“Mi tio,” she stammered. Her uncle. She pointed, knowing that gestures were easier to understand.
McCarter held his hand out, palm down. “Abajo.”
She nodded. She would stay down, and wisely crawled behind a sofa. The Phoenix Force leader turned and moved deeper into the house. Chances were, there were at least one or two more killers in the building. He dumped his depleted magazine and fed in a fresh one.
McCarter reached the bottom of the stairs, then ducked back as the floor erupted. A hail of gunfire chopped the floorboards to splinters and would have sliced him off below the knees. Crippled and mutilated, he would have been easy pickings for the assassins.
“Hurry up!” a voice shouted. McCarter spotted an apple resting in a bowl by the stairs. He reached for it, pulled the stem out and spit it. Then he hurled the phony grenade up the stairs. “Shit!”
The gunman lurched into view, flushed from the top of the stairs and into the Phoenix Force commando’s line of fire. McCarter ripped off a short burst that smashed the gunman’s arm to a useless pulp. He swiveled the muzzle and ripped the assassin across the knees. He was going to need answers, and since these guys spoke better English, he picked the one on the steps. The gunman and his weapon slid down the stairs. McCarter rushed to the fallen killer and punched a short burst at the man’s outstretched wrist. The black-clad hardman had nearly reached his weapon when the 6.5 mm Bofors rounds completely severed the limb.
“Stay put, mate,” McCarter said as he kicked the submachine gun farther down the hall as a precaution. “I want to chat with you in a bit.”
He charged up the stairs and saw the last of the armored assassins surge into the hallway. McCarter dropped to the floor instantly, a scythe of burning lead tearing the air where he’d stood moments before. He blasted the black-clad killer across the shins. The high-powered CBJ rounds splintered bone and pulped flesh in their passage, and dumped the murderer to the floor. McCarter rose to go after him, but dropped back down as the hit man wouldn’t give up. A Bofors bullet grazed the Phoenix Force leader’s shoulder after it punched through the top step.
“Bloody bastards don’t know when to quit.” He popped up and swept the floor with the submachine gun, turning the landing that the gunman laid upon into a mass of splinters, shredded armor and gore. The Bofors locked open, empty, and instinctively he reloaded the last magazine into the weapon. He wasn’t going to be caught off guard.
McCarter approached the last corpse. Bare skull poked through the shattered helmet.
He entered the room that the assassin had just left, then froze. A bloodied sheet covered an immobile lump in the middle of the bed. McCarter shook his head. He’d been too late for the victim. He stepped over to the body and turned on the lamp to look at the man. His features were familiar, but the Briton couldn’t quite place them. He frowned and heard the sirens of police cars outside.
The Phoenix Force leader stepped back outside and looked down the stairs. The gunman who’d been deprived of his limbs convulsed, shrieking in pain. McCarter went to the base of the stairs, stripped his machine pistol of its magazine and popped the round out of the chamber. He dropped the empty weapon and laced his fingers behind his head, elbows up.
Two armed policemen burst through the door, the muzzles of their Glock 17 pistols leveled at him.
“There’s a dead one in the sitting room, one at the top of the stairs, and they murdered the owner of this home,” he offered. “My name is David King. I’m former SAS…”
He turned to let them see that he was unarmed. One officer rushed over to frisk him.
“You’ve got empty holsters on your hip and ankle,” the policeman said.
“I lost my Browning in the street, and my companion has an empty revolver,” McCarter replied. “I gave it to her to protect herself.”
The policeman fished out his wallet. “You have permits for the handguns, and to carry them concealed. You must be pretty important.”
“I’m supposed to be armed. There’s an unarmed woman in the sitting room. She speaks Spanish, and she’s very frightened. She’s the niece of the home owner,” McCarter explained.
“Does she speak English?” the other officer asked.
“No. I tried,” McCarter replied.
“Do you speak Spanish?” the officer who frisked him asked.
McCarter nodded. “Not fluently, but I can get by when I’m not under pressure.”
“Could you help, then, sir?” the policeman asked. “You can lower your hands now.”
McCarter relaxed. “Sure. No problem. Bring my friend in?”
The policeman nodded and spoke into his radio. It was going to be a long night, and McCarter didn’t want Pat stuck out in the cold dampness alone.
MCCARTER SCREWED HIS KNUCKLE against his eye socket, fighting off the need for sleep. The sun burned in the window, shining on him like God’s flashlight. He glanced toward the sofa where Pat slept fitfully, curled tight with her shoulders drawn against a chill that was deeper than her bones.
“Thank you for your patience, Mr. King,” Inspector Byers said. “You’ll be in the London area for a while?”
McCarter nodded.
Stony Man Farm had enough pull with the British government to arrange for the Phoenix Force leader to leave the city should he be called away on an emergency mission.
“All right,” Byers said, reluctance coloring his words. “You’re free to go. Just keep in touch.”
McCarter shook the detective’s hand. “Much obliged, mate.”
He walked over to Pat and touched her shoulder. Her pale eyes flickered open immediately.
“What now?” she asked.
“I’m taking you home, love,” McCarter answered. He helped her to her feet and laced his arm with hers. Together they walked slowly to the front door and left the crime scene. A police car was out front, waiting to take them wherever they wished.
They remained quiet on the drive back to her flat. It wasn’t difficult to fake exhaustion. McCarter could feel the passage of blood cells through his cheeks like the rumble of underground trains. Pat leaned against his shoulder, a warm reassurance that she was all right. His empty holsters felt all wrong, though. The police had, understandably, confiscated the side arms for evidence in the shooting. Byers was thorough, and McCarter bit back his discomfort at being disarmed. Even his spare magazines and strip of .38-caliber cartridges to reload the Charter Arms had been taken away.
Hal Brognola would move heaven and earth to make sure those weapons were retrieved from the evidence locker and replaced with sanitized replicas. The originals bore too many of the Briton’s fingerprints and their serial numbers would be traced to David King, his cover persona. All records of the investigation would eventually be purged of any mention of the Phoenix Force commander, the levels of secrecy that Stony Man Farm operated under restored to protect their phantom war against those who thought themselves above the law.
McCarter’s mouth was pressed into a tight, brooding frown. Six trained commandos with high-powered weapons and bulletproof armor and helmets hadn’t been sent to eliminate any old man living in obscurity in London. The bastards he’d fought were too good.
It would have been easier if he hadn’t gotten involved, but McCarter hadn’t become one of the most experienced warriors in the world because he didn’t care. When people needed help, he acted, the consequences of doing the right thing be damned.
They left the squad car when it stopped at her apartment building, and McCarter saw Pat safely to her door. Minutes later he was in a taxicab and back in his room at a nearby hotel.
He went to his luggage, opened