He could see the shapes of two men in the dining room, one with his back pressed against the wall, the other bent low.
Gilbert's options were limited. He could either make a stand or back off. Risking a break could put Fletcher in danger. He pulled his spare clip from the magazine holder. If he could take these two out, maybe he could protect Pletcher until help arrived.
He fixed the position of the two men in his mind's eye and stretched out on his back with his head up and the nine-millimeter clutched in both hands between his legs. He took one deep breath and kicked hard at the table to upend it. The shooters opened up on full automatic, rounds tearing into the wall and pantry inches above Gilbert's head. He double-fired repeatedly at the two targets until his clip emptied.
He ejected the spent magazine and loaded the spare.
As he readied to pull off more rounds, he realized the shooting had stopped. He looked at the target zones; there were two downed bodies. He fanned his weapon back and forth, ready to fire again if either moved.
Nothing happened. He slithered around, keeping the targets in sight.
Then he flipped quickly onto his stomach, belly-crawled to the bodies, and checked them.
Both were dead.
He hurried into the garage and found Fletcher hiding under his car, shaking like a leaf.
"Did you call?" he whispered.
"Yes."
"Stay put. Where's the remote for the garage door opener?"
"On the visor in my car."
"Where are your car keys?"
"In the house."
"Dammit."
"What are you going to do?"
"There may be more people outside." Gilbert climbed on the hood of Fletcher's car, popped off the light cover to the opener, and unscrewed the bulb.
"Crawl to the front of the car and hide behind the tire.
Make yourself as small as possible."
"What can I do to help?"
"Do you have a gun in your glove box?" Gilbert asked as he jumped off the hood of the car.
"No, I don't own a gun."
"Too bad." In a crouch, he worked his way around the vehicle, opened both car doors, grabbed the remote door opener, and turned off the interior light.
"What are you doing?" Fletcher hissed.
"Trying to buy us some time." Prom the driver's side with the doors open, Gilbert had a dear shot if someone stormed through the passageway door, and a good field of fire into the driveway once he opened the overhead door.
He hoped to God only one shooter was left. He didn't have enough ammunition to take one man out and keep up a running gun battle with another.
He steadied himself and waited. *** ramon slipped into the dining room and checked the bodies.
"Javier and Raul are dead," he whispered into his headset.
"The house is empty."
"Are the targets down?" Carlos demanded.
"No."
"Where are they?"
"In the garage."
"Do you have an advantage?" Carlos asked.
"No."
"Can you see into the garage?"
"No. The door is closed."
Carlos moved down the driveway. The exterior garage door had a row of shoulder-high small windows.
"When I tell you, put heavy fire into the garage through the door. I will do the same from outside."
"We haven't much time," Ramon said.
"Then we must do it quickly," Carlos replied. He stopped near the garage, pulled a night-vision viewer from the pouch at his waist, and scanned through the windows. The device could not magnify, but it did show a man's outline behind an open car door.
"I have him," Carlos said into his headset. He kept the viewer fixed on Kerney and braced the assault rifle against his shoulder.
"Move down the passageway. Aim high and to the right. Tell me when you're in position."
"I'm there," Ramon whispered.
"Fire now," Carlos said as he squeezed the trigger.
OpncBR Yronne Rasmussen heard automatic-weapons fire as she rolled into the lane with the unit headlights off and the window open. She ground to a stop, hit the quick-release button to the racked shotgun, grabbed the weapon, and tumbled out of her unit. She keyed her handheld radio as she ran down the lane.
"Shots fired," she said.
"Officer needs assistance."
She gave her location and asked for backup.
The automatic-weapons fire continued to come from the direction of Pletcher Hartley's house. She cut across the property at an angle and stopped before she broke cover at the driveway. A man in tactical garb wearing a headset stood spraying the garage door with an AK-47.
She chambered a round into the shotgun and dropped to a kneeling position. The distance was too great to be effective, but maybe she could draw fire away from Sergeant Martinez. She pulled off a round, and the shooter wheeled and fired back. She felt something slam into her thigh, lost her balance, and fell. She looked down at her leg in stunned surprise. Her uniform trousers had a bloody hole in them. It was a brand-new pair. When she looked up, the man was gone.
"Get out, now," Carlos said into the headset as he ran to the back of the house.
"The police are here."
"Did we get them?" Ramon asked.
"It's done," Carlos replied.
"Meet me at the car."
Rasmussen limped across the driveway and down the path to the front door. She could feel blood dripping down her leg. The front door was smashed and almost off the hinges. She got on her belly, cradled the shotgun in her arms, and started crawling down the dark hallway.
The numbness in her leg was gone, replaced by a hot pain that made her clench her teeth to keep from groaning aloud.
A silhouette entered the hallway from a side room.
Rasmussen stopped crawling and aimed the shotgun.
"Don't move."
The figure turned toward her and the barrel of a weapon swung around.
She fired once and the blast caught the man full force in the chest., She keyed her handheld radio.
"Officer down," she mumbled. From outside she could hear sirens in the distance.
She crawled to the body and checked it. The man was dead. She moved over the body into a dining room and switched on her flashlight. The beam caught two more bodies under the kitchen archway. She checked them both before moving into the kitchen. An overturned table, thick legs peppered with bullet holes, blocked a short passageway. At the end of the hall, a door had been virtually blown apart by heavy fire.
Yvonne switched off the flashlight and pulled herself down the passageway.
"Police officer," she called out.
"In here," Hetcher said.
"Identify yourself."
"Fletcher Hartley."
"Are you alone?"
"No. Gilbert Martinez is with me. He's been shot."
"Are you all right?"
"I think so."
"Are you armed?"
"No."
"Stay where you are. I'm coming in."
She pulled her handgun, hobbled to the garage, and fumbled for the light switch. She searched low and saw Pletcher Hartley huddled at the front tire of a bullet riddled car. The arm of a man holding a nine-millimeter was draped over Hartley's back. She approached cautiously.
The man was lying on his side with his face blown away.
As shock from her wound kicked in. Officer Rasmussen realized the faceless dead man was Sergeant Martinez.
Carlos finished briefing De Leon just as the jefe's airplane reached cruising altitude. The takeoff, which he hated as much as landings, had distracted Carlos and sweat trickled down his armpits. He jiggled his false teeth with a thumb and tried to remember if he'd forgotten anything in his report.
De Leon sat at the desk in the private compartment of his airplane examining the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He seemed more interested in the statue than he did in the details of the firefight.
Carlos waited for a reaction from De Leon as he turned the bulto in his hands and carefully inspected it. All the other stolen items had been left locked in the wine cellar of the Santa Fe house.