Lady Death by Brian Drake (good e books to read .TXT) 📕

left and stopped at the wall. “Clear.” Misty and Hayden finished their climb.

The walkway ahead wasn’t lit. Glare from the still-on outside lamps filtered through the glass. One of the Black Hawks roared over the top. The gunfire outside didn’t let up.

“On me,” Raven said again. He moved forward at a quick pace, stepped onto the carpeted walkway. Another large arch waited at the end. A second step—

Overhead fluorescent lights snapped on. Raven shouted, “Get back!” and hit the floor. Automatic weapons fire ripped through the glass. Panes shattered; glass dropped. Raven twisted around and crawled over the shards back where he started. He wiped blood from his left hand onto his pants. Misty and Hayden were already flat on the landing.

“See them?” Hayden said.

“Third floor balcony.”

Tiger Joe lived up to his name in that moment. He jumped up. “Cover me, Sam! Misty, shoot the lights!”

Hayden ran for the first doorway off the landing, the one to the wrap-around balcony. Raven joined him as he squatted behind the iron rail. Raven had a clear view of the third-floor balcony where several gunners fired at the CIA ground force. Staying a foot back from the doorway, he opened fire with short three-round bursts.

Hayden kept his MK 556 on single shot and chose targets carefully. He fired with precision. Raven kept the shooters hopping between them and the ground force. Unaimed return fire peppered the tower with ferocity, tearing chunks out of the brick. Hayden’s rounds knocked the gunners down, one after another, like bowling pins. A heavy machine gun salvo from one of the Black Hawks finished them off. The big steel slugs ripped into the balcony, shearing it from the house. Chunks of concrete and broken bodies crashed to the courtyard.

Raven and Tiger Joe ran back to the walkway. Misty had shot out the overhead light and remained on the landing to cover them.

Over the com units jammed in their ears, the commander of the CIA ground team gave an update. The falling balcony took the fight out of the defenders at the front of the house. The two teams were splitting up to enter. Raven radioed back they were approaching the second floor.

Raven, Misty and Hayden reached the entryway on at the end of the walkway. Raven told his companions to spread out. The gunfire outside had lessened but sporadic shots crackled on the first floor.

Raven studied the room they entered. It looked like a large sitting/group dining area with furniture and tables throughout. Art on the walls. Raven hoped they weren’t about to shoot up rare paintings.

Raven, Misty, and Hayden traveled the length of the long room but found no targets. Another wide doorway led to a hall overlooking the main entrance to the ground floor. Raven shifted left and right. Behind him, the hall continued with a line of bedrooms. Ahead, staircase to the third floor.

The three checked the bedrooms, easing open each door for a quick look inside. No hidden threats. No shooters under the beds or in the closet.

“First floor clear,” reported the CIA team commander. The gunfire had stopped, but Raven hadn’t noticed.

“Second floor clear,” Raven radioed in return. “Any further casualties?”

“Two wounded.”

“Copy.”

“I’m sending two men up to you.”

“We’re expecting them.”

Raven, Misty and Hayden went back to the open section of the hallway. Raven looked at the staircase to the third floor.

“What?”

“If Horn hasn’t escaped and isn’t upstairs, where did he go?”

Hayden said, “None of the choppers reported an escape. They were supposed to take out the garage to keep him from getting away.”

“Yeah,” Raven said. “So, where is he hiding?”

The night had been going so well!

Dante Horn almost had perky Caroline out of her pink tank top thanks to a game of “strip darts” in his den.

Each had won a game and lost a game, so they were both sans pants. It was hard to focus on the target with Caroline standing in her tank top and white strawberry-dotted panties.

She stood with her hands behind her back, smiling coyly as he raised a dart. She thrust out her ample rack to further distract him. No. Uplifted round tits would not distract him. He had to score higher than her and get her out of those strawberry bottoms. He threw the dart and the projectile sailed across the open space to the dart board. Smack. An eight.

“Not enough!” Caroline said. She laughed and jumped and clapped. “Take something off!”

They weren’t playing by any standard game of darts rules. They were both too drunk to follow the 501 rules and subtract to zero. Easier to base points on where darts landed. Three darts each round, and whoever came up short shed something.

Horn grinned sheepishly as he took off his shirt and draped it over the back of a leather chair. His slacks were already there. He knew of faster ways to get a 25-year-old doe-eyed DTF hottie naked and on her back, but the game made it more fun.

Getting Caroline out of the pub had been easy. The driver and bodyguards made her frown, but she stayed cool. The detached garage with his exotic car collection made her squeal with delight, but then she noticed the armed security force.

“I think I should go home,” she said. “You’re a drug dealer or something, right?”

Horn laughed and went into sales mode. Overcome the objection and get the sale.

“Nothing of the sort,” he told her. “I do work for the American government.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Dangerous and secret, know what I mean?”

She arched an eyebrow. “You’re like Jack Bauer or something?”

Another laugh. “Kind of. These men are here for my protection. This is the safest house in Antwerp.”

“Well,” she said, her pitch increasing the way young women often spoke, “okay, I guess.”

He took her up to the third floor and his game den. It was a cozy room with dark carpeting and walls, various pieces of colorful abstract art, game tables, a sitting area of leather furniture, and a glass-enclosed floor-to-ceiling cigar humidor.

Sans shirt, Dante Horn plucked his