Nothing.
And the silencer had worked. She hadn’t compromised her position at all.
“Target down,” she said. “I repeat, target down. Over.”
Marcus almost smiled under his balaclava. Two down, ten to go.
He double-clicked his radio to signal he’d received her message. No longer could he risk speaking, even in a whisper.
It was his turn now. He pushed the remote in his left hand. All the lights went out simultaneously as the power in the house went down. Marcus clicked on his night vision goggles and moved sure and fast.
He spotted one agent standing post inside the front door and fired a quick burst with the Vintorez, then realized to his horror he hadn’t remembered to attach the silencer Jenny had given him. It was the first time he’d actually fired the Russian-built VSS, and it was far louder than he’d expected. The house erupted with confused men shouting at each other in the dark. They were not prepared with night vision equipment. This gave Marcus another advantage. Turning right, he saw an agent standing just inside the vestibule and fired again, dropping him to the marble floor. Dashing down the stairs and pivoting around the corner, he tossed a stun grenade into the living room and shut his eyes.
The explosion was deafening. The momentary burst of intense white light did its job, activating all the photoreceptors in his enemies’ eyes and causing temporary disorientation and loss of hearing and balance. Marcus knew these men would recover quickly, given their training, so he had to make the most of what little time the M84 had bought him.
First he unleashed a burst of fire at an agent stationed by the door to the garage, taking him out immediately. Next he spun around and cut down another one by the back door. Running to the kitchen, Marcus expected to find at least one agent and Oleg but was caught off guard to find neither. He moved left, into the dining room, and saw an agent running right toward the piano room. The man opened fire—a scoot and shoot. Marcus dove for the floor, and fired the rest of his magazine at the man, clipping him with his last round and sending him sprawling across the Persian rug. Marcus quickly ejected the spent mag and replaced it with a full one, then spotted the man crawling across the floor, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. Marcus pulled the trigger, unleashing another short burst into the man until he stopped moving.
Seven down, five to go.
But where were the rest? And where was the Raven?
So far Marcus had seen no sign of Oleg. He hoped several agents had rushed him down to the panic room. That’s what Oleg had told him his detail was supposed to do, but what if they instead tried to rush him out of the house and into one of the bulletproof SUVs? Could Jenny take them out in time without hitting Oleg?
Slowly, methodically, he worked his way back to the archway between the piano room and the dining room, sweeping his weapon from one side to the other. His ears were still ringing from the explosion and the gunfire, making it all but impossible to hear his enemies moving across broken glass and splintered furniture, though they almost certainly were at the same disadvantage.
The smell of fear in the room was rapidly overtaking the stench of the smoke from the flash bomb. Then Marcus saw two shadows moving in the distance. That’s when the counteroffensive began.
Gunfire erupted from his right, from the backyard through the bay windows. Marcus instantly hit the deck but saw a grenade rolling past him. He scrambled to his feet and dove headfirst into the kitchen just before the grenade exploded, destroying everything in its blast radius. Marcus slid along the hardwood floor, winding up behind the kitchen island as more gunfire erupted all around him.
He raised the VSS rifle over his head and sprayed the room, hoping at least to buy himself a few seconds to reorient and retake the initiative. If he stayed where he was, he knew he was in very real danger of getting caught in a pincer movement. He had to make a break for it. Pulling the pin on a grenade of his own, he threw it the full length of the house. He heard it hit the far wall and roll into the vestibule, then heard men yelling furiously in Russian. The moment the grenade detonated, he sprinted forward. He didn’t think he’d taken out anyone new. He just hoped he’d cleared himself a path.
Marcus didn’t know the floor plan as well as Oleg’s men, but he knew it well enough to navigate through the carnage to his target: the stairs leading to the basement. He tossed his last grenade down the stairs, then pivoted back and sprayed the vestibule with a full magazine. He bounded down the stairs, reloading as he moved, and came around the corner, gun blazing.
The explosion had bought him just the time and distraction he needed. Through the night vision goggles, he spotted an agent about ten yards to his right, standing guard in front of the panic room. The rounds hit their mark. But Marcus resisted the temptation to race to the end of the hallway, punch in the code, and see if his man was inside. Instead, he turned left, ducked inside the darkened billiard room, and made sure no one was in there. He waited.
It didn’t take long. No more than ten seconds later, another grenade came down the stairs. The explosion shook the house yet again. Then came two sets of footsteps. The Russians were moving fast and no doubt worried that members of this attacking force, whoever they were, knew where their principal was and were heading there to abduct him.
Marcus considered popping out and shooting them both from behind. That would make ten. But something held him back.
84
For a few seconds it was silent.
Then Marcus heard the distinctive sound of pins being pulled on not one but four more grenades. Two went rolling down the hall away from his location, toward the other wing of the mansion. Two came his way. Before he could hit the deck, the successive explosions sent him hurtling through the air past the pool table and crashing against the wall on the far side.
The air grew thick with clouds of smoke and the fine dust of crushed Sheetrock. The floor was littered with shards of lumber, twisted metal, mangled light fixtures, and shattered glass. The ceiling had become a mess of scorched beams, melted HVAC ducts, and dangling wires.
Marcus had no idea where his rifle had fallen. It was somewhere in all this debris. He’d dropped it the moment he went airborne, but he couldn’t search for it yet. Nor could he check to see if anything on him was broken or bleeding. He didn’t have the luxury. He knew for certain these guys were coming for him. He’d be coming for them if the situation were reversed. If he made a sound, he would give away his position and make himself a target. But just because he was a sitting duck didn’t mean he couldn’t defend himself. Slowly he reached with his right hand for his pistol, drew it from its holster, raised it, and aimed it at what had been a door and was now a gaping hole in the wall. His ears were ringing even worse now. There was no way he was going to be able to hear someone coming around the corner. At least with his night-vision goggles he’d be able to see them coming before they saw him.
Then the goggles shorted out.
With his left hand he pulled them off and set them aside. As his eyes readjusted to the darkness, his mind tried to comprehend the new reality that he was no longer the hunter but the hunted.
He flexed his fingers. They were working. He wriggled his toes. They, too, were working. He turned his head from side to side, still never taking his eyes off the hole in the wall. His neck was in immense pain, but at least he hadn’t broken it. As quietly as possible, he bent his right knee. He tried to bend his left knee, but a jolt of searing pain shot up his spinal cord. He pulled off a glove and dabbed the knee with his left hand. It was bleeding. No matter. He had to get up. He had to make sure his back was not broken. He had to get moving.