Gadgets and Blancanales nodded, then hurried out. Lyons gathered together the junkie's jacket, boots, and World War II German MP-40 submachinegun. He dumped the whole lot, dead junkie and belongings, into a tangle of brush outside.
He heard the motorcycles before he saw them. Running back to the station office, he keyed his hand-radio: "Gadgets, Pol! Take cover, bikers coming up."
"There's a sentry on the radar tower!" Gadgets hissed. "We're stuck out in the open hoping he won't... Oh, man... he sees us. We are in the shit!"
The Outlaws' walkie-talkie buzzed. Behind the voice, there was the roar of engines. "On our way up to relieve you dudes. I tell you, you're going to dig the good times at the casino — hey, you motherfuckers! You shooting at us?"
Rifle fire was ripping the quiet. A confusion of voices on the Outlaws' walkie-talkie mixed with the motorcycles' roar as they gunned up the hill. Lyons looked out the door, saw four bikers race past. Halfway between the radio station and the radar towers, Gadgets and Blancanales sprawled in the dirt road's ruts. A biker on the radar towers fired down at them with a large caliber rifle.
Firing wild from the handlebars of their 1200s, the four bikers sprayed Gadgets and Blancanales with shotgun and automatic fire. Bullets and double-zero shot kicked up dust all around Gadgets and Blancanales. The sniper in the towers continued firing.
A burst from Gadgets' Uzi spilled one of the bikers. Lyons grabbed the Outlaw walkie-talkie. "Pull back to the radio station! Chief's coming up the hill with twenty more guys. Don't die for nothing. We'll sit back here and shoot those two assholes to pieces."
Lyons saw the bikers circling back. He snatched an extra magazine for his Ingram. He stood in the doorway in his biker clothing, with the walkie-talkie covering most of his face. When the three bikers came within twenty feet, ignorant of the danger, he emptied his Ingram at them, knocking down two, wounding the third. Lyons ducked behind the cinder block wall, slammed in the second magazine, then blasted the third biker as he dumped his motorcycle and tried to pump a shotgun with an injured arm. Another biker, badly wounded, struggled to crawl behind his bike for cover, but died as slugs ripped away pieces of his head, punching holes in his downed bike. Gasoline whooshed into a dramatic fireball, singeing Lyons' eyebrows.
Changing magazines again, Lyons put a coup de grace burst through the third biker. On the other end of the mountain crest, Uzi and G-3 fire answered the sentry's rifle. Lyons saw the sentry fall through the tower struts.
Sprinting, Lyons didn't pause as he fired a burst through the spilled biker in front of him. The smell of death was everywhere. He continued on to Gadgets and Blancanales.
"Great trick, grandstand." Blancanales rose out of the dust holding his thigh.
"Heard it on the walkie-talkie," Gadgets grinned.
"Sorry about that," Lyons laughed. "Did it again. Improvised."
"I didn't say you couldn't improvise when it was necessary..."
"Pol, you're wounded." Lyons saw blood on Blancanales.
"My G-3 got customized." The automatic rifle had two bullet holes in the plastic buttstock. "And my leg, too. But..." He pulled a Heckler and Koch box magazine out of his thigh pocket. Bent and twisted, the magazine had a hole through it. Blancanales reached into his pocket again, felt the wound, probed it. "Oww! Here it is, double-ought." He held up the flattened lead ball.
"You okay, Gadgets?" Lyons asked.
"Oh, yeah. I took cover behind Pol!"
The screech of the Outlaws' walkie-talkie interrupted them: "This is Stonewall, come in Horse. We're a couple of blocks up from the pier, and we got ourselves a hero. Alive." Horse's coarse laughter cackled through the walkie-talkie: "Bring him in. We'll make an example of him."
The three fatigued but fit Able Team avengers looked to one another. "Anything we can do?" Lyons asked.
"In Avalon?" Blancanales shook his head, no.
Carl Lyons looked at the ground. "Well, God grant you a quick death, whoever you are."
9
Minutes before dawn, Glen and Ann Shepard, the Davis cousins, and Jack Webster slipped out of the Davis home. They crossed the street, went through a yard, climbed a fence. Rather than risk crossing the next street, they climbed fence after fence until they came to the end of the block. They broke into the last home in the street, a two-story house with a peaked roof.
Waiting there, they heard shots and yells and roaring motorcycles. As the Outlaws swept the other block, smashing doors and rampaging through homes, Glen examined the home in which they were hiding. As he had thought when he first saw the house, there was a triangular crawl space between the ceiling of the second floor and the peak of the steeply angled roof. He found the access hole in the ceiling of one bedroom's closet. He helped his wife up — her eighth-month belly a tight squeeze — then passed up blankets, water, a transistor radio with an earphone, all the weapons, and a plastic bucket to serve as a toilet.
Glen and the boys carefully searched through the drawers and closets of the house. He told the boys they would be hiding in the attic all day and perhaps the night, however long the siege of the island continued. They should gather anything that would make their wait more pleasant or safer. He also advised them to return everything they touched to where it had been. The house must not appear different than when they entered.
From the vents of the attic, they watched the Outlaws search the nearby homes. The Outlaws did not discover the knifed Acidhead until an hour after dawn. The crackle of the radiophones and walkie-talkies reached a pitch approaching hysteria. The discovery of the corpse, with rifle, pistol, ammunition and radiophone gone, had gotten the Outlaws seriously fired up.
Hearing motorcycles and voices getting really close outside, Roger went to a vent and peeked through the louvers. "They're searching this block now."
"Don't sweat it," Glen spoke calmly. "Roger, stay there, watch the street. Chris, you go to that back vent, watch the back. Both of you take blankets."
"Why?" asked Chris.
"Because if they open up the trapdoor and look in here," Glen explained, "if it's dark, they won't be able to see us. If we hear them in the closet down there, you cover those vents with the blankets. But dig it — once they come in the house, nobody moves! Have those blankets folded up and ready so you can do it silently."
"What if they have flashlights?" Roger asked.
"Then we got a problem."
"And what should I do?" asked Jack.
"Go over there," Glen pointed to a far corner of the attic. "Lie in the corner and be quiet. Ann, you go over there, put that dark blanket over you. I'll try to make myself invisible too."
Glen pressed himself into a small space between a rising vent pipe and the roof joists. He pointed his sawed-off shotgun at the access door.
"I'll shoot when you do," Jack told him. Glen looked over, saw the .45 auto in Jack's hands.
Putting down his shotgun, Glen crouch-walked over to Jack. "Give me the pistol."
"Why? It's mine."
"It isn't yours," Chris called out. "Give it to Mr. Shepard."
For an instant, Glen thought the teenager would shoot him. Then he saw that the hammer was only at half-cock. He grabbed the pistol, twisted it from the boy's hands.
"I'm taking this weapon," Glen told him, "because you having it is a threat to our lives. All you've been talking about is shooting them, and if you did that they'd kill us all."
"You asshole!" Jack shouted. "You're no one to me, you can't play God with me, I'll..."
One-handed, Glen grabbed the teenager by the throat and started to choke him. "Be quiet!" he hissed. "You'll get us killed."
Roger whispered from the far end of the attic. "Do what he tells you, jerk-off! You should be thanking him. He risked his life to help us."
"Shut the fuck up, nigger!" Jack screamed at Roger.
"Ohhhhhh... " Glen just laughed. "Is this guy your friend?"
"Will you shut up?" Chris hissed. "They're out there!"
Crouch
-walking again, Glen went to the vent viewing the street. "Where?"
"Coming around the corner. He isn't really a friend of ours, by the way," Chris explained quietly to Glen. "We sorta know him. He was hanging around, when all this started."
"When it's over, why don't you and your cousin kick that punk's ass? Until then, we'd better watch him carefully. Here they come."
"They're in the neighbor's backyard!" Roger gulped.
Glen and Chris watched the Outlaws search the houses.
They kicked down doors, broke windows. Dogs barked. Shots silenced them.
A new group of bikers roared up on their Harleys, Kawasakis, Hondas, led by the barrel-chested Outlaw in the Confederate Army cap. He wore a shotgun slung over his shoulder. A long bayonet flashed in the morning light. The group continued to the house where Acidhead had died; they parked their bikes there, and went in.
A pistol popped in the house next to where they hid. Three bikers dragged an elderly man and woman from the house. Outlaws converged on the scene. The elderly man — white-haired and stick thin — comforted his wife as bikers crowded around them, taunting the old man.
The biker in the Rebel cap swaggered up and glared at the old man. One of the bikers who had dragged out the couple showed the Rebel-capped biker a small pistol, then pointed to a rip in his jacket sleeve. The Confederate biker unslung his shotgun.
"Oh, God," Chris gasped, turning away from the vent. "I can't watch this."
"Watch it," Glen told him. "It's what'll happen to you, to all of us if we get caught."
"Run, you old geezer!" the Outlaw suddenly boomed. "You want to escape. Here's your chance!"
Glen looked outside. The bikers cleared a path for the couple. A biker shoved them. The Confederate Outlaw stood with the shotgun at his hip, pointing at the old couple only six feet away.
The white-haired old man shook his head. He refused to run. He held his wife, pressing her face to his chest. He kissed her forehead.
A single blast threw them to the asphalt. They sprawled together, a huge blood pool spreading around them.
"Now they're coming to search this house," Glen told the others.
"Hey, Stonewall!" a biker on the street called out. "You are one cold mother." Several bikers laughed.
Glen peeked out, saw the Rebel-capped biker loading shells into his shotgun. Now Glen knew the biker's name: Stonewall.
"Think that's cold?" the biker shouted. "I'm looking for the hero that killed one of ours. When I find him... You all see this cap? When I'm done with that hero, I'm going to wear his hide for a hat — right up here, nose and eyes and lips and all, just like a coonskin cap."
More laughter. Boots kicked down the door. Shotgun blasts inside the house shattered windows, sent furniture crashing. They must have been doing this to every house on the island. Bikers shouted: "Where are you? Get out of this house! All we want's your money and valuables. And we want you down at the Casino. Anybody in here, come out. We want you with the other people."
Laughter. Rifle shots ripped through the house. A shotgun blast smashed a wall beneath them; a single pellet popped through the rafters, then bounced off the roof joists.
"Glen," his wife whispered, "come be here with me..."
"I can't!" he hissed.
Boots stormed up the stairs. Doors slammed open, furniture fell. A voice shouted: "Check every closet!"
The blast of a shotgun. Plaster exploding upward. "That closet's checked!" Laughter.
"Rings! Diamonds. Hey, asshole. Split it with me."
"They're mine. Find your own."
"Both of you!" Stonewall's voice boomed. "Stick that trash in your pockets. Search this house. You got two dead buddies and you're fighting over some phony rings? Search that closet, under the bed, up in the attic, everywhere!"
"Psst!" Glen hissed to Roger. Then he and Chris blocked the vent near them. The attic went pitch dark.
Furniture crashed down. The closet door leading to the attic access creaked open. Shoes and suitcases fell from the shelves.
"Hey, there's a trapdoor going up," a biker said.
"You going up there?"
"Going up. First, some reconnaissance by fire!"
An explosion of plaster, insulation, and splintered wood filled the attic. Sudden light flashed as the debris flew. Dim light glowed through the several holes in the access panel and closet ceiling.
As the biker pushed up the splintered access panel, Glen could hear Roger's breathing shudder slightly. But he could do nothing. He could not encourage or comfort the teenager. A word or a sound would betray them all.
The biker's head appeared above the rafters, swivelling in all directions. "Hey, you! You! I see you..."
"You got one?" a biker called from below.
Glen heard Chris stop breathing. Slowly, very slowly, Glen grasped the butt of the Magnum in his belt. Outside, bikers laughed and shouted. A motorcycle raced down the street.
The head dropped down. "Nah, nothing up there."
Stonewall shouted again. "Move it! We got this whole block to search. Find anything?"
"Nah," the biker answered, the last to leave the house.
"Then move it! Find that hero! Horse is going to waste my ass if I don't come up with that bastard."
Glen glanced out front, saw the last biker leave the house and start down the block. Stonewall came out of the house, shotgun ready, its long bayonet flashing. He turned, stared at the house. He saw the attic vent, stared at it. From the hip, he pointed the shotgun, fired.
Glen jerked Chris away as the louvers exploded. Light streamed into the attic. For a half minute, Glen and Chris lay without moving on the rafters.
"Glen!" his wife whispered.
"I'm all right," he gasped. He went back to the shattered louvers and snuck a peek. The front lawn was deserted.
They listened. In the house, there was only silence. But in the house next door, there were shouts and shots and crashing.
"Mr. Shepard," Roger whispered from the far end. "Can I let down the blanket now? I'm shot."
"What?" Glen crept over the rafters, crab-style, moving slowly and silently. As he passed his wife, he hugged her, gave her a quick kiss. Continuing, when he passed Jack Webster, he smelled fecal matter, heard the boy's teeth chattering with fear. Glen said nothing.
A single double-zero ball had punched through Roger's right forearm. There was a hole in the blanket that he had held over the vent, then a hole in the wall stud. Roger had obviously held the blanket over the vent for minutes after taking the through-and-through wound in his arm.
"Oh, god, it hurts," Roger sobbed.
Glen put his arm around the teenager's shoulders. "That's all right. You saved us. You're the hero of this battle. That Aryan punk over there talks tough, but when the going gets rough, he shits his pants."
"You fucker!" Jack shrieked. He lunged across the narrow attic, snatching the .45 auto from where Glen had left it. Glen pulled the Magnum from his belt. But the boy didn't turn the weapon on Glen. Instead, he grabbed the M-14 too, and the ammo bandolier, and disappeared down the access hatch.
"Jack! I'm sorry! Don't go out there." Glen stumbled to the hatch, but Jack Webster was gone. Glen grasped his belt of bullets and started after the boy.
"Glen, don't!" his wife called.
"Let him go, Mr. Shepard," Chris pleaded.
"It was my big mouth," Glen called back. "They'll take him if I don't get to him first. I don't want it on my conscience."
Glen Shepard dropped through the blast-splintered hatch.
10
Crying with shame and rage, Jack Webster ran from the back of the savaged house. He heard shots and voices in the houses down the block, motorcycles on the streets. Not wanting to chance going over the back fence, he slipped into the decorative hedges screening one yard from the other. For a minute or two, he lay there on his stomach, his face pressed into the rotting leaves, and cried.
But the rifle in his grip reassured him. "I'll show t
hem. I'll kill some of them."
Hidden by the hedge, he crawled along the fence, searching for a hole. The rotting wood slats crumbled when he touched them, but the neighbor's chain link prevented him from crawling through. He continued to the corner of the yard.
In the corner, dogs had burrowed under the fences. The dog holes had been blocked with bricks. Jack pulled out the bricks, crawled under the fence, coming out in the backyard of the house diagonally behind the house where the others still hid.
The shooting continued as the Outlaws searched. Jack crawled through the untrimmed bushes of the backyard until he came to the back door. The door hung open, a ragged hole where the knob and lock had been. Crouching there for minutes, he listened for voices or steps inside the house. He heard nothing. Struggling to work the rifle's action, he jerked back the cocking lever. A cartridge flew out.
He marvelled at the size of the cartridge. He had only fired .22 rifles before. The bullet was huge. He put the .308 NATO round in his pocket. Holding the rifle at his hip and his finger on the trigger like he'd seen in the movies, he crept into the house.
Broken dishes littered the kitchen floor. He slid his feet over the linoleum, gingerly pushing the fragments of glass and china away rather than step on them. Once onto the dining room and living room rugs, he walked quickly to the front windows.
Down the street a few addresses, he saw the Davis house. The front door hung by one hinge. Looking up and down the other side of the street, he saw all the front doors had been kicked in or shot open.
Creeping to the blasted front door of the house, Jack eased it closed, then carefully blocked the door with a heavy cabinet. He went to the back door, blocked it also.
Sure he couldn't be surprised, he searched the house. In one of the bedrooms, he found clothes almost his size. He changed his stinking pants. The evidence of his fear and shame gone, he felt bolder.
He found jewelry, wristwatches, and money. He wore the man's wristwatch, pocketed the other loot. In the children's room, he found a knapsack. He filled the pack with food, soda pop, and a bottle of vodka from the kitchen. Then he had a breakfast of white bread and sandwich meats.
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