The Enemy Inside

FIFTY-EIGHT

She had cased the house and its surroundings for the better part of two days, so that by the time Ana arrived at the mansion and saw Madriani’s Jeep parked across the street, she already knew the layout.

She was also familiar with the household schedule. During the period that she had watched the place only three people came and went, a housekeeper who doubled as a cook, a groundskeeper, and the man himself. She recognized him from the picture sent to her by the Asian agents who hired her.

His name was Ying. Though he didn’t look Asian, the contacts told her not to be confused. He was the one.

The housekeeper, a woman who appeared to be in her sixties, lived in. She had a room at the back of the house off the laundry. She went shopping each morning about eleven for food-probably perishables, fresh fruit, and vegetables. The one item Ana could confirm was the fresh baguette of French bread sticking out of the top of the bag each day. She never returned before one. She drove her own car that she parked at the side of the house. This afternoon the car was already gone. There was only the owner’s Bentley parked in the circular drive.

The groundskeeper she could hear, well off in the distance. He was over the rise in the deepest part of the yard. From where she sat in the car he was at least a hundred and fifty meters away. He did not live in the house. He came each morning about seven and left around five.

As she peered from inside the car Ana could make out the man’s head and part of his shoulders through the field glasses every so often when he straightened up. He was wearing a face mesh shield and hearing protectors as he whacked weeds with a gas-powered cutter.

Ana stepped out of the car and moved quickly to the trunk. She popped the lid with the car key and grabbed her bag. It was a fair-sized black tactical duffel with a strong wide strap made of webbing. Inside was the compound bow already strung and five laser-tipped broad-head arrows. She slung the strap over her shoulder, closed the car’s trunk, and checked her watch. The hands were just touching noon.

She stopped for a moment, thought about what she was doing, and then headed across the street, under the massive oak tree. She kept her ear tuned for any change in noise coming from the Weedwacker. When she reached the edge of the circular drive where it curved toward the front door, she stepped up over the curb and onto the grass.

From here Ana moved quickly just outside the edge of a flowerbed that flanked the side of the house. She was careful to keep her feet out of the soft planting soil. Instead she stayed on the tough Bermuda grass where she knew she would leave no shoe prints.

When she reached the back of the house she checked one more time, glancing in the direction of the noise, which was now much louder. The groundskeeper was perhaps fifty meters away.

She had seen him through the glasses when staking out the house. He looked to be about fifty, short and squat; he didn’t appear to represent dangerous brawn. Of course, if he was armed, that would be a different matter.

She laid the duffel on the ground, zipped it open, and uncased the bow with its mounted quiver of five arrows. She was going to hate to lose this equipment. But she would replace it when she got home. The fact that she was going to use the bow and arrows on one more job in the same area dictated that she dispose of it all where no one would find it before she headed for the airport and home. She would not take the chance that a medical examiner might connect the two cases and start looking for records of anyone traveling with such equipment. It was how you stayed alive in her line of work.

She donned the shooting gloves that covered the tips of her fingers. Then she unclipped one of the arrows and carefully laid the shaft on the bow’s arrow rest while fitting the taut bowstring into the grooved nock of the fletched end of the arrow.

Ana was not surprised that for a large, expensive residence, there appeared to be no surveillance cameras or other security detection devices. She had seen this before on regular occasion, usually when the targets were underworld figures, drug dealers, and worse. They wanted no record of their own movements or activities on a memory bank somewhere. Especially if this was being piped to some outside security company. If you weren’t careful you could end up exhibit number one on your own incriminating video.

She grabbed the duffel and slung it over her back. With the arrow threaded on the bow, she moved quickly along the back of the house. She passed under the kitchen windows and carefully skirted the covered patio with its hooded fire pit and chimney.

Here the lawn ended and changed to a concrete walkway. She stayed close to the house to avoid being seen from the second-story windows above. Other than the fact that they were inside Ana couldn’t be sure where the lawyer and the man named Ying were situated.

The midday sun bore down. She could feel it on the back of her neck. Her dark clothing absorbed the heat and made her sweat as her mind chewed on all the various possibilities. What troubled her was how everything had suddenly converged. How did they know each other? What did the California lawyer have to do with the man a Chinese general wanted dead? She would be sure to ask him the instant she had him cornered under the point of an arrow.

Ana walked quickly, in a combat crouch, one hand on the bow, the other fingering the fletch end of the arrow. She was poised to pull and release on reflex, if she had to. She glanced down and saw her moving shadow etched by the noonday sun on the cement beneath her feet. This was a novelty she didn’t like. With dark clothes you could disappear into the inky blackness of the night. But not here.

Ahead she could see a high-latticed fence harboring an esplanade of interwoven flowering vines. It separated the garden from the large oval swimming pool on the other side.

Five feet from the fence a sudden loud report froze Ana’s feet to the concrete. It might have been a bowling ball dropped from a great height onto hardwood, except there was no bounce. She knew what it was. It came from somewhere inside the house, muffled by the interior walls. She had been around enough pistol ranges to recognize the stifled, flat report of indoor gunfire.

She turned and looked in the direction of the noisy Weedwacker. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear the continuing ragged whine of his machine. Between the noise of the gas engine and the earmuffs, the gardener hadn’t heard the shot.

Ana turned back to the mansion. The sound of the shot was close and directly in front of her. Her gaze settled on the area just beyond the latticed fence, a shaded alcove at the side of the house and a set of French doors just beyond.

For a moment she thought about retreating, going back to the car, leaving and returning later when it was dark. That was her plan. The matchup between Madriani and Ying had changed it. Now she wondered if one of them was dead. The possibility, however remote, that it might be Ying forced her to find out. She had already lost one contract. She couldn’t afford to lose another.

She steeled herself and moved forward, but the sound of the shot set her on edge. The bow was no match for a handgun. If she somehow lost the element of surprise, Ana would suddenly find herself on a suicide mission.

The instant she approached the arbor opening in the fence she knew she had a problem. The bright sunlight overhead and the shaded interior of the house made it impossible for Ana to see anything through the glass doors. Until she reached the shade of the alcove all she’d see was her own reflection in the glass. By then anyone inside with a gun could empty a clip into her head.

She looked to the exterior wall of the house and noticed that the lattice fence was freestanding. There was a narrow gap between the post at the end of the fence and the side of the house. She moved quickly.

The gap was narrow, little more than a foot. But Ana was slight. She passed the bow through the opening, then the bag. She squeezed through, reassembled everything on the other side and moved toward the alcove. She clung to the outer edge of the house for cover.

When she reached the corner of the alcove she peeked around into the shade. Over the distant whine of the Weedwacker she could hear voices inside. There was a wall of books, shelves, an empty chair behind a desk, and something else that caught her eye. She pulled back around the corner, laid the empty bag on the ground, and took a deep breath. Then she slipped around the corner into the shade of the alcove, the bow gripped in her hand, the nock on the end of the arrow held snug against the string.

She hugged the inside wall of the recessed area until she reached the corner, the edge of the glass, where the frame of the door and about six inches of wall gave her some cover. Now she could hear louder voices. They were talking. One of them was threatening the other.

Ana eased one eye over the edge of the wood to the glass pane. Madriani was on the floor in front of the desk. She could see his lower body. She couldn’t tell if he was wounded. But he was moving. She could see his legs. The other man was Ying. She recognized him from the digital photographs sent to her by the Chinese agents. She had seen him through the field glasses while scouting the house. He had the gun, a semiautomatic pistol. She couldn’t tell the caliber, but whatever it was, in terms of lethality, it outclassed the bow.

She pulled her head back. Ana knew she would get only one shot. She glanced at the handle of the door. It was probably locked, and even if it wasn’t, the second she touched it he would hear her.

The problem was the glass. An arrow requires distance to build momentum. She would need at least a few feet to stretch out the bow and give the arrow some flight before the tip hit the smooth hard surface. Even then, it was a risk. If the arrow tip skidded before it punched through the glass it would deflect the flight of the arrow.