“That’s all, no other guns!” Dale snapped, remaining resolutely face-down.
Mark turned left in order to pull up alongside the gara—the car bucked as a rear wheel sank into a puddle—
“Turn over,” Rarey ordered Dale.
“I don’t have another gu—”
The car fishtailed out of the puddle—Mark released the gas pedal and turned into the skid, the car slowing but slewing sideways in slippery muck, as—
A definitively unnatural BAM-WHOOSHHH erupted from the forest and something flashed through the space the car had just been in, nicked a fender and caromed into the tool shed, which blew up.
“RPG!” a SWAT yelled on the headset—
A shitstorm of automatic weapons fire erupted.
One Hundred-Nineteen | 2012
Mark floors it wheels spin impotent then bite and the car leaps bullets hiss out of the darkness from both sides and punch through sheet metal Rarey gasps in pain the windshield disintegrates Mark drives head down into the gap between the cabin and the burning shed stomps the brakes the car skids to a muddy stop with the front bumper nosed out past the rear of the cabin but the car’s sheltered by the cabin on the left and burning shed on the right—
Mark and Doonie threw their doors open—“OUT!”—Mark bellowed at Dale, who was kissing the floor. Rarey writhed on the back seat clutching a leg, groaning loud enough to cut through the thrum of rain on the car and the warnings-orders-curses-howls filling Mark’s headset, and the cluttered chatter of assault rifles hammering at each other, punctuated by the roar of a shotgun, Husak’s alive—
Mark yanked the rear driver’s-side door open, hauled out Dale, who flattened himself against the rear fender, crouched low.
Mark started to rush to the other side of the car, where Doonie was dragging Rarey out of the back seat and onto the muddy ground.
An RPG exploded into the far side of the cabin but the shockwave sent Mark sprawling flimsy as a sheet of paper, the cabin shuddered, the windows blew out, bits of glass showering the men but washing away in the downpour that was soaking them.
Dale was hugging mud. Mark grabbed Dale’s arm—“Move!”—and dragged him around to the passenger side.
Rarey was shot in the thigh. Doonie was putting a tourniquet on—
Mark shoved Dale to Doonie and yelled, “Get him—” Stop! Someone’s listening in, only way the shooters could’ve known where—Mark tore off his headset, then pulled Doonie’s off and hissed, “Get Dale into the woods,” pointing to the forest behind the cabin—only way open, shooters would be converging from both sides of the driveway. “I’ll take Rarey!”
Doonie looked at Rarey, then Mark. But resisted the urge to shoot Dale so he could help carry the kid. Doonie hustled Dale into the dark sloppy woods.
Mark yanked Rarey’s headset off and went to slide his arm under him—
“Go!” Rarey screamed, “You can’t fucking carry me—GO!” Rarey shoved Mark away, rolled onto his stomach and dragged himself under the car. Snarled, “Don’t lose my witness!”
“Shhh!” Mark hissed—the downpour was dousing the burning shed but the wounded flames threw enough light to reveal glimpses of three men wearing Kevlar, headsets and night vision goggles—which hopefully would be blinded by the flames if they looked Mark’s way. Mark crouched, kneeling by the front fender. The shooters were to Mark’s right, moving through the trees—in the direction Doonie and Dale had gone—Mark would be able to come up behind the shooters, but would have to get close enough to make sure he didn’t waste bullets on their body armor. Mark took a breath and start—
“Whoa-fuck!” accompanied the guish-guish-guish of feet scrabbling to regain balance in mud, followed by the thump of a body whacking into the back wall of the cabin—to Mark’s left, very close. The three shooters to his right were following the infrared signatures fleeing into the woods, correctly betting one was Dale—but this other shooter was coming from the left to check the car.
Mark went dead still. Seriously outgunned. Surprise and getting the first shot would have to do it—
The shooter stepped out from behind the cabin, scanning the shot-up car and the open space alongside the driver’s side—he moved forward, in front of the car, toward the passenger side where Mark was crouched—
Frantic blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blams exploded next to Mark and the shooter toppled screaming as hollowpoints from underneath the car shattered his ankles and, as he hit the ground, slammed into his arm and ripped through his throat and he shuddered and gurgled and stopped moving. Rarey’s revenge.
Mark came out from behind the fender, checked the shooter’s neck for a pulse. The artery throbbed twice then didn’t.
“Good one,” Mark complimented the underside of the car.
“Thank you,” the underside of the car replied. “Go!”
Mark took the shooter’s AR-15. Patted him down—shit—bastard was out of ammo clips. Mark yanked the night vision goggles off the bastard’s head and rushed into the woods.
Rushed fast as he could without taking a header. The goggles reversed darkness into visibility, but it was dimly glowing negative outlines of trees and brush, blurred by wet lenses. And the forest floor was a treacherous pudding—
A burst from an automatic weapon somewhere up ahead, distant muzzle flashes flaring in Mark’s goggles—
A four-shot reply from a handgun—Doonie—
All three assault rifles opened up—
Mark ran, slipping, lurching, but pounding forward—there!—Shooter One, his pale glowing back to Mark, firing into the darkness—
Mark tripped over a tree root, fell, crashing loudly into a bush, rolled off of it, bounced back up and—
A spray of bullets decimated the bush Mark had just been in—
Fired by Shooter Two, a glowing figure twenty yards to Mark’s left—Mark loosed a burst at Shooter Two and the figure vanished behind a tree and Mark wheeled toward Shooter One—who was raising his weapon at Mark—
Mark’s rifle spat first, Shooter One went down—
Mark dropped to his knees as Shooter Two slid out from behind his tree and opened up. Mark scooted to the side, popped up and his rifle dry-fired, empty—
Mark hit the dirt as another cloud of lead sizzled past. He dropped the useless rifle, pulled his handgun, heard Shooter Two pop an empty clip, snap in a new one, and, grunting with exertion, start bashing through a thick stand of brush that separated him from Mark.
Mark quick-crawled behind the nearest tree, pulled himself to his feet and ran. Shooter Two snapped off short bursts—Mark zig-zagged, bent low—
He caught a glimpse of a glowing figure forty yards ahead—Shooter Three, taking aim at him—
Mark dove—
Shooters Two and Three opened up—
Mark hugged mud, the crossfire chopped a sapling in half, slugs ricocheted off trees and rocks, the sapling crashed, a ricochet ripped into the mud inches from Mark’s eye, the firing stopped and the shooters closed in from either side. Mark scrambled to his feet and hustled out from between the converging shooters. Took a quick look back—spotted Shooter Three—Mark snapped off two shots, Shooter Three ducked, Mark ran and Shooter Two opened up at Mark from the other side—
Mark hit the deck but there wasn’t a deck—Mark tumbled down a steep slope—his gun hand slammed into a rock, the gun went flying, Mark kept tumbling, brambles gouged the side of his head and tore the goggles off.
He slid to a stop, beaten bloody by the foliage. His gun hand stiffening swelling hurting bad. Not that he had a gun. And he couldn’t see shit in the rain and dark. He started crawling back up the slope, groping at the ground, maybe he’d get lucky, find the fucking thing—
He heard a harsh whisper, one of the shooters talking into his headset—
Mark froze…
A short burst tore past at steep angle, the shooter firing down from the top of the slope—
Mark rolled away, got up and ran a few steps, dove and hit the
ground crawling fast as he could—
A large dark thing loomed in front of him. Fallen tree. Mark scrambled around the end of the trunk, a tangle of upended roots grasping at nothing. Dove behind it, putting the tree trunk between him and the shooter’s night vision, and crawled fast—
The top of Mark’s head bumped into something hard, metal, round—gun muzzle—he froze.
Nothing.
Slowly raised his head. The gun was in a hand at the end of an outstretched arm—Mark grabbed the hand—Doonie. Flat on his back, not moving—Mark surged forward, felt Doonie’s neck—found a pulse.
Too fucking dark to see where Doon was hit—Mark ran a hand under Doonie’s vest. No chest or gut wound. Mark touched Doonie’s head. Sticky warm ooze coated Doon’s forehead—
Cursing and thrashing—one of the shooters losing his footing on the slope Mark had tumbled down.
Mark extracted the gun from Doonie’s hand. Doon had fired four rounds; six left. Mark fished two clips out of Doonie’s pocket.
Checked Doonie’s pulse again.
The term cold rage never made sense to Mark. Now it was him and he was it. Solidified. Pure.
Didn’t make Mark able get a useful grip on the gun with his swollen right hand. But it steeled him enough to will that hand to grasp a flashlight—
One of the shooters murmured into his headset. Easier for Mark to hear now, the rain had thinned to a drizzle, lot less noisy. So was the firefight back at the cabin. The ferocity was leaking out of it, the shooting no longer non-stop. One side was winning.
Mark heard footsteps squishing towards the downed tree. He let the shooter get closer—
Mark sprang up, switching on the flashlight—
The shooter’s peripheral vision caught Mark’s movement but the flashlight glared in his goggles as he swung his gun in Mark’s direction—
Mark put two slugs in the shooter’s groin, because the torso was armored and Mark was in no shape to gamble on a left-handed head shot. The shooter dropped. Mark scrambled over the tree and got close enough so the head shot was no gamble. Put the writhing beast out of its misery but didn’t have time to take its assault rifle because Shooter Three was slamming his way down the slope—
Mark ran. Bullets followed. They went wide. Shooter Three stopped firing and concentrated on catching up. Good, Mark wanted to get him the hell away from Doonie—
Another swarm of bullets—one gashed Mark’s left arm and he fell. But there was a large tree a few feet ahead. Mark crawled around behind it. Stood. Felt for his flashlight—gone. Couldn’t repeat that trick. He waited. Clutching Doonie’s gun in his left hand, his swollen painful right hand steadying the left as best it could. Three rounds. Couldn’t put in a new clip; Shooter Three was close enough to hear that, because Mark could hear him.
Cautious footsteps in sucking mud.
Pain sizzled in the wound on Mark’s left arm. The arm began to tremble.
The steps paused, Shooter Three stopping to pan around with his night vision—
BrraaAAAAFFF!—a huge terrified fart from directly above, in the tree—
Mark sprang out from behind the tree just as Shooter Three, six feet away, began to walk a burst of bullets up through the branches—
Mark cranks two shots, one misses and one takes a chunk out of the base of the guy’s neck, he spins and topples, trigger finger locked, rifle yammering till it runs dry—
Mark rushes forward to get close enough to make sure his last shot—
Shooter Three, on the ground, lashes out with his empty rifle, sweeping it at Mark’s legs—
Mark fires the same moment the rifle whips into his ankle, Mark’s bullet kills mud as he goes down hard and the empty gun bounces out of his hand—
Mark lands on his back and the guy, gushing blood but not dead yet, is on top of Mark, straddling him, pressing the rifle against Mark’s windpipe, gripping the rifle with both hands and leaning into it, Mark is pushing back, trying to twist the barrel off his throat and he can’t, he grabs at the guy’s face, trying to find an eye, the guy jerks his head out of Mark’s reach, Mark’s gagging now, not enough oxygen left to do anything but yank the fighting knife out of the scabbard on the guy’s leg and jam the knife under the Kevlar vest, shoving the serrated blade in and yanking it back and forth, the guy is roaring, insane with agony, but still crushing Mark’s throat, until Mark rips the blade out of the guy’s guts, swings it up hard and buries the knife in his ear. The guy pukes blood in Mark’s face but he does die. Even slides off to the side as he collapses, so Mark, gagging, gasping for air, only has to struggle a little to shove the corpse off.
Mark laid there, wiping blood off his face with his shirtsleeve, waiting for the pain in his throat to subside enough so he could try standing up. It didn’t, so he stood up anyway.
“You didn’t kill me, asshole.”
Shooter One, the first guy Mark had brought down, from a distance. Now Shooter One was only ten feet away, leaning against a tree, needing it, one arm hanging useless. But his other was aiming something at Mark.
Mark still had the knife in his hand. Slowly raised it. Instinct.
Shooter One’s face was in darkness but there was an acid grin in his voice: “C’mon, do it. Come get me. Give you two steps before I sh—”
Shooter One lurched forward as a bullet hit the back of his skull. Stumbled almost like a live man before he splayed face-down.
Mark waited for the arrival of whoever—wait—he didn’t hear the shot—silencer? Or not, his ears were ringing and his head was throbbing, maybe he missed the bang.
He stared into the darkness where the shot came from. Nobody showed. Mark leaned down and stripped the night vision goggles off the corpse—
“FREEZE!”
From behind him.
Husak’s voice.
Mark tried to speak but only produced throat pain.
“Hands on your head! Hands on your head!”
Mark did that. Still holding the goggles.
“What’s in your hand?! Show me what’s—Bergman? Mark?”
Mark nodded, and turned around.
Made out dim outlines of Husak and two SWATs, wearing night vision, hurrying towards him.
“You hurt?” Husak asked.
Mark pointed up into the tree and forced himself to croak, “Dale.”
Husak and the SWATs looked up—
Mark grabbed Husak, rasped, “Doonie’s down!” put on the dead man’s goggles and started limping fast as he could in what he hoped was the right direction.
One Hundred-Twenty | 2012
Doonie’s skull wasn’t fractured, just chipped. He’d been at a dead run when he took two slugs in the back. The Kevlar held but the impact launched him headfirst into a branch. Knocked him cold. Caused the concussion that saved his life. If Doonie had been conscious he would’ve resumed shooting and the three guys with assault rifles would’ve shredded him.
Soon as Mark knew Doonie would be okay, he’d emailed Phyl, saying he couldn’t talk. (Didn’t say why). A while later Husak phoned Phyl with details about Doon’s imminent (relatively) minor surgery.
Mark got his shoulder sewn up, and his neck and throat scanned for structural damage—negative, despite the wide swathe of ugly bruises across his throat. One side of his face was badly scratched. Mark’s right hand (bashed by a rock) had a cracked bone. His left ankle (bashed by a rifle barrel) was ugly but not broken. He could sort of walk. So after four hours of sleep he swallowed a breakfast pain pill and went back to the cabin to debrief the FBI on the firefight.
• • •
It was early evening by the time Mark returned to the Rockford trauma center where the team was being treated.
Phyl was standing by Doonie’s bed when Mark limped in, croaked, “Hi,” and gave the strapping, strong-featured woman a tender kiss on the cheek.
Phyl registered his limp, his voice, face, purple-black neck, contused right hand, the sling on his left arm. Gave Mark a pained and scoldin
g look, then gave him an emotional but very careful hug.
“So,” Doonie asked, “the fuck’s goin’ on with your throat?”
“What gave me away?” Mark deadpanned, his voice a rusty cement mixer.
“Lucky guess. The fuck happened?”
Mark glanced at Phyl. Shrugged. “Not much. Looks worse than it is.”
Phyl arched her eyebrows: Don’t you give me that let’s protect the little lady shit.
Mark said, “Guy tried to crush my throat with his rifle.”
Phyl gave a short sharp moan as the image hit her. Then she hit Mark, a jab to his healthy shoulder.
“I love you too,” Mark replied.
“And that?” Doonie asked, pointing at the sling.
“Shoulder got nicked. How you feeling?”
“How do I look?” Doonie’s skull was swathed in mummy wrap, with a bulge on his forehead from the padded bandage where the bone chip had been extracted. His complexion was light gray and his speech had a sedative furriness.
“No worse than usual.”
“Right. So you believe the fuckin’ doctor says I can’t have a fuckin’ drink for a fuckin’ month?”
“You so much as look at a beer,” Phyl vowed, “I will do things to your skull that fucking tree can only dream of.”
“She thinks it’s better I get hooked on the painkillers,” Doonie complained.
“Smart,” Mark complimented Phyl, putting his good arm around her. “We can shove him into rehab, not have him underfoot the next coupla months.”
Doonie’s eyes narrowed. “You two been messin’ around?”
“Since the day we met,” Phyl assured him.
“What I figured. How’s Rarey?”
Mark said, “Busted thigh bone, lost some blood, but he’s young. Killed a guy.”
“Hunh,” a pleasantly surprised grunt. “Husak?”
“Cracked rib where bullets hit his vest. And he got kissed on the cheek. Gonna have a sexy dueling scar.”
“Husak sexy? Not enough scars in the world. And the dipshit?”
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