Jake and his family had gone through the forest within a hundred-meter radius of the cabin and removed all small scrubby undergrowth and pruned away the dead, ladderlike branches that tended to project from the trunks of mature conifers. This was supposedly an anti-forest-fire measure; it would prevent blazes from storming through the dry understory and consuming the house. It had the side effect of vastly increasing visibility. In the natural woods of these parts, you couldn’t see farther than a few dozen yards because of all that clutter, but from the windows of Jake’s cabin you could see all the way to the edge of the zone they had cleared. Which made Zula suspect that it was also a tactical measure, making it more difficult for people to sneak up on them through the woods. Whatever its purpose, the upshot was that when Olivia and Zula burst into that zone, they suddenly had a clear view all the way to the back of the cabin, where Jake had just finished jumping off the ATV. He made straight for the cellar door, a pair of heavy-gauge steel hatches mounted on an angled frame of reinforced concrete. Zula watched as those doors opened and Elizabeth, strapped with a shotgun in addition to her usual Glock semiautomatic, came out to throw her arms around her husband and give him a kiss.
But it was not a long, fond sort of reunion, for her next act was to grab Jake’s face between her hands and tell him something that looked very important. As she spoke, she turned her head significantly toward the front side of the cabin.
Jake nodded, gave Elizabeth a peck, and stepped back. Elizabeth backed down the steps and hauled the doors closed on top of herself. Zula, now sprinting through the trees no more than fifty paces away, had an impulse to call, No, wait for us! But she was too out of breath to make any sounds other than gasping, and—on second thought—being trapped in a bomb shelter with Elizabeth and the boys did not actually sound that appealing.
Jake meanwhile had unslung his rifle and chambered a round and gone into a style of movement that he must have learned by attending a tactical rifle combat seminar or else by watching DVDs of action films. The gist of it was that he kept the rifle aimed in the same direction as he was looking, and he tended to go very cautiously around corners.
Zula managed to call out, “Coming at you from behind, Uncle Jake!” since there was something in his body language that suggested he might not take kindly to being surprised.
He turned back and made a shushing gesture, then ventured around the corner of the building and disappeared from their view.
Zula was trying to make sense of it. Lots and lots of armed bad men in front of the cabin would call for Jake to go down below with his family and to gather Zula and Olivia with him. So whatever was in front couldn’t be that bad.
“I want to see what is there,” Zula said, breaking stride, and making a lateral move, swinging wide around the same side of the cabin up which Jake was creeping. “I might be able to help.” She swept the rifle down off her shoulder.
“May I join you?” Olivia said between gasps for air.
“Of course.” Olivia seemed to be joining her in any case.
The ground was uneven, the sight lines interrupted not only by tree trunks but by piles of firewood and outbuildings. They were moving in a wide swing around the property while Jake advanced in a straight line up the side of the cabin. So an anxious and confused minute passed as they tried to get Jake back in view without exposing themselves to whomever might be coming up the driveway. They ran afoul of chicken-wire enclosures that the Forthrasts had erected to keep rabbits away from their vegetables, coyotes and lynx away from their chickens, wolves and cougars away from their goats. But finally Zula swung into position where she was able to see Jake from the waist up, standing in his driveway, leveling his rifle at a target nearby, and shouting.
Zula stood up cautiously. Two heads came into view, down at the level of Jake’s waist. Were they kneeling? Both of them had their hands on tops of their heads, fingers laced together.
One of them looked awfully familiar. But what she was thinking could not be real. Checking to make sure that the safety was engaged, she raised the rifle and used its telescopic sight to peer at the one on the right. A big man, not much shorter than Jake even on his knees. Burly. Close-cropped copper hair and a sunburned neck.
“OMFG,” she said.
“Two men are coming in through the gate,” Olivia said, “and I don’t much like their looks.”
Zula panned the rifle down the length of the driveway until the crosshairs found the big timber gate. This was ajar. A half-wrecked SUV was partly visible through it, blocking the road. And just as Olivia had said, two men had just circumvented the vehicle and were now coming around the edge of the gate. They perfectly matched the profile of the jihadists Zula had been hanging around with for the last three weeks. One of them had a pistol drawn, the other had a carbine, which he now raised to his shoulder, apparently drawing a bead on Jake: the most obvious target. And the most vulnerable.
Zula got the crosshairs on the latter and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
“Look out!” Olivia screamed.
Zula flicked the safety off and tried it again. The shot apparently missed; she was breathing hard and she hadn’t really braced herself properly. But it had a remarkable effect on the two jihadists, who jumped back around behind what they perceived as the shelter of the gate and threw themselves down on the ground.
Shouting now from the driveway. She clearly recognized Csongor’s voice, and she understood his tone: Are you crazy? We’re the good guys!
“The Asian gentleman,” said Olivia, “I recognize from his hoops career in Xiamen. Marlon, it must be. And may I assume that the big lad is the famous Csongor?”
Lady, who the fuck are you? was what Zula wanted to say. Instead, what came out was: “Uncle Jake!” Zula came into the open, calling, “Let them in! It’s okay!”
Two heads—Marlon’s and Csongor’s—turned around to look in her direction. They seemed astonished. Especially Csongor.