Cindy Gerard - [Bodyguards 06]

by Into the Dark

  To expose their operation.

  That would not happen. Could not happen. Not on his watch.

  Without turning on the lights, he walked into the hall. Down to Reimers’ private suite. Woke him. Then he walked down the hall and woke Henry.

  “We have an issue,” he said five minutes later when they gathered in the library. “And it would appear that we must take measures to deal with it tonight.”

  Amy wondered how many adrenaline rushes the human nervous system could deal with in a twenty-four-hour period and not shut down.

  Many, evidently, because just driving out of the barn and hitting the road had revved hers right off the charts again. Her fingers trembled as she tucked her hair up under a black watch cap. Jones had given one to both her and Jenna. Dallas passed a tube of face paint toward the backseat. Amy smeared it on then handed it to Jenna.

  Reed and Lang, in an older model Bronco, traveled along the road behind them. Lights off. Windshield wipers kicking back and forth in a slow, steady swish, thump, swish, thump.

  Twenty minutes passed, punctuated by a silence that rang with the gravity and the danger of what they were about to do. By the time they crested a hill and turned off the main road to cut across an open stretch of pasture, the tension was as thick and weighty as a lead coffin.

  And then they were there.

  Jones cut the motor. One by one they peeled out of the vehicle. It took a while for Amy’s eyes to adjust to the darkness. She’d have preferred a moon, but Dallas said the rain and cloud cover would work to their advantage as he went down on his knees by the fence they had to breach to get to the interior complex.

  “If we set off a sensor,” he whispered as he searched for a weakness in the wire, “the guards will most likely chalk it up to the rain. Fortunately for us, this system is old. It probably shorts out a lot.”

  Both Dallas and Jones wore NVGs—as did Reed and Lang. Amy and Jenna didn’t have that advantage; neither did they have the advantage of the firepower the men carried.

  In addition to pistols ranging from a Sig to a 1911-A1 and a couple of Glock 30s, all but Jones and Reed carried slick black M-4 automatic rifles with intricate scopes and sights. Jones stuck with his M-14. The belt-fed machine gun had to weigh a ton, but Reed handled it as if it were nothing. Jones, as always, carried his Butterfly. The other three had strapped on KA-BARs.

  Jenna refused to carry a weapon, and while Amy understood that it was killing her to rely on Jones, she did as she was told and stuck to him like glue.

  Amy watched as the men huddled, consulted quietly. Then broke apart. Apparently the plan stood. It was a go.

  Breathing deep to control her heart rate, Amy racked the slide on her Glock to chamber a round. She double-checked her magazine pouch, then eased through the opening in the fence Dallas had made.

  One by one they entered the compound as the rain slowly dampened their clothes. With Amy shadowing Dallas and Jenna sticking tight to Jones, they spread out. Crouching low, they scurried across approximately fifty yards of open area then ducked in behind a small building—a storage shed of some sort.

  Dallas’ eyes were spots of white in a face smeared with dark paint when he lowered the NVGs. He nodded to Jones, who promptly took of at a run, ducking behind a building that Amy was fairly certain was the armory. Jenna stayed close on his heels. At the same time, Reed and his M-60 headed for the building that had been IDed as the security staff barracks. Lang covered his exposed back.

  Then they waited.

  And waited for seemed like an eternity until finally…

  Pop. Pop.

  Jones’ M-14. He’d taken out the guards.

  Not five seconds later, the boom of a grenade rocked the silence. Then the rapid-fire staccato of Reed and his machine gun exploded into the night. Lang and Reed were taking the barracks.

  Everything seemed to happen at once then. The security lights on the guard posts went out one by one—Jones, again, if Amy remembered right.

  “Like white on rice,” Dallas ordered with a meaningful look. Only when she nodded did he don his NVGs and move out at a crouching run.

  Amy stuck right behind him as the barrage from the M-60 went on and on.

  Ducking low, they raced across the wet grass toward the armory, meeting zero resistance. Jones came out of nowhere. Jenna had grabbed his ammo belt and hung on for dear life. He stacked up against the exterior wall of the armory building, pushed Jenna down and out of harm’s way.

  Then he kept guard while Dallas fired multiple rounds at the lock on the wooden door.

  Like a well-oiled machine, they burst inside.

  The armory was unmanned.

  “Lax,” Jones said, referring to security—and then they realized why.

  The armory was empty.

  Dallas ducked back outside. “What the fuck’s going on?”

  It was then that Amy noticed the utter quiet.

  The M-60 was silent. Which meant that the bulk of the compound security team had been dealt with.

  “This is way too easy.” Dallas scanned the compound through his NVGs.

  Jones nodded. “Roger that.”

  A whisper came out of the dark. “I thought we wanted it easy.”

  Jenna. She sounded shaken but in control.

  Lang and Reed’s sudden appearance at their side had all heads turning.

  “I just shot the shit out of a bunch of sandbags,” Reed said.

  “The barracks were empty,” Lang confirmed, then turned to Jones. “And yet you took out two guards, right?”

  “Most likely sacrificed for the cause. So they’d suck us in deeper. Which means they knew we were coming,” Jones concluded.

  Dallas nodded. “They must have discovered the mess we made of their camp. Realized we got Jenna.”

  “Does this mean they’re gone?” Amy felt her heart sink.

  Dallas shook his head. “Only one way to find out.”

  “Keep sharp,” Jones said, and with that cryptic advice, they headed for the west bunker that served as sleeping quarters for the victims.

  “Jesus.” Lang stopped cold when he saw the barracks door.

  Jenna sucked in a gasp. Amy closed her eyes, swallowed back her horror.

  A man—or what was left of him—was nailed, spread eagle, to the door. He’d been stripped, his throat slit. A swastika had been carved into his chest.

  “Raul,” Jones said darkly. “They must have made him.”

  The barracks door burst open.

  “Take cover!” Dallas yelled.

  He shoved Amy to the ground, lay across her and started firing from his belly. A sea of men poured out of the west bunker, firing wildly from their hips. Another barrage charged out of the east bunker.

  Reed bellied down with the M-60, mowing down the first wave that ran out.

  “Go, go, go!” Dallas and Jones herded Amy and Jenna back toward the armory while the M-60 bought enough time for the rest of them to retreat.

  “Bastards have pissed me off,” Reed snarled, out of breath, as he backed into the open armory door. “They hit me in the face.”

  Lang grabbed Reed’s jaw, turned his face toward him. “It’s a just scratch.”

  “It’s just my fucking face,” Reed sputtered, then winked at Amy. “It needs to look good on a book jacket when I write my memoirs someday.”

  Amy did what Reed wanted her to. Hugging a wooden floor that smelled of gunpowder and must, ducking bullets, she grinned.

  “Don’t worry, pretty boy. It’ll give you character.” Lang sited down the barrel of his M-4 and tagged one of the guards.

  “Like he needs to be more of a character,” Jones grumbled, unholstered his Sig and beaded in on a bad guy hell-bent on meeting his maker. Jones made it happen with one shot.

  “They’re joking around,” Jenna whispered, incredulous. “Men are dead. Bullets are flying, our takeover has turned sour, and they’re making jokes.”

  “Welcome to the wacky world of black ops,” Jon
es said. “Gallows humor. Get used to it.”

  “Why did they storm us?” Dallas speculated aloud, no trace of humor—black or otherwise—in his tone. “I mean, we were going to walk in there. They could have picked us off one by one. Why expose themselves? They had to figure we wouldn’t come in shooting because of the hostages.”

  “Figured they had the numbers?” Lang suggested.

  “Stupid?” was Reed’s contribution.

  “Because someone made them do it,” Jones concluded, seeing where Dallas was headed.

  “Bingo. The big boys pulling the strings probably had guns at their backs threatening to kill them if they didn’t.”

  “What about the hostages?” Amy asked.

  “At this point? Most likely dead,” Jones added on a grim note. “From scientific research material to liability in the blink of an eye.”

  “Jesus.” Jenna closed her eyes. “Jesus. What kind of animals are they?”

  “The worst kind. Now they’re gonna be the dead kind,” Jones promised. “What’s your kill count, boys?”

  Between them they figured they’d taken out close to twenty. “Add the two perimeter guards and that evens out the numbers.”

  Reed rubbed at the thin stream of blood trickling down his cheek, ducked as another round of gunfire peppered the armory wall. “Unless they brought in reinforcements.”

  Dallas shook his head. “No time.”

  “So that leaves half a dozen—give or take—still in the bunkers.” Lang fired off another shot. “Make that five, give or take. And the head honchos.”

  “West or east?” Jones asked, referring to which bunker Reed and Lang wanted to attack.

  “I think the son of a bitch that hit me was in the east.”

  “Guess that’s settled. We’ll take west.” Dallas glanced at Amy then Jenna. “You two stay right where you are.

  “Reed, leave the M-60 for them.”

  Reed did a double take but didn’t argue.

  “It’s heavy,” Reed said, giving Amy a quick lesson on how to fire it. “So keep it set up on the bipod and let her rip. Every fifth round is going to be a tracer so just lean on the trigger and point the flashes where you want the bullets to go.

  “If it jams,” he turned to Jenna, “you’re going to need to help feed the rounds in straight.” He showed her how.

  “You’re not a south-paw right?”

  Amy shook her head.

  “Good, ’cause I wouldn’t want the belt feed cover latch digging into your pretty face.”

  “Are you finished yet?” Jones growled.

  “We’re good to go. Treat her right, ladies.” Reed gave the gun an affectionate pat.

  “Watch our backs,” Dallas said with a direct look at Amy.

  She nodded. “Be careful.”

  Weapons firing, they ran out into the open.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  They’ve been gone a long time,” Jenna said in a small voice. “And why did it get so quiet?”

  Amy had been thinking exactly the same thing. It was quiet. And she didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing.

  She kept her eyes on the open ground between the armory and the bunkers. Prayed to God she could tell the good guys from the bad guys if anyone charged toward them.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on.”

  Just then a lone figure materialized out of the dark.

  Amy sighted down the barrel of the M-60. She couldn’t make out his face. It was too dark. She was too wired.

  She held her breath, finger poised on the trigger.

  “Hold fire.”

  Dallas.

  She lowered her head to her shoulder, eased her finger off the trigger. Breathed. Uttered a prayer of thanks.

  “What’s happening?” Jenna levered herself to her knees beside Amy.

  Dallas shook his head. “Nothing but bodies.”

  Amy felt heart sick. “The hostages?”

  “Dead.”

  “Oh, God. All of them?”

  “Every last one. They shot them in their cells.”

  “What about the lab?”

  His face was as grim as grim got. “You don’t want to know about the lab.”

  Reed, Lang and Jones joined them.

  “I’ve been around some seriously bad shit in my life,” Reed said. “Seen things, done things. None of it is the stuff of nursery rhymes. But this…what they did to those people. It’s so fucking sick.”

  Stunned into silence, Amy was only vaguely aware of Jones talking on a radio, canceling the transport chopper that was on its way to evacuate the victims.

  “My grandfather?” she said, lifting her eyes to Dallas.

  Again, he shook his head. “No sign of him or anyone else.”

  “So who made the guards charge us?” Jones speculated aloud. “If the big brass got out before we came, who sent those guys on a suicide run?”

  Dallas glanced back at the bunkers. “Double-check the bunkers. Look for a false wall, trap door—something. Blast your way through if you have to. They’re here. They have to be here, hiding like rats in a tunnel.”

  He grabbed the M-60, tossed Reed his M-4. “I’ll cover the rear of both bunkers in case you flush them out.”

  “I’m coming with you.” Amy scrambled to her feet—only to have Dallas drag her down to the floor again when another round of gunfire ripped into the exterior walls of the armory.

  “What the hell!” Lang lunged for the floor.

  Amy glanced from one man to the other as Reed dropped down beside Lang. “Where’s it coming from?”

  “The main house.” Dallas risked a glance over a blasted out window ledge. “And the west bunker.”

  Which, Amy realized, meant they were pinned down.

  Jones hunkered down in a corner by the door. He held up a hand. “Listen…you hear that?”

  She couldn’t hear anything above the steady barrage of AK-47 fire. At least she didn’t think she could, until she picked up a faint whine.

  “What is it?”

  “A rotor blade revving up.” Dallas made another quick check out the window. “Shit. They’re firing up the chopper.”

  Amy had seen the helicopter when they’d passed it on the way to the armory. It was small…couldn’t hold more than three or four people.

  “It’s got to be them,” she said, desperate to find a way to stop them. “My grandfather…the other two. They’re getting away.”

  “Cover me!” Dallas had to yell to be heard above the gunfire.

  Rolling to his knees, he grabbed the M-60. Then he shot out the door, running into the crossfire of bullets before Amy realized what he intended to do.

  The automatic weapon’s fire doubled.

  Lang, Jones and Reed all returned fire, aiming at the muzzle flashes, pinning back the shooters’ ears to give Dallas a chance to get out of the line of fire.

  “Fuck!” Jones yelled and never stopped firing. “He’s down.”

  Fear coiled in Amy’s chest like a snake. Dallas had been hit. And it was her fault.

  She couldn’t think past the fact that he was out there. Hurt. Possibly dead. And she couldn’t sit here and not do anything about it.

  She bolted to her feet, unholstering her Glock in one fluid motion, and ran out the door.

  “Amy…. No!!” Jenna’s cry trailed after her as she ran out and into the rain storm of bullets, searching for Dallas.

  Rage rolled over fear when she spotted him. He was forty yards away, facedown in the damp grass.

  Firing as she ran, she raced toward him as bullets whizzed by, one coming so close she felt it kiss her cheek.

  When she reached him, she dropped to her knees. “Dallas!”

  He lifted his head. “What the fuck?”

  Thank you God. Thank you God. He was alive.

  Fear for his life rolled over relief. “We’ve got to get you out of here. Where are you hit?”

  “Take cover, damn it!”

  “Not witho
ut you. Come on.”

  She crawled to his head, gripped him under his armpits and started pulling, thinking of stories she’d read about adrenaline rushes that allowed small women to pull big cars off of someone they loved.

  “Don’t let me down now,” she prayed to the adrenaline gods.

  They didn’t. With Dallas digging in his feet and helping her, she managed to drag him the five yards to the cover of an out building and tuck them both out of the line of fire.

  “Where are you hit?” she repeated.

  “Calf. Forearm.” He grimaced in pain. “It’s okay. But those bastards are getting away.”

  She followed his gaze to the helipad where the bird was about to take off.

  “No, they aren’t.” She ran back out in the open for the M-60.

  “Jesus, woman!” Dallas roared, lunging for her and missing when she took off.

  Divots exploded out of the grass, trailing each footstep as she ran. She ignored the fire. Reached the gun, hefted its cumbersome weight and hauled it back behind the building.

  She hunkered down on her stomach, set the gun up on its bipod like Reed had showed her. She glanced at the helicopter. “Can this take it down?”

  A grimace of pain tightened Dallas’s mouth. “Guess we’ll find out.” He clutched his arm with one hand, hiked himself up on an elbow so he could help her set up.

  “You hit it in the right place, it’ll have the flying characteristics of a brick.” He inched up beside her where she lay on her belly, fixing the chopper in her sights.

  “Start from in front. Work your way back. And lead it when it takes off. It’s going to need some forward momentum before it goes vertical.”

  Amy drew a breath, let it out slowly, remembered what Reed had told her.

  Lean on the trigger. Point the tracer flashes where you want to bullets to go.

  The chopper lifted, hovered, just as she fired.

  The fire flash of rounds hitting metal sparked off the cockpit door.

  “Keep firing!” Dallas yelled.