“There’s drawers with wires and weird machines,” Roland continued, giving his account like he would after having pulled recon on a high-priority high-tech target he needed an Acme to decipher for him.
“Dishwashers, warming ovens, trash compactors, and stuff like that,” Moms said as she started helping the others as Nada stood on top of the stairs leading into the mudroom, taking over-watch just in case they got attacked by a weed whacker. “Might be a good place to stash some weapons. Just don’t push any buttons,” Moms warned.
“I didn’t see any buttons,” Roland said.
“Just stay away from them then,” Moms said. The last thing they needed was for their weapons to get a rinse and hold.
They trooped inside carrying a bunch of gear they might need sooner rather than later. Mac went off to check the security system and Roland went back upstairs to pull over-watch with Kirk. A few minutes later they heard a crash of something and Roland cursing. He came over the net.
“There’s a room full of just dolls and clowns and dollhouses and stuff like that. It’s freaking me out.”
Moms and Nada exchanged a glance. Roland never got freaked out on a mission. But this was different. The house represented something so foreign to her team that she could see dismissal was turning to intimidation, and that wasn’t too far from uneasiness. And, ultimately, fear, although she couldn’t see anyone on this team going there. But then again, Burns had lost it in the Fun Outside Tucson because of a cactus. Everyone had something buried deep from some childhood trauma that could get to them, a reality Moms knew very well. For Roland, apparently it was dolls and clowns.
Moms spoke over the net. “It’s just a house. A very big house full of lots of stuff. Most of it is for looks. Like the baby grand near the front door.”
It was on big brass wheels and Nada immediately turned it from decoration to usefulness by rolling it over to the large front double doors and shoving it against them, then locking the wheels.
Moms nodded approvingly. “See? Nada blocked the front door with the piano. We use what we need for our mission. Improvise, people. It’s what we’re good at.”
“What’s the point of having stuff just to look at?” Roland wondered from upstairs, staring at who knows what. Moms knew he could see the point of looking at naked women dancing on some tables: that made sense. A piano? Vases as tall as the cactus from Tucson? Clowns and dollhouses? No.
“Mac?”
“Yo.”
“The house security system. Bypass the code so we can run it.”
“Already working on it.”
“And then set up your own cameras to give us a three-sixty view and put the displays in the room overlooking the front yard. That will be over-watch central. And then tie in to the Senators Club system so you can see everything their cameras see.”
“Roger.”
“Kirk?”
“Yes?”
“Hook your satellite retransmitter to the dish on the roof. I saw one when we STABO’d off. I want to ensure our com-link is secure. Then steal into Senators Club wireless so Mac can bootleg their video and all other commo. And I want us to monitor that even after Support takes over.”
“Roger.”
Nada tapped her on the arm. “It’ll be dawn in a bit. I’m going to do a perimeter search inside the Wall. Make sure we didn’t trap anything inside that’s trying to get out.”
Moms nodded, but pointed at his MP-5 and his MK-23. “Suppressors.” She hit the net. “Everyone, go suppressed.”
With a sigh, Nada quickly screwed on the bulky suppressors for both weapons. His sigh was because the suppressors required special rounds, which were less effective than normal bullets. He pulled the magazines in both guns, ejected the rounds in the chambers, then removed magazines marked with a piece of red tape from the specific ammo pouch on his combat vest where everyone on the team carried their subsonic ammunition.
The bulky tubes were not silencers. Anyone who was anyone who used weapons knew silencers only existed in movies. A gun makes a lot of noise in a lot of different ways. The moving parts make noise. The gunpowder going off and blowing out the end of the barrel makes a rather large noise. The crack of a round going through the sound barrier makes a supersonic crack. The best one could do was keep the gun well lubed to reduce the first noise; have a suppressor on the end of barrel to eat up the expanded gases from the gunpowder explosion to reduce that sound to a minimum; and prepare special bullets that were subsonic to avoid the last.
Ready, Nada slipped out the back door and was startled as the floodlights above his head automatically came on. Motion detector. Cursing, Nada went back in the house and turned off all the switches next to the door. He exited and this time, no lights.
There was a pool, almost big enough to take in the Snake. There were enough permanent security lights all over the place that his night-vision goggles weren’t needed.
Nada moved around the pool to the back fence. There were woods behind the house, so at least they had a way to move in and out. The neighbors on either side were about fifty meters away in their own hulking McMansions.
He looked for dead zones, places where they could operate unobserved. There was a pool house — he guessed that’s what it was called, because it was on the other side of the pool. It had a bar with the biggest built-in grill that Nada had ever seen. It was outside the range of the Wall around the home. He went over to it, opened the metal grate door, and looked around inside. There were steel shutters that could be cranked down. He pondered what their purpose was for a moment: hurricane protection? It was too far inland for a hurricane. Then he realized it was to secure the grill and the other stuff inside. He looked about and spotted a switch. Flipping it, the shutters slid down with a rattle, leaving only the door as an access — or egress — point.
This could be useful.
Nada left the pool house. As he stealthily made a circuit of the perimeter of the Winslow mansion, he noticed something doing a perimeter of its own. A small dog was shadowing him, about ten meters away, just outside the range of the Wall. It was a dog that obviously absorbed lots of bathing and trimming.
Nada went around the front of the house, then pressed his back against the wall, drawing his machete.
He waited, something he was very good at.
But the dog wasn’t coming.
Smart dog, Nada thought. Too smart.
He risked peeking around the edge. The dog was motionless, waiting for him outside the Wall.
“I got a possible,” Nada whispered on the team net. “Small dog, east side of house.”
“Roland,” Moms’s voice came over the radio. “Back up Nada.”
The dog was staring at Nada with unblinking eyes and he was shifting his evaluation from possible to probable. Of course, he’d met some crazy dogs.
He heard a door open and a light went on down the street. A woman called out in a half whisper, half yelclass="underline" “Skippy! Skippy!”
Nada checked out the dog. It was focused on him.
“Skippy!” The woman’s voice was an octave higher. “Treat! Treat!”
“I’ve got the dog in sight,” Roland reported.
“Roland. See the pool house?” Nada asked.
“The what?”
“The thing on the other side of the pool with the steel shutters that are closed.”
“Roger. Understand.” Roland might not know pool houses and he might be nervous around dolls, but he was quick with tactics.
Nada extended the stock of the MP-5, then tucked it tight into his firing shoulder. He stepped around the corner of the house, pulling the trigger fast, semiautomatic. The suppressor made low chugging sounds as rounds left the barrel. The clicking sound of the gun’s mechanisms was like music to Nada’s ears.
Every round hit the dog, knocking it back.
It did not die.