Robin Cook - Cure

Except for a slight incandescent glow from one of the second-story windows, the house was dark. Looking down the sides of the building, there was a much larger glow emanating from the street side of the house, where the garage was located. The only sounds were the intermittent distant sounds of the party and the continuous lapping of the waves against the shore.

The tide was in so that the distance between the water surface and the underside of the pier had narrowed to only about four feet. Still, the Zodiac’s prow easily slipped in under the wooden deck. Grover remained in the boat while Colt jumped up on the pier to accept the equipment that Grover handed him. When everything was out of the boat, Grover climbed out as well.

Colt was already dressed in what he called his custom assault pants suit, with specifically designed pockets and clips for all his gear. The benefit of such an outfit was that he had instant access to each implement, such as the ketamine-dart pistol hooked to a clip on his left, and the Uzi hanging on a similar one to his right. Grover had a similar outfit and helped Colt prepare for the current strike. After he’d loaded a particular pocket, he’d pat the pocket and whisper out loud the name of the object it held so Colt could mentally check it off. It could be a disaster to be in the middle of a task and be missing a specific tool. Another benefit of having a separate pocket or clip for everything was that Colt could move silently without tools or other devices hitting up against one another.

“Ready?” Grover whispered.

“Ready,” Colt replied. Quickly he tested his small radio clipped on the point of his right shoulder. A similar device on the point of Grover’s right shoulder came to life. “Testing: one, two, three. Testing.” The stock phrase popped into his own microphone positioned in his right ear.

Now completely outfitted and with a shoulder bag hanging off his right shoulder, Colt silently ran the length of the pier and slipped into the shadows of the stairs that rose up to the level of the pool.

Meanwhile, Grover quickly rearranged some deck furniture to serve as a rest for using the sniper rifle. He also moved the Zodiac around to the best position for a rapid getaway. With that accomplished, he returned to the deck furniture, climbed in among it, and sighted through the night scope of the sniper rifle.

Thanks to the scope, Grover was able to see the problem before Colt. It was the sudden movement that caught his eye. It was the dogs coming along the left side of the building from the street side of the compound. Quickly, using the radio to warn Colt, Grover drew a bead with his laser on the front dog and squeezed off a single shot. He could tell instantly he’d hit the dog as it tucked its head and tumbled head-on into the pool. The second dog, ignoring the plight of the first, rounded the edge of the building, missing the pool and dashing laterally across Grover’s line of sight.

With Grover’s warning, Colt had dashed up the steps, snatching the gas-powered dart pistol from his belt in the process. Worried about the two dogs, he’d bolted for the tennis enclosure. Although he’d not heard any barking, he’d heard the dogs’ snarls and heard their feet thundering against the ground. It was at that moment that he’d detected the suppressed sound of the sniper’s rifle. Reaching the door to the tennis court, he snatched it open, rolled around its edge, but had not gotten it fully closed when one of the Doberman pinschers collided with it at a full run. Had Colt not been holding fast to the door, he might have been bowled over by the animal’s momentum.

The dog scrambled to its feet, and with fangs exposed, lunged at Colt, who responded by firing the dart pistol. The sound was more of a thudding hiss than pistol shot. The dart embedded itself in the dog’s chest but didn’t stop the dog from trying to bite Colt through the string-like mesh that composed the bulk of the door. Worrying as much about the noise the animal was making as getting bit, Colt reloaded and shot him again, this time in the hip. Despite the second dose of ketamine, the dog was still on his feet, trying to get at Colt through the netting. His wobble became progressively more intense until he keeled over.

Colt used the time to contact Grover.

“Thanks for getting one of the dogs,” Colt said quickly.

“You’re welcome.”

“Where is he?”

“In the pool.”

“Any change with the house?”

“Not that I can see. Since the glow in the second-story window hasn’t changed, my guess is it’s a night-light. Anyway, no other lights have come on, so you’re clear to go.”

“I’m on my way,” Colt said, switching off the radio.

After pushing against the door to move the now anesthetized dog out of the way, Colt made his way out of the tennis court and along the side of the house to reach the illuminated pool. The other dog was floating on the surface but with the head submerged and bleeding into the water. At that moment the pool lights went out, causing Colt’s heart to skip a beat. Glancing at his watch by lifting its blackout cover, he breathed out with relief. It was exactly two a.m., strongly suggesting that the pool light was on a timer. Without any more delay, Colt went to one of the sliding glass doors leading into a sun porch. Taking out a suction device, he applied it to the glass next to the door’s locking mechanism. He then ran around the device with a glass cutter, snapping out a perfectly circular hole. He repeated the mechanism with a slightly smaller suction device, snapping off a hole in the inner layer of thermopane. With that gone, he could reach in and unlock the slider.

Colt paused for a moment. In some respects the first step inside the house was the most nerve-racking. Using his computer earlier, he’d turned off the various wireless alarms in the house, although he couldn’t be one hundred percent sure he hadn’t turned them on instead. It depended what state the alarms had been in before Colt had interfered. Taking a breath, he stepped through the door. Even before the alarm sounded, Colt could tell he’d tripped an infrared motion detector, because a red light blinked near the crown molding. Just as the alarm began to sound throughout the house, Colt hit his computer’s enter button. The alarm system was now off, but it had begun to sound.

Flattening himself against the wall, Colt strained to listen, holding his breath. He thought he heard distant voices, but then realized the voices were accompanied by music and that the noise was coming in through the open door and was the party on the other side of the cove. Then there was another deep, low rumbling sound that caused Colt to hold his breath again while he tried to identify it. It was a refrigerator compressor.

“Moving out,” Colt whispered into his radio after closing the door to the pool deck and donning his night-vision goggles.

“All clear,” came back in his earphone.

Colt moved quickly and catlike from the sun porch into the kitchen. Thanks to the night-vision equipment, he could see well enough to avoid obstacles. From studying the floor plans, he knew exactly how to get to the master bedroom suite, which was positioned directly over the first-floor kitchen, facing out over the water view.

Unfortunately, the back stairs were as old as the main part of the house, built in the 1920s, and not built particularly robustly. As Colt quickly mounted them, they let off a series of creaks and groans, enough to cause Colt to pause once he reached the second floor. Besides the Sub-Zero compressor, all he could hear was reassuring snoring coming from the master bedroom.

Colt remained motionless for a full minute. There was no change in the snoring, nor any additional sounds. He was about to advance toward the open master bedroom door when his earpiece crackled to life. “Houston, we have a problem”: Grover’s code that the mission might have to be aborted.