She nodded and readied an injection gun containing two doses of a fast-acting tranquilizer designed to knock out a man of Crane’s size for several hours.
Randall moved out from his hiding place and inched toward the sunken living room easily the width and length of a three-car garage. The space had been outfitted with expensive furniture, including a 65-inch wide-screen television on the far wall.
In the middle of the area, his back to the kitchen, his arms spread wide across the back of a couch, a man sat watching an old Western movie.
Recognizing the flick, Randall held up a fist near his left ear.
Devlin stopped.
His eyes darting right, left, and toward a staircase on his eight o’clock, he waited for the movie’s upcoming gunfight scene.
From the television, the sound of six-shooters erupted.
Randall glimpsed his teammate and motioned.
Injection gun in hand, Devlin hurried forward.
He gripped his MP5 with both hands and repeatedly scanned the three positions from which threats could materialize.
The gunfight came to a sudden halt.
Randall frowned. That scene should’ve been longer. He faced the TV and saw Crane’s face reflected off the technology’s black screen. Oh sh— bolting by Devlin...
Crane leaped to his feet.
...Randall long-jumped off the main floor, sailed over the lower-in-elevation space, and came down on the center couch cushion.
Crane lifted hands to his face while opening his mouth and expanding his chest.
Randall drove the butt of the MP5 into the wanted man’s belly, cutting off a cry for help.
The disgraced, former deputy director hugged his gut while doubling over and stumbling backward, his foot smacking a coffee table.
A delicate crystal vase teetered twice before tipping over and smashing into tiny fragments. The noise of breaking glass bounced off the hardwood-paneled walls.
Devlin stowed the injection gun and turned her back on her partner. Taking up the mantle of providing cover, she swung her rifle back and forth and toward the stairs.
Bouncing off the wall next to the TV, Crane threw a weak right cross.
Randall ducked under the punch, clamped his left hand around the back of Crane’s neck, spun right, and threw him face first onto the floor.
“Is everything okay down there...”
Devlin aimed her long gun upward, in the direction of the unseen male’s voice.
“...Mister Crane?” A man in a black suit bounded down the stairs.
The red dot from her MP5’s scope jittering on the newcomer’s white dress shirt, Devlin heard Randall’s earlier admonition. No shouting commands. Trust the Intel. Drop him where he stands. She pressed the trigger one time.
Loaded with subsonic ammunition, the sound-suppressed weapon made little noise when it burped three times and sent three jacketed rounds into the man’s chest.
His hands covering his fatal wound, he gasped and tumbled the rest of the way to the first floor.
Not worrying about stealth any longer, Randall faced Devlin. “Toss me the injection!”
In one motion, she grabbed the gun, threw it, and resumed her two-hand hold on the MP5, whipping the weapon upward and toward her nine and three o’clock positions. There must be more of them.
Randall caught the gun, drove a knee into Crane’s back, jammed the device’s tip into his patient’s neck, and squeezed the trigger.
Crane’s arms flopped for two seconds before dropping to the floor, his right cheek thudding off the carpeted surface a tick later.
Gunfire filled the home.
Bullets hit the area around Devlin’s boots.
Backpedaling to get out of the line of fire from a second gunman on her right, she trained her weapon on an upper-level silhouette and got off several three-round bursts.
The handrail in front of the figure splintered.
Holes appeared on the upstairs wall.
The dark outline crashed through the damaged wooden stiles, did a forward roll in the air, and flattened an antique side table, his head ending up pointing in an unnatural position.
“Get to cover!” Randall fired his weapon toward the stairs.
The backs of her thighs touching the couch, she performed a reverse somersault over the piece. Twisting her body at the end of the maneuver, she landed flat on the carpet, her left shoulder and hip hitting first.
He scurried behind a floor-to-ceiling bookcase to his partner’s right and pushed his back against the sturdy furniture.
Incoming rounds from above shredded the sofa’s leather pillows.
Devlin turned away from the foam particles floating near her eyes. Not exactly cover, Jess. Rolling onto her belly, she army crawled toward a roll-top walnut desk on the opposite side of the room from her teammate’s position.
Spotting her slithering away from the bullet-ridden couch, Randall leaned out and exhausted the rest of a 30-round magazine on covering fire, alternating his point of aim to keep the enemy’s heads down.
Making it to the desk, Devlin crouched behind the furniture’s thick wooden side panel and swapped out her MP5’s magazine for a full one.
Randall reloaded his weapon and slapped the charging handle with his palm, sending a round into the chamber.
The cabin was quiet. Clouds of gun smoke hung in the air.
He checked his watch. Coming up on our extraction. He popped his head around the bookcase’s edge and quickly pulled back. Can’t drag this out.
Seeing him glimpse his watch, Devlin read his mind. We need to get out of here. Her eyes zipped around the room. A frontal assault’s a good way to get killed. She squinted at a lamp across the room while envisioning the NVGs on her head. Might work. She got Randall’s attention, tapped her goggles and whispered, “Get ready,” before setting her sights on the lamp and pulling the MP5’s trigger.
The room became a bit darker.
She transitioned to a second lamp and fired.
The darkness grew more intense.
Good thinking, Jessica. Randall shot the lights that were outside her field of view.
The main floor was black, except for the faint light coming from the upstairs and an adjacent room.
The agents flipped down their eyewear and activated their rifle’s IR laser.
Realizing they were lit up from behind, the armed assailants killed the light sources near them.
Seeing the pitch-black home in
