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The combat knife, carefully sharpened and unused since put in its sheath before leaving Russia, was every bit as sharp as the one Carl had used to slice the neck of the young MS-13 member. The leader of the gang, while considerably tougher and more experienced than the new recruit, did not possess anything that could keep the blade from slicing cleanly through cloth and flesh. His skin opened as though the knife was a zipper, cutting a long streak across the front of his chest, up the side of his neck and from the bottom right side of his face up over his left eye.
The sudden, vicious assault drove him back and he screamed, clawing at the wounds while trying to escape from the room. There was no escape from the Russian Spetsnaz officer, though, and Ostap brought his rifle up to his shoulder and tapped the trigger three times, sending a trio of full-auto bursts into the man’s stomach, back and upper torso.
As the gang leader charged after Ostap, Carl had been in the midst of circling through a side door in the room he was concealed in, looping around to get behind the group in the hall. He threw open a door and entered the corridor just as he heard the gunfire from his partner and then he joined in, eliminating the last few of the gang members with swift, accurate shots to their centers of mass.
Ostap stepped out into the hall, making visual contact with Carl and nodding to him, then received a nod back. Both men relaxed their stances and lowered their weapons before pulling down the masks that had been covering their mouths and noses. They were both breathing hard from the sudden burst of energy they had expended in the fight, and they checked themselves and each other over for any wounds before Ostap began walking back down the hall toward the front door. He peeked out the front door, verifying that the compound was clear of any of the gang members before pulling out his radio and pressing the button on the side.
“You’re clear to head in. Rendezvous at the car in the compound. Out.” Ostap hung the radio back on his vest and turned to head back inside the building, only to see Carl standing in the middle of the hallway with his hands above his head. At the far end of the hall, standing near the doorway to the stairwell, were figures shouldering rifles. One of the figures gestured to Ostap with his rifle, shouting as he did so.
“Get your hands up, too! Now!”
Ostap ground his teeth together in frustration, torn between obeying the unknown figure and taking his chances with pulling off three lucky shots in a row without him or Carl dying in the interim.
“Now, dammit!” The figure shouted again and Ostap took a deep breath and shifted his weight, feeling the rifle move slightly on its sling on his shoulder, preparing to make his move.
Chapter 7
The Waters’ Homestead
Outside Ellisville, VA
“There’s a rope on the end of the board, right there. Just pick it up and drag it.”
“What if she rigged it with something?”
“You’re scared of an IED now? What do you think this is, Afghanistan? It’s a board of nails, just get it out of the way so he can radio for backup to drive in!”
For the two men standing and arguing in the driveway in front of the Waters’ house, their night was going as well as could be expected given the circumstances. They had bellies full of canned food, their clothing was keeping them adequately warm and they still had enough friends and weapons that they believed themselves to be invulnerable against whatever dangers might come their way in the new, apocalyptic world.
The barrage of five point five six millimeter bullets passing through the men’s’ backs and exiting out through their chests destroyed all illusion of invulnerability in the blink of an eye.
Firing from their elevated position, Dianne and Tina opened up on the men in the driveway at the same time, instantly cutting them down. One fell directly onto the board they were moving while the other tried crawling away, making it only a few feet before succumbing to his pain and wounds. The sudden noise and screams from the two men momentarily confused the men stalking through the woods, and Dianne, Tina, Mark and Sarah all used the confusion to their advantage.
Bright flashes of yellow and white light exploded from the upstairs of the quiet house in the middle of the woods as four rifles sang out. Lead tore through wood, cloth and flesh alike, and in just a few seconds there were six more men lying or crawling on the ground, crying out from the wounds they suffered. The confusion did not last for long though, and as the leader of the group finally realized where the shots were coming from, he ordered his men to fall back and hide amongst the trees. There were a few scattered bursts of gunfire from the house, but as Dianne realized that the men were hiding, she told the other to stop firing and get away from the windows, as she expected a barrage of return fire.
“What’s going on?” Tina peeked out through the edge of one of the windows, after waiting in silence for what felt like hours. “Why aren’t they opening fire on us?”
“I don’t know.” Dianne shook her head. “I don’t like it though.”
“Attention!” The voice came from outside, loud and electronic as it was magnified through a megaphone. Dianne peeked up and glanced out the window to see a man looking out from behind a tree near the driveway. A white and red megaphone was up to his mouth and there was a sharp crackle before he spoke again. “You in the house!”
Tina glanced at Dianne before Dianne replied, shouting out the open window with as much gusto and bravado as she could muster. “What do you want?”
“To talk! Are you that bitch from the gas station?”
Tina stifled a snort at the response, then sat up and quickly
fired off a pair of rounds at the tree, one of them managing to cut through the end of the megaphone, which was dropped and then hastily retrieved. Tina sat back down and replied, shouting as she leaned her head back at the window. “Yeah, we’re the ones from the gas station! Now, what do you want?”
“To stop shooting for a second and just talk!”
“Talk about what? How you’ve been kidnapping and killing people? Enslaving them? Abusing them and worse?” Tina sat up again and fired, but the man speaking through the megaphone had anticipated her action and concealed both himself and the megaphone fully behind the tree and the rounds plunked harmlessly into the wood.
“Holy hell, woman, stop the shooting! We could light you up right now if we wanted; you know that right?”
Tina opened her mouth to reply, but Dianne put a hand on her arm and shook her head as she whispered. “Don’t antagonize them. Let me do the talking.” Tina rolled her eyes but didn’t reply. Dianne stood next to the window and peeked out again as she called out in response. “So what is it you want, then? Why are you talking instead of ‘lighting us up,’ as you put it?”
“It’s simple!” The man yelled back as he glanced around the edge of the tree. His features were impossible to make out in the darkness, but Dianne could sense that his casual, almost dismissive attitude was a ploy. Something else was going on, but she wasn’t sure what just yet.
