The naked edge

19

Heart pounding, Cavanaugh raced across the communal room and tugged open a door next to the battered upright piano. He pulled out an AR-15, the semi-automatic civilian version of the M-16.

He gave it to Angelo, along with a loaded thirty-round magazine. "Watch the front."

"Got it."

"Wait. Take this." Cavanaugh grabbed a walkie-talkie off a shelf and tossed it to him.

As Angelo hurried toward the front windows, Cavanaugh took out another AR-15. "I'll watch the east and try to locate the sniper. Mrs. Patterson, get down in the basement."

"No. Tell me how to help."

"Stay out of sight."

"I'm not going to hide." Fear made her voice tremble. "There's a revolver in a kitchen drawer. You taught me how to use it."

"Stay behind cover!" Cavanaugh yelled as she ran toward the kitchen. "Keep your walkie-talkie close! Jamie?"

"I'll take the back," she said.

With no AR-15s remaining, Cavanaugh gave her a Ruger Mini-14, a streamlined semi-automatic rifle favored by ranchers. He stared into her eyes, praying she wouldn't be killed.

"You can count on me," she said.

He touched her hand. "I know." He felt his throat tighten as she grabbed a box of ammunition and hurried away.

"William, come with me."

Cavanaugh tugged the attorney back into the office.

"The good news is, the log walls of this building are so thick, we don't need to worry about bullets coming through."

"You're implying that in most houses bullets can come through walls? Dear God, what's the bad news?"

"The windows are the only target the sniper now has. He'll focus on them."

"Then how are we supposed to look out there and see if anybody's attacking?"

"Stay to the side. Keep your face from the opening. Peer out at an angle." Cavanaugh spoke those words into his walkie-talkie. "Mrs. Patterson, did you hear that?"

Her voice was staticky. "Yes."

"Angelo, see anything?"

"Nada." His voice came from the walkie-talkie.

"Jamie?"

"Clear."

"Mrs. Patterson?"

"Nothing."

"What about the security monitors?"

"All I see are bushes and trees."

"Maybe it's finished." Breathing loudly, William crouched near Cavanaugh against a wall in the office. "The sniper that fired at you. Now that he missed, maybe he's gone."

Cavanaugh inched toward the undamaged eastern window, the one behind his desk, trying to get a glimpse of where the shooter might be hiding on the aspen-covered ridge. He eased closer to the window.

Its screen bulged inward. Something snapped through the room and struck the leather chair that William had earlier sat in. The glowing object plowed through the chair and hit the wall. Smoke rose.

Cavanaugh yelled into the walkie-talkie, "The shooter's using incendiaries!"

Crawling in a direction that didn't make him a target through the window, he reached a closet, tugged at its door, and took out a fire extinguisher. As flames writhed from the chair and the wall, he aimed the nozzle and pulled the trigger. A pungent cloud spewed toward the fire, smothering it.

"Still nothing." Angelo's voice crackled from the walkie-talkie.

"Same here," Mrs. Patterson's voice said.

"Nobody," Jamie's voice reported.

"He's definitely using a suppressor!" Cavanaugh told them. "I can't place where the shots are coming from!"

With a snap as from a whip, another tracer tore through the screen, this one shattering a lamp. More smoke rose. Flames wavered. Cavanaugh pressed the extinguisher's trigger, another cloud of retardant gushing over the fire.

William coughed from the assault to his throat and lungs.

"Mrs. Patterson," Cavanaugh said into the walkie-talkie. "There's a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. Get it ready."