“We gotta get outta here,” said Brody.
“How do you know they’re all dead?” said Victor.
“They’re not all dead. There’s at least one more in the front. And there are some downstairs.”
“Then we’re safer staying put.”
“We don’t have any choice.”
Victor looked puzzled.
“We need to get Valerie to the hospital,” said Brody. “She’s critically wounded.”
“Jesus.”
“No,” said Lyndon, his face frantic.
“Are the phones still out?” said Victor.
“Mine is,” said Brody. “Try yours.”
Victor fished out his cell phone from his trouser pocket and punched 911 on the screen. He couldn’t get through.
“I’ll try the landline,” said Lyndon, and belted into Valerie’s bedroom to try her phone.
He spotted Valerie bleeding in Deirdre’s arms, a crossbow bolt through her neck.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, taken aback and halting in his tracks. “How . . . ?”
“We need to get her to a hospital,” said Brody, stepping into the doorway.
Lyndon shook himself out of his funk and tried the phone on the small square wooden table beside Valerie’s headboard, scoffing up the handset.
“There’s no dial tone,” he said in dismay, and threw down the handset.
“They haven’t fixed your phone line yet because of the storm,” said Brody.
“How are we supposed to get her to the hospital with those thugs downstairs?”
“We’ll have to mow ’em down,” said Victor, crowding in behind Brody with his MP5 and its C-Mag drum.
“We don’t have a whole lot of choices,” said Brody.
“Is there anybody downstairs?”
“Lyndon says he saw someone.”
“OK. I’ll have to take him out.”
“At least one,” said Lyndon, his face drawn and ashen as he considered Valerie’s plight. “Maybe two or more. I thought I heard talking on the stairs.”
Victor nodded yes.
“Just say the word,” he told Brody, hoisting the MP5 to his chest.
“We have to decide whose car we’re taking,” said Brody. “We need a vehicle big enough for Valerie to lie down with someone stanching her wound. Count my Mini out.”
“We’ll use my SUV,” said Deirdre.
“How many of us are going?” said Victor. “We don’t all need to go to the hospital. I can lay down cover fire for the SUV and mop up here after you’re gone.”
He let loose a brief burst from his MP5 at the staircase, where he caught sight of a shadow moving near the newel.
Chapter 113
“Are they coming?” said Brody, girding himself for battle.
“Not now,” said Victor, scoping out the clear staircase.
“Her pulse is getting fainter,” said Deirdre, holding Valerie in her arms, her voice tight, her hand pressing the blood-soaked pillowcase to Valerie’s wounded neck.
“No time to waste,” said Brody, and turned to Victor. “Are you wearing body armor? I can’t tell under that poncho you’re wearing.”
“I got a Kevlar vest on. It didn’t do my leg much good,” said Victor, wincing thanks to his wound.
“You don’t happen to have a spare vest in your backpack?”
“No.”
“You’re the only one with body armor, so you should take point.”
“That was my plan all along.” Victor hesitated. “It could slow us down, though, on account of my bum pin.”
“You’re our best man on an MP5.”
“What are we waiting for?”
Victor set out for the stairs, MP5 primed.
“Wait a second,” said Brody, and slipped into Valerie’s bedroom. “Who’s gonna carry Valerie? It’s me or you, Lyndon.”
“I’ll take her,” said Lyndon.
“Don’t let our baby die,” said Deirdre, her face flushed, helping Lyndon take Valerie from her arms.
“Put her down,” said Brody.
“What?” said Lyndon, putting Valerie down on the bed.
Valerie was still losing blood, Brody could see, her neck streaked with it despite Deirdre’s attempt at stanching the wound with the pillowcase. The wound bled freely when Deirdre released the pillowcase.
“We need to stop her bleeding,” said Brody.
He stripped a pillowcase from another pillow on Valerie’s bed.
“We need to tie it around her neck with something,” he said, cutting his eyes around the bedroom.
“She has a belt in her closet we could use,” said Deirdre, springing off the bed and dashing to the closet.
Her hands dripping with Valerie’s blood, Deirdre flung open the louvered door, quickly inspected the closet’s interior, selected a cloth belt dangling from a hook on the wall, and raced back to Valerie with it. Brody discarded the bloody pillowcase wrapped around Valerie’s neck and held the fresh pillowcase in place as Deirdre wound the belt around it a couple times with her bloody hands. She buckled the belt around Valerie’s throat.
“Make sure it’s good and tight,” said Brody.
“I don’t want to make it too tight or she’ll suffocate,” said Deirdre, squinting at Valerie’s face to see if she was having trouble breathing. “She’s white as a sheet. Oh, God. We’re losing her.”
Lyndon lifted Valerie from the bed and draped her arm around his neck so he could help her down the stairs and outside to the SUV.
“Damn. This is my fault . . . ,” said Lyndon, his voice faltering.
“Let’s get moving,” said Brody, snagging a pillow from the bed. “No time to kick yourself. We gotta get her to the hospital.”
He, Lyndon, Valerie, and Deirdre joined Victor in the hallway.
“We’re on your six, Victor,” said Brody, SIG in hand.
Victor stole toward the landing as best as he could manage with a bum leg, leading the way with his MP5.
“Wait,” said Brody.
Victor drew up.
Brody flicked the pillow in his hands down the staircase. A swarm of bullets from below shredded the pillow, which exploded into a riot of feathers that fluttered pell-mell like escaping butterflies. He and Victor watched the feathers, glum-faced.
“What’s the alternative?” said Victor.
“Hold on.”
Brody ducked into the master bedroom and scoped out the backyard from the broken windows, casting around for gangbangers. Seeing none, he edged closer to the window and peered down at the two-foot-wide pitched roof beneath the window. Some ten feet from the window a ridged metal downspout reached from the gutter on the topmost roof to the ground. If he could reach the downspout, he could shimmy down it and stage a sneak attack against the gangbangers in the living room from their rear.
The slippery wet narrow strip of roof that led to the downspout could be a problem, he decided, but the asphalt shingles had a scabrous surface that would provide purchase for the soles of his shoes. Fortunately, the roof under the window, unlike the rest of the roof, wasn’t tiled. He would never have been able to walk on wet tiles without slipping.
He bolted back to Victor in the hallway.
“What if I hit them from behind?” said Brody. “They won’t be expecting a rear assault.”
“How do you propose to get down there?”
“Out the rear window and down the downspout.”
“And they’re not gonna plug you while you do this?”
“I don’t see any of them in the backyard.”
“Maybe I’m the one that should go. At least I got a vest. You’re gonna be hanging defenseless as a baby out there.”
Brody shook him off. “You can’t do any climbing with that bum leg. I’m the logical choice.”
“We have to go now,” said Lyndon, his face sweaty, supporting Valerie, holding her arm draped around his neck. “She’s getting weaker.”
Brody took one look at Valerie’s wan face and pelte
d to the bedroom window.
Chapter 114
Brody wedged Victor’s pistol in his waistband and climbed out the window onto the strip of pitched roof beneath him, as pellets of rain drummed against him. The roof tilted downward at a forty-five-degree angle. Gripping the slippery wooden window jamb, his feet at a slant, he took a few tentative steps toward the downspout, feeling his way with his feet. He wouldn’t be able to hold onto the jamb much longer. He would have to let go of it and proceed across the roof without support. He told himself not to look down. He wasn’t a big fan of heights.
At least he was wearing rubber soles. They found purchase on the rough surface of the asphalt shingles, despite the water slicking them. His ankles bent awkwardly, he inched sideways across the roof toward the downspout.
One of the shingles gave way beneath his weight and slid off the roof down to the yard below. Half falling, Brody lunged for the downspout, managing to grab it. He hauled his body over to the downspout, his fingers clenching the wet pipe like steel claws.
Starting to climb down the downspout, he heard a squeaking metallic sound. He squinted into the rain at the top of the downspout, which was pulling free from the gutter above it. He scrambled down the downspout as it broke away from the gutter and the house. A cataract of water sluiced down onto his face from the broken gutter. Letting go of the falling downspout he plummeted until he slammed his back against the muddy grass. The downspout crashed to the ground a few feet away from him.
He lay on his back staring into the driving rain and the swollen purple clouds clustered above him so near he felt he could reach out and touch them—except he couldn’t reach anything. He couldn’t move. Stricken with paralysis, he gasped for breath. Thunder cracked and rumbled. He wondered if the gangbangers had heard the commotion of his crash to the ground. Hopefully they hadn’t thanks to the storm’s pyrotechnics overhead.
He tried to relax so he could breathe. From his angle he couldn’t see into the living room to make out what the gangbangers were doing inside. By the same token, they couldn’t see him, which consoled him after a fashion. Now if he could only start moving.
He found himself breathing easier. With any luck his plummet to the ground had just knocked the wind out of him without serious injury to his back. The cold rain splattering his face kept him focused, preventing him from blacking out.
He had to enter the living room.
He felt like an upended bug lying on its back unable to right itself. He couldn’t lie here forever, he told himself. He had to get going. People were counting on him. Deirdre and Lyndon were depending on him to help them spirit Valerie to the hospital. Victor was counting on him to clear the living room of ambushers.
He wondered if there were any gangbangers left in the yard skulking toward him in the darkness. He couldn’t move his head to take in the full yard. One of them could be creeping up on him even now.
What could he do? he wondered. The rain and the threatening sky above, the sloshing mud below. He was a helpless upended bug going nowhere in the vast wilderness that surrounded him, beset by the elements. He shivered in the bone-chilling cold. He had to get moving. The main thing was to keep moving. If he was moving, he was alive. It felt like an enormous boulder was perched on his chest crushing him, preventing him from breathing. He couldn’t do anything if he couldn’t breathe. He had to breathe. He had to move. Had he snapped his spine? Was this how he was going to die? Like a pig wallowing in mud, the low-hanging bruised clouds nestled above him looking on with indifference? Whether he lived or died, the storm would rage on.
Incapacitated here, suffocating to death, his limbs numb, he was losing time, allowing the life to flow out of Valerie. Each second was vital to her health. He could hear a clock ticking the seconds off in his head. He couldn’t give up and die. Two lives were involved, not just his. His and Valerie’s lives were both on the line. He had to clear the living room of gangbangers so Lyndon could get her to the hospital.
At last, Brody took a deep breath, his chest heaving. He commenced breathing normally.
The feeling was coming back to his freezing limbs.
He rolled onto his side, mentally taking stock of his physical condition. He didn’t feel pain anywhere, which would indicate he hadn’t broken a bone, namely one of his ribs or his spine, all of which had absorbed the brunt of his impact with the earth. The soft dampness of the loam had no doubt helped break his fall.
He pushed himself onto his knees, facing the living room, what little he could see of it, anyway, which wasn’t much except for lamplight spilling out of the demolished French windows. From his vantage point, he couldn’t discern any intruders in the room.
Water dripping from his face, he contrived to stand up. He didn’t feel pain anywhere. Luckily, he hadn’t slammed the back of his head against the ground when he had landed. Otherwise, he could be lying unconscious.
He saw Victor’s SIG lying in the mud. He squatted, retrieved it, and brushed the mud off it.
Lightning flashed like tracer fire overhead.
He hoped its glow didn’t reveal his position to the gangbangers in the living room. He still couldn’t see them. A clap of thunder resonated.
Pistol in hand, he stole toward the living room, sticking to the shadows.
Chapter 115
Brody edged across the pool deck to the shattered French windows.
He made out two gangbangers in drenched black hoodies and sneakers in the living room staring up the staircase toward the second floor, each with a MAC-10 in his hand trained on the landing, waiting to ambush Victor and company. They were paying no attention to the French windows to their rear.
With his squelchy sodden jogging shoes Brody tiptoed through the decimated window into the living room. He cringed and froze when he stepped on a shard of glass, which crunched under his foot.
One of the hoodies wheeled around in reaction to the sound.
Brody put two rounds in the guy’s head, but not before the guy let loose a wild burst from his machine pistol, which strafed the sofa, perforating the upholstery.
The other hoodie, Jorge, bolted for cover. Brody fired a round at him, which missed high, as Jorge somersaulted across the living-room floor and took cover behind a leather recliner.
At that same instant, reacting to the gunfire, Victor appeared on the landing, his legs straddled, his MP5 at the ready. He was in time to catch sight of Jorge taking refuge behind the recliner.
Victor squeezed off a continuous burst of twenty rounds into the recliner, chewing apart the leather upholstery.
Brody circled the recliner from the other side.
Wounded in the thigh, balled behind the recliner, Jorge spotted him and fired his MAC-10.
Brody ducked behind the wet bar, sneaked in a crouch to the end of it, peeked around it, picked up on Jorge, and fired a shot into Jorge’s head. Jorge’s body went limp.
Brody heard Victor squeeze off another burst. The rounds didn’t hit Jorge’s hiding place. Brody wondered what Victor was shooting at. The two gangbangers were down.
Warily, Brody peeked over the countertop. It wasn’t Victor who was shooting.
There was another gangbanger in a hoodie at the other side of the living room wielding an AK-47. As Brody had entered from the backyard, he hadn’t seen the guy, and vice versa, or Brody would be lying dead now. Fearing Victor with an MP5 more than Brody with a pistol, the remaining gangbanger charged the staircase and opened fire on Victor.
Victor ducked out of sight into the upstairs corridor then returned to the landing when the gangbanger had finished his volley. Victor strafed the guy with a burst from his MP5. His chest stitched with bullets, the guy crumpled, dropping his AK to the hardwood floor. The hood fell off the guy’s head, exposing his shaved scalp. It was the MS-13 guy that had held Deirdre hostage, terrorizing her and her husband.
Standing to his full height, Brody scoped out the room to make sure it was clear, SIG at the ready.
“See any more of �
��em?” he said. “You got a better view from up there.”
“Looks clear,” said Victor. “We don’t have any time to make sure. We gotta get Valerie to the hospital.”
His face pale, Victor hobbled down the steps as fast as he could with one leg out of commission. Lyndon followed him, helping Valerie down, Deirdre close behind him.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Deirdre saw the guy with the shaved head. He was lying on his back on the living-room floor with his eyes closed. She saw him open his eyes. Enraged at the sight of him, she thrust Brody’s pistol at the guy and shot him in the forehead.
Her jaw set, she unloaded the rest of the magazine into the guy’s chest and, scowling, flung the empty SIG at the guy’s bloody face.
Brody looked at her, imagining what she was feeling, and gave her a slight nod.
He turned to Victor.
“You don’t look so good,” Brody told Victor.
“I’m OK,” said Victor, his face pale.
Brody shook his head no. “You need a doctor. You’re going to the hospital with Valerie.”
“I need to stay and mop up.”
“Change in plans. I’ll stay and make sure the property’s clear.”
“We don’t have time to argue,” said Lyndon, ushering Valerie to the front door.
“Are you in any shape to drive?” Brody asked Victor.
“I’m OK,” said Victor.
“You’re not gonna pass out at the wheel?”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Is your SUV an automatic or stick shift?” Brody asked Deirdre.
“Automatic,” answered Deirdre. “Do they make SUVs with stick shifts?”
“I can drive anything,” said Victor. “I can drive an eighteen-wheeler and a Harley. Hell, I can drive an M1 Abrams tank.”
“Yeah,” said Brody, “when you got two good legs. But you got only one. You couldn’t work the clutch on a stick shift with that bullet in your left leg.”
“She said she has an automatic.”
“I’ll drive,” said Deirdre. “It’s my car, and I know where the nearest hospital is.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Brody.
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