time he made it to what had been a side porch.
He wondered about T.J. actually killing Anna. Maybe, maybe not. But Gaudet would certainly kill her if he could get into the house.
Once inside, Sam moved quickly to the hall around the corner from the safe room. Paintings worth thousands caked with dust hung on the wall or rested on the floor. One depicted red-coated gentry and hounds and the bloody plight of the fox they sought.
“Grady, I’m gonna take Anna’s hand off one finger at a time until you come out.” T.J. was talking into the intercom box.
“Save your breath,” Sam said. “I disconnected it. They’re not coming out.”
“I’ll kill Anna. So help me God.”
“No payday for that, I’d imagine. Better get your drill.”
Sam could hear T.J. retreating down the hall to the utility room that housed the safe room. Anna was struggling against him. Sam retreated around a corner and waited. From behind him he saw a shadow. Maybe Gaudet.
“I have her now, Sam.” It was Gaudet’s voice. But not from where he had seen the shadow. Sam’s skin chilled and tightened. How did Gaudet get into the house and to the safe room that fast? Maybe it was a bluff.
“How shall I kill her, Sam? You know me. I will find a way to enjoy it.”
“You’re a tough guy, I know.”
A motor started-the sound of a heavy drill.
“We’ll be in within an hour,” Gaudet called to Sam. “Perhaps a half hour. Come on in. Watch Anna as she gets the treatment.”
“Can anybody see the generator?” Sam whispered into his radio.
“They’re all dead, Sam,” Gaudet said.
Sam tried to ignore him, waiting for a response. “Anybody, come back.”
“A lot of wounded. We’re pinned down. So are they.”
“It doesn’t sound good, does it?” Gaudet’s voice came through the radio.
“Let’s bargain.” It was T.J.
“No deal.” Gaudet. It was obvious he had no regard for T.J.
“They must have used lightweight concrete. Probably shorted the cement. It is going faster than I hoped,” Gaudet said.
Sam could hear the drill grinding. Above him the ceiling had been blown out and holes ripped through the walls. He tried to think, searching for a way to get Anna.
“Soon we’ll be at the steel. Maybe they used cheap steel too.”
The sound of a large helicopter shook the night air. It was far off but coming closer. An explosion reverberated through the atmosphere.
“The Canadian government just discovered we have missile launchers on top of the mountain.”
“Victoria’s not far. Neither is Vancouver. They’ll have more.”
“Yes. And we will shoot them down at five thousand meters. Then, Sam-they’ll be cautious. We will have ample time, I assure you. One thing I’ve been wanting to do is give Anna a good shot of the Nervous Flyer formula. I think I’ll take her with me. She can screw me for the oil antidote. Where we’re taking her they’ll appreciate that.”
Sam tried to clear his mind of anger and frustration. Anna was weeping.
Suddenly Anna screamed an incredible shriek. Sweat poured down Sam. His body shook, his mind threatened to betray him. Still he didn’t move. With Gaudet using Anna as a shield, he couldn’t even sacrifice himself to kill them. Grandfather had given his life. Gaudet would not give him that chance. Grandfather was fond of saying that a man’s ideas were more deadly than his arrows. More than bullets, Sam needed something completely unexpected.
A new plan brought him energy. Running out the back of the house with near-reckless abandon, he made his way through a rapid stream of bullets to the tree line. Three rounds grazed him as he dived into the forest. The shooting came from men skirmishing from various haphazard bunkers or corners of the house. He found Yodo, wounded in both arms but alive and functional.
“We have to take the bunker in the trees.”
Yodo nodded.
“I need one rocket.”
Gaudet would have been talking to thin air as Sam ran, and any second it would start to worry him.
“You’ve left us, Sam. I may have to kill her after all.”
“I’m here,” Sam said into the radio.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting ready to catch you when you escape. I’ve already lost Anna.”
Sam didn’t listen to the response; he ran with Yodo, making a big arc. Nobody would be expecting an attack on this bunker from the ground. It was too far from the house. They went into the trees and passed through gaping holes in the chain-link fence. They used night vision, but made no effort to be quiet and still drew no fire. Sam wondered if Gaudet’s men were deserting, or more likely dead or wounded.
Twenty yards from the sandbags they stopped.
“We go in shooting,” Sam said.
“For Shohei,” Yodo said, and with one hand on his automatic he charged the bunker, Sam immediately behind.
As they neared the sandbags they heard a radioed voice in the bunker-Sam thought it Gaudet’s. After a clipped response the man rose to shoot, his outline green and ghostly through Sam’s goggles. Sam and Yodo both fired, and the man’s body jerked as the rounds worked their way up his torso.
Sam vaulted the sandbags and hoisted a rocket launcher, nodded at Yodo, and left as quickly as they’d entered.
“What are you doing, Sam? I’d whittle on Anna’s face but I have a lot of men that want her.”
“Me too,” Sam said.
Gaudet laughed.
“Getting back to the house might not be easy,” Sam said to Yodo.
“I go first,” Yodo said.
Yodo ran and Sam followed. They both shot at muzzle blasts on the way in. Yodo went down, hit after about twenty yards. Sam dropped and crawled to him, the rocket launcher slung on his back. Yodo was trying to use his belt to tie off his leg, but it was a struggle with his already injured arms and hands.
“You go,” Yodo said. “I cover.”
Yodo shot and reloaded as Sam crawled frantically for the side porch.
He climbed through the ruined doorway and ran down the hall without incident.
Anna was crying.
“Here I am,” he said on the radio.
“Good. The drill is going through the steel quickly. Would you like to know how we’re going to get them out?”
Sam looked up at the holes in the ceiling. “I imagine you’ll tell me.”
Huge pockmarks in the walls would make climbing easy. Keeping the rocket launcher tied over his back, he began climbing. He hauled himself up through the hole and into the second story.
“We have a special form of mustard gas we will drip in through the hole a bit at a time. It sticks to the skin and peels it like you might peel an orange. They’ll be out in no time. What do you think, Sam?”
“Hell of a plan.”
A bathroom stood above the safe room. The floor consisted of bare marble and carpet over marble.
“The beauty is that even while it doesn’t kill them, nobody could stand to remain inside. Look, we are almost through the steel. This was a real cheap installation. The owner should seek a refund.”
“I’ll make a note of that.”
“Tell me, do you prefer Anna’s breasts or her thighs? I want to know what to leave you.”
“Frankly I was always partial to her smile.”
