“Not yet,” Alex snapped. “She can’t get a decent answer from the FBI anyway.”
“Weren’t they the ones who told us a couple dozen Russians entered the states?” Zack asked.
“They’re also the ones who lost ‘em.” Alex muttered while he strapped his thigh holster on. “Let’s do this right. You guys know what to do.”
“You find your girlfriend already?” Zack asked Mark.
“Yeah,” Mark nodded, thankful Libby was far away from this warzone. He pulled his custom made, bolt action, .308-caliber rifle from its travel case and loaded the pockets of his cargo pants with ammo. Zack and Alex sported the same weapon, standard issue for every member of The TEAM. Individual handguns might be allowed, but not tactical rifles. “She’s safe in Alexandria.”
“That my baby girl?” Jerry asked. The fear in his eye confirmed it. He’d lost a daughter tonight.
“Yes, sir,” Mark answered gently.
“Well, good.” Jerry turned back to the window. “Least she’s safe.”
The cell phone on Alex’s belt rang. He turned the speakerphone on so everyone could hear Mother.
“Boss, we’ve got you on satellite feed. You’ve got two bogeys headed your way, more behind the barn. Also watching two smoking vehicles down the road from your position. FBI said they would send agents to assist. If that’s who was in that car, you can assume you will no longer receive that support.”
“Got it.” He clipped the phone back onto his belt. “You heard the lady. FBI support is gone. Zack, eyes on the front. Jerry, take the road. Mark and I are going to intercept.”
Anger flashed in his eye. “Where the hell is Libby’s mother?”
“In the fruit cellar. Where do you think?” Jerry barked. “I’m not losing my wife, too.”
“Can she shoot?”
“Course she can shoot.”
“Then get her a gun. We need everyone we’ve got.”
“This is my house, and that’s my wife, you—”
“Jerry!” Rosemary appeared at the doorway with a double-barrel shotgun across her arms, her blond hair braided at the back of her head. She had heard the exchange. Red-eyed and angry, she might have been shaken up by the news of her daughters, but she was not incapacitated.
“It’s good to see you again,” she said when she faced Mark. Clifton determination glittered in her eye. Man, she looked like Libby.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly, hating the useless words.
Jerry scowled and turned away, but she nodded, fighting tears. “There’ll be time for crying later,” she said in a stronger voice than Mark expected. “Now let’s give these Russians something to remember Spencer by.”
“Libby’s safe.” He offered the only comfort he had.
Rosemary gulped. “I know. I stopped worrying about her the second Alex called and said he’d sent you to find her.”
The evidence was stacking up. There might be hope for Alex after all.
Zack interrupted, waving Rosemary over to where he knelt by the window. “Get on over here, Mrs. Clifton. You can help me cover the front. You got enough shells?”
He’d barely finished speaking when the swoosh-bang of a rocket-propelled grenade hit the concrete front porch steps, blasting against the stone foundation, but not entering the home. Zack pulled her into his side, shielding her with his body as the windows shattered over their heads. Glass sprayed everywhere. Mark and Alex crouched behind the furniture to avoid getting hit. Flames licked the wooden porch, casting an eerie orange glow through the windows.
When Mark looked up again, Jerry and Rosemary both had their rifles pointed out the broken windows.
“Damn terrorists,” Zack muttered, peering through his scope across the lawn.
“How many?” Alex asked.
Jerry’s gun roared.
“Was two.” Zack raised his eyebrows at his new shooting partners. He took a steadying breath, aimed, and—
BLAM. Rosemary got off a shot.
Zack glanced over his shoulder at Alex. “Now there’s none. I think we got it covered in here. You two be careful.”
Jerry looked up from his firing position to Mark. “You give ‘em hell for me, will you son?”
“Yes, sir, I intend to.” Mark turned away to do exactly that.
Quietly, he shouldered his rifle and followed Alex out the backdoor, across the back lawn, and past the rear of Jerry’s two-car garage. They crept alongside the greenhouse until they could duck in between the barbed wire fencing that surrounded the cornfield that ran north of the house and the barn.
Concealment was easy in the densely tasseled stalks in the dark. In another week, Jerry would be harvesting the crop as silage for his dairy herd. Tonight it was pure camouflage with enough room between the rows that a man could easily maneuver through it. The fire at the house masked what little noise they were making in the field.
“We stop them right here.” Alex dropped to the ground once the front of the house came into view.
Mark grimaced. What a sad sight to see the tidy front porch with its comfy wicker furniture now turned to smoking shambles. It hadn’t been too long ago when he had sat there enjoying an evening with the Cliftons. Now this.
He dropped alongside his boss to take a solid position. Two men in fatigues were dragging the bodies of the men Jerry and Rosemary had shot back toward the barn. Nine more men in military style uniforms crept closer to the house with two RPG launchers and a couple small wooden crates.
“They’re going to shell the house,” Alex muttered.
“Not tonight,” Mark breathed.
“You got any tracer rounds?”
“Always.”
Mark rolled to his side, traded the standard rounds in the detachable box magazine for tracers and resumed a firing position. If he hit true, one hot round would light these jokers up. Back on his belly, he took careful aim. A soldier normally used tracers to assist with course corrections while firing on his enemy. The pyrotechnic charge in the base of a tracer burned white-hot, making the bullets visible to the naked eye, day or night. The problem with that scenario was it also revealed the location of the shooter, so a sniper deep undercover did not normally use tracers. Tonight was an exception to that rule.
“You need a spotter?” Alex asked quietly.
“No, sir, ah, I mean, Boss. Not at this distance.” Mark steadied his weapon and quieted his nerves. This was his God-given talent. He didn’t need a spotter for what came natural. The night sky sparkled with stars. He drew on that celestial solitude and the knowledge of a certain young woman waiting for him in Virginia as he centered his mind.
“I’ll take the four at the rear,” Alex whispered.
Mark drew in a final calming breath. Held it. Sighted one of the wooden crates. Fired. The ordnance in the crates reacted perfectly to the tracer round, exploding upwards and out, taking a few bad guys with it. He fired again. Within seconds, six Russians lay dead. Another thrashed, injured and cursing. Two fled to safety behind the barn.
“Leave him.” Alex nodded toward the injured man. “Let’s move.”
Good call. Mark was all for that. Helping the enemy could wait ‘til the battle was over.
They pushed out of the dirt and paralleled the fleeing men. Russian central seemed to be behind Jerry’s red dairy barn. Bingo. Three heavy trucks were parked against the stone foundation, tailgates down, and boxes and weapons haphazardly placed on the ground. Propane lanterns cast an eerie bluish glow over another dozen men milling around the trucks. The sound of angry argument made its way to where Alex and Mark crouched watching.
“You seeing this?” Mark made himself comfortable in the soft dirt, his feet spread out behind him, his belly to the ground, and his rifle set to engage. He squinted into his scope, surprised he was facing an army in the middle of dairy country. “I count fourteen on their feet, two on the ground, another one in the truck.”
“Right. Seventeen.” Alex focused through his rangefinder. “More crate
s, too. Looks like RPG’s are these guys’ weapon of choice.”
“Yep. Got ‘em. Same as last time.” Mark glanced at Alex. “RPG-7s again. What the hell is going on? These are Russian made grenades. These guys didn’t come for a couple bricks of opium, Boss. This is a well-equipped army.”
“Won’t matter. Hit the warheads,” Alex muttered. “One shot and they’re history.”
“Then let’s make history.” Mark sighted in the crates at the rear of the truck. It was an easy shot until one of the Russians stood up with a launcher on his shoulder.
Mark held his breath. The man stood the full-length of the barn away from him, but someone else had caught Mark’s attention. RPG guy stood listening to the man inside the truck.
Truck Guy appeared to be furiously working something on his lap, barely looking up as he talked with RPG Guy and shook his head.
RPG Guy yelled something in Russian.
Truck Guy shook an adamant, ‘No.’
“Do you see that guy in the truck, Boss? Can you see what he’s doing?”
Alex peered through his rangefinder. He lay to the side of Mark, and hopefully, he could see through the open truck door to see what Truck Guy was really doing. “My hell. He’s on a laptop. He’s their Mother.”
“Or he’s listening to someone just like her.”
Mark and Alex looked at each other at the same time.
“They’ve got eyes and ears on us,” Alex hissed.
“Won’t be the first time.” Mark zeroed in on the box of ordnance. Live by the RPG; die by the RPG. It was time for a personal payback for Faith.
Alex fed him a second-by-second play. “The guy is angry with RPG man. He’s shaking his head. We’re made. Grenades and gunfire headed our way.”
“Ah huh,” Mark replied softly. Made or not, he was taking this shot. He had one chance only. Of all those crates on the ground, he had to hit the one full of warheads.
RPG Guy jerked the launcher onto his shoulder while the rest of the troops turned to the cornfield and hunkered down or crouched to fire. All hell broke loose. Mark heard the whir of bullets hitting too close and personal in the furrow around him. Alex fired again and again without a single word, laying down cover and giving Mark time. Men fell.
Mark whispered as he squeezed the trigger. “This is for Faith.”
With a single crack of thunder, his shot interrupted the Russian assault. Blistering fire and smoke enveloped RPG Guy, along with Truck Guy and several others standing too close to the kill zone. The men not hurt in the explosion flattened into the ground to protect themselves from flying debris.
An ammo dump style fireworks show with live rounds of killer bees zinged into and over the Russian troops. The warheads exploded in a deafening roar throwing more burning wreckage into the air. Men scrambled for safety, but as soon as they recovered their wits, they turned and began firing on Mark and Alex once more.
“Reminds me of my last job,” Mark muttered as he loaded another magazine. Live rounds still flashed. Nonetheless, between him, Alex, and the fire, the Russians were no longer a force to be reckoned with. All were on the ground.
Alex rolled to his back and rang Mother, the cell phone pressed between both hands to conceal the glow of the screen. “Tell me what you’re seeing,” he whispered. A second of silence ensued. “Good. Keep track of them.”
He snapped the phone shut and pointed east to the field of oats behind the barn. “Two fleeing on foot that way. Let’s go back to the house. We can finish this later.”
Mark was not prepared for the sight back at the farmhouse. Smoke still billowed from the blast where the first RPG had made contact, but now the heavy oak door, the same one he had so reluctantly knocked on months before, hung splintered and scorched on one hinge.
They ran to the rear of the home only to find everyone gathered around Libby’s father on the ground. Zack was on his knees and covered in sweat, performing chest compressions on an unconscious Jerry Clifton. Rosemary crouched beside the men, wringing her hands, her face red and worried.
“What the hell?” Alex exclaimed.
“Heart attack. Ambulance and local police are late as usual.” Zack panted. “Glad you two showed up. Spell me. I’m beat.”
Mark knelt and took over, easing Zack’s hands out of the way as he continued the same steady rhythm. “Come on, Jerry. I’ve got you now.” He turned to Zack. “How long have you been working on him?”
“About forty minutes. He went down right after you guys left.” Zack blew out a big breath and sat back on the patio, wiping the sweat off his face with a swipe of his arm. “We took another RPG. One minute he was shooting. The next he was down. Thought he got shot. Man, that’s a lot like work.”
“So if one of you was working on Jerry this whole time ....” Alex looked from Zack to Rosemary. Rosemary pointed at Zack just as he pointed at her.
“Zack’s a very good shot,” said Rosemary calmly. “I’m proud of him.”
Mark glanced up at Rosemary’s no-nonsense demeanor. She wasn’t wringing her hands. She was simply working the cramps out of her fingers after taking her turn at performing chest compressions on her husband. The woman was amazing.
“You two get ‘em all?” Zack asked.
“Two got away. Possibly a couple more in a pickup vehicle. Mother is tracking them. We’ll need to move soon if we’re going to stop them,” Alex answered. “I think you’re right, Mark. Something else is definitely going on here.”
Sirens screamed in the distance. Mark kept working on Jerry. Zack and Alex located a fire extinguisher and put out the fire in the front room.
It was a helluva night.
Eighteen
“Whew.” Murphy blew out a deep sigh. “How many of these danged rocking horses did you say you make each year?”
Libby sat contented and happy to be helping Kelsey at the basement worktable. Murphy and Roy had kept them up late the night before with stories of their crazy exploits over the years. They explained how they’d used C4 to heat cans of beans in the jungles of Vietnam, how they win at outrageous cockroach races, and how to keep dry in the monsoon season.
This morning was different. They were on Kelsey’s turf, seated on opposite sides of a worktable while an army of wooden horse parts waited in the middle to be painted, assembled, and glued.
Murphy’s job was to paint the square horse bodies a light tan, while Roy was in charge of painting the leg pieces dark brown. Kelsey covered the rockers with fire engine red, while Libby painted the head and neckpieces white. Multi-colored yarn lay off to the side for the rocking horse tails: blue for boys, pink for girls, and red for fun.
Jingle Bells. Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. Deck the Halls.
Christmas songs kept running through Libby’s head. Painting relaxed her. So did the friendly banter of Mark’s friends. Murphy and Roy did not seem like typical bodyguards. Yes, they wore gun holsters under their jackets, and she’d seen their pistols, but their relationship with Kelsey was more on the fatherly side. They both treated her as if she were their favorite daughter instead of their boss’s wife. They doted on her, which explained why everyone was in the basement painting. When Kelsey mentioned the mountain of work she had to do, these two men had quickly jumped to help her.
“He used to do twenty-five each year. Since I joined the workforce, it’s gone up to fifty. We work on something all year around.” Kelsey pointed to more wooden pieces stacked in the corner. “Cradles are next.”
“And he gives these toys away?” Murphy asked.
“It’s how we celebrate Christmas. You know how he is.”
“He’s a damn workaholic, that’s how he is.”
Libby finished another piece. She couldn’t wait to put the eye decals on them. These little creatures were the cutest things ever, perfect for little children who had to be stuck in the hospital over the holidays.
“I think it’s sweet.” She leaned back to observe the scene. It did look like Santa’s workshop, only wit
h a couple of grumpy elves.
“Humph. Never ever heard Alex called sweet before,” Murphy grumbled. “Besides, you just met him. He’s a slave driver.”
“Yeah. He is.” Kelsey laughed.
“You think he’ll ever be able to make enough cradles and rocking horses?” Murphy asked.
Libby sensed an underlying question to Murphy’s words. Make enough cradles and rocking horses for what? The kids? For Kelsey?
“Maybe someday,” Kelsey answered softly. “Even if he did, he’ll still have to help me, won’t he?”
There was some hidden conversation going on between Murphy and Kelsey that Libby could not put her finger on, some untold story she’d have to ask Mark about later.
“Yeah.” Murphy reached across the table and patted her arm. He seemed so genuinely tender. “I guess so.”
“You painted me!” Kelsey exclaimed.
“Well, so I did. So I did.” He chuckled. “How you doing, Roy?”
“Fine.”
Libby glanced at Roy’s curt answer. He had been way too quiet, not joining in on the camaraderie. All ten of his fingers were covered in brown paint. His tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth like he was really concentrating.
“Ah, Roy, you’re doing it again,” she said.
“Will you stop watching me, woman?” He licked his lips, his eyebrow spiked in comedic frustration. “You think painting these stubby little legs is easy? It ain’t. They keep rolling all over the place. If I stand them on end, they fall down. I’m tired of chasing ‘em.”
“I’ll help,” she offered. “If we dipped one end of the dowels in black paint, then it would make them look like they had hooves.”
“Good idea,” Kelsey said.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Roy pointed a threatening paintbrush across the table at Libby. “Don’t you go pulling that trick on me. I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to make me feel guilty, only it ain’t gonna work. ‘Sides, those heads and neckpieces are bigger. Painting them will take me all day.”
Mark (In the Company of Snipers Book 2) Page 16