Chapter 19 - The Steel Trap
By midnight, the storm outside had broken in full fury. Thunder rolled across the West Hills, rattling the heavy glass panes of the conservatory. The estate had gone dark—every external floodlight cut, running only on silent auxiliary battery power to give the appearance of an electronic malfunction.
Inside my command room on the third floor, Marcus and I watched twelve thermal cameras sweeping the lower perimeter fence along NW Skyline Boulevard.
"Three tactical vans just killed their headlights two hundred yards south of the main gate," Marcus said, pointing at a cluster of pulsing white heat signatures moving through the dense tree line. "Twelve men. Heavy suppressed weapons, breaching charges, night vision. They’re cutting through the secondary sensor grid."
"Mateo?" I asked.
"He's in the middle van," Marcus confirmed, zooming in with an infrared drone hovering silently above the canopy. "He brought his personal guard. He wants to witness Emma's extraction personally. He’s arrogant enough to think Vance's raid shook our security team."
I looked at the monitor. Mateo Valenti was fifty-two, silver-haired, dressed in expensive black tactical gear, looking like a corporate executive pretending to be an assassin. He thought because he had bought a few judges in Northern California, he understood the savagery of a true street king.
"Where are Joshua and Emma?" I asked.
"Safe room Delta," Marcus replied. "Sub-basement three, beneath two feet of reinforced tungsten steel. Mrs. Gable is with them. They have air filtration, food for six weeks, and no sound penetrates that chamber. Emma is sleeping peacefully."
"Good," I said, pulling on my heavy black tactical vest. "Let's make sure she wakes up to a cleaner world."
We didn't wait in the house.
Waiting inside the manor meant giving them the initiative, risking stray rounds through the walls. My father had taught me forty years ago: When an enemy brings fire to your home, you meet him in the garden.
The rain was an absolute deluge as Marcus and I stepped into the shadows of the estate's sprawling Japanese garden. The stone lanterns and manicured pines provided ideal concealment.
Through the mist, I heard the faint, metallic snip of wire cutters taking out the auxiliary sensor wire near the southern retaining wall.
Six dark figures scaled the limestone wall with silent, practiced agility, dropping into the soft mulch of the rhododendron bushes. They fanned out in a classic tactical diamond, weapons raised, sweeping toward the terrace doors.
They didn't see the tripwire hidden beneath the moss.
Click.
High-intensity magnesium flares detonated along the retaining wall with a deafening sizzle, blinding the night-vision goggles of the lead four operators.
"Ambush!" one of them screamed, tearing his goggles off as white-hot light burned his retinas.
Before they could reorient, the garden erupted into disciplined thunder.
Marcus’s team, concealed behind the granite retaining walls, opened fire with suppressed carbines. Three of Valenti’s men dropped instantly, their armor taking double-taps to the chest that slammed them into the wet turf. The remaining three scrambled for cover behind the decorative stone pillars, returning wild, uncoordinated bursts of automatic fire that chewed through ornamental bark and shattered terra-cotta planters.
I moved through the darkness on their left flank. A gunman was kneeling behind a stone lantern, frantically reloading his MP5.
I closed the distance in two strides. My left hand clamped over the slide of his weapon, redirecting the barrel into the dirt, while my right fist drove the heavy steel butt of my Kimber .45 into the side of his jaw.
Bone cracked with a satisfying snap. He went limp, collapsing into the mud.
"Clear left!" Marcus roared through the tactical headset. "Breaching van two is retreating toward the gate!"
"Cut them off!" I barked.
At the main gates, our heavy armored Suburban rammed directly through the wrought-iron barrier, plowing straight into the side of Valenti’s lead van, flipping it onto its side in a shower of sparks and shattered glass.
The second van attempted to reverse down the narrow driveway, but its rear tires were shredded by automated pneumatic road spikes deployed from the asphalt. The van spun out, slamming hard into the concrete retaining wall of the lower terrace.
Silence crashed back over the hillside, punctuated only by the roaring downpour and the hissing of steam from the shattered radiator.
I walked down the driveway, my boots crunching over glass and spent brass casings. Marcus and four of our operators flanked me, carbines leveled at the smoking wreckage of the second van.
The driver’s door was kicked open from the inside.
Mateo Valenti tumbled out into the mud, coughing violently, clutching his fractured collarbone. His silver hair was plastered to his forehead with blood and rainwater, his tailored tactical jacket torn to shreds.
He looked up into the blinding glare of my tactical flashlight, squinting through one swollen, bruised eye.
"Anderson..." he wheezed, spitting blood onto the gravel. "You... you crazy bastard. You can't do this... the commission... the national board..."
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I stopped two feet from him, looking down with cold, emotionless detachment.
"The commission didn't save Salvatore Moretti," I said softly, my voice cutting through the thunder. "And they certainly aren't going to save you."
