by Mike Kraus
Frank was about to speak when the sound of a huge explosion made him instinctively duck down. A brief flash of light shone through the trees and he turned to Linda. “Holy…” Frank’s eyes were wide as he whispered to her. “You think that was Jackson?”
Linda nodded, closing her eyes and taking another slow, deep breath. “Probably.”
“I hope he’s okay.” Frank looked out in the direction of where the sound had originated, then he looked back at Linda and saw the look of pain on her face. “What’s wrong?”
“It hurts. Bad.” She held out her hand, motioning with her fingers. “Get in my pack and get out the black case, the one with the syringes.”
“Are you sure? Jackson said—”
“I swear if you don’t hand me that case you’re going to wake up on the ground a week from now wondering what hit you.”
“Okay, okay!” Frank shrugged in surrender and leaned her rifle against a nearby tree before unzipping her backpack and retrieving the black case containing the two remaining syringes. Linda nodded her thanks as she opened the case, rolled up her sleeve and got a syringe ready.
“The house can’t be much farther ahead. Give me two minutes to deal with this and then we’ll move in.” She glanced at her watch. “Jackson should be in position to assist here in a few minutes, too.”
“Just tell me what to do if you need help.” Frank watched as she pushed the tip of the needle into her vein and slowly injected the potent mixture. She pulled the needle out and put it back in the black case, which Frank put back into her pack, and it only took another moment for her to feel the effects. She leaned against a tree to steady herself as a feeling of euphoria rushed through her head. The pain in her chest began to melt away and she felt energized and ready to conquer the world. She took her rifle and looked at Frank, giving him a determined nod.
“Let’s finish this.”
Chapter 15
While the lack of gunfire involved in taking out the pair of guards on their smoke break helped to hide the advance of Linda and Frank at first, the massive explosion did most of the work in keeping them concealed. All of the guards on the property came running toward the noise, and though Frank and Linda had to duck down and stay still a few times to avoid being seen, they were able to make progress toward the house in a safe and fast fashion.
At the edge of the woods they pushed up against a pair of large oak trees, keeping low and behind scraggly brush and bushes. The flames from the explosion were licking at the trees farther away in the woods, down to the south and west of the house, and the source of whatever had blown up wasn’t visible.
What was visible, however, was the house itself and the collection of guards wearing military-style gear who surrounded an unarmed man. The guards and the man were staring at something off in the distance, and the man was gesticulating wildly as he shouted orders. It took Linda a moment to realize that the man was, in fact, Omar, but when she recognized him she raised her rifle. Frank saw the motion out of the corner of his eye and turned to warn her not to shoot. It was too late, though, and a single shot rang out just as Omar began to turn back to the house with his entourage.
One of the guards who had been standing just next to Omar toppled to the ground, blood spilling from a hole in his head. The other five guards turned in unison toward the direction of the shot and opened fire without hesitation, sending their shots wildly into the woods. Frank pulled Linda back just before she could be spotted and they sat behind the oaks as rounds whizzed past.
Frank looked over at Linda with wide eyes, not daring to speak as the guards continued to fire. She shook her head at him in return and he shrugged, not knowing what to do. She motioned with her hands and head, pantomiming returning fire, then held up five fingers and began to mouth out a countdown. Frank took a deep breath, waited until she mouthed “one,” peeked out from behind his tree and opened fire.
Linda was able to drop two more guards and Frank winged a third before the surviving three guards made their way back around the house and into cover. The few seconds of respite from the hail of gunfire was immediately punctuated by more from the southwest, off toward where the explosion had occurred. The patrols and guards near the house that had been focused on the wreckage of the truck were drawn up closer to the house by the gunfire and the shouts from the three survivors still behind the house.
Frank dug his back into the oak, shielding himself from the house as he began firing on the enemies advancing through the edge of the woods, sending them scrambling for cover as they split up and branched out, looking to flank the pair. Linda, meanwhile, stayed focused on the trio around the side of the house and managed to take another one of them down with a round through the head before a spray of heavy fire from an upper floor of the house drove her back behind the tree.
“Linda!” Frank shouted at her over the staccato gunfire. “We’re getting surrounded! There’s too many of them out in the woods!” He fired again, grunting in satisfaction as he finally dropped one of the advancing guards.
“Don’t stick your head out around the trees; Omar’s got someone upstairs shooting down. We can’t fight that kind of elevated fire until we get the ones in the woods cleared out!” She squeezed one eye halfway shut and aimed down her sight, trailing the scope across a runner in the woods before firing three times. He fell with a scream and she ducked down into the scrub as return fire peppered the area. Even as the man fell, three more took his place, and soon all Frank and Linda could do was press themselves to the ground and take a few potshots all while hoping that a stray round wouldn’t slice into them.
“We’re in trouble here!” Frank shouted at Linda.
“No kidding!” She rolled her eyes as she fired from a prone position, tearing bits of bark and wood from a distant oak. The guard she was firing at crouched out of sight and she crawled forward into some thicker brush. “Just try to keep them pinned down! Maybe we’ll get lucky or something!”
The heavy thumping and snapping of the 7.62 rounds continued unabated for another moment until, off in the woods, Linda’s ears perked up at a new sound. Lighter and snappier than the guards’ weapons, it came in bursts a few seconds apart and seemed to be changing position rapidly, like the bearer of the weapon was moving through the trees at a breakneck pace. Shouts went up a moment later and the gunfire that had been solely directed at Frank and Linda’s position was suddenly redirected, offering them a welcome reprieve.
“Frank!” Linda shouted at him as she pushed herself up on one knee. “Start taking them out!”
“Are you crazy? They’re just going to shoot us once we stand up!” Frank lifted his head, but still kept his body pressed to the ground.”
“It’s Jackson! He’s coming in on their rear! Come on!” She stood and fired, then ran forward to a nearby tree and fired again, taking out two of the guards who had spun around to hide from the surprise attack, exposing themselves to Frank and Linda’s position.
Frank stood up, took aim and fired at another guard who was running and downed him, then Frank joined Linda and they began to advance, each covering the other while they advanced. The rapid-fire bursts of their weapons soon drowned out the heavier fire from the guards, and in less than a minute they had managed to down the last of the guards in the woods, all while staying in cover from the ones still at the house.
“Rollins! Richards!” A familiar voice came from farther out in the woods.
“Jackson?” Linda shouted back as gunfire from the house cracked through the trees. She and Frank both ran forward before a hand reached out for Frank to grab and pull him down to the ground. Linda skidded to a halt and dropped as well, then crawled forward to sit next to Frank and Jackson.
“Glad you two are still alive.” Jackson smiled broadly as he ejected a near-empty mag from his rifle and slammed a new one home. “I was worried you might not make it.”
“Everything went according to plan for us, or close enough for government work at least.” Frank looked Jackson
over. “You look like you had it worse than us.”
“Ha.” Jackson rubbed his face, wiping off a mixture of sweat, soot and blood. “The explosion was larger than I thought. I jumped out without being seen, but I should have gotten farther away before I set off the C-4. A piece of the door nicked me on the head; that’s why it took me so long to get back to you.”
“You did great, Jackson.” Linda leaned around the tree. “And the best part is that Omar’s still in the house.”
“He’d better be. I blew out the tires on the couple of vehicles they had around the front of the house before I started my run through the woods. If he’s going to flee, it’ll have to be on foot.”
“We still have three around the front of the house to deal with, plus an unknown number guarding him inside.” Linda looked around the tree again. “We should split up and flank through the woods. You head back southwest with Frank while I go around the other side. We’ll meet on the field side of the house.” Linda took off without waiting for a confirmation, heading through the woods to circle wide around the house.
“You got it, ma’am.” Jackson smiled again and looked at Frank. “Let’s get moving and try to get a few shots in before she merc’s them all.”
***
“Kill her!” The absence of gunfire in the woods had driven Omar’s rage to new heights. His eyes were wide, veins on his forehead and neck were bulging and his voice cracked as he screamed at the six men who were still inside the house. The three outside could hear him and they opened fire as well, though peppering the trees at random was the best they could do considering they had no visual on their targets.
“Sir, we need to get you into the panic room.” One of the guards pleaded with Omar, speaking to his superior in a calm tone even as gunfire drowned out most of his words.
“I’m not hiding in a damned hole!” Spittle flew from Omar’s mouth as he shouted. “Not today and not any day! There’s only two or three of them out there! Why can’t you just kill them?!”
“We think one of them died in the vehicle explosion, sir. So there should only be two left alive.”
“That’s not very comforting, considering one of them is her!” Omar threw his hands in the air and stalked over to a nearby window that overlooked the woods. A short distance away, down from the house and barn, the wrecks of the truck and tracked vehicle still burned, as did a portion of the woods and grass. The ground was heavily laden with moisture, keeping the fire from burning fast and hard and reducing the risk of the home being turned into an inferno.
“Sir, please.” The guard pulled Omar away from the window. “You need to stay away from the windows. We’re watching them carefully. If they move close, we’ll know.”
“What word is there on the city assault?”
The guard who had been talking to Omar nervously glanced at another guard at a nearby window. News from the city had not been good, but he was loath to admit that fact to Omar. “No word yet, sir.” The guard lied through his teeth, forcing a slight smile. “But no news is good news, as the Americans say.”
“Not for my operations it isn’t.” Omar growled at him. “Keep watching. I’m going to make a call to the forces myself.” As he left to head downstairs to where the radio equipment was kept, the guard who had been speaking to him breathed a sigh of relief and headed over to the window.
“You shouldn’t have told him that, you know.” The guard at the window whispered.
“I’m not about to take any more heat over this… what do they call it?”
“A ‘cluster’ I think?”
“It most certainly is.”
“You think we’ll make it out of this alive?”
The first guard sighed and leaned his head against the window frame, closing his eyes in frustration. “I don—”
His reply was cut off by the sound of shattering glass and a second later he dropped to the floor with a bullet hole cutting through his right eye.
***
“Two down inside, one down outside!” Frank as he and Jackson took cover behind the barn. A smattering of gunfire peppered the corner of the barn and the ground, but none hit either of the men. Return fire erupted from the far side of the house and Frank peeked out to see another one of the outside guards fall over, his rifle spilling from his grasp. “Make that two down outside. There’s got to be four, maybe five or six more inside though.”
“You move up next, I’ll provide suppressing fire. How’s your ammo situation?”
“I’ve got a few mags left.”
“Good. Once you get to the edge of the house, stay low and hit the upstairs windows with whatever you can so I can make it across.”
“Got it.”
On the count of three, Frank sprinted across the short distance between the house and the barn while Jackson popped out from behind cover and peppered the upstairs windows with automatic fire. He didn’t see anyone in the windows who might have been hit but didn’t have time to look for long. As soon as Frank reached the side of the house he began firing upward, sending rounds smacking against the window frame while Jackson followed in a sprint.
A shout came from around in front of the house, followed by a burst of gunfire, and a figure staggered out from cover, clutching at a spreading stain of red growing across his chest. A second figure came out behind the first, stumbling backward with his hands in the air as rounds tore through his stomach and chest, sending him to the ground howling in pain. Linda came stalking around the corner, rifle held at the ready against her shoulder, dropping the barrel as she spotted Frank and Jackson.
“You two all right?”
“We’re good. Is the front clear?”
“Clear. Time to head inside.” She turned around before Frank or Jackson could respond and headed toward the front door. “I’ll lead the way. Jackson, help me check corners. Frank, stay behind us and watch our backs. If anything moves, shoot it.”
Jackson fell in behind Linda, grateful that she was taking point. It had been a long time since he had last gone through a training course on how to clear a structure, but his muscle memory was good. She swept to the right while he stayed a step behind, sweeping to the left as they pushed through the front door, staying in a staggered formation.
The house was dimly lit, but there was no initial sign of enemies as they pushed forward, cheeks pressed against their rifles and fingers hovering close to triggers. Linda swung to the right, checking inside a small half bath while Jackson covered to the left, checking a corner of a living room. “Clear.” She and he both whispered to each other as they moved along, keeping their steps light as they checked behind furniture and around edges of walls for any threats.
“There!” They had been in the house for less than a minute when Frank suddenly shouted and fired a burst between Jackson and Linda. They whirled to see where he had been aiming as a body fell off of the last few steps of a staircase, a pair of rounds through the man’s face. Linda moved forward to get a different angle on the stairs while Jackson nodded at Frank.
“Nice work.”
Frank started to thank him when Linda opened fire and ran back around to the side of the stairs, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Grenade! Get down!” She flung herself to the floor on the far side of the room as Jackson pushed Frank over on top of her, then laid himself flat on both of them. The explosion came a second later in the form of a blast of heat and shards of metal, wood, cloth and carpeting went flying in all directions. Frank was stunned by the blast but Jackson was already up nearly before it was over, moving down the living room to change angles on the staircase and get a view on what was going on.
Gunfire erupted from the base of the stairs and Jackson shouted in pain as three rounds lanced through his shoulder. His rifle dropped from his grasp and he fell to one knee behind a sofa as a group of men descended the stairs, firing in Jackson’s direction. Frank pulled himself off of Linda and helped her sit up as the group continued firing, and Linda grabbed her rifle as she tried to orient he
rself after the loud explosion.
“A little help here!” Jackson’s cries for assistance attracted her attention and she turned to see rounds tearing through the sofa, then directed her attention at the assailants. Three men stood at the base of the stairs, all in a row, and she took down two of them herself while Frank fired on the third. As they collapsed, the sound of metal scraping on metal came from the room behind them and Linda looked over at Frank.
“Go get Jackson!” She whispered to him and crept forward through the room, stepping over the bodies and through the door next to the base of the stairs. It looked like the room beyond had once been a sitting or reading room, or perhaps a second living room, at least until Omar got his hands on the place. The floor, walls and ceiling had all been torn apart, and in their place were thick pieces of plate steel that formed a large box that consumed a good two to three hundred square feet of space.
“What the…” Linda raised an eyebrow as she looked at the welded and riveted steel plates in front of her. It took a moment for her to realize what she was looking at, and she chuckled with no small amount of delight. “It’s a safe room. He put in a safe room.”
“Linda!” Frank’s call sent her hurrying back to the main living room where Frank was working to get Jackson up onto a chair. The lieutenant’s face had gone pale and his shoulder, arm and half of his torso was stained dark red with blood.
“Holy crap, Jackson; you look awful.” Linda knelt down next to him and glanced up at Frank. “The house should be clear but I need you to stand guard at the stairs and make sure nobody comes down them, or out of the room next to them, got it?” Frank nodded and backed off while Linda fished a medical kit out of her backpack and used her knife to cut open his uniform, exposing his wounds.
A pair of rounds had passed through and through his right shoulder while the third had nicked the top of it. The damage wasn’t bad but the bleeding was still heavy and she worked with gauze and bandages, stuffing them into and around the wound to slow the bleeding. When she had thoroughly packed the bullet holes she wrapped the bandages in tape and Jackson opened his eyes, breathing heavily.
