“How do you know?”
“I’ve had to listen to his war stories all my life. After a while it rubs off.”
Jack’s voice called from outside. “Drake? Come on out here. Might as well learn how to string a decent trip line.”
Allie nodded at him. “You heard the man. I’ll blow the worst of the dust off things in here. Go do manly-man stuff. This is your chance to bond with Pops.”
Drake joined Jack and watched as he carefully wound the monofilament around two tree trunks at knee height and tied crosspieces of line to either end. Satisfied with his work, he took empty soda cans and dropped some pebbles inside, shook them to confirm they would make suitable noise, and secured them to the crosspieces so they were resting on the ground, but the line was taut.
“A guy sneaking up on you in the dark, thinking he’s got the upper hand, he’s not going to be scouting for trip lines in the woods. Go ahead. Walk like you’re headed to the house.”
Drake did so, and when he connected with the invisible line, the two cans rattled.
“Nice. I get it.”
“You hear that noise, you don’t second-guess. You immediately get your ass in gear, because they’ll know what it was too, and that they’re blown. But it gives you an advantage, because instead of sleeping like a log, now you’re up, armed, and ready to shoot.”
“And you believe that there’s any chance at all someone could find us here? How?”
“Son, if I try to second-guess everything my adversary knows, and I get even one thing wrong, I’m making assumptions that can get me killed. Sure, it’s a slim chance, but it’s still a chance, and all I’ve lost stringing these rigs is an hour of my time. See the logic? No assumptions. Just preparation.”
Drake nodded. “It just seems like overkill.”
“With preparation, there’s no such thing. There’s simply prudent measures, and laziness – and laziness gets you dead. So does complacency. An enemy knows that. They’ll wait you out if they’re smart and they have time. Wait for you to let down your guard. For you to believe it’s all a big fat waste of energy. Next thing you know, you’re holding your guts in your hand. I’ve seen it. You don’t want to be that guy.”
They moved back to the house. Jack reached into the truck bed, lifted out one of the rifle bags and handed it to Drake, and then retrieved a large metal suitcase.
“All right. Let’s go for a walk. There’s an area about two hundred yards from here that should do.”
Jack led Drake to a clearing, where he arranged two sandbags on an old tree stump with paper targets taped to them. He set the suitcase on the ground, popped the lid, and glanced up at Drake.
“Go ahead and put the rifle down. We’ll start with handguns.”
Jack studied the four pistols in the foam-lined case, each with its own compartment, and lifted one out. He held it up and inspected it, ejected the magazine and verified that it had ammunition, and then slipped the magazine home and hefted it in his hand.
“This is a SIG Sauer P226 pistol. The magazine holds thirteen rounds of .40-caliber ammo. Now, a couple of things you need to know…”
The couple of things lasted half an hour, with Jack checking and rechecking Drake’s understanding of safety measures and the mechanics of the gun. Drake was an apt pupil, following Jack’s every word as if his life depended on it—since it did.
Satisfied that Drake respected the gun and could load and arm it, Jack next showed him the basic shooting stances, explaining the positives and negatives. Four magazines later, Drake had relaxed and was hitting the targets more often than not. When Jack remarked that he was beginning to find his primeval self, Drake eyed him skeptically.
Jack grunted. “You can doubt all you want, but I’ve been in shit enough times to know what I’m talking about. You’ve done karate; you told me so. Isn’t there a point in the match when you allow your training to take over, and you leave yourself out of it? That’s the secret to all the practice. You want this to become automatic, so when you’re in a pinch, you can simply do, rather than think. In sports, professional athletes call it being in the zone. This is no different. To perform at peak, you need to be in the zone.”
The afternoon went by quickly, and by the time Drake had been through his second box of ammunition, he was hitting the targets at twenty yards most of the time. Taking a break, Jack moved them back another twenty yards. Now the sandbags looked like dots.
“This is about as far away as you’ll ever be when firing, if you expect to hit anything. The weapon will be accurate to fifty yards, but the chances of you actually hitting your target are slim to none unless everything’s ideal. Remember – pistols are good for close-quarter shooting, but if the target’s more than twenty or thirty yards away, go for a rifle every time, assuming you have the choice.”
Rifles came next, and Jack showed him the basic operation of an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle. Drake’s accuracy with that weapon was much higher at longer range, and he was feeling pretty good about himself when Jack burst his bubble.
“Something to remember. Most shots fired in combat don’t hit their target. If we get into trouble, I’ll do the shooting that will take out the bad guys. You shouldn’t wait for the perfect shot. Just start blasting away when I tell you.”
“Why? This seems pretty accurate to me.”
“It is. Against a sandbag. But in an actual combat situation, everything happens fast, your nerves are tightly wound, you’re probably shaking, the enemy is moving, it could be dark, sweat in your eyes…there are a lot of variables. The best advice is to avoid situations where it’ll come down to shooting. If you do have to shoot, do so to get away, not to play hero. Because the chances of you doing any better than a combat soldier are pretty slim. And all due respect, you’re not a marksman.”
Jack saw the flare of anger on Drake’s face. “Look, almost nobody is. That’s why the perfect weapon for home defense is the pump-action twelve-gauge shotgun loaded with double-aught buck. It has a decent spread, which increases your chances of hitting something. For our nightly guard duty we’ll be using those and our handguns. But the handguns are mostly for last resort, because if they’ve gotten close enough for you to stand a chance with one, they probably have a better chance with theirs.”
Dusk was approaching when they called it a day and headed back to the lodge. The air was cold, with a mild breeze that rolled in waves across the tall grass, and the darkening sky was streaked with veins of peach and rose as the sun dropped into the horizon. Drake’s shoulder ached from the hundreds of rifle rounds he’d fired, and he was dizzy from the ocean of information Jack had thrown at him. But in spite of that, he felt a confidence that had increased through the practice, and he resolved to spend the following day honing his gun skills, so that if he ever did have to use one, he’d be more than potentially dangerous.
The one takeaway he’d gotten from Jack’s demeanor was that he was expecting the worst, and Drake had spent enough time around him already to understand why his father had placed so much stock in his abilities. Whatever Jack’s faults might be, he was lethal, and his business was that of the warrior. If a battle-hardened fighter was worried, then Drake had every right to be, and wouldn’t let down his guard, no matter what.
Chapter Fourteen
For the next two days, Drake drilled intensively with Jack, with Allie joining them to refresh her skills. By the second evening, Drake was able to hit any target Jack could. That night, after a relaxed dinner, they settled in for sleep, and Drake dozed dreamlessly until Allie woke him with a cautionary finger held to her lips and her SIG Sauer pistol clutched in her hand. Drake quickly shook off his drowsiness when he saw the fear in her eyes.
“What?” he whispered.
“I already woke my dad. One of the cans rattled. Get your stuff and be ready to move.”
Drake sat up, fully dressed, as Jack had insisted they all sleep, and groped around in the dark for his shoes and backpack. He pulled them on and shoulde
red his bag, and then grabbed the Ruger shotgun he’d been assigned and flipped the safety off. With his free hand he lifted the SIG Sauer from the nightstand and quietly chambered a round, then decocked the hammer and slipped it into his waistband as he followed Allie down to the ground floor, feet feeling for each step, his eyes adjusting quickly to the near-total darkness.
Jack was near one of the windows at the front of the house, staring into the night, his weapon the modified AR-15, with an aftermarket burst mode, steadied against the back of a heavily stuffed chair. When he heard them approach, he leaned to the side and murmured.
“Something’s out there. Allie, you take the rear of the house with your shotgun. Drake, you take the window on the right side by the vehicles.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to take one of the windows up on the second floor? Better visibility of the area,” Drake murmured, and Jack shook his head.
“No. If all hell breaks loose, then you’re trapped up there. This way, you can make a break for it. Just do as I say. If you see anything move, shoot it. Don’t think, don’t hesitate. Just blow it in two. But don’t go off half-cocked. Make sure it’s a human. No point in starting a war with a raccoon.”
“Do you think it’s a raccoon?” Allie whispered.
“No. Get to the back. If I was doing this, fifty-fifty chance I’d try to come in the back once the can went off.”
“What are you going to do?” Drake asked.
“Once you’re in position, I’m going to hit the exterior lights before they have a chance to cut the power. Assuming they haven’t already. Maybe we’ll get a look and be able to take them out.” Jack swallowed hard. “Barring that, on my word, run for the truck and jump in the bed. Assuming I’m alive, that is. If I am, I’ll drive us out of here. If I’m not, Drake, you do the driving, and Allie, you take the bed. Anyone tries to follow you, empty the shotgun at ’em. Understand?”
Drake and Allie nodded. Jack swallowed again. “All right. Go. Both of you. Now.”
Allie trotted to the rear of the house and Drake moved to the right side, where there were two windows. He could make out the vehicles in the moonlight, but nothing else.
They listened for any hint of movement, but didn’t hear anything. After a full two minutes of this, Jack lifted his rifle and stepped softly to the light switches. He took a deep breath and whispered again. “Here we go.”
The lights illuminated the exterior area of the house for roughly forty feet, and when Jack ducked back to the window, he saw a fleeting human shape running away into the gloom. His rifle sounded like a howitzer in the confined space of the house, the window pane shattered from the first shot, and he fired half his magazine into the night using controlled, steady bursts.
“See anything?” he called out after he’d finished shooting.
“Negative,” Allie said.
“No,” Drake replied.
“I spotted one. Looked like he was carrying a pistol.”
“Did you hit him?”
“Probably not, judging by how fast he was moving.”
“So what now?”
“Two choices. We stay put, call the cops, and hope they arrive before these guys take another run at us; or we make a break for the truck and get out of here.”
“What should we do?” Allie asked.
“I’d say go for the truck. Staying put, we’re sitting ducks. If they cut the power, we’re hosed, because then we’re stuck in the house without options. By the time the police could be out here, anything that could have happened already would have. And there would be a lot of questions I don’t feel much like answering – like what I’m doing with an automatic assault rifle.”
Drake nodded. “Fine. How do we do this?”
“I go first. If I make it to the cab, I’ll signal you, and then you come running and jump into the bed. Bring the guns. Anyone tries to follow, blow them to pieces.”
“Won’t they be waiting for us on the road?” Allie asked.
“If they are, they’re screwed. There’s a second gate about four miles through the property. It lets out on a completely different road. By the time they figure it out, we’re history.”
“And my car?”
“We can send someone for it once we’re safe.”
Allie nodded. “What if they shoot you?”
“Then you barricade the door, call the cops, and blast anything that moves. Besides, I’m betting they’re high-tailing their way out of here right now. If I was sneaking up on a house and encountered not just a tripwire but automatic weapons, I’d be out of there. I thought I caught the flash of a pistol in the light. If that’s all they’ve got, they’d be insane to try to take us on. Remember – they were thinking this would be easy, and now they’re in a war and completely outgunned. Same situation, I’d rather live to fight another day instead of doing a kamikaze run.”
Drake caught Allie’s eye. “I hope you’re right,” he said.
“That’s why I get the big bucks. Okay, here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll go to the kitchen door, and when I give the word, shut off the exterior lights. Then, when you hear the engine start, come running and jump into the truck bed. You hear any shooting, you stay put. Understand?”
“Yes,” Drake said from his position at the back of the house.
Allie nodded again. “Be careful.”
“All right. Here we go. Allie, you take the lights. On my signal.”
Jack backed away from the window and, once clear of it, moved quickly to the kitchen door. With a last look at the rear of the house, Allie hurried to the lights, and Drake crossed to where Jack was standing, peering out the glass in the door through a gap in the curtain. Jack reached down and twisted the deadbolt open, and then turned to Allie.
“Now.”
The lights extinguished, plunging the grounds into darkness. Jack swung the door open and stepped into the gloom, then bolted to the truck, which was twenty feet away. He scanned the area, confident that any watchers would be temporarily night blind from staring at the brightly lit house. With his free hand he pulled his keys from his jacket pocket and slid them into the door. The lock made a soft thunk as he opened it, and then he was in the cab, the overhead light having burned out long ago.
The engine started on the first try, a tribute to his regular meticulous maintenance, and then Allie and Drake were running for it. He felt their weight land in the bed, and at the second thunk, put the truck into reverse and accelerated toward the rear of the house.
Muzzle flashes exploded from near the barn, and a slug hit the front fender. Jack floored it, knowing that the more distance he gained, the harder he’d be to hit. He twisted the wheel and stood on the brakes, causing the big Chevy to pirouette on the loose dirt. When he’d spun 180 degrees, he slammed the shifter into drive and punched the gas again. The all-terrain tires gripped and the truck shot forward, but not before two rounds pounded into the tailgate. One punctured the rear of the cab, and Jack felt the burn of a bullet – a searing he knew too well. He reached down and felt his hip where the slug had gotten him, and when he brought his hand up, his fingers were shiny with blood. Ignoring the pain, he rolled his window down and called out.
“Anyone hit?”
Allie’s yelled “no” was immediately followed by Drake’s, and he exhaled a sigh of relief and illuminated his headlights, now far out of range of the pistols. The beams found the track, and he pulled onto the two ruts and gunned it for the far side of the property.
Every bounce felt like a hot poker to his hip as he watched in the rearview mirror for any signs of pursuit. He was just about convinced that they’d gotten clear when he saw a glint of moonlight off metal several hundred yards behind them. He sped up and dust flew up from the tires, leaving a thick cloud for the darkened chase vehicle to fight through.
Jack called out again, the wind whistling through the window. “Allie, we’ve got company. Get your shotgun ready. You too, Drake. If they get close, open up on them.”
“What?” Allie cried, unable to hear.
He slowed and repeated his instruction, and when she signaled she understood, sped up again.
Gunfire sounded from the pursuit car, the shots starbursting in the gloom, but nothing hit the truck. Allie sat up with her shotgun and fired at the pursuers, pumped the gun, and fired again. Drake wedged himself against the side of the bed and swung his weapon around and added his to the mix, the boom deafening as the big gun slammed into his shoulder.
More shots barked from the car, but farther back. Drake and Allie blasted away at the bright flashes, and then they saw the red glow of brake lights as the car slowed. Drake kept firing and had almost emptied his shotgun when Allie’s hand grabbed his shoulder.
“Save it. They’ve stopped. Either we hit them, or they decided this was a bad idea. In any case, we’re out of range now. If they come at us again, you’ll need the ammo.”
Drake was gritting his teeth so hard that his jaw hurt. He lowered the shotgun barrel and clicked the safety back on, his eyes never leaving the trail behind them, and stayed that way until they reached the far gate eight minutes later.
Jack pointed the hood at the wire fence and blew through it, and then they were on a gravel road, the more even surface feeling like ice after the jarring they’d received on the track. He accelerated to fifty and then sixty as he put distance between them and the shooters.
Two miles later he saw the intersection for the larger artery that would take them north to San Antonio or south to Corpus Christi. He probed his wound again and came away with more blood. Daring a glance down at the seat, he saw that the cloth next to him was stained red. He knew he’d need to get a dressing on sooner than later, and opted to head north.
Three miles beyond the junction he pulled into a bar parking lot, its life-size neon cowboy sign blinking a garish welcome, and eased to a stop. Allie and Drake hopped out of the bed, and Allie approached the driver’s side window as Drake moved along the passenger side.
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