“Damn! Damn! Damn!” she screamed. “I’m hit!” She reached up with her uninjured arm and fumbled for the rope pull tied to the hatch. She jerked the opening downward until it slammed shut. More shots peppered the roof.
Gunner raced down the hallway to join her. He racked a round into the shotgun, shoved it through a narrow opening in the hatch, and fired wildly toward the ground. He repeated the effort and found a target. A man groaned in pain. The remaining assailant returned fire, once again sending perfectly placed rounds through the slight opening. Gunner took a chance and reached his arm up to shut the hatch, providing them much-needed ballistic protection.
“They have to be pros,” he mumbled as he dropped below the opening and sat next to his best friend. “You all right?”
“Yeah,” she said as she caught her breath. “It grazed my forearm. I’m bleeding, but I can function.”
It was pitch black in the loft hallway. “They must have night vision. There’s no ambient light in here.”
“Wunderbar,” said Cam sarcastically, using the German word for wonderful.
“Are you sure you’re good?” he asked again.
“Yeah. So how are we gonna play this?”
“Hold tight. I’ll be right back.”
In a low crouch, Gunner rushed down the dark hallway to the stairwell leading to the living area. Greenish light emanated from the computer monitors manned by von Zwick.
“Professor,” Gunner unnecessarily whispered to get the man’s attention. The walls blocked the sound from exiting the building. “Does your exterior lighting give full coverage of the perimeter?”
“Ja. Floodlights on all four corners of the building.”
“How many are already in the clearing?”
After a brief delay, von Zwick replied, “Six. Slowly approaching.”
“Stand by.”
Gunner stood and turned so his voice could be heard by both Bear and Cam. “We’re gonna light up the grounds. You’ll have to move fast. Six bogies, so far.”
Bear responded first. “Roger.”
“Ready,” said Cam.
Gunner shouted down to von Zwick, “Give me five seconds to get in position. Then light up the perimeter. Start countdown, now!”
Gunner pushed down the hallway, using his hands to guide him in the dark. He found his way into position and then readied the H&K rifle provided by von Zwick. It seemed like it had been longer than five seconds as his heart raced. He held his rifle in one hand and prepared to shove his roof hatch open.
“Lights on!” von Zwick announced through the speakers.
Gunner shoved his hatch open, and seconds later, bullets were flying in all directions.
Bear’s shotgun boomed in the night while Cam let loose automatic fire upon her attackers. The assailants screamed in agony as they were struck and as their eyes burned from suddenly being hit with the bright lights. Disoriented, they wildly returned fire, their automatic weapons missing their intended targets but serving to keep Gunner and his team out of the shooting portals.
“Sitrep!” shouted Gunner as he shot a fleeing attacker in the back. Cam was the first to respond.
“One wounded, one KIA.”
Bear responded similarly. “One confirmed kill. One full of double-aught buck just crawled behind a tree. One seen running for cover.”
Cam added to her totals. “I had one escape my fire also.”
Gunner called back the totals. “That’s three dead. Two wounded. Two in the trees. We can assume at least one other might be on the loose.”
Automatic fire ripped across the roof on both sides of the house. Shots were also being fired toward the glass windows downstairs. Gunner pressed his back against the roof trusses and glanced into the yard in front of von Zwick’s entrance. It was logical the attackers would focus their efforts on the building’s greatest vulnerability—the front entry.
A bullet zipped through the hatch and over his head, embedding itself in the twelve-by-twelve post behind him. He used his shotgun to return fire Taliban-style. He gripped the shotgun in his hands, using his powerful forearms and biceps to prepare for the recoil. He stuck the barrel through the opening and squeezed the trigger without aiming at any particular target. The double-aught buckshot flew into the forest, splintering trees and raining bark upon anyone hiding. It served as a message to the attackers to stay behind cover.
Gunner and the Gray Fox team had successfully repelled the first wave, but expected their assailants would be undeterred. His mind raced as he analyzed their motives. Sure, he’d asked some pointed questions to Professor Brandt in Berlin. However, none of them would warrant a kill squad to be dispatched to hunt them. Perhaps, Gunner thought, the target was von Zwick. Maybe he knew something that someone higher up the food chain than Brandt either needed to know, or wanted to bury forever.
Several rounds were fired back at him in response. Gunner ignored them and shouted to his team, “Any movement?”
“Not on my side,” replied Bear. “I’m covering north and west now.”
“Same here, nothing,” replied Cam, who’d ceded one of her areas of responsibility to Bear due to her injury.
Ping! Ping! Crash!
“They’re shooting out the lights!” shouted Bear.
Gunner glanced through the portal. Muzzle flashes started to appear beyond the edge of the forest, sending a hail of bullets toward the corners of the building just below the roofline. Gunner took aim and fired toward the location of the flashes.
A man screamed in agony, and the firing stopped for a moment. Gunner had no way of determining if he’d killed the shooter, but he fired two more rounds in the vicinity just in case. More shots rang out, and soon the entire south end of the house where the front door was located was in the dark.
It was deathly silent as the members of the Gray Fox team caught their breath. Cam pulled her knife and cut off
