Line of Fire

by Cindy Dees

  She looked around frantically. Nowhere to hide. She didn't have time to stretch out flat on the floor.

  She snatched at the red beret tucked in her thigh pocket. She slammed it on her head and pulled it low over her blond hair. She pulled up her knees and tucked her head against them, assuming what she prayed was the pose of a drunk asleep against the wall.

  Footsteps stumbled past her, no more than a foot away. She held her breath, waiting for a hand to land on her shoulder, or cold lead to slam into her flesh. She peeked under her right elbow and watched the guy retreat down the stairs.

  Oh, God, that had been close.

  Tex materialized beside her. He gestured toward the room the man had just emerged from. Clearly he planned to check it while its occupant was out. Her knees wobbling like Jell-O, she followed him down the hall. He slipped into the room.

  Too soon, she heard a squeak. And another. The guy was coming back! He was on his way up the stairs!

  She didn't have time to race back to her position in front of the previous door. Surely the guy would notice if the unconscious drunk had moved twenty feet down the hall.

  She slipped around the corner into the room with Tex. He whirled when she came in. Steel glinted in his right hand. She gestured frantically, praying she was relaying clearly that someone was coming.

  Tex nodded and whirled back to the two lumps on the floor that looked like sleeping men covered in blankets.

  He lifted his left hand across his body and then swung it downward hard and fast. It impacted flesh with a dull thud. The second guy stirred, and Tex jumped across the first body and chopped at the second guy, as well. He fell back to the floor with a grunt and lay motionless.

  Tex jumped to the door and waved her to the side. She complied hastily.

  The door opened.

  The man stepped into the room. He looked up and his eyes locked on hers. Surprise flashed and his mouth opened.

  Then Tex jumped.

  This guy wasn't helpless and asleep. He also turned out to be a trained fighter. He spun and ducked as Tex's blow glanced off the side of his head. He crouched low and jumped for Tex, the momentum of his charge knocking both men to the floor with a heavy thud. They tangled in a canvas trap, and as they rolled, it shifted to reveal a pile of weapons. The RITA rifle!

  Oh, no. The noise was going to wake someone else up. Not to mention the jerk might kill Tex! The two men rolled over and over across the floor, wrestling like bears in mortal combat.

  Tex grunted at her, "Get out of here. Now!" He ducked the fingers jabbing at his eyes and continued in short grunts between exertions. "In the confusion…pass for a hooker…slip outside. Follow rebel trails…to main road."

  "No way!" she cried under her breath.

  He absorbed a body blow from the guy and then grunted, "Yes way. Go!"

  She stepped forward, dodging flying feet as the two fighting men rolled over yet again. She needed some sort of weapon to clobber the guy Tex was fighting with and looked around frantically. The AK-47 by the window where Tex had left it! She dived for the weapon.

  Voices sounded in the next room. Sitting on the floor by the window, she awkwardly pulled the heavy rifle up in front of her and groped for the trigger.

  The door opened. She squeezed the trigger and the gun leapt in her hands, spraying bullets into the ceiling. The noise was deafening.

  Whoever'd been in the doorway ducked back, slamming the door shut behind them. Shouts erupted up and down the hall.

  "Christ, Kimberly, did you have to let the whole damn army know we were here?" Tex panted. He knelt above the now motionless figure of the guy he'd been fighting. "Nice shot, by the way." She'd hit a guy only inches away from Tex? Oh God.

  "They were coming in. I had to do something!" she wailed.

  "Don't sweat it. They'd have figured out we were here regardless. You probably saved my neck," he replied.

  He moved over to the corner and threw aside the canvas. "Come to papa, darlin'," he crowed.

  She watched him scoop up the RITA rifle and throw its shoulder strap over his head. He pulled its proper clip out of his utility belt and slammed it into the gun.

  The door burst open behind him and Kimberly watched in slow-motion suspension as he spun, dropped the bulky rifle to his hip and fired three times in quick succession.

  Whoever'd been outside wasn't there anymore.

  Tex sprinted to the door and kicked it shut. He turned the flimsy lock on the knob and wedged a chair under the doorknob for good measure. "Well, looks like we're cornered," he commented quietly as he headed for the window.

  Kimberly gulped. This could not be good.

  He shook his head. "You should've gone when you had a chance."

  She shrugged. "Sorry. We're in this together to the end."

  He sighed. "'The end' being the operative words."

  Tough. No way would she have run out on Tex after all they'd been through together.

  "Have a look around and see if you can find any more ammunition," he ordered. She checked the room fast and saw another blanket-covered pile beside where the RITA rifle had been.

  She pulled the scratchy wool back and sighed in relief. Several boxes of ammunition lay there along with two long-barreled sniper rifles.

  "Bingo!" she called.

  Tex glanced over his shoulder and grinned at her find. "That'll help." He ducked as somebody shot at the window from outside.

  "Get back, Kimberly. These walls are made of spit and Kleenex. If anyone out there's got a high-powered rifle, bullets will pass right through them."

  "What about you?" she demanded as she scooted back from the exterior wall.

  He popped up and pulled off a couple shots of return fire. "I'll stay here and do a little fire suppression."

  "But it's dangerous!" she exclaimed.

  He gaped over his shoulder at her in mock surprise. "You think?"

  She scowled at his sarcasm. And then she hit the floor as bullets raked through the window. "What's to keep them from shooting at us through the walls of the other rooms?" she asked frantically, visions of being pummeled by lead from all sides dancing in her brain.

  Tex glanced back over his shoulder. "The interior walls are so crappy bullets could pass right on through this room and hit folks on the other side. They won't risk the cross-fire killing their own." He added, "I hope."

  Great.

  Tex grabbed one of the other rifles and returned a barrage of fire outside. At the rate he was shooting, the pile of ammunition in the corner wasn't going to last long. They had to do something. They were going to die if they just sat in here and waited for the whole rebel army to descend upon them.

  There was a lull in the firing and Tex risked peering outside twice, from both sides of the window. "Kimberly, I've got an idea."

  Why did that give her a horrible sinking feeling in her stomach?

  "I need you to come over here and lay down a line of suppression fire for me."

  "What in the heck does that mean?"

  "Shoot out the window and make all the people out there duck so they can't shoot back."

  "And what will you be doing in the meantime?"

  "Climbing out the window onto the roof."

  When he didn't continue, she said, "I assume you're not doing that because you plan to admire the view. What will you be doing on the roof?"

  "Cutting guy wires."

  Huh? She looked at him questioningly.

  "The whole damn camp's going to be coming over here in the next two or three minutes, armed to the teeth. I've got to slow them down. If I cut the guy wires holding up the White House facade, I think I can push it over on to a bunch of the soldiers."

  She blinked at the audacity of it. If he timed it right, he could take out a big chunk of the rebel force. If nothing else, he'd cause plenty of chaos and maybe buy them some time.

  She moved over to the window beside Tex.

  "Put the barrel of the rifle on the windowsill. Pulse the trigger in
short bursts. The shorter the better. We've got to conserve ammo. Move the barrel back and forth across the field of fire as you shoot. Got it?"

  She nodded.

  "Once I'm up on the roof, fire a few seconds more to give me time to get beyond the roof peak, and then you can stop. Whenever anyone fires at you, fire back. Then randomly fire a couple bursts now and then to keep them off balance. Okay?"

  "Okay. Tex?"

  He paused, crouched beside her. "Yeah?"

  "Be careful."

  He grinned. "Count on it. You, too."

  She smiled back, her fear so thick it made her light-headed.

  He said briskly, "Let's do it."

  Chapter 18

  Kimberly watched as Tex shimmied out of the RITA rifle sling and took off the web belt. He nodded and she began to fire out the window. The AK-47 bucked and jumped in her hands, heavy and ungainly. Its cold steel felt foreign in her hands.

  This was why she'd insisted on coming along. To protect Tex's back. She bit her lip and concentrated on controlling the rifle as she squeezed the trigger again and again.

  Tex climbed on to the windowsill and reached up high overhead. While she fired past his feet, he hoisted himself up onto the roof.

  She laid down another ten seconds of continuous bursts and then stopped firing. Conserve ammo, he'd said.

  She'd been firing in bits and spurts for maybe two minutes when she began to hear noise. Lots of it. The kind of noise a hundred angry men would make as they rushed across a clearing.

  Oh, God.

  A new burst of gunfire caught her attention and she fired back in the general direction of the muzzle flashes. She prayed she wasn't killing anybody with her random fire. She didn't want to think about widowing young wives or making Gavronese children fatherless.

  And then she heard another noise. Metallic. Like someone sawing on a piano wire.

  Another burst of gunfire and she heard the piano wire noise again. And yet again. That must be Tex hacking through the guy wires that held up the tall facade.

  She responded to a big burst of gunfire by holding down the trigger of the AK-47 and raking it across the line of fire. The shots ceased.

  Her forehead burned and she felt warm blood trickle down her cheek. Had she been shot? She put her hand up and felt a splinter of wood in her hair. It must have flown off the windowsill and cut her face. She pulled it free and flung it aside.

  A bullet had come close enough to knock a piece of wood loose only inches from her face? Suddenly she felt downright faint. She was not cut out for this sort of fun.

  And then a new noise intruded upon her senses.

  A tearing noise. Like wood cracking. The sound got louder and louder until it rumbled like a whole forest of trees toppling over. The building shook as the mock-up tore away from it and crashed with a thundering noise to the ground. Screams and shouts mingled with gunshots in what sounded like utter chaos.

  Tex's terse voice came from outside the window. "Pass me the RITA, Kimberly."

  She ran over to the weapon and picked it up. Lord, it was heavy. How in the world had Tex hiked all over the jungle with the darn thing? She stuck its muzzle out the window, grateful when its weight abruptly left her hands as Tex hauled it up on to the roof. In a few seconds she heard the distinctive whining of the RITA overhead. More screaming and more gunshots joined the general chaos outside.

  Tex had bought them some time. But then what? How in the world were they supposed to get out of here? The other hundred rebels from the main camp had no doubt been notified by radio and would be on their way soon. Then she and Tex were toast.

  Radio.

  She looked back at the two unconscious men behind her.

  Quickly she moved to their sides. With distaste, she reached for the first one and searched him. She took a pistol out of a holster on his thigh but found nothing else useful.

  She moved to the second guy. As she groped in his pants' pockets, he stirred. She jerked her hands back in horror. He couldn't wake up! He rolled over, his eyelids fluttering. He groaned.

  Frantically she lifted the pistol and brought it down against the side of the guy's head. The sickening impact of steel on flesh nearly made her gag.

  The guy sagged, out cold once more.

  Quickly she felt his chest pockets. There was a hard lump in one. She unbuttoned the flap and her fingers encountered warm plastic inside. She gripped the object and pulled it out.

  She nearly cried in her relief. It was a cell phone.

  A burst of gunfire came out of the jungle. She jumped over to the window and snatched up the AK-47 again. Her bullets joined Tex's. With the rebels momentarily subdued, she flipped open the phone and dialed the same number she'd called before.

  "Go ahead," a man's voice barked.

  This time the abrupt greeting didn't surprise her. "This is Kimberly Stanton. Can you hear me?"

  "Loud and clear, ma'am."

  She ducked as a volley of gunshots peppered the side of the building.

  "Tex and I are in trouble. We need help, now."

  "Standby. We're triangulating your position off your phone. It may take a minute. Stay on the line."

  "Okay," she shouted over another loud burst of fire.

  "I need a little help," Tex shouted from the roof.

  She laid the phone down and looked out the window. She stared in dismay. Dear God. At least two dozen men were advancing out of the jungle toward the building, their rifles blazing in a fireworks display of white-and-yellow flashes.

  She snatched up the AK-47 and pressed down the trigger, raking it back and forth across the line of men. Easily half of them dropped, and the rest turned and ran. A few of the downed men crawled or dragged themselves back toward the jungle, their moans and groans ripping at her sanity.

  "…still there? What the hell's going on?" somebody shouted through the phone.

  She picked it up. "I'm still here," she half sobbed. "You've got to help us!"

  "Miss Stanton," a deep voice said firmly. "This is Colonel Folly. We've got a position fix on you. We'll be there in thirty minutes. Are you or Tex hurt?"

  She ducked as a spray of bullets flew into the ceiling of the room. "Not yet," she answered, half out of her mind with fear.

  "How many hostiles are at your position?" the colonel asked urgently.

  "A couple hundred."

  The colonel swore under his breath. "Can you tell me exactly where you are? The more detail the better."

  "We're trapped in a two-story stucco building on the north side of a big clearing in the jungle. The top of the whole clearing is covered in camouflage netting. Tex is on the roof and I'm in a second-story room."

  "Which room?" the colonel asked, static half obscuring his question.

  "North side. Second floor, the second room from the easternmost end!" she shouted as the static got louder and louder.

  "Hang on!" she heard the colonel shout back to her. And then she couldn't hear him anymore.

  She picked up the AK-47 and fired it again as yet another wave of soldiers charged the building. It rattled ominously, laying down a curtain of lead.

  Abruptly it stopped firing.

  She pulled the trigger again. It clicked. Out of ammunition.

  "Tex," she called desperately. "I'm out of ammunition. I don't know how to reload this thing."

  "I'll be right there," came his immediate reply from nearby. He must have been lying on the roof right over her window. What was he doing there? That was far too exposed a position!

  And then a big black shadow swung through the window.

  She flung herself at him, overwhelmed by her relief at seeing him alive again. He wrapped her in a crushing embrace. "I've got you," he murmured into her hair.

  He yanked her down to the floor as a barrage of bullets splattered against the walls.

  "I found a cell phone," she panted. "I called Colonel Folly. He got a position fix on us and said he'd be here in thirty minutes."

  "Thank God,"
Tex exhaled. The stark relief that flashed across his face for just a second frightened her. She knew they were in huge trouble, but she hadn't realized how huge until Tex's brave front slipped for that brief moment.

  He moved to the pile of ammunition in the corner and tossed a handful of banana-shaped clips toward the window. He came back to her side and slammed one of them into the base of the AK-47.

  He pointed it out the window and swore under his breath. "These bastards don't give up easy," he mumbled.

  Kimberly watched as he fired methodically out the window.

  "We're gonna run out of this type of ammo in a whole lot less than a half hour, Princess," he said over his shoulder during a lull. "Pull out the other clips over there and see if any of them fit the sniper rifles you found."

  While she fished through the pile, she asked, "How's the RITA holding up?"

  "Just about out of ammo."

  She matched up several clips of bullets to the other guns, but it was a pitifully small pile. She risked a glance out the window and saw dozens of muzzle flashes. They were severely outnumbered. How could they possibly hold out for a half hour?

  Tex switched to firing single shots, aiming each one carefully before he pulled the trigger. She kept a morbid count in her head. She had no doubt Tex was killing, or at least hitting, someone with every shot.

  Forty-two. Forty-three. She shuddered at the carnage, almost too appalled to function as Tex called out for more ammo periodically.

  She was heading back toward the window with the last clip for one of the rebel's rifles when an arm abruptly went around her neck.

  She screamed for a second before her air was cut off. She struggled, but the man behind her was big and powerful. And mad. He was going to choke her to death! Tex whirled around and her terrified gaze locked on him as spots began to dance in front of her eyes.

  Tex went still. Utterly calm. He moved forward slowly, a knife held low and in front of him in his right hand. She looked into his eyes as he advanced and Death looked back at her.

  The man she loved was gone, replaced by the coldest, cruelest, most focused killer she'd ever seen. He snarled something in Spanish.