Longevity (17 page)

Louie was there before her, bouncing on his forefeet with pent-up urgency. The lock plate for the pedestrian gate was conveniently labeled so she hit it with her Masterkey and had the satisfaction of watching Louie wiggle through while it was still opening. With her faceplate down, she couldn't talk to him without shouting, but he fell in at her side and they ran back together into the smoke and erupting flares towards the house.

It was a strange sensation after so many years doing only investigative work, to have her world narrow down to her weapons and the house, with whatever remaining guards it held, and her firm objective. In Tactical, she'd been part of a team. Tonight, she had Louie.

She wanted no one at her back, so she chose the last set of French doors at the back of the house and paused only long enough on the outside to lean close to Louie's ear and say distinctly "Find McGregor. Louie, find Chris." He leapt in over the ruined glass and wood smoothly and disappeared into the smoke-filled room as Livvy scrambled through after him. Immediately, she sidestepped to brace up against the adjacent wall. A small table went over with the loud crash of what was probably a priceless Chinese vase. The smoke still made normal vision impossible so with her back now to the Spritzers, she toggled her faceplate to infrared and looked around. There was Louie, crouching with his head down on the other side of the room just as a human figure appeared at what had to be a door. It was embarrassingly easy to eliminate the man with two Stinger shots but she didn't delude herself into thinking that they would all be so simple. Quickly groping her way through the room, she used her hips and knees to locate the obstacles so that she could have her hands free for her Stinger. She'd have bruises tomorrow.

Louie was waiting for her when she got to the door. She tossed one of her Smokes through but couldn't wait for full dispersal because Louie was picking up speed as though he had picked up a scent and was half way down what was apparently a long, wide hall when she went through. There were two men running towards her at the other end of the hall, and she barely had time to scream "Louie, down" before she dropped and rolled, aiming and firing as she moved. She got the first man as she went down, before he got off a shot, but the second sent two missiles - silenced bullets she thought from the sound - that impacted a wall above and behind her before her duoloads caught him. Four.
How many more guards did the old man have?

Louie was already up and moving again - a dog on a mission now - and Livvy pushed herself to her feet to follow. He stopped in front of a door under a stairway. Livvy had time to register that they were standing beside a grand stairway that lead up out of an impressively marbled and chandeliered entryway when the fifth man poked his gun around the corner of a doorway across the room and started spraying her with more bullets. Most of them ricocheted off the lovely oak balusters but one of them hit her shoulder, above her sore arm, before she could duck.

"Hell," she said. Despite the armor, it hurt.

Louie, sensible Louie, crouched at the side of the door, keeping his head down.

Livvy decided she couldn't wait. She opened the door and followed Louie through, with a quick command to him to wait. This stairwell went down between more oak-paneled walls to a broad landing, then turned towards the front of the house at a ninety degree angle. Two stairs down Livvy turned, toggling back to photopic. Very little of her smoke had wafted down the stairwell. She was a highly visible target at this point and she couldn't go past the corner with Guard Five at her back. Feeling trapped, she'd whispered "wait" seven more times to herself inside her helmet, when the fool opened the door just above her and she shot him twice at point blank range. Five fell forward down the stairs.

Louie was waiting for her just above the landing, staring straight down towards the lower floor. She bobbed her head to check and saw Guard Six crouching behind the Newell. He shot at her but she'd already ducked back and the bullets dug into the paneling behind her. Okay, I'm in armor, she thought. She stepped out and fired twice. One of her darts caught him in the face just below the eye. Possible permanent nerve damage, they always warned, but she couldn't summon any regrets. Six went over and she took the lower stairs at a two-at-a-time plunge and put a second duoload in his chest.

Even down here the floor was smooth marble so Louie scrambled doing a hairpin turn at the base of the stairs until he found his traction again and took off down another long hall towards the back of the house. As Louie went passed it, a door near the base of the stairs opened. Guard Seven had certainly heard all of the prior shooting and must've heard and glimpsed Louie dashing by, because he came all of the way through the door and leveled his gun at Louie's backside. Livvy got him with two duoloads in the back before he could shoot. The easiest yet. She did a quick sweep of the room before she moved on. There were no windows down here, but the walls and ceiling had numerous small light sources. All of the other five doors behind her stayed closed and she left them alone for now.

The sixth door, the one that had attracted Louie's attention, was at the end of the hall. Superficially, it looked like any other of the heavy wooden doors on this level, but when she got closer she saw that it had been retrofitted with a simple palm lock. She pulled out her Masterkey and pressed it against the lock just as Guard Eight, who had apparently bided his time before come out from behind one of those other doors, started firing at her from behind the same damn Newel. The door swung open to a cacophony of falling metal and Louie yelped, then darted passed her. This man's aim wasn't any better than any of the others but she was standing still and neatly outlined against the door. As Livvy turned to face the shooter the repeated painful impacts basically propelled her through the door and into the room. Just inside the door, she stumbled then fell over a chair and what appeared to be a collection of pots and pans.

• • •

Chris woke up around 3 AM. He was still in what he was starting to think of as "the room that never gets dark." The muted sound of gunfire which had awakened him ended abruptly. It had appeared to be coming from above him. A short silence, and more rapid, muted gunfire, lasting longer, again from above, further away, and abruptly silenced.

After the second set he moved as quickly as he could to the door and started dismantling his crude trap. The sleep had only stiffened his sore muscles and made his ribs throb with every breath. The third distinct set of gunfire came from the same level as the room he was in. He hadn't been able to get his trap fully dismantled by the time the fourth set started, apparently right outside the door. Whoever it was, they were moving quickly.

The shooting continued as the heavy door swung open, the chair and its remaining burden of pots and pans went over, and Louie yelped sharply and dashed past. Immediately behind Louie, a smallish figure in an armored tunic staggered backwards into the room, floundered briefly in the scattered remnants of his trap, and went down. The door started to swing shut.

Chris slid the chair into the door gap and grabbed the Stinger from Livvy's hand, thumbing it to rapid fire mode. Standing behind the door, he aimed the Stinger in the location that he imagined for the approaching shooter and sprayed the duoloads across the hall in a fan pattern, while behind him, Livvy scrambled to her feet and started groping through the contents of a small pack she was carrying over one shoulder.

Chris put a finger to his lips and Livvy froze. There was an interval of disconcerting silence during which they gazed at each other while listening for sounds of approaching footsteps.

Chris started to poke his head out to check but Livvy forcibly tugged his arm and, frowning, pointed to her faceplate and took his place at the door.

Guard Eight was sprawled across the hall. Livvy put another duo-load into his hip just to be sure.

When she tried to step over the chair and back into the hall, Chris put a hand on her arm and held her back. She opened her mouth to tell him it was clear, but he put a finger to his lips again.

He opened her faceplate and asked very softly, "You okay?"

"I'm wearing a vest under the tunic, and I'm damned warm," Livvy whispered back. "Shouldn't we be leaving before someone shows up or wakes up or something? Wait... did Louie get hit? I thought I heard him get hit."

That's when they both noticed the blood. There were drops of it starting at the door and scattered across the room to the area near the kitchenette, where Louie was cowering under the small mahogany table.

"Louie, come," Chris said, and held his breath.

Louie crawled out from under the table and over to Chris, who had him lie on his side so he could get a good look at the wound. He was bleeding from a deep furrow on his rump, but he had walked with only a minor limp.

"It's not too bad," Chris said, still talking under his breath. "Wait here. You might hear some shooting. I'll be right back."

"What..." Livvy started to say softly, but Chris put a finger to his lips a third time and disappeared into the hall, leaving her to rummage in her pack for a packet of clotting agent/antibiotic powder to use on Louie's wound.

From further down the hall, there was the sound of an automatic weapon firing repeatedly.

Within moments Livvy, cursing under her breath, had pulled Louie with her and braced against the wall behind the door.

"Hutchins, you can come out now." Chris called from the hall.

"What the hell?" Livvy said, stepping over the chair in the door opening and putting her hands on her hips.

"I just took out the equipment in the Security Room. LLE..." Chris said.

"Naturally. It's the way LLE handles it. Camera shy. Destroy any record of its activities. Avoid publicity at all costs. I get it." She kicked a pot out of her way.

"It's not just to destroy the record of your raid, which might, with narrative supplied by a skilled legal monkey, be misinterpreted. There are probably remote feeds, and wherever Bedford is, I want him blind."

"Understood. But you could have warned me. I mean warned me better. I thought that there was another man. Never mind. You know what I thought."

"I... sorry," Chris said, surprising her.

"You aren't used to a partner. I get that, too," Livvy said, relenting. They were both tired.

"What are we going to do with all of these guards?" she asked. "Please don't say we have to take them in."

"The guards? Take them in for what? So they can sue LLE for putting Stingers in them while they were just doing their jobs? No, we don't want to take them in," Chris said. "I wasn't conscious when they brought me in, so I have no idea of who knew what. Besides, the fewer..."

"The fewer people involved, the better. I get that. LLE hates to actually arrest people or even acknowledge that they are fighting crime. I
do
get that," Livvy said. She'd found a fresh clip full of duoloads and handed it to Chris.

"Yes, but you have to be able to work with it," Chris said, exchanging the fresh clip for the spent one in the Stinger Livvy'd given him.

"Louie, stay close," Chris said as Louie clambered over the chair that was holding the door jammed open and into the hall. His wound had stopped bleeding.

By now wisps of smoke were drifting down the stairs and lending the whole place an eerie atmosphere, especially around the sprawling forms of the three fallen guards.

When they had stepped over the first body, Livvy touched Chris on the arm again and, holding his attention, said soberly, "Mickey Bedford and her bodyguard were killed last night. Jesse was kidnapped."

Chris met her eyes, his expression grim.

"Hell. The bastard did it. He actually did it. We need to find Jesse. Now. Even though I think we may still have some surprise on our side, it's going to be daylight. And unless I'm mistaken, the man himself will be there. Your obviously well-honed ninja skills," Chris said, looking her over, "aren't going to be enough." He lost the brief trace of a smile. "That cold-blooded, arrogant son-of-a-bitch."

• • •

But as much as they wanted to, and Livvy was quite sure that Chris wanted to head directly after Bedford at least as much as she did, they couldn't leave right away. They searched the rest of the rooms in the basement, finding staff quarters, which they ignored, and a hotlab, which they totally demolished. Then, on the slight chance that Josephson and Jesse were somewhere in the house, they searched room by room, counting on Louie to let them know if there was someone lurking behind a door or the drapery.