Spartan Gold

Sam and Remi waited, watching. Silence. Nothing moved.

Remi whispered, “Where are they—”

A flash-bang thunked into the wall beside the door and landed at their feet. Sam kicked it away with his heel and slammed the door shut. From the other side came a bang; white light flashed through the cracks.

Sam opened the door an inch and was this time greeted by the sound of pounding footsteps and the sight of flashlights jostling their way toward them across the conservatory.

“Mind if I borrow that?” Sam asked and took Remi’s MP5. “When I start shooting, you head right. Take out a window and go for the patio.”

“And you?”

“I’m going to bring down the house. Go!”

Sam pushed the door open, angled both MP5s at the ceiling, and opened fire. Hunched over, Remi charged toward the patio, the barrel of her Glock flashing orange and bucking in her hand.

Knowing the glass itself was probably reinforced, Sam aimed for the support joints near the peak. With a reverberating, elongated cracking sound, the joints gave way. The first plate of glass collapsed inward and tumbled downward, followed by another, then another, crashing through the palm trees and cleaving trellis walls as they went. Voices started shouting in Russian, but almost immediately changed to screams as the first pane struck the floor. Shards of glass shot across the conservatory like shrapnel, ripping through foliage and peppering the walls.

Sam, already moving, saw all this out of the corner of his eye. Remi’s shots had struck true, shattering one of the wall panes. She was already crouched on the patio, waving for him to hurry. He felt a pluck at his sleeve, then a trio of stings on his face. He put his head down and his arms up, kept ru

“You’re bleeding,” Remi said.

“Maybe I’ll end up with a dueling scar. Come on!”

He handed her back one MP5, then turned and ran for the hedges. Arms held before him like a wedge, he bulldozed through the tangle of branches into open air, then reached back in and pulled Remi through. On the other side of the hedge they could hear the shattering of glass every few seconds as the remainder of the conservatory roof continued to collapse. Voices, some in English and some in Russian, called to one another. Similarly, from the main house and what Sam and Remi guessed was the party area, came a cacophony of voices from Bondaruk’s guests.

Sam and Remi crouched down in the grass to catch their breath and get their bearings. To their right, fifty yards away, was the estate’s cliff-side wall; behind them lay the west wing, the main part of the mansion, and the east wings; directly ahead, a hundred feet away, stood a line of closely set pine trees fronted by barberry bushes.

Sam checked his watch: four A.M. A few hours before dawn.

“Let’s steal one of the cars,” Remi said, taking off her shoes, snapping off their high heels, then settling them back on her feet. “We drive like hell for Sevastopol and find someplace with lots of people. Bondaruk wouldn’t dare do anything in public.”

“Don’t count on it. Besides, that’s too obvious. By now they’ve got the perimeter locked down. Don’t forget: The only way he’ll know it’s us is from the camera footage or by putting our pictures in front of the guy back in the lab. Right now all he knows is all hell is breaking loose. Better we maintain that mystery.”

“How?”

“Retrace our steps. The last place they’ll check is the way we came in.”

“Back through the tu

Sam shrugged. “I hadn’t gotten to that part yet. Still, I think it’s our best chance.”

Remi gave it five seconds of thought, then said, “Smuggler’s tu

“You find me a tank, Remi Fargo, and I’ll never drive over the speed limit again.”

“Promises, promises.”

Of all the unknowns about Bondaruk’s estate, two were of the greatest concern to Sam and Remi: One, did Bondaruk have guard dogs? Two, how many gunmen did he have, either on the property or in reserve, ready to come when called? Though they didn’t know the answer to either of these questions, they decided to assume the worst and get out while confusion still reigned and before their host had a chance to muster whatever hounds—human or canine—he had at his disposal.

Hunched over, they sprinted in bursts to the end of the hedges, paused to make sure the way was clear, then dashed across an open patch of lawn to the line of barberry bushes. Sam took off his tuxedo jacket and gave it to Remi, then dropped to his belly and wriggled through the thorny branches and onto the narrow strip of grass before the pine grove. Remi joined him a few moments later and started to take off his jacket.

“Keep it,” he said. “Temperature’s dropping.”

She smiled. “Always the gentleman—Sam, your arms.”

He looked down. The barberry thorns had shredded his shirt-sleeves; the white material was streaked and dotted with blood. “Looks worse than it is, but this shirt is going to get us caught.”

They crawled a few feet into the pine trees. Sam dug into the earth, grabbed a handful of dirt, and began rubbing it over his shirtfront, sleeves, and face. Remi did his back, then her own arms and face. Sam couldn’t help but smile. “Looks like we’ve been to the cocktail party from hell.”

“Not far off. Look . . . there.”

A hundred yards east across the lawn they saw a trio of flashlights appear around the corner of the house and begin moving along the wall toward them.

“Hear any dogs?” Sam asked.

“No.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way. Come on.”

They moved deeper into the trees, ducking under and sidestepping low-hanging branches until they came across a narrow, north-south game trail. They took it, heading north toward the stables. The pine grove was untouched old-growth, a hundred or more years old, which was both a curse and a blessing: While the intertwined boughs frequently forced them to crawl and crab-walk, it also provided perfect cover. Several times as they stopped to catch their breath they watched as guards moved along the other side of the tree line not thirty feet away, but so dense was the foliage that their flashlight beams penetrated only a few feet.

“Eventually they’ll send someone in,” Sam whispered, “but with luck we’ll be long gone before that.”

“How far to the stables?”

“On a straight line, a quarter mile, but this grove zigzags, so it’s probably double that. Ready?”

“Whenever you are.”

For the next twenty minutes they picked their way along the game trail, pausing every dozen paces to look and listen. Frequently they saw flashlights or shadowed figures moving around the estate grounds, sometimes hundreds of yards away, sometimes so close that Sam and Remi had to lie flat, not daring to breathe or move as the guards sca

Finally the grove began to thin around them and soon the game trail opened into a clearing of grass across which they could see the south wall of the stables. Sam wriggled ahead, did a quick reco

“Bondaruk’s probably got them inside, lined up for interrogation,” Remi muttered.

“Wouldn’t be surprised. I didn’t see any posted guards—except for one, and as bad luck would have it he’s standing at the corner of the stables right beside the entrance.”

“Any chance of taking him out?”

“Not unless I can levitate. His head’s on a swivel. I wouldn’t get halfway across the clearing before he heard me. I do, however, have an idea.” He explained.

“How far?” she asked.