The AR-15, a fully automatic rifle with a banana clip, was on the seat as well, next to Singer.
A pine branch scraped the side of the Escalade and showered needles through the open passenger window. Newkirk brushed them from his lap, and Singer corrected the wheel to the left.
Then, almost imperceptibly, Newkirk could tell they’d cleared the trees. The terrain opened up in front of them, lightened, but it was still too dark to see clearly. The sky to the east was gunmetal gray, though, as dawn approached.
Singer brought the vehicle to a gentle stop, having to tap the brakes.
Newkirk looked back, hoping Gonzalez had seen the flash of light and wouldn’t drive right into them.
“We’ll wait here until we can see better,” Singer whispered, almost imperceptibly.
JESS WATCHED the two vehicles emerge from the timber and stop, saw a blink of a brake light. Even though they were there, as he expected they would be, a part of him couldn’t believe it was actually happening.
Nosing the.270 over a piece of slate, he looked at the trucks through his rifle scope, thankful that it gathered more light than his naked eye. The white of the first vehicle was more pronounced against the dark, but he still couldn’t see inside. Minutes went by before he thought he could make out two forms in the front of the white car, and another two in the pickup behind it.
The crosshairs rested on the driver’s side window of the white SUV. It was too far for an accurate shot. Nevertheless, he worked the bolt of the rifle and chambered a round. The sound of the bolt action in the still morning jarred him, but he didn’t think it could be heard by the men in the trucks.
NEWKIRK CHECKED the time obsessively. He felt cold all over, and his nose ran freely. The ranch house, the barn, the other outbuildings began to take shape at the bottom of the hill. To their left was a grassy ridge with broken rocks on top. On their right was a gentle saddle slope with black fingers of pine reaching down the hill.
He looked over at Singer, who sat still, his eyes surveying the valley below. The man was so cool, Newkirk thought. Newkirk wished it would rub off.
A shiver started in his chest, ran up his neck, made his teeth chatter. He clamped his mouth shut, waiting for the shiver to run out. It had nothing to do with the cold.
JESS BREATHED in a long, quivering breath. The crosshairs trembled on the driver’s side window. He realized he had been holding his position too long, that his legs and arms were cramping up, causing him to shake. He tried to relax, tried to breathe normally to steady himself, flatten out his aim.
When had he last sighted in the rifle? He couldn’t remember. Jesus. It might be completely off.
Again, he glanced down at his house. No movement, no light. Good.
In the barn, the calf he had delivered the night before bawled for its mother.
Then the vehicles were moving forward, down the switchback. The white SUV was picking up speed, the men inside not nearly so worried about stealth now. The black pickup, the same vehicle Jess had seen the day before in front of his house, was right behind it.
There was a curve in the road about 250 yards away from Jess, where the intruders would need to slow down to make the turn safely. It would be close enough for a decent shot, but not a sure shot. Jess pulled the stock tight to his shoulder, eased his eye to the scope, saw the crosshairs bounce around on the side of Singer’s face. He pulled the trigger and nothing happened.
“Shit!” he said, remembering to thumb the safety off. But by the time he did and sighted through the scope again, the trucks had turned away from the curve and were barreling down the road away from him. He couldn’t believe he’d made such an amateur mistake in such a critical circumstance, and was furious with himself.
NEWKIRK REACHED up through the open window and clamped onto the roof with his hand to steady himself as Singer upshifted and the engine roared and they reached the bottom of the hill where the road straightened out. He saw the ranch house fill the windshield and Singer drove toward it. Gonzalez and Swann shot past them in the pickup on Newkirk’s side.
Both vehicles slid to a stop in the gravel, facing the front door of the house.
Training took over now, and Newkirk bailed out of the Escalade, keeping the open passenger door between him and the structure, aiming his shotgun at the front door of the house over the lip of the open window. In his peripheral vision, he saw Singer do the same after snapping back the bolt to arm the AR-15.
Gonzalez was out of his pickup, racking a shell into the chamber of his shotgun, the sound as sharp and dangerous as anything Newkirk had ever heard. Swann had stayed inside.
While Newkirk and Singer covered him, Gonzalez jogged across the lawn, up the porch steps, and flattened himself against the wall of the house next to the door. Newkirk shot a glance at the picture window. The curtains were pulled closed except for a narrow space between them. Another window on the far side of the house was covered inside with tightly drawn blinds. There was no movement behind either of the windows.
Gonzalez held his shotgun at port arms, then spun and used the butt of it to pound the front door.
“Jess Rawlins! This is the sheriff’s department. Come out of the house right now!”
The sound of the pounding and Gonzalez’s deep voice cut through the silence of the morning.
Newkirk racked the pump on his own shotgun, aimed again at the front door. Waited.
Gonzalez shot a glance to Singer, asking with his eyes, What now?
Singer nodded: Do it again.
This time, Gonzalez pounded the door so hard with the shotgun, Newkirk expected the glass to fall out of the panes of the window. He saw Swann open the truck door and slide out, stand unsteadily on the lawn with a pistol in his hand.
“Jess Rawlins! We need you to come out right now! RIGHT FUCKING NOW!”
Nothing. The pounding echoed back from the wall of timber to the north.
“Jesus Christ,” Gonzalez said, looking again at Singer. Swann limped across the lawn, climbed the steps to the porch, and struggled toward the corner of the house.
Newkirk thinking, They’re not there. No one’s inside. The chopper’s on the way. We’re fucked, but thank God it’s over. Thank God for that. But no…
Gonzalez stepped away from the front of the house, and for a second Newkirk expected the sergeant to try to kick the door down. But he must have decided against it, because he turned and took a step toward the picture window.
Newkirk watched as Gonzalez leaned over, trying to see through the slit in the curtains.
JESS WATCHED it all through the scope on his rifle, the safety off this time for sure. He had not taken a breath since Gonzalez had pounded on the door the second time and the sound washed up and over him.
Gonzalez was in front of the window, leading with his head, trying to see in. Jess was surprised to see that Swann was with them. His head was bandaged, and he appeared to be wearing a hospital smock.
Jess whispered, “Now.”
INSIDE THE front room, Eduardo Villatoro sighted down the barrel of the shotgun at the shadow on the other side of the curtain, put the front bead on the bridge of Gonzalez’s nose through the glass, and fired.
NEWKIRK HEARD the boom, saw Gonzalez’s head snap back and come apart at the same time, shards of glass cascading through the air, the shotgun clattering on the porch. The sergeant took two steps straight back away from the house and hit the railing and crashed through it. He fell in the grass with his arms outstretched over his head, his boots still up on the porch, shards of glass dropping from the window in a delayed reaction.