They sat in silence, scoping the parking lot through the windows. After a few minutes, she saw Larison jogging through the woods in their direction. She slid open the passenger-side door and he got in.
“Good to go,” he said. He pulled off the backpack and tossed the accompanying goggles in the foot well next to it. “No countermeasures. And the curtains are all drawn. I didn’t see anyone looking out. Still, with three guys, they’d have to be pretty incompetent to not post at least one sentry. If we come in from the southwest side, we’ll have less than twenty feet of open ground to cover from the woods to the back of the house. If someone’s looking through those curtains when we move, they’ll spot us. If we take fire, I’ll cover our retreat to the woods and then you cover me. We good?”
“We’re good,” Carl said. He pulled on the backpack with the flashbangs and other gear.
Larison looked at Livia and she repeated it. “We’re good.”
“See you in five,” he said to Diaz. “Keep that engine running.”
“I’ll be here,” she said.
They headed out, the sun coming up behind them. Livia couldn’t deny that Carl had a point. The woods were thick, but she didn’t like the twenty feet of open ground Larison had described. Even if they were seen, they’d probably make it to cover before anyone could mount an effective defense. But they would have lost the element of surprise. It all would have been easier in the dark, with night-vision goggles. Well, you couldn’t have everything.
At the edge of the woods, they paused, scanned, and listened. Nothing but birdsong.
Larison looked at them. They nodded. He turned and fast-walked to the corner of the house. Livia and Carl aimed at the windows, ready to return fire if anyone spotted him coming. But everything stayed quiet.
Livia went next, joining Larison at the corner of the house. A few seconds later, Carl pulled up alongside her. Larison headed silently up the stairs. When he was in position, Livia and Carl moved laterally to the near first-floor window. Livia stopped at the edge. Carl got down low and elbow-crawled underneath it. When he was past, he stood on the other side.
They couldn’t see Larison from here, but she knew what he was doing: unrolling the modular breach charges. Taping them to the wall. Retreating down the stairs. When she and Carl heard the boom, they’d break the window and toss in the flashbang. Carl would sweep any remaining glass and cover the room, and in she’d go. People in the area would hear the breach charge explosion and maybe the flashbang, too, but even if anyone called 911, by the time first responders were on the scene, the three of them would be gone, Schrader along with them.
Minutes seemed to go by, but Livia knew it was less than that. Her heart was hammering now. The waiting, the anticipation, was always the worst part. Made even harder now because when to go in wasn’t up to her. She wasn’t even waiting for a signal as such. Their signal would be a sudden boom.
They waited. She could see past Carl and everything was quiet. She was glad he had her back the same way. Now it was just a question of—
BOOM!
Without a second’s hesitation, Carl smashed the glass with the pry bar, pulled the pin from the flashbang, and tossed it in. Another boom! came from the room within, along with a gigantic flash of light. Carl drew the Wilson, swept back the curtain, and aimed inside, left, center, right. He raked the remaining glass out of the frame with the pry bar and shouted, “Clear!” Livia put her free hand on the bottom pane and vaulted in, landing in a crouch and sweeping the room with the muzzle of the Glock. There was smoke from the flashbang but nothing else—just a couch and chairs and a flat-panel monitor. She yelled, “Clear!” and dashed ahead to the side of the room’s open door.
Carl hit the floor behind her and raced to the other side of the door. She heard loud shots from the second floor—BAM! BAM!—and then a quieter answering volley. But there was no time to worry about Larison. They had the entire first floor still ahead of them—