"Ace is flying a team here. State police and the sheriff have been called." DJ announced. "If we want to take them out, we need to hustle before the guys spoil our fun."
Fun? Getting shot at and returning fire wasn't in Tara's dictionary under the word "fun." Yeah, she'd been to war, but she'd shot at the enemy from overhead, even if she'd been flying ridiculously close to the ground. And when she'd had to defend on the ground, she'd been armed with more than a holdout gun.
Levi snorted at DJ's words and shook his head. "You have a strange idea of fun. But if we had more firepower than handguns and a safe way to take it to the shooters, I'd be on board with that."
"We do," DJ said, then added, "This is practically a rite of passage for all new SSI ops. I'll tell you the story about my first day in Idaho someday over a beer."
"Look forward to hearing it." Levi nodded. "So, how are we gonna take it to them?"
A barrage of bullets thudded against the side of the building.
Tara winced and tightened her hand on her weapon. The attackers had given up on the windows as a lost cause. The cement block construction of the building was double the usual thickness for insulation purposes. They were safe for the moment. Help was on the way.
But the warrior in Tara battled with the trauma-damaged former airman as she fought to keep her breathing calm and her heart in her chest.
The warrior won—always had, always would. PTSD be damned.
She was on board with whatever DJ had planned. She could always fall apart later with Price—in the privacy of their home and in his arms. Just the knowledge she wasn't alone anymore, that Price understood her and wouldn't judge helped her stomach settle. Taking two steadying breaths, she managed to gain some control over the adrenaline-induced side effects of rapid heart rate and erratic breathing.
Blanking out the sounds of the shots hitting the building, Tara turned as Keely answered Levi's question.
"I'll get the rifles from the weapons safe off the kitchen." Keely pointed at Manny, who was an Army veteran. "You're on safe room guard duty. The diner interior is also yours. Me, DJ, Tara, and Levi are going up to the roof."
"Roger that." Manny ushered Pia, Fee, and Carmela into the hall that led to the safe room below the kitchen.
"Grab me a sniper rifle, Keely. I'll take Tara and Levi up, and we'll see what's what," DJ said.
"If you have an extra sniper rifle, Keely, I'll take it." Levi's voice gave no outward hint of what he felt about a diner in the middle of nowhere having a weapons safe and a safe room.
Levi joined Tara and followed DJ to a door that opened into a narrow stairwell. They climbed, single file, and at the top, DJ opened the door. As shots hit the doorframe, DJ immediately dropped to belly crawl onto the roof. Levi followed.
Tara held back for a second, giving them time to get out of the way, and winced when shots pinged off the edge of the metal frame. Luckily, no ricochets hit her. One of the attackers had a prime spot to view the roof's doorway. The danger had become even more real.
"Tara?" DJ called out. "You hit?"
"I'm fine." She'd dropped down on the stairs and remained low after the first bullets hit. The abrupt motion had pulled on her stitches. She winced and touched her shirt over the gauze bandage. No obvious bleeding. "We need to find and eliminate that fucker, ASAP."
"I noted the trajectory," Levi said. "Once I have a sniper rifle in my hand, I'll find him."
"Not if I find him, first," DJ snarled.
Ignoring several shots targeting the open doorway, Tara focused on listening to DJ talking with Levi as they compared observations. The way clear now, she stayed low until she was at the top step and then dropped to her stomach and made her way to where DJ and Levi were.
The tar paper roof retained the heat of the day and stunk, well, like tar. She hated that smell. The slow crawl wasn't making her wound feel any better.
What was it SEALs said? Embrace the suck.
So she embraced and slithered like a snake until she reached DJ's side.
A rapid round of shots aimed at the open doorway whined and pinged as they hit.
"Frick-fracking hell." Keely's curse announced her arrival.
Levi's muttered "fuck" preceded him crawling back to the doorway to assist her.
Tara saw the small blonde on her knees shoving weapons and ammo boxes onto the roof.
"Keep your head down, Tara," DJ said. "The shooter isn't high enough to see us if we stay low. The curtain wall is two feet tall and is made of reinforced concrete blocks. We'll use the cutouts for shooting positions."
Tara nodded, then swallowed past the tightness in her throat. "Roger that."
The roof's defensive layout was well designed. From the street level, the curtain wall with its shooting positions would look like a decorative feature. But once on the roof, anyone who'd done urban warfare training would see the sniping positions and the hides on each corner built to protect a shooter from attack from the air. Tara had been shown a similar defensive post on Ma's roof, installed because Ren was a silent partner in that diner as well.
"Nice layout." Levi, now armed with a sniper rifle, moved toward the front-right corner of the building.
Tara snagged an assault rifle and a couple of magazines from the pile Levi and Keely had ferried from the doorway and joined him. The corner and rear shooting positions overlooked the dense forests that came within one hundred feet of the building. That's where the most danger would come from. The attackers had lot of cover due to the thickness of the trees and the ground foliage. The front of the diner faced the state highway connecting Grangeville to Elk City and was wide open with no protection for anyone, unless they were in armored vehicles.
As she and Levi looked down on the one side and the front parking area, Tara spotted three unknown vehicles. But saw no one in or around them. All the current shots, hitting the top of the curtain wall and sending cement chips flying, were coming from the trees to either side of the diner.
"DJ? What's going on in the back?" Tara shouted to be heard over the sound of weapons' fire and winced as a piece of cement hit her cheek. She wiped the back of her sleeve over the blood and sunk even lower below the curtain wall.
"Maybe two men in the woods. I think I've spotted the one who's been shooting at the doorway onto the roof. Just need to set up and get my scope on him."
"Here, DJ, I snagged the Lapua for you and some extra mags." Keely's voice was behind her and Levi.
Tara turned and belly-crawled across the roof to take up a shooting position at the opposite corner from Levi, that way she could help Levi with the front and still have a good view of the side of the building opposite his.
As she made her move, the shooter at the rear of the diner peppered the roof. Probably hoped he'd hit someone, even though he was shooting blind. Fucker was smart, since several of his bullets ricocheted and caused pieces of the roof to fly up next to Tara as she moved toward her post. A cold sweat poured down her back and she cursed steadily under her breath. But at least she was totally focused on the here and now, and not the past. Besides, she was pissed and wanted to shoot the fucker.
Fighting mad was way better than fighting PTSD flashbacks.
Tara stopped at one of the cutouts in the curtain wall. The assault rifle was standard military issue. The familiar procedure of checking out the weapon and making sure it was ready came back to her as if she'd never left the military.
As an Air Force pilot, she had survival training and basic weapons training on top of that. She'd elected to take it even further and made nice with the security forces folks who'd brought her up to speed on the bigger weapons. Just in case, she ever had to eject and then survive on the land until rescued; her SERE and weapons training would give her a fighting chance. No way would she have allowed the Taliban to capture her, an American female pilot.
"Okay, I think I got the asshole giving us grief sighted." DJ sounded focused and, for lack of a better word,
content.
Tara knew DJ would wait for the perfect shot.
A shot rang out from Levi's position.
"Hey, forgot to ask," Levi shouted. "Wiping or wounding?"
"Wounding," Keely yelled. "Ren wants to talk to these frick-fracking morons. By the way, I'm a reserve deputy sheriff, as is Ren. So, you're shooting under my authority—and in self-defense. So, if a few get wiped, I'm not going to cry."
While Tara hadn't had to kill close up very often, she could do it if she had to. This could very well be a "had-to" situation.
"I'm a badged park ranger, Levi. I back up what Keely said. We're under attack from a lot of fire power, so we shoot back and sort it all out later," Tara said. "We only really need one to talk."
"Roger that. I want some time with them, too." Levi went silent and returned fire on his side of the building.
The idiots were wasting a lot of ammunition for no good reason. What did the asshats think—that the sound of all the bullets hitting the building would scare them into surrendering?
In a brief lull in the shooting, Tara heard Keely murmur into a com headset. "I hear you, big guy. I'm safe."
"Hey, I don't much like sneak attacks when I was looking forward to a nice evening with friends and family," Keely continued. "So, you can have what's left when you guys get here. Love you. Out."
A barrage of shots strafed the roof. The shots came from tree level, behind the building.
DJ's Lapua coughed once. "Got him. He's on the ground, not moving." She shot again. "Just wounded a guy trying to pull his buddy out of the line of fire. Second guy's alive, but crippled."
The former Army chopper pilot's matter-of-fact tone sent chills down Tara's cold, sweaty back. DJ had sniper nerves of steel.
Tara's nerves were only steely when piloting a multi-million dollar attack aircraft. Returning small arms' fire had every nerve in her body fritzing like a live electrical wire. Each shot that hit nearby and pelted her with shards of cement or roof material had her flinching. The only thing that kept her hands steady and her gaze sharp on her target zone was her training. Her task, and only task, was to return the attackers' fire and keep them pinned down until help arrived.
With an occasional glance at the front parking lot, she focused on the forest that came to within one hundred feet of the side of the diner. The trees were thick with both old and new growth and lots of underbrush. A freaking platoon could hide in there and never be seen.
Sighting down the barrel of her rifle, she watched for evidence of the enemy's shots or a betraying movement. The rifle's scope was top of the line, and she could see individual leaves, birds, nests with some late season eggs, a couple of squirrels, and, there, a bad guy hiding behind a Lodgepole pine.
"Move a bit to my right." She muttered as she fought to slow her breathing so she wouldn't fire wildly. Her vision was clear. Her hand was steadier than her pulse. With only a part of an arm exposed, she waited for a better shot and ignored the sounds of gunfire from the attackers and the return fire from her buddies on the roof. Her focus was so intense she barely flinched when flying cement chips struck her body.
When her target popped out, shooting rapid-fire rounds at the back corner where Keely had taken up position. Tara pulled the trigger—two quick, but controlled bursts as she'd been trained. Spraying the area with a fusillade of bullets as this guy and his buddies seemed prone to doing showed a lack of training and zero discipline, besides being a waste of ammo.
Her target went down. He fell forward, as if in slow motion, and landed on a bush. He didn't move. Was he dead? Maybe. Her shots had both been torso shots. If he wasn't dead, he could soon be from blood loss.
She swallowed hard. Inhaling through her nose, she exhaled through her mouth and breathed through the nausea. Shooting, possibly killing, another human was never easy, be it up close or from the sky.
Shots hit near her. One cement shard nicked her chin. The pain caused her to focus. She returned fire and reminded herself—their attackers were not innocents; they were out to kill them.
"Ren and the guys are coming," Keely relayed. "The bad guys will be running if they're able."
"The hell they will." Levi's Lapua rang out. "Vehicles out of commission."
"You sure killed those," Keely snickered.
Tara grinned at her friend. Yeah, no one would be driving those vehicles anywhere.
A Black Hawk swooped in from the east, skimming the treetops. What a beautiful sight. Their backup was here.
Tara kept a wary eye out for anyone in her target zone who might shoot at the helicopter. Price was in that chopper. As the Hawk closed the distance she saw Price and Ren, sitting in the open cabin door, wearing harnesses.
"Dammit, píítaa." Fear for him had her bile rising. She swallowed hard. "Are you asking them to shoot you?"
Or fall out? She'd witnessed both during one furious ambush she'd been flying close air support for.
Tara must've voiced her concerns loudly enough, because Keely grunted. "My husband's being just as much of a butthole. Yes, big guy, I just called you a butthole. Now get your and Price's asses out of the firing zone. Sweet Jesus. How did they survive the SEALs?"
"Stop worrying about your men," Levi said. "We have movement going toward our vehicles. I like my truck. I like it without holes. So, let's try not to shoot it up, please." He took a shot.
One of the men fleeing went down, grasping his thigh.
Keely moved to back up Levi on defending their personal vehicles.
"Not my Hummer, you frick-fracking douchebag," Keely said. "Though he'd never get past the security system."
The chopper had moved away and was coming back over the woods on her side of the diner. Tara's glance swept the trees and found movement. A man was aiming his assault rifle at the chopper. "Keely, evasive action. Tell Tweeter now."
Even as the chopper angled sharply over the front lot and gained altitude, Keely shot two sets of two bursts. Her target dropped like a stone.
Price and the guys concentrated on buzzing the area and keeping an eye for anyone else trying to escape. At this point, the attackers had run farther into the woods, either in a bid to escape or to hunker down.
Tara shook her head. If anyone was hiding in the forest, she was fairly certain they'd be captured eventually. She'd learned a lot about SSI since she'd met Keely and Ren and later after assisting in Fee's rescue, they wouldn't let anyone hiding get away.
The sound of sirens filled the air. Two Idaho County Sheriff's patrol SUVs roared into the lot. The deputies dismounted and took cover behind the open doors of their vehicles. Tweeter landed the SSI chopper behind the SUVs and blocked the highway. Price, Ren, and Trey joined the deputies. Tweeter remained in the chopper.
"Keely?" Tara called. "What does Ren want us to do now?"
"Hold position," Keely replied. "Keep an eye open for any of the attackers and provide cover. Ren, Price, and Trey are going into the woods to clear them and check on the ones we've shot. Dan is heading for us with his canine units."
"I'm going down to help them," Levi said. "Switch rifles with me." He'd come alongside Tara. "We weren't properly introduced. Tara Nightwalker, right? Ren told me about you. I'm Levi Gray Wolf."
"Yeah, I know." She wondered why Ren had mentioned her. "Nice to meet you." She shoved the automatic rifle at him and the extra ammo and took the sniper rifle from him.
"Nice to meet you, too." He grinned. Keeping low, he moved toward the door to the stairway. "See ya." He stood up and then swiftly went down the stairs.
Keely followed him. "I'll let him out the back door and then come back. You and DJ cover our men's behinds."
"Planned on it." DJ looked at Tara. "I'll take over Keely's back corner. You take the opposite one. That's where all the action will be now."
Tara nodded and took up position. She watched as Levi slid into the woods. He checked on the downed men, one of which was the guy she'd shot, still draped ov
er a bush. He looked up as if he knew she was there. He tapped a headset that Keely must've given him. Then he melded into the woods and she lost him.
When Keely came back onto the roof, Tara asked, "What did Levi report?"
"That two are dead and another probably won't make it even with care. The other wounded aren't going anywhere." Keely had a grim look on her face.
Tara wanted to feel sick, but wasn't that much of a hypocrite.
"The guy I shot will live and be able to talk." Keely looked out at the forest. "Levi's hooked up with Ren, Trey, and Price. They're tracking two who are heading for the ravine that runs behind this property."
"They're heading onto Sanctuary land," DJ said.
"That won't help them. I doubt they can get across the ravine unless they brought climbing gear. And from the way they attacked us, they're not that smart," Keely said.
Yeah, all they had to do was sneak in the diner's open back door, and they could've killed or captured all of them.
Tara was really curious as to who the attackers were and what their purpose had been. Maybe the guy Keely wounded would be able to provide some answers.
"So, we stay here in case they double back?" Tara said.
"Yeah. I figure we'll have them before nightfall. The Sheriff's canine unit should find them. The dogs can get smells off the seats in their vehicles," Keely said.
Or their men would find them first.
Price and Ren were both former Navy SEALs. Trey had been Marine Force Recon, and Levi was a former Army Ranger. The two men trying to escape had no chance in hell of doing so.
Chapter 12
Wednesday, June 10th
As the sun set behind the mountains, Price sat in the dark in his great room and stared at the fire he'd built to ward off the chill of the evening. He was pissed the fuck off. The two attackers who'd fled the scene a week ago had avoided capture. He still wasn't sure how they managed it.
Immediately after the attack on Carmela's, the Sheriff Department's tracking dogs had been set on the two men's trail. The dogs lost the scent where the men had entered a creek which had been running at full spate. The next day, he and Levi had managed to find where the two men had left the creek, but lost them at the site of a large rockslide which had come down sometime over the winter.
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