Chapter 19

Kris took a deep breath. He’d gotten to the safe house, and they’d quickly laid out a plan. Thankfully, Spidey had hacked into Volkov’s security feeds at the compound and they had a superb view of inside the main house and the grounds. There were about two hundred and fifty thugs and gangsters on the grounds and another fifty in the lower levels of the house. Gregori was on the upper level, which was a bit like Kris’s at the lake house. Half of it was a bedroom and bathroom, the other half was his office. You could only access the bedroom through the office. There was a small safe room inside the walk-in closet in the bedroom, but it had a computerized electronic lock Spidey had scrambled when he had hacked the security system. There were two men heavily armed in the office and Gregori and an older mean looking version of Nestor in the bedroom with Raisa.

The sight of her had almost sent Kris into a rage. They had stripped her to her underwear and tied her spread eagle to the bed. A black lace bra and pantie set Kris knew she’d put on after he left this morning for him. Every now and again Gregori would remind her she now belonged to him, and then he would grope and fondle her or force his tongue into her mouth.

Raisa never moved a muscle, just laid there without expression, but Kris had almost rushed headlong from the safe house to the compound the first time the fat toad laid his hands on her.

It had taken almost half his team to hold him back. But slowly the plan had come together. Now Kris was in a small jet preparing for a HALO jump. Something he hadn’t done in about two years. It was risky but would give him the element of surprise entering the bedroom. They expected him to come through the front and try to fight his way up to the house and then up to the bedroom. Instead, he was going to jump onto the roof that a drone had marked with a radioactive marker earlier that day and once there Thorn would enter through the bedroom window. The pilot came over the radio. “Approaching PNO, Thorn. Jump pattern is five by five.”

“Roger. PNO jump is five by five.” Kris clicked his radio over to the team’s channel. “This is Thorn, I am in the PNO. Is Betty prepared for her dance party?”

“Eagle to Thorn. Betty is ready to boogie. Veronica has joined her and is also prepared to get down tonight.”

“Who’s partnering with Veronica?”

Mac’s voice came over the line. “That would be me, Thorn.”

“Negative, Ghost Rider, you have responsibilities at home.”

“This is a remote dance and you work for me, not the other way around.”

Kris chuckled, knowing that Mac was using the remote pilot feature on the armored suit. “As you say, Iron Man.”

They all laughed. “I’m going radio silent until I’m boots on the ground.”

“Affirmative, Thorn. Good luck.”

“Good hunting, Eagle; and Control, Thorn out.”

Just then there came a beeping in his ear and he clicked back to the jumpmaster. “Approach the hatch, Thorn. Jump in T-Minus fifteen.”

Kris moved to the doorway and watched as the red light turned yellow and a count began in his ear. “T-Minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, Jump, Jump, Jump.”

Kris dove out the open door and pointed his body down toward the glowing marker of green he could barely see at twenty-nine thousand feet, but the beeping in his ear told him he was lined up to hit his mark. He had twenty thousand feet to fall before he pulled the ripcord on his chute. Knowing that at nine thousand feet, he could barely correct if he was off from hitting his mark.

He fell like a rocket powered rock as he watched the numbers of his altimeter in his heads-up display. It took only a few minutes to fall twenty thousand feet and when his display flashed green at nine thousand; he pulled the ripcord and was jerked up as the black canopy opened over his head. The sun had just dipped below the horizon and he clicked his mic four times to let the ground forces know he would be on the roof in two minutes.

That’s when all hell seemed to break loose on the west side of the compound as the two mechanized armored battle suits breached the fence and Kris’s counter terrorist team opened fire on the gangsters, firing on their infiltration. The rules of engagement were being observed as Volkov’s untrained and untested ‘army’ opened fire on the better equipped and trained team of specialist. Kris tore his eyes away from the scene to the west and focused on the quickly rising marker on the roof.

As soon as his boots hit the roof, he released the straps of his parachute canopy and watched the wind take it toward the front of the house. Thorn turned and pulled a line out of the pack strapped to his chest and wrapped it around the brick chimney before launching himself off the roof and toward the window, just to the left of the bed in the main bedroom. He hit the window with both feet and sailed with the broken glass into the room. He let go of the black para-cord and lifted the HK MP7A1 machine gun to his shoulder and fired, hitting the man that looked like Nestor in the hand that was trying to raise a pistol toward him.

Then he turned and pointed it at Gregori, who dropped his pistol and started for the bed. Kris fired a three-round burst at the floor in front of his feet, then keyed the mic in his helmet for the speaker on his chest.

“Don’t move, Volkov, or the next burst will be in your knees.” The door to the office burst open and three men tried to power through it at the same time.

Kris pivoted and flipped his selector switch to automatic and unleashed a burst of about fifty rounds, the three men dropping to the ground, dead. He spun back while flipping the fire selector back to a three-round burst and put three rounds into Gregori’s right leg as he tried to reach Raisa. The man screamed and dropped to the ground. Kris kneeled over the man that looked like Nestor and quickly flipped him onto his stomach, putting the machine pistol against the back of his head. “Put your hands behind your back.”

The man did what he was told, cursing in Russian the whole time. “I will kill you when next we meet.”

Kris pulled a set of heavy duty zip cuffs and fitted them over the man’s hands, pulling them tight enough to cut off his circulation. “I wouldn’t count on that, buddy.”

Kris walked over to where Gregori was crawling toward the bed and grabbed him by the back of his collar, and tossed him toward the far side of the room. Keeping his MP7 pointed at the gangster he reached his other hand into his boots and pulled out a K-Bar dive knife and cut the rope holding Raisa’s hands to the bed and then handed her the knife letting her cut herself loose while he kept a watch on the door and Gregori.

Raisa made quick work of her restraints and was wrapping herself around Kris. His free arm came around her, moving her slightly to the side and away from his weapon or any further action at the doorway or from Gregori. “You came for me? How did you know where I was? When we left the office, I was sure you’d have to hunt for me.”