Chuck Logan - Homefront

Five minutes into her run, Nina was having doubts about being out in this weather. The wind doubled in velocity and tore through her cotton running suit and the flimsy silk-weight underlayer. The first tiny ice worms were forming in her eyebrow sweat. She could do ten miles in this stuff if she had to. Do it easily. But this was not a survival endurance test. She needed to unkink after cleaning the goddamn bathroom.

Then, as if she needed more convincing this was not a good idea, she slightly turned her right ankle on a rock under the snow. She slowed and tested her weight. Not that bad, not even a strain. But she’d make it worse if she continued.

I give. Time out. The new sensible Nina.

She turned, pulled up her hood, plunged her gloved hands under her jacket, and walked back down the road toward the house. A few minutes later she was rounding a slight rising turn, about two hundred yards to go, thinking about her running course in Stillwater, up Myrtle Hill, out toward Matomedi. This time next week she’d be running up that hill. By then she’d have had her talk with Broker…

A different kind of cold gripped her chest. A twinge of panic anticipating the conversation, telling him what he wanted to hear, after all these years. Admitting to the way she’d compromised her shoulder with the steroids. Jeez, thinking it was one thing. Actually doing it was-

She took a deep freezing breath and constructed a box around the panic, tucked it away. Suddenly the box flew open…

Holy shit!

A decade of conditioning and experience flung her off the road, rolling through the snow, scrambling in a fast low crawl to the cover of the trees.

Two of them. At the house?

As her mind protested the image, her reflexes pushed her forward, hugging the tree line; fifty, sixty yards to see better.

She rubbed her hand at the fine white squall, like she was trying to clear a windshield heaped with salt. Nothing out there now but the snow. House going in and out. Thought she saw one of them flattened against the side of the garage, like a lookout; the other testing the garage door. Black ski masks, winter camouflage tunics. She had 20/10 vision in both eyes. Those were pistols in their hands.

Gone now in the storm.

The image in her mind was absurd but compelling. She was staring at a blur of green cabin in northern Minnesota and she was seeing familiar spectral figures; Arkan’s fuckin’ Tigers, the Serb paramilitary she’d stalked in Bosnia and Kosovo…same camo, same masks…

Don’t think. Gain position.

Need a weapon.

She pictured the gun cabinet in the living room behind the wall hanging. And the key to it on the thong around Broker’s neck.

Running now along the ragged edge of the trees, instinctively knowing the blowing snow and the color of her clothes gave her cover. The two figures had vanished from the side of the house; around the back, maybe.

She paused at the edge of the trees. Not dressed for this, getting disoriented by the cold and wind. How far? Maybe eighty yards to the house. She’d locked the doors, had the keys in her pocket.

Do it.

She burst from cover and crossed the open space; her lung-burning sprint turned into a slip-and-slide, batting her hands at the stinging white. Shuddering, she piled into the angle formed where the garage and house met. The snow was a froth at her ankles; dry, fine, in furious motion. No tracks. Where are the tracks? Can’t tell. They were right here ? She whipped out the garage door key and opened the door. Slipped inside. Now a second key to get into the kitchen.

She froze when she heard the faint scrape on the back deck, then the rear garage door rattled. Were they testing the door? Or was it the wind?

But did I lock the patio door in the kitchen?

She looked around. Saw the ski poles stacked along the wall. Started to go for one of them. Mid-step, she changed her mind and grabbed the heavy splitting maul in her left hand. Twenty pounds of steel; didn’t trust her right arm.

Very slowly she eased open the kitchen door and edged up to the side of the cabinets that blocked her from the end of the room and the patio door, thankful she had turned out the lights. The room was limbo-lit by the flurry moth light of the snow. Moving in fractions, she peeked around the end of the cabinet, thought she made out this grainy figure, pressed against the patio door’s glass panel, peering into the darkened room. Looked like a German Luger in his hand.

Darted her head back.

A German Luger, c’mon. Are we spiraling out here or what? She blinked icy sweat to clear her eyes. Couldn’t blink away the crazy swerve in her head. It occurred to her she could take one step forward and five steps back.

Warily, she peeked again. Nothing but the churning snow and dim twisting shadows, the trees tossing in the wind.

A line from one of the books: “ There are infrequent but documented cases where persons suffering from depression can hallucinate … see things that are not there…”

Suddenly she couldn’t move. Stuck. I’m stuck. Not her body. She slowly bent her knees and lowered her back down the side of the cabinet and squatted on the floor. She removed her cold wet gloves and pressed her icy palms on either side of her face.

… things that are not there…

Then where was she to see the things that are not there? Jesus Christ, I got Alice in Wonderland in my head.

Bullshit. That’s a guy out there with a gun trying to break into the house.

She sat shaking, squeezing her head, arguing with herself. Just…gotta…slam the door on the widening crack of indecision; the whole black fucking pit of where she’d been.

Peeked again from the lower angle. The snow seemed thicker now; sticky, drifting on the deck. Nothing.

I see nothing.

Nothing with a Luger.

The patio door was solid soapsuds. The wind had accelerated to whiteout intensity. And this irrational voice raged in memory, shaking the Georgia pines; apoplectic southern white male, subset TAC sergeant, tested beyond all mortal patience: This ain’t the fuckin’ women’s studies program, Pryce; the only way you finish this course is DO YOUR JOB!’

Right. Thank you.

Nina bounded to her feet, grabbed the maul, and dashed for the living room, tore the hanging off the wall.

Took a half second to orient. Use the strong left arm to lift and swing, steady with the weaker right. In a fierce chopping motion she brought the heavy steel wedge down on the Yale lock on the cabinet doors. The lock spun, bitten, but still held. She raised the maul again, brought it down. Better-it shattered right through the stout door panels. The third hack splintered the hasp completely. She dropped the maul and tore open the ragged door.

Her hand went first to the.45, jamming in the magazine, jacking the slide, setting the safe. She stuck it in her waistband. Grabbed at the rifles. Ammo. Boxes of rounds and magazines scattered on the floor. Broker’s deer gun had an elastic bandolier around the stock with six rounds in it. She slung the rifle over her shoulder, moving now toward the kitchen, paused to tap a magazine for the AR-15 against the doorjamb, aligning the rounds, inserted it in the familiar black rifle, pulled the bolt, shot it home.

Now, let’s try this again, you fuckers.

Sighting down the assault rifle, she quick-stepped, hugging the wall, into the kitchen, urban warfare room-clearing mode. Thumb on the selector switch, finger on the trigger.

The kitchen door creaked opened. Shit, left it unlocked ! She spun, felt the cushion of sweat between her finger pad and the trigger compress…