Firestorm: Book III of the Wildfire Saga (46 page)

C
HAPTER
37

Skye, Scotland.

North of Dunkeith Castle.

D
ANIKA
LEANED
AGAINST
A
towering pine, staring into the darkness trying to catch her breath.
 
She'd left the car along the road where its owners would find it in the morning and as night fell, took a different path back to the castle.
 

Her eyes moved back to the dimly lit guard shack.
 
It looked like an unassuming little stone house, only a mile north of Reginald's castle.
 
To the untrained eye that's exactly what it was.
 

The thatched roof and white-painted stone walls screamed 'crofter's cottage'.
 
A small, hand-painted sign out front proclaimed the proprietors ran a small art store inside.
 
Perfect cover for one of Reginald's security outposts.
 
This one happened to be on the main route between the northern half of the island and the castle.
 

She knew Cooper and his men were perhaps an hour behind her, traveling quietly with their night vision goggles through the forest, creeping closer to their target.
 
She checked her watch again.

Shit.
 
I'm late for dinner.
 
I need to do this quick.

She ran out of the woods and up to the front door, feigning fatigue.
 
She called out for help and collapsed to her knees against the door.
 

"Help!
 
Is anybody home?" she called, laying on the accent.

After a moment, light poured out from behind the curtained window to the right of the door.
 
The hard, angular face of a young man appeared.
 
He didn't look to be the artistic type.
 

She composed herself, listening to several latches and locks disengage on the other side of the thick wooden door.
 
At last it opened.
 
Before her stood a tall, athletic man, dressed in the simple clothes of a farmer who stood ramrod straight with wide shoulders.
 
He looked more like a soldier than a shepherd.
   

"What's wrong?" he barked in a soft brogue.

Not very friendly, are we?
 
Danika smiled.
 
We'll see about that.
 

"It's my leg…" she gasped for breath and made sure her chest heaved.
 
"I got lost in the woods…I'm trying to find my bed and breakfast.
 
I went for a run, but…I have no idea where I'm at…"
 
She forced herself to cry.

It had the desired effect—the man knelt next to her.
 
"Hey now, no need to cry," he
 
murmured.
 
He put one strong arm around her shoulder and helped her stand with a gentle touch.
 
"Och, there now lassie, dry your eyes…you'll be okay.
 
Dinna fash yourself."

Her smile was genuine.
 
She had always loved a good Scottish brogue.
 
It was a shame this man had to die—he seemed like a nice enough fellow.

He led her into the cottage, taking the first door on the left.
 
The simple room held a few pieces of amateurish art in rough-hewn frames over a fireplace dark with soot.
 
The beams overhead were stained black from what she guessed had been generations of use.

"Sit yourself down, now.
 
I'll no' be a minute.
 
Let me get ye something to drink and a phone."

She assumed there were cameras in the place watching her every move.
 
She'd have to be fast.
 
As he turned to leave, she stood.
 
She lifted her foot up, drew the thin knife from of her ankle sheath, stepped forward and shoved it into the base of his skull.

She cursed—he was heavier than he looked.
 
When the knife blade severed his spinal cord, his body crumpled—dead weight.
 
He fell forward, and she barely caught him before he crashed through the coffee table.
 
She lowered him to the floor on the off chance he was only one part of a team.
 

Danika rolled him over, removed her knife, and cleaned it.
 
Under his fleece jacket, she found a concealed handgun in a shoulder rig.
 
She examined the Glock and ejected the magazine, noted it was full and slammed it home.
 
She racked the slide to put one in the chamber and got to her feet, pistol in her right hand, knife in the left.

Moving back to the front door, she cleared every room as fast as she could,
 
cornering with the pistol out and her knife in a reverse grip, her left arm under her right wrist to give the pistol extra stability.
 

One more door to go—it's got to be in there.
 

The house looked as advertised from the road.
 
Nothing but folksy art, tired furniture, and a few worn books on rickety homemade shelves.
 
Anyone in Scotland could've claimed it as their grandmother's cottage.

She crept up to the final uncleared door leading out of the kitchen.
 
It was heavy, made of reinforced steel that opened smoothly on well-oiled hinges with only a gentle push.
 

Danika stepped into an elaborate surveillance room.
 
Another man sat at a desk, his back to the door.
 
He scribbled away in a notebook, oblivious to the outside world, his hand perched over a newspaper.
 
She stood still and watched him, pistol aimed at the back of his head.
 
Before long, she realized the man was looking up words in a dictionary for the newspaper crossword puzzle.

"…e…i…l…" he muttered.
 

Her disdain for the two-man surveillance team knew no bounds.
 
Unprofessional hacks.
 
A quick glance at the bank of monitors surrounding the man showed only one camera inside the house, aimed at the foyer just inside the door.

Reginald had stations all over the estate, though.
 
The path she'd taken from the treeline to the front door had been ignored.
 
She'd hoped coming down the rocky slope would be seen as a long shot and not covered—she didn't like to gamble but it had been a snap decision.
 
This time she'd gotten lucky.
 
She frowned.
 

I don't like luck.

Danika took two quick steps across the room and tucked the pistol into her belt.
 
No sense in using the gun here.
 
If there was any kind of live feed from this room, someone would definitely hear a gunshot.
 
She walked up behind the man, clamped her left hand over his mouth and as his body stiffened in surprise, she inserted the knife blade at the base of his skull, just like his partner.
 

After a few seconds his body stopped twitching, and she laid his head down on the desk and jerked the knife free.
 
Danika stood there for a second, thinking.
 

She only had a few moments.
 
There was no sense in returning to the castle armed, so she tossed the gun on the floor.
 
She wiped off the knife on the man's back and replaced it in her ankle sheath.
 
Now for the fun part.
 

Danika shoved the man out of the chair to fall unceremoniously to the floor, then sat in front of the main computer terminal.
 
Pulling up the software code, she sifted through initialization files until she found one she liked.
 
She shook her head as she worked—reprogramming was a skill she rarely used.

Reginald's operator training had been extensive.
 
Among the sessions on how to avoid capture and resist torture, there were elaborate training courses taught by the most pre-eminent hackers in the world.
 
She and the other operatives in her class learned how to infiltrate computer systems and change security algorithms.
 
It had never been her strong point, but Danika still had more knowledge than the average IT worker.

Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she rewrote bits of code and changed the initialization file.
 
She rebooted the system and after a brief flicker, everything came back online.
 
Her eyes swiveled to the phone on the desk next to the dead man.
 
If it rang in the next 30 seconds, she had failed.
 
Everything depended on who monitored the command and control room at the castle.
 

If her guess was right, the little cottage out in the middle of nowhere suffered numerous power fluctuations.
 
That meant the feed from the cottage might be interrupted enough that those back at the castle paid little attention.
 

She waited, her heart keeping time.
 
A clock on the wall continued its doleful ticking as the seconds slipped away.
 

No phone call.
 
I'm in.
 

She left the terminal and dragged the body of the first guard into the room with his partner, then shut the door and locked it.
 
Danika snapped the key in the lock to make sure no one found them anytime soon.
 
The heavy steel door would have to be cut from the frame for someone to get inside.

She made her way to the front door, slipped out and shut it.
 
After a quick look around, she saw nothing out of the ordinary.
 
The pines around the cottage sighed in the quiet evening breeze.
 
In the distance, a loon cried.
 

Now that the cameras had been set to run on an incessant loop showing the last hour of footage, she had nothing to worry about.
 
She sprinted down the road back to the castle, hoping to make it in time for at least part of dinner.
 

A little more than ten minutes later, Stefan met her at the gate, his brow creased in concern.
 
"Mistress Svea—are you quite all right?"

She put her hands on her knees and bent over.
 
"Yes…Stefan," she gasped.
 
He steadied her as she tried to straighten.
 
"I'm sorry…time got away from me.
 
I'm not used to having the light fade so quickly.
 
It just felt so good…to run…"
 
She tried a weak smile.

"I never understood why anyone would
enjoy
running…" replied Stefan.

"Did I miss…dinner?"
 

Stefan nodded as he helped her down the hall toward her private suite.
 
"Unfortunately yes, Mistress Svea.
 
However, the Earl and Mistress Jayne have retired to the sitting room for after-dinner drinks.
 
He insisted you join them as soon as possible."

"Okay…" she gasped.
 
"Let me catch my breath and take a shower.
 
Tell him ten minutes."

Stefan nodded from the hallway.
 
"Ten minutes—very good, Mistress."

Exactly ten minutes later, she stepped out of her room to find Stefan waiting.
 
"My goodness, you're prompt," she blurted, smoothing her dress over the small knife she'd just hidden on a silk garter strapped to her thigh.

Stefan sniffed.
 
"Of course I'm prompt—I'm Austrian.
 
It's a matter of national pride," he said with a smile.
 
"This way please."

She finished the final adjustments on her v-neck, ice-blue silk halter dress as she followed Stefan.
 
She had time for one final check of the quick French braid trailing down to the middle of her exposed back before he opened the door to Reginald's private study with a flourish.
 
Stefan announced her presence then swept her into the room with a bow.
 
She held her chin up, squared her shoulders, and marched forward.

Her training kicked in and she swept the room with her eyes, automatically seeking out expedient weapons and tactically advantageous positions.
 
Immediately before her in the square shaped room, sat the service cart loaded with a crystal brandy decanter, several glasses and a silver platter with small desserts and chocolates.
 
Further in to the room, nearer the massive stone fireplace built into the far wall, sat a trio of high backed, thickly padded leather chairs that gleamed with age in the fire's warm glow.