Target America

66

Hal was peering out the upstairs window when a group of armed men suddenly materialized out of the fog, rushing the house with AK-47s. “Here they come!”

He opened fire through the window, and they scattered in the mist.

“They’re flanking the house!”

“Got ’em!” Buck opened fire from the master bedroom.

A hail of 7.62 mm bullets tore through the house like micrometeorites, shattering windows, lamps, dishes, and mirrors.

Janet covered her head with her arms, pulling herself into the tub as tightly as she could while chunks of plaster and tile rained down, the occasional round ricocheting off the cast iron surrounding her.

A short while before, they’d heard the burst from Agent Starks’s MP5 and been left to assume that Marie had been caught out and killed, their hopes of rescue crushed and Janet left without a great deal to live for.

Hal dove to the floor as a hail of automatic fire tore apart the wall, belly crawling down the hall to meet Buck in the doorway to the master bedroom.

“They’ll be in the house any second,” the older man said.

Hal offered his hand to his father. “It’s been an honor, Dad.”

Buck grabbed his hand. “I couldn’t be prouder of any of you. We’ll stay shoulder to shoulder. Take as many of these godless sons a bitches with us as we can.”

They crawled toward the top of the stairs to arrive at the landing just as the front door was kicked in. They opened fire and killed a gunman in the doorway. The rest pulled back.

From his hiding place behind the horse trailer fifty yards from the front porch, Agent Starks could see and hear the muzzle flashes from numerous automatic rifles. He couldn’t see anyone clear enough to be sure if it was friend or foe, but he knew the chatter of an AK-47 and decided that it was better to do something rather than nothing.

He opened fire on one of the muzzle flashes near the porch with the captured AK-47, and the gunner went down screaming, his legs shot apart. One of the others returned Starks’s fire, and bullets struck the horse trailer near enough to his head that bits of spall tore into his face. He displaced rapidly, falling back to an old stone well to the west of the house. The night vision goggles he’d taken from the dead guy weren’t doing him much good in the fog, so he assumed that the enemy probably couldn’t see him any better than he could see them.

The horse trailer continued to take fire for a short time, and the man he’d shot began screaming in a mixture of Arabic and English for the others to help him. The firing trailed off, and the enemy fell back from the house into the mist, shouting back and forth, obviously confused to have taken fire from outside the house.

Taking a chance, Starks broke cover around the far west side of the house. He put his back to a large propane tank and lowered himself into a crouch. The stone well came under fire a few seconds later, and he rose up to peek in through the window, noticing a three-inch gap below the sash. He stuck the muzzle of the AK-47 beneath it and pushed it up, calling inside, “FBI! Anybody alive in there?”

“Whattaya make of that?” Buck whispered.

“Somebody shot that haji out there on the porch, and it wasn’t us,” Hal said.

“Yeah!” Buck shouted down. “We’re alive!”

“Am I clear to come inside?” Starks shouted.

“Come ahead! We’re upstairs!”

They listened as Starks clamored in through the window and bounded across the living room, having no trouble finding his way to the staircase with the night vision goggles. He trotted up the stairs and took a knee between the two prone men.

“Agent Spencer Starks.” He offered his hand. “FBI.”

“Buck Ferguson, First Marines. This is my oldest son, Hal. How many are you?”

“Just me.” Starks got down on his belly between them. “It’s a cluster fuck down at the crossroads. There’ll be more cops, but probably not until first light.”

“Don’t they know we’re takin’ fire up here?”

“They might by now, but that Highway Patrol commander won’t budge before it gets light.”

Buck groaned. “Gotta be Quentin Miller.”

“One in the same,” Starks said with chuckle.

“My boys went to school with that jackass. He’s worthless as tits on a boar hog.”

“And about as smart!” Janet called from the bathtub.

Everyone laughed.

“What’s it look like out there?” Hal asked.

“Right now, I think they’re pretty confused.” Starks shrugged the MP5s from his back. “They’re trying to figure out who was shooting at them from outside.”

“Did you see any other Americans out there?” Buck said. “A woman or a couple of men in their twenties?”

Starks shook his head. “All I saw up close was a dead haji down near the gate with his neck torn out — looked like he’d been killed by a werewolf.”

“Had to be Oso. Maybe Marie made it after all.”

“Marie Shannon?”

“Yeah, she made a break for the Chatham place about an hour and a half ago. We stayed behind to look after her mama. Janet got herself a pretty bad concussion when those Jeezless bastards tried blowin’ up the house.”

“I don’t know if you heard,” Starks said, “but they’ve tracked the nuke to DC. It’s caused a hell of a lot of confusion in the Bureau’s command structure.”

A window shattered downstairs, and a few seconds later, they could see flames spreading across the living room floor.

“Fucking hajis!” Hal hissed, jumping to his feet and starting down the stairs.

“Hal, get your ass back up here!”

“Dad, we gotta fight that fire!”

“And get your ass shot off, boy? That’s exactly what the hell they want. Now, get up here. I already lost two sons!”

Hal came back up, and Buck slipped into the bathroom. “I’m sorry, Jan, but you’re gonna have to get outta the tub. They lit the house, honey.”

“Fine by me,” she grumbled, gripping the edge of the tub to pull herself up. “I’ve kindly had enough of this layin’ around. Where’s my Winchester?”

“Right here by the sink,” he said, helping her out. “But stay down on the floor. We got smoke comin’ up the steps.”

Buck grabbed the edge of the claw-footed bathtub, jerking it away from the plumbing coming up from the floor, and water began spraying into the room. He smashed the commode away from the wall, and water gushed from the line onto the wood floor. Lastly, he jerked the sink from the wall, and within a minute, a steady flow of water was running from the bathroom into the hall and down the stairs.

“Good thinking,” Starks said.

Another hail of gunfire showered through the walls, driving everyone belly down on the wet floor.

“I don’t think they can afford to keep that up,” Starks said. “The haji I took this rifle from only had two extra magazines.”

“Assassins on a budget,” Janet said bitterly.

Buck chortled.

“Are we gonna make a break for it or not?” she asked. “I don’t much fancy layin’ here in the water until that fire works its way up the wall and steams us to death.” She took Starks by the hand, saying in a low voice, “God bless you for comin’ to help us.”

“It’s my job, ma’am.”

“All the same, son. Welcome to the family. You’re a McGuthry now.”