The Standoff Read online

  The suppressor kept the gun quiet over the rotor noise. The weapon kicked and purred in rapid succession. Bullets ripped into the base of the tower. Sparks ignited. He fired until he was satisfied the base was inoperable. Then he stopped and called back to Tanis.

  “Take us up to the top.”

  Tanis nodded and pulled the flight stick back, slowly. The helicopter’s nose lifted and the machine ascended two hundred feet, to the tip of the antenna. He evened out the helicopter and circled around the top antenna.

  Cucci aimed the M4 and squeezed the trigger. The gun fired and bullets slammed into the antenna parts all along the top. Every bullet hit home.

  The antenna sparked and exploded. Blue flames flashed and danced off the top. The heat was bigger than they expected.

  Tanis reacted and pulled on the flight stick, hauling the Bell up and away fifteen feet. But Cucci stayed on target and fired until the M4 ran empty.

  He called out to Tanis.

  “That should do it.”

  Cucci ejected the magazine and loaded a fresh one from out of his coat pocket. He tossed the old one out the window. There was no reason to keep it. He doubted he would ever be reloading it.

  Cucci said, “Okay. That should do.”

  They both looked out at the tower one last time. Both the base and the top antenna burned with several small fires.

  Tanis said, “Taking us back.”

  The Bell 205 flew up and forward, the nose dipped, and then it circled back around the fiery antenna and flew back to Cherokee Hill.

  CLOSE TO THE SAME TIME, in front of Pine Farms, Brooks made his way up the drive to the road. Jargo watched him through the scope.

  Brooks got on his radio.

  “Jargo?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Is the coast clear?”

  Jargo paused a beat, leaving Brooks to listen to dead air for twenty seconds until finally Jargo came back on the radio.

  “I don’t see anyone for miles on the road. No traffic. No people.”

  “Okay. I see a bunch of power lines. Looks like the one straight ahead will do the trick. I should be able to take it out and kill their power and landlines. Can you confirm?”

  “I see it. I’d put three rounds in the transformer just to be sure.”

  “Copy that.”

  Brooks aimed his gun at a transformer on his way out of the drive and onto the main road. He aimed an ACOG scope on his rifle, but he set the fire selector to single shot. He paused a moment and squeezed the trigger—once, twice, three shots.

  The transformer and all the conduits and cables lit up in a blue flash of sparks and flames, similar to the tower. The end result was another long flash of blue flames and sparks, then the top of the pole lit on fire.

  Both the landlines and cell phone communications were now down for miles. Plus, one more thing happened. The power at the Whites’ went out.

  Brooks smiled and carried on, staying parallel to the Whites’ long uphill driveway.

  Chapter 41

  T HUNDER BOOMED over Spartan County and Cherokee Hill. Widow heard it. They all heard it. It might help Widow out. Potentially it could provide some sound cover. He was only one man and on foot. If the elements favored him, so be it. He would take all the help he could get.

  Widow carried the borrowed Beretta in his borrowed jeans. He held the Winchester rifle by the wood grain stock just ahead of the trigger and lever. He carried it with a loaded chamber. Ready to fire. Ready to kill.

  After Widow helped Abe to evaluate key defense points to set his family in, he decided to go out the slider in the back of the house. He wasn’t sure, but he suspected, that they might have eyes on the front. He wasn’t sure what these guys were up to, what they were after, or why they were who they were. What he presumed, using the intel that he had, was that they were trying to escape capture, plain and simple.

  Widow could understand that. Anyone could. He had no stakes in whether they escaped or not. But they made a mistake when they involved Walter White, a man Widow had known for only seven hours—max, but a good man with a good family. Widow had no stake in what happened at the Athenian compound. He saw in Adonis’s eyes that she did. And he understood that part too. He had lost guys. Sometimes it was his fault. He understood the guilt that came with it.

  Widow wasn’t going to lose a member of the White family. That was for damn sure.

  Widow wasn’t a family man. He had no family himself, except a father who might or might not still be alive, out there somewhere. Family man or not, Widow used to be an undercover cop. Once a cop, always a cop. He would stop these guys no matter the cost.

  Widow recalled in his mind what he could from seeing Pine Farms from a distance on the road and in the dark. He remembered seeing a barn with an open loft on top. He thought to himself that was a perfect spot to set up a sniper’s nest. That’s what he would’ve done if he had been on the Athenians’ side.

  Widow went out the back. Maggie slid the door shut behind him and locked it. She and Foster, with the help of both children, lifted the largest of their sofas and carried it over to the slider and set it down in front as a kind of barrier. They closed the blinds tight and scooted the sofa all the way back. It wasn’t going to stop anyone from surging through the glass, but it was an obstacle they might not suspect.

  Widow was gone and Abe was in charge. He sent the rest of the family to their posts to wait for further instructions, like his very own platoon. Maggie and the children went to Walter’s bedroom and barricaded themselves in.

  Abe stayed on the first floor. Everything seemed to be going in their favor. If the bad guys had beaten Adonis and her guys and they were coming for the Whites next, then they probably thought they had the advantage of surprise. They probably thought they had the upper hand. But the Whites were expecting them. Now, the element of surprise reversed, tipping the scales in their favor. Plus, they had guns of their own. And they had Widow.

  Abe worried about Walter. He would do anything for his only remaining son, but he would not give up the rest of the family. He would die before he would allow Abel to come into his home and threaten all their lives.

  He felt confident. The rifle in his hand and diligence on his side, he knew they were as prepared for anything as they could be. But maybe they wouldn’t even come. Maybe Widow would get to them and bring his son back in one piece. Maybe.

  Right then, the power went out and the house went dark and cold. Everything but the living room was dark. The fire in the fireplace burned on and crackled, providing low light to the family room.

  He heard screams from upstairs.

  It was the kids and Maggie.

  Abe turned, abandoned his post, and ran to the stairs and bounded up them as fast as he could. He attempted to take two steps at a time but couldn’t. On top of being short, his age and the stress of the day were having an impact on him.

  At the second floor, he turned the corner and ran down the hallway to Walter’s bedroom, where the screams and shouts were coming from.

  He tried the door handle. It was locked.

  He knocked on it.

  “Maggie, everything okay in there? Something happen?”

  He heard the fragile inside lock turn and the knob follow. The door opened. Maggie stood there with Dylan hugging her tightly. Lauren was behind her, holding her almost as tightly.

  “Everything okay? Is this about the power?” Abe asked.

  Lauren said, “Not just the power.”

  Dylan said, “Tell him, Mom.”

  Maggie said, “The phones. They’re out. I was on the landline. I finally got through to the sheriff’s office. They said Henry left to come out here more than hour ago. They said no one’s answering his phone or his radio. And then the phone went dead.”

  Maggie paused a quick beat.

  She said, “It went dead at the same time as the power.”

  Chapter 42

  W IDOW MOVED slowly, starting at the back of the Whites’ farmho
use. He walked for about a football field until he was in the north section of Christmas trees. They were tall, but not quite ready for harvesting. He figured they were one of the older sections. Their year might be the next or the one after that.

  He turned west and threaded between the trees until he made it into a new section. He glanced back at the White’s farmhouse and barn to maintain his bearings and direction, as well as to see what he could see. Going slowly, it took him seven minutes before he crossed over from the last section of trees out to some dead brush before the road.

  He walked through the snow and dead brush and thick, oak trees with countless branches verging off in numerous directions.

  Widow came to a ditch right before the road. He paused and knelt down. He looked right and north, tracing the road, looking out for any oncoming traffic. A passerby might be of help. He could wave the driver down and see if they had a cell phone and ask them to keep trying the police as they went on their way south. Or he could get them to drive to the nearest sheriff’s office or roadblock and tell someone what was happening. But he saw no one.

  He looked left and south, down the winding main road. He could see the beginning of the Whites’ driveway and the big, metal mailbox. He studied the mouth of the drive closely. He figured that if the bad guys were any good, they wouldn’t have posted someone at the end of the drive, where they would be visible from the main road anyway. Plus, whoever might be there would want to see the main house, and it wasn’t visible from the road.

  He saw no one and nothing, so he got up and crossed over the road.

  Once Widow was on the road, he picked up his pace and fired across, and over a new ditch, and into the brush. This time he had to hop the Pines’ dilapidated, wood-railing fence. He took it slower once he made it over.

  The Pines’ farmhouse wasn’t visible from where he was. But he could see bits of red paint from the top of the barn in the distance. He crept at the same westward angle as best he could. He knew he would be off because he didn’t have the Whites’ farmhouse to use as a landmark any longer and the sky seemed to be getting more overcast.

  Thunder rolled again, deep and heavy. He figured rain or heavy snow would follow, or both. Winter thunderstorms during snowfall are called thundersnow or thundersnowstorms. Both were terminologies he’d never heard anyone use very often. But he had been through the phenomena before. The snow gets heavy and hard. In bad ones, the snow can turn as hard as baseballs.

  Knowing this, he hoped for one. Widow knew Abe was armed and ready to protect his family. But they were just civilians, not military-trained special forces. Not like Abel and his guys were. They wouldn’t stand a chance in a firefight. He doubted they would even be able to hold off a siege for more than a couple of minutes.

  Widow crept through the trees and brush and over the snow until he came to a long empty field of more snow. From there he saw the barn and the back of the farmhouse. He wished he had access to field glasses. He realized that he should’ve opted for one of the scoped hunting rifles instead of the Winchester rifle. He could’ve used the scope to recon the farm. Or he could’ve opted to take out the sniper from there. Maybe. But that wasn’t an option, so he leaned in and narrowed his eyes, trying to focus on the open shutter doors of the loft.

  Widow couldn’t make out any detail, not enough sunlight out to reflect a glimmer of light from the sniper’s scope glass. Luckily, that didn’t matter because he saw proof of the sniper in the loft. The guy wasn’t hiding too well. The barrel of the rifle stuck out. It was pointed northeast, skewed from the direction Widow had come.

  Widow stayed crouched in the snow and tall, wintry grass. He watched the sniper for a long minute, taking mental notes of the guy’s movements. Basically, there were none. Widow stayed focused on the approach to the barn, watching the ground ahead, checking the terrain, and staying low.

  Suddenly, Widow noticed a small, slow movement from the sniper’s nest. He stopped and dropped to his haunches. He watched. The sniper moved as if he was tracing a target through the scope.

  But Widow wasn’t the target. The sniper rifle was trained elsewhere.

  Widow kept his body facing forward, but twisted slightly at the hips and craned his neck and looked in the scope’s directional view. He looked to see if the sniper was pointed toward the Whites’ farm. But there was no way he could see it from there, too many trees, distance, and geological interferences. Besides, if the sniper could see that far, then Widow would’ve been spotted and dead already.

  What was he looking at? Widow wondered.

  It hit Widow that he was probably watching and providing cover for a scout. Widow hadn’t seen anyone on his way over, but they wouldn’t cover the long way around that he took. They would have someone watching the driveway. They must’ve figured that the White family heard the gunshot, which they might’ve ignored except that Abel had Walter.

  Widow pressed on but took it slowly. His gut told him to run, to turn back because snipers worked in pairs. There could’ve been two in that nest right then. The other one could’ve been using binoculars, scanning the terrain for targets. But there weren’t two. He knew that because, again, he would be dead already. No way would they’ve let him get this close without putting a bullet in his head. He had been in an open field for a good minute. Widow wasn’t wearing bright orange, but he wasn’t dressed in winter camo either. He wore plain, dark street clothes, and he was surrounded by white snow. He would have been spotted by now, for sure. But there was no second man up there in the loft.

  Widow proceeded to move toward the back of the farmhouse. He continued to move slowly. He wanted to get there as fast as he could, but he didn’t want to register in the sniper’s peripherals.

  He still had a hundred yards of distance to cover when he heard a thump behind him. He turned and saw what looked like a potential lightning strike over the trees near the Whites’ driveway. But it wasn’t a lightning strike.

  It was Brooks taking out the transformer on the power line pole.

  Chapter 43

  B EING OUT HERE on his own came with certain advantages, sure, but it came with more disadvantages. Mainly, he had no backup. No intel, except what he had gotten about Abel from the internet. And he had zero support.

  A significant disadvantage to committing to a takedown-rescue mission like this on his own was that going up against an unknown number of special forces cult guys was risky as all hell. With everything going on, he had no chance of guessing where any of them would be onsite. He knew there was one posted in the loft of the barn. And he knew one was scouting the Whites’ place. He also knew there was one highway patrol officer, Adonis, and an unknown number of ATF agents in the helicopter.

  Every few minutes, he glanced at the sky, but there was no sign of the bird, only more gray clouds that filtered the sunlight to a dim white. He figured Abel’s guys already had possession of it. He had no idea where it was. He didn’t know if it was just parked somewhere on the property or if they had taken off in it.

  Widow’s choices for his next follow-up actions were pretty limited. He figured the best thing to do was to try and stay quiet as long as he could and take them down one by one.

  His priority was to attempt to locate and rescue Adonis, Walter, and the others—if they were still alive. He guessed Walter was still alive. The others—he wasn’t so sure about.

  Widow started with the Pines’ farmhouse. He tried the back door. It was locked. He didn’t have the equipment to pick it, and he couldn’t risk kicking it down, too much noise. So, he left it and walked the length of the house, peeking in each window to see if any of them were unlatched. No luck there.

  He made it to the last window before the corner of the house. So far, he had seen no one, no movement. No sounds came from inside the house.

  Widow traced the back exterior wall to the corner and stopped. He peeked around the brick and saw no one there either. All he saw was the barn.

  Widow stepped out, rifle stock in his shou
lder, his right eye over the Buckhorn rear sight, gazing through the ivory bead front sight. Widow’s left eye stayed open. A common mistake amateur shooters made is to close one eye when aiming. Widow was no amateur shooter.

  He stalked the side of the house, close, nearly hugging the wall. He could hear noises and voices from the driveway. He continued.

  At the front corner of the farmhouse, Widow stopped, pulled the rifle up, so the barrel didn’t give him away at the corner.

  The voices chattered on like busy people doing busy things. It almost sounded like workers on a dock, loading crates, working equipment, and shooting the breeze; only he heard no sounds of machinery like rigs and cranes and forklifts. He did hear engines fire up. He counted three: one car engine and two trucks.

  Widow put his back to wall and slid down until his knees were up and his butt was on the heels of his boots. He had flattened himself down to waist height to try and minimize his profile. He twisted and peeked around the corner.

  He saw the side of the barn. It was a little over fifty yards away, past the driveway and one, single large oak tree. Behind it, Widow saw the helicopter. It was parked a hundred feet back from the rear of the barn.

  He stretched his neck and head out to see the driveway better. He saw two trucks and one car, as he had thought. The car was a South Carolina patrol car. It was out front, engine running, no one at the wheel, but the driver’s door was wide open. Next, he saw the Spartan County sheriff’s truck. He knew that because it had a light bar on the roof and the Spartan County sheriff’s decals on the doors. The last vehicle was Walter’s truck.

  Both the trucks, like the police car, had no one in the driver’s seat. But there were two passengers, one in each truck, seated in the passenger seat.

  The sheriff’s truck had an old guy that Widow had never laid eyes on before. But Walter was in his own truck. He sat on the passenger side, quiet because a dirty car rag was stuffed in his mouth.