He slips across the passage, checks the rooms closest to him, finds them empty, as he expected, then goes to the front windows to peer across the garden and the street. All he can see is the street and a dark shadow behind it, the hedge line. He’s not sure if Broker can spot him.

It doesn’t matter.

He goes back to the door, listens, and then glances out.

No one.

He glides across to the bathroom, large and luxurious, with a Jacuzzi for four, which Broker would have commented on, makes sure it’s unoccupied, and then returns to the door.

Three long strides will take him past the staircase and to the doors of the last two rooms at the other end of the house, where the other sentry should be. He takes four, walking purposefully but not hurrying.

His luck runs out when he crosses the stairs.

The other guard steps out of the far room at the back and looks to the left, straight at Zeb. Zeb is a dark shadow amidst the dark of the house, and the guard looks back to the room ahead after his casual glance to the left. He takes a half step forward, does a double take, and spins back toward Zeb, his mouth opening in a shout, his hand lifting his gun.

In Zeb’s world, reaction times are in milliseconds, and this guard is fast.

Incredibly fast.

In Zeb’s world, incredibly fast means incredibly dead.

Zeb blurred into motion even as the gunman was turning around. His shoulder slams into the guard, knocking the wind out of him and deterring his alarm call to the rest of the pack. Zeb takes a step to the side, grabs the guard’s hair, and cuts his throat. The throat has strong muscles and tissue, and usually a sawing motion is what it really takes to cut a throat. Not now, not here. Zeb is all motion and fire, currents of energy surging through his body, centering on the blade of his knife, which goes in cleanly. The gunman’s body fountains his blood out in large spurts.

Zeb lays the body down and searches it.

This gunman isn’t carrying a mic or headset either.

He’s alert for any approaching sounds from the floor below but doesn’t detect any. The floors are thick and solid, and that’s probably deadened the scuffle.

Two down, four to go.

The plan, Broker had looked bemused at that description, called for Zeb to take out the gunmen on the top floor and then go to the hostage room to neutralize Holt. Broker would take out the other gunmen on the ground floor with his long gun as soon as Zeb entered the hostage room. The last gunman on the second floor, other than Holt, would be dealt with by Zeb or Broker as the situation presented itself.

The stairs to the second floor are wooden and thickly carpeted, with a landing between the floors.

He hugs the wall and tests the first step.

No creak.

He moves down cautiously and checks around the landing. The second floor is brightly lit but, from what he can see of it, empty.

Once he reaches the bottom of the stairs, on his right will be the hostage room, on his left the rooms the third gunman is patrolling, and in front, a bathroom.

Zeb goes down the last flight casually yet alert and slips into the bathroom opposite, his knife ready.

It’s empty.

Out of the corner of his eye, while crossing the passage, he sees someone with his back to him in the room to his right, the hostage room.

Getting to his knees, he uncoils his wire camera and places it under the door. Swiveling the lens toward the rooms with the patrol, he times the appearance of the guard.

The guard appears a few minutes later, going from the rear room to the front, and returns after ten minutes. The resolution of the image is too small for Zeb to make out if it’s Jones, but he doesn’t think so. Too short.

He turns the camera toward the hostage room and makes out the edges of a couple of chairs, but not much else. There is a faint murmur coming from that room. He waits for the guard at the other end to repeat his ten-minute routine, and when he disappears into the rear room, Zeb walks out.

He has left his backpack and his entire kit, other than his Glock, a couple of clips and his knife, in the bathroom.

He hugs the left wall so that he can get the widest angle into the hostage room, and just as he nears the door, he sees them.

Lauren and Rory are bound and gagged in two chairs facing the door at an angle. The room, what he can see of it, has a dining table and a few chairs, a bookshelf on one wall, but not much else by way of furniture. All this in a glance as he tries to locate Holt.

He pauses just outside the door, trying to figure out what Lauren and Rory, who have spotted him, are trying to signal with their eyes. They tensed up initially when they saw him and then consciously relaxed, but their eyes are giving him mixed signals.

He moves in, spots Holt, his back to the door. He’s staring out of the window.

Conscious that the guard behind him might reappear in the passage at any minute, Zeb steps into the room, moves silently to the right, close to the wall, closer to Holt. His pulse slows, stillness flowing through him.

Holt senses something, stiffens and, without looking back, says, ‘So here you are, Major Carter. I’ve been expecting you. Clearly my guys upstairs weren’t as good as I thought.’

‘Turn around slowly.’

He hears a window shatter and knows what that means. Broker protecting his back.

Holt laughs. ‘Is that what I think it is? Damn, your timing’s bad. I was planning to have some fun with the Balthazar bitch. You know, I’ve fucked so many niggers in Luvungi that I’ve forgotten what it is to have some white pussy.’

Lauren is chalk white and trembling violently.

Rory has gone into shock and isn’t reacting to much.

Zeb is breathing slowly and easily, his heart rate low. He knows what Holt’s doing and what’s coming. He has been in these situations a million times, seen many Holts.

And then a door behind the dining table opens.

Chapter 18

The Sig Sauer P229 DAK rises quickly to the gunman’s shoulder as he takes a long step in the room. At the same time, Holt is pivoting about smoothly, his right hand holding another Sig Sauer. The new gunman has to compensate for Zeb’s position, and his initial burst goes wild, over Zeb’s head.

Zeb crouches, his Glock an extension of his arm, the barrel seeing what his eye sees. His first shot drills the gunman’s left shoulder, his second shot takes out his forehead, his third burns Holt’s right shoulder, who has stepped to his left in anticipation of Zeb’s firing.

The furrow makes Holt drop his gun, but his left hand flashes to his back and sends a foot-long knife scything through the air at Zeb.

Holt’s knife buries deep in his right shoulder, making him lose his Glock, which bounces away a few feet beyond reach. He has no time to retrieve it as Holt follows up by rushing at him with another blade at the ready.

The time for active thought is gone, animal instinct doing what it does best. It shuts down his conscious thought, freezes his pain, and lets combat training take over.

Zeb dislodges the knife with his left hand and parries Holt’s thrust, moving to the center of the room to create more space. A feint by Holt is followed by a quick thrust to Zeb’s upper body, the knife low and wicked, and Zeb just slides back and then forward in a return thrust, scratching Holt’s wrist on the return. Holt takes a long step back, grabs a dining chair from behind him with one hand, and throws it across at Zeb. He follows the throw with a sinuous charge.

Zeb ducks easily under the chair and, just before Holt reaches him, bends to his left knee, his right leg spinning straight and around, knocking Holt’s right knee out of its socket. Holt falls heavily to his left, yet rolls back, grabs another chair by its leg, and heaves it over his shoulder at Zeb.