Valhalla Rising (Dirk Pitt 16)

Pitt didn't answer but leaned out the car's window and punched a series of buttons. "That will have to do. Actually, Kelly had a backup remote with a different

code."

"And let's suppose Kanai and his flunkies have compromised the security system and overpowered the guards. What makes you think he's going to open the gate for us?"

"Because I punched in the name Cerberus for the code."

Giordino rolled his eyes. "If I had an ounce of common sense, this is where I'd get out."

Pitt's green eyes looked grim. "If I'm wrong, the gate won't open and we wasted the trip and lost Kelly for good."

"We'll find her," Giordino said gamely. "We won't stop searching until we do."

They were on the verge of leaving when the huge gate slowly began to swing open.

"I do believe we struck a chord," Pitt said, vindicated.

"You know, of course, they'll be waiting in ambush to shoot us to pieces."

Pitt slipped the car in drive and drove through the gate. "We're armed, too."

"Oh, sure. You've got your antique .45 Colt, and all I've got is a screwdriver I found in the glove compartment. The guys we're going up against are loaded down with assault weapons."

"Maybe we can pick up something along the way."

Pitt drove past the farmland and slowed as he came to the vineyard, waiting for the barricade to rise up from the road. It came right on schedule and one of Kanai's men in a security guard uniform came to the car and leaned in the window, clutching an assault rifle across his chest. "Can I help you, gendemen?"

"Where's Gus?" asked Pitt innocendy.

"He called in sick," answered the guard. His eyes searched the car for weapons and, finding none, he relaxed.

"How's his baby girl?"

The guard's eyebrows raised fractionally. "Healthy, the last I heard-"

He was cut off as Pitt gripped the Colt by the barrel that was out of sight under his right thigh and swung it across the steering wheel and into the guard's forehead. The eyes crossed and the head and shoulders slipped below the car door's window frame and disappeared.

Almost before the bogus security guard hit the ground, Pitt and Giordino were pulling him through the grapevines into a large tree trunk and down eight steps to a security surveillance room underground. Twenty monitors were mounted against one wall, their cameras sweeping the farm fields and interior of the house". Pitt stood transfixed at the sight of Thomas trussed up and Kelly writhing on the floor, angry at seeing her abused but elated that she was alive and only a few hundred yards away. The five Vipers in the room seemed to have no indication they were being observed by cameras.

"We found her!" Giordino said, his spirits suddenly lifted.

"She's still alive," Pitt said, his rage mounting. "But it looks like those scum have given her a hard time."

"Let's not charge in like the Seventh Cavalry at the Little Big Horn," said Giordino. "With the security system, we can cover the entire farm and house from here and pinpoint where the rest of Kanai's men are located."

"We'll have to make it fast. They'll be expecting a report on us from the guy on the floor."

Giordino sat down at the console as Pitt found the hired assassin's black clothing that he had removed when he'd donned Egan's security guard's uniform. He looked down at the motionless body and saw they were roughly the same size. He quickly removed his street clothes and slipped into the black pants and sweater. The boots were a tight fit, but he squeezed his feet into them and pulled a ski mask over his face and head, which completed the outfit.

"These guys have no inhibitions when it comes to murder," said Giordino, as one of the monitors revealed the bodies of Egan's security guards stacked like grain sacks in a cellar under the barn. He switched from one camera to the next, searching for Kanai's men. "Besides the five in the house, I count two more. One guarding the back door overlooking the river and another by the barn."

"That makes eight, counting our friend on the floor."

"Now is as good a time as any to call for reinforcements."

Pitt nodded at one of three phones sitting on the counter. "Notify the sheriff's department, report the situation and ask them to send in a SWAT team."

"And you? What's your gig?"