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“Transfer complete,” said Ava.
“Sorry, Weldon.” The mercenary’s voice filled the room. “I’m afraid that Mr. Gillen just wired me $50 million to finish the job. I’m a professional with a reputation to protect. How would it look if I didn’t follow through?”
CHAPTER 25
“MOTION SENSOR,” BEGAN Wade, as the window above the kitchen sink exploded and the captain went down. Shay tackled Luke, covering his body. When she looked up, Madison was beside her, protecting her laptop the same way.
They heard several muffledpopsand the yard plunged back into darkness.
Titus was going nuts, barking and running in circles, knocking the table and spilling coffee. Wade was on the floor in front of the sink, clutching his right shoulder. Blood seeped through his fingers. He didn’t make a sound.
“Captain,” said Shay.
“Alive,” he said, teeth gritted.
Shay gathered Luke and shoved him and Madison into the hallway, which led deeper into the house, out of the line of fire. “Stay low,” she ordered, then looked at Madison. “Go.”
One hitter or a team?Titus was still barking like mad.
“Captain. Your piece.”
With his good arm, Wade tugged a Colt 1911 from his rig. He slid it across the kitchen floor to her. Shay squeezed three rounds of covering fire through the shattered window as she darted toward Wade. She cupped him under his left arm and dragged him into the hallway, firing again over her shoulder.
“Now what?” she said.
He grimaced in pain, his forehead already beaded with sweat. “Basement,” he grunted.
The door was off the kitchen. Shay crept down the stairs, but Titus bowled past her. He whipped around the space, satisfied the level was unoccupied. She returned to the main level and called to Luke and Madison. Together, they hauled Wade downstairs. He tugged on a light switch and a bright halo appeared over a long workbench. Madison set her laptop on it, then gasped. Along the wall behind it, hung from brackets, were at least a dozen weapons.
“Whoa.”
Captain Wade’s personal arsenal.
Shay moved to the wall as the kids helped Wade sit on the floor, his back against the bench. She grabbed an AR-15 set up for night work and slung it over her shoulder.
Firing back would have given the assaulters a moment of pause—but just a moment. They would still proceed. And though the basement gave them a few precious seconds to collect their breath and gear up, they were cornered here.
She spotted a Goodman Special Operations Combat Knife and tucked it into her waistband. “Which way?” she asked.
With his left arm, Wade pointed to a swath of darkness in the corner, deeper than the shadows pooling outside their nimbus of light.
“Connects to the root cellar fifty yards off. They likely spotted the cellar, but wouldn’t know it connects.”
You boys and your secret tunnels.
Shay turned to her children and took one last look at them in the light. Luke’s eyes were wide, alive with questions, but too overwhelmed to ask. Madison’s lips were quivering. They were terrified, but keeping it together. Shay had never been prouder of them. Had never loved them more.
In that moment, both her love and her fury bloomed like an expanding mushroom cloud, almost more than she could process. But if they were to survive, she was going to have to corral her anger. Her children didn’t need a forest fire, they needed a laser.
Her kids wanted their mother, but right now, they needed Lieutenant Colonel Shay Summers.
When she spoke, Shay’s voice was low but authoritative.
“Listen up,” she said, “it’s time to go. I’m going to lead you through the tunnel to the root cellar. Stay there. No light, no sound. Do not emerge unless you hear my voice and the wordnutmeg. Repeat the word.”
“Nutmeg,” said Luke and Madison.
“Captain?” She looked at Wade, seated with his back against his workbench, weapons arranged in a semicircle around his body, a rag pressed to his shoulder. She didn’t need to explain the plan and he didn’t need to hear it. If they were to have any chance at all, Shay needed to get outside.
