Page 72 of Good Enough

“How close are you, Demon?”

“Southern corner now.”

“Wait for me. Be there in sixty.”

Waters took off at a jog, swinging around to come in from the eastern side so he could coordinate with Demon. “Here.”

“No sign of Nemo, but no sign of disruption, either.”

“Slow and easy. I’ll go in the front with a detour past her window to see if there’s anything there. You take the back. Swing out to the tree line and take a quick look for Nemo.”

“Already done. He’s not there.”

“Okay. I’ll check in before we enter.”

“Copy.”

Walking as nonchalantly as he could, looking for all of the world like he was simply returning to the house for something, Waters continued toward the house at an angle that would allow him to scout out Kubrick’s room to see if anyone was inside. The alarm on his watch was still flashing, but then again, it wouldn’t stop until he reset it on-site.

As he passed the window, he used his peripheral vision to see if he could spot anything. The shutters were open, but nothing looked off from the outside, and he didn’t want to get closer and tip off anyone who could still be inside. Whoever had tripped the alarm had accessed the room through the kitchen and then the War Room entrance.

As Waters arrived at the front door, he removed his gun from its place at the small of his back and moved into position on the porch. He tapped a quick text to Demon to breach on three.

Tapping the countdown on his audio, when he hit three, Waters swung through the door and quickly cleared the hallway. He listened carefully. There was no sound of Demon entering the house, but then again, there wouldn’t be. Unfortunately, there was also no sound to indicate anyone was within the walls at all. Waters trained his weapon on the War Room doors, which were cracked open. Backing up to the door of his room, he quickly tested the doorknob, and it was still locked. With both hands to his weapon, he noticed a text from Demon.

“Nemo out cold, but okay. Coming out.”

Waters breathed a small sigh of relief that Nemo was still breathing, but the intruder could still be in the house. Did Nemo spot him and get caught following, or did the intruder sneak in behind him? Nemo wouldn’t have had any reason to enter the house unless he was following someone. But what if there were two of them? Nemo could have followed one and then been snuck up on by a second. It would have been odd for him to miss a tail, but not impossible.

Demon came from the kitchen, giving the “all-clear” sign.

Waters motioned to the War Room doors, pointing Demon to go high. Counting down from three on his fingers, the two men burst through the door.

It was trashed. Papers were everywhere surrounding the desk. The worktable with all of the storyboards was overturned. Desk drawers were pulled out and dumped on the desk. Both his tablet and Kubrick’s laptop were missing.

The doors to Kubrick’s room were also cracked.

After clearing the room, Waters again motioned for Demon to go high, and he used his fingers to count down, breaching the door. If the War Room was a mess, then her room was a disaster. Everything was ripped apart. Literally. Pillows had been cut, and the filling dumped. The mattress was tipped, slashed, and clearly searched. Her backpack was dumped, and the contents were strewn across the floor. What little clothing she had brought with her was also littering the space.

When they had entered, after the cursory sweep showing clearly that no one was still in the bedroom, Demon had continued on to clear the bathroom. He now surveyed the windows, running his fingers along the frames, looking for evidence that they’d been recently opened.

“Clear,” Demon informed him.

The two men proceeded to clear the rest of the house and found themselves alone, save for Nemo sprawled on the kitchen floor. Once they confirmed no intruders remained behind, they went to collect and revive their teammate. Demon did a quick pat down to check for injuries and found nothing more than a significant bump on the back of his head. While Waters made an ice pack, Demon broke an ammonia stick beneath Nemo’s nose. It didn’t take more than a second or two for him to wake and issue a complaint of, “I’d have rather gotten bitten by the snake again.” Together, Waters and Demon hauled him up from the floor and put him in a chair.

While Demon proceeded to take vitals for Nemo, Waters used his watch to call TB. He picked up immediately. “All clear here.”

Waters appreciated that TB knew exactly what his first concern would be. “Good. Here, not so much.”

He looked over to where Demon was working on their teammate. “Nemo took a whack to the back of the head. No details yet, but can’t rule out the possibility of two Charlies, so keep frosty.”

“Roger that.” TB clicked off.

Waters made a second call. Midas answered almost as swiftly as TB had. “What the holy hell is going on down there? Nemo’s life alert went off, Cyclopes is going apeshit on C1, 2, and 4, and there are two men in black systematically destroying the contents of C1 and C2.”

“I’ll have Demon reset the alarms momentarily. Someone broke into the house. Do you have any pictures for me?”

“Umm, yeah. I don’t know who these guys are, but they’re fast and efficient.” Keys were clacking in the background. “From what I can tell, there’s only two of them. Facial recognition will be no good as they’re covered head-to-toe. I might be able to get some rough estimates on height and weight, but that’s not super helpful. Right now, I don’t see any distinguishing marks like tattoos or birthmarks, but I’ll go through it frame by frame when we’re done and double-check. One thing I can tell you, they’re both male.”

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