After fifteen anxious minutes, Tanner saw a sliver of yellow light through the trees. He dropped to his belly, as did Cahil. The smell of wood smoke was stronger now; Tanner could taste it on his tongue. They remained still, watching for a full five minutes, then began crawling forward again.
Tanner was reaching his palm forward when his breath misted the air around his hand.
He froze. In the moonlight his eye had picked out a threadlike glint of steel. He turned his head slowly, trying to find it again. There … Below his palm, suspended two inches off the ground, was a wire. Aside from the patch that had caught his eye, it had been expertly coated with dirt.
Grebo had been holding back after all. He’d counted on them stumbling onto the trip wire and being gunned down by his compatriots. It had almost worked — but not quite, which, Tanner decided, was good enough. But what else had he been lying about?
He gently retracted his hand, then signaled Cahil forward. Bear shimmied up. He peered at the wire and signaled, Wait. He crab-crawled sideways until he reached a nearby tree. With a cupped palm over the lens he flicked on his penlight, examined the ground in the red glow, then flicked it off again. He gestured Tanner over then cupped his hand around Brigg’s ear and whispered, “The wire ends here. RF transmitter.” He pointed to a nub of an antenna jutting from the soil.
Briggs took the lead again. They continued downhill.
It took another ten minutes to cover the last fifty feet, but at last they reached a small, bowl-shaped clearing. Through the tree line they could see the cabin, a single-story structure with a flagstone porch and a door flanked on each side by a curtained window. Sitting in the driveway was an Audi. An ivy-covered trellis snaked up the cabin’s wall to a chimney from which smoke drifted. From the trees they heard the flutter of wings, then silence.
They waited and watched. Nothing moved. From the cabin they could hear faint laughter. From either laziness or overconfidence in their trip wires, Svetic’s men hadn’t bothered to post guards. So much the better, Tanner thought. He signaled Bear to wait, then got up and circled the cabin, looking for gaps in the curtains. There were none. He returned to where Cahil was crouched.
“We’ll be going in blind,” he whispered. They had Grebo’s description of the cabin’s interior, but Tanner wasn’t about to count on that — especially after the trip wire, and especially if they were going to be shot at, which seemed likely. He’d have to use that first split second after he crashed the door to get his bearings, and pray no one was waiting gun in hand. Though the single car in the driveway tended to support Grebo’s count of the men inside, Briggs decided it was best to assume that, too, was a lie.
Cahil was peering at the chimney. “How old do you think that is?”
“Fifty, sixty years.”
“Old enough to not have a flue?”
Tanner realized where he was headed. He smiled. “Perhaps.”
“I may have just what we need. It’d mean you’d be going in alone.”
“We only have one gun.”
“Good point.”
Tanner glanced back up the hillside, thought for a moment. “How’s your shotput arm?”
“Didn’t know I had one. What’ve you got in mind?” Tanner explained, and Bear grinned. “You get me the shot, I’ll put it.”
Cahil scaled the Trellis until he was perched alongside the chimney. He took a deep breath, screwed his eyes into a squint, then shoved his face into the mouth of the chimney. He jerked it back, shook his head clear, then looked down to Tanner and gave a thumbs-up.
Tanner knelt beside the duffel and unzipped it. Unsure of what they were going to encounter, Cahil had cooked up an assortment of homemade smoke grenades and flash-bangs he’d hoped would make up for their lack of fire-power. This new plan, however, called for only one item, something Cahil lovingly called the “Bearabomb.” Comprised of two condoms — one filled with a napalmlike concoction, the other with a flour and cornstarch mixture-stuffed into a third condom and topped with a match-head detonator, it would hopefully provide Tanner with the diversion he needed.
From the cabin came a burst of laughter, then the sound of boots clomping on wood. Tanner stepped to the wall, pressed himself against it, and waited breathlessly for the sound of a door opening. It didn’t come.
Holding the loose end, Tanner tossed a ball of twine up to Cahil, then tied on their “shot,” a five-pound softball-sized stone. Cahil reeled it in, tucked into the eaves trough, then dropped the twine again and waited for Tanner to tie on the Bearabomb, which he retrieved. He turned his attention to removing the chimney screen; after a few seconds’ work it came free. He gave Tanner another thumbs-up.
Tanner checked his watch, then signaled, Give me two minutes, and got a nod in return.
He crept to the tree line and followed it around to the rear of the cabin. Now he could feel the churn of adrenaline in his belly, the rush of it in his arms and legs. The air dried the sweat on his face; he shivered. Inexplicably, he suddenly found himself thinking of Susanna.
She’s fine, he told himself. She’d made it this far on her own First, Amelia Root, then Susanna. Once done here, he and Bear would return to Trieste, collect Susanna, and unravel Litzman’s role in all this.
He reached the far side of the cabin, crouched down to watch and listen for a count of thirty, then ran, hunched over, to the porch, where he dropped to his belly in the bushes. He peeked up one last time to check his firing line, then settled down and counted off the final seconds.
From the opposite side of the cabin there came a crashing of tree limbs, followed by a dull thud and the crunch of leaves as Cahil’s stone rolled down the hillside. It clacked against another stone, echoing, then rolled to a stop. Silence — then, from inside the cabin, Briggs heard a rapid beeping. Good shot, Bear. He’d dropped the stone on the wires.
Tanner peeked up. The cabin windows had gone dark. A muffled voice rasped, “Sto je... ?” Boots scuffed on the floor. The curtains on either side of the door parted briefly, then fell back into place.
Thirty seconds passed. One minute.
Suddenly the cabin door creaked open a few inches, then a few more. A lone figure stepped onto the porch. The door eased shut behind him, followed by a soft click as the lock was thrown. Smart boys, Briggs thought.
The guard raised his rifle across his chest, crept down the steps, and turned toward the hillside. He lifted the rifle — an SL8 as Grebo had promised — to his shoulder and pressed his eye to what Tanner realized was a night-vision scope. The guard began tracking the scope over the trees.
He stopped and raised a portable radio to his lips. “Nista stiglo.” Nothing yet.
That’s right, Briggs thought, nothing to see.
Rifle held at the ready-low, the guard started walking toward the hillside, until he disappeared from Tanner’s view. Briggs listened to the crunch of his footfalls, and in his mind’s eye he watched the man walking the tree line, stopping occasionally to peer through the nightscope, walking on …
It would go one of two ways now, Tanner knew. The guard would either make a complete circuit of the cabin — in which case Tanner would have to take him early then crash the door — or the guard would satisfy himself with a search of the hillside and return the way he came.