Devlin's Defiance: Book Two of the Devlin Quatrology (4 page)

Camelia, prone next to
the wall at the far end, leaped to her feet and ran toward the front
door, opened it further, closed her eyes, threw a flashbang through
and rolled inside the door and through the mostly empty space between
the knees and upper torso of the man who had been firing from behind
the door. Becky followed her in a moment later, both of her machine
pistols at the ready.

Cam opened her eyes
and quickly quartered the room, seeing an open space with stone
walls, several crates stacked along the east wall and two archways at
opposite ends of the south wall, the shredded body behind her and one
man in monk's robes getting to his knees near the westernmost
archway. She took him out with one round to his chest and, after
running to him, one to the top of his head. She looked through the
arch and saw a narrow staircase leading up to the left.

Becky ran to the
crates and glanced at the labels and inside one that was open.

“
Looks like
surveillance stuff, Cam; probably haven't had the chance to do a full
install.”

“
Well, they've
only been here – what – a week?”

“
I think that's
right.”

She ran to the other
archway and glanced quickly through it, then stepped in and looked to
her right.

“
Bingo, Cam;
little wooden desk and a laptop.”

“
Anything else?”

“
Nope –
well, a small kerosene lamp and a chair. What you got over there?”

“
Stairs going
up.”

“
Guess that's
where we have to go, then.”

“
Yup. That's
the main choke point.”

“
Check for booby
traps as we go.”

“
Copy that.
Ready?”

“
Ready. Go.”

They ran to the
archway, stopping with their backs to the wall on each side. Becky
aimed up the stairs and fired a three-round burst, then ran up the
stairs at full speed, keeping her eyes open for trip wires or
sensors, firing another burst and then one more as she neared the
top. Cam followed, five steps behind.

At the top, Becky
dropped to her knees four steps down, reached up and swung her weapon
to the left, firing another silenced burst down the narrow,
pitch-dark hallway that bisected the second floor. Glancing around
the corner, she saw a body twitching on the floor three feet away; a
single bullet to the forehead stilled him. She belly-crawled
forward, using his body as cover.

Beyond the body, she
saw several doors on either side of the hall, some open, most closed.
She rose to her feet, Cam behind her, and ran to the first open door
on her right, glanced in, saw nothing but sparse furniture, moved on
to the next one, as Cam checked the open doors on the left, until
they reached the north end. Now only the closed doors remained.

“
I think the guy
I hit woulda been somewhere in the middle, but I didn't hear
anything as we went by; shoulda heard some screams or at least some
moaning.”

“
They're pros,
Cam, that's for sure.”

“
Mercs on their
last job.”

“
Yup. Ready to
see what's behind Door Number 1?”

“
Ready.”

- 10 -

November
12, 2012
2:39 p.m. local time

Aboard
Defiance

On t
he
Red Sea

"What do we have,
Captain?”

“
Looks like
pirates, sir. See the AKs they're brandishing?”

“
And are those
RPGs on the deck?”

“
Let me zoom in a
bit. Yes, sir, looks like a pile of 'em.”

“
How soon will
they be in range?”

“
Another thirty
seconds or so, I'd think, sir.”

“
Well, guess we
need a pre-emptive strike.”

“
Yes, sir; all
prepped for that. I'll have the drone paint the target.”

“
Good. But hold
for my call.”

“
Will do, sir.

“
Laser is
painting the target, right on the pile of RPGs.”

“
Good. Now let's
see what they do.”

“
Holding.”

“
And there they
go; two guys aiming RPGs. Fire.”

“
Yes, sir.

“
Fire the LGM,
Wozlawski.”

“
Yes, Captain;
LGM away.”

A puff of smoke and a
throaty roar from the rear deck signaled that the laser-guided
missile had been fired and a moment later, a brilliant explosion
could be seen in the distance and heard a moment after that.

“
Direct hit,
sir.”

“
Very good,
Captain. Any damage to the drone?”

“
No, sir; it's
well out of range. I'll have it do a post-impact visual assessment
and then bring it back on board.”

“
Let me know if
there are any survivors. I'll want to interrogate them if there
are.”

“
Will do, sir.”

“
Wonder what
they're doing so far north of their usual hunting grounds.”

“
No idea, sir.
But they didn't look like Somalis; maybe Yemenis.”

“
That makes more
sense. Keep me posted; I'll be down on the foredeck.”

“
Will do, sir.”

- 11 -

November
13, 2012
2:51
a.m. local time

100 feet above the
Aegean Sea

They moved to the
first door on the left, one on each side, backs to the wall. Becky
reached out, pressed the antique latch with the barrel of her weapon
and swung the door wide open. Cam glanced in, machine pistol
sweeping across it, as Becky stepped in and looked around the room,
seeing only a spartan wooden bed, a small desk with a kerosene lamp
on top and a chair.

“
Clear.”

“
Door Number 2.”

They moved across the
hall and repeated the procedure with that door. The room had the
same sparse furnishings.

“
Clear.”

Next door. “Clear.”

Next door. “Clear.”

Next. “Clear.”

As they neared the
middle of the hall, after several more rooms had been cleared, Cam
tensed up and said, “This is about where he woulda been.”

When Becky reached for
the latch and metal hit metal, bullets splintered the wood around the
latch, and Becky pushed the door open with the gun barrel. Cam,
keeping her back to the wall, stretched her weapon into the doorway,
swept the room on full auto and heard her bullets hit flesh and a
rifle clatter on the stone floor.

She ran in, put
another bullet in the man's head, quickly slapped a new magazine into
her weapon and picked up the man's rifle. She saw that his right arm
ended in a bloody stump halfway between the elbow and wrist.

“
Got you, you
SOB,” she hissed as they backed out into the hallway.

As they approached the
closed door across the hallway, Becky swapped magazines, as well.

“
My guy may be
in here,” she said as they got in position and she reached out
for the latch with her barrel. As metal hit metal, she pushed the
latch down, but then held still, alert for any noise from the other
side of the door. She heard nothing and pushed the door open,
hearing it bang against the wall as it swung wide.

- 12 -

November
12, 2012
2:21
p.m. local time

Bonita Beach, Florida

"Hi, Rosemary, and
welcome back. How ya doing?”

“
Hi, Gordy.
Good, thanks. You?”

“
On a day like
today,” he said, pointing at the clear sky, “and with the
seabreeze warming the water, I'd say maybe a B plus, A minus.”

“
It is nice.”

“
Good summer?”

“
It was, eh,
okay. You?”

“
Great.”

“
I'm glad.”

“
How's Kevin?”

“
He's okay, but
he's frustrated with closing down the Chicago warehouse.”

“
You're closing
it down?”

“
Yeah; the unions
are killing us, and Chicago politics, too. It's all so corrupt.”

“
For sure. Gonna
drive the city into bankruptcy, right after Detroit takes the plunge.
And then the whole state of Illinois will probably follow.”

“
Yeah, probably.”

“
Well, corruption
is part of all governments, always has been, always will be.”

“
You think so?”

“
Well, I'd bet no
one could find any government anywhere in the world or at any time in
history that wasn't corrupt in some way.”

“
Don't think I'd
take that bet.”

“
Good thinking.”

“
Even here in
Bonita?”

“
Probably, if
someone looks deep enough. I haven't, but some folks are. And you
can just watch or read the news.”

“
Wow.”

“
Nothing compared
to Chicago, of course. I can only imagine how that's affected your
business and Kevin.”

“
I think hitting
50 is stressful, too. I worry about him.”

“
Well, that's a
mom's job, isn't it?”

“
Yeah, but I
remember how tough 50 was for me.”

“
You made it
through okay, though, at least from what I can see.”

“
Thanks, Gordy.
You always make me feel good.”

He chuckled. “Missed
me, huh?”

“
I did.”

“
Me, too.”

“
You missed you?”

“
No, you know
what I – oh, good one.”

“
Gotcha.”

“
One for
Rosemary. Bravo.”

“
Thank you.”

“
It was nice to
get to know you better, without the whole winter bunch around.”

“
Me, too. I
enjoyed that week; July's a nice time down here. And I enjoyed how I
got to know you better, too.”

“
By the way,
Janet said you were back, asked if I'd seen you yet.”

“
Uh-oh. Do you
think she suspects?”

“
Not sure; it
sounded innocent enough. And they were away on a cruise that week.
But you know how she giggles all the time, makes it hard to figure
her out.”

“
Yeah. At least
she's not a gossip.”

“
Far as I can
tell, no.”

“
But she and Norm
do sit with Ron and Jenny and the rest of that bunch.”

“
True, but they
all take Ron with a grain of salt.”