Brushfire Plague

by R. P. Ruggiero

  “Roll up the windows,” Angela called. Dranko had them all cracked a bit to allow the night air in and prevent fogging of the windows. As if conjured by her mention, Dranko and Cooper both could now smell what Angela had already. The mixture of odors that assaulted them was a contradiction of allurement and repugnance. The nostalgic wood smoke, reminiscent of fireplaces and campfires, abutted sharply against the acrid smell of tires and other plastics burning. Most disturbing was that the sickly sweet smell of flesh burning mixed with the cavalcade of aromas.

  “Maybe it’s just animals,” Dranko offered weakly as he pushed buttons to close the windows up tightly.

  ******

  The road that led to Mitchell’s home was lonely, with homes spread out amidst the forest. Cooper pulled the car off into a pullout and they quickly gathered their gear from the car. They disappeared into the woods. They made their way slowly and carefully in the near total darkness. The moon was at half-strength and her light battled mightily to peak through the towering trees above. Mostly, she failed.

  Cooper picked his way carefully through the woods, taking each step in time. He carried a small flashlight with a red filter on it, but he used this with great caution. He was thankful that after only a few hundred yards, he was able to find a small clearing that was completely hidden from the road.

  “Let’s post up here. Change your clothing and we’ll begin moving towards Mitchell’s from here. He felt their heads nod.

  The soft swishing noise of clothing moving was all that was heard as the three of them changed into the darker clothes they would wear in the assault on Mitchell’s home.

  “It’s not a hot cup of joe, but it’ll do,” he heard Dranko say, pressing his hands toward theirs. Cooper felt something fall into his palms and he popped them into his mouth, tasting the delicious chocolate-covered espresso beans. He gobbled down a dozen or more, grateful for the caffeine rush. Angela murmured softly, “Mmm….”

  Within seconds, they were moving again, leaving their unneeded clothing behind. The dark woods seemed to close in and swallow them up. Perfect cover for an approach though. About halfway there, they came to a stream that ran bubbling across their path.

  Cooper pulled Angela close and breathed into her ear, “You follow this up to the road, cross it, get on the reverse slope and then move the last quarter-mile to take up position across from Mitchell’s home. Take your first shot in fifteen minutes. Exactly, OK? Be careful.”

  Her hair brushed his cheek in a rapid up and down motion as she nodded. She found his ear, “You too.” She gave him a kiss on his cheek and then disappeared into the dark. Cooper pushed aside the warmth that flushed across his face. He stared after her into the dark, until her shadow disappeared.

  He and Dranko resumed moving, climbing slowly up a hillside that would bring them to the west side of Mitchell’s estate. Their breathing was rhythmic as they fell into a deliberate climb. Cooper didn’t risk using the penlight at all now, and so they picked their way carefully amidst the underbrush. Here, a loud crash to the ground on a tangled root could prove catastrophic.

  Soon, between the trees, they could see the lights from Mitchell’s home. It was a well-lit area, covered by floodlights. Cooper recounted the layout from the photographs: a large central mansion that must have covered five thousand square feet, a guest home about one-quarter of that, a garage as big as Cooper’s home, and two other small outbuildings would dot the grounds. Twin tennis courts were to the south of the main home. An enormous swimming pool was to its west. As they moved closer, they could see the buildings come in and out of view as they moved between trees and up and down small rises in the ground.

  They were probably a hundred yards from the edge of the woods when a shot rang out from where Angela would have been positioned. A loud yell of pain responded from in front of them. Cooper glared down at his watch. The illuminated dial screamed back at him. She was three minutes early!

  “Damn!” he let out a whispered curse.

  They began double-timing it through the woods. Cooper decided that speed mattered more than stealth, and flicked on his red-filtered flashlight so they could see the ground in front of them.

  A second shot thundered from their left and this time they heard shattering glass, but no shrieks of pain. Dranko grunted next to him as a shin smashed into an unseen rock. They were both breathing hard. Covering wooded, uneven ground at breakneck speed, while carrying weapons, ammunition, and body armor was taking its toll.

  An alarm sounded from the Mitchell home, just as Cooper and Dranko made it to the tree line.

  A third shot from Angela found home as another painful shout came from near the garage to their left. About twenty yards in front of them was the first outbuilding they planned to leapfrog to. Dranko already had the M16 unslung from his back, aimed at a guard he saw on the balcony, and waited expectantly for Cooper.

  Cooper deployed the shotgun, welcoming the heavy weight of steel in his hands. He pushed the safety to “off”, scanned the ground in front of him, and sprinted to the building. He heard Dranko’s M16 crack from behind him a moment after he began running. A loud yell, followed two seconds later by a loud thud told him Dranko’s shot had found its mark. His boots kicked up forest duff as he ran, his heart pounding in his chest, and lungs sucking in the cold, stinging, air.

  As he approached the outbuilding, the lone door swung open. A guard wearing black military-style clothing and carrying a pistol on his hip emerged. He bore a grim look of determination on his face; ready to do his duty and defend the Mitchell estate. He saw Cooper and the looming shotgun barrel. A look of shock rocketed across his face. He grabbed at the pistol and yanked it from his holster. In the long silence that precipitated death, the Velcro fastener that held the weapon sounded like angry lightning tearing across the sky.

  Cooper fired from his hip, never breaking stride. At this range, there was no way to miss. If he’d had time, he would have felt pity. The guard only had a scant second to open his mouth wide in shock, before all nine pellets of 00 Buck blasted him squarely in the chest. His body was thrown back a few feet, where he slammed into the building. His body slowly slumped to the ground, leaving a dark streak along the wall. Instinctively, Cooper racked the shotgun’s slide to chamber another shell.

  He crashed into the wall. Without wasting a moment, he used the barrel of the shotgun to open the door all the way, flicked on the powerful flashlight attached to the barrel, and swept the small room inside. A bank of monitors adjoined a small desk, but no one else was inside. Cooper took a moment to scan the monitors. He found what he was looking for quickly: a bedraggled and silk pajama-clad Mitchell being ushered into a vault-like office by two armed guards, who looked nervously about them as they moved. Cooper studied the other monitors and was able to determine that the room they were in led off from the library which, in turn, was off the main hallway.

  Cooper withdrew his head from the guardroom and slithered to the corner of the building. He looked up and around. Something slammed him in the shoulder, spinning him back and around behind the building. It took Cooper a second to realize that he’d just been shot. He plunged a hand underneath the body armor and thanked God when it came back dry. The pain was already beginning to throb in his shoulder, but he ignored it. He rotated his shoulder quickly to verify that no bones had been broken.

  He heard Dranko heave his body into the shelter of the building just as he pushed the barrel of the shotgun past the wall and fired two shots in rapid succession. He fired into the area where he believed whoever shot him had done so. Hearing no shots in return, he snapped his head out and back to take in a quick view. The fleeting image of a guard slumped over a railing that ringed a large open porch told him what he needed to know. He quickly fished three shells from his pocket and reloaded the shotgun as Dranko inched his way toward him.

  “No surprise here, eh brother?”

  “None. It’s bum rush time. It’s twenty yards to the house, cover me!”


  Cooper didn’t wait for a response, but simply gathered his legs up underneath him and ran full speed at the body of the man that had just shot him. His shoulder cried out in protest as it rocked back and forth cradling the weight of the shotgun. Halfway there, a bullet made a loud “zing” noise as it zoomed past, just inches from his head. From behind him, Dranko let loose a three-round burst. Someone above him emitted a dull “oof.” Cooper didn’t bother looking up, thankful he’d made it to the porch without injury. He jumped over the low fence rail that circled the porch and slid up against the wall. Coming to a stop, he scanned the surrounding area, shotgun at the ready. Fifty yards away, he saw three guards racing in the direction of Angela’s position. He heard another loud report and saw the muzzle flash out of the corner of his eye. One of the guards toppled to the ground, smashing his face into the dirt. He came up clutching his leg. The other two pressed onward. I hope she retreats to safety soon.

  To his left, he saw Dranko sprint from the outbuilding. He didn’t have a view of the second story, but assumed Dranko had looked it over good before running. No one else was in their vicinity paying attention to them. No sooner had Dranko thudded home next to him, than Cooper began a rapid duck-walk along the wall. He wanted to make sure his head didn’t rise above the wall and be silhouetted against the window. His quadriceps began protesting loudly at such unusual exertion and Cooper cursed Mitchell for owning such an enormous home.

  This side of the home was over fifty yards long. It felt like an eternity to Cooper before he reached the wall’s end. He stretched himself flat on the ground and used his feet to push half his body past the wall, facing to his right. His instincts proved correct.

  A pair of guards stood on either side of the massive door that led into Mitchell’s home. The one closest to him held an M16 at the ready, looking to his left. Stupidly, his gaze was transfixed at head height. When Cooper came out at ground level, it took him a long second to see the movement and begin to react. By then it was too late.

  Cooper’s shotgun blast hit him just below the hip and angled upward. From only fifty feet away, the shell devastated him. He fell to the ground immediately, spewing blood in a wide arc. Cooper racked another shell into the chamber and pointed the barrel at the other guard who stood just a few feet further from his recently dispatched co-worker.

  From behind the barrel, Cooper saw the guard’s eyes fly wide open in shock and fear. His M16 clattered to the ground as he raised his hands above his head in surrender.

  From the ground, Cooper used the shotgun to indicate the pistol strapped to his side, “Drop it!” he screamed.

  The guard’s hands were shaking as he slowly removed the pistol and dropped it to the ground.

  “Now, run home and don’t you dare turn around!” The guard nodded quickly, turned on his heels and fled.

  He heard another spray of gunfire from behind him and swung his head around. A guard, partially concealed behind the mammoth garage, pitched forward and fell to the ground. A lazy trail of smoke drifted upward from Dranko’s muzzle.

  The two men quickly assembled on either side of the door that led into Mitchell’s home. Cooper told him what he’d learned on Mitchell’s whereabouts inside from the guardhouse monitors. Cooper took the grenade from his chest pocket and showed it to Dranko, who nodded in the affirmative.

  Cooper pulled the pin while Dranko pulled back on the door to open it just wide enough for Cooper to roll the grenade inside. The door’s movement caused angry bursts of gunfire from within, which splintered the wood. Cooper released the trigger on the grenade, and rolled it as deeply as he could into the room. Then, they pulled the doors tightly closed once more.

  A deafening explosion soon followed. The concussion forced the massive oak doors to push outward, rocking Cooper’s and Dranko’s shoulders. The pair wasted no time in pulling the doors wide open and, from a prone position, sprayed the room with several shotgun blasts and a full magazine from the M16.

  The two men surveyed the room as they reloaded. It was thick with smoke from the gunfire and the grenade. Much of the room was obscured. An enormous chandelier had been half-wrecked from the grenade, but the remaining half still showered light into the room. They saw two bodies on the ground, about fifteen feet part, but neither moved. Dranko methodically fired two rounds into each one. The bodies twitched under the impact, but no more. That guy is thorough, Cooper mused.

  An ornate, marble staircase led up to their left, while a long hallway beckoned to them just past the foyer. As they moved forward, Cooper couldn’t resist chuckling at the sight of a statue of Venus with bullet holes stitched across her chest. I guess losing your arms to the ravages of antiquity was not enough, he thought sardonically.

  ******

  From the monitors, Cooper was unsure which doorway off the hallway led to the room where Mitchell was huddled with his guards. However, he knew that it wouldn’t be the first couple of doors and that it was past the midpoint of the long corridor. He motioned for Dranko to follow him. As he did, he heard a flurry of gunfire from a distance, in the direction where Angela had posted up. I hope you have already run off, Angela.

  Cooper moved like a cat, slouched, fast, and silent, as he slinked down the hall. Valuable paintings lined the walls. Various portraits of kings, queens, famous artists, and faeries looked down upon the two black-clad men skulking past. Cooper would have sworn he saw their expressions turn to disgust as they did so.

  When he reached the first door on the left that could have possibly led to Mitchell’s room he paused and readied himself for the entry. Dranko let out a low whistle. Cooper paused without looking back.

  “Camera, end of hallway. Assume we are under observation, brother,” he whispered, just loud enough for Cooper to hear.

  Damn! They’re watching us. No surprise here. Any entry they made now would be known and predictable by their opponents. It made getting through the door alive virtually impossible. He knew what had been decent odds for success had just turned much, much worse.

  Suddenly, he had an idea. He hoped the artwork were originals, as he suspected.

  His voice rang out loud, echoing down the hallway, “Mitchell, come out! I’m not here to hurt you! I just want to talk! If you don’t, you’ll be very upset in ten seconds…nine….”

  Cooper kept glancing from one door to the next, unsure which of the half dozen that Mitchell—or his armed guards—might emerge.

  He reached “one” without any movement from in front of him. Cooper raised his shotgun, leveled it at the nearest work of art and wrecked it with a blast of 00 Buck. Expensive art made Rorschach by pellet holes. Slowly, deliberately, he inserted a fresh shell into the Remington. He thought he’d heard a shriek of terror just after firing, but was unsure if it had been his ears playing tricks on him.

  He called out again, “You’ve got a lot of great art out here, Mitchell. I’m sure you are fond of it. Come on out!”

  Seconds ticked by with no response. So, Cooper began counting again, “Ten…nine…eight…”

  Mitchell’s voice was made tinny by the intercom, “You will guarantee my safety Mr. Adams?”

  Cooper responded to the ether, “Yes, I will. I’m not here to kill you, just to talk.”

  More seconds passed and then the suction sound of a vacuum-sealed door opening came from the second door on the right. Mitchell stepped out, resplendent in a custom-tailored black suit.

  “And your guards?” Cooper called out.

  “You didn’t include them in our negotiations, Mr. Adams. They will not be coming out. They are my insurance policy, if you will. If you kill me, at least you know you will have others to deal with.”

  The man’s arrogance grated on Cooper again, “Sure enough. You tell me what I want to know and there will be no more problems tonight.”

  “Tell you? Christ, man. Why do you set your sights so low? Why do you not want more for yourself? I’ll show you everything you want to know. It’s too late now for you to do anything at
all, anyway.”

  Cooper was momentarily taken by surprise and his mouth fell open by a scant degree. He chastised himself for it.

  “Please do not be surprised, Mr. Adams. I am quite proud of what we have accomplished. I want to show you. Why don’t you and your, ah, associate just step inside and I’ll show you it all.”

  Cooper was leery of going inside, but he desperately wanted the information that Mitchell appeared to have. “Have your guards step outside. I’m not going to walk into a trap.”

  Mitchell waved his hands nonchalantly, “Fine, fine. Men, come outside, if you will.”

  Moments later, two burly men who looked almost identical in their gray uniforms, appeared at the door and joined them in the hallway. Their brown hair was cut short as were their matching mustaches. Each carried an M16 with side arms on their hips. The men eyed each other warily.

  Mitchell spoke first, “Let’s avoid one of those disagreeable Mexican standoffs that have become cliché,” He flagged his arms at his men, “Gentlemen, you can shoulder your arms. I am quite confident that Mr. Adams is not some crazed man bent on revenge. He would have shot me already if that was the case. He is here for information, which I’m going to provide.” The two guards complied immediately. Mitchell began leading them back into the room. Cooper and Dranko followed.

  Chapter 33

  Once inside, a dizzying array of monitors, the buzz of printers, and maps of the United States and the world were lit up with a multitude of colored lights and scrolling numbers and graphs. Two guards stood across the room, behind Mitchell on either side.

  “Welcome to what we affectionately call Plague Central!” Mitchell declared, waving his arms in a wide arc held high as he spun around in a full circle.

  “So this is where you watch the world dying?” Cooper asked, his words drenched in acid.

  Mitchell laughed, “Watch? Again, my good man. You underestimate. This is where I started everything. But, I didn’t start the world dying. That was already happening. What I have done is begin to save the world!”