The Standoff Read online

  Abel quieted down the noise in his head and turned back to his men.

  "You're right. You're both right. You're a good soldier, Brooks."

  Brooks nodded.

  Abel said, "Okay. Go get the bird. Meet us at the back of the house."

  Flack nodded and turned and started to run back the way they came, thinking once he got closer to the farmhouse, he could just follow the fire to it and find his way to the bird from there. But he didn't make it ten feet.

  Fast, Abel raised the M4, turned toward Flack, aimed and squeezed the trigger. The weapon purred like a silent jackhammer in the stillness. He fired several rounds at Flack. The bullets riddled through his back and neck. Red mist erupted out in front of him as the bullets exited.

  Blood sprayed out of him and splashed across a big, snow-covered Christmas tree. Flack fell forward and died, staring at the bottom of that same tree. He watched blood drip from the needles until he took his last breath.

  Abel swung around and pointed the M4 at Brooks, who raised his weapon, one-handed and aimed back at Abel.

  "What the hell did you do?" Brooks shouted.

  "I'm in command here! Not you! Not him! Not anyone else!"

  For the first time in his life, Brooks flashed fear across his face, not worry, not concern, but utter, real fear. He was looking into the eyes of a madman, and he finally realized it.

  "You've lost your mind!"

  "I'm in command! Lower your weapon, soldier!"

  Brooks didn't lower his weapon. He kept it pointed at Abel. They circled each other with Dylan in tow.

  Chapter 57

  A DONIS STOPPED running when she heard shouting just behind her. She had passed them somehow. She circled back and headed toward the voices. She kept low, creeping through the vast rows of trees. They all looked the same to her.

  Occasionally, she stopped near one and had to glance at it twice to make sure it wasn’t a giant creature lying in wait for her to get too close before it swooped her up in its branches. But the trees never moved except for swaying in the wind, which caused a whole other scary effect.

  The wind gusted and blew, and the branches on the trees swayed back and forth, up and down. Staring down the rows made it look like hundreds of swaying arms moving up and down, like an elaborate, choreographed dance of hundreds of giant beasts.

  She kept going, staying close to the trees for extra cover, but also keeping one eye on them. Finally, she made it within proximity of the voices, or so she thought, but then, she heard loud purrs to her left like mechanical sounds, like thumping. She knew instantly it was one of the silenced M4s. She recognized the sound because just heard Widow shoot his, back in the master bedroom.

  She picked up the pace and came to a scene she hadn’t expected.

  Abel had shot one of his guys in the back and now he was arguing with Brooks. She remembered from their files that Brooks had been second to none in Abel’s eyes for more than fourteen years. They were ten years together on tour in Baghdad and then four years together at the Athenian compound. Now they were at each other’s throats. It was the opportunity she would never get again.

  She crept up closer, staying three rows of trees away.

  They kept arguing. She kept moving, slowly. She didn’t want to get their attention. She came right up to another tree row away. She tried to move one more, to be right alongside them, but she froze. She knelt, taking a good shooting position.

  They had the boy. She saw him squirming around in Brooks’ grasp. He was fighting to get away.

  Brooks held him out front, between himself and Abel, like he might snatch the kid up as a human shield if he needed to.

  Adonis saw the kid, but then she looked over to Abel.

  She aimed the combat shotgun. Abel was right there in her sights. She stared down the barrel at him.

  This was her chance. She could shoot him right here and be done with it.

  She glanced back at the kid. She couldn’t help him anyway, not really. She had a shotgun, not a rifle. If she fired at Brooks with it, she would hit him, no question. But she would also hit the kid. Probably. She would probably kill him.

  The best way to save him would be to convince Brooks to let him go. She could kill Abel now and then deal with Brooks. He seemed like he wanted to live, to escape. She could probably make a deal with him.

  Let the kid go, and I’ll forget I saw you , she could say. He would probably go for it. Or some version of it.

  She could kill Abel now and save the boy after.

  She stared at Abel again over the shotgun’s barrel.

  Dorsch’s face flashed across her mind, then Shep’s, then Ramirez’s, followed by James’ and Swan’s, followed by Clip’s face. Then, she remembered the fire and smoke at the Athenian compound. She remembered all the dead. It was all her fault. It was all his fault. Then, she remembered her Timex. The one her dad had given her. A final present before she went off to the Marine Corps. It was the last time they spoke of her going into a career that he disapproved of. But he gave it to her like an apology without words. That’s how he was.

  Suddenly, she thought of Widow. She thought of what he would do, like one of those rubber bracelets people wear that say WWJD, What Would Jesus Do?

  Those bracelets weren’t religious things to her. It was a way of forcing you to ask yourself: what’s the right thing to do?

  She glanced at the boy again, and she thought, What Would Widow Do?

  And she knew what he would do. He would rescue the boy at all costs.

  Shit , she muttered.

  She scooted close to a line of trees for cover, and dropped to a knee, and lifted the shotgun and fired a warning shot in the air, hoping to scatter Abel and Brooks, which it did.

  The shotgun blast rang out like a bomb going off. It echoed up into the grayness and the gloom and the treetops.

  After she squeezed the trigger, she pulled her body close to the tree, to keep herself out of sight.

  Both Abel and Brooks turned and fired without aiming, without thinking, in her direction. They fired from automatic Special Forces reflexes.

  She folded over, staying as low as she could to the ground and a row of trees.

  Abel blind-fired the M4 on full auto. The bullets sprayed all around her, cutting off tree limbs and the top of the tree across from her. She felt the bullets cutting and slamming into trees all around her. She pulled herself in tight, balling herself up, trying to stay low as best she could.

  Christmas trees aren’t very thick. They’re not good for cover. She had to stay low, staying out of sight was her best hope of survival.

  Brooks released Dylan from his grasp so he could shoot his M4. He pulled it up and shot it alongside Abel. Both blind-fired in the direction of the shotgun blast. They fired into the gloom and trees and snow.

  Both weapons purred in the dead silence, killing the quiet, filling the air with echoing sounds of rattling bullets, shredding tree limbs, and toppling over treetops.

  They fired until both guns went empty.

  Brooks reloaded his M4 with an extra magazine. Abel didn’t have an extra magazine. He fired it empty and then he jerked his Glock out and aimed it through the smoke and gloom, waiting for another shotgun blast to be fired in their direction.

  DYLAN LANDED in the snow, out of breath from nearly being strangled. But he knew it was his chance. He coughed and gasped, but kept it to just a few seconds. The M4 purred next to him. He crawled away from Brooks, and once he was three feet behind the man, he jumped to his feet and scrambled away. Beyond the first row of trees, he darted into full sprints, heading northwest.

  He ran and ran and didn’t look back.

  Chapter 58

  W IDOW CAME to, realizing that he had hit his head and blacked out. It was only seconds later, but it felt like he had taken a long power nap. He felt dazed, but not confused. He knew exactly where he was and how he had gotten there. He pulled himself up to his feet. Sparks of fire fell from the barn’s ceiling. The explos
ion had caught part of the barn on fire.

  His first thought, before his own safety, was Sorry, Abe .

  Widow looked around. His head started pounding. He had hit it pretty hard. He turned to see what he hit it on. It was a low beam from the roof.

  The blast wave must’ve slammed into the outer barn wall hard enough to send him flying back into it.

  He felt the back of his head and found a bump right off. It hurt under his touch. He looked at his hands. There was blood, but not that much. It wasn’t gushing, and by all accounts, he seemed fine, minus the bump on his head.

  He would live.

  He glanced around for the M4 he’d shot the bombs with, but it was nowhere to be seen. It might’ve been sent way up onto the roof of the barn for all he knew.

  He still had the Beretta, luckily.

  Widow looked down from the loft to see if everything was on fire around him. He felt the heat from the fire on the roof. Smoldering embers fell around him. He felt the heat from the fire outside too.

  Walter’s Tundra was on fire. He felt bad about that.

  But the barn floor seemed okay. He scrambled down the ladder and went to the barn doors, automatically. He stopped at the doors when he saw smoke fuming in under the crack at the bottom of the doors.

  He turned and headed for the hole in the back wall. He climbed through it and took off running to the front of the Whites’ house. He moved up to the wall of the house, staying back from the heat of the blaze.

  He saw that he had been wrong about one thing. The fire wasn’t just consuming the Tundra. It had leaped onto the sheriff’s truck. It wasn’t completely engulfed in flames like the Tundra, but it wasn’t far behind.

  Widow moved around the front of the house, passing Foster’s covered car. And Abe’s older model Tundra, neither on fire yet.

  He went up to the porch and to the front door and pushed it open, fast. He pointed the Beretta up and scanned the downstairs. He saw the slider left wide open. A cold wind blew in through it, nearly extinguishing the fire in the fireplace.

  He looked around fast and saw no one.

  He called out.

  “Whites! Adonis! Anyone here?”

  He was half ready to shoot anyone who appeared. But no one did. He heard muffled noise off to his right. He turned and threaded a short hallway that he hadn’t been down before. The muffled noise came from behind a door. He pushed it open and found the sheriff, handcuffed to the back of a downstairs toilet. His mouth was gagged. He had a swollen black eye, but all-in-all, he was fine.

  Widow didn’t have the keys to unlock him.

  He said, “Stretch out your hands.”

  The sheriff muttered a question that Widow couldn’t understand.

  Widow said, “Pull them apart wide and close your eyes.”

  He pointed the Beretta at the toilet pipe and handcuffs.

  The sheriff closed his eyes tight.

  Widow shot two bullets at the handcuff chain and the toilet pipe. Water sprayed out everywhere all over the sheriff’s face. But he was free. The chain broke.

  Widow helped him sit up and ripped the gag out of his mouth.

  “You okay?”

  The sheriff coughed and coughed like water had sprayed up his nose.

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “Stay here. In the house. I’ve got to go for the others.”

  The sheriff clawed at Widow’s pants leg like a beggar.

  He asked, “Who are you?”

  Widow pulled away and stopped in the doorway.

  He couldn’t help himself, but he told him, sort of.

  “I’m Cousin Jack.”

  Widow smiled and vanished from the doorway and ran through the open slider to the backyard. He paused, looking for signs of anyone when he heard voices coming from Abe’s shed.

  He went over to it and saw the padlock back on it. He banged a hand on the door.

  “Abe? You in there?”

  “Widow! Yes! We’re here!”

  “Stand back from the door!” Widow said.

  He stepped back and shot off the padlock. It took four bullets in rapid succession. Padlocks are tough. The padlock sparked and crumbled inward from the bullet. The door jerked open and Abe and Abby both clambered out.

  They hugged him at the same time.

  “Where’re the others?”

  Abe said, “Dylan. You have to get Dylan. He ran off that way!”

  Abe pointed.

  “What about the others?”

  Abby said, “We don’t know. But our grandson is that way.”

  “Okay. Okay.”

  Widow stepped back and looked out over the back of the farm. He saw vast grayness and rows of tall Christmas trees and hard white snowfall.

  Then, he heard something. It was a loud gunshot to the north. He looked up into the gloom and heard crows squawking and taking to flight. He could barely see them. They scattered, terrified of the noise, and flew off in different directions.

  The gunshot was from a shotgun, like the one he’d heard when they murdered Shep. It was Adonis, had to be. She fired only once. He didn’t hear another gunshot, which scared him because Abel and Brooks had silenced M4s like the one he’d killed the guy upstairs with.

  Widow needed to get out there and fast. He needed to be able to see. He had an idea. He thought back to the huge tractor and heavy equipment that he had seen out in the field. He thought if tractors could maneuver out there between the trees, then why couldn’t a car? He still had Shep’s cruiser keys in his pocket.

  Widow waved a hand out to the Whites.

  “Stay here. The sheriff’s inside. I’ll be back.”

  “Where you going?”

  Wiodw didn’t answer that. He just took off running at full speed, as fast as he could go.

  Widow ran around the side of the house, passing Abe’s Tundra, Foster’s covered car, and the kitchen’s shattered window. He threaded and weaved around numerous fires to the police cruiser, which was fine. He hopped in and fired up the engine. But then, he heard muffled shouts from the trunk.

  He’d forgotten about the guy in there.

  He hit the trunk button and got out of the car. He went around to the trunk and opened it, scooped Cucci up and carried him to the porch and dropped him there.

  “Don’t you go anywhere,” he said.

  He could see Cucci nodding along, but he didn’t trust him.

  Widow reared back and punched the guy square in the face.

  He watched a second longer as Cucci went out cold.

  He felt a little bad because he had already clocked the guy with the butt of the Winchester. But there was no time to start feeling bad.

  Widow hopped back up and dumped himself back into the cruiser and slammed the door. He slid the gear into reverse and gassed and backed it up and flung it back to drive and drove around the front of the house, back the way he had run, repassing the fiery trucks and the barn and all the broken glass.

  He drove around the back, knocking over Abby’s bushes, which made him cringe.

  He stopped at the backyard, facing the trees in the distance.

  He left the car’s lights off. They wouldn’t have helped anyway. The headlamps would’ve just reflected off the gray gloom.

  He saw on the ground in the snow a section that looked different from the rest. It was snow-covered, but there were clear tire tracks underneath. That must be where the Whites drove tractors and the heavy equipment out into the fields. Then he realized that they must drive the trucks out there too. Christmas trees don’t move themselves to be shipped.

  Widow hit the gas and floored it in the direction of Adonis’s shotgun blast.

  Chapter 59

  A DONIS CLUNG to the shotgun like it was her salvation. She kept her eyes shut tight as bark and branches and needles and twigs flew off the trees lined up behind her from the gunfire, which reminded her of some Marine she’d trained with a lifetime ago.

  He used to call machine guns weed cutters . Now she saw why.r />
  The bullets sprayed around her. One of the M4s ran dry. It was empty. The other stopped for a moment, but she heard the magazine get ejected. Someone was reloading it.

  She squatted down and glanced around the tree.

  Snow pounded on her back.

  She looked up from her crouch and around a tree and saw Abel in the gloom. He’d ditched his M4 and maneuvered several feet to his right.

  Brooks had reloaded his M4 and was taking aim in her direction. She saw that Dylan wasn’t there. He had run off and was clear. She raised the shotgun and opened fire, pumping once, pumping twice.

  She pumped and fired.

  Pumped and fired.

  Brooks ducked and dodged to his left and Abel went further right. They scattered.

  Adonis hoped up to her feet and walked in their direction, pumping and shooting. She made her way to another cluster of trees and stopped. She waited. Smoke and gloom and snow filled the air.

  She squatted low in case one of them fired back. She heard nothing but wintry farm sounds, like wind blowing over the hills.

  She trekked through the snow toward where the two Athenians had been standing.

  She knew Abel had gone in the direction she was walking. She looked down and saw his boot prints. She followed them. Every few paces, she glanced back over her shoulder to make sure Brooks wasn’t sneaking up behind her. No one was there.

  She turned back and saw Abel. At first he looked away. He looked west and then turned north, like he was lost. He had a Glock in his hand.

  She came up behind him, stopped at arm’s length. She shoved the shotgun in his back.

  “Turn around!” she ordered.

  He swung around.

  “Slow!” she barked.

  He slowed and finally swung all the way around facing her. He looked down at her eyes over the barrel of the shotgun.

  “You going to shoot me now, Special Agent Adonis?”

  “I should, you son of a bitch! You deserve to die!”

  “Do it then.”

  She stayed quiet and stared into his hollow, soulless eyes.