Part 1
Lost Hills, California
Thursday Night
Matt and Connor continued a systematic search around the tree, looking for some clue to the whereabouts of their families. Minutes before, they had assumed their wives and boys had died in the fire that had reduced Connor’s home to a smoldering pile of rubble. Then they found evidence showing, almost without a doubt, that they had not been in the inferno as it raged out of control.
Connor turned toward Matt, his flashlight illuminating white streaks of skin from the corners of Matt’s eyes, running down his soot covered face. Connor knew his face bore the same signs of anguish, anguish that had nearly pushed him past the brink of what he could handle.
Finally Connor spoke. “They aren’t here anymore. Katie’s car is still over there and so is your truck. They didn’t drive away. They either left on foot or they were taken.”
“Okay,” Matt answered, his voice still broken. “Let’s assume they left on foot. Where would they have gone?”
“There are two bodies in the house that don’t belong there,” Connor said, referring to the two charred corpses they had found in the remains of his house minutes before. One of them had what looked like a bullet hole in his head. Both had the burned remains of AK-47 rifles next to their bodies.
“Assuming the bodies belong to Curtis’s crew, there must have been others. There is no way the two of them walked here. There aren’t any other vehicles, so somebody drove away after the fire. Katie and Eve wouldn’t have left toward the road with whoever started the fire having gone in that direction. The only place they could have gone is there,” Connor said, pointing to the rugged hills rising up behind his property. “That’s assuming Curtis didn’t take them with him.”
“No way,” Matt interjected. “Based on the shell casings we found, we know Katie, Eve and the boys had at least two guns. There weren’t enough casings for them to have run out of ammo. With two guns, they would have been able to put up a good fight. They wouldn’t have given up with ammo to burn. Curtis didn’t take them. They’re out there,” he said, looking at the rugged terrain behind them. “Where out there would they go, though?” he asked rhetorically. “There’s a lot of country.”
No sooner had the words left Matt’s mouth than a soft
ffftt
whispered passed their heads and a branch on the tree behind them snapped, wood fragments flying in all directions. A fraction of a second later, the crack of a gunshot raced across Connor’s property and into the distance along the hills behind the house, echoing along the rim rock like a peel of thunder.
In the second it took for them to process the sound and formulate the appropriate response, another gunshot blasted from behind the shed. This time, Connor’s eyes, having been drawn to the sound of the previous shot, spotted a short burst of flame erupt as the last remnants of combusting gun powder spewed out the gun barrel and into the night. A second flame lit up the area a mere five feet from the first. There were at least two shooters.
Matt responded faster than Connor. Connor’s initial response was to move for the cover of the tree behind them. Matt’s first response was to rip his pistol from its holster and put lead downrange. He moved for cover as his gun spat its own short flames toward the ambushers.
Connor and Matt hunkered behind the same tree their families had used for cover a short time before. An occasional thud reverberated through the tree as it absorbed the energy of a bullet that had buried itself deep in the trunk.
The initial flurry of gunfire died to sporadic pops as both sides settled down and began looking for the outline of a target illuminated by the moon overhead.
“I’m getting sick and tired of people shooting at me,” Matt hissed from two feet away in a moment of stillness. “Why is my rifle in the car every time I need it? It would come in pretty handy right now.”
Connor agreed. The two shooters were at least a hundred yards away. Under the best of circumstances, it was a really long shot for a pistol. In the poorly illuminated night, it was virtually impossible to hit somebody at that distance.
“We’re going to have to get closer to win this,” Connor said softly. “Do you want to stay here and lay down cover fire or do you want to try to get behind them?”
“You’re always telling me how fast you are. Why don’t you put some of that greased lightning speed to use?” Matt quietly uttered. “I like it right here behind this tree.”
“Okay,” Connor said, pulling two spare magazines out of his pocket. “Take these. You won’t be able to cover me very well if you run out of bullets. I’m going to crawl back a ways and try to slip out of here unnoticed,” he whispered. Matt gave a nearly imperceptible nod as he slid to the right, peered around the tree, and fired into the darkness to the right of the shed. The two gunmen immediately lit up the area in front of them with several brief muzzle flashes. Bullets hit close to Matt, peppering his face with wood chips from the tree and dirt and gravel from the ground. He quickly squirmed back behind cover.
“I’m going to try to work my way up the hill to get behind them. Remember where I am when you fire,” Connor admonished as he slid backwards and turned around, trying to burrow into the dirt as he scurried away on his belly.
Twenty yards from the tree, Connor started down a slight hill. When he had moved down the hill far enough to be out of sight, he transitioned to his hands and knees, quadrupling his speed. A short distance later, the crest of the hill provided enough cover that he rose to his feet, hunkered over as far as he could, and began to run.
As Connor moved away from the house, the undergrowth increased, providing additional concealment as he began a wide circle that would take him up the hill and bring him back down and behind whoever was shooting at Matt. He just hoped that the two shooters hadn’t seen him leave and would stay where they were until he could get into position behind them.
His heart was racing, both from adrenaline and exertion. He consciously forced himself to slow his pace, hoping to quiet his approach as well as decrease his galloping heart rate enough to let him hit his target when he got into position.
Connor’s estimation of time was distorted by the stress his body was being subjected to. He looked briefly at his watch which glowed green when he squeezed the top right button. The reading meant nothing because he had failed to look at it when he started. He estimated he had been moving for a minute or two, but it could have been more. He didn’t know for sure. Matt kept up his cover fire, sending a round out every five or six seconds. With the ammo load Connor knew Matt had, he figured Matt could keep that rate of fire up for five or six minutes before he ran out of bullets. The deeper booming of the two rifles assured him that Matt had been unsuccessful in his attempts to hit either shooter.
The rifle shots came closer together than Matt’s shots, and the constant booms helped Connor track his progress. By the time he estimated he was directly above the shooters, Connor had gained about eighty feet of elevation and was probably two hundred yards away from them. His circular path started him back downhill as he began flanking the attacking party. He had to continually force himself to slow, conscious of the sound he knew he was making. The constant ring in his ears overshadowed most of the noise he made and he was sure the shooters suffered from the same problem. Connor still worked to move as silently as possible.
The brush thinned and then disappeared and the shed came into view. Matt’s ricochets zinged away into the night, motivating Connor to keep low. He approached the shed from forty-five degrees to the left, hoping it would keep him out of Matt’s field of fire. At fifty or sixty yards, Connor saw the prone form of the first gunman come into view in the dim moonlit night. He was oblivious to Connor’s approach. As he slowly inched closer, Connor realized the second shooter had moved. Connor was now close enough to see the entire area, and there was only one person there. The second must have left to flank Matt’s position. It was possible Connor had passed him in the brush and had not even realized it. Connor raised his pistol to fire and then hesitated. If the other shooter was still close by, Connor would give away his position and draw his fire.
Not knowing where the second shooter was, Connor paused, deciding how to best approach the situation. He realized that Matt hadn’t fired for quite a while. The shooter in front of Connor noticed, too, and raised himself up higher. At first Connor feared Matt may have been hit, but then Matt yelled a string of insults at the shooter, daring him to show himself. It dawned on Connor that Matt was out of bullets. The shooter came to the same conclusion and rose up further, taking a solid rest on a boulder. Realizing the gunman had no clue Conner was there, Connor placed his pistol back in the holster. He pulled his knife out of his pocket and slowly opened the four-inch blade.
Hoping he was right in his assessment that Matt’s ammo supply was depleted, Connor moved directly behind the shooter and into Matt’s line of fire. Connor closed to three feet behind the man before he sensed Connor’s presence. The shooter began to turn his head to the left. Connor lunged to his right side, grasping the gunman’s chin in his left hand and pulling it all the way around to his left shoulder. He plunged the point of the knife into the now exposed right side of the shooter’s neck and made two quick sawing motions. Hot sticky fluid gushed from the wound. The blade momentarily slowed as it passed through the tough cartilage of his windpipe and then freely cut again until it grated to a stop against his spine. His last breaths gurgled from his severed throat and then his body went limp, his chin slipping from Connor’s grasp.
Connor briefly froze, looking in horror at the savagery he had wrought. Deserved or not, such a barbaric attack bucked and kicked at his conscience. He pushed the guilt from his mind and reached for the ambusher’s rifle. As Connor lifted the AR style rifle, he saw several magazines on the ground. He picked one up and, realizing it was empty, dropped it back to the bare dirt.
Pulling the charging handle back halfway opened the action of the rifle enough for him to place a finger in and feel that there was at least one round left in the gun. Unsure of where the second shooter had gone, Connor was hesitant to remain where he was. He vainly searched the dim moonlit terrain, looking for the other assailant. The only place that made sense for him to go was up the hill following the reciprocal path that Connor had taken. How they had missed each other was a mystery. Had their ears not been ringing from the gunfire, they surely would have heard each other clumping through the undergrowth.
Connor debated yelling to alert Matt. Just before he did, he detected movement in the grassy clearing uphill from Matt’s position. It was the second shooter. Had his arc had a slightly larger radius, he would have come out behind the hill Connor had used for cover as he left Matt. However, the intruder was not familiar with the terrain, and his focus on Matt had prevented him from realizing there was better cover available. Connor rolled the first shooter away from the rock and took a position behind it, feeling the sticky moistness of blood soak into his pants as he sat down. Ignoring the sensation, he rested the foreend of the rifle on the rock and looked through the sight, but couldn’t see anything. Connor reached up with his left thumb and pushed on the rear site. Ninety degrees of rotation brought the larger aperture site up, which gave him the extra visibility he needed to make out the second assailant in the dim moonlight. The shooter had spotted Matt and was taking aim at him. Connor breathed in, let half the breath out, and held the rest as he applied increasing force to the trigger. It suddenly snapped, releasing a bellow from the rifle which recoiled slightly, causing him to lose sight of the target. Connor searched where he had been and saw no sign of him.
“Second shooter to your right,” Connor yelled at Matt. He saw Matt’s body quickly move around the tree, putting it between himself and where Connor told him the gunman was located.
“How far?” he yelled back.
“Seventy yards, maybe eighty.”
“Shoot him!” he yelled.
Connor continued searching the opening. There was nothing. The guy couldn’t have cleared the opening that fast. The only possibilities were that Connor had hit him and he had fallen or he had missed and the guy had dropped to his belly. Either way, he was obscured by the short grass carpeting the area. Not knowing what to do, Connor fired a round in the vicinity of where he had last seen the guy. He moved his aim slightly and fired again. Connor continued moving his aim in a grid pattern until the magazine was empty.
Then he waited.
And waited.
After two minutes had passed on his watch, Connor charged, pistol in hand, to the shooter’s last known position.
He nearly stepped on the body before he saw it. Stopping just short, Connor pointed his gun at the prostrate form at his feet. He pulled the flash light from his belt and shined it on the body. It was a male in his late twenties, and he was still alive, his chest soaked in blood. The bright red, frothy fluid around his mouth suggested he was shot through the lung.
“Help me,” he wheezed.
“Not until you help me,” Connor seethed back at him. “Where are my wife and son?”
The man tried to answer, but the words wouldn’t come. He silently mouthed something Connor couldn’t make out. He coughed, spraying a mist of blood out into the night. His arm feebly rose to wipe his mouth, smearing the blood across his face.