He saw movement in the woods.
“Yeah,” said Tom. “I’m sure it’s nothing. But I’ll go check, anyway. Okay?” It was probably nothing, he reassured himself.
“Okay,” Jill said, sounding tentative.
“Just stay here in your bedroom. I’ll be right back.” He didn’t bother to tell Jill to lock the doors. Rather than frighten her for no good reason, Tom locked the back door himself. He checked the front door after closing it behind him. It was locked, too.
Chapter 6
Tom kept to the side of the house as he worked his way from the front yard to the back. He didn’t want to reveal himself just yet.
Just in case.
Just to be careful.
His breathing stayed even, pulse rate steady, nothing elevated. His SEAL training never left him. It was ingrained. He was, and would forever be, a warrior.
The dark vinyl siding of the house provided excellent cover, while the roof overhang kept him out of the moonlight. To keep noise to a minimum, Tom put all his weight on one foot, while stepping with the other. He used short steps. That helped him maintain his balance. Tom reached the far edge of the house, and there he waited, listening. Rusty’s barks continued unabated. The noise made it impossible to hear any movement in the woods at the edge of the wide, flat backyard.
“Shoot, move, or communicate and do it with violence of action.” That sacred maxim was a SEAL’s response to any threat. It was what made the enemy fear the SEAL above all others. They were the men who ran to, not from, the sound of gunfire. But SEALs weren’t reckless in their bravery, and the saying “The more you train in peacetime, the less you bleed in war” had served Tom and his fellow combatants well.
Tom visualized what he could not see. The dog was barking from the McCaskeys’ back porch. The porch was elevated about twenty feet off the ground. He remembered having seen lawn signs for the McCaskeys’ electric fence. Rusty could get down into the yard if he wanted. Why didn’t he? Maybe Rusty couldn’t see what was bothering him from the yard, thought Tom.
Tom listened some more. Perhaps Rusty was using the porch like a hunter’s observational tree stand. From the McCaskeys’ yard, Rusty’s keen eyes could scour the woods directly in front of Tom but would not be able to see what Tom had observed from Jill’s bedroom. Whatever was troubling Rusty was probably near the spot where Tom had spied something rustling in the woods.
Tom waited for a thin stretch of clouds to scud overhead. With the moonlight obscured, he crouched low to the ground and made a quick dash for a tall oak tree about halfway to the woods. He waited for more cloud covering before he moved again. He darted from tree to tree until he cleared the backyard entirely, then sank into the vast woodlands behind the house.
Rusty’s barks camouflaged Tom’s footsteps. He walked just inside the perimeter of the woods. He stopped. In a few more yards he’d be directly across from Jill’s bedroom window. The threat, if there was any, could be lurking anywhere from this point on. Tom had plenty of tree cover to conceal his location. He peered out from behind an ancient hemlock and saw movement some twenty yards ahead. He didn’t need good night vision to make the sighting. The moonlight helped.
Tom saw a shadow flicker when the moonlight turned even more revealing. He crawled forward on his belly, keeping his legs open, consciously using the insides of his knees to maintain contact with the ground. His elbows, fixed at ninety-degree angles, pulled him over dirt and rocks. Tom got to within a few yards of the shadow before he saw it in full view.
It wasn’t a fox or coyote.
It was a man.
The prowler had a muscular build, visible beneath his tight-fitting clothes. He was dressed all in black and wore a ski mask to conceal his face. He used binoculars to survey the rear of the house. He looked to be watching Jill, who was at her bedroom window, probably searching for Tom. The binoculars were night vision capable, had to be—but not army issued, something store-bought, costing below a grand. The man was crouched on one knee, making it hard for Tom to estimate his height and weight. But he was broad shouldered, so Tom put him at about six foot two, and somewhere between a buck ninety and two-ten.
Tom tossed a small stone into the woods, ten or so feet behind the prowler and to his left. The stone landed with a thud on a bed of fallen leaves. The man lowered his binoculars and craned his head to look over his left shoulder.
Tom sprung to his feet and charged. Two steps, and he was within striking distance. His first blow would need to be a decisive one. Tom smashed his elbow crosswise into the side of the man’s head, which was turning from the direction where the stone had fallen, toward the new noise coming from his right. Should have been the end of it, but the prowler had surprisingly quick reflexes and pulled back, so Tom merely delivered a glancing blow.
The prowler executed a flawless shoulder roll on the uneven ground and was back on his feet in seconds, with some distance between himself and Tom. The move looked effortless.
Tom took five long strides before he launched himself into the air. With his body still in flight, and parallel to the ground, Tom made a diving tackle, wrapping his arms around the man’s waist as he spun right. He used the prowler’s body to cushion his fall.
Tom got off two quick punches, one to the man’s solar plexus, and the other connecting hard to the same spot his elbow had only brushed. The air rushed out of the man’s lungs, and Tom heard a satisfying grunt. Tom ripped the ski mask off the man’s head, but it was too dark to see his face.
“Who are you?” Tom shouted. “What do you want?” Tom took hold of the man’s black wool sweater and pulled him close to his face. “Answer me!” Tom shook him by the sweater.
No answer. Tom freed one of his hands and used it to snap off two quick blows just beneath the right orbital socket.
The moonlight returned. It illuminated the man’s face.
An icy chill streaked down Tom’s back.
The last time Tom had seen the man’s picture was fifteen years ago.
It couldn’t be him—but the face was too distinctive to be mistaken. He had the same aquiline nose Tom remembered. A jaw that was much more narrow than his cheekbones. The eyes were set deeply and stuck in a permanent squint. His lips were neither thick nor thin. His eyebrows were straight as the horizon.
“Lange?” he asked. “Is that you?”
From behind, Tom heard a panicked cry. “Dad! Dad, are you all right? Dad! What’s going on?”
Tom turned to look. He looked only because it was his daughter calling him. In that split second his focus was no longer locked on his target. The very next instant, Tom felt a heavy blow crash into the side of his skull.
The binoculars.
Tom fell to the ground.
“What’s happening!” Jill shouted into the dark woods.
Tom staggered to his feet, and took two uneven steps. Blood pounded inside his head. He could see the prowler running away. He started to give chase, but his vision went dark. He took two more steps, tripped over a root, and fell. Off in the distance, Tom heard the sound of fast-falling footsteps breaking branches and crunching
