Target America

67

Akram stood with Abad and a number of other men watching the house catch fire.

“They’ll be coming out soon,” Abad said. “Do you want them alive? We can shoot them in the legs if they won’t surrender.” They could still hear the man calling out from the front porch where Agent Starks had shot him down. “He’s going to burn up if we leave him there. He’s too close to the house.”

“Go and get him if you like.”

Abad wasn’t about to risk his neck. “You know, I don’t think Shannon is here,” he heard himself say.

Akram looked at him askance. “What are you talking about?”

“Too many of us are still alive. I think we’ve been tricked somehow.”

Akram dismissed this out of hand. “That makes no sense.”

Abad shrugged. “You’re the expert.”

Marie and Dusty reined their horses to a halt on the easternmost side of the ranch, seeing the orange glow of the house fire through the fog.

“My God!” she said. “They lit the house!” She dug her heels into the flanks of the horse and took off through the mist.

Dusty quickly caught her up, diving from his saddle to grab her horse by the bridle and bring it to an abrupt stop. “We can’t go ridin’ in there like a pair of wild Indians, Marie! You wanna get killed?”

“My mother’s in there!”

“You don’t know that. Anything coulda happened by now. We gotta do this smart, or we could end up dead.”

She reached beneath her jacket and drew the Springfield .45. “You’re right,” she said. “I didn’t think. We’ll do it smart.”

“Okay then.” He released his grip on the bridle, and when he turned for his horse, she dug her heels in again and galloped off.

“Son of a bitch!” he hissed, jumping into the saddle and shucking the .30–06 from the saddle scabbard. “Why can’t women ever listen to reason?”

He took off after her, galloping the horse carefully through the dark, waiting for it to stumble or break a leg. Marie quickly drew out of sight, and when he couldn’t hear the galloping of her horse over his own, he reined to a stop and sat in the saddle, as unsure of himself as he had ever been.

Wild gunfire broke out in the direction of the house, and though it was too far off for it to have anything to do with Marie, it was more than enough to emphasize the gravity of the situation.

“Damn,” Dusty whispered, feeling the fear well up in his gut. He flicked the reins to start the horse walking. “Come on, Shiloh. I don’t reckon we can turn back now.”

Akram and three other men stood covering Buck Ferguson and Agent Starks as the two stepped out onto the front porch with their hands in the air.

“Don’t shoot!” Buck shouted. Glancing down at the man on the porch who had recently bled out, he stood just behind and to the left of Starks. “We give up!”

Akram watched them through Duke’s infrared binocular. “Where is Shannon?”

“He’s upstairs with a bullet in his head,” Buck said. “You killed him in that last salvo of yours. We’re all that’s left.”

“Go in and check it out,” Akram said to one of his men.

The man looked at him in alarm. “But the house is on fire!”

“Check it out!” Akram screamed.

Buck dropped his hands, jerking the Sig Sauer pistol from the small of Starks’s back. At the same time, Starks brought up one of the MP5s, and they both opened fire as they danced away down the length of the porch.

One of Akram’s men went down. As for the others, half of them fired wildly at Buck and Starks, while half ducked for cover. The two men jumped off the far end of the porch and disappeared from sight.

“After them!” Akram screamed, and five men chased them into the fog.

Around the back of the house, Abad heard the firing, but he ordered his group to hold their positions. The house wasn’t fully engulfed yet, and he couldn’t risk anyone escaping out the back. The heat from the fire on the west side had driven the fog back some twenty feet from the house, so they could see pretty well.

He heard a rumbling sound behind him and whipped around just in time to be trampled beneath a charging quarter horse. He fumbled to get up, but a hoof whacked him in the side of the head to sprawl him out.

His men were still jumping for space as Marie reined the horse hard around and shot one of them in the back with the .45, expertly backing the animal to trample Abad a second time, crushing his chest. She fired two more shots, hitting another man before someone cut loose with a burst of automatic fire, killing the horse beneath her.

She rolled clear as the horse crumpled to the ground, causing her to lose her grip on the pistol.

A giant of a man grabbed her by the hair and jerked her to her feet. He was drawing back his arm to punch her in the face when Hal burst out the back door to blow him away.

Marie snatched up the pistol and ran onto the deck, grabbing Janet as she came stumbling out the door, her hair and clothing badly singed and smoking. Hal leapt off the end of the deck, caving in a man’s skull with the barrel of the MP5. A burst of fire from his left dropped Janet to her knees, a single bullet through both buttocks. Hal wheeled and shot the man through his guts, charging forward to sprawl him out with the stock of the submachine gun. He took a bullet through the back, however, and spun to return fire, downing his attacker before going down himself.

Marie saw him collapse and disappeared with Janet around the western end of the house.

Out front, Buck and Starks had taken cover behind the stone well, where they were now pinned down and exchanging fire with the enemy.

“This doesn’t look too good,” Starks said. “Is there any place behind us we can fall back to?”

“Nope.” Buck popped up to squeeze off a shot in the direction of the last muzzle flash. “Nothing but open country for two hundred yards until you reach the tree line. Why don’t you try getting away in the fog? I gotta stay here and keep these bastards busy to buy time for Hal and Janet.”

Starks squeezed off a few more rounds. “We don’t know if they even made it out of the house.”

Buck fired again. “Ain’t that the bitch of it?”

“How deep is this well?”

“About ten feet — been dry for years. Why?”

“Oh, I dunno,” Starks said. “I figure we can jump down it when we run outta ammo; save everybody the trouble of diggin’ us a grave.”

They heard Marie behind them in the fog, urging her mother not to give up.

“Marie, over here!” Buck hissed. “At the well!”

The women came out of the fog, and both of them collapsed to the ground. “Oh, thank God!” Marie said.

“Where’s Hal?” Buck asked.

Marie put her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Buck. I’m so sorry.”

He put a hand to her face, dying a thousand deaths inside. “It’s not your fault,” he said starkly. “Come on now. We’re gonna lower you girls down the well. Then me and Starks here are gonna draw these sons a bitches away.”

Marie looked at Agent Starks. “Who are you?”

“FBI, Mrs. Shannon.”

“Thank you for coming.” She took his hand.

“He’s a fine man,” Janet mumbled, struggling to remain conscious.

The enemy opened fire, and Starks answered it with a burst from the MP5. “Not much time left. We’d best get you two down the well.”

“No.” Marie shook her head.

“Marie, don’t argue.” Buck’s voice was peremptory as he fought to control his emotions. “If you girls don’t survive this, then my boys died for nothin’. Now you’re goin’ down the well so we can lead these bastards the hell outta here.” He set the pistol down on the ground. “Okay, you first, honey, so you can catch your mama. Hurry up, now!”

That’s when the propane cylinder on the western side of the house exploded in a giant fireball, burning back the fog to bathe them all in a brilliant flash of light and driving them flat against the earth with their arms shielding their heads.