Kim Taylor finished briefing the SWAT team and joined Vincent at the hacienda’s outer gates. She whistled through her front teeth as she cast her eye over what she could see of the property through the black wrought-iron gates.
“Place like this must cost twenty million dollars,” she said, shaking her head.
Vincent nodded and smiled. “Amazing what a few arms deals can purchase…”
“Must have a hell of an ocean view out the back.”
Vincent gave a Gallic shrug and tipped his head. “I prefer the mountains.”
“You can have your mountains,” the American agent said. “I want to see that ocean view.”
“But this place is like Fort Knox,” Vincent said. “Are we going over the walls?”
Kim shook her head and grinned. “No, we’re doing it the fun way.”
“You give up the element of surprise?” asked the Frenchman with surprise.
“This is the surprise,” she said, as she ordered an explosive breaching of the gate. “They already know we’re here thanks to Pauling’s extensive surveillance,” she said, pointing to the cameras all over the property. “Plus the perimeter’s covered by our guys. This assault is about going in hard, fast and nasty.”
Vincent nodded his head in appreciation and flicked his cigarette into the impressive bank of blue agapanthus flowers swaying in the breeze along the outer wall. “I can do hard, fast and nasty.” He took a deep breath and looked up at the moon, now setting over the ocean. “Ce soir, la lune rêve avec une plus de paresse, ainsi qu’une beauté, sur de nombreux coussins… ”
Kim Taylor stared at him, confused. “What the hell is that?”
“Just some words for the moon, mon ami. Maybe one day I tell you what they mean.” Vincent checked his PAMAS before holstering it and then readied a Heckler & Koch submachine gun for combat.
“If we get through this alive then that’s a deal. I always wanted to impress someone with French poetry.”
Vincent smiled, recalling the time he met Monique in Montpelier. “With these words, Agent Taylor, you cannot fail.”
The SWAT man advanced with some Cordtex and deftly wrapped the pentaerythritol tetranitrate detcord around the central gate-bars either side of the substantial lock before withdrawing to cover. Seconds later the high-explosive detonated and blasted the entire central section of the gates to oblivion. Vincent, Kim and the SWAT team were through and into the property before the smoke had cleared.
The SWAT men sprinted to their designated areas at the sides and rear of the hacienda while Vincent and Kim headed for the main entrance. The hacienda was built around an opulent central courtyard with an expansive swimming pool at its center, and they knew from the satellite surveillance that the helicopter drone was parked on the west lawn in between the pool and the property’s beach-front perimeter wall.
Now, Vincent and Kim blasted their way toward the hacienda’s thick oak-panelled double doors at the main entrance before the Frenchman threw a SWAT-issue flash-bang grenade into the hall. The explosion rocked the stone Tuscan-order columns either side of the entrance and then a second later belched a thin cloud of white smoke out of the hole where the door used to be.
They entered the hall, guns raised and ready for booby-traps, but there was nothing there.
“Clear!” Kim shouted, adhering to protocol in a way that put the briefest of smiles on Vincent Reno’s face.
Glancing up at the top of a long-winding staircase of white marble to ensure there was no one above waiting to pour fire on them, they moved forward into the main section of the hacienda, passing through the largest kitchen Vincent had ever seen.
A vision of his twin boys waiting patiently for breakfast while their mother ground the coffee and warmed the milk flashed in and out of his mind in less than a second. He had to concentrate — those boys needed a father to guide them, not a grave to visit. In his line of work he had seen that happen too many times.
Now, exiting the kitchen and making their way into a games room the fighting began. They dived for cover behind a pool table, and while Kim radioed the attack to the other SWAT men, Vincent peered around the table to see a woman with spiky hair he instantly recognized.
“Angelika Schwartz!” he called to Kim. “Ten meters, behind the bar.”
Kim nodded to show she understood and radioed the information back to HQ.
As bullets raced over their heads and drilled into the wall behind them, Vincent struggled to get an angle with the submachine gun so shouldered it and switched to the PAMAS, firing a ferocious succession of nine mils at the enormous Jägermeister bar mirror on the wall above where Angelika was taking cover. It shattered into thousands of lethal shards which rained down on the German hired-gun. He heard her scream and then the sound of her boots crunching on the glass as she tried to extricate herself from the situation.
Vincent was merciless. Thinking again of his boys, he fired another series of bullets at the woman as she sprinted across the room and dived through the open window into the courtyard. As she ran, she fired her Heckler & Koch USP blindly at them, blasting chunks out of the pool table and sending a shower of tulipwood and maple splinters into the air. One of her bullets hit a No. 8 ball and it exploded into a cloud of phenolic resin which impressed the Frenchman more than it should have.
More submachine-gun fire was coming now from their right, and they darted their eyes outside the games room to see Angelika had rallied two more men with weapons to defend the property. Behind them, on the far side of the pool, Vincent saw Alan Pauling in the dim glow of an exterior louvred wall-light as he fitted the canister of weaponized bacteria to the helicopter drone and crouch-walked across the lawn to the pool house.
“Bastard must be controlling it from there!” Kim shouted, pinned down by the submachine-gun fire. “We have to get to him before he takes that thing off and flies it over L.A!”
Vincent nodded grimly, visualizing all the thousands of innocent men, woman and children sleeping in their beds as they breathed in the bacteria and were instantly turned to stone forever. “That’s the name of the game, mon ami!”
On board the Perseus, Kiefel stared at the muscle-bound Jakob with undisguised hatred for a few moments, scowling at the interruption.
“Was?!” he barked at him in German.
“Telefon!” Jakob said, and took a cautious step toward the boss.
Kiefel snatched the phone from him and spoke. “Who is this?”
“It’s the President,” Kimble said.
Kiefel immediately noticed a change in his tone. He sounded… less frightened.
“What do you want, Teddy? I’m busy.”
“I’ve been thinking over the terms and conditions of our agreement and I think it’s time to modify the details.”
“What are you talking about? If you cross me I’ll release your files to the world.”
“Is that worth your life, Klaus? That is the question you must ask yourself.”
Kiefel scowled. “You’re calling my bluff, Teddy? I never thought you had it in you.”
“Don’t push me, Klaus. I know we had a deal but I can’t let you murder Grant.”
“Perhaps you give me some time to think it over.”
“Well…”
Kiefel cut the phone call and turned to Jakob. “Contact the girl in Washington. See to it that President Kimble has an accident.”
“Jawohl,” said Jakob.
“And ready the helicopter. It’s time to start Operation Medusa.”
Jakob nodded and left the cabin.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE