Girl Fights Back (Go No Sen) (Emily Kane Adventures) by Jacques Antoine Page A

advantage.
Meacham probably sent two teams of four. They would be heavily armed, probably
wearing kevlar body armor. They wouldn’t need night vision gear. With the
approach of dawn, the blazing fire in the woodshed and fire beginning to peek
out of the windows of the main house, there was enough eerie light to see the
entire scene pretty well. He couldn’t risk a shootout with these guys, even if
he had a gun. Emily might get caught in a crossfire. He knew they were focused
on the main house. No diversion would get them to forget their primary mission:
subdue the inhabitants, apprehend Yuki and Emily. His best chance was to induce
them to enter the main house as quickly as possible.
    He knocked over some garden tools,
a rake, a wheelbarrow, a bucket, all to create a clatter, and ran quickly to
the front door of the main house. Bullets whizzed past him on all sides. He felt
one graze his side just as he burst into the house. It didn’t feel like a
serious wound, but it burned like a hot poker resting just below his ribs. He
tumbled into the dining room. The living room was pretty hot now. The drapes
were in full blaze. Some of the upholstered furniture near the outside wall was
beginning to burn. The bookcases would catch fire soon.
    One team would
come in through the front door. If he was lucky, they would be temporarily
forced to focus on the fire in the living room. The other team would circle
around to the kitchen entrance, with an eye on the garage. He needed to find a
way to get the second team into the house before Emily arrived. At least then
she would have a chance to size up the situation before encountering them.
    Back to top

 

Chapter 6:
If you can’t stand the heat ...
    When Emily came to the edge of the
forest she had already seen the fire in the woodshed. She had only suspected
something was wrong from Promontory Rock, but now she could see that nothing at
all was right at her home. She just caught a glimpse of Yuki driving off with
Mr. Cardano, and then saw her father apparently setting fire to the main house.
Strangely, the security guards were nowhere to be seen. She had also spotted
something much more ominous: suspicious activity in the hedges off to the left.
There were several men moving as quietly as they could manage through some
rather dense and noisy underbrush. She circled around to her right, always
remaining concealed within the verge of the forest.
    She made her way to the point in
the north lawn where the woods came closest to the estate buildings, about
fifty yards from the corner of the garage. From this position, she had a very
clear view of her father, crouching against the corner of the building, peering
over a low shrub toward the hedges. “Thank God! He sees them too!” she thought
with a palpable feeling of relief.
    Just then, she saw him scatter some
tools with a clatter and burst from behind the shrub towards the main house.
They saw him too! He was running as fast as she had ever seen him go. He only
had to cover twenty yards to get to the cover of the house. She didn’t hear the
muzzle report of any gunfire, but she could definitely hear the sound of
bullets ricocheting around her father as he turned the corner of the front
portico. And then she saw that the whole house seemed to be on fire! She
desperately wanted to run to her father, to see if he was hit, to warn him
about the fire, to wrap herself in his arms. But she knew she should hold back,
wait just a moment, see what those men were up to. They didn’t know she was
there yet. She might need that advantage.
    They had guns, seemed to be very
heavily armed. She saw them running toward the house. They had to cover about a
hundred and fifty yards. She shifted her position further to her right, trying
to find a position as close to the kitchen door as she could manage without
drawing their attention. This brought her to a position near the blazing
woodshed as well. She discarded her backpack and got ready to run. Her