gave a low growl. The rumble barely penetrated Mackenzie’s whirling senses but Nick lifted his head and glanced over her shoulder. The next instant, he threw the dish towel aside and wrapped his right fist around her upper arm like a vise.
“Hey!”
“Get down!”
With a violent tug, he yanked her off the bar stool and threw her behind the counter. He followed her down. They hit the tiles a mere second before the wall of windows overlooking the garden exploded in a burst of glass and gunfire.
Bullets ripped into walls, cabinets, appliances. Raked the table, shattering dishes. Slammed into the stove. Sent boiling white sauce spraying.
Crushed against the floor tile by Nick’s weight, Mackenzie couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. The stuttering gunfire seemed to go on for two lifetimes. Burst after burst. Deafening. Terrifying.
Suddenly, there was silence. Blessed silence. For a heartbeat, maybe two. Then glass crunched and she heard the thud of running feet.
Nick rolled off her, sprang up. Mackenzie scrabbled onto her knees, trying frantically to get her feet under her. She lifted her head just in time to see Nick’s arm whip forward. A long-bladed kitchen knife flew across the room.
She heard an agonized scream. Another burst of gunfire. A feral snarl. Fangs bared, Radizwell streaked past her.
“Arrrgh!”
Bullets plowed into the ceiling, traced a wild pattern across plaster. Huge chunks rained down.
Nick leaped over the counter. Mackenzie raced around it a second later, horrified by the sight of Radizwell savaging a screaming, writhing figure dressed all in black. She was even more horrified when she saw the bastard still gripped his Uzi with one hand. He kept firing wild bursts while he tried desperately to fight off the dog with his other arm.
All Mackenzie could think of, all that pierced her frantic thoughts, was that the girls were asleep upstairs. Right above them. The stream of bullets could penetrate the flooring, plow through their mattresses.
Nick must have had the same gripping fear. His foot swung in a savage arc. The Uzi went flying. Only then did he attempt to drag Radizwell off the screaming victim. He got a fist around the dog’s collar and heaved.
Radizwell reared back, but was only gathering his muscles for another attack. Fangs bared, claws scrabbling on the tiles, he lunged forward once more. His size and fury carried Nick with him. The man on the floor frantically crabbed backward, kicking at Nick, at the dog, managing to get free of both. His hand went to his underarm holster.
Mackenzie didn’t stop to think, didn’t calculate the odds. She dived for the Uzi, got her hands around the grip at the same instant the bastard in black leveled a .9mm Beretta.
He pumped out one shot, only one, before she fired.
Chapter 3
The D.C. fire department, the police department’s crime scene unit, several detectives and a squad from the coroner’s office were already at the house when Maggie and Adam rushed in. Face ashen, Maggie took in the black plastic body bags on the kitchen floor. Her eyes were haunted as they locked on Nick.
“Samantha? Jilly? You said on the phone…” Her voice cracked, broke. “They’re okay?”
“They’re fine.”
Nick’s shoes crunched on broken glass as he crossed the kitchen and gripped both her hands in his.
“They were in bed, asleep. Jilly didn’t wake up until she heard the sirens. Samantha stayed down for the entire count.”
“A police officer is upstairs with them now,” Mackenzie put in. “We figured we’d better have someone keep them company until, well…”
She glanced at Adam. His jaw was set, his blue eyes arctic. He didn’t exude the charm of a handsome, wealthy Boston aristocrat now. He was Thunder, once OMEGA’s most skilled, dangerous agent.
“Until we figure out who was behind the attack,” Adam finished in a voice so soft and lethal it sent shivers down Mackenzie’s spine.
The idea that her children might need guarding in their own home drained the little color remaining in Maggie’s cheeks.
“I have to see them,” she got out. “Make sure they’re okay.”
Adam went upstairs with her. When they came back downstairs a short time later, Maggie’s face reflected the same savage determination as her husband’s.
“What have we got so far?”
“Two corpses,” Nick replied succinctly. “No identification on either. A near arsenal of weapons, all of which appear to have been stolen. A very sophisticated, very expensive electronic security bypass device. If Radizwell hadn’t heard them outside in the garden and given us a half-second warning…”
At the sound of his name, the sheepdog’s tail thumped the floor. Adam reached down to scratch behind his ear.
“You’ve just earned yourself a year’s worth of T-bones, pal. And free run of the house for the rest of your life.”
“Jilly will be happy to hear that,” Mackenzie said with her first smile since the bullets had started flying. Only now was the knot at the base of her skull beginning to loosen.
It kinked up again when the squad from the coroner’s office lifted the two corpses onto gurneys and wheeled them out. The carving knife that had gone through the throat of one of the gunmen tented his plastic body bag at neck level.
Adam’s glance sliced to Nick. “Your handiwork?”
“Yes. Mackenzie got the second bastard.”
“Good work, Mac.”
She accepted quiet words of praise with a small nod. She wasn’t one of OMEGA’s highly skilled field operatives, but she’d gone through enough training to hold her own in a tight situation. Hopefully, she’d never find herself in one this tight again!
“Mr. Ridgeway? Dr. Sinclair?”
Maggie and Adam turned to the two detectives, who introduced themselves and produced their credentials. The older and the paunchier of the two addressed Adam.
“I understand you were supposed to receive an award tonight.”
“That’s correct.”
“Was the award publicized?”
“There was mention of it in most of the papers.”
“And on local TV stations,” Maggie added.
The younger detective jotted the information down in his notebook.
“Are you assuming the gunmen knew my wife and I weren’t home?” Adam asked, eyes narrowed.
“We’re not assuming anything right now. Just getting the facts.”
Adam
