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Gareth eyed her like he would a wild animal. “Mike, listen. Someone in that house shot a missile at us and took out the chopper. There may be more missiles at the ready, you know that. The only reason there haven’t been more attacks is they think we’re dead.”
“They’ll kill Isabella if we don’t get to her, if they haven’t already. Give me that frigging shaped charge now.”
Nicholas handed it to her. “Gareth, whoever told you this job was a walk in the park?”
Gareth laughed, got his hands bandaged and taped.
Mike nodded, walked over to the glass skylight, and pressed the shaped charge into place. She stepped back and activated the trigger. The explosion was hard and fast. The glass skylight shattered inward perfectly, as it was supposed to, and Mike tossed them the rope.
“Gareth, can you climb down that rope with your hands?”
“I’d like to say I rappel as well as you two maniacs, but the fact is”—he waved his bandaged hands. “I’ll be slower, but I’ll follow you down as best I can. Go.”
Nicholas took the rope out of her hand. “Mike, back off, I’m going in first. I was the one hanging off a roof, not you. I deserve a reward.”
She couldn’t help it, she grinned at him. He looked dangerous and pissed off. He flashed a light into the darkness below them. All was quiet. “If Adam’s plans are correct, below the skylight is a library.”
He pulled his weapon into place across his chest and went down the rope, hand over hand. Mike did the same, and Gareth came last. Mike heard his sharp intake of breath, knew his hands had to hurt. She thought of the bleeding wound in Nicholas’s side. She kept quiet and rappelled.
They landed lightly on a hardwood floor. Nicholas flashed his light on the walls. They were in a massive room, every wall covered with floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books, thousands of them.
Once they’d crept out of the library, the house looked different. Nicholas whispered, “They must have had work done since Adam’s blueprints.”
“Yes, but the aviary still has to be to the west, stairs to the lab to the east, down one floor.”
Gareth said, “Wait, do you hear something?”
They heard a low shriek. “The aviary,” Mike said, “there must still be birds in there.”
Gareth said, “They’re safe enough. The fire is outside. They must be scared. The stairs are ahead. I wish there was a separate set, I hate to go down the main staircase like this.”
“No choice,” Nicholas said, “so let’s do it.”
They stuck to the walls, inching down the stairs, one step at a time, guns held at the ready across their chests. They heard another cry, getting louder.
“That’s not a bird,” Nicholas said. “That’s a person. It sounds like someone’s keening.”
Gareth put a hand on Nicholas’s shoulder. “Shh. Listen.”
There were words now, but they couldn’t understand them.
“What language is that?”
Mike said, “I don’t know. Ardelean is Romanian.”
Nicholas was shaking his head. “It’s not Romanian. It’s not like any language I’ve ever heard before.”
Faintly, in the background, they heard an all-too-familiar sound—the unmistakable metal snick of a magazine being slammed into a gun.
Before anyone could react, bullets sprayed the staircase.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
They ducked. It seemed like forever before silence came again. “There,” Nicholas said, “that’s the final spray, that’s the whole magazine. Go!”
They charged down the stairs, Nicholas in the lead, spraying three-round bursts. At the bottom of the stairs they took cover behind statues, all in marble and bronze. The hall fell eerily silent again. The gunman was biding his time.
Mike said quietly into her comms, “Ben, are you scanning the house? What’s thermal saying?”
