Deadlock (19 page)

The soldier backed off, then rammed the door again. The back of the chair cracked and folded forward. Laura stumbled away from the opening door. She gripped the barrel of the rifle and spun around. The soldier was stepping through. The rifle stock hit the faceplate, and it shattered. The man stumbled, fell to his hands and knees. She lifted the rifle away, then brought it down on the back of the helmet.

The soldier crumpled to the floor. He rolled over. Most of the helmet had broken away. The scared eyes of a young man, no older than seventeen or eighteen, stared up at her. Blood flowed from a cut on the bridge of his nose.

“Shoot me,” he said. “Please.”

Just a baby. It would not be very many years before Dillon would be this age. She shook her head.

His mouth moved without forming words. He squeezed his eyes closed. Tears ran from them, washing the blood from his face in stark streaks.

A loud noise outside of the bedroom, down the hall, made her jump. It had been a thunderous bang, most likely the front door being kicked in. She had snapped her eyes up with the sound, when she brought them back, he was reaching for her gun.

“If you won't kill me,” he said in a harsh whisper, “then take me with you. I can help.”

Another crash from the entry hall. Footsteps.

Laura bit her lip. She said, “Yeah, right.” She raised the rifle and brought the stock down on his forehead.

TWENTY-SIX

Hutch waited. Someone moved around inside the bathroom. Fingers came into view as the person leaned toward the window, but Hutch could not yet see a face mask or helmet.

As if on cue, Jim broke away from wherever he had hunkered down. Branches cracked under his feet; leaves rustled in his wake.

The man in the bathroom pushed a rifle through the window. A helmet appeared.

Hutch leaped for the rifle barrel. His feet slipped on the loose ground cover. Instead of grabbing hold of the barrel, he merely slapped it aside. At least the burst of bullets fired well away from Jim. Hutch tumbled to the ground. The barrel swung down. He kicked away from the wall and landed on his back, beside the man he had killed with the toilet lid. He aimed the pistol at the bathroom window and fired over and over. Bullets slammed into the exterior wall and window frame, but not even one found the sweet spot—the window opening. His finger kept pumping at the trigger, even after the slide locked open, indicating the pistol was empty.

Hutch reached for the extra magazines he'd put in his back pocket. Before his hand was anywhere near the ammo, the man inside returned to the window. As the rifle came out, Hutch twisted up onto the corpse's arm. He reached across, grabbed the far shoulder, and fell back, pulling the man onto him.

The machine gun clattered mechanically, its reports muffled by a sound suppressor. Hutch felt the bullets strike the body over him. It was a series of hammer blows, jolting him but causing no harm. He remembered that the Interceptor body armor was not the strongest of ballistic vests; it was rated to stop only 9 mm rounds. However, since it covered the front and back of the wearer, he figured he was doubly protected. And that wasn't counting the stopping power of the man's body itself.

He gripped the body armor at the armholes and tugged the corpse up, protecting his head. The man's chest pressed heavily on Hutch's cheek. A thought splashed into his consciousness: his shield was a human being. He probably had parents, maybe a family, who loved him.

No,
Hutch thought,
the guy was a murderer. Nothing more.
That was easier to accept.

The hammer blows continued, pounding up and down the body. A few struck the dirt near Hutch's head. The shooter's best bet for wounding him would be to blast away at his feet. Hutch didn't think the man wanted to come out of the window as far as that maneuver required. After all, the soldier knew Hutch was not alone. He would not want to expose himself.

That reminded Hutch that the shooter was also not alone. Squinting along the firebreak toward the end of the building, he didn't see the man's partner running toward him or taking aim. He turned his head and found that direction clear as well. The soldier in the window continued to fire: a three-round burst followed by a pause, then another burst. Did the guy think a round would somehow find him, that it would miraculously come through the corpse or around it? Or was he trying to keep Hutch pinned down while his partner came around? The second man, however, would come slowly, not knowing Jim's location. Then again, the shooter could simply be trying to prevent Hutch from reloading.

So why wasn't Hutch reloading? Because he'd need both hands, and right now one of them had a firm grip on the collar of the body armor, keeping it from shifting. If the corpse rolled off of him, he would be just as dead. Still, he could not lie there waiting for—

Something other than bullets struck the body on top of him. It rolled off and landed in the dirt in front of Hutch's face.

You gotta be kidding,
he thought. He grabbed it and tossed it into the woods with one swift motion.

The grenade exploded.

The shock of it should have kept him in place for at least a few seconds, but he knew the soldier would have taken cover, if only for those same few seconds. While dirt, trees, and shrapnel were still striking the building and raining down, Hutch shoved the corpse away and got his feet under him. He leaped toward the motel and pressed himself against the bricks. Crouching low, he began edging away from the bathroom window. He was torn between keeping an eye on the window and watching for things underfoot that could give him away—an empty potato chip bag, a twig.

His ears were ringing. He hoped the grenade had somehow hindered the soldier's hearing as well. Probably not, considering the helmet. Regardless, he had to do what he had to do. He paused to eject the empty magazine, retrieve a full one from his pocket, and push it into the handle of the pistol. He flipped a thumb switch and moved the slide back into place, automatically chambering a round.

The machine gun clattered against the windowsill, sliding out. It pointed at the body, then moved up and down, left and right, but never close enough to the building to threaten Hutch. The soldier's next logical move would be to lean out and inspect the area closest to the building.

Keeping the pistol pointed at the window, Hutch slid silently along the wall away from it.

He reached his destination: one of the downspouts. It looked heavier duty than the ones on his house. He pushed the fingers of his free hand under it and flexed. The pipe didn't budge.

Decision time. Wait for the helmet to appear, put a couple holes into it—he was feeling optimistic at the moment—or start climbing.

A sound drew his attention toward the far corner of the building, the way he had gone when he'd sneaked up on Jim. Darkness that way. Shadows. Trees. A shadow shifted, moved. Man-shaped. It was the other soldier.

He had stepped out from around the bend in the building and was walking toward the edge of the woods. Smart: the greatest threat of attack was from the woods. The face of the helmet rotated toward Hutch. The man barely gave the area a glance. He must have been confident his partner had it covered.

Knowing something about Page's passion for technology, Hutch suspected the helmets these soldiers wore were decked out in the latest battle gear: communications, night vision, infrared, maybe targeting matrices. If the man had focused his attention on the firebreak—which was essentially a straight alley along the back of the motel—he would have spotted Hutch in a heartbeat.

Something in the woods had the soldier down there excited. He ran to the edge, fired a few rounds. Hutch hoped it was an animal that had drawn his attention and not Jim.

Fifteen feet away, a helmet protruded from the bathroom window—way out, as though the guy was about to climb through. Hutch's heart ricocheted off his sternum and lodged in his throat. The man pulled his machine gun through. He held his position, leaning out, and aimed into the woods toward his partner. He was covering his teammate, who had obviously communicated his sighting of something among the trees.

The soldier in the window pulled his trigger. Hutch could hear, but not see, the rounds cut through leaves and branches. The soldier shifted his aim to the woods on the other side of his partner. He sent a few rounds into that area as well.

Hutch guessed the soldier was completely engrossed in protecting his teammate, especially given that they'd already lost a man. His ears would be attuned to communication coming from the fighter on the front lines, or too desensitized by the constant firing to detect subtle noises.

Hutch pushed the pistol into his waistband, slipped in front of the downspout, and started climbing.

TWENTY-SEVEN

The soldier's eyelids fluttered. He tried to lift his head, but it fell back to the floor, and he was still.

Laura watched him, tapped him with her toe. When she was sure he was unconscious, she started for the children. They'd stopped at the door to watch. “Let's go,” she said.

Dillon released Macie's arm. He took several tentative steps toward his mother, meeting her in the center of the bedroom. The whole time, he held his eyes on the soldier.

Laura brushed past him, sweeping her fingers through his hair. “Come on, honey. There're other people in the house.”

He gripped her arm, spinning her toward him. His expression was ancient: fear and concern. “We can't leave him,” he said.

“The soldier? Yes, we can.” She reached for him.

He backed away from her. “No!”

“Dillon, listen,” she said. She was not sure if she should keep her patience with him or be crazy-impatient to get all of them out the door ahead of the other soldiers. “We don't have time for this. That boy—”

She immediately regretted the word, which seemed to support Dillon's argument. But he
was
so young. “That man tried to kill us. His friends are still trying to kill us. One of them took Logan.”

Behind her Macie said, “Logan? They
took
him?” She started to cry.

Laura held up her hand to the girl. “It'll be okay, sweetie. Everything will work out.” It seemed less of a lie than
Logan will be fine
or
We'll get him back
. She wanted both to be true.

“Mom,” Dillon said, “we can't leave him. He asked us to take him.”

“He also asked me to shoot him. Should I do that?” She turned toward Macie and the patio door. Conversation over.

“Mom, wait!”

“Dillon!” They had been keeping their voices low, but she was ready to lose it. “There are men out there looking for us. They want to kill us or take us. Either way, I don't like it.”

Her heart caught the full impact of Dillon's puppy-dog sadness. She hated when he did that. More softly she said, “Even if we wanted to, we can't bring him. He's out cold. He's a grown man.”
Sort of.
Her eyes pleaded with Dillon to understand.

“You can do it,” he said. “You've hauled whole caribou miles out of the woods.”

She gave her son a crooked smile. “They were gutted and quartered.”

Dillon began backing up toward the soldier. “He wanted you to kill him or take him. He wasn't hurting us.”

Laura pressed her lips tight and closed her eyes. She could thrash Dillon about now, but she also knew he was right. She remembered Julian. He had been a young teen forced to go with Declan on a murderous rampage. She and Hutch had lamented his fate many times.

Now she had an opportunity to help someone like Julian. Could she walk away? Just reduce the boy's obvious anguish to sad conversations for the rest of her life?

Who was she kidding, thinking about “opportunity” and “rest of her life”? Her own survival was questionable. But between Dillon and her memories of Julian, she knew she could not leave the young soldier.

She strode past Dillon. “Get the door. And not another word.”

She listened at the door to the hallway. Noises deeper in the house. She knelt beside the soldier. She unclipped his helmet's chinstrap and pushed away the pieces of helmet. Wires connected the chunks like sinew. She unbuckled his utility belt, checked its contents. Couple meal bars. A wad of twenty-dollar bills. A coil of large zip ties—lightweight, disposable handcuffs. She slipped everything into her pants pockets.

She examined his bulletproof vest. It looked heavy. She considered wearing it herself, but wasn't sure she could handle the weight on top of carrying the soldier. It would be too cumbersome for Macie. She unstrapped it and tugged it off the boy.

“Dillon,” she said, “come put this on.” She tossed it toward him.

She stood and looked down at the boy. At least he wasn't fat. She planted her knee by his hip and grabbed one of his wrists. She swung it around her shoulder. She slipped her arm behind one of his knees and lifted. Tom had taught her the technique. It distributed the body's weight across both shoulders and her upper back. Since the hand of the arm entwining his leg also held his wrist across her chest, it left her with a free hand. She rose, groaning quietly. She took a step. Not too bad.

Okay
, she thought.
My throat feels like raw meat every time I breathe, my neck's on fire, and I have a hundred and fifty pounds of dead weight on my shoulders. No problem.

Never mind killers were after them. Icing on the cake. She stumbled toward the door. “Macie, you okay?”

“I want Logan.”

“Me too. Let's get out of here first. Then we'll figure out how to get him back. Okay?”

Macie nodded.

Laura smiled at Dillon. “Let's do it.”

Dwarfed by the bulletproof vest, with arrows protruding behind his head, a bow over one shoulder, a rifle over the other, and a bow bag in his lap, Dillon more closely resembled a pack mule than a boy. Scratch that. He looked like the personification of
resolve
.