Don Pendleton - The Hostaged Island

The biker in the Rebel cap swaggered up and glared at the old man. One of the bikers who had dragged out the couple showed the Rebel-capped biker a small pistol, then pointed to a rip in his jacket sleeve. The Confederate biker unslung his shotgun.

"Oh, God," Chris gasped, turning away from the vent. "I can't watch this."

"Watch it," Glen told him. "It's what'll happen to you, to all of us if we get caught."

"Run, you old geezer!" the Outlaw suddenly boomed. "You want to escape. Here's your chance!"

Glen looked outside. The bikers cleared a path for the couple. A biker shoved them. The Confederate Outlaw stood with the shotgun at his hip, pointing at the old couple only six feet away.

The white-haired old man shook his head. He refused to run. He held his wife, pressing her face to his chest. He kissed her forehead.

A single blast threw them to the asphalt. They sprawled together, a huge blood pool spreading around them.

"Now they're coming to search this house," Glen told the others.

"Hey, Stonewall!" a biker on the street called out. "You are one cold mother." Several bikers laughed.

Glen peeked out, saw the Rebel-capped biker loading shells into his shotgun. Now Glen knew the biker's name: Stonewall.

"Think that's cold?" the biker shouted. "I'm looking for the hero that killed one of ours. When I find him... You all see this cap? When I'm done with that hero, I'm going to wear his hide for a hat — right up here, nose and eyes and lips and all, just like a coonskin cap."

More laughter. Boots kicked down the door. Shotgun blasts inside the house shattered windows, sent furniture crashing. They must have been doing this to every house on the island. Bikers shouted: "Where are you? Get out of this house! All we want's your money and valuables. And we want you down at the Casino. Anybody in here, come out. We want you with the other people."

Laughter. Rifle shots ripped through the house. A shotgun blast smashed a wall beneath them; a single pellet popped through the rafters, then bounced off the roof joists.

"Glen," his wife whispered, "come be here with me..."

"I can't!" he hissed.

Boots stormed up the stairs. Doors slammed open, furniture fell. A voice shouted: "Check every closet!"

The blast of a shotgun. Plaster exploding upward. "That closet's checked!" Laughter.

"Rings! Diamonds. Hey, asshole. Split it with me."

"They're mine. Find your own."

"Both of you!" Stonewall's voice boomed. "Stick that trash in your pockets. Search this house. You got two dead buddies and you're fighting over some phony rings? Search that closet, under the bed, up in the attic, everywhere!"

"Psst!" Glen hissed to Roger. Then he and Chris blocked the vent near them. The attic went pitch dark.

Furniture crashed down. The closet door leading to the attic access creaked open. Shoes and suitcases fell from the shelves.

"Hey, there's a trapdoor going up," a biker said.

"You going up there?"

"Going up. First, some reconnaissance by fire!"

An explosion of plaster, insulation, and splintered wood filled the attic. Sudden light flashed as the debris flew. Dim light glowed through the several holes in the access panel and closet ceiling.

As the biker pushed up the splintered access panel, Glen could hear Roger's breathing shudder slightly. But he could do nothing. He could not encourage or comfort the teenager. A word or a sound would betray them all.

The biker's head appeared above the rafters, swivelling in all directions. "Hey, you! You! I see you..."

"You got one?" a biker called from below.

Glen heard Chris stop breathing. Slowly, very slowly, Glen grasped the butt of the Magnum in his belt. Outside, bikers laughed and shouted. A motorcycle raced down the street.

The head dropped down. "Nah, nothing up there."

Stonewall shouted again. "Move it! We got this whole block to search. Find anything?"

"Nah," the biker answered, the last to leave the house.

"Then move it! Find that hero! Horse is going to waste my ass if I don't come up with that bastard."

Glen glanced out front, saw the last biker leave the house and start down the block. Stonewall came out of the house, shotgun ready, its long bayonet flashing. He turned, stared at the house. He saw the attic vent, stared at it. From the hip, he pointed the shotgun, fired.

Glen jerked Chris away as the louvers exploded. Light streamed into the attic. For a half minute, Glen and Chris lay without moving on the rafters.

"Glen!" his wife whispered.

"I'm all right," he gasped. He went back to the shattered louvers and snuck a peek. The front lawn was deserted.

They listened. In the house, there was only silence. But in the house next door, there were shouts and shots and crashing.

"Mr. Shepard," Roger whispered from the far end. "Can I let down the blanket now? I'm shot."

"What?" Glen crept over the rafters, crab-style, moving slowly and silently. As he passed his wife, he hugged her, gave her a quick kiss. Continuing, when he passed Jack Webster, he smelled fecal matter, heard the boy's teeth chattering with fear. Glen said nothing.

A single double-zero ball had punched through Roger's right forearm. There was a hole in the blanket that he had held over the vent, then a hole in the wall stud. Roger had obviously held the blanket over the vent for minutes after taking the through-and-through wound in his arm.

"Oh, god, it hurts," Roger sobbed.

Glen put his arm around the teenager's shoulders. "That's all right. You saved us. You're the hero of this battle. That Aryan punk over there talks tough, but when the going gets rough, he shits his pants."

"You fucker!" Jack shrieked. He lunged across the narrow attic, snatching the .45 auto from where Glen had left it. Glen pulled the Magnum from his belt. But the boy didn't turn the weapon on Glen. Instead, he grabbed the M-14 too, and the ammo bandolier, and disappeared down the access hatch.

"Jack! I'm sorry! Don't go out there." Glen stumbled to the hatch, but Jack Webster was gone. Glen grasped his belt of bullets and started after the boy.

"Glen, don't!" his wife called.

"Let him go, Mr. Shepard," Chris pleaded.

"It was my big mouth," Glen called back. "They'll take him if I don't get to him first. I don't want it on my conscience."

Glen Shepard dropped through the blast-splintered hatch.

Crying with shame and rage, Jack Webster ran from the back of the savaged house. He heard shots and voices in the houses down the block, motorcycles on the streets. Not wanting to chance going over the back fence, he slipped into the decorative hedges screening one yard from the other. For a minute or two, he lay there on his stomach, his face pressed into the rotting leaves, and cried.

But the rifle in his grip reassured him. "I'll show them. I'll kill some of them."

Hidden by the hedge, he crawled along the fence, searching for a hole. The rotting wood slats crumbled when he touched them, but the neighbor's chain link prevented him from crawling through. He continued to the corner of the yard.

In the corner, dogs had burrowed under the fences. The dog holes had been blocked with bricks. Jack pulled out the bricks, crawled under the fence, coming out in the backyard of the house diagonally behind the house where the others still hid.

The shooting continued as the Outlaws searched. Jack crawled through the untrimmed bushes of the backyard until he came to the back door. The door hung open, a ragged hole where the knob and lock had been. Crouching there for minutes, he listened for voices or steps inside the house. He heard nothing. Struggling to work the rifle's action, he jerked back the cocking lever. A cartridge flew out.

He marvelled at the size of the cartridge. He had only fired .22 rifles before. The bullet was huge. He put the .308 NATO round in his pocket. Holding the rifle at his hip and his finger on the trigger like he'd seen in the movies, he crept into the house.