Thick clouds of white smoke were quickly filling the room. Darby shut her eyes and, holding her breath, found the side pouch. She ripped it open, grabbed the gas mask and fitted it over her face.
Charlie had rolled on to his side. She had knocked out most of his front teeth. He stared at her, his wide, frightened eyes blazing from behind the ghoul mask.
'Lock me away,' Charlie said between gagging. 'Lock me where they can't find me.'
Darby jumped to her feet as the front door was knocked off its hinges.
'Others,' he screamed.
Smoke was quickly spreading through the room. Darby grabbed Judith Rizzo by the arms.
'Promise me — '
Charlie started coughing, hacking and wheezing from the tear gas filling his lungs. She dragged the mother into the hall, and heard Charlie's last words: 'Get the others.'
Two armed SWAT officers were rushing to the foot of the stairs.
'Stand down,' she yelled, pleased by the strength and clarity of the mask's voice amplification system. She guided the woman's head to the floor. 'I repeat stand down.'
The front officer stopped running and stood in the middle of the stairwell. Darby moved to the top of the steps.
'Subject is down and cuffed,' she said. 'Bring the ambulance around, we have a — '
The SWAT officer raised his shotgun and fired.
9
Boom and Darby felt the round hammer against the centre of her chest.
Her breath exploded from her chest, and she stumbled backwards. She hit the back wall and tumbled, her legs giving out. Her hands gripped the air, seeking purchase — BOOM and a second shotgun blast took out a chunk of plaster from the wall where her head had been just a moment ago.
Splayed against the floor, and making harsh and painful gasping sounds behind the gas mask, Darby turned on to her side. The armour plating had saved her life, but her ribs were broken, maybe even fractured. Blinking, she saw the two SWAT officers disappear through the smoke. It was drifting into the dark hall, and over the ringing in her ears she heard more footsteps pounding their way up the stairs.
Then she caught the figures of two, maybe three SWAT officers (not Trent's men — they have to be someone else but who are they?) turning left at the top of the stairs. They disappeared behind the smoke, their footfalls fading as they ran towards the bedroom.
Four, possibly five men were inside the house. More could be waiting downstairs or outside. They would head back this way and someone would see her squirming on the floor and keep pumping rounds into her until she was dead.
Sucking in hot air and trying to get her lungs to work, she reached for her sidearm and felt the empty holster. Charlie had ditched her weapon. She had heard it land somewhere out here, and she began frantically to search the floor -
BOOM and the shotgun's muzzle flash jumped in the white smoke from the bedroom.
BOOM and two SWAT officers emerged from the smoke hauling someone by the hands and feet — Charlie Rizzo, she thought. They rushed down the steps -
BOOM.
Darby fumbled for her ankle holster, where the compact SIG was hidden. The.32 ACP rounds didn't offer much stopping power, even at close range. They'd be useless against tactical armour. She'd have to try for a headshot. The gas mask's polycarbonate visors were scratch resistant but not bulletproof.
First, she had to find a vantage point.
Dizzy, she pushed herself up on to her knees. One, possibly two men left in there. Using the wall for support, she got to her feet and immediately stumbled, dropping to her knees and sucking in air. She had to wait and couldn't wait.
From somewhere outside she heard tyres skidding across the pavement.
Now heavy footsteps were coming her way and she knew the SIG wouldn't put a dent in him, so she dropped it. With one hand she grabbed a flash-bang grenade from her vest, while pulling the netgun launcher from its holster with the other.
The SWAT officer emerged through the smoke with his shotgun raised. He saw Judith Rizzo, stopped, and then placed the muzzle against the woman's head and fired. Darby pulled the pin and tossed the flash bang across the hall floor.
The grenade went off and the SWAT officer was stunned by an explosion of noise, the white light blinding him. Darby pulled the netgun's trigger.
There was a pop and hiss as the net hurled through the air, expanding into an electrically charged web. It wrapped itself around the SWAT officer's chest and face, tangling him in the sticky strands. Sidearm back in hand, she heard the man's squeal of surprise and pain as he stumbled and fell to the floor, writhing around like some insect caught in an actual spider web.
Darby staggered to him while holding the banister, her breath coming back but her ribs still burning, muscles growing stronger with each step. The web had him locked up. She kicked the gas mask off his face. He tried to reach up to put it back on but his fingers got caught in the sticky webbing. Her boot came down on his hand, breaking his fingers. He screamed. She kicked him against the side of the head and he slumped back against the floor.
She hadn't knocked him unconscious; she could hear him choking on the smoke. The web had locked him up but he had conveniently dropped the shotgun on the floor next to him before it had done so.
Standing with the shotgun, her lungs straining, burning as though they were on fire, she raised it at the man's head, about to fire when an inner voice cautioned her to wait. You need him alive, the voice added. Darby turned and stumbled to the bedroom.
The drawn shades flapped in the wind blowing through the two shattered windows. Smoke was everywhere, curling like snakes across the walls and ceiling, and she got a good, clear look at the bedroom: a SWAT officer kneeling on the floor next to the bed, his back facing her; the headless remains of the twins and Charlie Rizzo — they had been shot at point-blank range like Judith Rizzo. But there was no sign of the father. Mark Rizzo had been cut free from the chair. Taken alive.
Four quick steps across the carpet and the SWAT officer turned to look over his shoulder. She didn't shoot him. She dropped the shotgun and, grabbing him by the head, twisted violently. There was a snap as his neck broke and he collapsed on the floor.
Sitting on the floor was a small device. It had a timer. And wires.
Wires connected to six sticks of dynamite bound together with electrical tape.
The timer's numbers flashed a glowing red in the thin, blowing curtains of smoke:
1:26.
1:25.
A quick glance over her shoulder and out the window: the APC was still parked out front, its back doors hanging open.
1:23.
You can do it. You've got time.
Darby grabbed the shotgun and started counting down as she ran back into the hall, where the SWAT officer lay still. He appeared to be roughly her height, maybe two hundred pounds with all the gear.
1:19.
Another solid kick to the man's head, just to be sure, and then she knelt down, propping the shotgun against the wall. She grabbed the man by the feet and hoisted his legs over her shoulder. He wore black trousers and a pair of heavy winter boots. Definitely not one of the SWAT officers; they had all worn the same TrainMark footwear and
