Free The Silenced by Brett Battles Page B

ran almost the entire length of the background, with plates of sandwiches sitting on top that looked untouched. Scattered around the room were fourteen people, nine men and five women, some sitting at the tables, some standing near the bar. All but one looked like they were between seventeen and twenty-two. The one who didn’t was a man who had to be at least forty. They were dressed comfortably for the time, button-down shirts and slacks for the men, blouses and skirts for the women. Several of the men and one of the women had glasses of beer in front of them, though none were drinking at the time the image was snapped. And though they had all been looking at the camera, not one of them had been smiling. “You’re in this photo, aren’t you?” she asked.
    Hesitation, then another nod.
    She pointed at one of the men near the bar. Young and smiling and completely average, his hand curved around a glass. “You, correct?”
    “So long ago.”
    “And this one,” she said pointing at a man at the left table, leaning back casually. “David Thomas, yes?”
    “Yes.”
    “And this is—”
    “Ryan Winters.”
    Petra could feel the hair at the back of her neck tingle. Finally, they had their key. Moody. He would be able to point them toward the Ghost, toward closure.
    “We know most of the names of the people in the photo,” she said. “What I need is for you to tell us who—”
    The shatter of glass cut her off.
    Petra pushed Moody back to the floor as a second windowpane blew inward.
    She glanced at Mikhail. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
    “The garage,” he said.
    “Is there a car there?” Petra asked Moody.
    “Please, leave me alone,” Moody pleaded.
    She grabbed him by the arms and rolled him onto his back. “I am not here to kill you. But the people outside are. So if you want to live, you will help us get out of here.”
    He nervously licked his lips.
    “Is there a car in your garage?”
    “Yes,” Moody said. “A pickup.”
    “Where are the keys?”
    “In the kitchen. On a hook by the door.” Moody motioned toward the back of the house.
    “Come on,” Petra said.
    “Take my truck. I don’t care,” he said. “But I’m staying here.”
    “I already told you, they will kill you if you stay.”
    “You’ll kill me if I go.”
    “You misunderstand the situation, Mr. Moody. You’re more valuable to me alive than dead.”
    The glass on one of the Maxima’s windows imploded.
    “What was that?” Donovan shouted over the radio link.
    In the moment of silence that followed, something smacked into the side of the house. A voice crackled over the walkie-talkie, one of Donovan’s men. “Someone’s shooting. They hit the car and just hit the house. I think that first shot might have got the driver.”
    “Who the hell fired?”
    “It looked like it came from the southeast.”
    “Mercer,” Donovan said, “did you see anything?”
    A slight pause. “Nothing.”
    “That’s your area! Check it out! There must be someone else out there.”
    “Copy that,” Mercer said.
    “What about the two in front of the house?” Donovan asked.
    “They’ve gone inside,” one of the men said.
    “Son of a bitch,” Donovan said. “Someone take out the porch light.”
    “Copy that.”
    A second later the lamp above the door shattered, and the yard went dark.
    “Light’s disabled.”
    Donovan took a deep, audible breath. “All right. Everyone but Mercer, move in. But carefully. There’s a sniper out there somewhere. Mercer, you find that shooter.”
    “Copy,” Mercer replied.
    With Mercer hunting for the sniper and Dailey monitoring the thermal scanner, Donovan’s six-man team was down to four.
    “Well, this is exciting,” Nate said.
    “Exciting” was not a word any cleaner wanted associated with the job he was working on. Routine, dull, uneventful. Those were the descriptions most desired.
    “You hear even the hint of a siren, that’s an automatic abort,” Quinn said.
    “Good by