct. Continue.”
“I paint two human signatures in the dining room, one to the right of the foyer entrance, one under the far window.”
Bingo. As disconcerting as it was to know she was, indeed, in the middle of an ambush, Kat was relieved to know that her instinct had been right and all this fuss wasn’t for naught.
The analyst went on. “I paint four humans in the living room, two on each side of the fireplace on the far wall. I paint one more human in the kitchen-he’s on the move, heading toward the butler’s pantry.”
Kat reviewed the house layout quickly. That guy would be circling through the back side of the house to come into the living room if she had to bet. After all, these guys couldn’t use the foyer any more than she could. Misty was slated to come in from that direction. She could drive that guy toward the living room if need be.
The analyst concluded, “That’s all. Seven tangos and one friendly doing a Spider-Man.”
Jeff came up. “Copy. Medusas, prepare for radio failure. Go on Bravo 51’s call of systems activated.”
All five Medusas acknowledged in turn, with Kat clicking hers.
Then Jeff said, “Bravo 51, light it up.”
“Roger,” came the electronic warfare man’s voice. “Here we go.”
Kat swore she could actually feel the radio waves bombarding her. Static abruptly filled her ears, but she wasn’t in a position to turn down her radio volume at the moment. She started crawling, heading for the dining room. Jeff was going to deal with those two guys, and she didn’t like those odds. As glass crashed from a half-dozen windows at once and shouting broke out around her, Kat planted a piton at light speed, clicked her rope onto it, and let go of the wall. She swung downward, dropping upside down until her head and shoulders cleared the dining-room entrance. More importantly, her pistol cleared the archway. For tonight’s work, she’d chosen a high-caliber handgun with enough stopping power to drop a man. Thankfully, she routinely practiced shooting from odd angles like this, and she took in the scene before her in an instant. Jeff had just crashed through the window and was rolling across the floor while two men in black turned, startled, and were bringing their weapons up to bear on him.
Jeff was situated to nail the guy under the window, so she aimed at the man closest to her, double tapping a pair of shots into the guy before he ever knew she was there. Gunfire erupted from the living room as Jeff efficiently dropped his man. He jumped up and started toward her.