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Deadly Infiltration (Agents in His Service, Book 2)

By W. Richard Lawrence

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Prelude

2nd Tuesday in August
7:50 AM

“You wait here, dear. I’ll just be a minute.” Senator Carl Henderson slipped out of the car and up the stairs to his house. His wife had forgotten her heart medicine and driving back from Colorado Springs was not what he had planned to do on their second day of vacation. As a U.S. senator, you’d think the pharmacist would have cut us some slack and refilled her prescription.
Abby lowered her car door window. “I’m sure I left it on the bathroom counter.”
He loved her as much as any man could love someone. But lately she was forgetting more and more. She blamed it on stress. He hoped the time away would help. “Don’t worry, I’ll find it.” He glanced back. He would be completely lost without her. She was his right arm, beside him through years of campaigning and work to get where he was today. He punched in the code for the front door but the green light did not flash, nor did the lock mechanism make the sounds he expected. He pushed down on the latch and shoved. The door opened.
She forgot to lock the door. Well, I guess it’s good we came back after all.
Stepping inside, he checked the alarm system. Yep, she missed that too. Great. The best alarm money can buy and it’s not on. He would make sure to arm it before he left.
He felt a presence before he heard the noise. He turned around. A man, several feet away, rushed him. Carl’s hand went to his side, instinctively reaching for his subcompact Glock. All he felt was belt. The gun was in the car with Abby. He turned to warn her.
The man’s fist smashed into his jaw, turning the warning into a cry of pain. Carl’s head snapped back, smashing into the doorframe. Darkness engulfed his vision. He slumped in the doorway. Slowly, his vision cleared to show the man standing over him. Carl struggled, grabbing at air, trying to get back to his feet. The man was about his size, six foot, how could he wheel so much power in one blow?
“Stay down.” The smoothness in the man’s movements as he pulled a gun, showed experience.
Carl stopped. The pain turned into a throbbing headache as the adrenalin subsided. Rubbing the back of his head, he checked for blood, but found only a very tender bump, growing in size. “What are you doing in my house?”
The man stepped over him and glanced out the door.
Abby! Carl pulled his foot up, preparing to thrust it into the man’s knee.
The large man knelt down swiftly and pressed the cold barrel against Carl’s forehead. “Don’t even think about it.”
Carl dropped his knee back down. The man wore nylon coveralls, rubber gloves, a hairnet and booties. Why?
Abby screamed, but it was quickly muffled. Carl leaned out the door to see a second man, dressed much like the first, with a hand covering her mouth, pulling her head tight against his shoulder, as he directed Abby up the steps of their home. His other hand held a gun to the side of her head. Before thrusting her inside, he scanned the mountainside that surrounded the Hendersons’ home. On coming through the door, Abby tripped over Carl’s legs and landed on the floor beside him.
Fear filled her eyes as she stared into his. “Who are these men? What do they want?” She had the same questions he did.
The smaller intruder looked at the larger man. “Get them up and bring them into the office.”
Carl couldn’t place the man’s mild accent, but it did not sound American.
The first man kept his gun trained on Carl as he grabbed Abby and yanked her to her feet. She let out a yelp. He pushed her deeper into the house before grabbing Carl.
Resistance was an exercise in futility. The man’s fingers dug deep as he lifted Carl with only a little more effort than he had put into lifting Abby.
Carl stopped short of plowing Abby down. She was not moving. She looked completely lost and afraid. He needed to do something. But what?
“I’m a U.S. senator and breaking into my home and threatening my wife or me is a felony.”
The large man shoved him again, this time into Abby. “Shut up and keep moving.” They were herded down the hall to Carl’s office in the rear of the house.
The smaller man already stood across the room, in front of the desk. “Senator Henderson, please come over here.”
The large man released Carl and continued moving Abby toward the file cabinets across the room from the desk.
“I demand to know why you are in my home. This is a federal offense.”
“Yes, we know. I have some questions for you.” You would think the man was discussing dinner plans. His calm was unnatural. He was a criminal who had just been caught in the act. He should be concerned, but his actions resembled those more akin to a manager in a board meeting.
Carl glanced at his wife. Her face was pale, eyes wide and unblinking. “Let her go and I’ll do as you ask.”
“Senator Henderson, you will do as I ask now,” the man casually leaned against the desk and nodded toward Abby, “or your wife will suffer.”
Crossing his arms, Carl put on a front that had worked for him many times in the senate and he hoped it would here. “Until she is free, you will not get anything out of me.”
The intruder shook his head slowly before glancing at the man holding Abby. “Show the senator what his defiance will cost him.”
The other man brought his gun down, placing it against Abby’s leg. Carl tried to rush him, to stop him, but her loud cry of pain filled the room as the explosive gunshot subsided. Her body began to fold.
Carl stopped. The barrel came into focus two inches from his face.
“Back off before I put the next one between your eyes.”
Raising his hands, he backed away. No amount of military training could have prepared him for this. “Okay, okay.” He backed off, watching Abby writhe in pain.
“Jonas has eight more rounds in his gun, all hollow points. With your background, you know what that type of bullet does as it passes through tissue.”
Carl looked down at the bloody mess where Abby’s knee had once been.
“Jonas will put each round into a different part of your wife’s body until you do as I ask.”
Carl glanced at the emotionless man. Couldn’t he see what he was doing? “She needs a doctor.”
“You are right, and the sooner you comply the sooner she will receive treatment.”
Carl saw a chilling, uncaring cold emptiness in the man’s eyes. In that instant he realized one important fact. These men would kill them unless he could take them both out first. “What do you want?” Carl moved a few feet closer to the man by the desk.
“I want to know why a CIA agent sent you files.”
“What CIA agent? What are you talking about?”
“Shoot her in the other leg.”
“No!” Carl raised one hand toward the man holding his wife, the other toward the desk. “No, I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t hurt her anymore.”
A very evil smile formed. “Very good. We know about the files and the man who sent them to you. I need the decryption key. Where is it?”
How much to tell? How much did they already know? “The only encrypted files on my computer are to do with a sub-committee in the senate, not CIA anything.” Henderson hoped they would believe his lie. The files had shown up on his system four days ago.
The small man shook his head slightly before looking at Jonas. “Senator Henderson is either very slow to learn or he thinks we are stupid. Which do you believe to be true, Jonas?”
“We need to hurry.” Jonas glanced at the large digital clock on the wall. “You are wasting time letting him stall like this.” Setting his pistol out of Abby’s reach, Jonas grabbed a pen off the file cabinet. He jabbed it into the bullet hole and yanked up hard. Abby screamed louder than before as the man’s hand became covered in her blood.
As Carl yelled for them to stop, the man pushed the pen down. Abby’s hands clawed at her assailant before her head lurched forward. She had passed out from the pain. The man stopped and stared into Carl’s eyes. “I can make her feel more pain than you can possibly imagine. Now, give us the key.”
Abby roused, lifting her head. Her eyes were rolled back. She couldn’t take any more.
Carl desperately needed to save his wife. “The key is in my desk. It’s in a hidden compartment that requires my finger prints.”
The smaller man watched as Carl walked around to the desk chair. Carl could feel every move he made being scrutinized.
“Hurry up.”
“Yes. — Just — give me a minute.” Carl sat at his desk. An open laptop sat on the work surface of the desk in front of him with a cable running down to his desktop system. It partially blocked their view of his hands.
The smaller man was moving around the desk. Carl didn’t have much time. “Hold up, it’s right here.” Carl dropped his hands below the top of the desk. He pushed back just enough to reach under and slide his hand over the fingerprint reader. A thin embedded case popped open. He pulled out a jump drive and tossed it toward the closest man, making sure it missed his hands. As all the eyes in the room momentarily followed the jump drive, Carl pulled out his handgun, a Walther P99 from the same box. He brought it up into a firing position, but before his finger touched the trigger, a loud sound filled the room and his left shoulder jerked backwards.
The pain brought to mind images of the Middle East. There he had expected this type of danger. It caught him off guard in his own home.
These men weren’t going to let him or his wife live and if he survived much longer he would tell them everything they wanted to know. He had to prevent them from learning the other locations of the files.
The burning pain spread through the upper left side of his body. The hollow point had ripped through his muscles and was causing massive blood loss. He had only minutes to live. Dropping down, he concealed himself behind the laptop. He rested his gun arm on the desk to stop it from shaking.
Abby was vertical, held up by the arm around her neck. The large man holding her hid behind her, his gun pointed at the side of her head. The other man’s arm and shoulder were just visible in the office doorway. He also held a gun.
“Your foolish actions will not save you.” The voice came from the hall.
“Maybe not, but it will stop you from achieving your goals.” It was over. Carl and his wife were dead. It was only a matter of time. His only options were how that end would come.
Abby screamed again. The man had his gun pressed deep into her temple, pushing her head to one side. “The next round will rip through her brain, tearing apart everything in its path.”
Carl couldn’t let that happen. He had to save her from the pain. As he steadied his hands, he aimed the pistol carefully. He looked into the terrified eyes of the only woman he had ever cared for and mouthed the words, “I love you.”
He pulled the trigger twice. Both rounds hit the only pure heart in the room.


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