Free Allegiance (Joe Logan Book 4) by Michael Kerr Page A

the bolt and drew it back smoothly and slowly.
    Frankie followed him in, his gun drawn, just in case.  While New York had one of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation, it didn’t harm to be prepared.  Some folk took home security very seriously, and did have firearms.
    They searched the house.  “The bitch isn’t here,” Frankie said.  “What do we do now?”
    Lennox wanted to look for signs of recent habitation, or for something that could give them a clue as to where she might have gone. He switched on a light, but the darkness was not illuminated.  He went through to the kitchen and tried another with the same result.
    “The power’s off,” he said to Frankie.  “She must have gone on a trip.”
    “Seems a little timely,” Frankie said.  “What if she got scared when you phoned her and pretended to be a cop?  She could have checked.”
    “So what’re you sayin’?”
    “That she could still be here, hiding.”
    “I don’t buy that, but let’s check the loft.”
    “And the basement.”
    She wasn’t in the loft.  They went back downstairs and found the door to the basement.  It was locked.  Foregoing any attempt at finesse, Lennox kicked it open.  The darkness was deeper.  He hesitated.  The meager light from a street lamp shone through a window and weakly penetrated the gloom.
    Frankie fitted the silencer to his gun, although he would have bet the farm on there being no one in the basement.  If the woman had for some reason felt in danger, then surely she would have fled the house.
    “Remember, we need her alive,” Lennox whispered as he began to descend the flight of wooden stairs.
    As he reached the third step from the bottom, a portion of the darkness seemed to detach itself from the rear of the underground room, and he made out the outline of a human shape rushing toward him.  He had no time to react, and was totally surprised at the sudden impact. The pain hit him a couple of seconds later; deep, jagged and excruciating.  He fell back and felt a tearing sensation in his stomach as whatever he had been stabbed with was twisted and withdrawn.
    Frankie was knocked off his feet, to wind up sitting on a step with the back of Lennox’s head sandwiched between his legs.  “What the fuck,” he said, having seen nothing and believing that Lennox had slipped and fallen.  “Are you okay?”
    Lennox didn’t answer.  His mouth had filled up with blood and he couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. He began to shudder violently and lashed out at thin air with his arms and legs, as if attempting to fight and win against the unbeatable opponent that was death.
    As Lennox’s frantic, jerky movements ceased and he became still, Frankie realized that something was seriously wrong.  He remained sitting, but raised his gun and pointed it into the murky depths of the basement.  “That was a stupid thing to do, Della,” he said, now believing that the woman was hidden down here and had just attacked Lennox.  “I want you to come out where I can see you.  If you don’t I’ll start shooting.  You’ve got five seconds.”
    Della had acted out of fear for her life, without any conscious thought to run the man through with the sharp end of the broom handle.  It had been a spontaneous result of the fight or flight response, activated by adrenaline and launching the mechanism in the body that enables both humans and animals to mobilize energy rapidly in order to cope with life-threatening situations.  Attack was her only option, due to being trapped with nowhere to run.  Now what?  For some reason she had thought that if someone did come to the house, he would be alone.  But there had obviously been two of them, and maybe more.  The sense of hope that Joe would turn up and rescue her from any harm had now evaporated.  She would most likely die in this damp, dark underground room, but she would not go meekly, like a lamb to slaughter.  The stygian darkness was in her favor.  From