"How long ago did they leave?" I asked.
He didn't answer.
"How long ago did they leave?" I yelled.
"We were at the Jones' about forty five minutes ago,” he said quietly. “I was probably out for thirty minutes. I came straight back here when I came to. I had been here a couple minutes when you called. I'm sorry, Connor. If I had known you were okay, I would have called you as soon as I woke up. I just didn’t know.”
“I know,” I said. “It isn’t your fault. I have to get home. I didn’t pass them on the way into town, but I took the back roads. I doubt they are familiar with the roads here so they probably took the highway.” Taking the back roads from my house was a little shorter than driving on the highway. The back roads were narrower and not well maintained. It was not unusual to find wild or domestic animals in the road. The route wasn’t as good for high speed or night travel, but it was several miles shorter so I normally used it when I was in a hurry.
“I’m coming with you.” Matt said with finality. I already knew he would come and I was glad to have him. “We’re taking your car,” I said, turning down the hallway from the front office. I stopped in front of a steel door and unlocked the armory with a key on my ring. I pushed the door open. The aroma of Hoppes 9 gun oil hung in the air. Ahead, shelves were stacked from top to bottom with ammunition.
The sheriff was a doomsday prepper. He couldn’t describe what the doomsday was going to be; that wasn’t his job he would say. His job was to be prepared for whatever it was. And he was prepared. The first shelf was stacked from floor to ceiling with .223 bullets in boxes of twenty. The next shelf had .45 bullets in boxes of fifty. The next had .40 bullets in boxes of fifty. Then there were the shelves of shotgun shells and nine millimeter bullets. The rest of the shelves were filled with the ammo cans of the same calibers with the addition of .308 bullets. The last time we did inventory, there were over two hundred thousand rounds of ammunition. It seemed excessive for a county of five thousand people. Today, it seemed a little less extravagant.
To the left were racks of guns. Right now, I was interested in an AR-10. It was the big brother to the AR-15 I had in my car. The one I was looking for had a four to sixteen power scope. I grabbed the rifle from the rack, slammed a magazine home, pulled the charging handle to load the weapon and slung it over my right shoulder. I pocketed four extra magazines and picked up an ammo can of .308 bullets to go with the rifle. I also resupplied my .40 bullets. Matt also picked up an AR-10 and ammo can along with four boxes of .40 bullets.
Resupplied, I pushed down the hallway with an urgency that didn’t need to be explained. As I pulled the front door open, I looked back at Cindy, the receptionist, who was sitting at the front desk. Kimiko was sitting beside her. “Lock the door and don’t let anyone in.” I stepped outside and descended the steps, skipping the first two, then skipping to the bottom. I heaved my ammo into the back of the car. Matt did the same. I ran to my patrol car and retrieved my personal AR-15 which I brought from home and stowed it between the front seats. Before I could close my door, Matt dropped the throttle and pulled away from the curb, engine roaring as it surged to overcome the car’s two tons of stationary mass.
Matt adroitly squealed around corners and made his way out of town at speeds that would have been considered reckless under normal circumstances. I extricated my phone from my pocket and dialed Katie again. Seconds crawled by like years as the phone rang again and again. An invisible weight crushed my chest, making it difficult to breathe as Katie’s voice mail answered for the second time in three minutes.
I ended the call and scrolled through my contacts, looking for another number. I touched the name and put the phone back to my ear as it began to ring. I heard Shannon’s voice after two rings.
“I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again. How are you doing?” he asked with notable concern in his voice.
I was way past pleasantries. “I’m fine, thanks for asking.” Sarcasm was hanging from every word. “Turns out my family and I are immune to the disease. We’re doing significantly better than some of the people around here. The Homeland Security response team is murdering people in my town. You must have forgotten to tell me they were coming to wipe out our population.”
“It isn’t like that. They…”
I cut him off before he could finish. “My partner saw them put a gun to the head of a friend of mine and pull the trigger. He wasn’t sick. He hadn’t even been exposed. When my partner tried to stop them, they beat him unconscious and left him…”
Now Shannon interrupted me. “Look, Connor, I have nothing to do with this. The orders were from the President. You need to get away from your house. One of the two teams was approaching your house ten minutes ago. If they aren’t there already, they are staging outside. They are there to exterminate you and your family. They won’t care if you are immune. You have all been exposed and they won’t take chances by letting you live. Leave! Now!”
Chapter
13
I ended the call and put the phone back in my pocket. I didn’t say anything to Matt. There was no point. He couldn’t coax any more speed out of the car while maintaining control. He knew what was at stake and was doing everything he could to get us to my house as fast as he could. At the speed he was driving, it would only be a couple minutes
“If they’re there when we arrive, give us some space. They’re going to have us outgunned at close range. Stop by the big juniper at the base of my driveway. It will provide good cover.”
Matt squealed around the corner onto my road leaving a dark tire friction mark as evidence of his haste. It was a straight, mile long shot to my house which was on top of a hill overlooking the approaching road and surrounding alfalfa fields. I could see a white van parked in front of the house. If they were looking, they would see us long before we got there. The fence posts at the edge of the road snapped past us at a quickening pace. Halfway up the road, they became an indistinguishable blur. As we neared the driveway, Matt slowed the cruiser and the fence posts became individual entities once again.
“When we reach the tree, park the car across the driveway. You take cover behind the tree. I’ll get their attention. They committed murder today and I’m going to either put them in cuffs or put them in the dirt. Do you have a problem with that?” I asked, knowing that Matt’s loyalty ran deeper than anybody I knew. An assault on my family was the same thing as an assault on his family. We were that close.
“You know I don’t. I’m here for the same reason you are. Let’s take care of business.” Matt slammed on the brakes and slid the car sideways. The tires kicked gravel up the driveway as the car came to rest nearly perpendicular to it, with the driver side facing the house. Matt exited the car and quickly scurried behind the gnarled juniper tree twenty feet to the left. It had a three foot diameter trunk that would soak up all the lead they could spray at him. I kept the branches pruned to seven feet above the ground. He had an unobstructed view of the house. I moved behind the hood of the patrol car, making sure the engine block was between myself and where I anticipated the contractors would exit my house.
Before I got out of the car, I took the radio microphone off the clip that held it in place. The spiral cord was pulled taut when I stretched it outside the car. I pressed the button that activated the vehicle’s PA system. “This is the Vista County Sheriff Department. Exit the house with your hands up.” I didn’t expect them to comply.
“Connor, there’s movement in the upstairs window,” Matt said in a soft voice so as not to give away his position to anyone who had not already seen him.
I rested the rifle across the hood of the car and looked through the scope which was set to magnify the image twelve times. He was at the left side of the window, peering around the frame. He was assessing the situation, probably relaying what he saw to the others over a radio. I scanned the other upstairs windows with the scope. There was nothing. I took my eye away from the scope, looking at my house with my naked eyes, trying to formulate a plan. The patchwork of plywood covering the first floor windows prevented me from seeing what was inside. My fortifications to the house were going to make it nearly impossible to get inside without getting cut to pieces. We were no match for their weapons in a close quarter shootout. They knew it and we knew it.
As I was trying to figure our next step, the front door opened. A lone man dressed in black fatigues sauntered onto the wood porch and stopped three feet in front of the door. “What can I do for you, Deputy?” he asked, his voice muffled by the gas mask he was wearing. He was pushing six-two and was carrying two hundred and twenty pounds of pure muscle. His black hair was cut high and tight. He matched Matt’s description of the shooter at the Jones’ house. The swagger in his step as he walked out the door told of confidence in his ability to walk away from the situation unscathed. His arrogance was probably born in battle and deserved.
“I’m here to take you into custody for questioning in regards to the murder of Will Jones,” I yelled back, knowing that he wouldn’t surrender. At least, I hoped he wouldn’t.
“You Connor?” he asked through the gas mask, his voice still distorted.
“I am,” I said.
“Well, that’s funny because I’m here to take you into custody. We know you’ve been exposed. We can’t let you run around and infect everyone else in the country.” He shifted his weight to his right foot, which was slightly behind of his left.
“I’m immune to the infection,” I yelled back. “I was exposed nearly nine hours ago. If I were infected, I would be dead already. Call your commander. They can verify with the CDC.” I wasn’t going to talk much longer. It was already dusk and would soon be dark. They likely had night vision. Even without it, once darkness settled in, they could come out of the house without being seen and surround us. We wouldn’t have a chance.
“I already have my orders. I am taking you into custody for the good of the country.”
“Sort of like you took Will Jones into custody?” I asked.
“It sounds like you know how this works. Don’t make it harder than it has to be,” he barked at me. “Once it’s dark, you don’t have a chance. I know you won’t leave your family, so make it easy and give up.”
While we were talking, I slowly repositioned my rifle so that it was pointing at the front door. I had been moving my head closer to the scope without actually looking through it. I was unsure what my final play was going to be until he brought Katie and Toby into the equation. I had been sure they were already dead. Now he was insinuating that they were alive. It changed things. I didn’t believe he hadn’t already killed them, but if there was a chance they were alive, I was bound by my duty as a husband and father to defend them. I dropped my head to the scope.
He realized what I was doing and quickly back stepped to the door. He crossed the threshold as I eased the trigger rearward. The gun spit the empty shell out the right side. It clattered across the hood of the car and spun off into the dirt. The explosion in the chamber had driven the bolt back, then the spring in the rifle’s stock pushed the bolt forward. The bolt picked up another cartridge from the magazine as it moved back to the locked position. The violence of the explosion within the gun caused it to jump just enough that I lost my sight picture through the scope. When the after effects of the explosion subsided, the scope realigned with the target, which was now prostrate on the floor. I steadied the gun, searching for another target.
A second man dressed in black darted into view through the open doorway, bent down, and grabbed the collar of his fallen commander to pull him to safety. I squeezed the trigger a second time, sending another empty case skittering across the hood. Before the case skipped off the hood and into the dirt, a second body was laying on the floor of the entryway to my house.
An instant later, my bedroom window shattered. I pulled my head down and took cover behind the front wheel of the car as the edge of the hood where I had been kneeling was instantly shredded. Rapid
ping
s were followed by high pitched
zings
as the bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the hood of the car. Matt opened up with his rifle to my left. He had opted for a red dot sight rather than a scoped rifle. Two hundred yards was a long shot for a red dot sight, especially while under fire. His first shot gave away his position as a short burst of flame extended from the barrel of his gun in the darkening twilight. I heard the rapid staccato of a second gunman opening fire with an automatic weapon and I saw the hail of bullets tear up the bark around Matt’s head.
He quickly withdrew behind the tree and the fire ceased. I belly crawled toward the front bumper to get into position for another shot. As I peered around the front of the car, I saw two men run to the right from behind the house. They must have exited the rear door. They were going to flank us. I let loose with two quick shots. Neither shot found its mark, but they did force the targets to stop advancing and seek cover. We couldn’t stay where we were for long or we would be pinned down, but we also couldn’t move because it was over one hundred yards to the next closest cover.
“We have two moving to the right,” I yelled to Matt as the dirt exploded in front of me. I was forced back behind the wheel and engine block by another rapid round of gunfire that left my face stinging from small rocks the bullets had kicked up.
Matt fired three more rounds before he was forced to retreat behind the tree again by a flight of hungry bullets. With the attention on Matt, I quickly scooted to the side and fired a barrage at the area where I had last seen the two contractors take cover. The gunman upstairs forced me back behind cover. The fire suddenly stopped. I took it as a cue that he was reloading. I popped up to my knees and aimed through the window. I couldn’t see anything so I started walking my shots to the left, knowing that the bullets would easily pass through the wall I assumed he was using for cover. The bullets didn’t find their mark and he quickly forced me back behind cover once his reload was completed. We were out of the stated “effective range” of the MP5 submachine guns, but they still seemed to be very “effective.” I hadn’t been hit, but everything around me had been riddled with bullets.
“Movement to the left,” Matt shouted between shots, letting me know that another gunman had exited the house and was trying to out position us.
I had spent the last five years anticipating a gunfight. Now, I was in my fourth shooting of the day, wishing I could go back to anticipating what it would be like to be shot at and return fire.
I had lost count of how many rounds I had fired, but I knew I was closing in on the last round in my magazine. A body darted between trees and I squeezed three rounds off. The last felt different. I tipped the gun to the left and saw the bolt was locked back. I dropped the empty magazine from the gun, replaced it with a full magazine, and pressed the bolt release.
The target I had been shooting at used my empty gun as a chance to advance another thirty yards. Katie had been begging me to cut down some of the juniper trees in front of our house. Now I was wishing I had obliged her request. There was too much cover for the advancing men to use.
These four were very good. They worked together likes cogs in a machine. Each time I thought I had a good shot, another contractor would drive me back with covering fire. We couldn’t hold out much longer. They nearly had us flanked. Once that happened, we would have no cover to hide behind. One of the two on my right started to advance again. I was about to squeeze the trigger when bullets raked the dirt in front of me, forcing me back yet again. I could feel my face flush in anger at my inability to keep them from moving. From where I lay, I could see the guy advancing to another tree. I couldn’t bring my gun to bear on him without exposing myself to his partner. Suddenly, he stumbled and fell. A split second later, I heard the crack of a rifle. It was deeper than the nine millimeter but definitely wasn’t as deep as Matt’s .308. And it came from behind the house. Matt had been pinned down in his original position since the shooting started. He hadn’t fired the shot. The guy who had fallen to the ground didn’t move. There was another crack and another. The second guy to my right moved to my side of the tree for cover, forgetting that his back was to me. Or perhaps he viewed me as the lesser of the threats. He brought up his gun in a long burst directed behind the house and drained his magazine dry. I moved from cover, centered him in the cross hairs, and squeezed the trigger. His body jerked forward into the trunk of the tree and slid to the ground.
Matt unleashed a multitude of shots in rapid succession and then took cover as a flurry of shots from upstairs poked holes in the dirt and tree trunk in front of him. I took aim through the hole in the wall where the window had been. The shooter moved behind the wardrobe on the wall on the right side of the room to reload. He thought he was behind cover. I could still see his head looking around the antique piece of furniture. My gun bucked as it spit the bullet down the barrel. I momentarily lost sight through the scope. When the gun settled I found him in the scope again. My shot had gone wide and shattered the mirror on the door of the wardrobe. I shot again. This time the bullet found its mark. The upstairs shooter crumpled to the floor. I couldn’t tell where I hit him. It seemed like a good hit from the way he fell.
I turned my attention to the left, searching for the sixth gunman. He must have realized the tide had turned because he ran backwards toward the tree covered hill behind the house. Before I could get my rifle situated, I heard Matt’s rifle boom and saw the last gunman sprawl forward onto the ground. He lay motionless.
I returned my attention to the entry way of the house. Both bodies remained where they had fallen. Neither had moved. “Do you see any more?” I yelled to Matt as I shifted my gaze to the two who had been moving to my right.
“No, I don’t see any more. This is definitely the group from the Jones’ house. Unless they picked up an extra on the way, that’s all there is,” he answered in reply. “Where did the other shots come from?” he yelled at me.
“I’m not sure,” I answered.
“They came from back here. I couldn’t let you boys get all the glory.” I nearly stood straight up at the sound of my wife’s voice. The only thing that kept me from doing so was a strong sense of self preservation. I still wasn’t sure that all the shooters were finished.