I kept low as I made my way to the back door. I felt a flash of hesitation as I reached for the handle; if it was locked, I needed to break it down and breach in seconds. Based on where I’d seen him go after he grabbed the vodka, the moment I was through the door I would have a clear shot at him in the corner of the next room. All I had to do was crash through the door with my left shoulder, aim right, and start pulling the trigger. I didn’t have any flashbangs, but I doubted they would have helped with Parks anyway; he’d been the one that taught me how to acclimate to them and he’d be ready and moving the minute he saw one come through the door.
No, my best bet was to come in firing, aim fast, shoot fast, and pump him so full of lead that he was unresponsive when I came to deliver the coup de grace. He had to be just sitting in an easy chair in the corner of the room; I could almost sense it based on where I’d seen him go. It’s not like he knew I was coming, after all—this was coming as an absolute surprise. I reached for the door handle with my left hand and felt my palms sweat as I grabbed the Walther out of my coat with the right. I held it up, hefted it, the weight in my hand almost insignificant. I took a deep breath and inhaled the scent of the mud, the gun oil, my own sweat. I would have preferred something bigger, with more rounds in the magazine, but I had what Kurt gave me and that was it.
At least I had plenty of bullets. I would probably need them before this was all over.
I heard a slight squeak as I touched the handle. It was unlocked, I realized as I rolled it halfway down. It made an almost imperceptible noise, and I hoped that the TV was blocking it. I hit the door hard with my shoulder and it burst open as I threw myself in, my gun already aiming through the passage from the kitchen to the living room where I’d seen him last. Time seemed to slow down as I burst into the world of the farmhouse, with its old white plaster walls. Ahead of me, at the end of the house was an empty chair, and all around it were small monitors lit with white.
Security monitors covering every angle around the house and exterior, I realized in a breathtaking moment of kicking myself. The chair was empty, the old, ragged red thing abandoned, its master nowhere in sight.
I heard the subtle sound of a safety coming off a weapon just behind my left ear, and then a barrel prodded me in the back of the head—only once, and then he backed out of my reach. “Put it on the ground and slide it away, slow. Just like I taught you—consider it a test.” His voice dragged, only slurring a little—not nearly drunk enough for me to beat him on the draw. “You’ve got til the count of three, and then I’m gonna pepper my wall with your brains. And you know—you know—unlike you, I’ll actually do it.”
5.
I ground my teeth as I lay my pistol down exactly as he had said and slid it across the room.
“Got a backup?” he asked, leaning against the kitchen wall a good ten feet from me. Not close enough for me to get to him before he cut me in half with a shotgun blast. I kept my head turned away from him, still looking at the red easy chair I had sworn he would be in. I should have known better. Should have suspected something. Parks was paranoid. I should have assumed he’d have claymore mines wired on every door and window, video security hidden all around the perimeter, motion sensors and every trick I could imagine (and a few I couldn’t) to keep his personal security inviolate.
I cursed myself; I had let the ragged farmhouse and my desire to get this over with sway some of the operational instincts he had burned into me like a brand on my skin. “No backup,” I said. “I wouldn’t be carrying a Walther as my primary if I’d had something higher caliber.”
“This is what happens when you lay an operation on too quick and you’ve got too much personal stake in the outcome,” he said, lecturing me, still slurring only a little. “You got hasty, impatient. Should have done more scouting. If you’d been on your game and cased the place in the daylight, you would have seen the places where I hid the video surveillance and the motion sensors.” He sniffed. “I saw you before you even got out of your car, before you started crawling across the muddy ground. I thought I’d given you situational awareness that could beat what you’d find in professional soldiers.” His face fell only a little. “I thought I taught you better than that.”
“Did you?” I asked, keeping my hands up in the air, not looking at him. “I don’t remember.”