Girl Takes Up Her Sword (27 page)

Chapter
30

Too Late to Run

“The bunker’s not finished,” Michael said, as the family gathered around the large table in the kitchen. “If we go down there, we’ll be trapped.”

“How much time do we have?” Ethan asked.

“Thirty minutes, maybe less,” Connie replied, holding a long case over her shoulder.

“No point running, then,” Emily mused, her mind only half in the conversation, still wearing a nightgown. “How many is he bringing?”

“Since this is his main chance, I expect he’ll send every asset he has,” Michael said.

“He brought nine four-man teams to Burzynski’s place,” Connie said. “He lost a few there, but we should expect something on that scale.”

“The stakes are different here. He only wanted to destroy Burzynski, but he wants to capture Emily and Yuki alive.”

“And what about the rest of us?” Andie asked, in terror of the answer she expected.

“Michael, I think it’s even more different than you realize,” Yuki said.

“Different how?”

“Walker’s willing to kill Emily, obviously,” Connie said. “But I think that means Meacham’s already dead. This is Walker’s endgame. He’ll kill everyone he thinks poses a threat to his family.”

“But isn’t Emily his family?” Andie asked. “And what sort of threat does he think we pose? Or the children?”

“Does that include you,” Theo asked pointedly, staring at Connie.

Emily shot him a dark, angry look, then pressed her hand against his chest.

“I’m sorry you got caught in the middle of this fight,” she said. “He’s coming for me, to kill me if he can’t persuade me to go along with him. I’m going to wait for him right here. If the rest of you can get clear, you should get out now.”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Connie said.

“Me, too,” Ethan growled.

“Fine. What assets do we have here?” Theo asked.

“I sent the security staff away,” Michael said. “It’s not their fight,” he added when he saw Theo’s reaction to this news.

“Jerry and a few of the other are staying anyway,” Ethan said, with a glance at Emily. “Apparently, they think you’re worth risking everything for.”

“They just don’t want to lose those free sparring lessons you promised them,” Connie said with a snort.

“All we have is light arms,” Ethan said. “So obviously we can’t risk a pitched battle.”

“Yes,” Michael added. “We’re gonna need some sort of sleight of hand.

“I’ll organize Jerry and his guys,” Theo said. “We’ll lead as many as we can to the reservoir. It’s uneven ground with good cover, and we know it better than they do.”

“You have your positions scouted out?” Ethan asked Connie.

“Yup,” she replied. “If you lead them through the hills just south of the drive, I’ll thin ‘em out for you.” Theo nodded. “And on the way back, I’ll look for you down by the cabins, if there’s any of ‘em left and I still have a defensible position.”

“I’ll go get ready,” Emily said, turning to go back upstairs.

“You’re in no shape to fight,” Yuki cried out.

“She’s right,” Theo said. “You’ll get yourself killed. Look at yourself. You can barely stand up straight.”

“David’s coming for me. If it weren’t for me, none of this would be happening. I have to face him.”

“No, Emily,” Michael said. “If it weren’t for you, this day would have come a lot sooner. You are what stayed Walker’s hand.”

“Maybe so, but he won’t leave until he finds me.”

“And when he kills you, he’ll still come for the rest of us,” Andie cried out. “Don’t do it. I never should have let you go to Kamchatka, and I can’t let you do this.”

With one hand on her shoulder, Emily looked into Andie’s eyes and smiled.

“Don’t worry about me. It will be all right.”

Andie looked as if she believed it, if only for an instant, then threw her arms around Emily’s neck and hung on, sobbing like a child.

“Mom, you’re gonna have to help me get dressed,” she said over Andie’s shoulder. “And leg wounds only everybody. Let’s not kill too many of these guys.”

“What the hell are you talking about,” Theo said. “They’re going to be shooting to kill us.”

He looked to Connie for support, but she just shrugged.

“They’re only following orders,” Emily replied. “I’m sure they don’t know what’s really going on.”

“But they damn well know attacking a private home can’t be legit,” Theo said. “They don’t deserve any more consideration than they’d show us.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “It’s just that I have enough dead men weighing on me as it is.” The room went quiet for a moment. “And I don’t want anyone shooting David before he has a chance to face me,” she said with a glance at Connie.

“No, honey,” Yuki pleaded. “You don’t owe him anything. Please, everyone, shoot him if you get the chance.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Emily said as she drew her mom into a hug. “I’ll be okay. Now let’s get ready.”

~~~~~~~

Sporadic gunfire echoed here and there around the property, but rather less than she expected to hear, certainly much less than she heard at Burzynski’s.

“Just slip the sword through the straps at the bottom until you hear the clasp click shut,” Emily said. “Handle down.”

“Wait,” Yuki said. “Your shirt’s caught on the webbing. Let me get that.” Emily heard a little gasp from under her arm. “Chi-chan, what happened to the scar? There’s nothing left of it.”

“It still hurts like hell, Mom.”

“You’re not supposed to heal this fast. It hasn’t even been a week.”

“The
wakizashi
goes in the upper clasp, just behind my shoulder.”

“I thought you broke your
wakizashi
.”

“Sensei gave me this one. It’s not quite as nice as the one Mel’s dad gave me, but at least it’s all metal.”

“It’s not too late, sweetheart. Please, just stay with me and the children.”

“I have to do this, Mom. You and Andie need to keep the children together. Don’t let Anthony or Stone follow me. You know what they’re like, those brave little boys. Ethan and Connie will keep you safe.”

Tears rolled down her mother’s face as she watched her daughter pull a jacket over one shoulder. The second sleeve remained elusive.

“Let me help you with that,” she said, wiping a last tear from her nose.

“Don’t worry, Mom. I got this. It’s who…”

“I know, Chi-chan. It’s who you are. Go get ‘em, my beautiful girl.”

Thump-thump-thump, the noise shook the house, getting louder, until it seemed to hover directly above the house… and then it moved on, getting quieter in the distance.

“And they brought a chopper,” Emily muttered.

~~~~~~~

“Even the ‘quiet’ ones are damn loud,” Connie thought as what looked like a modified Blackhawk UH-60 roared low over her position. “Probably carrying nine men plus the pilot.” She ducked behind a chimney to avoid the spotlight, and mulled over shooting the pilot while they were still in the air. “Emily won’t like it.”

Theo and the security contingent crouched next to a large boxwood, visible from the roof, but invisible from ground level. They’d wait to make their move until the appropriate audience was in position to see it, and she’d be watching, too. She’d already calculated how many times she could fire before rappelling along a downspout on the far side of the house and moving to her next position.

A four-man team moving along the tree line on the south side of the main lawn caught her eye. She placed the crosshairs on the lead man and sorted through the likelihoods. By the time she’d made the second man’s head explode the rest of the team would be in full retreat. A bullet to the spine of the remaining two as they ran would incapacitate them until they could be dispatched later. She thought again about Emily, and shot all four men in the legs—not completely neutralized, but harmless enough for now.

Theo was on the move, trailed by Jerry and the others, picking their way through the underbrush. Movement in a shallow gully at their seven gave away the pursuit. They weren’t trying to be subtle, since no one was hunting them… or so they thought. That track would lead them over a rise where they’d be exposed to her for just an instant, but out of sight of each other. Rhythmically, one after another, she squeezed off five shots before the moon hid behind a cloud.

“No head shots,” she muttered only half out loud, though she couldn’t say how severe the wounds were. “I hope she realizes what a pain this is. At least now it’s Theo’s problem to decide what to do with them, that stickler for legality.”

It was already starting to feel like she’d overstayed her welcome on the roof, and she turned to the escape route… too late. The blades of the chopper cleared the trees on her right and the light caught her running just below the peak of the roof, rifle slung over one shoulder, amid the dull thud of bullets hitting the shingles. A leap down to the lower roof of the west wing gave her enough cover to return fire with a handgun, six rounds directly into the cabin—no time to worry about not killing anyone. Whatever she hit, it was enough to force the pilot to veer off suddenly.

“He’s still alive, I guess.”

Her position took more fire, now from the ground, bullets ricocheting off a chimney and a gutter.

“They’re too close to get an angle,” she thought, as she pulled on a pair of gloves for the ropes.

They’d have to back away and that would give her an opening to get to the ropes. A quick breath to get the timing just right, and then she launched herself over the edge. The protruding corner of the chimney would give her a tiny bit of cover on the way down. Not enough for real protection, if they saw her. But they were likely to be looking for her on the roof.

As good as this plan seemed when she was still on the roof, rappelling without a full rig, relying on hand and foot strength alone—that’s always a tricky business. If you don’t manage to trap the rope in your feet, hand strength is not going to be enough to slow your descent. And if your legs get tangled in the rope, you could get hung up, dangling helpless in mid air, or worse, break a leg and be helpless on the ground.

Connie missed the rope altogether and plunged headlong down the side of the house, thrashing about trying to grab at anything. When she finally caught the rope in her left hand, it yanked her around, spinning her horizontally into an azalea large enough to break the fall.

“So much for the best laid plans,” she grumbled, picking twigs and flowers from her hair.

A small branch had broken off in her forearm, skewering a muscle and stinging like mad when she tried to extract it. She felt the warm blood trickle down her arm.

“Damn, that’s too big to ignore.”

She rolled behind the azalea to buy herself some time to bind it in a rag. A rustle and snap in the underbrush, and she saw the red laser dot move up her body.

“Oh, hell,” she thought and braced for the impact. But no impact came. Two men stepped towards her, guns trained on her chest.

“Handled, sir,” one said into a radio. “You were right. It’s her.”

“You know what to do,” the voice crackled, and both men prepared to fire.

“What the…” one man yelped as a kick to the back of one knee spun him around. The other man suddenly clutched at his throat and fell backwards. With the moon still hiding behind a cloud, Emily was practically invisible, dressed entirely in black, and moving just a little faster than Connie’s eyes could follow.

When the first man recovered enough to raise his gun, she kicked through the back of his elbow with a hideous crack, leaving it dangling grotesquely at his side.

“You bitch,” he howled in pain and horror at what she’d done.

He retained enough self-possession to draw a small gun from his belt with his other hand and try awkwardly to aim it at her. Connie caught the glint of shiny metal as Emily whipped a short sword over her shoulder and plunged it into the man’s thigh. In the same motion, she swatted his little gun away. She leaned over to pull the sword from the man’s leg and hissed in his ear.

“You don’t have to die tonight. Tend to your friend and live a little longer.

The entire transaction was so fast, she moved so quickly, never hesitating, as though she’d anticipated every contingency, every response her opponents could make, even before she first moved a foot. Had more than a second elapsed? Even Connie, a hardened assassin, had never seen anything quite like it, except in a video. Two heavily armed men, mercenaries by the look of them, probably former special-ops, disposed of in an instant, the sickening sound of snapping joints still echoing in her imagination. When the man nodded blankly at Emily, eyes wide as saucers, as though he were prey looking into the eyes of a predator, Connie could almost sympathize.

Emily leaned over to kiss her on the forehead, winced through gritted teeth, and then she was gone.

“I’d like to see what David can do against that,” she mused, as a wary smile snuck across her face. “Just hold it together a little while longer, girl.”

~~~~~~~

Skirting the back of the garage, crashing through some light branches, no longer interested in stealth, Emily ran as fast as she could down the same route Stone had taken a week ago. Ethan, Michael, Valerie, Andie, Yuki and the kids went this way a few seconds earlier, and one of David’s six-man teams was hot on their trail. Still dark under the shrouded moon, running under arms and in heavy body armor, they’d never hear her.