Last Man Standing

by Cindy Gerard

  They’d been creeping through over a foot of snow for the last several miles. Several inches had accumulated on the hood. Everywhere they looked, all they could see was snow. Trees standing in snow. Trees covered in snow. Drifts filled the ditches. It was a night sky of black, a landscape of white, broken only by snow-laden trees.

  “Are you sure you’re strong enough to do this?” Stephanie asked as he zipped up his white coveralls, then pulled a thick stocking cap over his head before flipping up the hood.

  “I’m sure.”

  He wasn’t sure of anything. But his adrenaline burn would go a long way toward getting him through whatever lay ahead.

  He was in full-out battle mode now. Mind, body, and spirit.

  “You ready?” he asked Mike.

  “Born that way.” Mike jammed his fingers into thick white gloves and shouldered open the door.

  The wind slashed inside, frosting the seats with snow.

  “Be careful,” Stephanie whispered, touching his arm.

  “Don’t leave the truck,” Joe warned her. “Whatever happens, do not leave the truck.”

  She could die out here on a night like this. Hell, they all could. A cold this brittle would reach the very marrow of your bones, freeze your blood into Popsicles. Add the blowing snow, the dark, and almost zero visibility factor, and a man could get lost in a heartbeat. The fact that he’d aced land navigation meant exactly nada. NVGs, if they had them, would be useless. Same for sensors. A herd of elephants could stampede through these woods tonight and no one would ever know. He seriously doubted the bad guys had messed with sensors or trip wires, given the storm and the time limits.

  “Stay with her, Ty,” he said and joined Mike out in the elements.

  Working as fast as they could against the wind and cold, he opened the tailgate and dug through the snow-filled truck bed for their weapons.

  “As long as we don’t veer off the road, we should be all right,” Joe said, turning his face away from the wind. Once they ducked into the trees, however, they were going to need a rope to guide them back.

  Mike gave him a thumbs-up. They were already armed with handguns and knives, and helped each other tie the coils of rope at their waists and fix the bows across their chests before slinging their rifles onto their shoulders.

  It took less than a minute to get geared up, and already Joe was feeling the bite of the cold in his fingers.

  He pulled a walkie-talkie out of the breast pocket of his coveralls. “Commo check one.”

  “Check, check,” Ty replied.

  “Check three,” Mike said behind him.

  Joe tucked his head and, aware of Mike falling in behind him, started wading through the drifts toward the cabin.

  Joe lay on his belly, elbows dug into the snow, a deadfall log providing cover. Beside him Mike lay on his back, digging into his coveralls for the binoculars. Fifteen yards ahead of them stood the cabin. Less than a quarter of a mile behind them lay a dead man.

  They’d been almost on top of the sentry before they’d spotted him. Only because the lookout had dropped his guard and leaned his rifle against a tree to remove his gloves and blow on his frozen fingers had they gotten the drop on him.

  Crouching low, they’d split up, Mike to the left, Joe to the right. Then they jumped him like fleas on a dog.

  Mike went in low; Joe hit him high and toppled him facedown on the ground. He jammed a knee between the man’s shoulder blades, gripped his jaw in one hand and the back of his head in the other, and snapped his neck.

  The adrenaline rush had shot heat into his freezing extremities, but that was five long minutes ago. Now the frozen ground seeped through his clothes in icy waves. The brutal wind burned his eyes, swept snow crystals cutting into his cheeks.

  “Up there.” Mike lowered the binoculars, handed them to Joe, and pointed to the garage roof.

  “Got him,” Joe said after finding him in the binoculars. “Best guess?”

  “Stoner SR-25 sniper rifle. And you can bet he knows how to use it.”

  Joe reached above his head and worked the bow from around his chest.

  “Seriously?” Mike asked when he realized what Joe planned to do.

  “A rifle shot will alert the boys inside. Don’t worry. I shot my first deer with a compound bow when I was fifteen,” Joe said, removing an arrow from a quiver.

  “That ain’t no deer,” Mike pointed out unnecessarily.

  No, it wasn’t. And now it got dicey.

  At the very least, he wanted to be five yards closer. And he was going to have to stand up to get a good line on the target.

  “Cover me.” He left the rifle with Mike, crawled over the log and, crouching low, crept toward the cabin.

  Moving at a snail’s pace he finally arrived at the base of a substantial white pine less than ten yards away from the garage. Careful not to draw the sniper’s attention with any sudden movement, he rose to his feet.

  His knees ached. His blood felt just this side of freezing. And he was still at less than full strength after his ordeal, compliments of Greer Dalmage, in that fucking prison.

  Thinking about Dalmage and Freetown got anger boiling hot inside him. Just enough to give him the burst of energy he needed to fix the notch of an arrow in the rocking point of the bowstring and draw it back.

  The shooter lay like a slug on the peak of the roof, his left eye snugged against his rifle scope, searching, searching, searching the night.

  Joe waited, waited, waited. Breathing deep and slow. The shaft of the arrow aligned against his cheek. His biceps burned from holding tension on the bow.

  Finally, the sniper lifted his head a few inches. Just enough.

  He let the arrow fly. Felt the fletching slice across his cheek. Saw the shooter’s hands jerk away from the rifle and clutch frantically at his throat before he went limp, then slid slowly down the metal roof, his rifle going along for the ride.

  He landed like a sack of cement in a snowdrift behind the garage.

  “Jesus,” Mike muttered beside him. “You are Robin fuckin’ Hood.”

  Joe lowered the bow, his arms trembling from the exertion. His heart had ratcheted up several beats.

  He motioned for Mike to follow him. “Recon.”

  He didn’t want to go into this final phase blind. Yeah, some of their intel would have to be SWAG—a Scientific Wild Assed Guess. But he needed a clue so they didn’t walk into a flat-out ambush.

  There was no time to waste. They’d been out in the cold too long. The sentries would be expected to check in, and when they didn’t the men inside would go ape shit.

  Ann and Robert were now more vulnerable than they had been before Joe and company had arrived.

  “I swear to God.” Mike shivered in the backseat, rubbing his hands briskly together to get the circulation back. “People who live and work in this icebox are tougher than woodpecker lips.”

  Joe and Mike had quickly scouted the cabin by peeking in through a window. His heart had almost given out on him when he’d seen Ann and Robert tied back-to-back, hoods over their heads.

  He’d counted three men. Lots of weaponry—no surprise. The surprise, he hoped, was going to be on them.

  Using the ropes they’d tied from tree to tree to guide them, they’d hightailed it back to the truck as fast as their frozen feet could carry them. They were going to need Ty to pull this off.

  Joe hadn’t whitewashed it when he’d told Stephanie about Ann and Robert. He’d have given anything to spare her from the knowledge that her mom and dad would be in the direct line of fire when this went down, but he knew she would want the truth. She deserved the truth.

  She’d handled it like a soldier.

  “Here’s how we see it going down,” Joe said, recounting the plan he and Mike had devised on the jog back to the truck. “There’s a ladder propped up against the back of the garage. One of us needs to climb it, get up on the main roof, and cover the chimney so the smoke will back up in the cabin.”

&n
bsp; “Sounds like a job for a copilot,” Ty said without hesitation.

  “Get back on the ground ASAP,” Joe told him.

  “And don’t break your neck in the process.” There was more brotherly concern in Mike’s voice than he would probably admit to.

  “It won’t take them long to figure out something’s up. By that time they’ll be choking and coughing and their eyes will be watering, but they’ll be hyperalert.

  “Mike, take the back door from the deck. Ty, you come in through the garage door. I’ll be at the front entrance.”

  “Where do you want me?” Stephanie’s warrior face almost broke Joe’s heart.

  “In the truck,” all three men said in unison.

  “Look,” Joe said, at her crestfallen expression. “If this goes FUBAR, you need to haul ass out and get help.”

  “It’ll be too late for help,” she pointed out unnecessarily.

  “Someone’s gotta hang Dalmage.” Joe gave her a hard look. “You’re the only one who can do it.”

  She finally nodded. He squeezed her hand, then turned back to the guys. “When I toss the bear banger through the window, that’s your cue. I don’t need to tell you what has to happen next.”

  And it had better be damn good, Joe thought as he chambered a round in the 30-06 rifle. Because during that small window of time, every aspect of their plan had the best chance of going really, really bad.

  Wilson coughed, wiped his burning eyes, and spoke into his commo mike. “Lookout one. What’s your status? Over.” He’d made repeated attempts to raise Duvall and was starting to get a really bad feeling about this. In case they did have company he’d kept the line clear, not wanting to reveal their location with too much chatter. So it had been ten minutes since he’d asked for a radio check, and neither Duvall nor Simpson were responding.

  His only answer was static-filled silence. A tingle of unease went up his spine, his situational awareness humming in warning.

  Across the room Benson alternately sipped coffee, did push-ups, and rubbed his arms to increase the circulation.

  Janikowski fiddled ineffectively with the fireplace damper.

  “What’s wrong with that thing?” Benson growled, coughing as a sudden influx of smoke poured into the room.

  “Fuck if I know.” Janikowski was coughing, too, waving one arm in front of him to push away the billowing smoke while fiddling with the flue with his other hand. “Something’s blocking the chimney.”

  He staggered away from the hearth, choking and rubbing his burning eyes. “Jesus. Open a door.”

  Robert Tompkins had started to stir. His wife made muffled choking sounds beneath the hood.

  Benson headed across the room toward the front door, covering his nose with a cupped palm but failing to avoid breathing the acrid smoke into his lungs.

  “Stop!” Wilson held a hand in the air, his gut telling him they had company. “Someone’s out there.”

  This was it. Joe jammed his elbow through the window; glass shattered. He fired a bear banger into the cabin. The flare whistled and hit the floor spinning, then exploded with a reverberating boom!

  He crashed in right behind it, dove straight for Robert and Ann and tumbled them to the floor, out of the line of fire that suddenly ricocheted through the room.

  Mike and Ty burst in right on his heels. He couldn’t see them through the smoke, but over the din of gunfire he recognized the strike, strike, strike concussion of the AR-15s and knew they were following orders to shoot anything above waist level that moved.

  A man groaned; a body hit the floor.

  He lay on top of Ann and Robert. “It’s Joe,” he yelled above the melee. “Lie still. Don’t try to get up.”

  Then he pushed to his knees, drew his rifle to his shoulder and searched for targets.

  A white shadow moved across the kitchen. Ty.

  Another white shape dropped and rolled, the muzzle flash of his rifle blasting in sharp, blinding beats. Mike.

  Directly across from him another figure, crouching low, shouldered his rifle and took a bead on Mike.

  Joe fired the 30-06, aiming dead center at his throat.

  The man spun like a top and dropped to his back on the floor, the concussion from the shot reverberating through the night.

  “Duck and cover!” Joe yelled, and Ty scrambled behind the kitchen counter. Mike dove behind a heavy wooden chest.

  “Hold fire!” Joe yelled.

  An echoing silence filled the cabin. From his position on his knees behind the sofa, Joe listened. Other than Ann’s labored breathing, there was silence.

  “Clear right?”

  Ty responded with an immediate “Yo.”

  “Clear left?”

  Mike confirmed with a “Yo yo.”

  “Let’s be careful out there.” With his rifle shouldered and sweeping the room, Joe slowly rose to his feet. From their positions, Mike and Ty did the same.

  The open doors had helped clear out the smoke. The furniture and log walls and cabinetry were riddled with bullet holes. Window glass lay shattered and broken everywhere.

  The wind whipped gusts of snow inside, where it melted as soon as it hit the floor.

  “Give me a body count,” Joe said, sweeping the room.

  “One down over here.” Ty knelt to feel a pulse. “Dead tango.”

  “Same goes,” Mike said, checking the pulse at another shooter’s neck.

  “Ann? Bob?”

  “I’m okay,” Robert Tompkins said, his voice weak when Joe reached down and pulled off his hood. He did the same for Ann, then carefully removed the duct tape.

  “Thank God,” she whispered, and started crying.

  Joe squeezed her shoulder and stood, his gaze sweeping the room and coming up one body short.

  Shit. “Where’s the other one?”

  “Right here.”

  He swung around.

  And there stood a man dressed in black. The unnatural bulk of his chest made it clear he was wearing body armor beneath his clothes.

  His shouldered assault rifle was pointed dead center at Joe’s head. “Tell them to drop the weapons. Now.”

  His finger tightened on the trigger.

  Mike and Ty stood frozen, stunned and indecisive.

  “There are three of us and one of you,” Joe pointed out, all of his focus locked on the gunman’s eyes. “With a world of luck, you might get one of us before we double your weight with lead.”

  The shooter’s rifle swung toward the Tompkinses. “True, but I can probably get both of them before you get me. Pretty high breakage for a hostage rescue. Your call,” he said without lifting his aim from Robert’s head.

  Joe had no choice. He gave the guys a clipped nod.

  Behind him, he heard first one AR-15 then the other hit the floor.

  “Kick them over here,” the man snapped.

  Heavy metal skidded across polished pine.

  The shooter kicked the guns behind him, never taking his finger off the trigger, and swung the rifle back toward Joe. “You picked a bad night to piss me off.”

  He sighted down the barrel and drew a bead.

  A shot cracked through the icy stillness.

  The shooter lurched clumsily forward, one step, then two, before his knees folded and he fell face-first on the floor.

  “What the hell?” Mike rushed across the room, then stopped, his jaw dropping.

  Joe was frozen in place, staring at the woman in the open doorway, snow swirling around her slender shoulders, the howling wind whipping her dark hair around her expressionless face.

  Stephanie.

  Her feet were braced wide apart, her arms stretched out straight in front of her.

  And her grip on the Glock was rock-solid steady as a thin curl of smoke spiraled from the muzzle of a fallen U.S. soldier’s pistol.

  26

  The first lady was fond of throwing parties. Dalmage believed he could become fond of the first lady—and she of him—when his appointment inevitably w
ent through.

  He watched her now, standing across the room in front of the three windows that overlooked the south lawn, stunning in a red power dress as she greeted her guests. She was a bright light in the White House’s Blue room with its soft, muted colors and delicate French Empire décor.

  Yes, he knew these things. He’d made it a point early on in his career to be well versed on all things associated with the government, including the White House, where this reception was taking place. The furniture was for the most part original to the room. European beech, compliments of James Monroe. A seventeenth-century French Empire clock with a figure of Hannibal sat on the mantel. Opulent and tasteful.

  It was a heady pleasure to have this knowledge. To be on the guest list for events such as these. And soon, to be a member of the president’s cabinet. The downside was that he had to suffer fools like Bernard Muldoon.

  “Clichés work for a reason,” Senator Muldoon said, dragging Dalmage back to the conversation he’d managed to tune out for a few moments. “To that end, make sure you keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

  Greer smiled, indulging the senior senator from Maryland, who laughed as though he’d invented the line. Christ, the man was a bore. But he knew how to play this game. It was a necessary evil to glad-hand and backslap and feed the monster egos that always snarled for fresh meat on Capitol Hill.

  “I’ll make sure I keep that in mind, Muldoon. Now, excuse me, would you? I need to have a word with Margaret Harris.”

  Extricating himself from that tight little knot of pompous windbags, he cut a direct path toward the defense secretary, pausing momentarily to pull out his phone and check for messages.

  Nothing. Wilson should have reported in by now. He was determined, however, not to let his concern ruin his evening. Accidental deaths took time to orchestrate. And the weather had no doubt caused some travel delays.

  He smiled distractedly as a young woman excused herself to squeeze by him. It was a bit of a crush with all the cabinet members, close personal friends of the president and first lady, and a few honored guests, such as himself, who had caught the president’s eye with their loyalty and dedication to service.