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It was two thirty in the morning in Virginia. Everyone except Stephanie was asleep. After Nick and Selena left for Japan, Elizabeth called a meeting. They decided that until the yakuza threat was resolved, everyone would stay at the house in Virginia. Elizabeth wanted Stephanie to go home, out of the line of fire, but she refused.
"Lucas can look after Matthew while I'm here," she said.
"Are you sure? If someone comes after us, it could get nasty."
"I'm sure."
"We could be here for a while."
"I'm staying."
No more was said about it.
There was plenty of room in the house. They had weapons, a well-stocked kitchen, the pool table, and exercise machines. It wasn't exactly roughing it.
Elizabeth, Ronnie, and Lamont all had rooms on the second floor. So did Stephanie, but she'd been unable to sleep. She was in the ground-floor library, working with her laptop on an enhancement for Freddie.
Security at the new headquarters wasn't as extensive as it had been at the old Project HQ, but there were motion sensors outside and silent alarms triggered by a laser grid. It wasn't possible to approach the building without detection when the alarm system was active. Installing security features had been at the top of Elizabeth's list when she took over the building.
Stephanie was absorbed in her task and didn't notice the red light flashing in back of her.
Stephanie, there are intruders.
She looked up and saw the light.
"Freddie, wake the others. Make sure everything is locked."
Yes, Stephanie.
"Call the cops. Whoever it is means us harm. Do whatever you can to help."
Yes, Stephanie.
Stephanie reached into the drawer of the desk and took out her pistol. She turned off the light on the desk and ran to the front of the building and up the stairs.
Ronnie and Lamont were already up and in the hall outside of their rooms. Lamont was barefoot. Two spare magazines were tucked in the waistband of his shorts. Ronnie had pulled on a pair of pants. He, too, had his pistol in hand. Elizabeth came out into the hall, dressed in a nightgown and holding a pistol. Moonlight came through the big glass dome over the atrium, casting a pale glow over the stairs and floor below.
"We've got visitors," Stephanie said.
Downstairs, they heard glass break.
Ronnie said, "They're in the house. Director, you and Stephanie head up to the next floor. If we have to retreat, you cover us. Lamont, we'll wait on the balcony. We've got the high ground. They have to come up the stairs."
Below, they heard muffled words.
"Director. Go."
Elizabeth and Stephanie hurried up to the third floor.
The stairs from below rose in a curve on the right of the atrium to a long balcony that looked down on the floor below. Stairs to the third story began at the left end of the balcony. Lamont stood on the right end of the balcony, out of sight from the floor below. He could see down into the atrium and the entrance to the room with the pool table. Ronnie moved to the other end, where he had a full view of the stairs coming up from below and the door into the library.
They waited.
Two men dressed in black outfits emerged from the back of the house, then a third. They were holding machine pistols. From where he stood, Lamont thought they looked like Uzis. He held up three fingers to Ronnie across the way.
Ronnie nodded.
Freddie's electronic voice boomed out through the house.
You have entered a secured area. Police have been called. Leave now.
The three men froze. A fourth man appeared, also carrying an Uzi. It was a lot more firepower than Ronnie and Lamont could muster with their two pistols.
The men moved out of Lamont's view and started up the stairs. Ronnie waited until they were halfway, then opened up. Lamont stepped out and fired until the slide locked back on his pistol. One of the intruders got off a burst before he went down. The bullets stitched a pattern across the wall and tore into the painting of Washington.
Three more men appeared, blasting away, filling the space along the balcony with flying bits of plaster and white dust. Someone shouted in Japanese.
Lamont ducked back, ejected, and slammed in a fresh magazine. He waited for a pause in the shooting, then ran across the balcony, firing as he went. He made it across to where Ronnie was firing down into the atrium. Screams came from below. A fresh volley of shots blew splinters from the balcony railing and punched holes in the wall and ceiling.
"How's your ammo?" Ronnie asked.
"One more mag."
"Me too. I vote we go up. We're too exposed."
"After you, my man."
"Coming up," Ronnie called.
They ran up the stairs. Elizabeth waited at the top.
"How many?" she asked.
"I don't know. Wish I had a grenade," Ronnie said.
"Can't be many more," Lamont said. "We already took out at least six."
Ronnie looked around. A large sideboard stood against one wall in the hallway. He went over to it.
"Lamont. Help me move this."
The two men manhandled the heavy sideboard to the stairs. They tipped it onto its side to make a barricade across the stairs.
"Better than nothing," Ronnie said.
"We can't stay up here," Lamont said. "They'll figure something out. We have to take it to them."
"How you want to do that?"
"We climb down that big drainpipe on the side of the building and come up behind them."
"Lamont," Elizabeth said. "Go after them. We can hold them off. Go through the kitchen and grab the shotgun."
A Remington 870 was mounted on the wall in the pantry. With the sporting plug removed, it held five rounds of double ought buck, nine pellets to a cartridge. It was a formidable weapon at close quarters.
Freddie's voice boomed out again, but this time he was speaking in Japanese.
"What did he say?" Ronnie asked.
"Who cares," Lamont said. "Let's go."
They ran to the end of the hall and into Stephanie's bedroom. Ronnie opened a window. The drainpipe ran down the corner of the house, a foot away from the open window. Ronnie crawled out of the window and reached for the drainpipe with his left hand. He gripped the pipe and moved across, then got his other hand and his feet wrapped around it. He started shimmying down. Lamont followed. In a minute, they were on the ground outside the house.
They heard shouting and the staccato sound of automatic weapons inside, mixed with the single shots of pistols. There wasn't much time before the women would be overwhelmed.
The back door that led to a mudroom and the kitchen stood open. They ran in, pistols ready. Ronnie opened the pantry door and grabbed the shotgun, racking a round into the chamber.
He handed his pistol to Lamont. "Take this."
More shots sounded from above. Someone yelled in pain. It sounded like Stephanie or Elizabeth.
Ronnie took the lead with the shotgun. Lamont came close behind. They ran into the atrium, stepped over a body, and started up the stairs. Blood trickled down the steps from the dead men lying there. A man stood at the bottom of the stairway to the third floor, looking up at whatever was happening above. He turned as Ronnie reached the balcony level and shouted a warning. The blast of the Remington cut his shout short.
Ronnie ran forward, and looked up into the stairwell. Three of the intruders were at the top of the stairs, pushing the sideboard aside. Two lay dead on the stairs. Elizabeth and Stephanie were nowhere in sight.
Ronnie pointed the shotgun up the stairwell and began firing. He worked the pump until the gun was empty.
A load of double ought buck creates a cloud of death. It will rip through anything and everything before it. The lead balls shredded the men in the stairwell. Their screams blended with the blasts of the shotgun. It was a slaughter.
Everything went quiet.
"Director," Ronnie called. "You all right?"
"I'm fine. Steph's been hit."
"Shit," Ronnie said.
He went up the stairs. The walls and floor at the top of the stairs were covered with blood. Bodies lay crumpled on the steps. They were all Japanese.
Lamont came up behind Ronnie.
"Man, that shotgun makes a hell of a mess," he said.
They pushed what was left of the sideboard aside. It was splintered and broken, riddled with bullet holes and peppered with buckshot. Stephanie sat against the wall down the hall. Blood covered her white blouse. Elizabeth knelt next to her.
"It's only a flesh wound," she said.
"Let me see," Ronnie said.
The bullet had taken a piece out of the upper part of Steph's left arm. It was bleeding dark red.
"Looks like it missed the artery," Ronnie said.
He applied pressure to stop the bleeding.
"Lamont, grab a kit from the bathroom. In the cabinet, under the sink."
Half an hour later, they were trying to explain what had happened to the police.