And the windows exploded in under a hail of high-caliber bullets.
-6-
The Safe House
Pine Deep, Pennsylvania
August 16; 6:41 P.M.
I dove for cover behind the couch. It wasn’t a good dive and it wasn’t pretty, but it got me low and out of the line of fire. Then I tried to melt right into the carpet. High-caliber rounds were chewing the couch to splinters and threads. The air above me was filled with thunder. Plaster and chunks of wall lath rained down on me.
The shots seemed to be continuous, so there had to be multiple shooters. They were firing full auto and even with a high-capacity magazine it only takes a couple of seconds to burn through the entire clip.
I shimmied sideways, trying to put the edge of the stone fireplace between me and the shooters. I had my Beretta out, but the barrage was so intense that I couldn’t risk a shot.
Then the sound changed. There were new sounds. The hollow pok-pok-pok of small-arms fire and the rhythmic boom of a shotgun. Those sounds were farther away.
Top and Bunny returning fire.
The automatic gunfire swept away from me and split as the shooters focused on these two new targets. That gave me my moment, and I was up and running, pistol out. There was nothing left of the door except a gaping maw of splintered wood and glass through which the fog rolled like a slow-motion tide. I went through it fast, feeling the splinters claw at my sleeves and thighs. I was firing before I set foot outside.
In combat you see more, process more, and all of it happens fast. That’s a skill set you learn quick or you get killed. As I came out of the house I saw five men standing in a loose shooting line in the turnaround. The fog was thick enough to cover them to mid-thigh. They were dark-skinned. Middle Eastern for sure, though from that distance I couldn’t tell from where. All five of them carried AK-47s with banana clips. Three were facing the garage, firing steadily at it; the other two were standing wide-legged as they leaned back to fire at the second floor.
I emptied my magazine into them. I saw blood puff out in little clouds of red mist as two of them staggered backward and fell, vanishing into the fog. Another one took a round through the cheek. Because he was shouting, the bullet went through both cheeks and left the teeth untouched. He was screaming louder as he wheeled around toward me.
I fired my last two rounds into his chest and my slide locked back.
The remaining shooters opened up on me and I dove behind the armored SUV. Their bullets pinged off of the heavy skin and smoked the window before ricocheting high into the sky.
The shooters wanted me so badly they forgot, in that one fatal instant, about Top and Bunny.
Bunny spun out of the side door to the garage and fired three rounds with the shotgun, catching the left-hand shooter in the chest and face. Top leaned out of the second-floor window and put half a magazine into the last shooter.
As the last one fell, I swapped out the magazine in my Beretta and crept to the edge of the car. Simon Burke had said that there were six buyers. Five men lay sprawled on the bloody gravel.
Where was the sixth . . . ?
I tapped my earbud. “We have one more hostile,” I began, but Top cut me off.
“Negative, Cowboy,” he said, using my combat call sign, “we have multiple hostiles inbound.”
I turned and saw the fog swirling around two cars barreling down the long dirt road. Then there was a roar to my right and I saw another pair of vehicles—ATVs with oversized tires—crashing our way through the cornfields.
“Where’s this fog coming from?” demanded Top. “Can’t see worth a damn!”
“I got a team coming in on foot,” called Bunny. “Behind the house, running along a drainage ditch. Can’t make out numbers with that mist out there. No, wait . . . there’s a second team farther back in the corner. Damn! A third at nine o’clock to the front door. Four men in black. Geez . . . Boss . . . we’re under siege here. We need backup.”
We needed an army, but we weren’t likely to get one. The closest help was the naval airbase in Willow Grove. Half an hour at least.
With a sinking heart I understood the enormity of what Simon Burke had done. Not six buyers—six teams of buyers. Conservative estimate—twenty men. Depressing estimate . . . thirty.
Coming straight at us.
-7-
The Safe House
Pine Deep, Pennsylvania
August 16; 6:46 P.M.
We needed five minutes. With five minutes we could have fitted out with Kevlar and ballistic helmets; strapped on vests heavy with fresh magazines, picked optimum shooting positions and turned the whole farm into a killbox.
We needed five damn minutes.
We had thirty seconds.
“Talk to me, Cowboy,” said Top.
“Sergeant Rock and Jolly Green,” I barked. “Converge on me. Living room. Now.”
I spun around, yanked open the door of the SUV, ground the key in the starter, spun the wheel, and stamped down. The big machine took an awkward and ugly lurch, then found footing and rolled heavily away from the house. I went completely around the roundabout and then jerked the wheel over and put the pedal to the floor as I aimed it at the front door. The SUV punched a truck-sized hole through the shattered doorway, then it ripped across the living room floor and slammed into the stairs with enough force to rocked the entire house to its foundation. I hadn’t had time to buckle up for safety, so I got bashed forward and backward in my seat. I could taste blood in my mouth as I bailed out of the driver’s seat and ran to the back.
“Sergeant Rock, coming in!” yelled Top as he pounded down the stairs. He had to vault the wreckage of the bottom steps, then run across the hood, up onto the roof, and then drop with a grunt into a squat next to me. He yelped in pain as his forty-year-old knees took the impact; but he sucked it up, forced himself up, and staggered over to me as I raised the back hatch.
“Coming in!” yelled Bunny and then he was there, coming at us from the kitchen.
I clumsied open the gun lockers and immediately six pairs of hands were reaching for all the toys. I grabbed a bag of loaded magazines and an M4 and peeled away.
“Yo!” Top barked and tossed another bag to me. “Party favors!”
I snatched it out of the air and flashed him a grin. He grinned back. This was a total nightmare scenario and only an insane oddsmaker would give us one in fifty on getting out of this. So . . . might as well enjoy it.
“Where, Boss?” asked Bunny.
“Kitchen. The fog might work for us. It’ll confuse everything out there. Go!”
“On it.” He shoved five drum magazines for the shotgun into a bag and slung it over his shoulder. Then he was gone, running back to the kitchen.
“Top,” I said, “upstairs.”
“Why you keep making the old guy run up and down stairs?” We both laughed.
He grabbed his gear and climbed over the wreckage.
I glanced out through the broken window. The lead car was almost to the roundabout. It had slowed, though, and I figured that the converging teams were suddenly aware of one another. Who knows, I thought, maybe Burke was right. Maybe they’d slaughter each other while Top, Bunny and I stayed in here and played cribbage.
And maybe tomorrow I’d wake up looking like Brad Pitt. About as much chance of that.
I heard voices shouting and car doors slamming.
Then gunshots.
The first rounds were fired away from us, off to my three o’clock, the direction of the team on ATVs.
Then three other guns opened up on the house.
So much for cribbage.
-8-
The Safe House
Pine Deep, Pennsylvania
August 16; 6:51 P.M.
It became hell.
A swirling surreal white hell, with the red flashes of muzzle fire filtered by thick fog, and all sounds muted to strangeness. Overhead the storm grumbled and growled, but no rain fell.