Into the Fire (55 page)

He smiled at Murphy the way that only a Navy SEAL could smile while in the midst of hundreds of heavily armed men who wouldn’t have blinked at shooting them dead.

“You won’t believe,” Jenk said to Murph, “what I just found…”

“Help me,” Dave said, and Sophia was instantly there, helping him move the mattress up so that it was blocking one of the front windows, even as Izzy and Hannah moved Tess and Eden down onto the much safer floor.

There were windows in the back, and together they schlepped the second mattress in that direction, too.

They moved quickly—Dave needed to get back to the unblocked front window, to help Izzy hold off an attack. But for a moment, as they were standing close enough to touch, Sophia leaned against him—just for a fraction of a second. It wasn’t even a real embrace, and yet his heart immediately flipped in his chest. As if it weren’t pounding hard enough already…

“I knew you’d come,” she told him, faith in her blue eyes.

“Always,” he promised, unable to do more than whisper. He cleared the trepidation from his throat, bracing himself for the worst, because he
had
to ask, “Did they hurt you?”

“They weren’t exactly gentle with any of us,” Sophia told him, “but I know what you’re asking and…No.” She reached up and touched the side of his face, her fingers cool and soft as she brushed something from his cheek.

If there’d been more time, he would have done it. He would have leaned in those extra few inches and kissed her—but as Dave instead moved back to the window, as Sophia went to help Eden, who’d begun to breathe through another contraction, he knew that he was kidding himself.

The only time he would ever dare to kiss Sophia was in his wildest dreams.

“Izzy!” Eden cried out.

“I’m right here, sweetheart,” the SEAL called back, his voice rough. “I’m not going anywhere.” He looked at Dave, his face grim. “We gotta—”

“I know,” Dave said as he scanned the open area in front of the cottage, watching for any sign of movement from the Freedom Network troops that were positioned behind the other buildings. “Our options are limited.”

“So’s our ammunition,” Izzy said. “
That
plus the fact we’re surrounded…”

They
were
completely surrounded.

They’d found the hostages, but now Dave and Izzy were just as much held hostage with them.

And okay, they were slightly better off in that they had weapons and could keep the Freedom Network at bay for an undetermined amount of time.

No, make that a determined amount of time—because, as Izzy had pointed out, they didn’t have an unlimited supply of ammunition. In fact, they had an extremely non-unlimited supply of ammo. As in, they could hold off a direct assault for maybe—maybe—two minutes.

Dave’s options were to surrender or to wait for rescue.

And surrender was
not
an option.

They all sat in silence for a moment, then Dave made the mistake of glancing at Sophia again.

Who said, “I’m afraid even to ask about Nash.”

Tess was out cold, her eyes closed.

“It’s better that you don’t,” Dave agreed, but as he looked at Sophia again, he knew that
she
now knew they’d lost their friend. The expression on her face broke his heart, and he also knew, in that moment, that she was thinking about Decker.

Damn him.

Who was somewhere here, in the compound.

On an entirely different mission.

“If they stage an assault, do we shoot to kill?” Hannah called out from her position at the back window, clearly thinking the very same thing Dave and Izzy had about their limited ammunition.

Do we shoot to kill?
It was one of those decisions that Dave had hoped he’d never have to make—one of the reasons he’d so steadfastly resisted taking on the role of team leader.

But then he thought about Angelina and about Jim Nash, and about the dreadful task that awaited him—even after they were all safely rescued: Telling Tess that Nash was dead. And the decision got a little less difficult to make.

“Affirmative,” he answered, truly breaking his team-leader-cherry. He didn’t look over at Sophia, even though he knew she was watching him, well aware of what he’d just done.

“What the fuck are they doing out there?” Izzy asked, disbelief in his voice.

“What’s happening?” Hannah asked. She saw movement out the back window, but the FN security teams seemed to be retreating. They were scrambling away, not coming closer.

Dave answered her, but he turned only briefly, his intense focus on whatever was out that front window, and Hannah didn’t catch his response.

She looked to Sophia, who’d just given Eden a quick pelvic exam. The good news was that she didn’t seem about to deliver within the next few minutes. The bad news was that she appeared to be at least partially dilated. At only twenty-four weeks, that news didn’t bode well for the baby.

Sophia’s calm was admirable as she paused to encourage Eden to breathe through her latest contraction. “They’ve got a…”

What?
“I’m sorry,” Hannah said. “But it looked as if you just said
rocket
?”

“Launcher,” Sophia repeated, nodding.

Hannah scrambled for the front window where, sure enough, Craig Reed had brought in, quite literally, the heavy artillery.

Izzy wasn’t known in the Teams for being a particularly excellent marksman, but he was working his mojo now, trying to lay down fire to keep the bubba with the RPG-7 shoulder-fired grenade launcher from taking aim and turning their cottage hiding place into rubble.

“Hold your fire,” Dave ordered.

What the fuck? Izzy looked at him.

“You’re wasting ammunition,” Dave snapped.

“Like we’re going to have a use for it when we’re fried extra crispy…?”

“Fire!”

The sound of a rocket-propelled grenade being launched was like no other. Izzy drew what had to be his very last breath during its roar, but then he realized what Dave had somehow known, as the world shook but didn’t end.

It was the cottage next door that exploded, deafeningly, into flames.

Although the shock waves put even Hannah onto the floor.

“Fire at will,” Dave commanded through the ringing in Izzy’s ears, plaster dust whitening his hair.

“Eden, you all right?” Izzy shouted, aiming at the corner of the brick building behind which the gunman had taken refuge, no doubt to reload.

“I
hate
these assholes,” Eden shouted back.

“That’s my girl,” he said, loving the feel of his heart still pumping blood through his veins, watching, waiting for any sign of movement.

No doubt about it, Craig Reed was playing show-and-tell with his nifty, illegally-gotten artillery. The next grenade—and these were definitely not your grandfather’s old-fashioned, go-boom, throw-yourself-on-top-of-them-and-save-your-buddies grenades—
was
gonna be aimed in their direction.

And sure enough, good ol’ boy Reed had gotten himself a megaphone, over which he shouted, “Lay down your weapons and surrender! You have sixty seconds to come out with your hands up!”

Smoke billowed into the sky as the flames from the burning cottage brought both more light and more shadow to the compound.

Flames made shadows jump and dance. It was, for someone Murphy’s size, the best cover for covert movement.

So he moved closer. And closer.

Watching as someone in the cottage—probably the SEAL, Zanella—fired a rifle, keeping the Freedom Network artilleryman from moving back into position with that reloaded RPG-7.

Counting down the seconds.

Watching as Reed gave the order for the man with the grenade launcher to move farther back, out of rifle range.

It was then that Murphy couldn’t wait any longer.

He stepped out of the shadows and into the light.

“No!” Hannah saw Murphy first, before Reed or any of the other Freedom Network soldiers saw him.

He walked—serenely—into the flickering light between the cottage and the rocket launcher, both hands in the air.

“Oh, shit,” Dave’s mouth moved, “Hannah, don’t!” He grabbed her and held her back, and she realized that she’d lunged for the door.

But then she also realized that Dave wasn’t saying
don’t,
but rather,
don’t look
—and she knew that Murphy was going to die.

But she couldn’t not look, and as she watched him—her lover, her best friend—she saw that he held both of his hands the same way—thumb, pinkie and forefinger held out straight, middle and ring fingers bent. It was the ASL sign for
I love you
—and she knew his message was for her.

But it didn’t make it any better.

In fact, it made it worse. He loved her, and yet he was still ready and even willing to give up. To surrender.

To die.

“What’s he saying?” she asked, unable to tear her eyes away from the sight of him, standing there, a solo figure lit by flames.

“I’m the one you’re looking for,”
Dave repeated. “
I’m the one you want.
Now Reed:
Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you where you stand.
Now Murph:
Tell your men to stand down, my people will come out, we’ll all walk to the gate, I’ll watch them leave…
Now Reed:
This is the man who murdered Reverend Ebersole.
He shouted that—to the crowd.”

“Oh, God,” Hannah said. She wasn’t just going to watch Murphy die, she was going to watch him be torn apart by an angry mob.

“Okay,” Dave said, “Now Reed’s giving the order—
Hold your fire.
”

“That wasn’t Reed who said that,” Izzy said, straining, too, to get a closer look. “Holy shit, is that Tim Ebersole with Decker?”

Decker knew that Murphy was out of time. The former Marine was mere seconds from being cut down by hundreds of bullets.

Murphy had miscalculated Reed’s motivation.
I’m the one you want.
Not true. Reed had already gotten what he wanted—a botched rescue of a hostage situation that was nanoseconds from escalating into an FBI assault on the Freedom Network compound.

Decker was certain by now that Reed didn’t give a flying fuck about Tim Ebersole—other than the insurance money his “death” had provided.

But the two-hundred-strong army of Freedom Network apostles was devoted to the reverend—most of them wore black armbands, in mourning for his death.

And, of course, Ebersole himself was a major fan of his own not-being-dead—
and
of his continuing to not be dead.

Deck smoothly sheathed his knife—there was no longer a need for the threat of silent death—and drew his sidearm. He pushed his frightened prisoner out of the shadows, pulling the shawl from Ebersole’s head and face, letting the firelight dance and reflect off his Glock as well.

“Hold your fire,” Ebersole called again, his voice no doubt familiar to his devoted followers.

“It’s a miracle, saints be praised, I’m not dead.” Decker quietly fed the man his lines, which Ebersole repeated in a far more elegant oratorical delivery as Deck met Murphy’s eyes, as Murph looked over Deck’s shoulder and then back, clearly sending him a pointed message.

Decker nodded. Just once, just slightly. He knew. Jenkins and Gillman were coming.

But seconds ticked by—where the hell were they?—as much of the Freedom Network fell to their knees.

“Tell them to stay back,” Decker instructed. “Tell them I’ve got a gun and if anyone harms Murphy or any of my friends, I
will
kill you…”

As soon as the words were out of Ebersole’s mouth, Decker knew it had been a mistake. He saw Reed—the only man who not only didn’t give that flying fuck if Ebersole survived the next half-second, but probably also the only man who benefited from Decker carrying out his threat—raise his rifle to his shoulder.

“Murphy get down!” Decker bellowed, but it was too late, the bullet hit Murph in the chest, spinning him around.

Ebersole started to scream, and Jesus, now Reed was aiming at him, and Decker felt that bullet hit the man and—shit!—hit him, too, right in the shoulder.

Decker grabbed the preacher beneath the arms and dragged him, toward Murphy, as—about fucking time—Jenkins and Gillman roared up in two of the Freedom Network’s armored trucks—with Gillman taking a detour and deftly taking out the RPG-7—good man—by smashing it flat.

Hannah ran out of the cottage.

Murphy had fallen, then gotten back up, then fallen again, and it was possible the entire Freedom Network had opened fire, but she didn’t care—she ran toward him.

But then, God, a truck squealed to a stop right next to Murphy, and Jenkins was there shouting, “Get ’em in, get ’em in.”

With Decker’s help she got Murphy and a wounded, bald-headed Tim Ebersole into the back of the truck.

“Go, go!” she shouted, and Jenkins gunned it.

“Han,” Murphy said, struggling to breathe, to sit up.

“Stay still, bwee,” she said. “Don’t move!”

“They’re having trouble getting out the door!” Decker shouted, and Hannah realized that the other truck had tried to pull up close to the cottage door, but the Freedom Network had, indeed, opened fire.