One Minute Out Read online

  * * *

  • • •

  Jaco Verdoorn moved backwards through the kitchen, firing round after round from his HK back into the entry hall as he retreated. Loots was with him, firing his rifle, and Duiker staggered along, as well, though the vicious and bloody wound to his arm was occupying most of his attention.

  Another of Hall’s men had been killed, but one made it upstairs, and from the sound of gunfire it seemed to Jaco like one of the raiders had gone up there to root him out. That left at least two enemy down here, and Verdoorn found himself still hoping to get Gentry in his sights.

  A man with a rifle spun into the doorway from the dining room to the kitchen and Jaco fired over and over, hitting his target in the upper chest and head. The man dropped flat onto the tile floor, but a second attacker appeared behind him, and he shot Duiker in the stomach at a range of twenty feet. Duiker dropped dead in the kitchen, and Loots returned fire, sending the enemy to cover.

  Jaco dumped rounds from his VP9 until he ran dry, then reloaded his empty pistol. As he did this he screamed to Loots, “Lead them through the house. You need to keep them occupied until LAPD breaches. I’m heading to the citadel.”

  “Right, sir!” Loots said, and as he took off for the hall to the rear of the home, Verdoorn ran for the back door. Like Hall, the South African was surprised to see the smoke here, but he didn’t expect to find any opposition, because Hall had just radioed that he and the others had made it to the pool house.

  * * *

  • • •

  I’m out of the swimming pool now, water rushing from my boots as I begin moving across the patio, stepping into the smoke with my pistol out in front of me.

  I make it no more than a few steps before I hear Kareem through my earpiece.

  “A.J. is dead. Repeat, A.J. is KIA.”

  Shit.

  The gunfire from the house behind me continues and I don’t know how many enemy are still fighting there, but I try to push everything out of my mind so I can focus on my objective.

  The slight morning breeze has moved the smoke in all directions; I can’t see my hand in front of my face. Behind me I hear a cacophony of police sirens, but I’m not overly worried about being caught by the cops just yet. There is no way in hell the LAPD is going to race into this maelstrom without knowing what the hell they’re up against. They’ll block roads, they’ll fly helicopters overhead, they’ll do what they can to get civilians out of the line of fire. SWAT trucks will arrive and a plan will be drawn up, and only then will they begin rooting out the shooters.

  No, I’m not worried about the cops. The bad guys with guns here on the property are so much more concerning right now.

  I start to emerge from the thick obscurant, and I catch a glimpse of a pair of rectangular pools in the patio in front of me before more smoke whirls across my face.

  I try to pick up my pace but only go a pair of steps before I feel an incredible impact on my right side. It’s a body; someone running has slammed into me at speed, and I go airborne, my weapon tumbling from my hands. I hit the cut stone patio surface, knocking the wind out of me, and I try to reach to my pack behind me to retrieve the backup pistol I have there.

  But before I do, I feel a hand grab me by the leg. I kick free but realize the man who crashed into me is on the ground in the smoke close by.

  And then I see the knife. A glint of steel shining through a break in the red cloud, slashing in my direction.

  He misses, but he has the advantage.

  This man has speed, violence of action; there’s a weapon in his hand while I’m still fumbling with my backpack.

  In my world we call my situation a deficit of initiative, but that’s just a fancy way of saying this asshole got the drop on me so now I’m fucked.

  I sense more than see him lunging at me through the thick cloud, and I roll out of the way. The blade strikes the stone, and I launch up to my waterlogged boots.

  The man disappears in the red cloud, then reappears just as suddenly. He’s on me again as I pull the fixed-blade knife from my belt. He slashes to the right, cuts into my tunic at my rib cage, and I feel a hot sting.

  I retreat back a few steps and lose sight of him again.

  I’m bleeding. The cut feels long but not deep.

  Knife fights on TV are a joke. In the real world there is no dancing around, swinging the blade left and right, or stabbing straight down from the sky. Not by anyone who knows what the hell they are doing. The knife fights I’ve been in are a horror show. A combatant diving forward and jabbing straight out towards the midsection, over and over, three or four times a second if he’s fast. The attacks are difficult to defend against; the person defending does what he can to scramble back, falling backwards or juking to the side, but it’s not like Hollywood, where the guy on the receiving end has time to parry with a thoughtful move and then counterattack.

  If you fight with a knife, you are going to get cut. By your enemy, or by yourself, you are going to get cut. More than once.

  I get cut more than once.

  I see his arm thrust out again through the cloud, and this time the blade nicks me on the right forearm. I feel a second hot sting and hear the blade tip slicing the flesh. The cut is two inches from the muscles that make some of my fingers work, so it’s very nearly a debilitating wound, but his awkward jab presents me with an opportunity.

  I lunge low with my own knife, hitting him in the back of the hand and slicing it open with a four-inch gash.

  He screams, steps back, and we lose each other in the swirling cloud for a moment again. Smoke wafts over from the back doors of the mansion and spews from the grenade between the koi ponds, and the breeze seems to churn it around us.

  I’m breathing hard, not moving, my back to the shallow end of the swimming pool behind me.

  Where is he?

  From somewhere in the red cloud around me I hear him. “I bladdy love my job, Gentry!”

  Fucking Jaco.

  He appears on my right, closing fast, and, in a desperate attempt to avoid getting slashed, I fall backwards onto the stone. He lands on me, and we’re wrestling and swinging and ducking now. Two desperate men using all their strength, all their training and cunning, to try both to kill the other and to avoid being killed.

  I’m on my back when I drive a knee up into his crotch and jab with my knife, stabbing him in the right forearm, then I roll again as he dives down towards me, smoke swirling around his now-visible form.

  Soon we find ourselves with me holding the wrist that’s holding his knife, and him holding the wrist that’s holding my knife.

  I roll to my right with all my strength, and we tumble together into the shallow end of the swimming pool. I land on my back on the upper step, only a foot deep. But Jaco’s on top of me, he still has my knife hand tight at the wrist, his knife is pointed right over my heart, and I use all the strength in my body to keep it from plunging straight down.

  By being above me, with the weight of his body over his knife hand, I realize that he has leverage I don’t possess.

  “Got you, Gentry!” he shouts, and I think he may be right. The knife tip disappears into the water, inches from my heart now.

  Smoke wafts over us, obscuring my view of the bald-headed man leaning over me, lying on his knife to drive it down while I hold it up with a weakening left arm.

  I find myself hoping Kareem and Rodney will appear over us and save me, but not for long.

  I need a new strategy, and hope definitely isn’t it.

  I realize what I have to do now, and I don’t love it, but it’s my only play. I drop my knife in my right hand, surprising him, then I spin my wrist down, deeper into the water on my right, whipping out of his grasp. The hand is unarmed now, but I bring it up to grab the knife above my heart. With my left hand I let go now, reach down to my left side, and fumble with my pack the
re. Jaco senses that I’m making some sort of a move, so he throws his entire body onto the arm holding the knife.

  I’m about to get stabbed and I know it.

  I shift my body to the right, just a few inches, and Jaco’s cold steel connects with the skin on my left shoulder, just below the clavicle. The blade plunges into me, hilt deep, and I scream in pain.

  And then I swivel my left hand out of the pack and shoot him on the right side of his midsection, at contact distance, with my suppressed Walther .22.

  He lurches back in surprise, and I take the opportunity to scramble back myself. His knife is still stuck all the way into my shoulder, so I disarmed him, but I paid one hell of a price to do so.

  My left arm hangs low to my side now; I can’t lift it to fire the pistol again.

  The bullet I shot him with is small and slow, one of the least powerful rounds one can use. I haven’t killed him, but I’m sure I’ve hurt him and put a tiny bit of lead a few inches into his intestines. He starts to stand, and I try to do the same, but my left arm still won’t cooperate.

  But my right arm is fine. I reach down one more step into the pool, retrieve the knife I dropped there seconds ago, heft it as I launch to my feet out of the water, and dive on him at the edge of the pool.

  I land on him fully and the knife sinks into his chest, hilt deep.

  I push myself off him and sit on the top step. The smoke blows away enough to see him there on the patio, his legs dangling down into the water, his face ashen and his eyes wide with bewilderment. He just lies on his back, staring skyward.

  “Still love your job, Jaco?”

  He coughs up blood that stains his face, then runs down to his white shirt and crimson tie, trickles into the pool, and reddens the water around him much like the last wisps of the smoke grenades redden the air around us.

  He dies lying next to me without saying a word, and I pull myself up to my feet and step out of the pool. I walk over to him and kick him over towards the edge, and he falls into the water and begins floating away, facedown.

  The smoke clears finally, and I regard the knife sticking out of my shoulder.

  I have to leave it there for now; otherwise it will only bleed more.

  I switch the Walther to my right hand and begin again for the pool house.

  Suddenly I’m aware that the gunfire from the main house has stopped.

  “Rodney? Report status?”

  “House is clear. I’m hit. Not life threatening. I’ve linked up with Kareem. We’re coming over to the pool house.”

  The door is just feet in front of me now. “Remain outside. Watch for squirters.”

  “No reason for you to breach alone, Harry.”

  But he’s wrong. There is a reason. “Say again, hold positions on the patio and provide cover.”

  Rodney is obviously confused by this, but he’s a good soldier. “Understood. Be careful in there.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Dr. Claudia Riesling had called the Uber when she was still hidden in the trees on the hillside, and then she’d waited until the app told her it was less than a minute away before struggling over a fence and out onto the street.

  The road in front of her was empty other than parked cars. Police sirens wailed lower on the hill, but she didn’t think there was any law enforcement presence up here just yet.

  There was an LAPD helicopter nearby; she was very familiar with the sound, and farther away she heard what might have been a news chopper. She didn’t see either of the aircraft directly above her, so she straightened out her clothes, put her phone in her purse, and walked out into the winding two-lane road, just as a gray Toyota Camry pulled around a tight hillside turn and stopped twenty feet in front of her.

  A woman sat behind the wheel; Riesling hadn’t bothered to look on the app to see the driver or the car, but she stepped to the back door, opened it, and climbed in.

  The woman just turned back to her and stared.

  Riesling said, “The Four Seasons, Beverly Hills. You got that, right?”

  “What’s your name?” the woman asked, her voice accented, like many Uber drivers here in LA.

  “Claudia. Let’s go.”

  The woman behind the wheel reached for her purse, fumbled in it a moment.

  “Don’t you hear the shooting going on down the street? I said, let’s go!” Riesling demanded.

  Soon the red-haired woman began driving forward, towards the sound of gunfire, not away from it.

  “Turn around! What the hell are you doing?” Riesling asked. “You know, forget it, I’ll walk. Pull over, now!”

  But the Camry only picked up speed on the winding road.

  Dr. Riesling shouted with all the authority she could muster. “Pull over!”

  She reached for the door handle, but the driver slammed hard on the brakes, sending the psychologist forward. Claudia’s face smacked the headrest in front of her, hard.

  Dazed, she held her hand to her bloody nose and started cursing her driver, but only until the back door opened next to her.

  The driver reached in, grabbed Dr. Claudia Riesling by her sweater, and shoved her down onto her back. Riesling brought her hands up to protect her face, but a large kitchen knife was pressed against her throat.

  The younger woman leaned over her through the open door. In an accent Claudia suddenly realized was Central European, perhaps Romanian, she said, “You’re not going anywhere, bitch.”

  Talyssa Corbu pulled the woman she recognized from the LinkedIn page of Dr. Claudia Riesling out of the car, and soon both women walked down the hill along Jovenita Canyon Drive.

  * * *

  • • •

  I clear the downstairs of the pool house and find a young girl hiding on the ground floor in the back. She’s terrified, crying, and dressed in a wetsuit, which seems like a very strange thing for a young sex trafficking victim to be wearing.

  I say nothing to her at first, only help her up to her feet and walk her back down the hall towards the living room and the staircase there, because I know now Cage and the others are on the second floor.

  I motion to the front door with my head, my gun still pointed at the staircase.

  When she doesn’t move, I say, “Do you speak English?”

  She nods, her voice is meek. Staring at the dagger hilt jutting from my blood-drenched left shoulder, she says, “Yes, sir.”

  She’s clearly American, probably fifteen or sixteen, and this confuses me. “What are you doing here?”

  “I live here.” Then she says, “Are you going to kill my dad?”

  Cage’s child? She’s so like the girls I saw along the pipeline that I can’t even process it. How could these people, Cage and the others in the Consortium, be so unspeakably evil when they themselves have children?

  I don’t ponder this for long. Instead I answer the girl as truthfully as I can. “I’m just here to make things better.”

  That’s true, isn’t it?

  “Please,” she implores. “Don’t hurt him.”

  I smile a little, but I guess it must look sinister to her, seeing who I am and what I’m smack-dab in the middle of. My smile fades as this occurs to me, and then I say, “I need you to run out that front door. There is no one out there who will hurt you, I promise.”

  Into my earpiece I say, “I got one, green, coming out the front.”

  A green is a noncombatant. Not a friendly, a blue, or an enemy, a red.

  I wait for the reply from Rodney. “Understood, one green out the front door of the pool house. Do we detain?”

  “Negative. Just make sure she gets clear.”

  “Roger that.”

  Rodney will probably think this little girl is another sex slave, like the hundreds he’s rescued in his life. This realization only serves to make me want to kill her
daddy so much more.

  But I can’t. Can I?

  “Go ahead,” I say to her. “Out the door.”

  Fresh tears fill her eyes, and I know she’ll never be the same. It’s a shame, but her tears aren’t going to stop me from doing what I came here to do to her father.

  “Why?” she asks, now watching blood drip from my left fingertips, onto the floor.

  She thinks I’m a monster. I see that in her eyes. She doesn’t know that her own father is the monster. Maybe she will soon, or maybe this will all be swept under the rug somehow. But I don’t have time to walk her through Kenneth Cage’s crimes, so I don’t answer.

  I swing my gun towards her now, shifting it towards the front door, and soon she leaves, sobbing all the way.

  When the door closes behind her, I turn my attention to the staircase.

  Cage is up there, I can feel it; he’s with Roxana, and it all ends here.

  With my Walther aimed up the stairs, I begin ascending. There is a mirror on the landing that gives me a narrow view to the second floor, and my eyes are on it, but I can’t see anyone above.

  I only make it halfway to the landing when I hear a man up there speak. “Gentry?”

  I stop, take a few steps backwards till I’m on the ground floor again.

  I don’t recognize the voice. “Who’s that?”

  “I’m Cage’s bodyguard.”

  I sniff out a little laugh. “I hope you’ve updated your résumé.” I resume my climb, slowly and carefully, my weapon high in front of me.

  “Look, man,” he says from above, and I stop again. “There’s three of us up here, all armed and well trained.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up. I’m liking my odds, though.”

  “And we’re all ready for you. You can turn around now, get out of here, and we won’t come looking.”

  “If you were ready for me, you wouldn’t be giving me that option, would you?”

  I hear the man sigh all the way down here. Then he says, “Look, bro. I’ve had enough. I don’t want to die for this shit. Let’s just call a truce. We stay up here, you leave. I can send the girl down to you. Unharmed.”