“The hell is that?” he heard Fitzpatrick bellow. “Take care of it, now!”
Someone was there. Someone was shooting.
He didn’t know who. But someone was there.
That was all he needed to know.
Zero heaved the crossbar up, and as soon as it was clear he shoved his body weight into the iron door. It gave easily. He hadn’t expected it to give so easily. The door fell out of its frame, and Zero fell with it.
It thudded to the floor in a stupendous crash with Zero atop it. Fitzpatrick was on the other side, and he shuffled back quickly to avoid being crushed by it. He dropped the acetylene torch, still burning, and he screamed as it seared his thigh.
There was more shooting below them, more than one gun. It sounded like a whole team had come. Penny had sent the cavalry; she must have. But he couldn’t let that distract him. Zero scrambled on his hands and knees, wooden stake in his hand, as Fitzpatrick reached for the PPK on the floor.
He’d brought a chair leg to a gun fight.
Bill McMahon came from behind him then, and he swung the three-legged wooden chair harder than Zero would have assumed possible for a man of his age. It broke into a dozen pieces over Fitzpatrick’s head, and Bill reached for the gun.
But Fitzpatrick was as stubborn as he was tough. He was up again in an instant, bleeding, roaring as he kicked the gun away and slammed a fist across Bill McMahon’s chin. Bill went down, and Zero leapt to his feet as Fitzpatrick pulled a black-handled Ka-Bar from his belt.
More shots blasted below them as Zero circled, waiting for Fitzpatrick to make his move.
The silver blade in his hand glinted as he raised it up, and then it came down, toward his throat, and in the moment Zero could think only of the beach. Of Maria. Of the moonlight and the knife, and the dark spot that wouldn’t stop growing no matter how much he tried.
`He tried to move out of the way, he wanted to, but it felt like his legs had turned to jelly.
Bill was there then, on his feet, leaping in front of him, putting up a hand as if it would stop an oncoming knife.
No.
Zero reached out and caught Bill by the collar and yanked the old man back, right off his feet.
The blade hit his shoulder and pierced it, shirt and skin and muscle, finally hitting bone, buried deep as Zero’s mouth stretched in a silent howl of pain. Fitzpatrick’s face was close, inches from his own, teeth gritted and eyes wild. He could see every line, every tiny scar spider-webbing out from the mercenary’s injured eye. Fitzpatrick grunted and his hand trembled as he tried to push the knife further, deeper into the shoulder, and it was all Zero could do but let him.
From between Fitzpatrick’s gritted teeth there was blood. His lip trembled, and his hand fell away from the hilt of the Ka-Bar.
Zero looked down. In his hand was the jagged chair leg, or some of it, the last five inches or so, and the rest of it was buried in Fitzpatrick’s chest, impaling him. Blood ran warm over Zero’s hand. Slowly his fingers unwrapped from around the wood, shaky, no feeling left in them.
“Son of a… bitch.” Fitzpatrick collapsed to the floor, the chair leg jutting from his chest.
Zero fell to his knees, breathing hard.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Bill murmured. The former president was there, at his shoulder, inspecting the knife wound.
“Doesn’t look like it hit anything vital,” said Bill. “Zero, I’m afraid you’ll live.”
And Zero chuckled, though it hurt to do it, and despite everything, because a part of him was afraid of that too. That he would live, and he’d have to deal with everything, all of it.
Then he noticed how silent the house was now.
“Shooting stopped.” He grunted as he climbed to his feet, and retrieved the PPK from the floor. “Move slow and stay behind me.”
Zero stepped over the scarred man’s body and cleared the hallway carefully, seeing no sign of movement. He made his way to the top of the stairs and looked down.
At the bottom was a body. The man he’d kicked down the steps earlier. But the fall hadn’t killed him; bullets had. Two to the chest and one to the head.
“Stay here,” he whispered to Bill, and he left the former president at the top of the stairs as he made his way down slowly. There was no way to pad his footfalls on the bare wooden steps or to stop them from creaking loudly.
At the bottom he cleared left first, and then right, but he should have cleared right first because he came face to face with the barrel of an M9 pistol.
“CIA,” he said quickly.
“US Army.” The man beyond the barrel was young, fairly short, five-nine at best, with a square jaw and features that… well, if he didn’t know any better, he’d say he looked like a young William McMahon.
“We clear?” he asked.
The man nodded. “Clear.”
Zero slowly lowered the gun.
So did the stranger. Then he frowned. “You have a knife in your shoulder.”
“Yeah. I noticed.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Bill McMahon came down the stairs, past Zero, and wrapped the young man in a hug. “Zero—I’d like you to meet my grandson. Preston McMahon.”
“Grandson?” Zero blinked. “How the hell did you find this place?”
“Was going to ask you the same question,” Preston admitted. “Though I’m glad you found it first. Seems I was just a little late.”
“No,” Zero told him. Past Preston were three more bodies, none moving, and Zero realized that what he thought was an entire team was just this one young soldier. “I’d say you were right on time.”
He pulled the burner phone from his pocket and was glad to see three bars of reception. He made the call.
“Zero? Jesus, I’ve been trying to reach you, I sent Todd your way, he should be there any mo—”
“Penny,” he interrupted, “I need you to get through to the White House, right away. Tell President Rutledge to call off the Fifth Fleet immediately. Iran and the IRGC had nothing to do with the kidnapping. And tell him there’s someone here that he would very much like to speak with.”
Zero passed the phone to Bill, and then he made his way to the front door and out onto the sagging wooden porch. The sun was setting. Sirens wailed in the distance, no doubt coming his way.
He put the gun down and he sat. With his right hand he reached across to his left shoulder, clenched his teeth, and pulled the knife out with a grunt. The wound burned; it would need stitches.
Zero dropped the bloody knife, and he couldn’t help it. His mind went back to the beach, and the knife, and the dark spot…
No. He shut his eyes and forced the scene out of his head. That’s not how she would want to be remembered. On the beach, yes—but not on that beach. On a small stretch of private beach, hidden away by a copse of pine trees, in a simple white gown, her hair flowing wild around her shoulders and smiling radiantly, knowing she’d never looked lovelier.
That’s how she’d want to be remembered. That’s how he would remember her.
His shoulder burned, and there’d be hell to pay, probably. But he smiled anyway.