Steve Martini - The Enemy Inside

She grabbed the duffel and slung it over her back. With the arrow threaded on the bow, she moved quickly along the back of the house. She passed under the kitchen windows and carefully skirted the covered patio with its hooded fire pit and chimney.

Here the lawn ended and changed to a concrete walkway. She stayed close to the house to avoid being seen from the second-story windows above. Other than the fact that they were inside Ana couldn’t be sure where the lawyer and the man named Ying were situated.

The midday sun bore down. She could feel it on the back of her neck. Her dark clothing absorbed the heat and made her sweat as her mind chewed on all the various possibilities. What troubled her was how everything had suddenly converged. How did they know each other? What did the California lawyer have to do with the man a Chinese general wanted dead? She would be sure to ask him the instant she had him cornered under the point of an arrow.

Ana walked quickly, in a combat crouch, one hand on the bow, the other fingering the fletch end of the arrow. She was poised to pull and release on reflex, if she had to. She glanced down and saw her moving shadow etched by the noonday sun on the cement beneath her feet. This was a novelty she didn’t like. With dark clothes you could disappear into the inky blackness of the night. But not here.

Ahead she could see a high-latticed fence harboring an esplanade of interwoven flowering vines. It separated the garden from the large oval swimming pool on the other side.

Five feet from the fence a sudden loud report froze Ana’s feet to the concrete. It might have been a bowling ball dropped from a great height onto hardwood, except there was no bounce. She knew what it was. It came from somewhere inside the house, muffled by the interior walls. She had been around enough pistol ranges to recognize the stifled, flat report of indoor gunfire.

She turned and looked in the direction of the noisy Weedwacker. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear the continuing ragged whine of his machine. Between the noise of the gas engine and the earmuffs, the gardener hadn’t heard the shot.

Ana turned back to the mansion. The sound of the shot was close and directly in front of her. Her gaze settled on the area just beyond the latticed fence, a shaded alcove at the side of the house and a set of French doors just beyond.

For a moment she thought about retreating, going back to the car, leaving and returning later when it was dark. That was her plan. The matchup between Madriani and Ying had changed it. Now she wondered if one of them was dead. The possibility, however remote, that it might be Ying forced her to find out. She had already lost one contract. She couldn’t afford to lose another.

She steeled herself and moved forward, but the sound of the shot set her on edge. The bow was no match for a handgun. If she somehow lost the element of surprise, Ana would suddenly find herself on a suicide mission.

The instant she approached the arbor opening in the fence she knew she had a problem. The bright sunlight overhead and the shaded interior of the house made it impossible for Ana to see anything through the glass doors. Until she reached the shade of the alcove all she’d see was her own reflection in the glass. By then anyone inside with a gun could empty a clip into her head.

She looked to the exterior wall of the house and noticed that the lattice fence was freestanding. There was a narrow gap between the post at the end of the fence and the side of the house. She moved quickly.

The gap was narrow, little more than a foot. But Ana was slight. She passed the bow through the opening, then the bag. She squeezed through, reassembled everything on the other side and moved toward the alcove. She clung to the outer edge of the house for cover.

When she reached the corner of the alcove she peeked around into the shade. Over the distant whine of the Weedwacker she could hear voices inside. There was a wall of books, shelves, an empty chair behind a desk, and something else that caught her eye. She pulled back around the corner, laid the empty bag on the ground, and took a deep breath. Then she slipped around the corner into the shade of the alcove, the bow gripped in her hand, the nock on the end of the arrow held snug against the string.

She hugged the inside wall of the recessed area until she reached the corner, the edge of the glass, where the frame of the door and about six inches of wall gave her some cover. Now she could hear louder voices. They were talking. One of them was threatening the other.

Ana eased one eye over the edge of the wood to the glass pane. Madriani was on the floor in front of the desk. She could see his lower body. She couldn’t tell if he was wounded. But he was moving. She could see his legs. The other man was Ying. She recognized him from the digital photographs sent to her by the Chinese agents. She had seen him through the field glasses while scouting the house. He had the gun, a semiautomatic pistol. She couldn’t tell the caliber, but whatever it was, in terms of lethality, it outclassed the bow.

She pulled her head back. Ana knew she would get only one shot. She glanced at the handle of the door. It was probably locked, and even if it wasn’t, the second she touched it he would hear her.

The problem was the glass. An arrow requires distance to build momentum. She would need at least a few feet to stretch out the bow and give the arrow some flight before the tip hit the smooth hard surface. Even then, it was a risk. If the arrow tip skidded before it punched through the glass it would deflect the flight of the arrow.

Sit in the other chair,” he says. He points at it lazily with the pistol as if he might shoot this one next.

I roll to my side and struggle to get up on one knee. He has half an eye on me. Time is running out.

He transfers the pistol to his left hand while he works the cell phone with his right. He’s laid the Taser on a small table near the spiral staircase a few feet away. Struggling with his thumb to punch numbers on the phone, calling somewhere for backup.

He is distracted. I shield what I am about to do with my body, my back to him as I struggle to my feet. It’s now or never. In the time that he looks away, I reach out and grab the solid piece of oak, the hunk of wood with its shattered end that had been the leg of the chair. It’s about eight inches long and heavy. If I could close the distance on him I might have a chance.

With my other hand I grab the two wires and yank. The pain is excruciating, but the darts come loose. I leave the Taser wires and the two darts on the floor near the broken chair hoping he won’t notice that I’m no longer wired at least long enough for me to make a move. His attention at the moment is directed at the phone.

He is talking on the phone when something dances off the edge of the desk over the back of my hand and across the floor. Like a fast red moth it covers the distance between us and climbs his leg in less than a second.

He sees it the same time I do, his back half turned, out of the corner of his eye. He stands. I am on one knee still getting up. We see the same thing, the solid red beam of light streaming across the room. Suddenly his eyes open wide. He spins around looking at the glass doors, the garden outside.

I turn my head to look. The blinding beam of red light refracted in the glass of the door scatters and then comes back together. A woman, thin as a wisp, outside, Diana the archer.

I turn back to look at him just as he aligns the pistol left-handed, getting a bead on her. I raise myself up and throw the heavy piece of oak with everything I’ve got. It misses the gun, grazes his hand, and hits him in the head just as he squeezes off the round.