“We have to get inside! Now!”
“What the hell were you doing out here again?” he demanded. He was in a great deal of pain, and the entire front of his shirt was drenched with blood. Elizabeth was frightened for him. He needed help.
Reaching the overhang Elizabeth fired two more shots into the woods, and the Walther’s ejector slide stopped in the open position. The gun was out of ammunition.
Jeff Stromquist didn’t dare use his radio. He lay on the ground behind a fallen tree about fifteen feet from where he’d been standing when the attack began. Two ghostly black figures seemed to float through the woods in front of him. They were looking for him, methodically searching the area where he’d been standing.
The attack had taken less than twenty seconds, though to Stromquist it seemed like it had lasted hours. He was almost out of ammunition himself, and in the past several seconds he’d not heard any other shots.
He had no idea how they’d gotten inside the perimeter, or how many of them there were. But they were here, and they were damned good. Too good. But McGarvey had warned them.
The only option now was that the women were secure in the basement vault until help came. With any luck he’d also be able to hold out.
He raised up a couple of inches so that he could get a better look over the log, and he came face-to-face with one of the black-clad figures towering over him less than five feet away. On instinct alone, Stromquist raised his M16 and fired the last six rounds in his magazine, cutting the terrorist down.
The second man came running.
“Fuck,” Stromquist shouted. He leaped up and swung the assault rifle like a club, three .22 caliber bullets plowing into his brain before he got halfway through the swing.
Elizabeth reached the back door and kicked it open. Van Buren was helping as much as he could, but he was having trouble making his legs work, and he was an impossible burden for her. She could feel the stitches in the wound under her left arm pulling open and the sticky wetness of blood running down her side.
Kathleen, her face white, her eyes wide, her mouth open, was suddenly there, and she grabbed Van Buren by the lapels and hauled him inside the kitchen with surprising strength.
Dyer shoved the three of them bodily aside and raised his pistol at the same moment a small hole appeared in his forehead and he fell backward, his eyes registering complete surprise.
“Pat,” Elizabeth shouted in desperation. She and Van Buren stumbled over Dyer’s body.
As they went down, Van Buren managed to pull free, swivel left and fire three shots outside before Kathleen finally slammed the door and rammed the deadbolt home.
Kajiyama and two of his commandos, one of them wounded but still able to fight, appeared out of the darkness in the woods opposite the rear of the house where Kondo and his remaining commando waited.
“We’re clear in the front,” Kajiyama said, out of breath. “But we have to abort the mission. I monitored two calls to the State Patrol. Help is on the way.”
“Where is your other man?” Kondo demanded. It was suddenly difficult to keep on track. Lee did not reward failure, especially not something like this so soon after Georgetown.
“He’s down, Kondo-san. We have to go.”
Kondo keyed his mike. “Skybird, lead one. What is your best ETA to the primary pickup zone?”
“Five minutes,” the pilot replied at once.
“Come now,” Kondo said. They no longer had the element of surprise, but they still had five minutes to accomplish the mission. He cocked his head and listened for a moment. He could hear no sirens yet. They had time.
“Kondo-san?” Kajiyama prompted.
“You and your two men will take the front door while we take the back.” He glanced at his watch. “Ninety seconds.”
Kajiyama hesitated only a moment, then nodded. “Hai,” he said.
“We’ve got incoming,” Isaacson shouted desperately from the front hall.
Elizabeth scooped up Pat Dyer’s pistol and with her mother’s help managed to drag Van Buren out of the kitchen, away from the attacking forces at the rear of the house.
“Get back,” Isaacson ordered them. “Go down to the vault. Help’s on its way.” The basement stairs were on the other side of the kitchen.
“They’re coming that way too,” Elizabeth replied, trying to keep her cool.
Isaacson took in their condition in a single glance, then nodded toward the stairs. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can. But the State Patrol is on its way.”
“We won’t leave you—” Elizabeth tried to argue.
“For Christ’s sake, Liz, follow an order for once in your life,” Isaacson said almost gently. “You’ve got to get your mother and Todd upstairs while you still have a chance to save them.” He snatched an M16 from where it was leaning against the wall and tossed it to her. It left him with only his pistol. “Go,” he said. “Now.”
Elizabeth was torn. For once she didn’t know what her father would do.
“Paul’s right,” Van Buren said weakly.
“Goddammit,” Elizabeth said. She took a last look at Isaacson, then she and her mother, Van Buren between them, started up the stairs.
Kondo saw the flash and heard the bang from the front of the house a moment before his grenade took out the kitchen door. He and his commando raced across the patio, keeping low. The problem was McGarvey’s daughter. She’d not only fought back when the attack started, but she’d risked her life to save the downed guard who’d come for her. Taking her alive was going to be more difficult than he’d first suspected. Maybe impossible. But if they had to kill her and her mother, he thought, then so be it. They would take the bodies and use them to lure McGarvey.
He and his commando darted into the house, jumped over the body and swung their weapons left to right searching for targets. But nothing moved.
“Clear,” he shouted to the front hall.
“Clear,” Kajiyama answered.
Kondo reached the stairhall. He had just a split second to spot the downed American inside the shattered front door, Kajiyama and one of the commandos flanking the bottom of the stairs, when the second commando who’d started up was suddenly cut down by automatic weapons fire from the head of the stairs.
Van Buren lay on his side a few feet back from the head of the stairs as Elizabeth fell back after firing the short burst.
“One down,” she whispered grimly.
“Give me the rifle,” Van Buren said urgently. “I can hold them off from here while you and your mother get out the back way. You can jump from the balcony. If they’re all inside now they might not spot you leaving. You can hide up in the woods.”
“No way in hell, Todd,” Elizabeth said.
Kathleen had darted down the hall to their sitting room. She returned with the spare magazine for Elizabeth’s Walther PPK. “Nobody’s leaving you,” she told him firmly. She gave Elizabeth the magazine. “Give Todd the rifle, give me Dyer’s gun and reload yours. Between the three of us we should be able to discourage them until the State Patrol decides to show up.”
“You don’t know how to shoot a gun.”
Kathleen smiled grimly. “Never underestimate your mother, dear. Now, do as I say.”
“If you surrender now, you do not have to die, Miss McGarvey,” someone called from downstairs.
Elizabeth gave Van Buren the rifle and handed Dyer’s pistol to her mother. “Go to hell,” she shouted down in a steady voice, as she hastily reloaded her gun.
“All your people are dead and no one is coming to help you.”
Elizabeth edged closer to the head of the stairs. “Why not come up here, and we’ll discuss it, Mr. Kondo,” she said.