Brainrush 03 - Beyond Judgment (27 page)

Ahmed smiled. “Can’t you see it, Sara? He has his father’s strength. And his mother’s wisdom. He wants me to go. We must trust him.”

She knew Ahmed was right. The changes manifesting in her little brother weren’t coincidental. Something powerful was at play within him. She dropped her hand to her side. “Please be careful,” she said softly.

“Keep your cell charged,” he said. “I’m only a phone call away.” Then he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. The gesture shocked her. Her face flushed.

To Alex he said, “Take care of her.”

Then he opened the door and was gone.

Geneva, Switzerland

T
HE THREE-STORY RESIDENCE
was situated on a forested rise overlooking Lake Geneva. A cleared area stretched from the house to the surrounding tree line. Patches of lawn peeked through the melting snow. A private lane curved from the coastal highway, up the hill, through a hundred meters of dense pines, and terminated at the driveway circling the house. There was a lone SUV in front of the detached four-car garage. A helicopter was parked on a nearby pad. Similar residential plots dotted the rolling hills around the mansion. It was like a Swiss Beverly Hills, Tony thought, with four times the acreage per home.

He lowered the binoculars. He was crouched in a dense copse northeast of the house. The elevated position provided him with a panoramic view of the lake and the surrounding snowcapped mountains. The landmark Jet d’Eau fountain was a mile upshore. It shot a powerful jet of water more than three hundred feet into the air. Tour boats crisscrossed in the distance.

He scanned the grounds again and shook his head. Something didn’t feel right. He’d expected an army of defenders. Instead, there were only five. If he hadn’t recognized the chopper as the one from the castle, he would have worried they were in the wrong place.

He spoke into his headset. “Still nothin’?” he asked.

Timmy had moved through the trees in order to get close to the garage. The location also gave him a good view of the other side of the house. He’d taken their only infrared scope with him. “I’m still only seeing six heat signatures,” he said. “Two in the bedroom, with a third posted in the hall. Two more in the kitchen. Plus the guy on the front porch.”

Any way you cut it, Tony thought, that’s six total. Jake and five guards. His pal was being held upstairs under close guard. That’s where it would get tricky. Any alert on the way in and the upstairs guards could take out the hostage. But would they? Or were they still intent on keeping him alive? There were too many unknowns and not enough time. His instincts told him to wait, but the urgency of the situation wouldn’t allow it.

“Damn,” he said to himself. This would have been difficult enough with a full SWAT team. Instead, he was being backed up by an actress, a scientist, and a computer geek—in broad daylight.

He’d considered one tactical approach after another, discarding each in turn. In the end, he’d decided to keep it simple.

“I’m in position,” Marshall said.

Finally, Tony thought. “Sixty seconds,” he said into his headset.

“Ready,” Lacey said. She was in the car on a road behind him.

“Timmy, you’re up.”

“I’ve got movement on the scope,” Timmy said. “One of the guys from the kitchen is heading for the front door.”

“It don’t matter. We’ve got to make our move before they spot Marsh. Do it.”

He watched Timmy break cover and run to the backside of the garage. A moment later, the kid sprinted back to the trees.

So far, so good.

He kept his eyes on the man at the front door, who was smoking a cigarette.

Tony had planned the assault so that the killing would be left up to him. But in his gut he worried that it wasn’t gonna go down
that way. Sure, his friends knew that the men inside were part of the same team that had tried to murder them on the mountain. And they were holding Jake. However—justified or not—taking a life up close and personal wasn’t something they’d trained for. He suspected they could if they had to, but it would change them in ways he’d rather not think about.

You never forget the faces of the men you kill.

A trail of smoke rose from the rear of the garage. It thickened quickly. The incendiary charges would make quick work of the wooden structure. Tony raised the P90 submachine gun to his shoulder. He and Marshall each carried one of the compact weapons. With a fire rate of more than nine hundred rounds per minute, it was the ideal “spray and pray” weapon for his friend. But in his own experienced grip, it would be the men guarding Jake that should be talkin’ to God right about now.

The front door opened, and a second guard stepped outside. He stopped abruptly and pointed to the garage. He shouted something in the open door. The first guard threw his cigarette to the ground, and both of them rushed toward the detached structure.

Tony tracked them in the P90’s reflex sight.

Lacey spoke over the comm net. “I made the call. The fire department will be here in five minutes.”

“Going up,” Marshall said from the back of the house.

As soon as the pair of guards turned the corner around the house, Tony opened fire. The two suppressed bursts sounded like muffled firecrackers. Both guards went down hard.

“Hold on!” Timmy’s excited voice sounded in his headset. “Two more heat signatures just popped up out of nowhere in the center of the house. Must’ve come from a basement. One of them’s headed toward the door!”

But Tony was already on his feet and running across the circular drive. The guard saw him from the foyer. He ducked to one side just as Tony squeezed the trigger. The door began to swing closed.

“No!” Tony roared. He charged forward and let loose on full auto. Craters erupted in the door. It flew backward as a dozen rounds hammered into the wood in less than a second. He slid feetfirst into the grand foyer like a ballplayer into home plate. The man behind the door was slumped on the floor. His eyes blinked once. Blood splattered on the ground around him.

There was a flash of movement at the top of a broad circular staircase.

Tony rolled behind the marble fountain centering the foyer, just as slugs stitched a line into the polished stone floor beside him. Chips of granite bit into his back. The weapon above him lacked a suppressor. The gunshots reverberated through the house. Tony rolled back and triggered a burst of his own. But the upstairs guard had vanished. He heard footsteps pounding down the second-floor hall.

“Guard coming for Jake!” he shouted into his headset.

There was a crash of glass upstairs. An exchange of gunfire. A woman’s scream.

Over the comm net Marshall shouted, “Oh my God.”

Tony pushed to his feet and started up the stairs.
A woman?

“Halt!” The voice behind him carried a calm authority that froze Tony midstride.

“Drop your weapon. Remove the headset.”

Tony released the P90. It bounced down the three steps below him and clattered to the bloody stone floor. He heard the seesaw of sirens in the distance. The fire department would be here soon. At this point he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. They’d planned to use the commotion of the fire to distract the guards and cover their exit. The only thing he knew for certain was that something wasn’t right upstairs. He kept his back to his captor and slowly raised his hands over his head. “I give up. Don’t shoot!”

The shotgun blast shredded the wooden banister beside him. Tony flinched. His ears rang, but he didn’t try to run. If the guy
had wanted him dead, he’d already be bargaining at the gates. He was out of options. If his SWAT team had been with him, his last words over the comm would’ve triggered a coordinated—and lethal—response.

But with Lacey and Timmy backing him up—and no idea what had happened to Marsh…

“Remove the headset,” the man repeated. His German accent sharpened the words. “Or I end you now.”

Lacey’s voice whispered over the net, “Two minutes.” It was the last comm he’d receive. He used a hand to drag the headset from his scalp and drop it to the floor.

“Turn around. Slowly.”

It was Pit Bull. He exuded a casual confidence. He held the shotgun at waist level. Smoke drifted from the barrel. He had a golf ball–size lump on the bridge of his nose—where Tony’s third tranq dart had struck him the day before. The swollen skin contorted his intersecting eyebrows into a confused expression. The guard beside him glared at Tony. Tony recognized him as the one who’d been with Pit Bull outside the ski shed at the castle. The man held a machine pistol.

Need to stall.

“We meet again,” Tony said.

“You were naive yesterday,” Pit Bull said. “You should have killed us.”

The words struck a chord. “Trust me, I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Correction: you won’t be making
any
mistakes again.” Pit Bull raised the barrel toward Tony’s chest. His smile was half formed when something crashed through the kitchen window behind him.

Both guards spun to face the threat. By the time they saw the boulder rolling across the floor, it was too late for them to react to the true danger.

An engine whined.

Tony leaped to one side when the Volkswagen rental car crashed through the foyer’s bay window. Glass, wood, and drywall exploded inward. The guards dove for cover. The vehicle careened into the fountain. Cherubs toppled, water sprayed, and the car lurched to a stop. Air bags filled the cab, and a fog of debris filled the air.

The guards rose to their feet. Pit Bull’s growl was ferocious. He rushed to the driver’s-side window. The air bags had collapsed. Lacey’s face was bloodied and bruised. She spit at him. He raised his shotgun.

Tony dove for the P90. He whipped it around and strafed over the top of the VW. A line of bullet holes stitched Pit Bull from shoulder to shoulder. His body flew backward. Tony swiveled the weapon and loosed the last of the magazine into the startled second guard. His body jerked and danced with each impact.

Moving quickly to the other side of the car, Tony slammed home a new fifty-round mag and stood over Pit Bull. The man’s breathing was ragged. His eyes were at half-mast. He sat with his back to the wall, his feet splayed out before him. He had a one-handed grip around the shotgun in his lap.

“No more mistakes, eh?” the German muttered. There was a gurgle in his voice.

Tony answered with a short burst into Pit Bull’s heart. He turned his back and buried any further thoughts of the man.

For now.

He rushed to the car.

Lacey was conscious but shaken. One side of her face was swollen. A trail of blood snaked from a cut on her forehead. In spite of it all, she managed a wink. He tried the door. It was jammed. He startled when Timmy appeared in the front doorway. The young scientist held a pistol in a shaky double-handed grip. He still wore his headset.

“Try the other side,” Tony ordered.

Timmy hurried over and opened the front passenger door. “Marshall’s trying to reach you on the comm,” he said.

Tony met the words with a sigh of relief. His friend was alive.

“He needs help,” Timmy added. “Hurry. The fire brigade will be here any minute!”

“I’m okay,” Lacey said, unclipping her seat belt and crawling across the seat. “Get up there!”

Tony sprinted up the stairs. He checked the corner with a quick out-and-back glance. A guard lay sprawled in the hallway. The doorway to his right was open. Tony held the P90 in ready position as he stepped over the body and into the room. What he saw shocked him.

“Tony,” Francesca said. Her voice was weak. Her face was drawn and haggard. She looked broken. The sight of her hopeless expression widened the hole in his gut.

He moved quickly even as his mind reeled over the scene. The glass doors leading from the balcony had been shattered inward. Marshall’s P90 hung loose from its shoulder sling. He hovered over Francesca and her father. Mario’s head was in her lap. He had been shot in the chest. A video camera and tripod lay on the floor.

Where the hell was Jake?

“I—it’s my fault,” Marshall said. “I wasn’t fast enough. The guard got off a shot…” His voice trailed off.

Tony inspected Mario’s wound. It was bad. “We can’t move him.” His mind raced through options. Mario needed a hospital, but the rest of them couldn’t risk being taken by the authorities. The sirens grew louder. A horn blared outside.

“I sensed my children nearby,” Francesca said dully. “But that can’t be. Because they’re dead. I felt Jake, too.”

She’s obviously in shock, Tony thought. Delirious. But her words still made his skin ripple. He lifted Mario’s head from her lap. She didn’t resist. Her mind was miles away.

“Let me take him for a moment,” he said.

She scooted back.

“Pillow,” Tony said to Marshall, motioning to the bed. Marshall grabbed one and Tony lowered Mario’s head onto it. The old man groaned, but his eyes remained fierce. He grabbed Tony’s wrist. His weathered grip was strong.

“You must protect my daughter,” he whispered.

“With my life.”

Marshall’s hand went to the earpiece of his headset. “We’ve got thirty seconds.”