The way they fought would show me who they were.

As they stepped inside, I swung a heavy bag of feed into the first one’s face. The man toppled and as the weight of the bag spun I nailed the second guard with a kick below the throat that sent him sprawling out onto the porch. My shoulder ached from the weight of it, and I staggered after the kick.

The first man—thick-necked, with a blond burr of hair—rolled into a martial artist’s stance and yanked a small knife from a sheath on his belt. Not a cop-for-hire, then. That simplified things. He swiped at me with the knife and I hammered my palm into his face, then grabbed both his wrists and slammed them against the top of a stable door. They broke. He screeched and staggered backward, staring at his bent wrists.

The second man, a wiry African, coughing blood, lunged at me, drawing his gun, and yelled an order to surrender. I ignored it and rammed a fist into the man’s hand, knocking the gun to the floor. The bolt of pain shot up my arm to my wounded shoulder, and I was too slow pulling back. The African slammed three hard, brutal blows into my ribs. Bruises still fresh from Holland thundered into agony. I couldn’t fight for long.

I stepped inside the African’s swing and head-slammed him, and the man went to his knees; I gave him a kick, square in the groin, and I meant it. The African collapsed in huffing agony. He looked up at me as a man expecting to die, fear shining bright in his eyes.

I relieved him of his gun and yanked an earpiece from his ear. They were wired to check in, so reinforcements might be here soon. The man with two broken wrists looked at me in shock. I leveled a kick into him that drove his head back against a stall gate and he crumpled.

I pulled out my gun.

“Where’s the entrance?” I said. “To the underground rooms?”

The African shot me the finger. Honestly, I thought. I knelt down and twisted the finger back to within a millimeter of breaking it. The African howled.

“Are they paying you enough? Really?” I asked.

“The back… the kitchen.”

I yanked him to his feet, hustled him into the kitchen.

“Pantry,” he said. A bit more steel in his voice now. He was going to get cute. But I still needed him.

The small kitchen held a pantry at its back and I opened the door, keeping the gun aimed at the African. Another door stood behind the narrow shelving; made of new, reinforced steel. I tried pushing it. Locked.

“Open it,” I said.

“Door only opens from the inside.” He was right. There was no knob or bar.

“Okay.” I slammed the African into the pantry shelving once, twice, and the guy cracked his head and dropped, unconscious. I checked the window; no sign of the redhead. He’d be back in minutes, or radioing his friends who’d gone into the stable and wondering why they weren’t responding.

I opened my bag, found the strips of plastic explosive and the wires, and began to shape the charge around the door.

86

THE BLAST WAS MORE LIGHT and dazzle than heat and, as Edward screamed and staggered back, Mila drew her baton from the small of her back. The first blow grazed Edward’s jaw, the edge of the baton bloodying the skin. Mila slashed again, aiming for Edward’s chest, but he caught her arm and twisted her forearm savagely. She slammed the heel of her other hand into his face. A fist hammered into the soft of Mila’s throat and she fell to her knees, Yasmin attacking with blows and kicks. Edward grabbed Mila’s hair, spat in her face, pounded her head against the table twice, then a hand wrenched the baton from her grip.

Yasmin, panting and mewling, smashed the baton across Mila’s head, and Mila fell onto the fine Persian rug.

“She hurt me,” Edward said. Blood welled along his skin, dotted his shirt. Mila looked up, and Yasmin Zaid leveled a gun at her. Her thin mouth—with a stitched lip—jerked, wavered, slid back to a mostly straight line. The hand shook slightly. The eyes were blank of feeling. Whatever personality that once ruled this woman was gone, hollowed out and replaced with an emptiness that twisted Mila’s stomach.

“Stand up,” Yasmin ordered.

Slowly Mila stood.

“Where’s Sam Capra?” Edward said.

“Gone. Hunting that wife of his.”

“She got away from him? I’m supposed to believe that? And you just came here to confront us? Please. Do I look moronic?”

“You don’t look smart,” Mila said.

“Is Sam Capra here?” Edward asked.

“No. I came alone.”

“These people you work for, who are they? Are you CIA? Or are you MI5? What?”

“You should be so lucky,” Mila said. “We’re worse. We’re focused. You won’t know how to fight us.”

Edward backhanded her. She held her ground and her strength seemed to enrage him.

“I am not breakable, you pathetic small freak,” Mila said in a hoarse whisper.

“We’ll see. Yasmin, bring her with us. Where are the guards?”

“They went to see about a delivery at the stables.”

Edward froze. “Have they come back?”

“No.”

“Radio them. You, come with me.” He grabbed Mila, put the gun close against the cool of her throat. He hurried her down a hallway.

“Your friend, Piet. When I killed him,” Mila said, “it was like beating a crying sack of flour.”

Edward didn’t slow. “You did me a favor.”

“Ah. Yes. You slaughtered your own people back in the brewery.” Mila turned her head and spat in Edward’s face. Edward slammed her into the wall, drove a brutal fist into her stomach.

“You’re trying to delay me. It won’t work.”

“I know what you are,” she said to Edward. “You worked with a slaver. You’re no better than he is.”

“You don’t like that Piet was a slaver?” Edward laughed. “When I’m done with you, when you’ve spilled every secret about who you work for, I’m going to sell your ass to a man I know. You’re not too old to be broken into the trade.”

“We don’t need her,” Yasmin said, coming up behind them. She centered her gun on Mila’s forehead.

“I feel sorry for you,” Mila said, and Yasmin’s aim wavered. “Whatever he did to you, time can undo. I know people who have been through worse than you and you can recover.”

“What he did was set me free.”

“If there’s a shred of Yasmin Zaid left under the brainwashing, you know that’s not true.”

“I am what I wanted to be, always—free of my father,” Yasmin said. But her mouth wavered, her hand shook.

“You traded one bully for another,” Mila said.

“Don’t shoot her,” Edward ordered. “I want to talk to her. Did the guards report any problems?”

“Some horses got loose,” she said. “They’re chasing them down.”

He frowned. “I don’t like it.”

Yasmin, gun now to Mila’s neck, hurried her to a wall hanging. Edward pushed it aside, pressed a release, and a door opened. Dim light showed stairs going downward.

“Churchill planned to use the estate as a base for a resistance, if needed,” Edward said. “The resistance is here all right. It’s just not the one he envisioned.”

He shoved Mila through the door.

The explosive felt soft and claylike under my fingertips, and for an odd moment I thought of playing in the mud along a river in Thailand with my brother Danny when we were young.

I heard the sound of a footfall behind me.

“I’m holding high explosives,” I said. “So you probably don’t want to shoot.”

No bullet came. I’d given him room for doubt. I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw the redhead aiming a gun at my back.

“Put the explosives down.” He spoke with a Serbian accent.

“You’re the smartest guy I’ve met here.”

“What?”

“Put the gun down. You’re making me nervous. You don’t want me nervous. You can only kill me. I can kill us both.”