Drake Sisters 06 - Turbulent Sea

out to slam his foot into the ankle, shattering bone and knocking him to the ground.
    'Hell, Ilya, you didn't give me a chance to help out.' Eddie picked up the gun the taller one had dropped. He walked to where he was still rolling on the ground moaning. He put the gun to his attacker's head and pulled the trigger.
    'How many?' Ilya asked.
    'I didn't get a chance to count, but it looked like a fuckin' army to me,' Eddie answered and shot the second and third man. 'They went around to the back, but they're wiping everyone out where they find them.'
    Ilya ignored the statement, already moving across the lawn to the house. He put his hand on the doorknob and turned slowly. The door was unlocked, which meant the assassination team was already inside. He listened in an effort to get a sense of where everyone was and what was happening. There was a brief murmur of voices. Footsteps. The gun Eddie had picked up had a silencer, so the team was probably similarly equipped. They didn't want a visit from the local police. Neither did he. He bent to pull a knife from his boot, indicated the need for silence from Eddie, and slipped inside.
    The living room was empty. The television set remained on, playing the local news channel. Beside the couch, on the small end table, a cut crystal glass sat half-filled. A second glass was on the coffee table, beside several magazines.
    Nikitin hadn't been alone when the intruders broke in. The secret silent alarm Ilya always set up for Nikitin would have gone off, giving the Russian time to make it to the safe room they always meticulously set up when they occupied a house, whether it was for one night or ten.
    With his gloved hand, Ilya lifted the glass and took a small sniff. Cognac. The good stuff. He shook his head as he replaced the glass. Nikitin only drank cognac with one person. Brian Rigger, lead guitarist for Joley's band. She would be so upset if Brian didn't make it out alive. Damn his stupidity. He'd been warned to stay away. There was a part of Ilya that understood. Brian, and Nikitin for that matter, had been every bit as lonely as Ilya had been, and he hadn't been able to stay away from Joley, even though it put both of them in jeopardy. But having Brian there was an unexpected complication.
    He did his best to protect Brian, hastily wiping prints from both glasses and any surface he could find that it seemed likely Brian had touched. It was the best he could do when time was short and the enemy was too close.
    Ilya began a cautious tread down the hall. Overhead, he could hear footsteps as the assassination squad searched the rooms above him. Eddie caught his sleeve and indicated up the stairs. Ilya shook his head. No one else was ever privy to Ilya's plan to extract Nikitin should there be trouble. If there was a traitor, there would be no chance that he would know where Nikitin would be.
    In the first bedroom, a man lay faceup, blood soaking into the carpet from his slit throat, eyes open and staring at the ceiling. Ilya cleared the room, found no target and went to the next one. It was the pool room. Four of Nikitin's soldiers lay dead. One was draped over the pool table with a gun in his hand and the back of his head gone. A second was at the sliding glass door, as if he'd run, a gun inches from his hand where he'd fallen. The third man had been shot first, dead center and never saw it coming. He was slumped just inside the door, a glass of wine soaking the carpet along with his blood. Overturned furniture showed that the fourth man had managed to put up a struggle. He'd been shot several times and lay a few feet to the side of the pool table.
    They'd been surprised, which meant either they hadn't noticed the strobe going off - which was difficult for Ilya to believe - or someone inside was a traitor - and that was more likely. 'You have any idea how many soldiers we had here tonight, Eddie?' Hopefully Nikitin had noticed his personal alarm and done exactly as Ilya had instructed - gone without speaking to anyone and hidden. That had probably saved his life. Had the traitor known where -he was, certainly he would have given the information to the hit team.
    'Hell, Ilya.' Eddie wiped his mouth with his sleeve, shaking a little after seeing his friends dead. 'Pavel Demidov was here, too, along with Ivan and Klaus.'
    Continuing down the hall, Ilya peered quickly into the kitchen. Ivan and Klaus lay on the floor in pools of blood, with two men standing over them. One was a