The Kill Room

feet away, closer to the house. His mask was down too. A nod.
    Fifty feet from the house, then forty.
    Scanning the windows. But the attack team was to the side and couldn’t be seen from where Bartlett had assured him the occupants were sitting and standing.
    Thirty feet.
    Looking around the lawn, the houses.
    Nobody.
    Good, good.
    Twenty-five feet.
    He would—
    And then the hurricane hit.
    A massive downwash of breathtaking air slammed into him.
    What, what, what ?
    The NYPD chopper swept in fast, dropping, cantilevering to a stop over the front yard.
    Swann and Bartlett froze as the lithe aircraft spun broadside and two Emergency Service officers trained H&K automatic weapons on the men.
    The wood chipper. Oh, hell. The police had ordered it—to obscure the sound of the helicopter.
    Goddamn.
    A setup. They knew all along we were coming.

CHAPTER 88
    D ROP YOUR WEAPONS! Lie facedown. Or we will fire.”
    The voice was clattering from a speaker on the helicopter. Or maybe from somewhere on the ground. Hard to tell.
    Loud. And no nonsense. The commander meant what he was saying.
    Swann noticed that Bartlett complied at once, flinging his own H&K away, lifting his hands and practically falling to the ground. Jacob Swann looked past him and saw that the upstairs window of the house behind Boston’s was open and a sniper was aiming into the backyard. He would have the Shoe covered.
    The voice from on high: “You, on your feet. Drop your weapon and lie facedown! Do it now!”
    A debate.
    Swann looked at the house.
    He tossed his gun to the ground and got down on his belly, smelling the piquant scent of grass. It reminded him of Chartreuse, the strident liquor that he used in one of his few desserts—peaches in Chartreuse jelly, part of the tenth, and last, course on Titanic ’s first-class menu. As the helicopter lowered he gripped the key fob he’d been holding. He pressed the left button once and then the right for three seconds. And closed his eyes.
    The explosive in the backpack, which he’d hidden nearby, detonated with more force than he’d expected. It was a diversionary charge only—for eventualities like this, to draw an enemy’s attention, get them to turn away momentarily. But this charge, right at the edge of the trees, exploded in a massive fireball, pitching the helicopter sideways a foot or two. The craft wasn’t damaged and the pilot controlled it immediately but it had bobbled enough that the gunmen lost their targets.
    Jacob Swann was on his feet in an instant, leaping over the prone Bartlett and charging for the house, a smoke grenade in his hand. He flung the compact cylinder through the front window, shattered by the backpack bomb, and leapt through the frame after it.
    * * *
    INSIDE, SWANN SLAMMED into a coffee table, scattering candy bowls, statuettes and framed pictures, and he rolled onto the floor.
    The explosion had surprised Boston, Sachs and the other cop and when the smoke grenade bounced into the room they’d scrabbled away for cover, apparently expecting not covering haze but another bang.
    Hostages. That was all Swann could think of to buy some time, negotiate his way out. Boston, coughing fiercely, was the first to see him. The man made a halfhearted lunge for his attacker but Jacob Swann drove a fist into the man’s throat and doubled him over.
    “Amelia,” came a voice from somewhere on the other side of the spewing grenade. The young cop’s. “Where is he?”
    Swann then saw the woman detective, on her side, coughing and squinting as she gazed around her. A Glock was in her hand. Swann went for it—he hadn’t had time to collect his pistol outside. He recalled her limping and the occasional wince, recalled too her references to the health problems he’d learned about when he’d hacked her phone. He now saw a frown of pain cross her beautiful face as she tried to rise and draw a target on him. The delay was enough for him to leap forward, tackling her before she fired.
    “Amelia!” came the voice from the distance once more.
    As they grappled fiercely—she was stronger than she looked—she shouted, “Shut up, Ron! Don’t say anything more!”
    She was protecting him. When Jacob Swann got her gun he’d fire in the direction of the shouts.
    Slamming a fist into his ear, with surprising and painful force, she spat the chemical smoke residue from her mouth and pitched hard into him. Swann hit her in the side and tried to grip her throat but she shoved his arm