If he was going to though, she would watch.
“Does anybody know what level of plates they are wearing?” Rob asked.
“No,” everybody chorused.
Rob prayed it was at least as good as the ar500 he had in his vest. He targeted one agent who was winding back to throw tear gas and let his breath out slowly, taking the slack out of the nearly slackless trigger until the rifle jerked in his hand. The bullet traveled in mere moments and the agent flew backwards, falling almost on the grenade. Rob was already shooting again.
This time, at the man who had turned his head to see what happened. The man was kicking the grenade away from his friend when the jackhammer of god thumped him on the chest. His hand flew up to his face, holding his jawline, but he too crumpled.
“Two hits,” Angelica said. “The first target is still moving.”
“I’m not trying to kill them,” Rob said quietly as he pulled the trigger again.
From the time he’d started firing to the time he stopped, less than four minutes had elapsed. They watched as the gate was breached and the few agents who’d caught a .308 to the plates were hauled away as their comrades tried to pull them to safety. Then the crowd got ugly. In the distance, Rob could hear the whup whup whup as a helicopter fired up and new sirens were sounding, this time from the wrong direction. A police siren.
“Now it’s time to go,” Rob said softly. “The fence is breached, and they have hundreds running loose in there. Even if nobody breaks out, this is going to go wide. There is no way the president can ignore this.”
“The fact you didn’t kill anybody to do this will go a long way in holding off any trouble that might get directed your way,” Christian told him. “I’ll personally call him just as soon as I can get to my family and a phone.”
"I'll loan you mine just as soon as I make two phone calls..." Rob said, pulling the burner phone out of his pocket and dialing the number the state police had left for him.
Twenty-Eight
Sherry Parker had been effectively benched from doing any policing that involved the farm. That had at all come to an end when she'd been tapped for the investigation of the Owens girls. Hearing that more intruders had been found on the Langtry property, the 911 dispatcher had called everyone that she could. The farm had a reputation, it was filled with good people, the bad luck seemed to fall on everyone else around them.
When the local officer had been dispatched, the 911 operator had gotten hold of the sheriffs and the state police. Sherry had taken the call at home, and had strapped on her vest and gear over her civilian clothing. When she had gotten there, she’d found Jennifer and Steff Owens both barely conscious, and a shamefaced Don sitting with his hands in his lap. The entire group had stood around the girls until they were taken into custody.
The Owens girls had admitted to the trespassing and the fight, but they’d told Sherry a wild story about buried treasure, and hidden gold. It all tied in with the bones of their mother and older sister. How the bones fit into the situation didn't make a lot of sense coming from the two addle-brained ladies, but as soon as they were checked out by the EMTs, they were arrested and taken to the hospital for observation. Now the phones had been brought into the investigation. The state police had the better crime lab, but it originally had been the sheriff department's case. After a long night, she went back home for some sleep; the rest of the investigation could wait.
That's how Sherry found herself the day of the riot back at the Langtry Farm in the evening. She radioed one of the group from the front gate using their intercom system, and was told to drive back to the workshop. When she got there, she saw that she'd probably been expected. Not everyone from the farm was there, but it looked like they'd just gotten done putting up grain for the day. There were shapes on a picnic table, under a sheet. The group surrounding it were looking at her, and then back at the shapes again.
“It looks like some of you are still working on the harvest, huh?”
Leah looked around, then back at her. “Andrea and Curt had to go back to the Memphis area for Andrea to get checked out. Rob went to go get Angelica. We expect both back tonight or tomorrow.”
“Rob had to go get Angelica, from where? I thought Steff and Jennifer said they were in sniping positions?”
“Listen,” Dante said, motioning for her to sit at the picnic table, “we’ve got a lot to tell you. It all started when Angelica was kidnapped at the farm and feed store.”
“We… what?” Sherry almost yelled.
“Not only did we find out where she was being held, it sounds like Rob was able to get her and a couple of others out without any loss of life.”
“Who did it? Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“The government took her,” Luis said softly, bringing a double handful of beers from their fridge to the table. “They stole her. Tried using her to blackmail Rob into letting them onto the farm to arrest all of us and steal our harvest. They can’t afford to let people fight back and win. You notice the media blackouts happening on current events?”
“Wow, and no, not really,” Sherry said quietly.
“There’s a large riot happening at the Kelso Detention Center. About three hundred peaceful protestors breached the fences, and are in the process of freeing who they can. It sounded like DHS went from less than lethal rounds to live ammo half an hour ago, but they were outnumbered by the folks inside the compound and those outside. Meanwhile,
