Dominic didn’t really expect to hear shooting. The team would seek only to control the situation. At most they’d trigger a few three-round bursts into the ceiling for intimidation, though even that was unlikely. These men were professionals. They knew how to assert themselves without theatrics. And their orders were explicit: take the subjects alive. Gunfire of any kind would be an unnecessary risk.
Dominic’s own orders were in the same vein. His role was to disable the visitors’ vehicle if necessary—one shot to the engine block would do—but otherwise to withhold fire.
Only under the most implausible scenario, in which the visitors eluded the team and seemed likely to escape, was Dominic to engage them with lethal force.
It wouldn’t come to that. The decoy plan had failed pretty miserably—almost comically—but the rest would be warm butter on toast.
He was thinking that very thing when he heard the front door crash in—and right on top of that sound came the first gunshots. He flinched and tore out his earpiece, but not before recognizing what he was hearing: not the 9mm bursts the team would fire, but single shots of something heavier. Forty-caliber Smith and Wesson, it sounded like. And maybe a few 9mm shots among them, but not in three-round bursts. All the shots were sporadic but one at a time.
Then it was over.
Three seconds, start to finish.
In the silence he heard his pulse in his ears. And the wind sighing over the ridge into the valley, pushing the big snowflakes almost sideways.
He felt for his earpiece and put it back in place, but for the longest time he heard nothing.
Travis stood and surveyed the aftermath. His eyes picked out the relevant points in order of importance.
Paige and Carrie were unhurt.
All the bodies in the entry were down and still.
There was no one else coming in. No footsteps outside. No voices. Just empty darkness and blowing snow.
The decoy was still lying bound in front of the chair. Still unconscious. And unharmed.
The women stood from their cover. They met each other’s eyes, and Travis’s.
Travis crossed from the kitchen to the front door, his gun still trained on the bodies. He scrutinized them, saw that each had taken at least one headshot, and felt his tension step down a degree.
A second later it stepped back up.
Five bodies.
In his mind he saw the decoy extending five digits of one hand, then adding another finger with a shrug.
Five, maybe six.
If there was a sixth man, where was he? Why wasn’t he with the group?
Travis thought of the terrain surrounding the cabin, and the answer suggested itself. And made his skin prickle.
A lookout, up high. Almost certainly armed.
He saw earpieces on each of the corpses. He stooped and took the nearest one, and fixed it to his own ear.
“Are you listening?” he said. “Do you hear that? That’s the sound of none of your friends breathing.”
He waited.
No reply.
He hoped he was talking to dead air. But doubted it.
Dominic had already swiveled the mouthpiece behind his head so the man wouldn’t hear his breath. He kept the earpiece in place. He listened. Time drew out. It felt like the audio equivalent of a stare-down.
“Correction,” the man in the cabin said. “One of your friends is breathing. The nice old lady who lied to us. I guess it’s possible she’s not really your friend—but she’s somebody’s friend, isn’t she? I bet she matters to the people who hired you.”
Dominic felt his adrenaline begin to climb. He could see exactly where this was going.
“She has to be someone personally close to them,” the man said. “Who else would they trust to do this? I don’t think they found her on Craigslist.”
Fuck. Fuck.
“So here’s how this happens,” the man continued. “The three of us, plus your decoy, are leaving right now. In a tight group. You won’t have a shot that doesn’t risk hitting her. We’re going to stay tight all the way to the Jeep, and we’re going to sit tight inside the Jeep, and we’re going to keep it that way until we’re long gone. And if you try to kill the vehicle and strand us here, my first move is to put her brains in the snow. Try me if you think I’m bluffing.”
A hard plastic clatter ended the speech: the man had dropped the earpiece on the floor.
He wasn’t bluffing. Dominic was clear on that. Even if he’d thought it was a bluff, he couldn’t have taken the chance. He had no idea who the decoy really was—therefore risking her life wasn’t his decision.
It was someone else’s.
He reached into his parka and withdrew the blue cell phone. He double-pressed the send button and saw the display light up, the phone already dialing the man who’d called him last night.
First ring. No answer.
Far below, a broad shape emerged from the cabin. Four bodies clumped together. Three walking, one being carried. Even without looking through the Remington’s scope Dominic could see there was no shot. No single head was distinct—they were all shoved together in a silhouetted mass.
Second ring. No answer.
The group reached the Jeep and piled in and the engine roared. The headlights came on.
Third ring. No answer.
The vehicle backed around in a tight arc until it faced the road, then lunged forward, taking the turn fast and racing away down the valley toward town.