by Ken Douglas
“ Move, move, move,” Lila shouted.
Izzy went left. Lila went right as automatic fire tore up the front of the house, behind where they’d been standing an instant ago.
“ Now,” Lila said and they both started firing into the mist, where they’d imagined the bodyguards would be, where their fire seemed to be coming from. The girls kept firing till their pistols ran dry, twin Annie Oakley’s standing tall, dusters flapping in the wind that seemed to be driving the fog that was upon them now.
“ On the ground!” Lila shouted and Izzy dropped to the grass. “You okay.”
“ Yeah,” Izzy said. “I’m fine.”
“ You reloading?”
“ Yeah.” Izzy ejected her clips, tossed them aside, slapped in new, jacked rounds into the chambers. “I’m good to go. You?”
“ Yeah.” Lila said. “Stay where you are, I’ll crawl to the sound of your voice.”
“ This way,” Izzy said as she saw Lila belly crawling on the grass, coming toward her like a snake, a pair of guns in each hand, deadly as fangs.
Mouledoux had started for the master bath, to look for something to cut the girl’s plastic cuffs off, when all hell broke loose outside. It sounded like combat, like he was back in Kuwait, back in a firefight.
“ Holy shit!” Amy said, when the gunfire stopped. “What was that?”
“ That,” Mouledoux said, “was your grandmother.”
“ She sounds pissed,” Alicia said.
“ It’s never a good thing to get on Nana’s bad side,” Amy said.
“ Sounds like nothing’s changed,” Alicia said. Then to Mouledoux, “Can you get us out of these?”
“ I was just going to see if I could find something to cut them off.” In the bathroom he found a pair of barber’s scissors, which Manny Wayne probably used to trim his sideburns.
“ Can you hurry?” Amy Eisenhower said. “Because these are on too tight and I’m starting to lose sensation in my hands.”
“ Coming.” Back in the closet, he knelt to the floor, cut the cuffs that were binding Amy’s hands behind her back. Then he did her friend Alicia.
“ Much better.” Amy’s hands were white.
“ Give me those.” Alicia took Amy’s hands in her own, started rubbing the circulation back into them. “I seriously need to shoot someone.”
“ I think Amy’s grandmother is pretty much taking care of that,” Mouledoux said.
“ Think we got ’em?” Izzy’s whisper seemed like shouting, so quiet had it become when the shooting stopped.
“ Yeah,” Lila said, “we got ’em.”
“ You don’t think they’re flat on their bellies, like us, waiting?” They were so close to each other, Izzy could taste Lila’s breath and for a brief instant she felt like they were lovers, like their lives were going to be bound together forever.
“ No, I think they’re dead.”
A scream, more terrifying than anything Izzy had ever heard, pierced the fog. Before she could think or react a giant of a man, with arms longer than her legs, kicked Lila in the stomach, sending her flying as he grabbed Izzy with his monster hands, lifting her from the ground.
“ I have her,” the giant wailed.
“ No you don’t, Lugar!” Lila shot him in the chest. One, two, three times, each round barely missing Izzy as she took the giant down. He fell with a thud, arms flaying. Izzy hit the ground hard, holding both Glocks in tight fisted grips as she rolled away.
“ Behind you!” Lila shouted.
Izzy spun her guns around, firing without looking. By the time she’d seen what she’d done, a scrawny, little man with a big Mac 10 was dead on the ground.
“ Good job,” Lila said.
Izzy was breathing like a freight train. She fought to slow it down. Breathing under control, she said. “You knew him, the big man?”
“ I knew them all,” Lila said.
“ Yeah, I guess I forgot.” She took in a deep breath, let it out slowly. “So how we doing?”
“ Tucker’s still out there and he’s sly as a weasel and mean as a rabid dog. He’s not his father, not as sharp and not as cool under stress, but he knows how to use a gun.”
“ So what now?”
“ Thick as soup, this fog.” Glock in hand, Lila held out an arm. The weapon, along with her hand, disappeared in the grey muck. “What is this shit?”
“ Gerald, Weed, Lugar!” Tucker Wayne’s gravel voice pierced through the fog, like it had the strength of a powerful amplifier behind it. “Wilson, Grey, Smith!” A pause. “Call out your positions.”
Silence.
“ Speak of the Devil,” Lila whispered.
“ So, all down but Tucker?” Izzy said.
“ Yeah, sounds like,” Lila said. “I have to do him by myself.”
“ No.”
“ We could shoot each other in this fog,” Lila said. “So it’s best you stay here and stay low, till I finish it.”
“ No.”
“ Don’t have time to argue, Izzy,” Lila said. “You have to stay put and let me do this.”
“ Alright,” Izzy said.
“ Good.” Still flat on the ground, Lila pointed to the left with the forty-five. “The barracks is that way. That’s where he’ll be, inside waiting.”
“ How do you know?”
“ He’s not as brave or as reckless as his father. He’ll be playing it safe. He’s dangerous, but predictable. I’ll call out when I’ve finished it.” Lila started to turn away, when a low hum rumbled through the fog.
“ I can’t figure out where it’s coming from,” Izzy said.
“ It’s everywhere,” Lila said, “like the fog.”
The fog had effectively blinded them and though the rumbling hum hadn’t deafened them, it was getting louder, like a diesel truck coming down the road, till the sound leveled off, like the truck was running full out, but never getting closer.
“ What the-.”
“ Shhh!” Izzy put a finger to Lila’s lips as shots rang out, slamming into the house behind them. Still flat on the ground, Izzy put her mouth to Lila’s ear. “You were too loud, he heard you.” Just two words, that’s all it took for Tucker to zero in on their position. He was good.
Now Lila put her mouth to Izzy’s ear.
“ You go that way,” Lila pointed left, “to the house. Find the girls. They’ll probably be upstairs somewhere. Once I finish with Tucker, I’ll come to you and we’ll get outta here.” She squeezed Izzy’s arm, then pushed herself to her feet.
Izzy got up too and watched as Lila started off into the fog. No way was she going to leave her. So she followed, expecting any second for Lila to turn around and discover her.
Tucker Wayne had barely heard Lila’s voice through the rumbling noise, he let loose a burst from the Mac 10 in the direction he thought it had come from as the noise got louder, loud enough that it made thinking hard. He had to get out of the barracks. If he hadn’t gotten lucky and taken her out, she’d come for him here.
He clenched his hands around the weapon. He hadn’t gotten lucky. She was too good for that.
He killed the lights in the barracks, turning the building dark as the night. Then, easing his grip on the Mac 10, he moved from the front of the small house, through the living room to the small dining room, then the kitchen and on out the backdoor. He knew Lila Booth very well, but as well as he knew her, she knew him. He wasn’t a coward, but he was cautious. She knew that about him. She’d expect him to be in the barracks, so he wouldn’t be.
With a hand trailing the backside of the house, the way a boy would a picket fence, so he wouldn’t lose his way in the fog, Tucker went alongside it to the south side of the barracks. There was an old sycamore off to the right and in front of the barracks. His plan, if he could find it in the fog, was to move to it, hide behind it and, with the Mac 10 on full auto, shoot Lila Booth in the back when she passed by on her way to the barracks.
He moved round the back of the house, with a h
and still trailing it, to the front, then he stepped out into the fog in the direction of the tree he couldn’t see. A few cautious steps and he was there.
But now he had a problem he hadn’t anticipated. He could barely see his hand when he held it out in front of himself, much less the barracks or the main house, which was where he’d imagined Lila would be coming from.
And she would be coming. Of that he was sure. When he’d called out to his dad’s men and got no reply, he’d known she’d prevailed and they were dead. Probably Peeps and the old man as well. He was on his own and he’d need a lot of luck to survive this night.
If only that damn noise would stop and if only the bloody fog would lift.
And as if Satan himself had heard his wish, the rumbling noise quit and it was quiet, like sound didn’t exist. He couldn’t even hear his own breath. And while he was marveling at that, the fog started to dissipate and in seconds it was little more than a haze and sure enough coming through the fog like she didn’t have a care in the world was Lila Booth, looking like a wraith in the mist with that duster and a pistol in each hand.
He could shoot her down now, but the slightest movement on his part would trigger a barrage of bullets. She was panther quick and panther deadly, waiting till she passed and was at the barracks would be the safer bet. The last thing he wanted was to face her head on. That would be suicide.
Izzy had been going in the general direction Lila had set out on. She’d imagined she was only three or four yards behind, but with the diesel like noise that seemed to be coming from everywhere and the blasted fog, she couldn’t be sure.
The noise stopped.
Izzy did too.
The fog started to fade.
Lila was about fifty feet in front of her and off to the left. Izzy had been going almost in the right direction, but not quite.
The cloak of invisibility vanishing, Izzy dropped to the ground as Lila broke right, sprinting like she was running for the tape. In seconds she was at the right side of the small house that Manny Wayne had dubbed as “the barracks.” If Tucker Wayne had been in there, he’d’ve seen her, but he hadn’t shot her.
How come?
And in the flick of an instant Izzy answered herself.
He wasn’t in there.
How come Lila couldn’t see that?
If Tucker wasn’t in the small house, where was he? Izzy looked over to the main house. It faced to the southwest, the barracks was off to its right and about a half a football field in front of it, affording Manny Wayne plenty of privacy while having his security guards not that far away. Could they have missed Tucker when they’d swept through the main house? Could he have been upstairs?
Izzy didn’t see any signs of life over there, so she didn’t think so, because if he’d been there with one of those machine pistols, he’d’ve cut Lila down.
She turned her attention back to the small house. It looked almost like the house she’d grown up in with her parents. It faced to the northeast, had a large bay window dead center in the front of the house, a window to it’s right, which in the house she’d grown up in would have been her bedroom, who knew what use it was put to here. And also like the house she’d loved, there was a front porch on the left, no porch swing here. Izzy imagined a living room on the other side of the front door, but that’s as far as her imagination would take here. This wasn’t the cozy little house she’d loved. There wasn’t any love here. This was a cold place.
Looking at the two houses, Izzy wondered why neither was built facing the northwest, where they’d’ve had a view of downtown Reno and it’s colorful lights. She couldn’t imagine a better view than that. Instead the main house faced the massive front yard which, other than a couple large trees, had nothing spectacular about it, except for the ugly fence that surrounded the property. The view from the barracks took in those trees as well as the main house. It was almost as if Manny Wayne didn’t want to acknowledge the world outside his domain and almost as if he didn’t care about beauty. It was all so desolate and with the exception of those two trees, barren.
Attention back on the small house, Izzy saw that Lila was in motion. Like herself, Lila dropped to the ground. Then she belly crawled along the front of the house. She was snake fast as she slithered under the window on the right, then under the bay window. Once past the windows she pushed herself to her feet, a pistol still in each hand with the one in her left pointed at the front door, like she’d expected Tucker to come bursting out of it.
But Tucker wasn’t in there. How come she couldn’t she see that?
Lila stood to the side of the door, aimed at the doorknob. She was going to blast it apart, but before she could fire, a man stepped out from behind the tree closest to the house.
Izzy shot him through the back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
With the girls free it was all Mouledoux could do to keep them from charging out of the relative, but temporary, safety of the bedroom.
“ We don’t know what’s going on down there,” he said.
“ But we know we don’t want to stay here,” Amy Eisenhower said.
“ Yeah, we know that,” her friend Alicia seconded.
A rolling sound, almost like distant thunder, filled the room. Earthquake was Mouledoux’s first thought. However, as the sound continued, he knew it was something else.
But before he got a chance to wonder about it a burst of automatic fire cut through the resonating sound. For a minute or so he’d thought it might be all over and when the rumbling ceased and a single shot rang out, he knew it was.
Eisenhower and Booth had killed them all and he was next on the list. He pulled his weapon. “I’ll go and see what’s what. You two stay till I get back.”
“ No way,” Alicia said.
“ Yeah, no way,” Amy echoed.
“ I can’t go out there with the two of you,” Mouledoux said, but if he wanted to survive this night, that was exactly what he should do. However, in the oft chance he was wrong, that Manny Wayne and his men had prevailed, then going down there with them would be suicide.
It was a tough decision. If he went down without the girls and encountered Eisenhower or Booth, they’d shoot first and ask no questions. If he went down with them and Wayne and his men were the victors, same thing. He bet on the women.
“ Okay, we’re going down, but I want you two to stay behind me and do exactly as I say.”
“ Yes, sir?” Amy said.
***
Mansfield Wayne groaned as he came to. And though he was in kind of a sleep fog, he was racked in pain. His back felt like the skin had been ripped off. The back of his head hurt like there was no tomorrow. His heart was racing out of control. He couldn’t breathe out of his nose, which was radiating pain.
He felt like he was going to die.
But then again, he was dying, so with an effort most couldn’t muster, he blocked out the pain and tried to focus, which became a lot easier when he’d heard the gunfire from outside. That brought him instantly alert. Still on the carpet, he looked for his pistol, spied the magnum under his desk, crawled to it, grasped it and forced himself into a sitting position, when he’d heard a single gunshot.
Then silence.
“ I thought I told you to go to the main house to find the girls.” Lila stepped off the porch, came toward Izzy with a block wide grin as she holstered her weapons. Izzy thought she looked like an angel.
“ You’re not the boss of me.”
“ Apparently not.”
The fog was gone now and it was quiet, not even a breeze. It was as if the fog and the noise had come of their own accord and had come as allies. Job done and no longer needed, they’d gone.
“ Let’s go find your girls,” Lila said.
“ That’s got my vote.”
Mouledoux was at the bedroom door, about to step out into the hallway, when he got an idea. He turned to the girls.
“ Instead of going down there and maybe getting killed, I think we should m
ove to the bedroom down the hall.”
“ Why?” Amy said.
“ We can wait there till we see who comes up after you. If it’s your grandmother, then all is good. If it’s the Waynes, I’ll be behind them, with this.” He held up his thirty-eight, waggled it. “I’ll have the drop on them.”
“ I don’t like that idea,” Alicia said.
“ Me neither,” Amy said. “I’d rather we just went on down there and if it’s the bad guys, you just shoot ’em.”
“ What?”
“ That way, if Nana is still out there and still alive, you can help.”
“ Yeah,” Alicia said. “She might need our help. So let’s go.”
“ Alright.” And with his weapon in front of him, Mouledoux stepped out into the hallway. He turned back to the girls, who were right on his tail and whispered. “Let’s be real quiet, okay?”
They nodded and he led them toward the stairs.
Manny Wayne was as alert as he’d ever been when he heard the front door open. Who was it, the women or Tucker and his men?
His office door, which led into the foyer, was wide open. Cat quick and cat quiet, he moved behind it, peering through the crack between the door and the wall as Lila Booth and Isadora Eisenhower came through the front door.
He held his breath, willed himself to be quiet, silent as the two women passed by. They were both wearing the dusters that Lila liked and their weapons were holstered. It was over, they’d finished it.
He had grossly underestimated Lila and the Eisenhower woman. How could he have made such a mistake? He tightened his grip on the magnum. They were all dead, Tucker too. Lila would have made sure of that. She must’ve come upon him and Peeps and mistakenly thought he was dead as well. That was her mistake and the last one she was ever going to make.
He moved out behind the women, magnum in hand. It was time for Lila Booth to die. He pointed the big gun at her back, but he couldn’t pull the trigger, couldn’t shoot her in the back, because even after all she’d done, how she’d betrayed him, he was Manny Wayne and back shooting wasn’t his style. Besides, he wanted her to know where it was coming from.