A man’s voice. “Mike!”
She ran to the western edge of the roof to see Nicholas dangling off the side, his body sideways, one arm on the fast rope, which had miraculously hooked onto a window frame. Gareth was alive and cursing a blue streak, hanging on to Nicholas’s hand. Both of them had fallen? Below them, the chopper was burning on the grounds.
Nicholas’s face was black with smoke. He gave a laugh and a beautiful white-toothed smile. “Hey, so much for a surprise attack. Mike, Gareth and I went over together. Only one problem—I don’t know how long this rope is going to hold, and Gareth is getting concerned.”
“Hang on.”
Mike unwound a tactical rope in her kit and looped it twice around an air vent. She leaned over the roof edge. “The rope won’t be strong enough for the two of you at once.” She wrapped the rope around her waist and threw the last fifteen feet over the edge. “Gareth, you come up first. Yell when you’ve got a good hold.”
Moments later, Gareth called, “Have it,” and she sat on the roof and braced her feet against the roofline.
She shouted, “Go, I’m ready.”
She felt the jerk and the sudden load of weight as he let go of Nicholas’s hand. It felt like hours before Gareth finally made it up and over the roof. He lay there for a moment, breathing hard, then unwound the rope from his bloody hands and tossed it to Nicholas. “Mike, let’s do him together.” He wrapped the rope around his hands, and the two of them held steady as Nicholas climbed up the side of the house to the roof.
When Nicholas rolled over the edge, onto the roof, Mike sat down hard on her butt. She was sweating, her muscles burned. Nicholas looked to be in one piece, but she’d bet the wound in his side was bleeding again.
“Gareth, there’s a first-aid kit in my bag. Your hands are a wreck. Nicholas, do you know your face is black?” Where was her brain? “And how is your side?”
“My side is maybe bleeding a bit, but I’m all right. The pilots?”
Gareth shook his head. “The missile took out the cockpit. The chopper flipped over in midair before it went over. They were gone before it hit the ground.”
Mike closed her eyes against the pain of it. Between curses, Nicholas got on his radio and relayed their situation. Adam had heard the whole thing, but the chopper’s comms were down so he couldn’t speak to them.
“Adam, you probably can’t hear me, but we must abort the mission. I hope the Zodiacs are waiting.”
Gareth got painfully to his feet. “We’ll shimmy down the side of the house and get to the boats, if they’re there.”
Mike said, furious, “Stop it, both of you! We are not aborting this mission. There haven’t been any more attacks. We can’t let the pilots’ lives be wasted by giving up now. Nicholas, give me the shaped charge. We’re going in.”
Gareth eyed her like he would a wild animal. “Mike, listen. Someone in that house shot a missile at us and took out the chopper. There may be more missiles at the ready, you know that. The only reason there haven’t been more attacks is they think we’re dead.”
“They’ll kill Isabella if we don’t get to her, if they haven’t already. Give me that frigging shaped charge now.”
Nicholas handed it to her. “Gareth, whoever told you this job was a walk in the park?”
Gareth laughed, got his hands bandaged and taped.
Mike nodded, walked over to the glass skylight, and pressed the shaped charge into place. She stepped back and activated the trigger. The explosion was hard and fast. The glass skylight shattered inward perfectly, as it was supposed to, and Mike tossed them the rope.
“Gareth, can you climb down that rope with your hands?”
“I’d like to say I rappel as well as you two maniacs, but the fact is”—he waved his bandaged hands. “I’ll be slower, but I’ll follow you down as best I can. Go.”
Nicholas took the rope out of her hand. “Mike, back off, I’m going in first. I was the one hanging off a roof, not you. I deserve a reward.”
She couldn’t help it, she grinned at him. He looked dangerous and pissed off. He flashed a light into the darkness below them. All was quiet. “If Adam’s plans are correct, below the skylight is a library.”
He pulled his weapon into place across his chest and went down the rope, hand over hand. Mike did the same, and Gareth came last. Mike heard his sharp intake of breath, knew his hands had to hurt. She thought of the bleeding wound in Nicholas’s side. She kept quiet and rappelled.
They landed lightly on a hardwood floor. Nicholas flashed his light on the walls. They were in a massive room, every wall covered with floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books, thousands of them.
Once they’d crept out of the library, the house looked different. Nicholas whispered, “They must have had work done since Adam’s blueprints.”
“Yes, but the aviary still has to be to the west, stairs to the lab to the east, down one floor.”
Gareth said, “Wait, do you hear something?”
They heard a low shriek. “The aviary,” Mike said, “there must still be birds in there.”
Gareth said, “They’re safe enough. The fire is outside. They must be scared. The stairs are ahead. I wish there was a separate set, I hate to go down the main staircase like this.”
“No choice,” Nicholas said, “so let’s do it.”
They stuck to the walls, inching down the stairs, one step at a time, guns held at the ready across their chests. They heard another cry, getting louder.
“That’s not a bird,” Nicholas said. “That’s a person. It sounds like someone’s keening.”
Gareth put a hand on Nicholas’s shoulder. “Shh. Listen.”
There were words now, but they couldn’t understand them.
“What language is that?”
Mike said, “I don’t know. Ardelean is Romanian.”
Nicholas was shaking his head. “It’s not Romanian. It’s not like any language I’ve ever heard before.”
Faintly, in the background, they heard an all-too-familiar sound—the unmistakable metal snick of a magazine being slammed into a gun.
Before anyone could react, bullets sprayed the staircase.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
They ducked. It seemed like forever before silence came again. “There,” Nicholas said, “that’s the final spray, that’s the whole magazine. Go!”
They charged down the stairs, Nicholas in the lead, spraying three-round bursts. At the bottom of the stairs they took cover behind statues, all in marble and bronze. The hall fell eerily silent again. The gunman was biding his time.
Mike said quietly into her comms, “Ben, are you scanning the house? What’s thermal saying?”
“Having a hard time. If I didn’t know better I’d say the place is lined in lead. We’re barely getting readings, but it looks like three bodies to your east. Other side of the wall from where you are.”
She heard Nicholas say, “Hold on,” and then a clatter. Immediately, gunfire opened up again, spraying the room. This time, Mike could see where the shots originated.
“The wall in the corner—there’s a freaking weapon hanging from the ceiling.
Nicholas said, “And it’s automated, on a motion sensor. I’ll throw another canister. When I do, you two bolt for the hallway.”
“What’s to say there won’t be another gun?”
“Probably is, we’ll have to take each room as we go. Three, two, one, break.”
There was a clatter, and the weapon went off in a flash of light. Mike ran, hard, toward the darkness, pulling up short just inside the hallway. No new guns went off.
She said, “We might be in luck. I see light at the end of the hallway.”
“Anyone with ears knows we’re here,” Gareth said. “Whatever, or whoever, is behind that door is going to be pretty angry when we blow through.”
Mike gave him a mad grin. “Let’s go.”
Carefully, they duck-walked down the hallway, silent as they could be, all geared up. Mike could smell blood, knew it was Nicholas and Gareth, and worried. But then they were at the door, and Gareth placed two explosives on the hinges.