CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

After twenty minutes of watching the bunkhouse, Paolo saw something in the dirt by the far end of the structure. Only as he came up to him did he see it was one of his team-Todi, they called him. Out cold.

Paolo patted himself down, looking for his phone, only to remember Philippe had stripped him of it in the study, and he’d gotten out of there without it. He patted down Todi-he had a gun but that was all. He untaped the injured man, for all the good it would do.

Paolo entered the bunkhouse with his razor gripped tightly in his right hand, ready for a fight. With his one good eye, he saw two more men, also hurt and unconscious, tied up and stretched out on the floor. He decided to clear the building. He didn’t need anyone coming up from behind him as he untied his buddies.

He moved like a wraith through the small corridor, room to room, his shadow bending as it followed. Finding each of the rooms empty, he proceeded to where he’d left the little girl.

He stood above the crawl space access door in the back closet of the back room. A fabric loop protruded from the carpet. The carpet had been cut perfectly to match the pattern.

Paolo pulled on this, lifting the trapdoor. He stepped back, anticipating a gunshot. A cool wind wafted up through the crack. Nerves tingling, he stepped forward, prepared to jump.

He’d practiced such tunnel raids in his training, though he’d never used the skills. He counted down from three, jumped into the dark space, and rolled upon impact. He crashed into a pony wall of lumber that braced the trailer’s central support beam. With a vertical clearance of less than four feet, he squatted on his haunches, his razor held out in front of him. He struggled to see clearly.

Two low cots with sleeping bags. The girl was awake, sitting up, eyes wide, looking right at him.

The crawl space was as large as the bunkhouse itself, framed in with plywood and blue foam insulation. The floor consisted of dirt and rock. Several electrical boxes, strung together with Romex wiring, ran from one porcelain light fixture to the next, dividing the structure in half. Light from the hole seeped down, just enough to see dimly corner to corner.

They were alone here, the three of them.

How that was possible, he wasn’t sure. Had whoever had tied up the guards missed the trapdoor?

Clunk. A sound from above. The trailer’s front door came softly shut, though not softly enough.

Paolo replaced the carpeted trapdoor from below, sitting it into its frame. He duckwalked over some plastic pipe and took up a position to afford him the greatest surprise. He trained his one good eye toward a spot in the blackness.

The razor pressed tight between his fingers.

Come and get it.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

Bloodstained from his rescue of the woman, Larson had reached the far end of a darkened fairway with a partial view of the double-wide below. The more he thought about it, the numerous guards, the isolation, the more it made sense. Somehow he’d missed where they held Markowitz’s grandson, and if he’d missed him, then maybe he’d missed Penny, too.

He reentered the bunkhouse, his gun at the ready. He had no time. A woman being badly wounded on the property would sound the alarm, no matter what she might tell others. Within minutes this bunkhouse would be swarming with guards.

As he passed the bound guards, one looked conscious, but he made no appeal. Why so complacent? Larson raised his weapon. Someone was here with him.

He moved stealthily and cleared two small bedrooms and a bath in a matter of a half minute or less. Arriving at the closed door to a room he recalled as a bunk room, he tensed. He counted down in his head and kicked the door open. It rebounded off the thin, hollow wall and he blocked it with his wet shoe. He sighted down the gun, finding every pattern in the room that worked against his expectation, nearly squeezing off a round into what turned out to be a pillow angled awkwardly.

Clear.

He moved toward the closet. Looked down, and there it was: a loop of fabric. A crawl space.

A single guard sleeping in the bunk room could easily defend such a crawl space. Simple. Efficient. Practical.

Larson bent and reached down for the fabric loop. He could not only feel guards hurrying toward this bunkhouse, but he also sensed at least one down this hole, a man charged with defending the space until help arrived.

Larson would be a target from the moment he entered.

Ten, fifteen seconds of precious time ticked off, Larson longing for a stun grenade. He retreated and switched off the hallway light behind him, evening the playing field by ushering the bunk room to pitch black. He let his eyes adjust, then he slipped his key-chain penlight from his pocket, hoping to use it as a diversion or decoy. He held the penlight in his right hand, along with his gun, the Glock.

He knew he’d be fired upon the moment he jumped down in there. He had no doubt of this, and the stupidity of such an act briefly froze him. But with no time, and no options, Penny’s survival on the line-Larson dropped into darkness.

He landed awkwardly, his gun smacking a metal pipe. He tossed the penlight to his left as a distraction while rolling right.

No shots fired.

As he rolled, his gun released its magazine into the gravel floor. His thumb touched the gun’s metal: the contact with the pipe had sprung and bent the magazine’s release switch. He fumbled to locate the magazine-wondering if the gun would accept it with the broken lever. He had one round in the chamber-one round he could count on.

The weak light showed a pair of collapsible cots, and on them, the blond head of… a little girl.

“Penny!”

A head of red hair popped up. A boy.

Sight of the two kids stole his attention as a figure sprang toward him from behind. Larson took the blow to his right wrist and the Glock tumbled free. Fire sprang from that wrist, and he realized he’d been cut. He recoiled, cowered, a flinching reflex to ward off the inevitable. He kicked out with his bent right leg, moving awkwardly because of the limited space. Blind luck connected that blow to the man coming after him. Both men fell away from each other. Larson smacked his head against the short stud wall.

The four-foot limitation of the crawl space restricted movement to a squatting, crouched shuffle for both men, like crabs attacking each other.

As his opponent sat up, recovering from the kick, the penlight’s dim beam moved across his face, revealing chemical welts that occluded his right eye.

Larson knew the razor came next.

With his gun and its ejected magazine somewhere to his right, Larson started in that direction, but his opponent skillfully anticipated the move and blocked it, placing himself between Larson and the cots. He then lunged at Larson with incomprehensible speed and sprang back out of reach just as quickly.

Larson’s left forearm went warm and stung. In that split second, he’d been cut again.

Another darting move, like the flick of a frog’s tongue. Larson’s left leg was bleeding.

If he stood here any longer, the cutter would pick him apart, one quick cut after another. Larson would go down, not from a single wound but the combination. He’d have his throat slit, and he’d bleed out in a crawl space, where they’d bury him a few hours later. Perhaps Penny and Hope at his side.

A thought flickered through him: the bad eye.

Larson feinted to the man’s right-his blind side-freezing him, and then dived toward the cots, somersaulted, and came up with the penlight. He twisted it off.

Darkness.

He felt around, hoping for his gun, and came up with a scrap of a two-by-four, nearly puncturing the palm of his left hand with a bent nail. Held from the other end like a baseball bat, the nail then served as a weapon. He lunged and rolled, guessing at a location, hoping to turn the man toward his blind side. Larson swung the board blindly. He missed on the first swing but connected with the second, landing the nail into flesh. His opponent cried out.