'Flare gun. It was in the chopper. If we can get a shell through an upstairs window, it oughta do the job.'
I took the gun and fumbled it open using my right hand. There was one fat phosphorous round in the breech. I closed the gun and took off the safety.
'I'm gonna get closer.'
I turned for the house. Again, she stopped me. 'Give that back,' she ordered.
'You're not doing this.'
'What was your last range score?'
I didn't answer because we both knew I barely qualified.
'A lousy seventy-eight as I recall. I shot marksman.'
She snatched the gun out of my hand and took off in a crouch, using the' tree line at the back of the house for cover. I followed, staying close on her heels. When we were about fifty yards away, directly behind the back door, she kneeled down and aimed the flare gun at the second floor. After sighting carefully, she pulled the trigger.
There was a loud bang. The flare streaked across the lawn and went right through a second story window.
'Great shot!' I said. She'd hit it dead center.
Then the M-60 cut loose out front. Twenty yards to our right in the trees, a second gun barked. I turned and spotted Roger Broadway in a crouch, firing the riot gun at the house. He had retreated deeper in the woods and established a position just east of us, cutting off an escape from that side. The four of us had the chalet more or less surrounded.
The upstairs took about ten minutes to catch fire. After that, the flames spread rapidly. Smoke started pouring out of all of the upstairs windows, igniting the roof. Then the intense heat lit drapes and furniture on the ground floor. Alexa dialed a number on her cell phone.
'How's it look out there?' she asked.
Emdee's voice came back through the earpiece, loud enough for me to hear. 'We're turnin' Joe Bobs into shiska-babs.'
'We'll hold the back,' Alexa said. 'If they come toward you, give 'em one chance to throw down their guns, then blow them away.'
'Done,' Emdee replied.
Suddenly, the back door opened and Sammy appeared in the threshold carrying his machine gun. Alexa and I let loose with a barrage, driving him back inside. I caught sight of Roger working his way toward us, hugging the tree line. Then a single shot sounded from a back window. He yelled out and went down.
'How bad?' I shouted. I couldn't see him where he'd fallen in the foliage.
'Through and through,' he screamed back. 'Fucked the bone up!'
'Stay down. We'll do this.'
The Kalashnikovs started firing from the front of the house. Alexa's phone was still open in her hand and I heard Perry shouting over the earpiece. 'They're in the door, gonna make a run at me!'
'Right,' Alexa said and started toward the front. I grabbed her arm.
'You stay here,' I told her. 'Hold down this position.'
Without waiting for an argument, I took off, heading around to the front of the house. I got there just in time to see Sammy and Iggy Petrovitch, along with the last remaining brigadier, run out of the chalet into the yard. All of them were on fire. Their clothes burned brighter as they ran.
I unloaded the AR-15 at them until the clip was dry. Iggy went down first, then the brigadier behind him. Sammy was the last one standing. He was taking hits from the Perry's M-60. But even as several rounds spun him, the giant stayed upright, lurching forward like the monster in a Japanese horror flick.
Then he veered to his right and started toward me. The back of his shirt was still blazing, blood covered the front of him. The Kalashnikov in his hand kept firing, but he was spastically jerking the shots off. The bullets went wide. I tried to return fire, but I'd forgotten that my weapon was empty. Petrovitch continued toward me, bringing his gun up as he advanced.
He was now only five yards away, too close to miss. His ruptured face and giant teeth were pulled wide in an ugly grimace.
Then, as I watched him start to pull the trigger, two loud reports sounded from behind me. I spun in time to see Alexa in a Weaver stance, her 9 mm extended in a two handed grip. Her first shot was a little wide, but hit Sammy in the shoulder, knocking him sideways. The second was perfect-right between the running lights. His huge block head flew back, then forward. He teetered for a moment before he fell forward, landing with a thud, facedown on the ground directly in front of me.
Is this woman great? I thought, as relief swept over me.
Then everything was quiet.
I looked around and saw bodies sprawled all over the front lawn. Kersey Nix, Iggy, Sammy, and their brigadier.
When we finally got around to checking the Russians, they were all dead. When I reached Kersey Nix I got a surprise.
The traitorous son of a bitch was still breathing.
Chapter 62
My friends who work in forensic entomology tell me that green bottle flies have many amazing characteristics. They can home in on a dead body from miles away, sometimes arriving in less than ten minutes. They feast on the remains and lay thousands of eggs in the cadaver's moist cavities and crevices. Those larva soon hatch and become maggots. Thirty-six hours later, these maggots grow into a new generation of ugly green flies that lay more eggs. The process continues, cycle after cycle. By counting generations of fly larva, and measuring outside temperature, which affects the breeding cycle, it's possible for an entomologist to establish an approximate, long-term time of death estimate.
I don't want to be overly harsh, but in my opinion, the press shares many of these same characteristics. They arrive without warning from miles away and feast hungrily on the dead. The greater the carnage, the more reporters and stories they breed, reproducing their ugly offspring news cycle, after news cycle. With the media, the outside temperature doesn't seem to affect the process.
The first TV chopper landed less than ten minutes after the last shot was fired. Whether they picked up a broadcast from our chopper, or whether some neighbor on the lake called it in, it didn't really matter. The blue and white Hughes 500 settled down on the grass like a big hungry bottle fly and discharged two maggots carrying video equipment at port arms. One had an HD-24 camera, the other, a digital sound unit and sun gun. They had a variety of spectacular targets to chose from. The house was engulfed in flame; bodies were strewn everywhere.
A few minutes later, two more choppers landed, followed by another after that. All had their call letters and station logos emblazoned proudly on the sides, and of course, there were plenty of catchy slogans:
Channel One Is the One in the Inland Empire. Stay Up to Date with Channel Eight.
Channel Six Gets It Right on Time.
I was trying to set up a police line and hold them back but we were outnumbered, and worse still, out of our jurisdiction, so I was getting a lot of arguments. The press knew this was big.
The NBC affiliate KSBW landed a chopper. The story was about to go national.
While I struggled to keep the news crews at bay, Alexa was on her cell phone to Chief Filosiani in Los Angeles. The LAPD pilot had already radioed the local sheriff and requested a fire team, backup troops and EMTs. Roger was in considerable pain, but Emdee had stemmed the bleeding with his belt. Kersey Nix was unconscious and going into shock.
The fire department arrived with three pumper units and immediately started knocking down flames using water from the lake. The chalet was a loss, so they concentrated on protecting the trees to prevent a wild fire. Once the perimeter was contained they worked to extinguish the burning house.
There were two EMTs with the fire crew and I led them over to Broadway and Nix.
