Page 99 of Close Protection

We have sixteen.

They don’t know we’re coming.

We’re prepared.

We know where to find the hostages and have a good idea where Daphne and George are.

Apart from the bathrooms and one bedroom, the only place without CCTV is the study.

With our earpieces in, we have a constant stream ofcommunication. I’m not part of the first extraction team, so me, Cooper and Scott head straight for the study. Guns cocked and flashlights on, we walk cautiously through the hall. I hear gunshots, shouts and screams in the background, but I tune them out.

‘Seven hostages are secure,’ a guy says in my earpiece.

We reach the corner of the hall and turn off our lights. Sticking my head around I see one guy standing in front of the study door. Adjusting my position I signal to Cooper and Scott behind me as we prepare a manoeuvre.

We wait a beat and then all at once cover the hall, turning into the corner, lights back on.

‘Hands up!’ Cooper shouts as we move in. The guy at the door instantly throws his hands up.

‘Slowly drop your weapon.’ He complies, dropping it then whipping his hands back up again. We reach him and I kick his gun away, going to open the study door as Cooper cuffs the Daveeno guy.

I move with caution and open the door, speeding to re-secure my gun.

A guy jumps out at us from the side but I quickly dodge him. He stumbles a little, clearly injured, so I take the opportunity to grab him and knee him in the gut. I strike him again, kneeing the groin this time and watch as he slumps to the floor. Retrieving a pair of handcuffs, I quickly restrain him.

Looking around the room I can see it’s empty, but I can definitely smell Daphne’s mother’s perfume that she put on this morning. There’s a chair in the middle of the room with severed cable ties lying on the floor and another chair in the corner with a pool of what I assume to be blood underneath.

They were definitely in here. But where are they now?

According to the blueprints there’s no way in or out of this room other than the front door, but we would’ve seen or heard them. The windows are locked, so where did they go?

‘Hey.’ I kick the Daveeno guy who I now notice is bleeding from his arm. ‘Where did they go?’

He starts laughing, but doesn’t say anything. I bend down and locate the wound. It looks like he’s been shot, and the bullet’s still inside his arm. As I press my finger down on his wound, he cries out.

‘Where did they go?’ I ask again, pressing harder.

‘Into the woods,’ he cries. ‘They went to the woods.’

‘Why?’ I ask, looking around the room again to figure out how they got out.

‘The – the getaway cars,’ he pants, my finger still pressing into his arm.

‘How did they get out of the house?’

He doesn’t answer so I press even harder. ‘How did they get out?’ I can hear my volume rising as I stare at him. He starts panting through the pain again before answering.

‘The bookcase. There’s a secret door in the bookcase.’

I stand up and stalk over to the bookcase looking for any abnormalities, then I spot a French travel guidebook amongst the fiction classics. I go to pick it up, but it doesn’t budge. Pulling a little harder I hear a click and then a release. I push against the bookcase and the door opens, revealing a dimly lit hallway leading to a set of stairs.

Cooper comes back inside the room, looks from the guy slumped in the corner to me and Scott, and nods.

‘I’ll take care of him. You two go.’

Me and Scott make our way through the hall and down the stairs, where we push open the door and exit into the woods.

‘I need some backup out here,’ I say, pressing my earpiece. ‘Elizabeth Green has escaped with the last two hostages and they’re in the woods.’