The Naked Edge

by David Morrell

  Her voice was staticky. “Yes.”

  “Angelo, see anything?”

  “Nada.” His voice came from the walkie-talkie.

  “Jamie?”

  “Clear.”

  “Mrs. Patterson?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What about the security monitors?”

  “All I see are bushes and trees.”

  “Maybe it's finished.” Breathing loudly, William crouched near Cavanaugh against a wall in the office. “The sniper that fired at you. Now that he missed, maybe he's gone.”

  Cavanaugh inched toward the undamaged eastern window, the one behind his desk, trying to get a glimpse of where the shooter might be hiding on the aspen-covered ridge. He eased closer to the window.

  Its screen bulged inward. Something snapped through the room and struck the leather chair that William had earlier sat in. The glowing object plowed through the chair and hit the wall. Smoke rose.

  Cavanaugh yelled into the walkie-talkie, “The shooter's using incendiaries!”

  Crawling in a direction that didn't make him a target through the window, he reached a closet, tugged at its door, and took out a fire extinguisher. As flames writhed from the chair and the wall, he aimed the nozzle and pulled the trigger. A pungent cloud spewed toward the fire, smothering it.

  “Still nothing.” Angelo's voice crackled from the walkie-talkie.

  “Same here,” Mrs. Patterson's voice said.

  “Nobody,” Jamie's voice reported.

  “He's definitely using a suppressor!” Cavanaugh told them. “I can't place where the shots are coming from!”

  With a snap as from a whip, another tracer tore through the screen, this one shattering a lamp. More smoke rose. Flames wavered. Cavanaugh pressed the extinguisher's trigger, another cloud of retardant gushing over the fire.

  William coughed from the assault to his throat and lungs.

  “Mrs. Patterson,” Cavanaugh said into the walkie-talkie. “There's a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. Get it ready.”

  20

  On the ridge, the sniper worked the bolt on his rifle, chambering another round.

  “Clever,” the spotter said, peering through binoculars at the haze in a ground-level room down there.

  “I'm just getting started. Check the attic window on this side.” The sniper shifted his aim toward the top of the building. With practiced ease, he pulled the trigger and absorbed the recoil as the rifle's sound suppressor made a noise similar to a fist hitting a pillow. Keeping his eye on the powerful scope, he saw a hole appear in the attic window. “Keep handing me ammunition.”

  “Still incendiaries?” the spotter asked.

  “What else? When you were a kid, didn't you like to play with fire?”

  “No, I just tortured animals.”

  “Tortured . . .? That's a joke, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Man, sometimes you worry me.” The shooter squeezed off another round, then quickly reloaded.

  In an amazingly smooth, fast series, he pumped incendiary bullets through every window on the eastern side of the lodge's second level.

  21

  As the haze from the fire retardant settled, Cavanaugh said, “He's concentrating on this window. I can't take the chance of looking out. Let's go.” He tugged William toward the door.

  Entering the communal room, he saw Jamie crouched next to a screen door at the back, a log wall protecting her as she scanned the meadow and the ridge to the north. He noticed that she now wore her pistol in a holster on her right hip.

  “Even if the horses can't hear the shots, they sense what's going on,” Jamie said.

  “He'd better not hurt them.” Cavanaugh heard them whinnying in alarm. Then he realized that hurting the horses was exactly the right tactic for the shooter to use. Wound, but not kill. Make the horses scream in pain. Make Cavanaugh's rage get the better of him. Force him to do something foolish.

  No. He strained to channel his adrenaline, to make his body do what was necessary, to shut out every thought and emotion that didn't contribute to survival.

  “Come on, William.” Cavanaugh passed the long table and reached the staircase.

  “I'm going to try to get a shot from an upper window,” he told Angelo, who was braced next to the front screen door, staring toward the pine trees to the south.

  “We know the shooter's got friends. William saw them on the monitor,” Angelo said. “Why don't they make a move? What are they waiting for?”

  Cavanaugh paused on the stairway. From above, he heard faint thumps, a muffled crackle, as if somebody were crumpling newspapers.

  “William, run back to the office and get the fire extinguisher.”

  “But what if he keeps shooting into that room?”

  “He won't. Then get the extinguisher from the kitchen.”

  “But how do you know he won't shoot into the office?”

  Cavanaugh heard several more thumps above him. The crackle became louder. Smoke appeared at the head of the stairs.

  “Because he's shooting through the upstairs windows now!” Cavanaugh charged up. “Get the extinguishers! The bedrooms are on fire!”

  Sweating, he heard the horses galloping out of control past the front of the house. They snorted in terror. He raced to the top of the stairs and saw smoke drifting from the four bedrooms along the eastern side of the house.

  A frenzied sound on the staircase came from William charging onto the landing with two fire extinguishers. The attorney's perfect shoes, suit, teeth, and hair looked absurd amid the chaos.

  “We'll each take a bedroom!” Cavanaugh set down his rifle and grabbed one of the extinguishers.

  To the right, debris burst from a wall at the end of the corridor. A tracer bullet had come through a bedroom's window, hit the inside wall (which was of ordinary construction, unlike the log exterior), and rammed through into the corridor, bringing wood and plaster with it, striking a farther wall.

  Another bullet burst through a closer wall.

  “Jesus, we'll be hit!” William said.

  “Get down!” Cavanaugh warned.

  As they sprawled on the floor, a bullet slammed through the wall above them, plaster and splinters spraying them.

  “Something's burning me!” William said.

  Cavanaugh saw an ember on the back of William's neck, another in his hair, smoke starting to dance. He flicked them off as a bullet hit the bedroom to their left, sending debris through the wall into the corridor.

  “He's moving his aim back and forth along the side of the building,” Cavanaugh said.

  Whack! Another bullet erupted through the wall above them. The smoke thickened.

  The moment a bullet burst through a wall to the right, Cavanaugh scrambled to his feet. “Hurry before his shots come back in this direction!”

  As William took the bedroom on the left, Cavanaugh ducked into the one in front of him. Choking from the smoke, he pushed the trigger on the extinguisher. With a hiss, the retardant's haze surrounded the fire. He saw the flames weaken and kept squeezing the extinguisher's trigger. He heard a bullet wallop into the farthest bedroom on the right. Continuing to spray the retardant, he heard the next bullet hit the bedroom immediately to the right. He released the trigger, shouted to the bedroom on the left, “William, get down!” and dove to the floor. A tracer cracked through the air above his head.

  “William!”

  “I'm down! I'm down!” came the reply as an incendiary hit the bedroom on the left.

  Cavanaugh tensed, waiting for more bullets to march back and forth along the building. But what had been a steady sequence faltered. One second became two, then three, the pause lengthening. Four. Five.

  “Maybe he's out of ammunition,” William said.

  “Or else he hopes we'll get careless.”

  Cavanaugh sprayed retardant against the wall, then coughed so hard that he needed to get away from the smoke. He staggered into the corridor, where he was stunned to see William
, his hair mussed, his face smudged, his suit rumpled, spraying retardant into the bedroom on the left.

  “What are you staring at?” William wanted to know. “Don't you realize attorneys feel at home in hell?”

  Cavanaugh started to grin, but the impulse faded as he glanced up toward the ceiling and noticed smoke seeping from it.

  “No.”

  “What's wrong?” William aimed his fire extinguisher.

  “The attic's on fire!”

  He raced to a trap door in the ceiling, reached for a short rope dangling from it, and pulled. As stairs unfolded, he lurched back from flames that blocked the entrance to the attic. Coughing, he and William sprayed retardant. For a moment, through a gap in the haze, he saw the flames retreating. Yelling, he started up the steps, aiming the extinguisher. The flames kept retreating.

  He climbed higher, straining to ignore the heat as he spewed retardant.

  Abruptly the extinguisher quit hissing. With a curse, he threw the empty tank at the flames and turned to William. “Give me yours!”

  “It's empty!”

  “No!” Cavanaugh's smoke-seared throat felt as if it would burst.

  The flames regrouped. Roaring, they advanced.

  Now the situation was reversed—William was tugging at him.

  Pushed by the growing heat from the attic, Cavanaugh took an angry step downward.

  “We can't stay!” William tugged him harder.

  Cavanaugh reached the landing and stared desperately at the fires in the bedrooms.

  Amid the din of the flames, William said something about “other fire extinguishers.”

  “We don't have enough.”

  “You're going to need this.”

  “Need . . .?”

  “This. You set it down.”

  Through raw eyes, Cavanaugh blinked at the rifle William handed him.

  “Yes,” he vowed. “I'm going to need this.”

  22

  In the pines to the south, a man wearing a baseball cap gazed through shielded binoculars toward the smoke and flames spreading from the lodge's upper windows. “Cooking nicely, Alpha,” he said into a microphone on his shirt collar. “Won't be long now.”

  “Beta, is your team in place?” the spotter's voice asked.

  “On every side.”

  “They know they're to stay within cover?”

  “Affirmative. No need to advance when the target'll do us the favor of leaving his cover. In the confusion, it might be hard to distinguish him from the people with him, though.”

  “Don't even try. Do them all.”

  “Repeat, Alpha.”

  “All. Kill them all,” the spotter's voice commanded.

  Across the meadow, on the eastern part of the roof, the parched wooden shingles of the lodge exploded into flames.

  23

  Cavanaugh's face was streaked with soot and sweat as he and William hurried down the staircase.

  Angelo remained by the front door, peering out. “No sign of them.”

  Cavanaugh pulled his walkie-talkie from his belt. “Jamie? Mrs. Patterson?”

  The staticky voices quickly responded that they didn't see anyone.

  “What about the security monitors?”

  “They're not working now,” Mrs. Patterson's voice reported.

  “What?” Angelo flicked a light switch on the wall. Nothing happened. The electricity had been cut.

  “The fire's spreading too quickly,” Cavanaugh said. “We'll soon need to leave.”

  “But they'll pick us off,” William objected. “The basement. Can we hide down there?”

  “No. The fire would suck out the oxygen. We'd suffocate. Or the building would collapse and crush us.”

  “The helicopter.”

  “Too far,” Cavanaugh said.

  “Hey, I'm doing my best!” William complained. “If you don't like my ideas, come up with one of your own.”

  At the back of the hall, Jamie heard parts of what they said. Her voice came from the walkie-talkie. “The car's closer. It's armored.”

  “There,” William said. “What do you think of that idea?”

  Smoke came down the staircase, the fire crackling on the upper level.

  “If we stay here much longer,” Cavanaugh decided, “we'll need to soak our hair and clothes and breathe through wet towels.”

  Mrs. Patterson heard in the kitchen. From the walkie-talkie, she said, “Without electricity, the pump for the well won't work. We can't get water from the taps.”

  William moaned.

  Mrs. Patterson's sixty-year-old voice continued unsteadily from the walkie-talkie. “The toilet tanks. The only place there'll be water is in the toilets.”

  “Where are they?” William asked.

  “One off the kitchen,” Cavanaugh explained. “Another next to my office. Angelo, I'll watch the front. Go with him. Bring me a vest from the munitions closet when you come back.”

  Braced behind the log wall next to the front door, Cavanaugh saw the Taurus parked in front of the lodge. The passenger side was toward him. It was only twenty feet away. If he kept low . . .

  Angelo returned with a soaked towel wrapped around his neck. Water dripped onto his clothes. “Here's the vest. I assumed you wanted body armor, not Kevlar.”

  Cavanaugh understood. Kevlar fibers were designed to block pistol bullets but were useless against high-powered rifles. Only the metal plates of true body armor could stop the latter.

  He took the vest from Angelo and hefted it in despair. So much weight.

  “While you're standing here thinking, you're cooking,” Angelo said.

  “What?”

  Turning, Cavanaugh discovered that he'd been too preoccupied to realize that the fire was starting down the stairs. Flames licked the ceiling. The heat became overwhelming.

  “No time. Jamie,” he said into the walkie-talkie. “Mrs. Patterson. Get to the front. We're leaving. William, take my rifle.”

  “I don't want it.” He had a wet towel around his neck, his once-beautifully tailored suit a drenched mess.

  “For God's sake, do what I tell you. I need my hands free.” Cavanaugh strapped on the bulky vest. “There's a round in the chamber. All you need to do is point and pull the trigger. Just don't shoot any of us.”

  He yanked his car keys from his pocket and pressed a button on the remote control, unlocking the doors. When he pressed another button, the engine started. He took a deep breath so hot it warned him that he couldn't wait any longer. A flaming chunk of wood crashed onto the stairs.

  Go! he told himself.

  24

  Burdened by the heavy vest, he banged the screen door open, leapt off the porch and kept running the moment he landed. He focused all his attention on the passenger door. Something snapped past him as he pulled the latch. The moment he yanked the door open, a bullet whacked it, the door's armor preventing the projectile from going through.

  Another bullet struck his vest, pounding an area between his shoulder blades, knocking him forward. Gasping, he didn't allow himself to think of anything except lunging into the vehicle and sprawling across the seat as bullets struck the open door. Fragments spun toward his eyes. Averting his face, he rammed the gearshift into reverse and stomped the accelerator. The vest squeezed him. His back hurt.

  Tires ripping up earth, he sped backward until he was away from the lodge. With sharp rapping sounds, bullets hit the front, rear, and driver's side of the car. They cracked against the reinforced windows on those three sides. Straining to ignore them, he shifted into forward, swung the steering wheel toward the lodge, and sped so close to the porch that he almost hit the front steps. He stopped on an angle so that the rear of the car was closer to the porch than the front was, providing cover just as the open front passenger door did.

  Awkward in the vest, straining to catch his breath, he leaned into the back seat, fumbled for the latch, and thrust the porch-side rear passenger door open.

  “Come on!” he yelled.


  When he saw the flames looming inside, he realized that he didn't need to shout encouragement. The door burst open, Jamie and Mrs. Patterson rushing out while Angelo shoved William. The soaked towels draped over their heads were steaming. The group pounded across the porch, Jamie shoving Mrs. Patterson into the front passenger seat, Angelo thrusting William into the back, scrambling in after him, screaming, “My arm! Mierda.”

  Next to Mrs. Patterson in the front, Jamie slammed the front door shut. Angelo did the same with the back.

  “How bad are you hit?” Cavanaugh shouted to Angelo, speeding away from the lodge. He needed to raise his voice—the bullets striking the car sounded like hail.

  “Grazed me! I can still use the arm! Hijo de puta, the bleeding!”

  Jamie yanked open the glove compartment, grabbed a roll of duct tape, and threw it back to Angelo.

  “The gunfighter's friend.” Angelo gave William his rifle, then unclipped a folding knife from a pants pocket, thumbed it open, and cut off the sleeve on his left arm. Cavanaugh got a glimpse of him wrapping duct tape around the wound as the Taurus rushed across the meadow, bullets pelting the vehicle.

  “Seat belts!” he warned, fumbling to secure his.

  The bullet-resistant windows developed stars. While the reinforced glass could withstand widely spaced bullets, it could be shattered if several struck the same spot. Cavanaugh flinched as more stars developed in them.

  Then he worried about something else. Tensing his hands on the steering wheel, he felt his right front tire shudder from a bullet's impact. A tire with a bullet hole could support a car for perhaps five miles before the tire completely deflated. But repeated bullet impacts were another matter.

  These tires are reinforced, though, Cavanaugh fought to assure himself. It's fine, it's okay, it'll still do its work.

  The gunmen in the trees didn't have sound-suppressed rifles. To Cavanaugh's left, the horses galloped insanely, the din of the shots overwhelming.