Right. Steve hadn’t hurt Gillian because he was feeling generous. More likely it was because he needed her to keep Jay in line. Jay might not have the makings of a rebel, but every man had his limits. Harming a woman like Gillian, along with her unborn baby, was a good way to piss off one of the only two doctors in town.
Steve’s words made Keo feel a lot better about leaving Gillian behind in T18. Of course, that probably wasn’t Steve’s intent.
“Man up, Keo!” the man shouted now. “Don’t make me go up there! It’s not gonna be pretty if I have to do that!”
A brief silence. Maybe Steve expected him to respond. If so, he was going to have a long wait. Keo was too busy listening for the telltale signs of an impending assault, because he knew damn well one was coming. And soon.
“All right, have it your way!” Steve shouted.
Thanks for the warning, asshole, Keo thought, just as he heard the first bang! against the front door downstairs. That was followed by the crash! of glass panes as they began breaking their way through the windows at the same time.
He glanced behind him at Jordan, crouched near the open master bathroom door with the Remington in her hands, the AR-15 slung over her back. Her right eye had gotten much better in the last few hours, though at the moment he could really only see her left even with the thick pool of moonlight splashing inside through the gaping hole to their right-the result of some kind of grenade launcher, most likely.
He nodded at her and could just barely make her out giving him a crooked, almost wistful half-smile back, as if to say, This is it. We’re both going to die.
He couldn’t disagree, so he smiled back and turned around, then swapped the M4 for the Mossberg with the pistol grip. The 12-gauge pump-action shotgun was thirty-one inches long and held six shells. He had the rest stuffed into his pockets, but what he wouldn’t give for a shell carrier. Of course, what he wouldn’t give for a whole lot of things, including his MP5SD with the built-in suppressor. There were a lot of weapons still waiting inside the master bedroom’s tub, but one non-MP5SD was the same as another.
If wishes were assholes…
He faced the stairs again and pressed his left ear against the wall.
They were coming. The banging against the door had ceased, probably because they realized coming through the windows was easier. Right now, he could hear the crunch of glass under heavy combat boots. Then, in no time at all, those same sounds approaching the bottom of the stairs.
Definitely more than one. How many would Steve bring with him? That would depend on how many boats he had managed to land on Santa Marie Island without them noticing. He couldn’t have achieved that using the eastern marina. Dave would have seen them. And Keo had the western side scoped out, but by the time he had seen the lone boat, it was too late; they were already on the island.
Christ, how did they get on the island so fast?
Things weren’t adding up. If Steve had made it onto the island unnoticed, who was piloting the lone boat that landed at the western marina? Was that some kind of diversion? Draw his attention as they moved on the house?
Maybe. Steve was clever enough to do something like that. The guy had sent him out of T18 to be shot at, only to swoop in and decimate Tobias’s people. Many of the opponents Keo had met in the last few months had been devoid of tactical ability, but Steve wasn’t one of them. Far from it.
And Dave. Shit. He was either dead or lying somewhere on the first floor under some rubble. Either way, Dave wasn’t going to be much help right now. Keo just hoped it was at least a fast trip to the afterlife for the poor guy. He hadn’t really gotten to know Dave all that well, but he’d liked the man nonetheless.
Focus.
He didn’t have very long to wait for Steve to show his hand. Keo didn’t so much as see the man’s head as he spotted the protruding lens of the night-vision goggles peeking around the corner before turning up the stairs.
Keo fired, buckshot tearing into the NVG and shattering the lens, slamming into flesh and bone on the other side.
Even as the body collapsed, a second man appeared, jumping over his fallen comrade. The man landed on the second step and was lifting a laser-equipped M4 when Keo racked the Mossberg and put the contents of the second shell into the man’s chest. The black-clad figure was flung back by the blast, tripped over the body behind him, and did an almost impressive backward flip onto the living room floor.
They took the hint after that and he heard heavy footsteps, this time moving away from the staircase.
Keo took advantage of the momentary retreat and grabbed two shells from his pocket and fed them into the shotgun. Behind him, he heard Jordan crouch-walking over to his position, her labored breathing doing more to alert him than the crunch of her boots over debris strewn across the floor.
“You okay?” she whispered.
He nodded. “Anything going on back there?”
She shook her head. “I don’t see anything. They’re either all inside the house already, or they’re sticking to places I can’t see from the back window.”
“What about the rest of the island?” He thought about adding, “What about them,” but Jordan already knew what he meant.
“I don’t know where they went,” she said. “It’s like they just disappeared. But it’s so dark out there, they could be right under the window and I might still not have seen them.”
That’s encouraging, he thought, smiling slightly to himself.
He focused back on the stairs.
“Do you really think they’re holding back?” Jordan asked. Like him the last time, she didn’t have to elaborate on who “they” were.
“I don’t know,” he said. “They did exactly just that a few nights ago when I was here with Gene. They were attacking when Steve showed up, then they retreated to let him finish the job.”
“That’s…freaky.”
“You haven’t seen freaky yet,” he said, memories of the blue-eyed creature at the T18 marina flashing back across his mind.
“What now?”
“Wait them out, if we can.”
“That’s a big if.”
So what else is new?
“Keo!” a voice shouted from below, very close to the stairs. Steve again. Who else would it be? “Nice shooting.”
“Thanks!” Keo shouted down. “Close quarters! That’s kind of my specialty, didn’t I tell you?”
“Yes, you did. It must have slipped my mind.”
“Consider those two bodies a reminder.”
“I was right about you. You’re just too dangerous to ever be fully trusted. I should have trusted my instincts and taken you out of the equation when you showed up at the bridge.”
“Shoulda, woulda, coulda, pal.”
Steve chuckled. “Who’s still up there with you? Tobias’s girl? I know Dave’s dead. That’s his name, right?”
“How’d you know?”
“One of the cafeteria cooks didn’t show up for work this morning. Wasn’t hard to put two and two together.”
“And here I thought you were dumb as a rock, Steve.”
Another forced chuckle. “Bye-bye, Dave, it was nice not knowing ya. I put a grenade round into the window where he was standing myself. I know, I know, big time movie cliche, right? Kill the black guy first? But I guess you wouldn’t know anything about that; not being a movie guy and all. Anyway, what’s that’s saying? Payback’s a real bitch.”
Keo exchanged a look with Jordan, and she looked back at the crater behind them, the pieces of clothing (Dave’s) still stuck among the debris.
“How’d you sneak onto the island without us seeing you?” Keo shouted down.