As Mac and Kirk went out the back golf cart garage, the rest of the team went out the front door.
Roland carried the football as he went to the middle of the road with Nada, Eagle, Moms, Emily, Scout, and Doc.
“Go for a long one,” Roland told Eagle.
Nada saw that the camera in the nearest corner of the house was panning over them, and as Eagle ran down the street, the one on the other corner tracked him. Roland let loose with a tight spiral and Eagle caught it.
“Traffic,” Moms called out.
The same BMW came rolling down the street and slowed, window rolling down.
“Hey, Doctor Carruthers!” Scout called out.
“Hey,” Roland waved. “Good to see you again.”
“Yeah.” Carruthers was looking at Nada and Eagle and Doc and it was just one ethnic group too many for him, here in Senators Club. “More relatives, Greer?”
“Oh, no,” Scout said. “My uncle George here is a football coach and these guys played for him years ago. They’re having a reunion.”
Carruthers focused on Roland as he heaved another bomb to Eagle.
“I’d take the over on my uncle George,” Scout said.
Carruthers nodded. “Hell of an arm.”
“The over?” Moms asked.
“Hey, Aunt Betty,” Carruthers said. He laughed. “Greer, have you been talking out of house about my hobby?”
Scout grinned mischievously. “My uncle might want to place some action with you later, if you’re up for it.”
Carruthers nodded. “As long as you vouch for him.”
He spotted Emily. “I know you, don’t I?”
“Not really,” Emily said. “But I’m around.”
A woman’s voice echoed down the street from three houses away. “Everything all right there?”
Carruthers leaned his head out the window. “Friends of Greer’s, Mrs. Jordanson. Everything’s fine.”
Mrs. Jordanson looked a bit doubtful, but went back into her house.
Roland walked over to the car and started talking football with Carruthers while Nada took a pass from Eagle. His earpiece crackled with Kirk’s voice.
“We’re in the tunnel.”
Mac led the way, searching for booby traps and trying to shake the sand out of his gear. The lights were off in the tunnel and he had his night-vision goggles on. His backpack was loaded with charges and Kirk brought up the rear, carrying the rest.
Twenty feet in, Mac halted. The tunnel might not be booby-trapped, but Forrenzo wasn’t stupid. Mac could see the unblinking red light of a video camera about forty feet ahead and a motion detector ten feet in front of it.
“We set that off,” Mac was pointing, “the lights go, and the camera sees us.”
“What do we do?” Kirk asked.
“I’ll disable it. You wait here.”
Mac put his pack down carefully, then went belly down on the floor of the tunnel and ever so slowly crept up on the motion detector.
Carruthers drove off, convinced he had Uncle George as another sucker willing to hand him money.
“Emily, take Scout inside and stay there. Things could get messy soon.”
Emily and Scout went back into the Winslow house, but took up positions near the front window, watching. The four Nightstalkers looked very out of place tossing a football around, but the cameras were watching them.
“You like Mac?” Scout asked.
“He’s nice,” Emily said.
Scout looked at Emily. “He’s cute.”
“He’s not what you think,” Emily said. “He pretends real well. No one else on the team sees it. And that matters not in the slightest. He’s a soldier. And he’s putting his life on the line.”
Scout nodded sagely. “They’re very good at what they do, but in terms of the things they don’t do, they’re not the sharpest knives in the drawers.”
Mac had the motion detector off-line in twelve seconds. It was hard working at close quarters using night-vision goggles and depth perception was off a bit, but he got it done. He walked back to Kirk and shrugged his backpack full of explosives back on. They moved down the tunnel, past the camera.
Forrenzo didn’t leave his back door open. Mac pulled out his set of picks and tossed the tumblers. This took longer than usual as Forrenzo didn’t go cheap in the lock department.
“We’re in,” Mac said, opening the heavy steel door.
And promptly got slammed back as a burst of automatic fire hit him in the chest, pounding into his body armor. Kirk dove to the floor, firing over Mac’s falling body.
Nada heard the muffled sound of automatic fire and knew the charade was over. He raced to the house where Scout and Emily waited, handing weapons out as they ran into the garage, piling into the SUVs as the doors opened. They peeled out into the street and over to the golf course, tires tearing up the perfectly manicured grass. As Scout had said, a gaping dark hole beckoned in the sand trap, a trap door and a pile of sand to the side.
Nada led the way, the others following.
They got to the end of the tunnel where Mac was sitting with his back against the wall and Kirk was framed in the doorway, weapon at the ready.
“What happened?” Moms demanded.
“Mac took a couple of rounds to the chest. Nothing got through the armor, but he’s pretty beat up.” He jerked a thumb into the basement of the house. “Forrenzo had an AK-47 rigged to fire if the door was opened from the outside. I blew it apart.”
Doc was kneeling next to Mac, peeling open his body armor. Ugly welts were already forming where the rounds had impacted. Mac ignored Doc and struggled to his feet.
“Let’s blow this son-of-a-bitch up,” Mac said. “My experience is that there shouldn’t be any more booby traps inside the house. People don’t like to trip over something in the middle of the night in their own house and kill themselves.”
Moms issued orders. “Kirk, stay with Mac. You too, Doc. The rest, clear the house, make sure we’re not taking any people with the house and Firefly. Watch out for Forrenzo if he’s still alive and in here. He’ll be armed and won’t hesitate to shoot.”
They moved into the basement. A concrete wall was in one corner with a large vault door on it. Forrenzo’s stash of who knew what instruments of death. Roland looked longingly at it, but stayed on task.
Mac and Kirk moved in, headed for the first support column as Roland took point up the stairs, Nada, Eagle, and Moms following. They reached the door to the main level. Nada pointed at himself and indicated number one, then at Roland for number two.
Nada crouched down as Roland kicked open the door. They went in, Nada low and Roland, with one hand on Nada’s shoulder, high. They quartered the room, a classic room-clearing technique as taught in the Killing House. Moms and Eagle followed, over-watch, scanning up and then hard to the sides.
In the basement, Mac was staring at a steel bracing going up to a crossbeam, slightly puzzled, explosive charge in hand.
“What’s wrong?” Kirk asked.
“It’s not right,” Mac said. He began tapping on the column, ear pressed up against the side.
Above them, first floor cleared, they made it to the second floor with no sign of Forrenzo or anyone else.
“Why isn’t the Firefly attacking us?” Nada asked as the paused in the wide hallway. The interior of the house was full of paintings, sculptures, and other items the newly rich acquired to prove to themselves and others they were rich. Or else they liked art.
“We’re inside the security system,” Moms said. “The Firefly has got to be in it, not in the actual house. Like Mac said, security is oriented outward, not inward.”