Four Live Rounds

Flashbang

SIXTY-THREE

Will froze in his tracks, Suzanne’s voice squeaking over the radio in his pocket. “What just happened?”

Kalyn responded, her voice a whisper: “They cut the power. This means they’re close, wearing night-vision goggles, and getting ready to make their move. I know it’s pitch-black at the end of those corridors, but your eyes will adjust, so everyone stay calm. You all have flashlights, and if you shine the beam in their eyes, you’ll screw up their vision for a minute or two. Now I don’t want anyone using the radio again until you’ve made visual contact.”

Will could see the lobby just ahead, lantern light flickering across the wall and the floor. He thought he heard Kalyn whispering, wondered if she was sending up prayers against whatever was coming.

Will turned around, jogged back toward the alcove, practically tripped over Rachael in the darkness.

“Just me, honey.”

“I can’t see a thing, Will.”

“Get your flashlight out.”

“I’m already holding it. Should I turn it on?”

“No, but be ready when I say. I’ll handle the shotgun. You be my light source.” Will found his radio, just a red dot in the darkness. He pressed TALK. “Suzanne and Lucy? Copy?”

Suzanne’s voice came back: “Yeah?”

“Don’t turn it on yet, but one of you operate the flashlight while the other mans the shotgun. Better than each of you fumbling with two pieces of equipment at once.”

The radio went quiet, and Rachael and Will stared at the alcove, waiting for their eyes to adjust, to begin picking out form and shape in the darkness, but they never did.

SIXTY-FOUR

Roddy hated Fidel and Javier. They’d controlled every aspect of this job. Told him where to go, how to go, talked down at him like he didn’t know what the f**k he was doing out here in the bush in his own state. This wasn’t Mexico or the Arizona borderlands. This was his block, and he resented being treated as a foot solider under their command.

Of course, he didn’t utter a word of that dissatisfaction. Didn’t venture an eye roll, display a single millisecond of outward frustration. He and Jonas had agreed: They want to run the show? Fine. Because what outranked Roddy’s frustration with Fidel and Javier was his fear. You did not f**k with Alphas. They were mythic. Doing business with them, regardless of how lucrative, entailed severe risk, since the possibility existed that things wouldn’t work out, that you might insult them or be perceived as trying to take advantage.

He thought it strange—the Alphas were here on principle, didn’t give a shit about the money, the women, said Stoke could have whatever they found. They’d spent tens of thousands to come up here just to deal with that ex-FBI agent. Stoke had warned Jonas and the boys not to upset them, said flat out. “You piss them off, your problem. I’m not getting involved. Certainly not intervening on behalf of your ass. You’re their bitches, so grab ankle, grit teeth, and pray you come back.”

At least the Alphas had brought some killer toys and been nice enough to share. And despite his inner griping, he had to admit that they certainly seemed to know what they were doing. Roddy felt like a f**king SEAL on some badass spec ops gig.

So here he stood, freezing his ass off in waist-deep snow, waiting for the signal, acknowledging the irony that what scared him more than anything was that he might accidentally kill the ex-FBI agent or Mr. Innis. They’d been cautioned several times against making that mistake, which meant that on top of everything else, he had to worry about who wound up in his sights.

A wolf howled. With the moon rising over the Wolverines and that milky smear of stars, it was almost too bright for night-vision goggles. But Roddy went ahead and slipped them on, figured the signal would be coming soon, and from what they’d seen, it would be total darkness inside the lodge.

Kalyn was up now, moving in slow circles around the freestanding hearth. She kept debating whether to start with the Browning or the twelve-gauge, decided finally on the 9-mm, since the shotgun felt cumbersome hanging from the strap around her shoulders. She slipped it off, set it on the stone in front of the dormant fireplace.

Wolves were howling outside, on their way back to the lodge.

From where Fidel stood, the view was spectacular—the black lake and the hills and a moon edging up on the horizon. Nothing like Sonora or the industrialized desert waste of Phoenix.

His parka and snow gear lay in a pile nearby.

He crossed himself and waited for the signal.

The snow was deep on the veranda, almost to the man’s waist. The large wooden door stood thirty feet from where he squatted by the railing, protected from the snow by a steep overhanging eave.

Javier reached into his pocket and sent the signal, then pulled out the walkie-talkie. He pressed TALK, said, “Get ready.”

The deep anticipatory tingling in the pit of his stomach was spreading like wetness across a napkin. He’d mapped everything out, nailed it down so cold, he had but to execute the movements, the choreography. He felt like a ballerina in that regard, waiting backstage before the curtains opened.

Devlin sat on the floor in Ethan’s room. She was cold.

In the opposite corner, the newborn cooed.

The head of a woman named Theresa rested in her lap, and Devlin stroked her hair and whispered into her ear that everything would be all right.

. . .

A shaft of moonlight passed through the west-facing window of the south-wing alcove. It illuminated the floor, the walls in lunar light. A wolf howled, much closer now, and received no answer.

Lucy’s walkie-talkie coughed up a loogie of static, Kalyn’s voice squeaking through the speaker, “Lucy, come see me for a second.”

“Be right there, K.”

Will reached out, located Rachael’s hand in the darkness, squeezed.

Lucy walked quickly down the corridor, the vast darkness of the lobby looming just ahead. The shotgun she carried in her left hand was so heavy, and she couldn’t imagine actually firing it at someone, the bruising recoil, the earshattering report, the killing.

Ten feet from the lobby, she spotted something out of the left corner of her eye. She stopped, staring at the door to 114. It was wide open, which shouldn’t have been the case, considering they’d locked every room on every floor that afternoon.

Lucy hurried on.

Three steps from the lobby, her legs melted.

She hit the floor, head pounding and consciousness fading as someone dragged her back into 114.

SIXTY-FIVE