Nightstalkers

CHAPTER 26

Ms. Jones took Moms’s report on the Killing of the Unlucky Horseshoe without comment. When Moms ground to a halt, an uneasy silence wavered over the radio waves for almost thirty seconds, then all Ms. Jones said was: “You have one more Firefly. Good hunting.”

Ms. Jones opened her eyes and looked at Pitr. “I wish you wouldn’t hover over me like that.”

Pitr shrugged. “You can wish all you want. I am here.”

“Winslow’s notes?”

“Nothing new there. He made some adjustments on the Rift algorithm, but he actually changed it back to an old version. Of course he didn’t know that. Whatever direction it was going in Tucson, he actually reversed, so either he was smarter than Craegan or—”

“More old-school with his physics,” Ms. Jones said. “And the phone? I want to know how he contacted Mister Burns or, more likely, Mister Burns contacted him. It could have been a call or an e-mail and it would be on that phone.”

“I’ll check on that,” Pitr promised.

“The team is changing,” Ms. Jones said.

“I know. Do we need to start looking for a new team leader?”

Ms. Jones surprised Pitr with her answer. “No. The Rift in Tucson was different. The backhoe was taking out probes, showing a plan and intelligent behavior. The horseshoe bothers me, because the team was misdirected. They would have known it wasn’t in the horse once they killed and flamed it, but they might not have flamed it enough to melt the horseshoe.”

“What damage could a horseshoe do on an incinerated horse?” Pitr asked.

“That’s not the point,” Ms. Jones said. “We’ve always considered the Fireflies random in the way they occupied. But what if they’re just trying different things? Experimenting?”

“To what end?”

Ms. Jones shook her head. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it. But that is why we will leave Ms. Moms in charge of the Nightstalkers. She, and the team, are evolving also. They killed the pool and saved the horse. Change can be good.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, for saving Comanche.” Scout’s skinny arms were clinging to Nada’s neck.

“Yeah, yeah,” Nada said, prying her loose as they unloaded the gear in the garage. “Could you open the door?”

Scout ran over and did so as the team hauled their weapons and other gear into the house. The interior of the Winslow place was beginning to show the wear and tear of serving as a base of operations.

They’d seen a lot of action, one right after another, and everyone was tired. Moms could read it in the way they slumped onto the sofas and chairs.

“Good call out there, Kirk,” Moms said. “Take over-watch and try not to move too much.”

Kirk just nodded and checked the readings on his PRT before heading up the stairs. The lack of chatter bothered Moms. They’d done a good thing, killed a Firefly and kept the horse alive, even given it an entire set of new horseshoes courtesy of the well-compensated and confused blacksmith, but everyone just seemed done in, and Scout’s squeals of happiness were putting everyone on the edge of whatever abyss they were staring into. Too much change, Moms realized. And also, there was the unspoken next and final op that they’d all been avoiding.

Scout ran upstairs and Moms relished the moment of silence. She powered up the laptop but had no desire to write the after-action report. Because no matter the fact that Ms. Jones had asked nothing during her verbal report, Moms knew she’d have to report the plan to resuscitate the horse, which violated Protocol. Telling the truth, after all, was in her own Protocol.

Instead she sent an RFI: Request for Intelligence.

Scout came running downstairs with a plastic bag full of something. “I found Mrs. Winslow’s stash in the fridge in her closet!”

She proceeded to go around the room, passing out Fudgesicles. No one refused the offer and soon everyone was peeling back the wrappers. Moms ignored her laptop and just bit into the frozen stick.

“Doesn’t that hurt your teeth?” Eagle asked.

Moms shook her head. “Good enamel. I used to chew ice when I was a kid.”

Everyone stared at her, not because of the ice chewing, but they had never envisioned Moms as a kid. She was Moms.

“Moms chews ice!” Scout said. “Lots of women do. No calories.”

Moms wanted to tell the girl that wasn’t why she’d done it, but decided to let Scout have her moment. She’d chewed ice like Roland’s mother had made pine bark and needle soup. Because sometimes you make do with all you have.

Moms watched Scout licking her Fudgesicle and the way everyone on the team was working on their own, and was a bit amazed that this girl had taken them all, even Roland, over so easily. In a few years she’d be very dangerous. Right now she was like a frolicking puppy to them, but one day she’d be a woman. Moms experienced a momentary pang of jealousy for a girl who could so easily win over her team with just her spirit and gumption.

“What are you thinking?” Scout had noticed Moms’s scrutiny.

Moms bit off the last piece of Fudgesicle and swallowed it. “What are we going to do about the house?” Moms said, not to Scout, but the team.

But Scout didn’t realize what she meant or to whom she was talking. “You can hire a cleaning team. You get a good one and—”

“Going to be tough,” Nada said. “The cameras have been tracking us every time we come and go. I think the yard is mined. And I bet there are a lot more surprises inside.”

“I wonder what the owner is up to in there,” Eagle said.

“I wonder what the Firefly is up to in there,” Roland said.

“It’s had time to adjust,” Doc said. “You have to wonder if the dog was doing a recon of us.”

“And testing the Wall,” Nada added.

Scout’s head went back and forth, like at a tennis match. “You mean Bluebeard’s house?”

Moms nodded. “I suspect the last Firefly is in there.”

“In there where exactly?” Kirk asked over the net.

“I’m afraid in the defenses,” Moms said. “From what we’ve seen there’s a very complex alarm and defense system built into the place. If the Firefly got into the computer system that controls it, then it controls everything.”

“Fuck,” Roland muttered. “An entire house?”

“An armed house,” Nada corrected. “Just from what I’ve seen, there are steel shutters on the insides of all the windows. Motion and heat sensors backing up the cameras. I think there are Claymores on the lawn. Automated guns in some second-story windows.”

“Who is this guy?” Eagle asked. “Why does he need that much security here, in the middle of a gated community?”

“Wrong question,” Moms said. “The real question is why would someone pick a gated community to put their stronghold in?”

“Someone with something to hide,” Kirk said.

“Drug dealer,” Eagle said. He looked at Scout. “You said he had SUVs coming and going in the middle of the night.”

“Not a drug dealer,” Kirk said with conviction.

“How do you know?” Eagle asked.

Kirk’s voice echoed out of the speaker. “My father cooked meth. This might be Senators Club and high and mighty, but from what I’ve seen, it’s not operating like that. There’s a pattern to things, and the issue with drugs is you can’t control when you deliver, because when people need, they need.”

“Could be a distributor,” Nada said. “He’s using the gated community as his outer defense.”

“Like ‘The Purloined Letter,’” Scout said.

Eagle shook his head. “Have you read everything?”

Scout pointed at the books behind glass. “I haven’t read the book on bird watching in Bolivia.”

Everyone laughed and the tension in the room evaporated just like that.

Moms nodded. “She’s right. Best place to hide something is right out in front of everyone. Hell, nobody’s come knocking on our door and we’ve destroyed part of the golf course and a pool.”

“Nice neighborhood watch you’ve got,” Roland said.

“Thanks,” Scout said. “We like it.”

“Let’s just blow the house up,” Roland said. “We could Excalibur it. Two ought to do the job.”

“If the Firefly is in the security computer and has Internet access,” Doc said, “it could escape. After the horseshoe, I think we need to be very certain of our target and guarantee the kill.”

Moms wasn’t keen on the idea either. “We blast it, we don’t know whether the Firefly goes. We’ll have debris all over the place. Concealment will be a bit hard.”

Kirk’s voice cut in. “We’ve got company rolling in.”

Everyone started reaching for weapons.

“Friendlies,” Kirk added. “Mac is back. I’m opening the garage and coming down.”

Everyone went into the garage. Mac was not only back, but he was back in style, riding with Emily from the golf course, sitting next to her on her bar-cart. The door slid down behind them.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Moms demanded.

Mac gave his trademark smile. “AWOL, Moms.” He held out his hands, wrists together. “You can arrest me if you like.”

Moms went around the cart and put a hand on Mac’s shoulder. He didn’t shrug it off. “We’re glad to have you back. We need you.”

Mac got out of the car, but couldn’t hide the wince of pain.

“I told him he needed to go back to the hospital,” Emily said. “He called me from outside, needing a ride. I picked him up at the service entrance.”

“I couldn’t trust that Support wouldn’t send me back to Womack,” Mac said. “I remember Eagle told us he’d met another Asset,” he smiled at Emily, “and, well, I’m back.”

Moms stuck her hand out to Emily. “Eagle told us about meeting you. We’re so sorry for your loss.”

Emily shook Moms’s hand. “My husband believed in the Corps. A person’s got to believe in something or life isn’t worth living.”

Nada put them on task. “We gotta kill a house, Mac.”

“Let me take a look at it,” Mac said, and they all trooped inside.

Moms was the last out of the garage and she paused for a moment before entering the mudroom. They had a sixteen-year-old girl as their Asset and a war widow bringing back their demo man, AWOL, in a golf cart loaded with booze. Moms knew she should send both Scout and Emily packing, but Scout had shown her value over and over again. And Emily had brought them the man they most needed right now to take down a house. Moms was beginning to understand that once you broke Protocol a single time, it got easier and easier to break.

She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“Nada,” Moms said, “tell us your thoughts about the house.”

Nada pointed and began explaining their suspicions about the house being armed.

Nada ended, “We’re going to have to go in.”

“How the hell—” Eagle began but was cut short as Moms’s computer dinged, indicating incoming e-mail. Ms. Jones was nothing but efficient, and she also had access to every intelligence apparatus under the umbrella of the United States government as well as overseas connections.

Moms scrolled through the intelligence summary.

“Bluebeard’s name is Octavio Forrenzo.”

“Fucking mafia,” Roland said.

“Not,” Moms said. “It’s a cover name for a Russian, former KGB. Arms dealer.”

“Worse than the mafia,” Eagle said.

Roland was excited. “I bet he’s got some good stuff in there.”

“Yeah,” Eagle said, “and it’s all pointed at the windows and the doors, ready to blow your big head off when you stick it in.”

“Any more Fudgesicles?” Nada asked Scout.

She shook her head. “Just a box of Creamsicles.”

“Get me a couple,” Nada said.

She looked at him and he said, “Please?”

“Me too,” Moms said. “Please.”

“Yeah,” Kirk chimed in. “Please.”

“Please?” Eagle said.

“Pretty please,” Mac said. “And one for Emily?”

“Of course Emily gets one,” Scout said. She headed for the stairs and paused, looking at Roland. He nodded his big head. She waited.

“Please,” Roland said.

Scout scurried up the stairs.

Emily looked worried. “You aren’t putting Greer in danger, are you? She’s a good kid, and there’s not many around here I can say that about.”

“Scout’s fine,” Moms said.

“She’s part of the team,” Roland added, which caused everyone, especially Mac, to look at him in surprise.

Roland held his hands up. “She’s, like, you know, uh, a mini-Moms.”

“Not sure I like that,” Moms said.

Nada brought them back to point. “What do you think, Mac?”

“Have you cut power to the house yet?” Mac asked.

Moms and Nada exchanged a glance. Moms looked at Kirk. “Get me Support.”

Three minutes later, power was off to the house. They waited for a bit, and then as a car rolled down the street, a camera followed it.

“Firefly,” Nada said.

“Or a generator,” Mac said. “They cut in automatically. Still, though, I go with Firefly.”

“Boots on the ground,” Nada said. “We have to go in.”

“It’s always boots on the ground,” Roland said, still excited about the idea of seeing the inside of an arms dealer’s house. Sort of like a gingerbread house to him.

Moms was looking back at her computer. “The owner, Forrenzo, has been on Interpol’s radar for a while. He was working out of Spain, but bolted before they could get to him. Three Interpol agents died getting into his house there and he wasn’t even around. And there was no Firefly involved. He went off the grid for eighteen months.”

“While his house got built here,” Nada said.

“Apparently,” Moms said.

“If the Firefly is in there,” Kirk said, “what do you think has happened to Forrenzo?”

“Let’s hope something very bad,” Moms said.

“I could HALO onto the roof,” Roland suggested. “Blast through, work my way down.”

“You always want to land on roofs,” Mac said. “Got a secret Santa fetish?”

Kirk was standing by the window, peering through his binoculars at the target. “You could die.”

“How so?” Nada asked, joining Kirk.

“See the chimney?” Kirk asked. “It’s not real. If this guy is that badass, he’s looking in every direction, including up. Professionals know to look up.”

“He had a Russian antiaircraft gun with a targeting radar on his roof in Spain,” Moms said, looking at the screen.

“Man, that’s cool,” Roland said, ignoring the fact that it would have killed him if he’d gotten his way.

“What?” Scout was way behind on the conversation, with her bag full of Creamsicles. She passed them out. Emily was standing in the background, just watching.

“A Firefly is in that house somewhere, and a Russian arms dealer with an Italian cover name built it and lives there,” Eagle summarized.

“I knew Bluebeard was weird,” Scout said.

“Use the FedEx truck,” Eagle suggested. “Pull right up, past the Claymores to the garage door. Ram through.”

“What if it’s rigged to blow?” Nada said.

Moms nodded. “Biggest worry ST-6 had taking down Bin Laden was whether he had a dead man’s switch on him. After all, he sent plenty of other people out there to suicide themselves while taking out others.”

“They’re homicide bombers,” Eagle said. “I hate when they call them suicide bombers. If they were suicide bombers, they’d go out into the middle of the desert and blow themselves up. Don’t take others with you.”

“We hit it from several directions at the same time,” Nada said, nodding at Eagle’s statement, but getting the team back on task. “Kirk takes out the chimney from here with a Javelin, while Roland does come in from above. Eagle in the FedEx truck through the garage with Mac in the rear with charges to destroy the house. I’ll come through the back. Kirk, you follow up Eagle once he secures the—”

“You could use the tunnel,” Scout said.

“—fuses for the Claymo—” Nada ground to a halt. “What tunnel?”

“Told you,” Scout said. She nibbled a piece off the end of her Creamsicle and made a face. “Ow. That hurts my head. Don’t know how you can do it,” she said to Moms.

“Told me what?” Nada said.

“This guy, Forrenzo, he’s, like, the, what do you call them, the meerkats? He built a getaway tunnel, so if someone comes in the roof or the garage or the front door, or all of the above, he can get out. I saw them build most of it one night. They put a tunnel in.” She walked over to the window and pointed. “The rear right corner. He has a golf course lot, like my folks do. The tunnel runs from that corner to the sand trap just short of the eighteenth hole.”

Everyone stared at her. “You saw them build this?” Mom asked. “How could he get away with it?”

“How did you get away with blowing up the eighth hole?” Scout asked. “I bet he paid off a lot more people than you guys are.”

“He wouldn’t booby-trap his escape route,” Nada said. “He’d have to get out fast.”

“So we can get in fast,” Kirk said.

Moms turned to Mac. “We can’t blow it up into a thousand pieces, because we won’t know exactly what piece the Firefly is in. Besides, it would muck up our concealment.”

“Implosion,” Mac said, staring at the house.

“How are we going to implode it?” Nada asked.

“Like they take down old skyscrapers and stadiums,” Mac said. “Blow up the internal support so it falls into itself. Also keeps dust and debris to a minimum so we can spot the Firefly dissipating.” He nodded at Scout. “I go in via the tunnel. Plant the charges and rig them in sequence.”

“No,” Moms said.

“It’s the last Firefly,” Mac said. He looked past them at Emily. “We take it out, we empty your golf cart. Party like it’s 1948.”

Emily was shaking her head, having no idea what they were talking about, but not buying into it for a moment.

“We’ve got containment,” Nada said. “Concealment, we do our best at. Mac’s right.”

“Mac’s wounded,” Moms said.

“I’m wounded,” Kirk said. “So I go with him. We’re expendable.”

“No one is expendable,” Moms said.

Ms. Jones’s voice came over the radio and Moms glared at Kirk, realizing he’d opened the channel back to the Ranch.

“Do not be angry with Mister Kirk,” Ms. Jones said. “You violated Protocol and I told him to keep the channel open. It seems the rules are changing. That is not necessarily a bad thing. I agree with Mister Mac. You will use the rest of the team to provide a diversion while they take down this last target.”

Moms opened her mouth to speak, but the click indicated the channel was closed at Ms. Jones’s end.

“All right,” Nada said. “The rest of us have to provide a diversion.”

“For a Firefly?” Eagle asked.

“It’s been watching us,” Nada said. “It’ll be diverted.” He looked at Moms. “What do you have in mind?”

Everyone turned to Moms, who regrouped quickly. “Football. I saw one in the garage.”

“No one plays football in the streets here,” Scout said.

“Exactly.”

Mac turned to Emily. “May we borrow your cart to get to the sand trap? Ours got busted up.”

She said nothing, but stood out of the entry to the mudroom and, beyond it, the garage. The rest of the team prepped their weapons and put them right inside the front double doors of the Winslow house. They changed into shorts and T-shirts. Mac and Kirk prepared the charges.

Moms got on the radio and, just in case, had the howitzer ready, loaded with an Excalibur round and five more on call. She called Support and made sure they had taken over the local fire department. Gas leak was going to be the reason Forrenzo’s house imploded. It wouldn’t pass muster with an expert, but Support had replaced all the experts.

Kirk went upstairs and propped the laser designator up and turned it on, aiming at the center of the house. Mac set up a Javelin in the garage behind one of the doors and gave Nada the remote for both the door and the Javelin.

As Mac and Kirk went out the back golf cart garage, the rest of the team went out the front door.

Roland carried the football as he went to the middle of the road with Nada, Eagle, Moms, Emily, Scout, and Doc.

“Go for a long one,” Roland told Eagle.

Nada saw that the camera in the nearest corner of the house was panning over them, and as Eagle ran down the street, the one on the other corner tracked him. Roland let loose with a tight spiral and Eagle caught it.

“Traffic,” Moms called out.

The same BMW came rolling down the street and slowed, window rolling down.

“Hey, Doctor Carruthers!” Scout called out.

“Hey,” Roland waved. “Good to see you again.”

“Yeah.” Carruthers was looking at Nada and Eagle and Doc and it was just one ethnic group too many for him, here in Senators Club. “More relatives, Greer?”

“Oh, no,” Scout said. “My uncle George here is a football coach and these guys played for him years ago. They’re having a reunion.”

Carruthers focused on Roland as he heaved another bomb to Eagle.

“I’d take the over on my uncle George,” Scout said.

Carruthers nodded. “Hell of an arm.”

“The over?” Moms asked.

“Hey, Aunt Betty,” Carruthers said. He laughed. “Greer, have you been talking out of house about my hobby?”

Scout grinned mischievously. “My uncle might want to place some action with you later, if you’re up for it.”

Carruthers nodded. “As long as you vouch for him.”

He spotted Emily. “I know you, don’t I?”

“Not really,” Emily said. “But I’m around.”

A woman’s voice echoed down the street from three houses away. “Everything all right there?”

Carruthers leaned his head out the window. “Friends of Greer’s, Mrs. Jordanson. Everything’s fine.”

Mrs. Jordanson looked a bit doubtful, but went back into her house.

Roland walked over to the car and started talking football with Carruthers while Nada took a pass from Eagle. His earpiece crackled with Kirk’s voice.

“We’re in the tunnel.”

Mac led the way, searching for booby traps and trying to shake the sand out of his gear. The lights were off in the tunnel and he had his night-vision goggles on. His backpack was loaded with charges and Kirk brought up the rear, carrying the rest.

Twenty feet in, Mac halted. The tunnel might not be booby-trapped, but Forrenzo wasn’t stupid. Mac could see the unblinking red light of a video camera about forty feet ahead and a motion detector ten feet in front of it.

“We set that off,” Mac was pointing, “the lights go, and the camera sees us.”

“What do we do?” Kirk asked.

“I’ll disable it. You wait here.”

Mac put his pack down carefully, then went belly down on the floor of the tunnel and ever so slowly crept up on the motion detector.

Carruthers drove off, convinced he had Uncle George as another sucker willing to hand him money.

“Emily, take Scout inside and stay there. Things could get messy soon.”

Emily and Scout went back into the Winslow house, but took up positions near the front window, watching. The four Nightstalkers looked very out of place tossing a football around, but the cameras were watching them.

“You like Mac?” Scout asked.

“He’s nice,” Emily said.

Scout looked at Emily. “He’s cute.”

“He’s not what you think,” Emily said. “He pretends real well. No one else on the team sees it. And that matters not in the slightest. He’s a soldier. And he’s putting his life on the line.”

Scout nodded sagely. “They’re very good at what they do, but in terms of the things they don’t do, they’re not the sharpest knives in the drawers.”

Mac had the motion detector off-line in twelve seconds. It was hard working at close quarters using night-vision goggles and depth perception was off a bit, but he got it done. He walked back to Kirk and shrugged his backpack full of explosives back on. They moved down the tunnel, past the camera.

Forrenzo didn’t leave his back door open. Mac pulled out his set of picks and tossed the tumblers. This took longer than usual as Forrenzo didn’t go cheap in the lock department.

“We’re in,” Mac said, opening the heavy steel door.

And promptly got slammed back as a burst of automatic fire hit him in the chest, pounding into his body armor. Kirk dove to the floor, firing over Mac’s falling body.

Nada heard the muffled sound of automatic fire and knew the charade was over. He raced to the house where Scout and Emily waited, handing weapons out as they ran into the garage, piling into the SUVs as the doors opened. They peeled out into the street and over to the golf course, tires tearing up the perfectly manicured grass. As Scout had said, a gaping dark hole beckoned in the sand trap, a trap door and a pile of sand to the side.

Nada led the way, the others following.

They got to the end of the tunnel where Mac was sitting with his back against the wall and Kirk was framed in the doorway, weapon at the ready.

“What happened?” Moms demanded.

“Mac took a couple of rounds to the chest. Nothing got through the armor, but he’s pretty beat up.” He jerked a thumb into the basement of the house. “Forrenzo had an AK-47 rigged to fire if the door was opened from the outside. I blew it apart.”

Doc was kneeling next to Mac, peeling open his body armor. Ugly welts were already forming where the rounds had impacted. Mac ignored Doc and struggled to his feet.

“Let’s blow this son-of-a-bitch up,” Mac said. “My experience is that there shouldn’t be any more booby traps inside the house. People don’t like to trip over something in the middle of the night in their own house and kill themselves.”

Moms issued orders. “Kirk, stay with Mac. You too, Doc. The rest, clear the house, make sure we’re not taking any people with the house and Firefly. Watch out for Forrenzo if he’s still alive and in here. He’ll be armed and won’t hesitate to shoot.”

They moved into the basement. A concrete wall was in one corner with a large vault door on it. Forrenzo’s stash of who knew what instruments of death. Roland looked longingly at it, but stayed on task.

Mac and Kirk moved in, headed for the first support column as Roland took point up the stairs, Nada, Eagle, and Moms following. They reached the door to the main level. Nada pointed at himself and indicated number one, then at Roland for number two.

Nada crouched down as Roland kicked open the door. They went in, Nada low and Roland, with one hand on Nada’s shoulder, high. They quartered the room, a classic room-clearing technique as taught in the Killing House. Moms and Eagle followed, over-watch, scanning up and then hard to the sides.

In the basement, Mac was staring at a steel bracing going up to a crossbeam, slightly puzzled, explosive charge in hand.

“What’s wrong?” Kirk asked.

“It’s not right,” Mac said. He began tapping on the column, ear pressed up against the side.

Above them, first floor cleared, they made it to the second floor with no sign of Forrenzo or anyone else.

“Why isn’t the Firefly attacking us?” Nada asked as the paused in the wide hallway. The interior of the house was full of paintings, sculptures, and other items the newly rich acquired to prove to themselves and others they were rich. Or else they liked art.

“We’re inside the security system,” Moms said. “The Firefly has got to be in it, not in the actual house. Like Mac said, security is oriented outward, not inward.”

In the basement, Kirk pulled out his knife and scraped away at the side of the pillar. “Doc, get out of here.” He keyed his radio. “Moms, withdraw, withdraw, withdraw. Confirm? Over.”

There was nothing but static. He looked up and saw that the steel sheathing covered the insulation. Forrenzo had shielded the room to prevent imaging from penetrating and also for giving him a tempest-proof area to work: secure from listening devices and taps.

Mac’s digging yielded what he feared. A series of wires. “Kirk, go upstairs and get everyone. ASAP. They need to get down here and get the hell out.”

As Doc hurried out the tunnel, Kirk took the stairs three at a time, ignoring the shooting pain from his broken ribs. He looked about the first level as he keyed his radio. “Withdraw, withdraw!” he called out over the radio.

“Withdrawing,” Moms’s voice said, and the thunder of boots running reverberated through the house. The team came down the stairs in a hurry, but orderly.

Kirk was staring at a bronze of a Native American on a rearing horse, a lance in one hand.

“Crazy Horse,” Roland said as he ran by.

Kirk fell into the rear and they made it into the basement. Moms waved for everyone to hit the tunnel and came up to Kirk.

“You got all the explosives in place and wired it already?”

Mac didn’t turn from what he was doing, but briefly waved his wiring pliers at his rucksack, which still bulged with explosives. “The house is already wired. Forrenzo wasn’t going to leave any evidence if he had to bolt out of here. I’m amazed the Firefly didn’t blow it down on top of us. Still could. Go!”

Moms ran to the tunnel door. She paused, looking over her shoulder at Mac hard at work, then followed the rest of the team. She stumbled out into darkness, where the team had gathered in the sand trap.

“What’s going on?” Nada asked.

“The house is—” Moms began, and then there was a series of muffled concussions followed by a rumbling sound.

Looking back, the entire Forrenzo house shivered, then began crumbling inward, roof first, then outer walls.

“Mac!” Roland ran back into the tunnel.

“Roland, stop!” Moms called out, but it was too late.

A blast of dust and debris came jetting out of the tunnel a few seconds later.

Thirty seconds later a dust-covered Roland came out, once more carrying a protesting Mac in his arms.

Moms breathed a huge sigh of relief.

The last of Forrenzo’s house crumpled inward.

Nada was watching carefully, along with Eagle.

“There!” Nada pointed. A Firefly lifted out of the rubble and then slowly dissipated.

In the lab, Burns and the four Ivars paused. “They’ll be on their way soon.”

The Ivars got back on task.

Burns checked his watch. The original Ivar had been gone too long. The kid was too terrified to not follow orders.

Which meant something had happened to him.

Burns went to the door and opened it. He stepped into the dark hallway, an emergency exit sign at the far end the only source of light.

He pulled out his cell phone and hit quick dial.

It was answered on the second ring. “Yes?”

“Mister Forrenzo. Please come to the University of North Carolina. The physics research building. Call me when you arrive outside. I will meet you.”

“I want—” the Russian began to protest, but Burns hit the off button. He opened the steel door and laid his cell on the ground, wedging it open so it could still get a signal.

“Faster!” Burns yelled.

Roland laid Mac down, and Doc got to checking his latest wounds, which mostly seemed to be his old ones aggravated and some scrapes and bruises from being blown down by the blast in the tunnel. And the bruises from the AK rounds.

“We did it,” Roland said. “We got ’em all.”

Mac lifted his head. “He had the entire basement lined with incendiaries. Whatever was in that vault will be nothing but melted scrap.”

There was a muffled explosion. “Secondary ignition,” Mac said. “It’s going to burn now.”

“Looks like Fireflies aren’t suicide bombers,” Nada said. “It could have gotten all of us in there if it had set off the charges.”

Two figures appeared out of the darkness: Scout and Emily.

“I told you to stay at the house,” Moms said, but there was no disapproval in her voice.

“Did you get it?” Scout asked.

“We got it,” Nada said.

A fire chief’s Blazer came roaring up and Cleaner got out on his prosthetics. “Hell of a gas explosion,” he said. He looked them over. “Need medevac?”

“I think we’re good for now,” Moms said.

Cleaner looked dubious, but got back into the Blazer and headed for the fire.

Emily knelt next to Mac. “Are you all right?”

“Just banged up a bit,” Mac said, struggling to a sitting position. “I could use a cold one.”

“I think we all could,” Moms said.

Emily went to her cart and opened the cooler and passed out beers — and a soda to Scout.

Mac lifted the beer, wincing as he did so. “To the Nightstalkers.” He tilted it toward Scout and Emily. “And Assets.”

Everyone lifted their drinks to the toast. Except Kirk. He was staring at the house, shaking his head. An intense blaze was now roaring straight up.

“What’s wrong?” Moms asked Kirk.

“Crazy Horse,” Kirk said.

“That was a nice bronze,” Roland agreed. “And I bet he had some good stuff in that arms room.”

Kirk turned from the house and looked at everyone. “We’ve been chasing Crazy Horse.”

Scout was the first to get it. “Fetterman. He chased the wrong thing. The real battle is somewhere else.”