by Alex Archer
As he fell Annja became aware that she’d heard the sound of the shotgun, a booming noise that seemed to rattle the abandoned but still-sturdy house to its foundations, and the crash, less loud but more eardrum-punishingly intense, of the .44 Magnum carbine. A second shot from Billy’s carbine followed. Annja returned the sword to the otherwhere.
Then Snake stood beside Annja. She held her shotgun, muzzle up. Her usually narrow eyes were wide.
“Clear,” Annja told her. The other woman nodded. She had remarkable presence of mind, Annja had to acknowledge.
“Ready?” Snake asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Annja said. “Billy?”
“Here,” he called. He was kneeling on the kitchen side of the hallway, leaning his bulky body out far enough to cover down it.
He fired again.
“Gotcha!” he grunted. “Bastard stuck his head out from the bedroom, down the hall.”
“Right,” Annja said. “Sallie’ll be at the rear of the house. Take the first door, we cover.”
She glanced back at Snake and mouthed, “Then we hit the next one.” Snake’s thin lips curved in a slight, feral smile. She nodded.
Annja moved to the opening to the hallway, standing far enough inside the living room to remain invisible from the hall. “On one,” she said aloud. She flashed a V sign with her fingers to Billy. He grinned.
“Two,” she said.
As she’d signaled him to do Billy launched himself on the second count. He caromed off the corridor’s far wall, pushing off to kick the first door on the right with the heel of his boot. Though intact, the house’s interior doors were not nearly as stout as the exterior ones. The door splintered under the impact.
Annja hit the rear corridor wall as Billy’s shotgun bellowed. A ring of gunshot echo told her he’d just cleared the bathroom. Snake knelt by the front wall of the hallway, aiming down the passage.
Billy erupted out of the bathroom and hit the closed door across the hallway with his shoulder. The door shattered. He fired through the gap, then, dropping the carbine, plucked his one-piece steel hatchet from his belt.
“Hello, boys,” he said. And vanished inside.
As screams and thumps came from the front bedroom Annja and Snake dashed down the hall. A man lay slumped in the door of the far bedroom. The back of his head was missing; Annja didn’t worry he was playing possum. The right-hand door was closed.
She stopped just shy of the open door and leaned forward over the body, covering the room with the fat white dot painted on her front sight. Nobody. If somebody was lurking out of her field of view on that quick peek she’d just have to risk it. They were out of time.
Sallie had to be behind the last door. If she was there at all.
Annja flung herself to the end of the hall, gouging her left arm on a handle of the linen cupboard set in the end wall above a set of drawers. She flattened herself as best she could. Then she caught Snake’s eye where the woman stood posed on the door’s far side.
Snake went to one knee. Luck or her subconscious had set them up perfectly—Annja was right-handed and Snake shot lefty. Annja reached down and carefully turned the knob. Then she yanked back her hand.
As she did, shots ripped through the door, knocking long thin splinters from the plywood. A second gun voice joined. At least two gunmen inside were burning up their magazines in one desperate spasm. No three-round burst regulators for these bad boys, Annja realized. No doubt SIU had gotten the federal armorers who’d provided them the automatic weapons in the first place to disable those.
A handful of hypersonic bullets all but grazed Annja’s sucked-in belly. She actually felt their passage-shock slapping the front of her Windbreaker. None of the nasty little copper-jacket needles hit her.
Sudden echoing silence broke out over the ringing in her ears. Goodbye, more of my hearing range! Annja thought. She grabbed the knob again, twisted and threw the door open.
There were two of them, crouching by the back wall. Their M-4s lay on the bare pine planks before them with charging handles locked back—empty. Their eyes gleamed crazily from faces painted black from cheeks to hairline.
One Crazy Dog held Sallie Ten Bears pinned between them by the blade of a huge Bowie knife to her throat. The other pressed a 9 mm pistol to the side of her pigtailed head.
29
“Back off!” the man with the knife screamed. “We’ll kill the little girl.”
Annja cut her eyes to Snake. The other woman caught her look. She nodded once, barely perceptibly.
The two warrior women fired as one.
Both Dog Soldiers fell as one. Each sported a hole dead between staring empty eyes.
Sallie flung herself forward, sobbing, and caught Annja in a ferocious embrace. Annja hugged her briefly, keeping her pistol tipped toward the ceiling so as not to endanger any of her friends.
“Your mom is fine,” she said, in response to what she thought were the questions the shaking girl was sobbing into her sternum. “Your dad and brother are outside. We need to get you out of here. Let’s go out the back door.”
“No!” Sallie ripped herself free. Her face was suffused with blood and twisted in panic. “We can’t!”
“Why not?” Snake asked, hunkering down so as not to loom above the terrified child. She kept switching her eyes from rear window to hallway door, taking nothing for granted.
“There’s something out there,” the girl gasped. Fear seemed to constrict her like a giant python. “A monster. Even the bad guys are scared of it. They told me it would rip me apart if I ran away. They—they showed me pictures of all these torn-up dead people!”
“The skinwalker,” Billy said. He stood in the hallway behind the women. He had sheathed his hatchet at his belt and picked up his gun.
Annja drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “She’s probably safest staying put, then. Sallie, go in the bathroom. Will you do that for me, honey, please? Lie down in the bathtub. That’ll keep you safe from bullets.”
Unless the FBI sprays the house with bullets from a helicopter overhead, she thought. The clock was running out. Outside, the firefight had resumed. And on top of everything else the Navajo wolf was apparently somewhere on the scene.
“But I want to watch!” Sallie said.
“Please,” Annja said. “Do it for your mom and dad and Johnny. If you get hurt they’ll never forgive themselves, ever. Understand?”
For a moment the girl looked mulish. The stubborn family temperament bred true, it seemed. Then she nodded. “All right.”
She went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Through what little was left of it Annja saw her climb into the bathtub, cross her arms and pout.
“Good enough,” she said.
Having seen something curious when she checked the bedroom across the hall, Annja ducked down below window level and went inside. Sure enough, computers and flat-screen monitors were set on a wooden desk and a card table.
“Damn,” Snake said, running eyes over the displays. “They really did watch us the whole time.”
“Wouldn’t they have to task a satellite especially for it?” Annja asked.
“There’s way more surveillance-capable satellites over our heads than most people realize.” Snake gestured. “This might not even be from an American bird. It could be a real-time feed purchased from anybody. Even Russians or Chinese. Your tax dollars at work.”
Staying low, they moved to the window and peered out.
“Oh, no,” Annja said.
“What’s the matter?” Billy asked, hunkering down behind them.
The shooting was picking up outside. “The Dogs have come out from under cover,” she said.
“Signifying what?” Snake asked.
Annja gave her a worried look. “Maybe some of our snipers have been taken out by the skinwalker.”
“Damn,” Snake said. “And no way to warn the others.”
Billy laid two fingers on Annja’s shoulder and pointed. “Look!”
> Johnny Ten Bears emerged from the tall grass on the north side of the road that led to the derelict Otero house. He was walking bent over and holding his Glock ready in his hand.
From beyond the garage George Abell suddenly rushed him. The Crazy Dog wore fringed buckskin pants. His broad flabby torso was bare from the waist up. In classic Comanche fashion his hair was divided in two large braids. A narrow scalplock streamed behind him like a cavalry pennon. He caught the unsuspecting Johnny from behind and slammed him to the ground.
As if the participants were stopping to spectate, the gunfire slackened. Annja could plainly hear Abell bellow, “I got you now, punk! You never could beat me. And you never will!”
Straddling Johnny’s back he grabbed handfuls of his long black hair and started pounding his face into the hard-packed ground.
Annja raised her carbine and lined the front sight post on Abell’s head.
“No,” Billy said. The weapon was gently pushed off-line.
“You don’t know Johnny the way we do,” Snake said. “He needs this. Live or die.”
“So what if he does die?” Annja asked, alarmed.
Snake shrugged. “If Georgie wins, then we kill him.”
“Deal.”
Johnny Ten Bears got an arm under himself and pushed upward. So focused was his opponent on hammering the ground with Johnny’s face, he’d risen up on his legs for better leverage. Johnny’s hips were no longer pinned by Abell’s great weight. The Iron Horse war chief half rolled onto his left side and scissored his right thigh up into Abell’s crotch.
From sixty yards away Annja saw the strike lift the bigger man. His grip loosened on Johnny’s long black hair. Johnny threw him off and came up to one knee with a fist on the ground.
“Didn’t think that crotch shot’d do much to Georgie,” Billy remarked. “Not much by way of a target.”
Abell recovered quickly. He was up almost at once, charging his kneeling foe like an angry rhino.
To Annja’s surprise Johnny launched himself not backward or away, but forward. He rolled right into Abell’s shins. The rogue SIU chief was even more surprised than Annja. He took a header over his opponent and landed heavily on his face.
“Whoa!” Billy exclaimed softly. “That registered on the Richter scale.”
Abell got right back up, only a lot more slowly. Too slowly. Johnny popped upright and skip-stepped toward him. As Abell reared up on his knees Johnny caught him in the left side of the face with a beautiful roundhouse kick that snapped his opponent’s head around.
Annja winced. She had distinctly heard the blow land. Only the bearlike thickness of Abell’s neck saved him from having it broken by that kick.
Abell toppled backward. Johnny danced in with his knee still raised like a kickboxer. Abell lashed out with a leg in an attempt to sweep Johnny’s limb from beneath him.
But Johnny wasn’t caught out. One-legged, he hopped straight in the air. Abell’s short but massive leg passed harmlessly beneath. When he landed, Johnny used the momentum gravity gave him to stomp Abell in the side of his big jiggling paunch.
Abell bawled like a fighting bull stuck by a picador. Far from being stunned by what had to be a painful hit he lunged for Johnny. Johnny had to leap back so fast he almost overbalanced and went over backward.
As Johnny caught himself Abell got back to his feet. He raised half-furled fists by his face. The left side was swelling, the eye reddened and half-closed. Deliberately Abell advanced on his foe.
“Dad’s watching,” Billy said.
Unwilling as she was to look away from the bare-hand duel for even an instant, Annja moved her gaze left. Tom Ten Bears, dressed in a red flannel shirt that had come untucked and hung down in front of his jeans, stood watching his son battle for his life from twenty yards away. Out of his gray-on-gray Oklahoma Highway Patrol uniform he looked vulnerable. His big hands were empty, but Annja noticed his .41 Magnum still rode in its holster at his right hip. She’d bet the safety strap was unsnapped.
Snake nudged her with surprising gentleness. Annja looked to her. She nodded off to the right. Annja saw a Dog Soldier, shirtless like his leader, who had emerged from cover and was hunkered down, peering around a corner of the shed at the death match. He was mostly hidden from view from the combatants’ direction—but plainly in sight of the house. It suddenly struck Annja that, as far as he knew, he was still safe in the hands of his revolutionary martyr-wannabe comrades.
A quick check around showed at least two more surviving Dog riflemen, like the first, concealed if not covered from Johnny and his friends to the west—and in easy view of Annja, Snake and Billy. She grinned briefly. She wasn’t worried about notions of fair play. Not with violent criminals who had committed mass murder, attacked an innocent woman and kidnapped her even-more-blameless child.
Besides, Annja knew perfectly well the Crazy Dogs were only taking a quick time-out from trying to kill her and her friends. They had less sense of fair play than she did. They just wanted to watch a good fight.
So did Annja. She enjoyed a battle between experts. For all his bulk and general loathsomeness, Abell was very good.
And so was Johnny Ten Bears. He and his foe traded jabs, ranging shots that had no visible effect. Johnny tried a feint wheel kick at head level in Abell’s face, just to let him know he had it in his arsenal. It was risky kicking above the waist in a real fight; but if you were good enough you could get away with it sometimes. As Annja had herself in her time.
Abell lunged at Johnny, diving at his thighs to take him down. Johnny countered with a classic sprawl. He danced back, putting his hands on the backs of Abell’s immense shoulders and pushing him down on his face. Instead of diving atop his grounded foe Johnny jumped back, cat-graceful.
He doesn’t want to go strength to strength with Abell, Annja thought. Smart man.
Once more Abell was quickly back to his feet. For a time the two men punched and kicked each other. Johnny landed more often than Abell, and they were strong, solid blows, too. But along with his strength Abell showed a bull-bison’s ability to absorb punishment. For all his wiry strength Johnny didn’t seem to have the power to put his broader foe down. His lone hope seemed to be to wear his man down by attrition.
Johnny tried no more fancy high kicks. He did manage to crack a few shin kicks into Abell’s bowed legs.
And then Abell, once again moving with unexpected quickness, trapped Johnny’s left leg with a grab to the knee.
Johnny wrenched it free at once. But the trap kept him in range of Abell’s terrible power a beat too long, and breaking the hold put him off balance. He fell off onto a left foot planted too far behind him.
Abell rocked Johnny Ten Bears’ head back with a lead left that seemed too powerful to call a stiff jab, though technically it was. Abell had a weight lifter’s arm strength and the technique to step into the punch. Nailed squarely in the face, Johnny staggered. Annja cried out as she saw him sag.
Showing true killer instinct Abell closed with his stunned foe. He pistoned short but monstrously powerful hooks and crosses into Johnny’s short ribs.
Johnny caught Abell with a lead right hook of his own. But his old enemy leaned in so that the blow mostly glanced off the back of his skull. Johnny started to push him off.
Abell brought up the point of his left elbow in a rising smash that caught Johnny right under the point of the chin. His jaws clacked together.
The taller, lighter man reeled backward. With a roar of triumph Abell rushed forward and seized him around the middle in a bear hug. Johnny called out in pain as Abell locked hand on wrist behind his back and brought down crushing pressure on his bruised and cracked rib cage.
30
Triumphantly George Abell hoisted his imprisoned foe into the air. And Annja, who had long since forgotten to breathe, filled her lungs in one big gasp. Abell had allowed his overconfidence to run away with him. In his eagerness to crush his hated rival, he’d left Johnny Ten Bears’ arms free.
It was a novice brawler’s mistake—and whatever he was, Abell was no novice. For a moment it looked as if he hadn’t miscalculated, after all. Johnny hung limp, bowed back against the killing pressure of those thick arms, his long hair falling unbound across his face. He seemed too stunned and badly hurt to resist the relentless pressure which must soon either break his spine or asphyxiate him like a python constricting a rabbit.
But then without raising his lolling head Johnny clapped his hands sharply over Abell’s ears. Abell cried out with startled shrillness as his eardrums imploded.
Johnny jackknifed forward and smashed George Abell’s nose with a head butt.
George bellowed and dropped him. Abell staggered back as his free-flowing blood painted a moustache and beard of red down his lips and chin. Johnny’s knees buckled as his feet hit the ground.
He had barely lurched back to his feet when Abell put his head down and charged. He rammed the point of his skull into Johnny’s stomach.
But Johnny Ten Bears bent forward to meet the flesh-and-bone battering ram. His right arm encircled Abell’s throat, slipping just beneath his powerful chin.
As Abell’s head hit his gut Johnny pushed hard off the ground with his legs. He used the force of his enemy’s charge to drive his legs and torso upward. Confused, Abell reared upright, boosting his opponent higher.
Johnny did a front roll right over the top of Abell’s vast back. As his feet came down behind him Johnny surged forward with all his strength. His arms, themselves now locked beneath Abell’s jaw with left hand gripping right wrist, dragged Abell’s head back and over Johnny’s right shoulder. Johnny leaned forward, pulling on the captive head and thrusting with his legs as if trying to tow a Greyhound bus by a rope across his shoulder.
George Abell’s neck snapped.
His dead weight dropped Johnny Ten Bears beneath it to the ground. The victor lay unmoving.
The first Crazy Dog Annja had noticed, the one crouching behind the shed, raised his M-4. Annja already had her Mini-14 shouldered. She lined a flash sight picture between his bare shoulder blades, let out half of a breath and squeezed the trigger.