Side by Side

“There’s no time,” Serge argued. “That’s Winter Massey in there.” He looked at the Major.

“Do what you have to do,” she said, nodding.

Peanut went over to his son and gave him instructions.

“Maybe my guys should handle it. This Massey’s no slouch,” Max said.

Serge spoke in a low voice. “Let the Smoots storm the beach and test the sand for us. Tell your men around front they’re to go in as soon as the shooting starts. We wait until Peanut and his son go in and we flash-bang and we go in and finish this.”

Serge put the phone back to his ear. “Okay,” he said. “You win, Massey. We’re leaving.” He pointed his trigger finger at Peanut, who had taken up a position against the wall beside the kitchen door.

Letting out a howl, the Smoot twin ran up and shouldered the door. The sound of the wood frame splintering filled the night air as the door collapsed into the room. The twin raised his shotgun. There was an explosion that lit up the kitchen, and Curt’s head came apart, his corpse falling into the kitchen.

Peanut looked down at his dead son and screamed, “You’re dead, YOU-MOTHER-”

Three shotgun blasts sounded within the space of two seconds. The first slug punched a quarter-size hole in the wall between Peanut’s right shoulder and the door frame. The second round-double-aught buckshot-made a fist-size hole through Peanut’s chest between his nipples, and the third blew most of his left shoulder away. He died with two thirds of his final curse spoken.

Without hesitation, Max tossed a flash-bang grenade into the kitchen, waited until it went off, and sprinted into the kitchen with his MP5 before him, spraying the room from left to right.

“Kitchen’s clear!” he yelled.

Major Keen ran into the building with Serge behind her, gun out.

The kitchen was thick with swirling cordite. Serge saw a tactical shotgun lying on the floor just inside the den. The team that had broken down the front door rushed in from the store, their MP5s aimed at the bedroom door.

“Open up, or we’ll drill the walls, Massey!” Max Randall hollered.

Serge, standing beside the Major, heard the Dodge truck out back roar to life. He whirled and ran to the back door, and fired at the truck.

“Stop them!” he screamed at the Smoot twin out front as he sprinted after Peanut’s Dodge, emptying his Walther.380 at its wide tail.

He heard the last living Smoot’s shotgun go off three times, followed immediately by a dull wet thud.

78

When Winter Massey told Alexa to drop her gun, what Winter saw in her eyes was the last thing he had expected-relief and excitement. “Massey?” Then she smiled, and said, “Thank God! I didn’t know how I was going to keep them alive by myself.”

“I said put the gun down,” Winter again ordered. “I know what you’re doing, Lex. How could you?”

“Massey,” she repeated. “I’m sorry I couldn’t level with you. The two of us have a chance, but you have to trust me. I’ll explain it later, but we only have a few seconds before they storm this place. If I put this gun down, you’ll be alone.”

“You set me up twice.” Winter’s voice was curt.

“I had no choice. I didn’t bring you in to get you hurt. I brought you in to do what I couldn’t do on my own and I knew you would. I’m sorry Randall came after you. I tried to help you at Click’s house. I couldn’t at Laughlin’s or the clinic. I was playing a man-in-the-middle defense-I knew they were listening to everything I said and probably seeing what I was doing. Winter, if you ever trusted me-if you ever believed in me-do it now.”

“How in hell can I trust you?” Winter said.

“Because I gave you Eleanor,” Alexa told him.

Winter felt like he had put his hand on a live wire. Those five words, spoken in hardly more than a whisper, were deafening.

The headlights of the sedan flickered angrily against the cotton curtains. The killers were growing impatient.

Because I gave you Eleanor. And although he had suspected it at the time, he hadn’t truly believed what it had cost Alexa, hadn’t accepted it as a sacrifice. Now he knew it was true and, for the first time, he knew his friend’s heart.

“How did you get in here?” Ed asked Winter.

“The same way you’re all going out,” he said.

“You can get us all out past them?” Alexa asked.

“If we move fast,” Winter said. “I came in by the root cellar. I lucked into the trapdoor while I was trying to find a way under the building. The last two ladder steps are rotted off and there’s a foot of standing water down there.”

“I’d plum forgot about that. Hadn’t been down there in years,” Ed said. “Thought I’d sealed it off good.”

Winter looked at Alexa. “Lucy, you and Elijah and this nice couple need to go with Special Agent Keen and stay with her. I’m going to keep them busy. You take everybody to the root cellar through the bedroom closet, and wait at the outside door for me, or the sound of them inside the store.” He took the light off the shotgun and handed it to her. “Don’t use this until you’re in the closet. I’ll do what I can. The truck out back may be your best bet.”

“I reckon I’ll stay here and give you a hand,” Ed said.

The baby started crying and Lucy hugged him tightly to her. “It’s all right, Elijah,” she crooned.

“Sir, Alexa here and these people need you worse. I’ll be right behind you and I’ll be moving fast.”

That was when the phone in Alexa’s pocket rang. After Winter took the phone to talk to Serge, he motioned for Alexa to take the others out.

Seconds later, when the twin shouldered the door in, Winter was kneeling just inside the den, using the common wall and the heavy stove for protective cover while aiming the shotgun at the kitchen door. He pointed at the giant’s head and squeezed the trigger.

Winter readied for a second shot. When he heard Peanut’s booming voice, Winter aimed at the wall just left of the door and pulled the trigger once, quickly moved the barrel farther to the left, and fired again. . and quickly again.

79

As soon as he had fired the last shotgun round, Winter dropped the weapon and ran for the bedroom. When the flash-bang went off, he was locking the bedroom door. Hastily he shoved a chair under the knob and, slamming the closet door behind him, scrambled down into the root cellar.

When the heavy footsteps from above echoed down into the cellar, Winter had joined the others, huddled like refuges, at the door leading outside.

Silently, with Alexa watching their backs, they followed Winter to the corner, then ran to Smoot’s Dodge. Winter checked for the keys, and got everybody in through the jump door behind the driver’s door, filling the rear seat. Lucy and her son sat in the middle between the Utzes. Alexa scrambled into the cab’s passenger seat. Without closing the door, Winter slid in, cranked the engine and throttled the Hemi. The truck roared like a wounded beast, as its tires spun in the wet grass and fishtailed.

“Get down!” he yelled. He’d said the same words to Click Smoot just before he was killed for not listening.

The pistol shots somebody fired at the escaping truck were no surprise, but the remaining twin, centered between Alexa’s sedan and the second Tahoe, was. The twin stood still and aimed his shotgun at the truck hurtling toward him.