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“Just come with me.”
“I’m not going to open the door,” Maya promised. “I’m just going to see what they want. Go. Close the door. Don’t wait for me.”
Sara took the knife and hurried down the basement steps. Maya crept carefully to the front door and peeked through the peephole. The two men in suits stood right outside.
Where did the other two go? she wondered. Back door, most likely.
Maya jumped a little as one of the two men knocked briskly on the door. Then he spoke, his voice loud enough to hear from outside. “Maya Lawson?” He held up a badge in a leather ID holder as she peered through the peephole. “Agent Coulter, FBI. We need to ask you some questions about your father.”
Her mind raced. She was certain that she was not going to answer the door for them. But would they try to force their way in? Should she say something, or pretend they weren’t home?
“Ms. Lawson?” the agent said again. “We would really prefer to do this the easy way.”
Long shadows danced against the floor of the foyer in the setting sun. She glanced up quickly to see two shapes passing by the rear entrance, a sliding glass door that led to a small deck and patio. It was the other two men, the ones from the Division, stalking around behind the house.
“Ms. Lawson,” the man called out again. “This is your last warning. Please open the door.”
Maya took a deep breath. “My father isn’t here,” she called out. “And I’m a minor. You’re going to have to come back.”
She peered through the peephole again to see the FBI agent grinning. “Ms. Lawson, I think you’re misunderstanding the situation.” He turned to his partner, a taller and burlier man. “Kick it in.”
Maya sucked in a breath and backpedaled several steps. The doorjamb cracked, splinters of wood hurtling through the air, and the front door flew open.
The two agents took one step into the foyer. Maya felt frozen to the spot. She wondered if she could make a run for the basement and get to the panic room in time. But if Sara had done as Maya had told her and closed the door, they’d never get it shut again before the agents caught up to her.
Her gaze must have flitted toward the basement door, because the closer of the two agents smirked. “How about you stay right there, little lady?” The agent that had spoken through the door had sandy hair and a face that might have been friendly and boyish if they hadn’t just kicked their way in. He put his empty hands up. “We’re not armed. We don’t want to hurt you or your sister.”
“I don’t believe you,” Maya said. She glanced over her shoulder quickly, just for a half second, to see the shadows of the two black-clad men still stalking outside on the deck.
WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! A siren suddenly blared out through the house, an earsplitting klaxon that had all three of them looking around in bewilderment. It took Maya a moment to realize that it was their alarm system, activated when the door was kicked in and set to go off in sixty seconds if the code wasn’t punched in.
The police, she thought hopefully. The police will come.
“Shut it off!” the agent shouted at her. But she didn’t move.
Then—glass shattered behind her. Maya jumped and spun instinctively at the sound as the sliding patio door exploded inward. One of the black-clad men stepped through.
She didn’t stop to think, but a memory flashed through her mind in an instant: the hotel in Engelberg, Switzerland. The Division man posing as CIA, forcing his way in, attacking her.
Maya spun again quickly to face the FBI agents. One of them was near the panel, but he was facing her as the alarm continued to blare wildly. The eyes of the other agent, the boyish one, were wide and his hands were slightly in the air. His mouth was moving, but his words were drowned out by the screaming alarm.
Strong arms grabbed her from behind and she yelped. She struggled against her assailant, but he was strong. She smelled sour breath as the man wrapped her tightly, immobilizing her.
He hauled her off her feet and held her there, legs kicking and arm forced upward at a painful angle. She wasn’t strong enough to fight him off.
Relax, her brain instructed. Don’t struggle. She had taken self-defense classes at the university with a former Marine who had put her in this exact scenario—a larger, heavier assailant grabbing her from behind.
Maya tucked her chin down, almost touching her clavicle.
Then she slammed her head backward as hard as she could.
The Division man holding her cried out in pain as the back of her skull connected with his nose. His grip fell slack, and her feet touched the floor again. As soon as they did, she twisted her body, ducked her head low to get out of his arms, and then dropped her weight in a crouch.
She was all of a hundred and five pounds. But as she dropped, the man’s arm still looped in her elbow, he was suddenly a hundred and five pounds heavier, and his balance was thrown by the sharp blow to his face.
He teetered and sprawled onto the tile of the foyer. Maya jumped backward, away from him, as he fell. She glanced over her shoulder to see the second Division man standing in the broken doorway, seemingly hesitant to make a swift move now that she’d dropped his pal.
She was only a few feet from the basement door. She could make a run for it, get to the panic room until the police arrived…
The mercenary in the doorway reached behind him, and he pulled out a black pistol. Maya’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of it.
CRACK! Even over the blaring alarm they both heard the sharp sound. Maya and the mercenary both spun again.
The FBI agent who had kicked in the door, the one closest to the alarm panel, had his head stuck in the drywall of the foyer. His body was limp.
A figure lumbered forward and swung the tire iron again, landing a solid smack across the second agent’s jaw. The sound of it set Maya’s teeth on edge, and the agent slumped like a limp noodle.
As the Division merc lifted his gun at the new threat, the burly man reared back and hurled the tire iron through the air. It flipped end over end, passing by Maya by less than a foot, and smacked solidly into the merc’s forehead. He barely made a sound as his body fell backward through the broken doorway.
The large man wore a trucker’s cap over a bushy beard. His eyes twinkled blue. He nodded to her once and gestured toward the alarm panel.
Maya’s legs felt like jelly as she rushed over to it and punched in the code. The alarm finally fell silent.
“Mitch?” she said breathlessly.
“Mm,” the man grunted. On the floor of the foyer, the Division member that Maya had dropped attempted to get to his feet, holding his bloody nose. “I’ll take care of him. Call nine-one-one. Tell them there’s no problem.”
Maya did as he instructed. She hurried to the kitchen, snatched up her dad’s cell phone, and dialed 911. She watched as Mitch the mechanic stepped over to the Division merc and lifted one heavy brown boot.
She looked away before he dropped it on the man’s face.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“My name is Maya Lawson. I live at 814 Spruce Street in Alexandria. Our alarm system went off by accident. I left the door open. There’s no emergency.”
“Please hold one moment, Ms. Lawson.” She heard the clacking of a keyboard for a moment, and then the dispatcher told her, “We have a patrol car on the way, about three minutes out. Even if you say there’s no emergency, we’d still like to have someone stop by. It’s protocol.”
“Really, everything’s fine.” She glanced over at Mitch desperately. They couldn’t have a cop come by with four bodies in the house. She wasn’t even sure if any of them were dead or just unconscious.
“Even