“Is your battery—”
The words die in my throat when I notice a bush moving on the hill to the northeast of Zell’s property. I notice it because it’s a large bush and it’s over Jason’s left shoulder. I stop and stare a moment, and then realize what it is: a deputy in a moss-green sniper-style ghillie suit waving his arms frantically and pointing … pointing toward the road … pointing toward the front gate.
And in the moment it takes my mind to put the pieces together, the barbarian gate begins to open in the middle, folding into the property like some great metal mouth preparing to eat its prey.
“Cover!” I bark, jabbing a finger toward the gate. Turning, I race toward the nearest travel trailer and dive behind it.
For Jimmy and Jason the call comes too late. They’re caught out in the open, like rabbits in a great empty field, afraid to move for fear of attracting the predator’s attention. Perhaps they’re hoping to blend into the camouflage of scattered junk and piled scrap. In any case, their eyes are glued to the gate as the monster comes into view.
Zell sees them immediately.
“THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY!” he bellows through the gate opening, jabbing an accusing finger at them. His eyes dart to the gun on Jason’s hip and the black FBI Windbreaker Jimmy insisted on wearing. You can almost see him working it out in his head. And just that fast he knows why we’re here.
His reaction is shockingly swift.
He jumps back behind the barrier and at first I think he’s going to flee, but as the gate continues to swing open it exposes a white Ford F-150 pickup with the driver’s-side door flung open.
A stream of vulgarity flows from the truck.
Grunting.
Banging.
Jimmy and Jason are racing to join me when Zell leaps from the cab of the truck with a rifle in his hands. The first shot kicks up dirt at Jimmy’s feet and he dives for cover behind a pile of scrap metal. Pop, pop, pop. The rounds keep coming, striking the pile and glancing off.
Jimmy returns fire with his Glock—random shots in Zell’s direction as he holds the handgun above the scrap metal and pulls the trigger over and over and over. The barrel spits lead in a roaring crescendo. It’s enough to force Zell to take cover and he scrambles behind the pickup. Jason peels off in the other direction as soon as the shooting starts and hunkers down behind a naked truck frame; he’s using the exposed engine as cover.
“We need him alive,” I shout to Jimmy.
“I KNOW!” He’s facedown in the dirt behind the scrap metal and inching toward the right to try for an angle through the open gate.
Zell has cover now.
More bullets fly. They bounce off the engine, the frame, and the right wheel where Jason is crouched; Zell knows exactly where he is. As the prickling spray of lead turns back to Jimmy, Jason pops up and dumps seven rounds into the front left tire and engine block of Zell’s truck. The radiator explodes in a white cloud of steam, punched through the core by two rounds that shred the aluminum.
Zell roars with rage.
It’s a chilling sound: barely human.
There’s a sudden outburst of banging and crashing from the back of the pickup, an adrenaline-fueled spike of mayhem, followed by another spray of bullets. Then the monster goes quiet. No shooting. No shouting. No banging.
A minute passes, then two. My ears ache from the quiet. I hear only three sounds: the soft whimpering of Tumor hiding under one of the travel trailers, the quiet roar of air as it enters through my nose and leaves through my mouth, and the boom-boom-boom of my heart.
Nothing else.
In the eerie quiet I begin to wonder if Zell caught a round. Maybe he’s lying behind the truck bleeding out, cursing us with whispered words through bloodstained lips. Either that or he’s on the run.
Jason peers quickly around the side of the skeletonized truck and mouths, Where is he? in big exaggerated facial expressions.
Jimmy shrugs the best he can from his prone position and then raises himself to a crouch and glances quickly over the top of the pile. Looking around at the junk-strewn yard, he exchanges a rapid series of hand signals with Jason and then, simultaneously, they leapfrog forward to concealed positions nearer the gate.
Jimmy waves a hand at me and points to a position to his left behind the travel trailer nearest to him. It’s times like this that I realize what a burden I can be. I don’t have the tactical training for a high-risk takedown like this, which means that in addition to watching for the bad guy, Jimmy has to keep me safe and make sure I have the proper cover.
It bothers me.
It reminds me of how unprepared I am for this game.
Rising to a crouch, I’m about to bolt for the trailer when I hear it: the distinct snap of a twig. I don’t have to guess where it came from. It’s right behind me. I pivot around almost instantly, but the world has gone into slow motion and the turn seems to take forever. At the same time my mind is analyzing the sound. It wasn’t Tumor; he’s still whimpering under the next trailer. It wasn’t Jimmy or Jason. Perhaps it’s the surveillance team finally arriving, but then I remember they’re in the opposite direction.
No.
In my gut I know the cause and consequences of the snap. And as my slow-motion turn brings me around, I see the barrel rising toward my face not ten feet away. The hole at the end of the barrel is impossibly large and black and I realize Zell has switched to a shotgun. A damn shotgun! There’s no time to duck, to drop, to scream.
A thunderous shot shatters the quiet.
*
“Stay with me,” Jimmy shouts, tearing open a package of QuikClot and shaking it out over the chest wound to stop the bleeding. “What’s the status on that medevac?”
“Five minutes,” Jason replies.
“He doesn’t have five minutes, this is arterial. I’m losing him.”
Jason drops to his knees and checks for a pulse.
“Well?”
“It’s weak—no, I just lost it. Dammit! His heart just stopped beating.”