Chapter 20: The Traitor Part 1
Los Angeles, Silver Lake, April 24th, 2008
"You're joining up officially? Great!" Rosenberg exclaimed, beaming at them. "We'll have to celebrate that! Once I've got the paperwork done!"
John refrained from rolling his eyes. "We still have to catch Spencer," he reminded the witch. "And we need to decide what we do with Petrova and Hernandez."
That killed the mood - everyone stopped smiling. Well, someone had to be the bad guy here.
"Uh…" Bartowski apparently lost the guts to say what he wanted to say after he had already opened his mouth.
"They know too much to hand them over to the CIA," Walker said. Bartowski shot her a betrayed look, but the spy didn't acknowledge it.
"I agree," Orion said. Of course he'd say that. "We can't let this technology get out."
"But you can't stop such things!" Bartowski protested. "Sooner or later, knowledge does leak!"
Not always, John thought. In some of his missions, he had ensured that some knowledge remained buried for all time.
"You can't live forever, but that doesn't mean you stop trying to survive as long as possible," Caridad retorted. Quite a morbid example, but that was probably a Slayer thing.
"Within reason," Rosenberg remarked. "There are means to prolong your life that are über-bad and shouldn't be used at all."
"I wasn't talking about magic, but about fighting," Caridad told her.
"Well, magic can be used to fight as well…" the witch started to reply.
Kennedy cut her off. "We know what you mean, and we agree," she said. "Releasing this technology is not acceptable."
"But killing them is?" Bartowski asked.
"They've committed enough capital crimes to have earned it," Bane cut in. She wrapped her arms around herself. "And the things they could do if they escaped…"
"And we can't keep them imprisoned," Kennedy said. "We can't spare the people, and it's not cheap either."
"Killing them to save money doesn't seem, uh…" Bartowski trailed off under the Slayer's glare, but he had made his point.
"Money saved saves more people," Brown-Smythe said, "but it shouldn't be the decisive factor. However, I do not believe that Profesor Petrova is worth saving, so to speak. She has murdered dozens of people out of the selfish desire to perfect an inherently immoral technology. A technology, nota bene, which she has kept at least partially proprietary - no doubt to protect her position within Fulcrum. If she dies, she will take crucial knowledge about her mind control technology into the grave."
"And we'll take steps so she won't end up as a ghost so bad guys can't summon her to pick her ghostly brain," Rosenberg said.
John glanced around. Pretty much everyone was nodding.
"But Federica - Hernandez - isn't a mad scientist," Bartowski went on. "She knows about magic, but…"
"She's an assassin who almost killed me," John said. He glared at the moron.
"Yes, but… is that a reason to kill her? When we've already beaten her?" Bartowski's weak smile flattered completely while he realised that many people would answer that question with 'yes'.
"Can't we, uh… delete her memory until she's, like… a teenager again? Sort of give her a second chance at life? Fake an accident to explain the loss of memory?"
"And have Fulcrum's remnants pick her up? Or the CIA? They'd realise what was done to her," John retorted.
"Uh…" Bartowski grimaced. "We could give her a new identity?"
"That costs money and favours," Kennedy said.
Grimes spoke up. "Also, the memory wouldn't be deleted - it'd just be, like, there, but not accessible. Not easily. But it'd still be there." He cleared his throat. "I've experienced this, remember?"
"You mean she'd be aware of having her memories deleted?" Rosenberg asked. "But unable to do anything about it? Like a locked-in syndrome? Just with possession?" She sounded appalled.
"I'm not certain," Grimes replied. "But…" He shrugged. "Something was there."
"It would be damn cruel to do that," Caridad said.
"And," Grimes went on, "can we, I mean, should we, create life like that?"
"Create life?" Bartowski asked.
"Well, she'd be a different person. Not really the Federica we knew - although that was just an act, anyway."
The moron had a point. A weak one, though.
"So… can we destroy one life and replace it with one of our choosing?"
"Can we let her potentially suffer, without any way to escape?" Caridad added.
"Guys, you're arguing that we should kill her out of mercy?" Bartowski looked shocked.
"I'm saying: Kill her to save ourselves," John corrected him.
"Oh."
"All in favour of killing, for whatever reason, raise your hand?" Rosenberg looked around, her one hand raised. "Not that this is, technically, a democracy, but we're living in one."
John raised his hand. As did Caridad. And Bane, Walker, Caridad, Orion, Brown-Smythe, Kennedy, and Grimes.
Bartowski stared, shaking his head. But the verdict was clear.
John nodded and pushed off the wall. Best get it done so they could focus on catching Spencer.
"Casey…"
He stopped and looked over his shoulder at Bartowski.
The other man stared at him, grimaced, then slumped and looked away.
John scoffed and left the room, then continued towards the stairs to the basement. The moron was still too soft. Sometimes, you had to spill blood. As a spy - or, as was apparent, as a Watcher.
In the basement, he grabbed a roll of plastic sheets from the corner. Before he could move to Petrova's cell, though, he heard steps on the stairs. It wasn't Bartowski, and it was too loud for a Slayer. Walker wouldn't leave Bartowski right now. A glance confirmed that it was Bane.
She took a look at the plastic sheets. "You gonna shoot them?"
"No." That would be unprofessional. You didn't leave potential traces such as a bullet or blood if you could help it. And you didn't leave body bags in a safe house. Plastic sheets had other uses, after all.
She nodded.
"You want to do it?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I just want to… watch. I'll fetch Rosenberg to do whatever she needs to do to prevent ghosts."
He nodded in return as he pulled on plastic gloves. He could understand that, though in her place, he'd want to do the killing himself. And he probably picked a more violent method than suffocation.
Twenty minutes later, the bodies were starting to dissolve in the acid bath in the other part of the basement.
Bartowski wasn't in the living room when John returned. Neither was Walker, but that was to be expected. Grimes had been waiting for Bane, and the two quickly left for their room. Rosenberg and Kennedy were in a video conference with London at the table, with Brown-Smythe hovering behind them. And Caridad...
"Done?" she asked.
"Yes. The bodies will take some time to dissolve, though." Someone else would have to deal with the remains since they needed to get to Langley quickly.
"Ah." She nodded curtly. Then she grinned. "Let's go to bed."
He nodded in return. She didn't seem to be bothered about him killing the two spies.
There were definite advantages to dating a Slayer.
Langley, Virginia, April 25th, 2008
Spencer's house looked exactly what one would expect of a retired data analyst's home: It was perfectly average compared to the neighbours, with a neatly mowed lawn and a well-kept fence. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Even the flagpole at the drive was neither too small nor too big.
It was a little too perfect. John shook his head as he lowered the binoculars.
"It doesn't look like he's home," Caridad commented from the backseat.
"He isn't. According to the postal office's records, his mail is being held back for this and the next month. And his voice mail claims that he's vacationing in Florida," Bartowski added, not looking up from his computer.
John nodded. "Good." That would make breaking into the house easier.
"He's got good security," Walker said. "That's not a civilian camera. CIA issue, although not the latest model."
Again, as would be expected of a retired CIA analyst.
"He probably has a top of the line system as well," Bartowski said.
In Spencer's place, John wouldn't have installed such a system. He'd have kept the house completely unremarkable, apart from one or two eccentricities, and would have built an actual home and base somewhere else. But he was betting that Spencer loved 'hiding under the CIA's nose'. "Nothing we can't handle," he said.
"Yes. I'm more concerned about the other retired CIA employees living in this street," Walker said. "Miller is among them."
John closed his eyes. Paranoia-Pat Miller. That man would have wired the entire street just so no one could sneak up on him.
"Miller?" Bartowski asked.
"He's a former CIA field agent. After the KGB tried to off him on a vacation, he got really paranoid. In his last years with the agency, they pretty much just gave him assignments to keep him busy because he couldn't work with anyone any more," Walker explained.
"Oh! Do you think he has useful data on Spencer?"
That was just such a Bartowski thing to ask. John shook his head. "He wouldn't trust us," he told the moron.
"Really? But if we explained things to him..."
"Yes, Chuck. I've met the man," Walker said. "He doesn't trust anyone."
"Oh."
"We'll have to be extra careful then," Caridad said. "Nothing new. And we've got Willow. And Kennedy, I guess. Not that we need her."
Slayers.
A few hours later, they were ready. Usually, John would have favoured a daylight operation, but with Spencer living in a community mostly populated by retirees, who would be at home during the day and go to bed early - on average - this was safer.
Not safe, of course, not with a number of those retired people having worked for the CIA. Like Miller. The paranoid old coot could be a major problem - or an unwitting asset. They'd see which one would be true soon.
John switched his headset on. "Point one. Moving to the target."
"Uh, Surveillance One. Copy, Point One." Bartowski was back to normal - at least he sounded like it.
"Reserve One. Copy Point One." Kennedy sounded still angry about her not taking part in the actual entry, but she wasn't needed, and John could do without the friction of having two Slayers on the same team.
He restrained from scoffing with the microphone open. Slayer hearing would pick it up, and Kennedy would draw the correct conclusions.
He quickly moved through the backyards of two retired insurance managers. The many ugly oversized statues in their backyards provided ample cover for him and Caridad - according to Bartowski, the two old men continued their rivalry after retirement and had settled on lawn art collections as their battlefield of choice.
Whatever. Now came the hard part: the direct neighbour of Spencer was a retired bank manager, and Spencer had upgraded his security system as a welcome gift - no doubt installing his own access into it as he had it upgraded.
Well, John had dealt with worse. "Motion detector ahead," he whispered. Supposedly deactivated - no one wanted to wake up the neighbourhood every time a racoon felt like checking the trash - but it was linked to other sensors cleverly set up with overlapping fields of coverage. The security system designer knew their job.
But they didn't know Slayers, and what they could do.
"Going in!" Caridad replied, a little too eagerly, and a second later, she dashed past him and jumped.
None of the sensors and cameras covered the air above them, and Caridad easily cleared them, landing in a blind spot right outside Spencer's backyard. A little work with wires later, Bartowski had access to the system.
The nerd took a bit longer than planned, but after ten minutes, the security system wouldn't register a tank driving through the backyard, much less a spy, and John joined Caridad. She sniffed the air. "Some fresh plastic smell. Wires."
Updated or additional sensors? It probably didn't really matter. John took out a periscope and stuck it through the hedgerow to check Spencer's backyard. This one sported the same integrated security as his neighbour's. Once again, clever, but not clever enough. Given time, John could work his way through it easily.
But they didn't need time. Not with a good plan. "Point One. Start the diversion."
"Diversion One. Copy." Bane sounded calm and professional, but John could hear Grimes in the background, gleefully saying 'yes!'.
"Diversion Two. Painting the target now!" Grimes announced over the radio.
John had no idea where Miller had acquired a laser warning system that should have been installed on an armoured fighting vehicle. Nor did he know how the man had wired it to a Soviet-era chaff launcher he had apparently picked up on one of his missions.
But he knew that it had gone off six months ago when a neighbour had played around with a slightly too powerful laser rangefinder. Miller had been forced to reduce the system's sensitivity, but Grimes was using an actual laser target designator - exactly the thing the system had been designed to defeat.
John grinned when clouds of chaff and flares started to arc through the sky, landing on the street and in yards. "Now!" he whispered. A moment later, Caridad drew her arm back and two small objects flew into Spencer's backyard. One filled the entire area in smoke, the other lit it up.
With the house's sensors blinded by what would be seen as Miller's out of control chaff launcher, it was child's play to cross the yard and break into the house. The security sensors at the door actually made it even easier - as soon as John had cracked them, Bartowski took over the entire system, and Caridad and John slipped through the kitchen door into Spencer's home.
Or not home - it didn't look like he lived here for any length of time. Spencer had left the right touches, of course. Magazines on the couch. A glass in the sink. A spice rack with a few cans in need of replenishing.
But it looked, it felt, artificial. Like the pictures in a catalogue. No, Spencer didn't really live here.
But that didn't matter. They weren't here for him, but for his hair. More precisely, the hair he would have left in his brush to show that this was his home - he wouldn't bother with fake hair since the CIA had his DNA on file already. And if anyone wanted to frame him for something and broke into his house, they could easily plant something right here.
But a little hair was all Rosenberg would need to find his actual home. Or base.
Langley, Virginia, April 26th, 2008
"Florida? Spencer is in Florida?" Bartowski sounded scandalised. But then, he had just woken up to the news that Rosenberg had finished her magical tracking. "Just as he told the postal office?"
"That makes a lot of sense - it has a lot of retirement communities," Walker said. "Another man his age wouldn't draw attention."
"But… there is a thing such as being too average," Bartowski complained. "And telling the postal office?"
"It worked for him, didn't it?" John said.
"He's certainly not living in a retirement home," Rosenberg said. "Look at this!" She pointed at the laptop in front of her, then turned it around with a sheepish grin. "He's got his own island!"
And it looked like a decently sized one, John saw when he compared the size of the golf cars on the picture with the rest of the island. Not enough room for a golf course, but you wouldn't fall into the sea as soon as you stepped off the porch. Enough trees and underbrush to provide privacy for Spencer - or concealment for infiltrators.
"Is this his villa, or could he just be a guest there?" Bane asked.
"Oh, it's his." Rosenberg perked up. "After tracking him with a spell using the hair you recovered and finding this island - and I had to sift through a lot of pictures before I found it, mind you; the key was the treeline at the northern edge, that has a distinctive form - Mr Bartowski and I ran checks on the owner. There were a lot of strawmen, of course, and it was cleverly disguised as a tax-avoidance scheme - which makes it doubly-evil, I guess - but we managed - well, mostly Mr Bartowski; I looked into a Bahamas connection that, ultimately, turned out to be a simple off-shore account that must be where he hides his profits - that he controls the whole chain."
"Breathe, Willow," Kennedy said with a smile.
"Sorry! But this is really exciting! Spencer really knows how to avoid his tracks - we would have never found him starting from his official records. Fortunately, he didn't count for magic. And fortunately, he was on his island when I cast the spell."
"You could've cast the spell a few more times, couldn't you?" Grimes asked. "Track all his holdings?"
"Uh… we kind of used a little more hair than we planned to," Rosenberg said, looking embarrassed. "But I said fortunately since we got called back to London for the big anti-Aztec-apocalypse spell. Sorry."
"Oh." Bartowski blinked. "Uh, I guess that's… good news? Because that means we'll be able to stop the apocalypse without more bad things happening?"
"That's the plan, yes." Rosenberg nodded emphatically. "But it means I need to go back to merry old England and can't help you with the big bad spy. Further help you, I mean. And that is bad. I feel like I'm letting you down, even though I knew this could happen."
"We can handle Spencer," Caridad said. "You did enough already!"
"Yes," Bartowski added. "We can handle him. He's just a retired guy in a villa."
"About that…" Rosenberg looked sheepish again. "I also tracked the amount of construction materials used when the villa was remodelled a few years ago."
Bartowski groaned. "Too much concrete?"
"Way too much," the witch confirmed.
"What's with spies and underground bunkers?" the moron complained. "Hiding in a bunker never works out."
"They work when you've got help coming," John told him. As long as the enemy didn't use laser-guided bunker busters dropped by a stealth bomber, but that was another subject.
"Uh. Right. So, how do we crack that bunker?"
"Preferably, we catch him before he can hole up there," Walker said. "Getting onto the island shouldn't be too difficult."
John nodded. It was notoriously difficult to install security in the water. Once you were on the island, though... every inch would be wired, John was sure of it. And since they were on a private island, Spencer's people didn't have to worry about accidentally shooting neighbours. Or pets. On the other hand, John and his team didn't have to worry about collateral damage, either. Other than making sure to take Spencer alive.
"But the security will be tight," Bartowski said.
"If we get discovered, then this might be worse than the D-Day mission," Grimes added.
John rolled his eyes. Bloody nerd. "No security is perfect. We can do this." They had to, anyway.
"It's not as if he has trained killer alligators," Bartowski joked. Badly.
"He has several dogs, though," Rosenberg said. "Large ones. At least according to the bills for food."
John scoffed. They could handle dogs.
Florida, North of Miami, April 27th, 2008
John frowned as he put on the wetsuit, his shoulder hurting a little - it wasn't fully healed, yet. But it would do. Changing clothes in the open door of an SUV wasn't helping, of course - but Spencer would be keeping an eye out for boats and yachts. Even the zodiac they had bought might have raised a lag, had they done so in Florida.
"You alright?" Caridad whispered next to him.
He bit down on the irritation. "Yes." He was the most qualified underwater infiltrator, anyway. Bartowski had the Intersect's skills, but not much practical experience. Walker and Bane had the training but usually used alternative methods to infiltrate islands. Methods involving bikinis, not wetsuits. Caridad was a supernatural athlete, but not a trained spy. And Grimes would guard the car.
She nodded, making a noise that was neither agreement nor disagreement.
"Aren't we rushing this a little?" he heard Grimes ask next to the other car. "I mean… usually, you study the target a little longer, right?"
"The longer we wait, the greater the danger that Spencer will realise that we're coming for him after having captured Hernandez," Bane replied.
John nodded. They had taken a few measures to explain Hernandez's failure to report in - making it appear that she was with them still, having fooled them after the attack on the Fulcrum base - but the deception wouldn't last too long. Spencer was the mastermind behind Fulcrum, after all.
"But…" Grimes trailed off. "I've got a bad feeling about this."
He was a Watcher, not a spy. And a damn nerd. John scoffed as he put the diving belt on. "We have satellite surveillance, pictures, blueprints, and maps." All of them studied at length during the trip down south. "We've done more with less."
"At greater risk," Walker cut in.
"There's always a risk on every mission," John retorted. "And the danger of Spencer escaping is worth the risk." Especially with Rosenberg back in London, unable to redo the spell.
"If we encounter trained guard sharks, I'll refrain the right to say I told you so," Bartowski said. He was already in his wetsuit, holding the diving flippers in one hand and a waterproof backpack in the other. Walker must have helped him.
"Let's go," John said. If they struck out now, they'd reach the island around one in the morning - a good time to hit a base. Most would already be sleeping.
John hadn't used this particular model of an underwater sledge before - they had had to buy civilian ones - but after a brief time spent familiarising himself with it, he had no trouble steering the thing. The compass worked, as did the gyroscope navigation system. No wonder - both of them were CIA gear. So he had no trouble compensating for the currents that tried to push them off course as they made their way underwater towards the island. Contrary to Bartowksi's fears, they didn't encounter any sharks - trained or not - until they were close enough to the island to ditch the sledges on the seabed. It wouldn't do to leave them on the beach, after all.
He stopped the sledge and let it settle on the seabed after switching to his own oxygen tank, looking round for his team. Caridad was right next to him, giving him an OK signal. Bartowski and Walker were a little behind, but the nerd was already steering their sledge towards them. Bane…
He narrowed his eyes behind the diving mask. Had she gotten lost? No, there she was, behind the other two. Even less experience with underwater infiltrations than John had expected, then. Not that it mattered now.
John waited until the third sledge was safely on the seabed, half-buried in the sand, and everyone had recovered their gear bags, then made a sweeping motion and started swimming towards the shore.
The current was stronger than expected - Spencer would have to be careful when swimming at his private beach - but John's shoulder gave him no trouble, and he easily made it. Water therapy, he thought with a snort as he peered at the small beach ahead of him, head in the surf.
It looked clear - he couldn't spot any sensors or cameras. That didn't mean there weren't any, of course, but the odds were decent. And they were on a tight schedule.
He grabbed his gear bag and rose out of the water, dashing across the beach into the palm forest behind it. Caridad beat him to it, of course.
Not that it mattered. He unslung his gear bag and quickly swapped his flippers for shoes, pulled on the webbing and the ballistic vest - the wetsuits were made for civilians and lacked ballistic lining - and put his night vision goggles on. By the time Bartowski was checking if his laptop had survived the trip, John was already at the other edge of the small strip of palm trees, studying the villa across the lawn.
At his side, Caridad sniffed the air. "It smells like dog."
"We already knew that Spencer owns several dogs," he whispered. Though since the villa lacked a kennel, he had to keep them inside - which meant they probably weren't guard dogs but some overbed trophy dogs. Not exactly harmless, and dealing with them inside the villa would be a pain, but John would rather deal with three spoiled poodles than one trained doberman.
"Yes, but the stench is really strong," Caridad said.
He nodded. Perhaps there were more than a few, then. Well, the drugged meat Caridad was carrying should still work. "Let's find a route to the villa."
As soon as Bartoski and Walker joined them, they made their way to the edge of the palm tree forest closest to the villa. He fiddled with his goggles and looked the area over. There! "Cameras on the pillar," he whispered, indicating the decorative stone column marking the corner of the terrace.
"I see them," Walker replied.
"Let me check… no, not a wireless model," Bartowski said. As if Spencer would use wireless surveillance. "No exposed wire, either… but that means they ran the fibre optics and powerlines through the ground… which means… there! It has to run under those decorative stone slabs there - they wouldn't drag up the concrete every time they needed to replace the wiring."
Ordinarily, that wouldn't have helped them much - the stone slabs were covered by the camera. But with Caridad's supernatural strength, it was easy for the Slayer to use a small pole to lift the slab closest to the column just enough so Bartowski could slip in a probe of his.
"Ah… yes… there's where the cables connect… let's splice them!" the nerd mumbled as he got to work. Ten minutes later, he was hacking the security system.
John grinned. Spencer was a good data analyst, one of the best, probably, but whoever he had hired for computer security was no match for Bartowski. Either Bartowski.
"Got it! The cameras are under control! Even inside the villa… Uh."
John's grin vanished. "What?" he snapped.
"I found the dogs."
"Yes?" He rolled his eyes. They expected dogs.
"They're corgis."
"Corgis? Harmless furballs. And Bartowski made such a fuss? Wait. How much did Spencer spend on pet food again?
"There's an army of them inside! A horde! Must be over three dozen - it seems an entire wing of the villa is theirs!"
Corgis. A horde of corgis. Too many to drug them with the meat they brought. "Are they locked up?"
"Uh… lemme check… door's closed, so..probably?"
"And where's Spencer?" If the man slept surrounded by dogs…
"The master bedroom is not covered by cameras, but it's in the other wing," Bartowski whispered.
"We'll avoid the dog wing, then." Eyes on the prize.
Bartowski seemed to find that funny.
John ignored the stupid snickering. "Where are the guards?"
"Uh… two are in the security room and the rest… asleep in their rooms. Which are on the second floor. Dog wing. Half a dozen guards."
Fewer than John had expected. Well, he wouldn't complain. "Let's go, then."
With the cameras looped, reaching the villa was easy, and the terrace door was no real obstacle, either. A few minutes later, they were inside the living room - which was a far cry from the one in Langley.
"It looks like Spencer likes the 'early nouveau riche' style," Bartowski commented as they sneaked past ugly but expensive furniture that might even have caused a rapper to have second thoughts.
"Can it," John snapped. This was a mission. The security room was connected to the entrance hall - not too far away. He took point and led them to the entrance hall. There was the door. He slowly approached it, looking around. The door to the dog wing was closed, and the stairs leading up to the upper floor were clear. Good.
He could hear the guards inside the security room chat with each other. Typical for the graveyard shift, but unprofessional. They hadn't even closed the door - he could see the back of one guard through the gap.
Easy. He signalled to Caridad, who grinned in response, then moved to the door. Another grin, then she kicked it open and rushed the room.
John followed, but both guards were out before he moved into the room. While she was gagging and tying them up, John quickly checked the security camera feeds on the big screens in the room. Everything seemed clear. No movement, guards upstairs asleep, stupid little dogs… He blinked. They were up. And one of them was staring at the door. Had it heard them?
More dogs were gathering there. John suddenly felt uneasy.
Then the lead dog jumped, paws landing on the door handle - and the door opened.
And the dog horde started to pour into the entrance hall. Yipping, barking, bouncing, the little pests came on. John didn't even have to look at the camera feeds from the guard quarters to know that any hope of keeping this quiet had just died. "Incoming guards," he snapped, rushing to the door. If the dogs were attacking...
Fortunately, they weren't, but they were bad enough just trying to play or whatever small dogs did. "Whoa! Hey!" Bartowski was struggling to keep standing with half a dozen corgis pushing against him. A few of the pests even tried to bite into his wetsuit.
A sudden howl made John whirl around just in time to catch a corgi flying through the air and Caridad kicking the next one.
The Slayer had the right idea, John realised - they couldn't fight guards with a horde of dogs running into their legs. He kicked out at the closest dog, catching it in the side, as he moved towards the stairs the guards would be taking. "Check the security cameras!" he yelled at Bartowski over the frantic barking and howling that assaulted their ears.
"But…" Another corgi flying past the moron to crash against the wall shut him up, and he retreated into the security room.
But now the corgis had started growling instead of yapping. They were keeping their distance, trying to circle them. Like a damned pint-sized wolf pack. And while their teeth wouldn't get through the wetsuit, much less the vests, if they managed to reach a hand or a throat… crouching behind a railing would be a bad idea until the dogs were dealt with.
He kicked another dog away when it got too close, which prompted two more to lunge at him. One ineffectively tried to bite his shin, but the other jumped up to latch onto his webbing. John rammed the butt of his rifle into its skull, and it fell off.
But the whole attack had delayed him, and so he was still on the stairs when the guards appeared in the door on the floor above him. John shot the first one with a short burst but couldn't stop the other three from dropping to the ground out of his sight. And if they were even marginally competent, they'd be spreading out until they could catch the team in a crossfire - from above.
Charging up the stairs would be suicide, though. John reached into a pouch for a grenade. That would…
Another corgi suddenly hung from John's rifle, teeth dug into the sling, unbalancing him. He smashed it against the stairs, but he had to bend down for it, and two more jumped him. "Kill the dogs!" he yelled as he tried to shake them off and get up again. "Guards on top!" The grenade went flying, but, fortunately, he hadn't pulled the pin yet.
Then he was pushed to the side by a blow to the chest. Bullet, caught by his vest, he realised. Another shot ricocheted off the stone stair and a third hit one of the corgis. Where…? There! John dropped to a knee and brought the rifle up. Even with a stupid little dog hanging onto it. He managed to place a bullet into the head of the guard who had shot him. Two down, two to go.
And Bane and Walker were shooting from the security room's door, presumably keeping the remaining guards down. That left…
Caridad roared, blades slicing dogs left and right, blood splattering all over the entrance hall, as she ploughed through the corgis, mowing them down before they could retreat. That was… a great distraction.
John rushed up the stairs, kicking a fleeing corgi to the side, then rolled over the floor at the top, bringing his rifle to bear. One of the guards was lying on the floor across from him, trying to get a bead on Cariad. John emptied a magazine into him. Bullets hit the floor and railing next to him in response, but John rolled behind a sturdier pillar before the guard hit him.
A quick magazine change later, he rolled out again and returned fire. Caught between him and Walker and Bane, the guard didn't last long.
John jumped up again. "To the bedroom!" he yelled, rushing down the stairs.
"I don't have eyes, I mean cameras, on that part of the house," Bartowski announced.
That didn't matter. Spencer was their objective, and he was there.
John reached the bottom of the stairs just in time for Caridad to finish off the last dog that hadn't fled. She glared at him. "If anyone asks, they were hellhounds!"
He nodded at her, which seemed to satisfy the Slayer, and moved towards the door leading to Spencer's wing of the house. That one had a security lock. Just how paranoid was the man?
John started picking it before Walker and Bane reached them. "Chuck's checking the rest of the house," Walker reported.
"Uh… there are two women and a man who have locked themselves into their room;" John heard Bartowski over the radio.
"Probably the staff. Maid, cook and butler," Bane speculated.
But it made sense. Civilians. No threat, no problem.
Unlike the security door. Spencer must have swiped some CIA state of the art equipment. "Time for the plastic door knocker," John said, reaching into his backpack.
It took him half a minute to place the C-4, and as long to reach cover behind the stairs, next to the bloody remains of a corgi Caridad had sliced in half.
He triggered the explosives and rushed forward before the dust cloud had started settling. Spencer would've been alerted, but they still had a chance. At the remains of the door, he pressed himself against the wall, then peered around the torn door frame.
Something moved, and he jerked back a fraction of a second before automatic started up. Machine gun, general purpose. Was that spencer? He pulled out his periscope and checked.
And cursed. I was a sentry gun. "Did Spencer raid the entire CIA armoury and no one noticed?" he muttered.
"That, or he stole enough money to buy whatever it is," Caridad commented next to him.
"Sentry gun," he replied.
"Those robot guns?"
"Yes."
"Armoured?" she asked.
"To withstand grenades," he replied.
"Can we shoot it?"
"If we're really fast." He wanted to take the words back as soon as he said it.
"I'm fast." She grinned, then held out her hand for his gun.
It was too dangerous - the gun could react faster than most people. But she was the Slayer. "Shoot the sensors and ammo feed," he told her as he handed her the rifle.
"Sensors and feed, got it!"
Then she stepped back a little before running forward - and launched herself into the air, flying past the open door. She twisted and fired, landing on the other side, safely behind the wall. "Got it!" she announced, then held her right upper arm with her left hand. "But it got me too."
Blood was already running down her arm. But she hadn't dropped the rifle - which meant she would be fine. Fine enough to fight on, at least. John used the periscope again to check on the sentry gun - both the ammunition feed and the cameras guiding it were destroyed.
"Rifle!" he snapped.
Caridad handed it to him as Walker and Bane charged past them, towards the master bedroom.
That one had another security lock, which John blew up again.
But the bedroom was empty. John rushed forward, checking the unmade bed. Still warm. "He was here. And he didn't leave through the front door."
"And he didn't leave through the window," Bartowski chimed in through the radio.
Caridad started sniffing the air, then bent down. "His scent is strongest here…" she said, following it to the walk-in closet. "Secret escape tunnel leading to the bunker?"
John groaned.