But first they listened. Crickets. A car backfiring. Someone down the hill must have had a window open because they could hear a TV announcer reading the UN’s latest resolution decrying “the genocidal fracking atrocities of the racist criminals of the so-called United States.”
Nothing from up above.
Turnbull knelt and swept up a handful of fine dust off the ground. Then he reached over the fence and gently sprinkled it over the property line.
“What are you doing?” asked Junior.
“Looking for lasers,” replied Turnbull. There was nothing. He spent several minutes just looking, satisfying himself that there were probably no cameras or motion detectors or sensors waiting to alert security that they had a guest.
Probably.
“Ok, you’re in my house now. Guerilla stuff. None of that infantry hooah charge shit you learned at Fort Benning. Subtle.”
“Yeah, subtlety is your middle name. Kelly Subtle Turnbull.” Turnbull ignored him.
“We move quiet, slow, and deliberate,” Turnbull said. “If it looks like they’ve spotted us, we haul ass back here. The car is the rally point. Whoever gets there first gives the other guy 30 seconds and then hauls ass, with or without him. Got it?”
“Yeah, but how do I do that if you have the keys?”
“The key’s on top of the rear passenger tire. Okay, I’m going over and halfway up the embankment and then we’re going to wait for five minutes. If nothing happens, I’ll wave you forward and then we’ll wait again at the top before we go on. Got it?”
Junior nodded, and Turnbull went over the wall. He slowly worked his way half-way up the embankment and waited. More crickets. More television announcers blaming the people on the other side of the Rocky Mountains for the People’s Republic’s misfortunes.
But no alarms.
Junior joined them and they carefully moved up the embankment to the ridge, then waited again, listening. From down below them somewhere, the voice of the television announcer warned that the climate change crisis was once again just a year away from reaching the point of no return, and urged the largely pedestrian citizenry to continue to reduce their collective carbon footprint.
But again, no alarms.
Turnbull slowly lifted his head over the crest. The developer had cut a large flat plain into the hill, landscaped it and dug in a large swimming pool. A few empty chaise lounges lay around the edge of the water on a patio of white stone. A stairway of the same white stone lead upwards toward the house, whose southern face was dominated by a vast picture window. There were lights on inside.
“Okay Junior, there’s a big open space and a pool. The house is up some steps and there’s someone home. We work around the side, then up. Follow me.”
Turnbull skirted the crest, moving along the hillside slowly around to the far edge of the patio. Using the manicured bushes for concealment, he moved swiftly past the pool to the stairway. Junior came along behind.
“Don’t shoot my sister,” Junior said. Turnbull looked down and saw he had drawn the silenced Ruger without a conscious thought.
“I’m more concerned with security than her.”
“You ought to be worried about her. She’ll mess you up.”
“You just calm her down because she’s going to be freaked out when she sees us.”
“Oh, I’m a calming presence.”
Turnbull rolled his eyes and peeked around the corner. The lights were on inside the big window, but there did not appear to be anyone looking out into the back yard. Turnbull moved, taking the stone steps upward two at a time with Junior to his rear.
At the top of the steps, Turnbull came around the corner onto another patio and stopped, facing a puzzled, round-faced man in a brown suit who was about to light a cigarette. Behind him was the open door to the first floor of the house. The guy had a radio on his belt and a SIG Sauer pistol. He stood there for a moment, another kind of cig dangling from his lips, his hands cupping his as-yet unflicked lighter.
Turnbull raised the Ruger to center mass and fired two shots. The man stumbled back just a half step – he pretty clearly wore a vest under his shirt and the .22 rounds didn’t penetrate. Turnbull raised the weapon and took the headshot. That worked – a red dot appeared in the guard’s forehead and he fell over backwards.
Junior’s Glock was out and he was covering high and to the flanks. No one was coming. Turnbull led the way inside the door as Junior knelt down to pick up the radio.
It seemed to be some sort of living room, but with a full bar taking up the far wall. There were dark hardwood stairs that headed up. There was light but no sound other than low music – some kind of jazz. Above them was a half-wall that made up the side of the upstairs room. Turnbull looked at the ceiling, trying to see if there were moving shadows. Satisfied there were none, he waved the pistol and Junior followed, covering their rear.
Turnbull moved up, step by step, the weapon fixed on the top of the stairwell. His breathing was slow and controlled. Up he went, one step at a time. A creak, a loud one. Turnbull froze, waiting. Junior had followed and was on the third step, and he froze too, swinging the Glock to cover the bar room they had just come through, then the half-wall above them, then back to the bar room again.
The attack came from over the wall, and at the point in Junior’s cycle when he was covering the bar room from about half-way up the steps. Had he been covering high, he might have fired. Turnbull was almost at the top when the lamp flew down toward him. Since it was thrown blind it missed him, barely, shattering on the wall and spraying glass over them both.
“Lou!” a woman’s voice screamed.
Turnbull bolted up to the landing and pivoted, catching a glimpse of a wild-eyed blonde clad in blue jeans and a white t-shirt for just a moment before the heavy bookend she had hurled at him connected with his hip. The sharp pain from where the statuette’s bill hit him – the bookend was made of iron and shaped like a mallard duck – broke his concentration enough to override his instinctive response, which was to have shot her in the face a couple of times. Turnbull bit his lip and charged her, though he found his left leg dragging – it hurt like hell. Behind him, Junior was rushing up the last few steps.
Amanda realized she was out of weapons and began looking around her to grab something else. Turnbull charged forward and she dodged, with Turnbull tripping over a low mid-century modern table in front of a sleek black leather couch. She ran out and around, skirting his grasp as Turnbull futilely reached out for her as she passed. Her attention focused on Turnbull, she had not seen Junior, who leapt into her path.
She saw him and her expression changed from rage to shock, and Junior smiled. Then her expression returned to rage and she ran directly at him, screeching and nails out like claws.
Junior caught Amanda by the forearms, but the momentum was too much even for such a slight woman; losing his footing on the throw rug that covered the hardwood floor, Junior went down with Amanda atop him, her hands clawing at his face as he tried to hold her back from gouging out his eyes.
“You fucking uuuurrrfff,” she shrieked before the chokehold Turnbull gained by wrapping his right forearm around her throat snuffed it out. He pulled her back and off Junior, taking her to the floor and pinning her under his bulk.
“Damn it, pull security!” he hissed at Junior, who shook it off and swung the Glock up to engage any more security guards who might enter the room from the stairs or from one of the halls.
“You,” Turnbull said. “You need to calm the fuck down!”
Amanda squirmed more and Turnbull pressed down harder. She gasped for air.