The McClane Apocalypse: Book One (31 page)

John raises his M16; he knows his brothers in arms are doing the same. He slings the shotgun over his shoulder. It will only be used when he runs out of ammo in his rifle, or if he gets close enough for a short range shot. The night vision goggles help immeasurably, but these thugs are standing right out in the open, spotlighted by their own fire. He’s able to count at least fifteen men. There could still be others either in their vehicles or in any of the surrounding buildings.

He chooses a target, a particularly loud, large man with a long beard who is barking orders to the followers in the crowd. Pressing two fingers to his throat, he speaks into his headset, “Dr. Death in position.”

“LB in position,” Derek comes over the headset. He doesn’t exactly like his real call sign, so he’s always shortened his nickname to LB. John isn’t crazy about his, either, but it fits and was aptly given by his fellow soldiers.

“Eagle Direct in position. Got visual on Hummingbird,” Kelly says speaking of himself and the name they’ve appointed to Reagan, though she didn’t like it. If she doesn’t want to be called Hummingbird, then she should move slower.

“Target acquired,” John says, and his brother and friend both echo his statement.

“Many targets acquired. Just shoot already,” Reagan says testily into her headset. John hears Kelly accidentally chuff into his headset. She’s so impatient and feisty. Good grief.

“Dr. Death, lead us off. Fire at will,” Derek tells him, and John does so with pleasure.

He draws another deep breath, chooses a center mass shot and squeezes the trigger. Target disabled.

Within two seconds, shots are coming from all directions. John picks off two more men, counts three more that are taken out from his group and starts moving forward. His position is now given up. They are coming toward him. Better push them back. He fires again, misses and sees his opponent is taken out by a long range shot. A second later, another man is down. He knows this is Reagan. The report from her Remington is louder than their M16’s. The perps are diving for cover now. They come up brandishing guns of their own and rapid firing into their general direction; some of them are using fully automatic weapons. They are sloppy, untrained and their shots hit wild and wide.

“Hummingbird, take out the one with the Uzi behind the...,” Derek tries to tell her, but she’s two steps ahead of his brother and disables the Uzi operator with a single shot to the head. Doc was right; his granddaughter is a deadly shot. She could’ve taught at sniper school.

John makes it to the garage, surprises a would-be assassin and shoots him in the chest. The Reynolds family inside the house is offering cover fire, though they probably don’t even realize. But he’ll take all the help he can get. He takes cover again behind the cement block wall and spies Kelly in the dark, moving toward the back of the farm house.

“Eagle Direct, take the porch,” Derek orders, and John sees his friend move out.

Kelly sprints up the steps, shoots a guy off to his left and disappears around the other side. Raising the M16 again, John takes aim and is able to take out two more men, who stupidly pop their heads up from their cover behind an expensive looking pickup truck to take a shot.

“Hummingbird, take...,” Derek tries to direct her again.

The report of the Remington can be heard after her next victim falls to the ground, holding his blown out throat.

“Never mind,” Derek says with almost impatient disappointment. Reagan obviously doesn’t need a lot of direction.

Shots ring out from the milk house at a near constant tapping, and his brother manages to eliminate at least one more assassin. Their weapons are not set to fully automatic as this is a small firefight, and they should conserve as much ammo as possible.

Low sprinting, John makes it to the side porch of the house and crouches down in between hedges and flowering bushes. From what he can tell there are at least five guys left who are slightly more cunning than the others. They have holed up behind the trucks and are not exposing themselves. The closer he gets to the fire, the harder it is to use the night vision goggles to see because of the glare. But he doesn’t want to lose this advantage over their enemy. Shots continue to ring out as John takes aim again and fires, hitting one in the leg.

“Eagle Direct, on your left,” Derek tells Kelly. John hears another shot, followed by a scream of agony and then Reagan’s high power rifle report that silences the scream.

A rustling behind him alerts John that he is not alone only a second too late. He starts to swing around, muzzle up, prepared to shoot as a knife is sunk into his shoulder blade. It knocks him off balance, causing him to fall to his side and squeeze a round randomly into the air. Unfortunately, he’s missed his target, and the guy jumps on him with his knife held high. Shots continue to ring out from all directions, but now he’s wrestling in the open with a knife wielding freak. He effectively blocks a wide, swinging arc toward his chest and holds his attacker off. He cannot see the man on top of him all too clearly as his set of goggles is knocked askew during their tussle. The sudden change in light is difficult at first to adjust to, but he manages to deflect another stabbing. His assailant is smaller in size and weighs less, so John is able to roll him until the man is underneath him. Swiftly, he turns the man’s wrist and plunges his own knife into his throat at an upward angle, dispatching him quickly to Hell.

He scrambles to get back to cover as shots hit the ground too close for John’s comfort. Taking a second to gather his wits again and readjust his goggles, John crouches once more near the porch and inches forward. A bullet whizzes near his ear, so he ducks lower, pressing his back against the wall. His position is done, and John knows he needs to move again. More shots from Reagan’s Remington ring out and another scumbag is taken down but not without a fair amount of annoying wailing.

“Doctor Death, taking new position. Provide suppressive fire,” John tells everyone and within a nanosecond Reagan’s rifle is popping off at a steadier pace, followed by his brother’s shots. He normally calls himself Doc for a shortened version of Dr. Death, but he hadn’t wanted to confuse Reagan.

John decides to circle back to the garage and come about on the other side to have a better, but more exposed position. It’s the only way he sees them being able to get at the bad guys who are cowering. This will be a no prisoners, no surrender situation. Another few shots ring out from the upstairs of the farm house and more from Kelly and Derek’s areas, so John takes advantage of the momentary lapse in bullets being fired at him to low sprint back to the garage. Once he’s there he moves swiftly around the back of the building, careful not to fall down the steep hill behind it. He creeps to the front of the square building and squats low again. He’s in the perfect position and can see that there are still four of them left. After a quick scan of the surrounding area, he realizes that if he can circle behind them a little further, he can get to a small hill with trees and finish them off from there. Kelly, Derek and Billy are providing suppressive fire. Reagan obviously doesn’t know about suppressive firing and only takes a shot when she’s sure she’s got one. Also not a bad tactic.

“Variable,” is whispered behind him and John knows Kelly is there by the old code words they used to use.

“Tango,” John answers in the same hushed tone.

Kelly has apparently had the same idea. They hand signal to each other as he is still at the back of the garage while John remains at the front. John lets him know how many men are remaining then sends a directive to move toward the ridge.

“Doc and Eagle Direct flanking left,” John tells the others so as not to get shot in a cross-fire situation.

When the men reach the small crest, they spread out. Kelly continues on behind the perps, which could be dangerous if their own team hits them with a stray bullet but calling the new directive will help with that. John takes the nearer copse of trees which puts him at a right angle facing the perps. Once they are both in position, they hand signal in the dark again to each other, take aim and rapidly finish off the attackers. After three or four seconds John calls to the rest of the group through their headsets.

“Eagle Direct, all clear!” Kelly echoes him, as does Derek who has now moved up to John’s old position at the porch front. He hears nothing from Reagan or the neighbor’s kid, but he knows he wouldn’t hear her anyways if she’s removed her in-ear speaker.

“Doctor Death to Hummingbird, come in, over,” John says to her as he feels his heart speed up.

He and Kelly cautiously approach the downed men. Kelly finishes off two of them, putting them out of their misery. There are bottles of liquor and drug paraphernalia littered everywhere near their trucks, around the campfire and by their strewn bodies. Why the heck isn’t she answering?

“Eagle Direct to Hummingbird, come in, over,” Kelly repeats John’s communication.

They join Derek near the front of the house, and the Reynolds family comes out of their fearful hiding to stand with them. John and Kelly leave Derek with the family to seek out Billy and Reagan and ascertain their safety. They round the house and jog toward the barns and, more importantly, the silo. It’s eerily silent, and John has a sick feeling settling in his gut. When they get to the cement silo they find Billy dead, shot to the head, and Reagan’s rifle is on the ground at the base of the silo along with her headset and night vision goggles.

“Where is she?” John whispers urgently to no one but himself.

“Fuck,” Kelly answers with equal frustration. When his friend makes eye contact, he signals for them to split up and circle the barn.

John’s heart is hammering so loudly he can hear it in his ears, and it’s not from exertion. He’s been in battles that have lasted hours, sometimes even days. A person would be surprised what their body can endure when it’s pushed beyond its limits. It can become a limitless machine if they will it.

He stays close to the cover of the long narrow barn, scanning left and right and behind him with every step. She has to be here somewhere. She would not have run, and she sure as hell wouldn’t have run without that rifle. The enemy is dead, the threat neutralized, but they’ve missed someone. The ancient two story part of the original barn still stands, and John slips in a side door. He can hear her.

“Let me go, you fucking pig!” she screeches. John hears a retaliation of some sort and Reagan’s answer of a yelp of pain. It’s almost enough to make him run recklessly into the open to find her.

“Shut up, bitch. You’re my ticket outta here,” he growls out at her. “I didn’t know there was gonna be a full scale military assault on our asses. And you’re gonna be my ransom to get the fuck outta here, so hold still.”

John risks a peek through an open hay window and sees that the man has her in the lower level of the barn, which is cemented, an area for cows to be handled in old-fashioned milking stanchions. A lantern is casting a yellow glow to the area down below. He is left to assume the man either brought it with him or found it and lit it. He’s not sure where this guy is trying to take her, but he’s done taking her anywhere.

“I know I saw a truck out back here somewhere,” he mumbles to himself. By the slur in his voice, the merriment had started much earlier than the bonfire festivities. “Move it, bitch.”

John descends the wooden stairs, covered in bits of straw, hay and pieces of dried corn and crosses quietly into the area where the creep has her. If he’s right, Kelly should be close to the other end of the big, open barn doors and should soon be seeing the same scene as John. For a large man, Kelly can be rather stealthy when he needs to be. It’s time to negotiate.

“Hey!” he shouts and comes into the open, weapon lowered. The man freezes and puts Reagan’s own pistol to her head while holding her about the middle with his other beefy arm. Reagan has a small cut on her forehead that bleeds, and John is sure that this man has done it. He’d like to run over and beat him to a pulp, but he doesn’t want to endanger her further. Her captor is a large, robust man with a shaved, bald head. But he staggers about as if he’s still too inebriated to focus and with Reagan screeching and squirming it only makes his inability to stabilize even worse.

“Don’t come any closer or I’ll shoot this bitch!” her captor shouts. The man steps three paces to their right and is in the direct middle of the cement aisle. John raises his hands up to shoulder level, ignoring the pain in his wounded one. He needs to talk a few moments with this piece of human garbage.

“Easy, man. You can walk outta here, ok? Just let her go. See? I’m not trying to stop you,” John says and squints against the light of the lantern that hangs on a nail sticking out of a post near Reagan and her abductor. He doesn’t want to risk removing the night vision goggles since he can see his perp so well.

He slowly takes two short steps to the left of the man’s center. He doesn’t want to be directly in front of him for what is coming. Kelly has silently taken up position behind the man thirty feet away at the opening of the barn. But first John needs to make the man draw on him and take the gun away from Reagan’s head lest he discharge it.

“Throw down your guns, asshole,” the drunk spits out. It’s the first time John allows himself to look at Reagan. She’s afraid but trying not to show it. But it’s there nonetheless; he can see it in her eyes.

“I don’t think so,” John retorts with calm, but deadly menace, purposely inciting the man’s wrath.

John swings his M16 up and draws the man’s hand to point toward him and not Reagan. Kelly takes his shot, a head shot that goes clean through. The bullet, although slowed down, still whirs past John. His only concern, though, is Reagan as he rushes forward as the man hits the ground with a loud thud, his already destroyed skull hitting the pavement with a decided crack.

“Are you ok?” John asks her. He grabs her face between his hands and pushes back a stray cluster of curls so he can look more closely at her. There is a spray of blood on her cheek, as well, and he doesn’t know if it’s from her forehead cut or if it’s another scrape or cut. John suspects it’s from the man’s head shot and not her laceration. Thankfully, she doesn’t appear to be injured seriously in any way. She doesn’t answer him, doesn’t even make eye contact, even as Kelly approaches to confirm his kill is clean. She jerks free of his grasp. Her chin quivers, but it’s the only sign of life from her. She’s staring at the dead man.