Peel walked over to Huard. "Tell the boys to move out to the perimeter," he said. "We might have company. You watch the back door."
"Yes, sir."
Peel headed into the house. He would get it all done. And he'd wait until well after dark, so that he could take off on foot across the fields, just in case anybody was watching the estate. He had to figure that if they knew who he was, at least enough to have an SIS team on him, they knew who he worked for. They wouldn't storm the bloody gates at the Yews, oh, no, but they might be waiting for him to leave. If he hiked out on foot far enough, he could boost a car from one of the neighbors, drive to the south coast, and take one of Goswell's boats across the channel. There was no shame in retreating from a superior force. You could always regroup and come back later. A lost battle was not necessarily a lost war.
Goswell was having a drink in the sitting room. "Hello, Major."
"Your Lordship. Where is Mr. Bascomb-Coombs?"
"Down the hall, in the study, I believe. Playing with his portable computer. I had his access shut off to the special unit, but he has his way around that, I am sure. His portable computer peeped at him, he got quite agitated, and excused himself to go deal with whatever it was. A drink?"
"Splendid idea," he said. Applewhite materialized — too bad he would have to die as well, he liked old Applewhite — and Peel held up two fingers, to indicate the depth of his scotch. Oh, what the hell — he added a third finger. He had to last until dark, didn't he? And it had been a long and trying day. Nobody could blame him for needing a stiff drink.
A sudden breeze rattled the window casement, and the first drops of rain spattered on the glass. Well, it was going to be a stormy evening, to be sure, in more ways than one.
Chapter 39
The Net Force team rode in what Howard called his Mobile On-Scene Command Center — essentially a large RV he had hurriedly rented — with Julio Fernandez driving, and cursing as he did so: "Why don't you stupid bastards drive on the right side of the road!"
The rest of the Strike Team had already piled into cars and trucks at the military base and were on their way to the meeting place — in this case, a fire station in Sussex.
Howard had a computer set up on a small table, and Michaels and Toni sat next to it, watching. Howard brought up an image, an augmented aerial view of a big house and some smaller structures. "This is Goswell's place," he said.
"You get this from MI-6?" Michaels asked.
"No, sir. I had Big Squint — USAT — footprint it this morning."
"Before we knew we were going to do this?" Toni asked.
"Yes, ma'am. Never hurts to keep the six-P principle in mind."
Michaels nodded to himself. Everybody here knew what that meant: Proper planning prevents piss-poor performance. Howard was just doing his job.
Howard continued, "We'd be a lot better off if we had a couple of days to study things, to run tactical scenarios, and to play with alternative plans, but since we don't, we KISS it and hope for the best."
Another acronym: Keep it simple, stupid.
"Here's how I see it," Howard said. "We wait until after dark before we hit the place. My men do the tango with the estate's guards while Sergeant Fernandez and I and a couple of others hop the fence and head for the house. We set off some flash-bangs and some puke lights and take out any guards there, go in and round up everybody, haul the ones we want out, and hightail it for the border. Ruzhyo, Peel, and Bascomb-Coombs will do, and we can feed any incriminating information about Goswell back to our hosts later and let them deal with him if he's involved. With any luck, by the time the locals figure it out, we're on our plane and halfway across the ocean."
"One small addition," Michaels said. "I'll be going in with you. And yes, I know, it isn't the wisest course of action, but we've had this discussion before, and since I get the heat, I get to make that choice." He glanced at Toni, about to say that she'd be staying at the command center.
The look in Toni's eyes was reptilian. She knew what he was going to say. And he suddenly knew if he said it, whatever chance he might have of patching things up between them was going to die right here and now. So instead, he said, "And Toni will be going in, too."
She gave him a short nod. "Thank you." Her words were cool and crisp — you could use them to frost beer steins — but at least she was still talking to him. Better than nothing.
When they got to the fire station, near a little town called Cuckfield, the Net Force Strike Team was already there. But when Toni stepped out into the rainy evening, there was a surprise waiting under the overhang of a carport next to the main building: Angela Cooper was there, too. She wore combat camo, pants, shirt, and boots.
"Oh, shit," Fernandez said quietly. "Looks like the game is about to be canceled."
They moved to the carport, out of the weather. Alex stepped forward, but before he could speak, Cooper raised one hand to his objections. "If I wanted to stop you, Alex, I wouldn't be here alone."
"What do you want?" he asked.
"Officially, His Majesty's government cannot condone any action against Lord Goswell without much more evidence than we currently have. However, the DG and our MP know what we've found out and, unofficially, they believe what we all do — that Bascomb-Coombs is very likely responsible for the computer terrorism, and that Major Peel and Goswell are privy and part of it as well."
"So you've decided to look the other way?" Alex said.
"Yes. Provided we have an unofficial observer to make certain our unofficial position is kept, well, unofficial."
Toni said, "So we get to do the dirty work, take care of your problem, and if it all blows up in our faces, you get to keep your hands clean."
"Can't put anything past you, can we, Ms. Fiorella? Well, that's probably not strictly true, is it, Alex?"
Years of martial arts practice gave you a certain amount of physical self-control. If you knew you could seriously injure or kill somebody with your hands, elbows, knees, or feet, it tended to make you think before you made any sudden moves. You had to be able to move almost reflexively fast once the action started, but you also had to know when it was appropriate. Once, in college, a dorm mate had sneaked up behind Toni and grabbed her in the hallway, intending to tickle her. His practical joke had cost him a visit to the campus clinic and a concussion. It had taken her a few more years to get past the reactive stage, so she could usually assess the situation before decking somebody who didn't really mean her any harm.
That hard-won self-control was all that kept Toni from stepping forward and destroying Angela Cooper. She really wanted to do it, bad. Instead, she managed a smile. She said, "Oh, I'm a bit slow sometimes, but I eventually catch on."
"All right," Alex said. "Colonel Howard will run it down again. We've got a couple of hours until we go." He looked at Toni, shook his head a little, then gave her an open-handed "Sorry" shrug. He looked pale, almost gray, and she hoped he felt bad. He should.
Ruzhyo leaned against the stone wall of the big house under the substantial roof overhang. The wind had died pretty much as the rain began, and the gutters piped the water away to drain chains at the house's corners, so he was dry enough even in the damp evening. And he had his umbrella, of course, and a feeling he would be needing its hidden functions before the night was over. Intelligence services of every country he knew of took a dim view of anybody who killed any of their operatives. It was bad for business. Spetsnaz had always been notorious for its vengeance. Once, in one of the ever-troubled mideastern countries, one of their ops had been caught by a group of zealots, and slain. A week later, sixteen of those zealots were found lined up neatly in a ditch, their severed penises stuffed into their dead mouths, their eyes plucked out.