Gordon heard an electronic beeping from a closet in the front hall of the maintenance lodge. He rose and walked toward the utility nook. Adam and Kate both figured that the washer or dryer had finished its cycle, but when Gordon stepped out of the closet, there was a noticeable lack of blood in his face.
“Are you okay, Gordon?”
“I’m fine. All is well. I need to run up to the main house. It’s an electrical thing.” Adam was more than curious about this concern.
“Should I come with?”
“No, no, you stay here. Once lunch is finished, get everyone in the car and we’ll head out. Yes?”
“That’s fine.”
Gordon waved to the others and then took a maintenance golf cart up the tractor road toward the big house. Adam didn’t believe his story for a second. He saw what he thought was a handgun-size bulge under Gordon’s shirt when he emerged from the utility closet. The kids and Kate were busily not talking to each other, gazing mutely into their respective iPads. Adam tried to open the closet door but it was locked. He rifled through some nearby drawers and found the key.
Inside the closet there was a bank of monitors running the feeds from security cameras positioned around the property. It appeared to be an intensely sophisticated system, obviously more attentively manned when Heaton was on the property, and now reliant upon motion sensors. It beeped again as Adam saw an image of Gordon driving up the tractor trail.
Another monitor above showed Adam what had sent Gordon off: the Mercedes. At the main house. Heaton’s men. They were here. On the opposite wall was a finely engineered rack of rifles and handguns, a precise spot for each and every weapon. One was distinctly missing.
* * *
ADAM SPRINTED NORTH through the woods, a Barrett REC7 automatic rifle in one hand, a .44 Magnum in the other, dodging through the dense field of trees and growth, making his way up to the main house, hoping to cover Gordon. Adam had started to contemplate forgiving Gordon for his cluelessness. But now, running and gunning, trying hard to maintain a steady breathing pattern, he was as mad at the old fool as he’d ever been.
Adam had come from the closet into the kitchen and demanded that Kate and the kids finish packing the Mercedes that Gordon had for them, and then get into it and wait and be ready to leave in a hurry. Of course, Kate wanted explanations, but there was time only to yell and insist in a tone that purposely scared her and the kids into immediately doing exactly what he wanted, so he had done just that as he bolted from the lodge.
The trees thinned out at the top of a gully. He heard yelling on the other side of a clearing. He saw Gordon, standing beside the golf cart, in a heated conversation with Harris, the man who had killed Richard Lyle. Another two men listened on, Peet and a younger colleague.
Adam got low and crept closer, advancing from one tree to the next. As his breathing steadied, he could hear what was being said. There were angry shouts now just ten yards away. Gordon was enraged. All four of them had guns drawn, each of them warily trying to figure how not to get killed once the firing started.
“You’re a fool, Harris. You, too, Peet. How long do you play his stooges? Don’t you see where this has all gone? You’ll kill Adam, and then what? Kill me? Then what does he do?” He pointed to the young stooge.
“He has Dorman here kill you, and where does it end? He’s got himself in a corner. He’ll take you out, too. You need to understand that. Understand it clearly, man!” Harris moved closer to him and chuckled. “No, Thompson. You have it wrong. Very wrong. Heaton is in control here. You jumped ship too early.” Gordon didn’t back down, raised his gun.
“I have it spot-on. Heaton will be arrested. In any scenario. Where does that leave you, and how does killing us help?”
“But he’s not going to be arrested. You’re wrong as usual, Thompson. He’s got an inside player on this one. All the way at the top. No one’s going to be arresting Heaton. He’s going to be calling the shots.” Adam leaned into the clearing. He wasn’t sure what he was hearing. Harris spelled it out for the two of them.
“Georgia Turnbull, you dumbass! She’s gonna be prime minister, and soon. He’s not as dumb as you think he is. Now you either drop that gun or shoot me now. And when you do, Peet shoots you. This is too much talking for me.”
Gordon turned to the bald and slow-eyed Peet: a handgun in his good hand was pointed straight at his head. Then he turned back to Harris, his stubby Beretta angled at his brow. The younger man, so confident they had the jump on Gordon, didn’t even bother to lift his pistol from his side. He just shot a cocky grin at Gordon to let him know it was there.
Adam put Harris’s red head in the center of his scope. He would take him out, then the younger guy. The element of surprise would allow him to get both. He hoped Gordon would be quick enough to shoot Peet. As his finger curled around the trigger, a voice rang out.
“Freeze! Right where you are! Metropolitan Police! Drop your weapons!” Adam looked up and saw a police officer, Andrew Tavish, gun drawn, badge out, on the crest of the hill. A shot rang out. Before Tavish could finish his orders he was dead, a fatal head wound. Tavish was blown off the ridge where he had been standing. The shot had come from Adam’s tree line. He spied a fourth Heaton man, another young guy, west of his position, prepared to fire a long-range rifle a second time.
Adam turned back to the clearing in perfect time to see Harris deliver to Gordon the same cold-blooded good-bye that had felled Richard Lyle. Right to the center of his forehead from three feet away. Gordon flew back onto the lawn, landing flat on his back, gone before his body touched the grass.
Adam reacted in a spark of rage, firing twice at the hidden sniper. He heard an instant groan. He’d hit him. He wasn’t sure if he had killed him or not, but he’d been hit. He brought his aim back toward Harris and fired. The bullet missed its target but caught Dorman in the chest. A wet pop sounded out as his sternum cracked. He spun to the ground next to Gordon’s body. Harris and Peet hesitated long enough to grant Adam another shot. He hit Peet squarely in his good shoulder. Tatum slung the rifle over his back while rising to his feet. He pulled out the Magnum and marched dead ahead to Harris, blasting bullets through the crackling air as Peet painfully loped away to the safety of the woods.
Adam came within twenty feet of Harris, ten feet from Gordon’s lifeless body. He was good and ready to avenge his father-in-law. He had the jump on Harris and he knew it. He stopped firing and moved slowly toward him. He wanted to be right up close when he fired on him, exactly as Harris had just done to Gordon, as he did to Richard Lyle.
Harris stood his ground and didn’t say a word. He smiled in a demented way that told Adam there wasn’t a chance in hell that he would drop his weapon. Adam was once again about to fire when someone shouted out.
“Metropolitan Police! Drop all of your weapons! Now!” It was a young woman, small, maybe midtwenties, with a badge around her neck on a chain and a handgun that seemed to Adam to be as big as her whole arm.
“Drop both of those weapons now, damn it! I mean it! Drop them!” Adam wondered who the hell this little thing with the big Scottish voice was but also realized in the same instant that the Heaton man knew exactly who he was dealing with and obviously had no use for her.
Harris turned and started firing away at the young woman, and in his ruthless abandon he got under her skin. She ran for cover but fell onto the grass at the crest of the hill. He reset his aim and was about to fire off another shot, but he was too late. Adam had put a hole the size of a large fist into the center of the back of his grimy red head. Harris buckled to his knees and fell face-first into the grass, loudly coughing up blood. Just seconds later he was good and finally dead.
Steel peeked over the ridge and knew exactly who had saved her life. It was the American, Adam Tatum. Adam had no inkling as to who the young Scottish woman was. He just knew well enough to take the few seconds of confusion he had purchased to run quickly away into the relative safety of Dorrington’s woods.