by Kate Morris
“Cheek Road secure,” one of Dave’s men calls in, letting everyone know the road is blown and no escape can be made that way by vehicle.
They will leave a single road open in case they need to pursue by vehicle should a few stragglers take off by ATV or horses, of which they’ve seen both the last few days on the property during their intel gathering. He doesn’t know if they had horses somewhere on the Gaylord property, but he’d never seen them if they did. He figures the horses have always been kept here. Used car salesman or no, gasoline is still in short to non-existent supply.
Cory immediately douses both lanterns, not wanting to be backlit by them. Through the open door to their right is a pitch-dark blackness. Through the door he and John need to go, it is partially lit by a dim orange light coming from somewhere.
John sends two men to their right into what was called the silver library, which connects to a larger room overlooking the grounds. The others he keeps positioned in place in case anyone comes through the back door once this kicks off inside the house. Some of the cots have rifles lying next to them, which tells him the owners will be back to collect them. He and John will go left together into the dining room and morning room and circle around to the main hall. Since they are in the main house now, this is where the HVT should be, all of them if Cory were to guess. Unfortunately, it is a huge mansion, thirty-six rooms plus a museum wing and is going to take a long time to search.
He creeps steadily forward until he comes to a doorway, through which he takes a peek. John does the same and nods. They breach it together right as a group of men comes toward them through another door across the room. They both open fire, which catches the men off guard. They manage to take out three of them before the others retreat. The dining room is empty, but the morning room is definitely occupied. He can hear them scurrying, scrambling.
A loud thump outside against the windows near him startles Cory, and he watches a man stagger into the glass right before he falls down leaving a blood smear of Simon’s handiwork. John looks at him and nods. They keep moving. Simultaneously, they press their backs to either side of the open doorway, which is probably eight feet wide. John gives a thumbs-up, and Cory pulls a grenade from his vest.
“Greetings from the McClanes, motherfuckers!” he calls out. He bites the pin and gives it a toss into the morning room. Men start yelling for their friends to run, but Cory knows there are too many of them to make it out of the room in time.
John gives a ruthless grin and a slow nod.
A second later, the grenade explodes as he and John press back against the wall to let it take the blast. Men scream. He and John breach together and waste no time in picking off the survivors. For what these bastards have done to innocent men, women, and even children, he feels no guilt and will sleep well having done this to them. One man even holds up his hands and begins begging for his life. John puts a bullet between his eyes mid-sentence. There are at least a dozen dead men in the room when they leave it.
The floor beneath his feet vibrates, and he figures it is someone in Dave’s group doing the same thing. It is quickly followed by very muffled shots below. A home like this made of solid limestone acts as its own inhibitor of sound.
With the room cleared, they keep going. He can hear the men ahead of them running away, so they pick up the pace. In another part of the house, Cory can hear shooting and knows the rest of their team is engaging the enemy, as well. He hopes they are as successful.
“You’ve got at least fifty men running out the front doors of the learning center, Hulk,” Derek says into the radio, still assisting by drone.
“Roger, over,” his brother answers.
“I got this, Hulk,” the Mechanic says into his mic. “Rusty, put that .50 on ‘em stat! Mow those fuckers down!”
Cory has met Rusty a few times and likes him very well. His name isn’t actually Rusty, but he used to drive an old rusty ’57 Chevy, so the guys called him Rusty after they found out. He’s a pretty mellow dude and doesn’t seem to rattle easily.
“Er…Roger that, boss,” he answers in that same casual manner he always shows.
As he and John storm into the scene of melee and men retreating and shooting at them from a narrower hallway, Cory takes a knee around the corner and fires off a few rounds downrange to keep them off of John and him. John does the same, and then Cory aims in and shoots one in the back. Then he fires off a few more rounds randomly so that John can move forward. He does so and then covers so Cory can mimic his movement. There isn’t exactly a new hallway to back down and hide around the corner, so Cory ducks behind a Bombay style cabinet and side chair in the hallway. John fires off two more rounds to push them back, and signals for Cory to move forward again. As he pushes off the wall and takes his first step, a round comes from behind them. Cory swings and fires off three rounds. Two men were approaching, but he manages to hit them both. They are in a tight space and need to get out of it. John agrees because he signals more forcefully for Cory to keep moving, which he does and ends up in the protection of an elevator, the doors permanently open.
He can see into the opening of the connecting hallway. Nobody is there. They’ve moved further away, so he fires a round anyway and signals John to move up. Together they end at the intersection to the main hall and the entrance to the art museum that once housed the family’s fine art, as well as pieces that were donated over the years to the preservation society running the estate. This wing is two stories and was, at one time, climate controlled.
“Sending a few your way, Clarence,” John tells their friend from Pleasant View.
“Roger,” Clarence answers.
He’s an older man, in his sixties but who worked in law enforcement for thirty years before the fall. He was on a S.W.A.T. team when he was younger and a detective when he got older. In town, he is invaluable to their sheriff and the security team within the walls of the village to keep it safe. He still runs five miles every morning, rain or shine.
John keeps going as he talks. They climb the stairs to the museum, which has been like most rooms of the old house, remodeled many times over the years to accommodate it to modern uses and conveniences and doesn’t exactly match the maps they had. They reach the top floor and find dozens of men scurrying around. He and John go unnoticed for the first few seconds, so they both take out two men and dive to the side for cover. Shots ring out, slamming into the walls around them, probably destroying priceless art and sculptures. From the quick glance he got of the museum hall, there are cots and sleeping bags laid out in this wing, too. Apparently, these men stay in the senator’s private residence, which is probably how he views the mansion. Others likely stayed in the outer buildings and the guard shack at the entrance. Blending the Gaylord residents with the senator’s people probably required moving more men into the main house just to give them all a roof over their heads.
He can hear them barking out orders while shooting, so Cory blasts off a few rounds downrange to keep them at bay. John does the same, allowing Cory a second to risk a look from his hiding spot. There has to be more than thirty of them. He even spots a woman. Cory doesn’t care. She has a rifle and even takes a shot at him before he ducks behind the wall again.
Across the hall from him, John pulls the pin on another grenade and gives it a toss. Even before his grenade goes off, the ground outside is shaken by a loud explosion. It sounds like the mighty hammer of Thor has smacked against earth’s core. It is directly followed by the grenade exploding in the museum. Again, they pause a moment, then pursue.
The grenade has caused extensive damage to one wall, and plaster dust is floating in the air, making it hard to see. He flips up his goggles to get a better visual since this section of the mansion is lit anyway. Men and women are coughing; others are crying out in pain. John is firing away. Plink, plink, pause, plink. He must be able to see through the smoke and settling dust better than Cory can.
“Son of a bitch!” someone screams in a rage to his right.
“Botanical garden secure,” someone says over the radio.
Derek says next, “Move team four toward the rear entrance of the main structure.” He then repeats his directive and follows it with, “We’ve got at least a hundred hostiles moving around behind it. Snipers will provide assistance.”
“Roger,” someone from team four answers.
Simon confirms with a curt, “Affirmative.”
Cory shoots at another man, who slinks around a corner and disappears into a room. Three others follow him. John signals for Cory to go after the men while he holds down the remaining people in the gallery hall of paintings. Cory does as he’s told.
He moves with caution, knowing they are likely armed. If this space was their sleeping quarters, they have their weapons with them. The room his prey have gone into is black, so Cory flips his goggles back down. He crosses the threshold at a low, hunched over position and with speed. Immediately shots are fired off at him, so he dodges to his left and finds cover behind furniture. This was some sort of library room at one time if he was to guess.
He pops off a few rounds and rises simultaneously. The men are gone, so he pursues them through another connecting doorway. He spots two running down the hall and shoots them both square in the back. Jogging forward, he sees that one has on a bulletproof vest and provides him with a fatal shot this time. Rounds bark off, shattering glass, and a man falls with a heavy thud behind him. Simon must be somewhere in a damn tree to make that shot. He glances briefly through the window and gives a curt nod. Then he runs back to John.
A group must’ve come up behind John, seen what was going on and decided to make their escape through the library room, too, because four of them rush through the door and right into Cory’s line of sight. He shoots one man in the head, gets clipped in the forearm by a round one manages to get off. It pisses him off, and he blasts away in anger. Only a single woman manages to escape. Cory chases after her but can’t exactly shoot through the wall.
“Got one sneaking up on your six, Dr. Death,” Cory says into his mic.
A moment later a round sounds off followed by a woman’s scream. He rejoins John across the hall. Cory quickly pulls a bandana from his pocket and with John’s help ties off his wound, which is barely bleeding.
“You got this?” John asks and hits him with a hard stare.
“I’m not quitting now,” Cory says and gets a grin.
Together they push forward in a leapfrog fire-and-move maneuver. By the time they make it to the end of the gallery hall, they’ve destroyed most of the ranks quartered in the museum wing.
His brother’s voice comes over the radio, “We’re taking on heavy fire here. Request assistance, over.”
Cory quickly looks to John who shakes his head and holds up his index finger. Kelly is in trouble.
A moment later, Derek says very cooly, “Yeah, K-Dog, send in your reserves to assist the Hulk, over.”
“On it,” K-Dog answers. “And Parker took five of his men and split. No idea where they went, so be on the lookout, over.”
Cory rolls his eyes, and John shakes his head as if to imply Parker is an idiot, which is a redundant, obvious assessment.
“Roger that, over,” Derek answers.
John sends two fingers forward, and Cory reluctantly keeps following him, although he’d like to run to the learning center and help his brother. He has to have faith that Derek will protect his brother with the right amount of backup troops.
“Team five to the learning center,” Derek says next and gets another response to the affirmative.
“See?” John says. “Derek won’t hang your brother out to dry. He’s sending Robert’s men in.”
Cory breathes a sigh of relief knowing there are around twenty in that group. He keeps going, and they come to the end of the hall and take fast peeks around the corner. Cory kneels, and John stays upright. The room is massive, another gallery center, but with sculptures placed everywhere. It is hard to tell if one of them could be a live person, so they inch forward with great caution. They need to reach the third floor where they believe the senator is probably hiding out.
A single gunshot rings out from a distance away and pings into the display case near John, shattering the glass. They both dive for cover. Cory is behind a long, wooden base holding a statue of some Greek god or another. He crawls to the other end and takes aim. He can see men through the doorway at the other side of the room. That is where he and John need to go next. He takes aim and quickly squeezes the trigger. It hits the molding around the door. He does a quick mag change and slams it home. It must splinter wood fragments into one of the men’s faces, who was apparently crouched behind it. The guy falls forward and grabs his face, and Cory finishes him off with a shot to the neck. A round hits the statue above him and causes marble to rain down on him like a short burst of hail. Another round from his friend later, and John has taken out his own target, who slumps against the door, slides down the frame and falls face first into their room.
They move again and come to the doorway where they must step over the dead man in it. Nobody else shoots at them, but Cory can hear voices in a room somewhere to their left. They proceed carefully and creep toward the commotion.
A narrower corridor leads to a set of grand stairs that was at one time probably a work of art but have of late seen better days. It is evident by looking around that the senator and his men have lived in this mansion for a while. Each cot or sleeping bag they pass has a lantern or candle, food trays, packages, personal belongings and crates or boxes of their things. He doesn’t think they have full electricity here in this home, though, or he hasn’t seen signs of it yet. Mostly the corridors are lit with oil lamps or lanterns. At the Gaylord, they were using hydroelectric power, and mid-sized generators were probably running some. Every night they’ve spied on the mansion, it is never very illuminated inside, nor are the outbuildings. An old stone home like this would be difficult to light. Windows are sparse in some areas. The light coming through the windows from the outside is very dim. Most of the chandeliers look like antiques, too.
“Dr. Death,” Derek comes across the radio. “Sending the Professor and three men to you, over.”
“Copy,” John returns as they pause against the wall of the long hallway before the stairs. Cory watches their backs while John uses the radio.
“Car dealer secure,” Derek states calmly. “Dr. Death, location, over.”
“Ready to breach the third floor at the end of the gallery, over,” John informs his brother.
“Hold your position and wait for the Professor, over.”
“Copy,” John replies.
Beyond their line of sight, Cory can hear the scrambling of footsteps.
John says into his throat mic, “We’ve got rats in the attic. Are the exits covered?”
Dave’s chuckling voice comes over the headset, “Gotcha’ covered, Doctor, and approaching east wing.”
“Cool,” John says. “See ya’ at the party.”
“Save me a dance,” Dave jokes.
Cory looks at John as they wait for Simon and whoever he’s bringing with him. They have not eliminated anywhere near six hundred men. By the sounds of footsteps above him, they have clustered on the top floor. They still have a long battle ahead of them.
Chapter Twenty-two
Simon
He knows the layout of the mansion, but once he enters with six of their volunteers, Simon feels slightly disoriented. This is not where he was supposed to eventually come in. There is a light fog of smoke in the air as if the mansion is on fire somewhere. It is acrid and bitter in his throat. He and his team were forced to break a window in the rounded, turret style morning room and climb through because Dave and his men were busy at the other end of the house one floor below him blowing things up by the sounds of it. Simon didn’t want to enter through th
e terrace and walk into a barrage of gunfire from the two men John left behind there, either. He heard at least one grenade going off and knows that the majority of the men who work for the senator are housed in the mansion. With the collective experience of Dave and his men, Simon feels that the odds of survival for the highwaymen living in that wing are not very high.
Simon glances to his right and sees the loggia through the open door. Robert’s men are engaged in a fight with probably fifty men, but he keeps going straight as per his orders from Derek. The hallway is narrow, but the fact that dead bodies line it is probably what makes it more difficult to traverse, likely John and Cory’s handiwork. Continuing on, they pass an elevator, and he knows he’s going the right way by the body count and shell casings on the ground. When they come to a set of stairs, Simon tells John he is on his way up to him.
Kelly’s team is still fighting it out in the learning center, but they’ve taken the used car dealer captive. He will not be allowed to live, no matter what good deals he has to offer. They just want him alive long enough to get some answers out of him.
At the top of the stairs, he hooks a left and steps over yet another dead man. Then he sees two women also lying in their final, resting places of tangled arms and twisted limbs. One woman’s sightless eyes are staring up at him, and Simon has to look away. It seems wrong killing women, but he didn’t voice that opinion because he knew the others wouldn’t agree. Deep down, he knows these women are murderers. They are probably just like his aunt and have likely taken lives and robbed and hurt people for their own gain. They are nothing like the women at the farm or like his mother or like Samantha. Nobody is like her. She is everything that is righteous and pure and good in the world, what’s left of it. She’d never dream of hurting someone unless it was in self-defense or in the defense of those she loves.