by BJ Bourg
“It’s nothing—just a little glass.” I took a moment to catch my breath and waited for the barrage of gunfire to cease. When there was a break in the action—possibly for them to reload—I jumped up and fired off a shot in the direction I’d last seen the movement. The figure was gone, but someone returned fire from the right and I dropped back out of sight.
Susan squatted beside me, her chest heaving with each breath. She grabbed her radio and switched to the sheriff’s office channel and called for their dispatcher. After a few seconds, she called again, but there was no answer. She messed with the buttons and tapped the radio on the floor, then shook her head. “The radios are down.”
I pursed my lips. The first thing they did was take out the radio tower behind the office. They’d planned this out and were fully committed to destroying us. “Use your cell phone,” I suggested.
Susan nodded and pulled it from her shirt pocket, using her thumb to punch in a set of numbers. She put the phone to her ear and then pulled it away again. “It’s dead.”
“Your battery?”
“No, the line. It’s dead.”
“What?” My ears were ringing from the shots we’d fired inside the enclosed space and her voice sounded muffled, but I heard what she said. I jerked out my own phone and tried to make a call. She was right. “How is that possible?”
“You know the cell tower north of here?” she asked.
I nodded.
“That tower is the only cellular link between us and the outside world.” She pursed her lips. “Everyone who lived through Hurricane Amanda ten years ago remembers full well how isolated we are down here. It took them weeks to get the tower back up and we were reduced to only using land lines—and most people don’t even have hard line phones anymore.”
Land line phones! I slid across the floor to my desk and snatched the receiver from the cradle and put it to my ear. Nothing. They’d even cut the lines to the building. A slow chill moved up my spine. If they’d thought of that, what else did they have in store for us?
“We’ve got to get out of here and flank them,” Susan said. “We’re pinned down.”
I nodded. “There’re only three of them, so they can’t cover all four sides of the building.”
“I think they’re all in the front.”
“I think you’re right.”
I’d detected three different firearm reports—one sounded like a shotgun, one like an AR-15, and the other like an SKS or AK-47. It sounded like the shots were being fired from somewhere in front of the building, which faced the east. The sally port opened to the east, so we’d have to head straight into the gunfire if we decided to drive out of the building. There were five smaller windows on the back side of the building and we might be able to squeeze out of one and mount an offensive against the Parkers. We certainly needed to get out of the office, because it was a death trap and we were a bunch of little rabbits waiting to be flushed out and killed. If they decided to set fire to the building, all they’d have to do was sit back and wait for us to come running out. They’d then be able to drop us one by one. We had to take the fight to them in a way that would take them by surprise.
I told Susan my plan to escape out the back, and we both hurried toward my office door. Just as we entered the patrol area, several more shots were fired from outside. Most of the bullets landed harmlessly on the exterior wall, but several found their way through the windows and door.
I told Amy to follow Susan and me, and we made our way to Susan’s office. Amy and Susan waited near the door while I entered and spoke with Melvin and Seth, who were taking turns firing out of the window. “I can’t see shit,” Melvin said. “The sun’s going down and that side of the building is in shadows.”
“It’s like they planned it,” Seth said over his shoulder, jumping up and popping off three rounds from his pistol.
I told them Susan and I planned to make a break out the back window. “We’re going to circle around and take these bastards out.”
“The sun will be in your eyes,” Melvin said. “If they’ve got people—”
A sickening splat of a bullet striking flesh and a strained voice hollering in pain somewhere behind me cut Melvin off.
CHAPTER 23
An evil grin split Simon Parker’s face as he slipped back behind the large cypress tree. He’d gotten another one. It wasn’t Clint Wolf, but it was wearing a uniform, so it would do for now. After changing the magazine on his AK-47, he crouched behind a line of shrubs and darted toward another tree south of his position. Once he reached the safety of the large tree trunk, he leaned the AK-47 against the tree and picked up the AR-15 that rested there. He peered around the tree and studied the police department. Other than a few shots now and then from the front of the building, all was quiet. He’d had a couple of close calls—like when that cop shot out the tire on the truck he’d been hiding behind—but, for the most part, he’d remained a ghost.
Days earlier, Simon had carefully scouted the building and drew up a diagram showing every point of ingress and egress—just like he’d been taught in prison. While most criminals used their time on the inside to write letters, whine about being innocent, and look for Jesus in every corner, he spent his days furthering his education. His enemy was a cop, so the first thing he did when he got locked up was look for an inmate who was an ex-cop. Those were easy to find these days, because it was suddenly vogue for prosecutors to go after cops. He found three in the state pen who were willing to help him. One was doing time for payroll fraud to the tune of a quarter million, the second for involuntary manslaughter, and the third for rape. They were all too eager to teach him what he needed to know to defeat one of their own. Simon spat on the ground. While he needed them, he despised them. Not so much for being cops, but for being traitors. He would never betray one of his brothers no matter what happened, and cops were supposed to be brothers.
“Simon, the sun’s going down behind us,” David called over the walkie-talkie radio. “We’ve got the advantage back here now.”
“Roger that,” Simon said, tucking the radio in his belt. One of the cops he’d met in prison was a former SWAT member and he’d taught him the importance of communication. While his brothers had been busy running surveillance on the police department an hour ago, he had taken out the cell tower north of town. He then set up shop across the street and waited for the perfect time to launch an attack. When the door to the police department opened earlier, he opened fire and mowed down two people. They happened to be an old lady and the old man with one arm. While Simon didn’t relish killing women—young or old—he would if he had to, and today he had to. That first assault kept Clint and his people busy long enough for David to take out the radio tower behind the police department and for Taylor to cut the phone lines to the building. Now, it was just a matter of time.
The tree Simon was hiding behind offered him a clear view of the sally port and he couldn’t help but laugh to himself again. While he had kept the cops in the building occupied and off guard by delivering rapid fire from three different vantage points using three different weapons, Taylor and David had pushed an old pickup truck against the large garage door, blocking the vehicles inside. It was a brilliant idea. Other than two doors along the east side of the building and windows on the northern and western sides, the sally port was their only way out.
Simon pulled out his binoculars and scanned the openings at the front of the building. There were no cops in sight. Every now and then one would appear for a brief second and pop off a shot, but he hadn’t been able to time them yet. He turned his attention to the block of explosives strapped to the rear tire of the old pickup truck near the fuel tank. One shot from his rifle would send the truck and that corner of the building up in flames. “This is your Alamo, Clint Wolf. This is where you’re going to die.”
After firing a few bullets into the front door window with the AR, Simon snatched up the AK and ducked as low as his large frame would allow. He then ran to the no
rth, passing up the large cypress tree and stopping behind the old pickup truck across from the corner office. Trading the AK for his twelve-gauge, he squatted behind the front bumper and fired a round through the broken window to the corner office. It was hard to see inside because the lights were out and the curtains drawn, but, with luck, his bullet might find a human target.
He whisked back behind the truck and quickly moved to the front. He popped his head above the hood and snapped off another shot, this time aiming through the front door again. He dropped behind cover and paused before preparing for the move back to the cypress tree—waiting to see if there’d be return fire. He glanced up at the sky. The sun would be down soon and Clint and his officers would be able to escape under the cover of darkness. He couldn’t let that happen. He finally had that murdering bastard where he wanted him, and he had to end it while he had the upper hand on the lawman.
Simon would never admit it out loud, but Clint Wolf scared him. While Thomas had been the youngest of his siblings, he was the toughest of the clan, and Clint had managed to beat him to death with his bare hands. Simon sighed and guilt flooded over him again, as it had many times over the past few years. When he’d looked into Clint’s eyes right before killing his daughter, he had seen a look of cold determination that had given him pause. It should’ve served as a clue, but Simon was so filled with hatred and disdain for cops that he’d missed the warning signs. If only he’d left the little girl and woman alone, maybe Thomas would be alive today. He shrugged as he considered this. He’d killed women before and nothing bad had happened, so it couldn’t have been that. Maybe killing the kid had brought a curse down on him and his brothers. It certainly haunted his dreams from time to time. While he didn’t believe in God, he did believe in the devil, and his name was Clint Wolf.
Simon shook his head to clear it. He hadn’t been around to avenge the killing of his father at the hand of a cop, but that was because he was too young to jump in a car and go find the bastard. He remembered Pops well. He would take the boys to the beach and buy them nice things. He never knew what Pops did for a living, but he knew he worked nights, and only a few each week. Pops would leave when the boys went to bed and he’d return sometime during the morning hours while they were still asleep. On one rainy night, Simon had awakened to his parents arguing in the kitchen. He’d slipped quietly down the stairs and peered through the spindles, watching as his mom stuck her index finger in his dad’s wet face and told him she was tired of this life. Young Simon didn’t understand what she meant, because Pops was always bringing home cash money—lots of it—and fancy things that he’d later trade for more money, and Mom liked money.
But then there was another night a few months later when everyone in the house was awakened by a loud banging noise downstairs. Before he and his brothers could wipe the sleep from their eyes, cops in black uniforms and masks flooded their bedroom pointing guns at them. All the boys were handcuffed and marched downstairs, where Pops and Mom were lying on their faces. It was the only time he’d seen Pops cry, and it wasn’t until he looked up and saw his four boys handcuffed that he broke down.
Pops spent a couple of years in jail after that night. When he got out he promised Mom he’d clean up, but he was shot to death a week later in a midnight robbery. Simon wiped a tear that spilled from his eye and he gritted his teeth. He might not have avenged Pops, but he sure as hell was going to avenge his baby brother—and in a big way. The plan was to kill Clint Wolf and every officer in his department. Maybe even take out a few towns people while they were at it. The world had to know if you messed with a Parker there would be hell to pay. They were going to make history today and they were going to make Pops and Thomas proud.
Simon took a deep breath. He was about to step out from behind the pickup and make his way to the cypress tree when he heard an explosion of gunfire and a crashing sound from the area of the sally port.
CHAPTER 24
I caught my breath and whirled around, searching wildly for the source of the painful scream. I was relieved to see Susan and Amy in the doorway looking over their shoulders. They were okay, but someone was in distress and needed medical assistance right away.
I lurched out of Susan’s office and followed her and Amy into the patrol section, where we found one of the deputies hollering in pain.
“Jesus!” he screamed, rocking back and forth on his side and clutching at his stomach with both hands. “I’m hit! I’m hit bad!”
His pistol had fallen from his grasp and blood oozed from a wound in his abdomen. It looked like he took a round to the torso when he’d popped up from behind the desk. I belly-crawled toward him and ripped my outer shirt off on my way to him. Balling it up, I pushed his hands out of the way and shoved my shirt against the bullet hole. I glanced at his nametag. Nate.
“Hang on, Nate,” I said. “You’ll be fine. Just breathe…that’s right, in and out, come on, keep it up.” I waved one of the other deputies over and pushed his hands onto my shirt. “Apply pressure.”
When Nate’s partner took over, I glanced around the room. Broken glass littered the floor and the back wall was so riddled with bullet holes it looked like a honeycomb.
“We need to get him to the hospital.” Amy had joined us and was shaking her head. “He doesn’t look good.”
Even if we could get him through a back window without getting all of us shot, we still needed a vehicle to transport him to the hospital. I pointed toward the door to the processing room, which led to the sally port. “I’ll get in my Tahoe and drive it out of there. I’ll hit the horn to let y’all know when I’m ready to move and—”
“You’ll never make it,” Susan argued from where she knelt near the front door. “They’ll light you up as soon as the garage door starts going up.”
“Then I’ll drive right through it,” I said flatly. “I’ll hit the horn when I’m ready. As soon as I do, direct every bit of firepower y’all have out the front windows to make them keep their heads down. If I see any of them out in the open when I hit daylight, I’m running them down. If not, I’ll circle to the south and set up a position where we can triangulate our fire on their location.” I pointed to the deputy who was holding pressure on the wounded deputy’s gunshot. “While we keep them busy, you get Nate in one of the Chargers and head to the hospital.”
Shifting from her knees to her heels, Susan said, “I’m coming with you.”
“What if they’ve already moved positions?” Melvin asked.
I considered his point. They were only firing intermittently now and hadn’t fired a shot in a couple of minutes, so they could be gearing up for another frontal attack or they could be circling around to the back. I cursed myself for not investing in security cameras to cover the outside of the building. I turned toward Susan’s office. Seth was still in there, so I moved where I could see him. “Seth, do you have eyes on anyone?” I asked.
“If I did they’d be dead,” he said. “They’re moving like ghosts and using the shadows like a blanket. I haven’t gotten a good look at a single one of them yet. They’ve had tactical training, that’s for sure. They’re displacing after each volley and changing their plane of attack constantly.”
I pursed my lips. I needed to get south of them and light up their position to take away their advantage. “I’m going for the Tahoe.” I looked at Susan. “Are you coming?”
She nodded and ducked as she passed by the window and followed me into the sally port. Once we were belted into our seats, I fired up the engine and backed up as far as I could in the sally port to give me some running room. When I was ready, I pressed the horn and smashed the accelerator. The tires screeched on the smooth concrete and our heads were pinned to the headrest as the Tahoe shot toward the garage door. At that same moment, the interior of the police department erupted in gunfire. I sucked in my breath and prepared for crunching metal and daylight as the Tahoe made contact with the garage—
The Tahoe lurched violently to a complete stop, th
rowing me forward. The seatbelt dug into my collarbone and chest, wrenching me to a halt. The airbag exploded in my face, filling the interior of the cab with gases and particles. I choked on the powder and tried to free myself from the seatbelt, wondering what the hell had just happened.
I could hear Susan coughing to my right and I reached out for her. My hand brushed against her shoulder and I could feel she was moving. She was cursing out loud and quite fluidly, so I figured she was okay. As soon as I got my seatbelt unfastened, I shrugged out of it and pulled the handle on my door. Nothing happened. Holding the handle, I slammed my shoulder against the door. It moved a little and then stopped. I twisted in my seat and pushed my foot against the door frame, straining to force it open. It opened partially, but not enough to squeeze through.
“Can you get out?” I asked Susan.
She coughed several times and then said she was busting out the window. I watched as she drew her pistol and, grabbing it by the barrel, slammed the butt against the glass. It broke easily and she used the metal frame of her pistol to rake the edges clean.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said when the window was free from shards of glass and safe to crawl through. Grabbing my AR-15, she slipped through the window and squatted low, peering through a break in the garage door.
“Do you see anything?” I pulled my shotgun from the floorboard where it had flown and leaned it against the broken window.
“No, it looks clear.” Susan moved around to the back of the Tahoe and opened the rear gate. “Do you want to come through the back?”
I shook my head and crawled over the center console. Once I was in her seat, I leaned my shotgun on the ground and went through the window feet first. The gunfire from inside was starting to fizzle out. They must’ve shot themselves blank and were probably reloading. I pulled my T-shirt down and hiked up my gun belt, trying to figure out our next move.
