The Ninth Step - John Milton #8 (John Milton Thrillers) (35 page)

He ran hard to the side of the house. The security lights overhead blazed out into the grounds, creating an inky pool of darkness beneath them that he could melt into. There was a small wall that defined the perimeter of a kitchen garden, and he dropped behind it. He heard more shots from the front of the house, and then the sound of more glass being blown apart.

Milton heard a tense voice in his ear.
“You see that?”

“Roof’s on fire.”

“Milton?”

“Concentrate. We need to get this done. It’s taking too long.”

Milton gritted his teeth. The fire had taken hold of the thatch and he could feel the heat pressing down from above him. The flames roared and patches of straw, lit up, fell down to the ground.

It was now or never. He ducked his head, took a breath, counted to three, and then stayed low as he made his way around to the rear of the house. He stopped at the edge of the house and then peered around the corner.

He looked for extra guards.

There was no one.

He recalled the plan of the building, saw the entrance to the boot room, took another breath and then ran for it.

Another round of shooting.

“There—by the house!”

“Get him?”

“Affirmative. He’s down.”

“Flanking now.”

Milton reached the door. There was a glass panel that he could use to see inside. He peered in: the room beyond was empty, the glow of the fire lighting it brightly. He reached out a gloved hand and tried the handle. It was locked, but he could see the key was in the lock on the inside. There was no need to be delicate about how he proceeded. He took a step closer, clenched his fist, punched through the glass and then turned the key. He opened the door and slipped inside. The heat washed over him at once.

FRANKIE FABIAN had gone upstairs to his bedroom. He had arranged for some of his best men to stay in the guest accommodation until he was able to leave the country tomorrow. He had a team he trusted; some of them were ex-soldiers and ex-police, all of them with experience in his line of work.

Frankie’s wife and daughter were already on their way to Florida and his sons were leaving tomorrow by way of a private plane to avoid the legal proceedings that had been brought against them. Frankie was going, too, first class from Heathrow. He had not been in any doubt that Smith meant everything that he had said, and there was something about him—something cold and unmistakeably authentic—that had made it very clear that it would be foolish to underestimate him or to fail to take the necessary precautions. Fabian had brought in enough men to protect him and his boys. His packed suitcases had been moved down to the lobby. He was booked on a flight to Florida tomorrow, but it looked as if that might be unnecessary now.

Smith was here.

Spencer had a walkie-talkie pressed to his ear as he spoke to Bruce. The detective had brought two of his men and was waiting downstairs. Marcus was holding a shotgun. Smith had broken Marcus’s ribs, and he grimaced in pain every time he stepped to the window to risk a glance outside. Both of his boys were nervous. Spencer was pale as he swore at Bruce. Marcus was drumming his fingertips against the barrel of the shotgun.

“Fuck!” Spencer said as he clipped the walkie-talkie to his belt.

“What?” Marcus said.

“Bruce tried to call for help. The phone’s out and I can’t get a signal.”

“Out?”

“The line’s been cut.”

“I don’t—”

Marcus stopped. They all noticed, with sudden shock, that the curtains were glowing bright orange.

“What’s that?” Marcus said, forgetting where he was and reaching for the curtains.

Spencer grabbed his arm before he could move the curtains aside. “Don’t.”

“Well, what was it?”

“The kitchen,” Spencer said. “He set the thatch on fire.”

Marcus went back to the shotgun. “This is ridiculous. He can’t be on his own.”

“So who the fuck is helping him?” Frankie snapped.

“Doesn’t matter, Dad. There are loads of us. You stay in here. We’ll keep him outside.”

“Why is he doing this?” Marcus said quietly, almost rhetorically.

Spencer took the walkie-talkie and put it to his ear again. “Bruce,” he said. “Bruce—what’s going on?”

All Frankie heard was the squelch of static.

Spencer swore.

“What is it?” Marcus asked.

“He’s not replying.”

“Go and check,” Frankie said.

Spencer clipped the unit to his belt and collected his pistol from the table where he had left it. Frankie took his own pistol and checked, for the fifth time, that it had a round in the chamber ready to fire. Spencer held his pistol in his right hand and, carefully, reached out for the door handle with his left. He opened it, glanced outside and slipped into the corridor.

“Who
is
he?” Marcus said.

“He said he was a soldier.”

“Why is he doing this? Why is he coming after us?”

“I told you,” Frankie snapped. “It’s Eddie. This is about him. It’s about what we did.”

“Eddie didn’t have any friends. He didn’t have any—”

All of the lights went out.

Marcus stopped mid-sentence.

The room was completely dark. Frankie couldn’t see the end of his nose.

“Dad?”

“I’m here.”

“Hold on.” There came the sound of frantic fumbling. “I’ve got my phone.”

Frankie reached for the wall, placed his palm against it and then backed away from the door. The darkness seemed to lengthen the time it took for Marcus to find his phone and, as he waited there, Frankie could hear the sound of automatic gunfire from the grounds outside. It came in concentrated bursts.

There was a flash of light as Marcus activated his torch app. The beam swung around the room, casting deep, eerie shadows against the wood-panelled walls. Marcus trained the beam on Frankie, so bright that he had to look away.

“Not in my
face
,” Frankie said.

“He got to the fuse box.”

Frankie tried to remain calm.

There was an almost immediate clatter of gunfire from outside the window.

THE KITCHEN had quickly become an inferno. There was a gaping hole in the ceiling where the fire had consumed all of the thatch and then the boards beneath, and the flames had rushed inside in search of more fuel. The large range ran on oil, and as the fire swept over it there was an audible pop and then a sudden outrushing of flame as the oil was devoured. Milton was glad of the balaclava across his mouth as he hurried through the room, feeling the heat through the wool that was pressed against his skin. The fire alarms were screaming now and the flames were roaring with a ferocious hunger, the two combining to create a deafening cacophony through which it was almost impossible to hear the small-arms fire that continued outside. It meant that it was unnecessary for him to be careful about making too much sound, but he stayed low and proceeded carefully, aware that there were likely to be armed guards inside the house.

He found the junction box without too much difficulty. He had already located the cable that connected the house to the grid, and it was a simple enough matter to follow it as it traced a path between the join of the ceiling and the wall. The wire disappeared into the kitchen’s large walk-in larder and terminated at the back of the larder in a junction box. It had a simple plastic hinged cover, and when Milton pushed the cover back, he saw all of the switches. The master switch was red and at the end of the line; Milton pulled it and all of the lights were immediately extinguished.

There was a door at the end of the kitchen, and Milton pressed himself against the wall to compose himself. The flames were close, the heat singeing his clothes. There was a tremendous crash as a fresh span of the ceiling, already weakened, was dislodged by the fire that had rushed across it. Flaming plasterboard slammed onto the floor.

Milton had to move. Fabian was in the house. Olivia might be. He wanted them both.

He took the Sig from its holster and glanced around the edge of the open doorway into the hall beyond.

He saw a man with his back to him who was toting a handgun. Milton drew a bead on him, stepped out of the doorway, braced his gun in a tight two-handed grip with his left hand canted toward the ground, and fired twice. It would have been impossible to miss from close range, but he put both shots into the man’s torso to be sure. The man stumbled forward and then fell to his knees. Milton approached, his gun up, the fire roaring at his back. The man buckled, propping himself up with his right arm. He turned. Milton doubted that the fallen man would be able to recognise him, silhouetted as he was against the brightness of the conflagration, but Milton could see him.

It was the detective.

Bruce’s pistol was in his right hand, pressed to the floor. He tried to pull his hand up to aim it, but the attempt merely overbalanced him and he collapsed onto his stomach. He dropped the pistol. Milton stepped up to him, kicked away the pistol, and rolled the older man onto his back. He lowered himself to a crouch and pressed the barrel of the Sig against Bruce’s temple.

“Where’s the girl?”

“What?”

“The journalist. She’s here somewhere. Where?”

Bruce tried to speak, but, when he opened his mouth, his words were so quiet that they were inaudible amid the din.

“Say it again,” Milton pressed, leaning down a little closer.

Bruce gasped, unable to speak. Instead, his eyes flicked up to the stairs and the first floor.

“She’s up there?”

Bruce nodded.

“Fabian?”

Bruce’s eyes flicked up to the stairs again.

Milton stood. The policeman was done for. Both shots had taken him in the gut, and he would bleed out unless he received treatment. There came another huge crash as a beam from the kitchen ceiling worked loose and slammed down onto the floor. Flames burst out, as if blown into the hall on a vicious wind, and the paint on the walls started to blister. The house was finished now. It was going to burn to the ground. Milton had neither the time nor the inclination to help the policeman, and neither was it his responsibility; the man had brought it upon himself. But he had given him a tiny amount of help, and he would recognise that.

He aimed down with the Sig and fired one more time. A mercy shot.

“Status?”

Milton recognised the voice of Richard Higgins across the troop net.

“Status?”

“
Milton was wrong.
” It was one of the unit. His voice was ragged; he sounded out of breath.

“What?”

“
He was either wrong or he was lying. It’s a trap. Fabian was waiting for us.
”

“What’s happening?”

“Gillan is hit.”

“Can you exfil him?”

“Negative. He’s dead.”

“Pull back.”

“Negative. I’m pinned down. There’s too many of them.”

Movement from the stairs. Someone was coming down. There was a door opposite him. Milton pushed it open and, his Sig raised before him, hurried inside.

SPENCER FABIAN COUGHED. The kitchen was on fire, and clouds of smoke were billowing out into the rest of the house. The corridor was dark without the lights, but the fire was throwing out enough of an orange-red glow that he could see his way. He held the pistol up ahead of him, working to keep his hand from shaking, and made his way forward step by step. He reached the end of the corridor and turned to look into the kitchen. A wall of radiant heat slammed into him. The ceiling was burning and, as he watched, a huge chunk of singed and smoking plasterboard was dislodged. It crashed down to the tiled floor, landing across the body of a man who had been lying there. He glanced down and saw that it was Bruce. His shirt was red with blood and there was a neat hole in the centre of his forehead, right between the eyes.

Spencer looked up to the end of the corridor. A run of flames rushed ahead, pouring out of the kitchen as if they were alive. They spread out, quickly multiplying until they covered the walls and the ceiling and the furniture, and then they started to advance.

Spencer felt a twist in his gut, the sensation that he was not alone. He turned, the gun held up before him, but he never had the chance to use it. A dark shadow separated from the smoke and slammed into him. The impact was sudden, launching him against the wall, driving the breath from his lungs. He felt a strong hand grasp his right wrist and was helpless as his hand was pushed up and away, impotent as the pistol was prised out of his fingers. His assailant was behind him now. Whoever it was had one arm across his throat and the other clasped at a right angle to it, pressed up vertically against his head. Spencer felt the pressure increase and suddenly found that it was almost impossible to draw breath. He gasped, taking in as much smoke as air, but then the pressure was ratcheted up again and he couldn’t breathe at all.

He felt his eyes bulging. He struggled, but the man behind him was much too strong. He tried to breathe, but he could not. Darkness gathered at the edges of his sight.

He felt something touch against his ear and then he heard a soft voice over the roar of the flames.

“This is for your brother.”

HICKS HAD ADVANCED to an excellent vantage point. He was at the southern edge of the lake, with the wide expanse of the water ahead of him, which meant that he had nothing between him and the house. There was a muddy slope half a metre away, a sharp gradient that ran down to the water. The conflagration rendered his night-vision sight almost redundant. His main problem had been the glare from the security lights that blazed out over the water, but Milton had extinguished them when he cut the main power supply. Now, he had more than enough indirect light to pinpoint his targets and nothing to distract his aim.