by Rhona Weaver
Win’s watch read 4:13 when he hit the top of the main staircase leading to the first floor. Luke was crouched there, moving everyone carefully over several lengths of gray wire that stretched between the massive log columns. Win’s eyes took in twelve-foot-tall antler chandeliers, an open dining area the size of his house, and western artwork on the stone mantel that nearly took his breath away. So this is how the other half lives.
Through the thirty-foot-high glass windows, his eyes also took in a redheaded man and a tall, slender man, both in security-company uniforms, walking past the helo pads toward the guardhouse in the distance. Two other men were standing about fifty yards west of the front porch, on the helo pad. They were armed with assault rifles. . . . Something had changed. They weren’t pretending to be party greeters any longer. They were watching the house. Damn! They’d be able to see both back doors from there. It was now impossible to move the hostages toward the caterer vans—those two guys would have clear shots at them.
“Keep moving, keep moving, come on ladies . . . watch the wires here.” Emily was gently leading several of the older women through the maze of detonation wires toward the rear of the house and the kitchen. The traumatized guests were so grateful to be moving toward safety that they were even thanking the militiamen. Emily glanced at Win and whispered, “These are the last ones. . . . Everyone’s here.” Win wiped a layer of sweat off his face with his sleeve and joined Luke beside the kitchen door.
“All here,” he reported to Luke.
Win noticed for the first time how pale Luke’s normally tan face looked. The loss of blood must be taking a toll. He could see the tight bandage on his left wrist—the thought of Luke slitting his own wrist to save his life this morning still astounded him.
Eriksson knelt down on one knee beside them and leaned on his rifle. “There are a couple of big rocks out there. If we can get to those boulders, we can keep Thayer and that deputy pinned till we move these folks past the vans to the barns. The vans will provide some cover.”
“Whoever tries for those rocks is gonna be wide open,” Luke pointed out.
Eriksson sighed sadly. “Me and my boys will handle this, Brother Luke. You people better get to Brother King’s guys and those other folks up at the guardhouse. No telling what they’re gonna do.”
“Alright, brother. You’re doing the honorable thing.” Luke grasped the big man’s left arm and met his eyes for a moment.
“Hey, hey!” Win quickly interjected. “We can’t start shooting without giving them the chance to surrender—this is a law enforcement operation.” The militiamen and Luke all stared at him as if he were an idiot.
Eriksson scoffed. “I guarantee you them boys ain’t gonna give you the chance to surrender.”
Emily appeared from behind them without her helmet, badge in hand. “Somebody’s got to do this, and they might not expect a woman.” She nodded to the big man, who gave a signal, and suddenly they were all gone out the door and onto the wide flagstone patio. Emily faced the two bad guys, held up her badge, and yelled “FBI! Drop your weapons!” She immediately fell to the ground and began crawling toward the house, even before the subjects leveled their weapons. All four of the militiamen’s assault rifles fired at the same time. The deputy sheriff went down where he stood, but the Thayer brother rolled to his right and returned fire.
Win watched through squinted eyes—it happened so fast. One of the militiamen fell forward hard into the ground. Eriksson made it to the biggest boulder and sent an automatic burst of at least twelve rounds back at Thayer’s position. The other two militiamen made it to cover. While that firefight was going on outside the door, Johnson grabbed Emily’s arm and pulled her back inside. “Well, that went well,” Johnson quipped. She was white as a sheet, and Win could tell she was shaking—but she’d done what had to be done. Win filed that away in his mind. She might not be the best supervisor in the Bureau, but she was no coward.
Luke quickly turned to Trey, Johnson, and Watson. “Stay with us till we get past the vans, then y’all cut off and go with this group of folks. Get everyone away from this building. Helluva lot of explosives here! Find the people in the stable cellar, make sure it’s not wired. Ms. Stuart will go with you. More FBI people will be here within forty minutes. Come back us up when your sector is under control. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” Watson replied. Trey and Johnson lowered their rifles and nodded.
“Go!”
Win knew it had to be nearly 4:30—they all stepped out onto the patio and laid down withering fire toward Thayer’s position. The militiamen rose from behind the rock and began firing. The frightened civilians were herded out the door and toward the cover of the vans. Win dropped to his knees behind a fancy barbeque grill and tried to control his heartbeat and his firing angle. You’re a marksman, Win! Ease up . . . take him down! But Eriksson had a better angle on Billy Thayer, and Eriksson was apparently a marksman too. He put a round just above the guy’s body armor, right into his throat. Win was hoping the ladies weren’t seeing this. He blinked to clear the sight of the bloody carnage from his mind and realized that Watson’s partner was firing toward someone on their flank. The bad guys were apparently sending in reinforcements.
Chapter Forty-Two
At the pop! pop! pop! pop! of automatic rifle fire behind them, Luke and Win both wheeled and glanced toward the east side of the lodge. “Win! Get to that corner of the building and cover us!” Then, “Move!” Win sprinted across the patio, dodged lounge chairs, leaped a low stone wall, and tried to remember how many shots he’d fired from his assault rifle. More than ten? He wasn’t sure, but this was no time to run out of bullets. The rifle was equipped with the Park Service’s standard twenty-round magazine. More than fifteen?
Win threw himself on his knees behind one of the decorative boulders near the corner of the log building. He could see two men in the militia’s taupe-and-green camo moving toward the security guard’s position in the ditch. Dang it! It didn’t look like they were fearful of taking return fire. They were upright and moving forward with their backs to him . . . pop! pop! pop! Their rifle fire sounded so much like harmless fireworks from nearly a hundred yards away. He didn’t take time to aim—they were closing on the security guard’s position in a hurry. Win squeezed the trigger and got off three short volleys that totally missed his targets, but it did get the bad guys’ attention as rounds slammed into the sagebrush-covered ground around them. They both spun and returned his fire. He ducked low behind the rock and pulled out a new magazine—he knew he had to be nearly out. Those guys were pretty good shots; pieces of stone were ricocheting off the boulder. He stayed down and hit the release, detaching the spent magazine, then slid the new one in and heard it lock home.
He caught a glimpse of the partygoers being hurried along behind the house. They were being herded, helped, and even carried by their ragtag rescue team. The colors were a peculiar blend of the bright reds, blues, purples, and yellows of the women’s gowns, mixed with the militiamen’s camo, the men’s black tuxedos, and then Johnson in his blue raid jacket with the large gold FBI lettering across the back. As the running group got closer to the barns and stable and out of his line of sight, Win realized again how surreal this all felt. Too much adrenaline was flooding his system. He knew that battle-hardened troops had to learn to control the surges of adrenaline, that fight-or-flight chemical God gave us for protection and strength in times of danger. Right now, it was too much. Right now it was actually screwing up his focus on the job at hand. He had to be cool and steady—not hyper and frantic. He made a mental note to work on that. . . . If he made it through today, he’d work on that.
His watch read 4:27. Luke had made it to the corner of the lodge and was aiming his rifle with one hand while it rested on a notched log. Win interpreted the closed-fist signal from Luke’s free hand to mean Stay put! He stayed put. Luke fired one shot. Win peered around the base of the rock just in
time to see a black drone shatter into dozens of pieces. The drone hadn’t reached the height of the lodge’s roof. There was a good chance its camera hadn’t picked up the movement of the hostages away from the structure.
Seconds later, Luke moved to his side. “Let’s get out of here—this thing may blow any second. Get back toward the trees, then we’ll cut to the ditch.” He was moving away at a low crouch as he was speaking. They both fired a couple of bursts toward the guardhouse as they streaked across the mostly open yard toward the tree line.
Trey was jogging to them as they cleared the first trees and turned toward the gully. All three crouched low and quickly moved through the thick evergreens toward the ditch.
Trey’s breath was coming in gasps as he made his abbreviated report. “Deputy is dead . . . other bad guy is dead . . .” No doubt about that. Win knew the image of the Thayer brother taking a bullet in the throat wasn’t going to leave him anytime soon. Trey caught a breath and kept talking. “The militia guy . . . took a clean shot through his upper arm, didn’t hit the bone . . . and took one into his body armor. . . . Stunned him, but he should be okay. There were a bunch of people in a locked basement up there . . . no explosives. They’re getting them out.” All three men slid down into the south end of the ditch and began moving forward more slowly. “Johnson or that Watson guy should be coming soon to back us up. . . . It’s past 4:30. . . . What’s the deal?” Trey asked.
Win was wondering the same thing.
* * *
The contract security guard they’d left in the ditch was not having a good day. First, Luke had busted his jaw when he’d jumped him early on, and now he’d been shot by Chandler’s men. But Win was impressed by the man’s grit. As Win eased down the shallow gully and dropped into the deeper ditch beside him, the guy’s first reaction was to try to aim his handgun.
“Whoa! Whoa!” Win called out as he ducked away from the unsteady Glock.
Trey jumped to the side of the disoriented man. “We’re with the good guys, dude! We’re here to help!” Win pulled the shaking handgun free and the guy collapsed against the ranger. He’d taken a couple of rifle rounds into his ceramic-plate body armor, and while they hadn’t penetrated the plate, they’d caused enough shock trauma to his chest to nearly knock him out. His eyes were dull and blank. He was also bleeding badly from the lower arm. A 5.56mm bullet had done some damage. Trey was pulling out the serious medical stuff from the first aid satchel on his web belt.
Win waited for Luke, and then Johnson, to move in beside him. No one was shooting at them now, and they couldn’t figure out why. It looked as if the bad guys had hunkered down inside the one-story stone guardhouse. Why? They were fixing to find out.
They all spotted the second drone at the same time. It was moving from the guardhouse their way at an altitude of about two hundred feet.
“Win, shoot down the drone. If it reaches us they’ll know what we’ve got.”
Win was thinking the bad guys had already seen them, they already knew what they had. So why the drone? It was one of the small commercial four-propeller types with a revolving camera. This one was white, and Win was aiming against a grayish-white, cloudy sky. The wind was buffeting the small craft from side to side as it moved toward their position and tried to gain altitude. Win was good with a rifle—actually very good, not that he’d proven it today—but target shooting and even marksmanship competitions were a cinch compared with the stress of knowing the shot could make the difference between life and death. He rested his cheek against the hard, black plastic of the semiautomatic’s short stock, found the drone in the metal sights, held his breath, and gently squeezed the trigger.
“Bingo!” Trey called, as the bullet broke the sixteen-inch-wide craft into dozens of pieces, which floated toward the ground in the wind. It occurred to Win as he started to lower his rifle—the drone’s camera was pointed away from them, not toward them. It was filming the lodge. His watch said 4:42. Then Trey’s cell phone buzzed a message alert. The cell phones hadn’t been working . . . Crap! The explosives aren’t on a timer, they’re on a cell phone trigger. The bad guys have just turned off the cell phone jammer!
It occurred to Luke at the same moment. “Get down!” he yelled, dropping over the top of Trey and the injured guard. Win fell forward into the bottom of the ditch just as the entire roof of the lodge blew out in every direction. The shock wave from the explosion and logs the size of grown trees blew over the top of their shallow ditch. It was over in seconds, and as flaming pieces of debris began falling all around them, Win clung to his bit of earth and covered his head with his hands, praying that nothing would land on them. While he was at it, he prayed for his and everyone else’s protection in this whole awful mess. He was too stunned to get too specific. Win knew the Holy Spirit could sort it out and the angels were watching over him . . . still, he wished he had a helmet.
Luke was up before the last pieces of the roof hit the ground—mostly in front of them, thank goodness. A massive fire was raging in what was left of the center of the lodge, and thick, black smoke was blanketing the grounds. Luke seemed oblivious to the destruction of the spot where they’d all been standing less than thirty minutes ago. He was rapidly giving commands. “Johnson, get down to those three big timbers—get there while they’re wrapped in smoke. Win, go halfway down with him. Lay in at that roof beam and give Johnson cover the rest of the way in, then get back here to the ditch while he covers your back. That’s our first move. Everyone got that?”
Heads nodded.
“Trey, you follow Johnson down to those timbers once you finish patching up this boy. Your cover fire will allow Win to take out the guy in front of the guardhouse. You and Johnson keep pinging at ’em, but conserve your ammo—we don’t have any to waste.”
Wait—what? Did he just tell me to take out the guy in front of the guardhouse?
“Win—you and me, we’re moving down the ditch after you get back up here. So don’t piddle around down there. Win and I will hit the front and rear of the guardhouse at the same time. That will be five minutes from the time we leave this point. I will whistle the start. Use your stopwatches, be exact. At the five-minute point, I want some cover fire for us. Everyone clear?” Luke’s eyes swept faces. “Alright, I’m gonna scout for a few minutes. . . . Johnson, you and Win get on it fore the smoke thins out.” He disappeared into the sagebrush.
Johnson had the blue ball cap with the gold FBI letters pulled down low over his face; he’d lost his protective glasses somewhere and was squinting into the blowing smoke. The older agent pulled his heavy frame up and out of the gully and started down the slope at an angle to the guardhouse. Win waited a few seconds, then followed him out of the ditch. He felt the heat on his face the moment he cleared the ditch bank. The inferno in the center of the big lodge was sending flames almost sixty feet into the air—it looked as if the front and east sides of the building were totally blown apart. The fire’s roar and the shattering of glass and cracking of timbers were nearly overpowering his senses. Dense smoke was rising hundreds of feet into the air in twisted columns; it was fanned through the sky and across the side yards by the wind. HRT wouldn’t need GPS to find them, that was for sure.
Johnson was making a beeline for a pile of jumbled timbers that had recently been part of the roof. They had blown about fifty yards northeast of the house and were about the same distance from the front of the guardhouse—they’d provide an ideal shooting platform to cover the front of that building. The drawback was getting there. The bad guys couldn’t see them moving in the swirling, black smoke, but the smoke was so thick that the good guys couldn’t see where they were going. Win immediately tripped over several large stones that had been part of a chimney. He nearly went down. Just as he recovered and made it to the pile of logs, someone realized they were hidden by the smoke and began firing indiscriminately into the billowing cloud. He’s wasting a bunch of ammunition, Win thoug
ht, but he could get lucky. And he nearly did. Johnson was right in front of Win when he fell hard. The big man’s rifle crashed to the ground and he let out a loud groan.
“You hit? Where?” Win got down in a low crouch, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and tried to drag Johnson toward the cover. He could only see through thin gaps in the smoke. It had an acid, bitter taste; it was burning his eyes and lungs. He was blinded and choking at the same time. He used all his strength to half-carry Johnson to relative safety behind three massive timbers just as the gunman let loose with another volley in their general direction.
The smoke swirled away to the south for a few moments and Win started patting Johnson down to see where he was hit. He roughly pushed Win’s probing hands away. “I’m not shot, damn it! Stepped in a damn prairie dog hole! I hate those things—couldn’t see where I was goin’. Twisted my knee. . . . I’m too damned old for this!”
Win was taken aback. “You’re what? Mid-fifties?” He was thinking that was about his dad’s age. “That’s not old!”
Johnson leaned against the shattered timbers. He was shaking the sand out of the MP5 and checking his magazines. “Don’t you know that FBI agents age in dog years after the age of fifty! That makes me, what? Eighty-five! Hell, I shoulda retired last month!” Then his gruff look changed for a moment. He almost smiled. “Glad you made it back today—I know I haven’t had much to say to you. But you’ve done a good job here . . . and, honestly, no one thought you were comin’ back.” His quota of sentiment apparently spent, he abruptly turned from Win and took up a defensive position in the jumbled logs. He changed the topic. “I’m down to one spare magazine and my handgun. Our backup sure as hell needs to get here. Chandler’s boys are gonna push back any second. Bordeaux’s right to go on the offensive. This is gonna get ugly.”
