Exit Alpha (19 page)

As well as a BDA9 automatic, he had an M249 with a 300-round belt and five prepacked plastic boxes of thirty that rattled as Cain sat beside them. The MINIMI was a congenial and accurate weapon but Cain didn’t know why EXIT had decided a machine-gun would be helpful. There were fragmentation and smoke grenades and a set of Bowman hand-held portables. The Great One was equipped for a field spat — not an ambush in a house.

One item was interesting — an M983 Gen III night-vision monocular that could be used as a goggle, hand-held viewer, pocketscope and day/night weapon sight. It would have been a blast, he thought, with standard red-dot aiming. Cain opened his box and lifted out two new P90s and some 50-round plastic mags. ‘These make sense.’ He handed one over.

‘
Non posso più
. What is it . . . ?’ Stromlo stared at the weapon — a hunk of oddly shaped black plastic casing with an almost fully enclosed barrel. A smoked plastic mag lay along its axis above the receiver.

‘They call it a PDW. Not a pistol, sub-mac, carbine — new class. A simple high-firepower compact designed for tank crews.’ He pointed at the finger holes in the slab-side for trigger and thumb-grip. ‘Leaves your hands free because it’s so short it hangs off your shoulder like a bag.’

‘
Bizzarro
!’ Stromlo read the calibre off the side of the bridge sight. ‘P90 cal 5.7 by 28. Penetration?’

‘Twenty-four layers of Kevlar or a steel helmet at 100 metres.’

‘Then stops dead?’ His hands caressed the strange moulded sides, his penitent’s role fading fast.

‘I asked them that. They say it drills an 8-centimetre permanent cavity in standard NATO gelatin. A 9mm Parabellum only does 3 centimetres.’

‘You believe it?’

‘Dunno. But I tried it on the Beta range. Fifty rounds at 900 a minute’s quite handy.’ He pointed out the fire-selector disk under the trigger guard, the magazine catch, the cocking handle.

Stromlo squinted down the sight. ‘I may not be much help. My hands.
Tremante
.’ He held one up. ‘And it’s been a long time since . . .’

Cain had noticed the dead marines in brown paper bags under the bed but knew that EXIT training was so thorough it stayed with you, even when drunk. And, at 3-metre range, Stromlo’s shake would be as effective as vibrato on a violin.

The man of God seemed intrigued by the weapon as if eager to test it on flesh. He stripped the barrel, receiver and bolt assembly without instruction. ‘Interesting design. So — what do you suggest?’

The act put the cap on Cain’s assessment of the priest Grade Four. A dismal, self-dramatising soak he might be. But even a blotto Stromlo would give a special ops hard-arse the trots.

He said, ‘I reckon they’ll come around 4 am. They could have body armour, carbines, image intensifiers and they’ll head for the bedrooms upstairs. They’ll know I’m a minder. Will they think you’re just a priest?’

‘
Signore Vita Angelica
.’ The old fraud smiled and shook his head. ‘No. They know I’m part of it. But not how much.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘They’ll also know about the motion sensors, the door and window circuits. But they won’t pick the perimeter system.’

‘Okay.’ Cain factored that in. ‘So they’ll cut the power — get in quietly, spring us asleep if they can, take us out and grab the family.’ He reached down to his metal box and lifted out two calf pouches fabricated by EXIT stores. Then the flak jackets, the balaclavas, the camo-cream. ‘Good idea to look like them. The more confusion the better.’ He filled the pouches with P90 magazines, pulled over the Velcro flaps.

A contemplative look from Stromlo, unconnected to piety. ‘Would you engage them outside or . . . ?’

‘Too sloppy.’ He slid his hand over the hammerhead stock of the MINIMI. ‘If you hosed them with this or started tossing bombs you’d have a siege or a back-off. You’d take a couple out and the others would live to tell the tale.’

‘Not good.’

‘Less they know the better. No, I suggest we ask ourselves what we’d do if we were adults.’

Stromlo’s face fell, his low opinion of himself re-engaged. ‘If we were surgeons, we’d invite them in and surprise them.’

‘. . . And trap them in the house and backburn.’

‘Can I be the backburn?’ He was like a child asking to hide first.

‘Go for it. Ground floor near the back stairs. I doubt they’ll bother with the front.’

‘No. If we were doing it, we’d come from two ends — a window and near the back door.’

‘We’ve got two handsets. We’ll know when they’re coming. So I’ll be upstairs. You . . . ?’

‘In the gym,’ Stromlo said. ‘Good metal cover there. And it commands the back stairs and pool.’

‘Fine. Now we can’t smuggle the family out . . .’

‘Too obvious. They’ll be watching us now. And we need bait.’

‘So what if we hide them in the sauna?’

‘
Splendente!
’ He clapped. ‘Then I can cover them as well as backburn.’ He inverted his P90 and smiled at the ejection port. ‘I’ll tell cook to make sure the staff stay in their wing when it starts.’

‘Good.’ Cain divided up the remaining magazines. ‘We’ll need to chat up the family.’

Stromlo raked in his ammo. ‘Perhaps as I’ve lived by the sword . . .’

‘Hoping to get killed?’

‘With luck.’

‘Whatever turns you on. Just make sure you take two of them with you.’ He pulled the last object from his box — the piano wire with wooden handles. ‘You never know.’

Stromlo fondled his gun. ‘I thought this had passed me by.’ His face contorted to a grin, returned to a guilt-ridden mask. ‘I haven’t fired at anyone for years. God forgive me, I’ve missed it so much.’

‘My sympathies.’

Stromlo, he thought, must have been a hoot in the Vatican.

‘A
ll right,’ Eve said, ‘if we can’t go outside, what’s going to happen?’

Cain surveyed the council-of-war around the living room fire. ‘We think they’ll enter the house from two directions then head for the bedrooms and find you.’

‘Find us?’ Nina shrilled.

‘We’ll mock it up — bolsters in the beds. The lights will be knocked out. They’ll have night scopes — image amplification, not thermal, and only Gen II.’

Jane said, ‘Can we have that in English?’

‘Three times less photosensitivity,’ Stromlo said, ‘and only half as much luminous gain. Far less resolution than the one I have upstairs.’

‘Means it won’t be that great for them,’ Cain said. ‘New moon with cloud. We’ll get away with bolsters. No heat signature needed. It only has to fool them for a moment.’

Jane said, ‘And where will we be?’

‘In the sauna. I’ve switched it off.’

‘Why there?’

‘Thick door, double walls and Father Roberto can cover you from the gym. He’ll need the light from the atrium roof and reflection from the pool. Because I’ll be upstairs with the scope. You can leave the door open till he tells you.’

Jane’s stolid look. ‘If we have to stay in this house, I want a gun.’

Stromlo shook his head. ‘There’s nothing more dangerous than a gun you’re not familiar with.’

‘He’s right,’ Cain said. ‘You’re safer without it.’

‘Well, I’m taking my machete.’

‘Fine.’

The daughter cut in. ‘How come a priest knows so much about night scopes, guns and all this crud?’

‘A misspent youth, my child.’

‘God you’re a wanker.’

Eve slapped her leg. ‘Apologise.’

She made a silly face and said smarmily, ‘Sorry, Father.’

‘You have an evil mind, young lady. I suggest you pray earnestly tonight.’

‘I’ll pray I’m not shot. If you’re protecting me, I’m stuffed.’ She turned to Jane. ‘Have you smelt him?’

‘Behave yourself,’ Eve snapped.

Jane said, ‘At least they don’t want to kill us.’

‘They could rape us,’ Nina yelled. ‘And I guess you’d think that was epic.’

‘You’ll be safe, dear. I promise.’ Stromlo patted her shoulder with a not quite fatherly affection. His eyes flicked to her small high breasts, to the reddening thigh sprouting from her skirt.

‘Who’d trust
you
?’ She jerked her arm away. ‘And get your hands off me, you perv.’ She glared at the fire, tears budding.

Cain said, ‘That’s it then. We’d better dummy up the beds.’

Nina sobbed, ‘What if we’re killed?’

He felt something hot near his cheek, shied and quickly turned.

A grey-red glowing coal was hovering in the air near his eye.

‘Shit.’ He tried to knock it away but it seemed to avoid his hand and moved back like a dragonfly to hover near the fire.

The shock of it sent him reeling.

Anti-gravity!

No
wonder
they wanted her.

Now other coals were lifting from the fire and hanging in the air.

They scrambled back towards the walls.

Then the girl was on her feet, beside herself with rage, shaking her fists at them, breathing in harsh gasps while dull red coals circled her.

‘Stop it,’ Eve yelled. ‘Right now.’

‘Chicken-skinned shits. You go along with them. You
suck
.’

‘Nina. Stop.’ Eve’s voice was a harsh command. ‘Or I’ll . . .’

‘. . . Send me back to dad? I’ll
kill
you first.’

A coal sailed toward Eve and seared the front of her blouse. She shrieked and ran from the room.

‘I command thee, ancient serpent, to depart from hence.’ Stromlo was belting out prayers. ‘We beseech thee, Holy Mary, to intercede for this prodigal child and adjure the Father to grant her redemption through the love and mediation of . . .’

The girl turned to Cain and yelled above the racket, ‘They’re only half-sisters because their dad fucked two women for years — their bloody mums — in the same bed. That’s what gave them the idea. So have you fucked them yet? Fucked my mother? Screwed her blind?’

Cain kept his eyes on the coals. One sailed slowly across the room, hit the carpet, which began to char.

The girl, face distorted, extended her rage to the others. ‘You’re all fucking scum. And that sick old wanker,’ she thrust her arm toward Stromlo, ‘wants to ram it up us
all
.’

Hot coals started to fly around the room, not in straight lines but erratically like flies, changing course in midair. Several landed on the carpet. Cain kicked the nearest back to the fire and stamped on the spots, knowing now, beyond doubt, that he’d lost his thousand bucks.

‘None of you,’ the girl shrieked, ‘none of
them
— better come near
me
!’

C
ain sat in the dark on Nina’s bed beside a toy goat stuffed with pyjamas. Her room, at the end of the hall at the front, was opposite Eve’s sewing room. He’d closed all the blinds on the top floor to reduce ambient light. The NVG was good though hard to get used to. The monocular presented the night picture to one eye only so that the other pupil remained dilated and with 90-degree peripheral vision.

It was 4.20 am and the effect of three cups of coffee was waning. He kept alert by moving his attention through his body. He could die tonight if things went wrong — the strongest incentive to be inwardly attentive. To
be
— not just react.

His attempt at awareness was also a need to be worthy of John who combined all religions in his inner freshness and stability. They had often spoken of the importance of staying inside oneself, contained. Yet this almost impossible effort was only a beginning. Every moment one forgot. As the experience was always fresh, so by definition discontinuous, without an impulse continually renewed . . .

The handset on his knee flashed red and vibrated — jerking him back — proving he’d disappeared again into thought.

He flicked the thing to silent and checked the dim LED readout. The outer grid registered two directions — side of house and back. This was it.

He switched to the inside grid and waited for them to show. They were registering now — one lot close to the back door, another at his end of the house.

A slight clatter. An aluminium ladder. Smart. The second group were heading for the upstairs sewing-room window.

He crossed the hall into the room, skirted the mounds of material on the floor and entered the disused en suite. It was stacked with cardboard boxes and bags of cloth. He peered around the stack until he could see half the window of the room — a window set into a section of tiled roof and two-thirds covered by a blind.

The muffled noise of ladder on guttering. The click of disturbed tiles. Now a black crescent of rubber sucker projecting just below the blind. The man was releasing the lever to fix it to the glass. He heard the graunch of the cutter. The scene through the NVG was a clear image in shades of green.

The circle of glass was extracted. A gloved hand reached in to trip the latch. Then the window frame slanted and the man had his head in the room.