David Dun - Overfall

Just as Sam said it the place lit up like a stadium. His men responded with rapid fire and within seconds, no lights.

“Night vision back on,” Sam said. Take ’em out.”

There were muted pops from all around, and in two seconds the men that had been fleeing across the lawn lay flopping on the ground like so many boated fish.

Return fire came from the trees. A muzzle blast lit the night. Sam’s men shot back without an order. Stun grenades began going off in the trees, people falling to the ground. It was a war. Sam knew better than to listen on the old radio channel. He didn’t want to hear the ultimatum. He knew the guys in the trees were only part of the enemy force, maybe not even the main force. There would be many others on the trail back to the boat.

“Holt, Gomez, Ruby, stay here, mop up. Everybody else, follow me,” Sam said, running.

Somebody had completely outthought them, and he had nearly gotten them all killed. Now Anna was probably as good as dead.

They ran down the road, around the bend, and saw the truck.

“If it moves, shoot it,” Sam said. Men jumped from the truck and took a volley of silenced shots. Anna and Aussie weren’t in the truck. Sam noticed the break in the foliage. No Anna. Down the road there would be a car. Sam suspected they had been taken by the occupants of the truck while on foot.

Spying another break in the foliage he tapped T.J. and jumped into the brush, running, then stopping. He heard struggles and a woman’s groans.

“Let’s die trying,” he whispered to T.J.

They charged at the bushes, firing rubber bullets everywhere, not worrying if they hit Anna.

Gaudet worked fast, wanting to know what Anna knew before killing her. The big man’s heart was fluttering but hadn’t quite quit; Gaudet knew better than to leave him prematurely. He sprayed more potassium chloride and felt for a pulse again.

With Anna it had to be done much more carefully, had to look like a real accident, and that was becoming impossible fast. The Chellis and Aziz men at the beach had radioed no sightings of men retreating to the boat. Anna’s friends had all been killed or wounded. It would take Aziz’s men a while to figure out that she was missing, and by then he would have her in the helicopter.

The pepper spray had turned her into a choking mess. To shut her up completely he’d need to kill her, and he wasn’t ready to do that. “Screw it,” he muttered to himself, tired of waiting for the man to die. He picked Anna up and threw her over his shoulder. It was at that moment he suspected that he might have made a major miscalculation.

“If it moves, shoot it,” he heard.

He began to run, but it was hard without a light and a light would bring them. There were shots, lots of them. Some very muted. A few unmuted.

After he went about twenty feet or so bullets began pouring past him. They didn’t know he had her, he reasoned, or they wouldn’t be shooting. Then something slammed into his thigh, nearly breaking his leg. Another bullet hit him square in the back. As the pain electrified his body he realized the bullets were rubber and knew he had made a mistake. He dropped her to her knees and considered killing her. He listened, trying to locate them. She rose and stumbled into the brush. Only an instant of time flashed before discipline took over. More bullets poured past him. Never kill except exactly according to plan. The rule had kept him alive and free of the law.

“Later,” he said into the darkness. Then he ran as best he could with his bad leg.

Sam hadn’t gone twenty feet when he heard more movement. He charged headlong. The other men did likewise.

There were more groans. Quickly all the men crisscrossed through the thicket.

“Here,” one of them called. Sam burst into a little hollow and found Anna leaning on a tree near to collapsing. “Aussie,” she choked. Back a ways Aussie was lying completely still. Sam felt his carotid. He was dead. There didn’t appear to be a mark on him other than a broken nose. Then his instincts told him there would be a needle mark somewhere. Maybe the same needle mark that had been missed on Wes King.

Pepper spray. Gingerly Sam examined Anna, who was now on the ground. Like a parent checking a baby fallen from its crib, he felt her face and body. She was gasping horribly, panic in her eyes.

“You’ll be fine, I promise. Keep the others at the compound, nobody goes back toward the boat,” he said to T.J. He turned to Sanford, who had been watching Anna. “Carry her to the truck,” he said. The big man hefted her carefully. Sam looked at Yodo. “Let’s hope they left the key. Leave all the bad guys trussed on the ground. Give them a dose.”

If it was a setup, Jason could be anywhere. At that moment he heard a helicopter and figured they had lost the group’s leader, the man who’d killed Aussie.

“Chopper One,” he radioed.

“Yo.”

“Lift off and watch for a chopper down by the point. Probably low and fast. Follow it now.”

“Roger that,” the pilot said. The airport was less than a mile away. If they got airborne fast they might catch whatever just took off. Sam considered that they probably were keeping Jason away from the fighting and near his satellite dish in the compound.

“Back to the resort,” Sam said. They climbed into the truck and drove through the gate. Cuffed men lay everywhere. Most were out with an injection; those they hadn’t gotten to yet were in a lot of pain, judging from their cries.

“Search every building, especially the house,” Sam said.

The men went to work. T.J. remained in the central garden and began interrogating a couple of the conscious guards. Frenchmen and Arabs. By sheer luck, and maybe a tad of instinct, Sam had one man who could interpret some Arabic. French was not a problem. Sam went into the house. Nothing about the place looked like it might have been occupied by Jason. His men were systematically searching every closet and cupboard.

Sam walked out, through the lodge, and into the Honeymoon Burre. It looked like Jason’s place: a lot of books everywhere, a giant white board covered with equations, two computers, a world globe, and a model of a carbon atom.

So where was he?

Sam opened a few closets and then stepped out when two men came through to really search the burre. They would look for any place to hide, trapdoors, built-in cupboards that might house an entry or a secret space.

Sam walked out to the two burres that were supposedly not in use. On the way he noticed a window at the end of the main building. Walking up on the veranda and into the sitting area, he went to the only door, opened it, and walked in. An office with another door. Behind the second door, which he had to break for want of a key, was a long closet with shelves and a leather couch that looked completely out of place. On the couch lay a sleeping Jason, obviously drugged.

There were pills in a box and a blue liquid in a squeeze bottle. He remembered Anna’s story about Jason and the oil. He took both the oil and the medication.

In sleep Jason Wade looked content. Sam shook him. He groaned, but that was it. Sam checked his eyes. The pupils were dilated, the eyes rolled back. They had used strong stuff.

Sam clicked on his transmitter. “T.J., you have Bravo?”

“I do.”

“Let’s get the hell out of here. I’ve got the goods. Meet you on the road. All hands meet me at the gate. Chopper, you there?”

“We’re here. We’ve got the bogey chopper headed to Venua Levu.”

“Damn,” Sam muttered. “Break off. Come and get us out of here.”

“Roger that.”

They jumped in the truck and arrived at the Taveuni Airport, where they learned that Anna had recovered sufficiently to curse the man who had killed Aussie. They put T.J., Jason, and three of the men on the chopper. Sam motioned to Anna to get in so he could send it off.