Chapter 28

The buck and report of the rifle was neither felt nor heard as the audible over-rides that a human body goes through in combat took effect. Bryan did, however notice that time seemed to stand still. The first bullet hit the target with relative ease as the man was standing straight, the orange of his cigarette looking like a dot of neon against the darkness.

The muzzle flash blinded him briefly making him unable to find the other two culprits in his sites. He pointed in the general direction of the second and leased a stream of four rounds, one right after another. He stopped to let his eyes adjust to the darkness but someone returned fire. Suddenly bullets were banging through the trees around him, the clack of their impact joined with a rain of splinters.

Bryan crouched into the tunnel and waited for the shooting to stop. However there were clearly two left as the fire from one overlapped the fire from another. Carefully leaning out the hole he released another three rounds at the figure on the right. There was a brief thump accompanied screams. The figure on the left kept raining down lead.

At the pause when the third person was apparently changing magazines, Bryan popped up once more to neutralize the threat. However, the report of the shotgun caught him off guard, as did the half-dozen pellets and shards of flying wood that peppered his left arm and torso.

He grunted, more in frustration than pain yet and then released three more rounds. The big rifle bucked, there was a definitive thump of lead hitting something soft and fleshy, and then there was nothing. Silence and a ringing in Bryans ears reigned supreme for a few minutes until he took stock of the situation.

First, he wasn't mortally wounded, at least not that he could tell. The pellets were starting to sting and he was sure that there would be much more pain to come. However, the idea that there was another team making an insertion on the other side of the property frightened him badly. His wife was over there. His kids were over there. The people he had taken in and planned to protect were over there.

Ignoring the pain and blood, he scurried back through the tunnel. He checked his rifle, loaded a fresh magazine into it, and trotted toward the back of the property. After a few yards he thought better of it and turned the radio back up. Rob was screaming across it asking for updates.

Luckily Jack had still been on the inside guard duty and had found himself sneaking around behind the group of four who came through the southeast escape tunnel. Instead of opening fire on them, he had stalked them quietly, as they seemed unafraid of whatever might be lurking inside the wall.

Jack was hardly a combat veteran, and not the best marksman in the world. That was the reason that he carried a twelve gauge shotgun loaded with double ought buckshot. He had never even so much as fired a weapon a month before, but had found it both necessary and exciting in the time since. He had never killed so much as a squirrel, but when the conditions lined up in front of him correctly, he opened fire.

The first two men were standing, looking across the field that lay before them. There wasn't any cover, and they had bunched up together in preparation of sprinting across to the next wall about twenty yards away.

"One, two..." one of the men said. They all stretched as if ready to pounce. The man never made his count to three.

Jack pulled the trigger, showering the two men in front with lead. A third man, who had been startled and ready to run fell over the two front men as they fell to the ground, both dead before they hit. The third man was badly exposed in the open, though the muzzle flash from the shotgun had ruined Jack's night blindness temporarily. He blinked hard as he pumped the shotgun and found the man in the open, not having yet gained his wits. A second report was heard as the man attempted to get to his knees and was promptly knocked down by the deadly hail of buckshot.

The third man, who was apparently a veteran of some conflict, hit the ground and crawled into cover before even the second shot was heard. He was to his feet in seconds, running away from the sound of the gunfire and toward the house. It was there that he found Maggie, scared by all the gunfire and running toward the house.

The man tackled the running girl like a linebacker then yanked her to her feet by her hair. She screamed first at the surprise of being tackled and then by the pain of him yanking her hair. He grabbed her throat and pulled the girl in front of him, placing the cold steel barrel of a pistol against her neck in front of his face.