David Dun: Overfall

“Can anybody see the generator?” Sam whispered into his radio.

“They’re all dead, Sam,” Gaudet said.

Sam tried to ignore him, waiting for a response. “Anybody, come back.”

“A lot of wounded. We’re pinned down. So are they.”

“It doesn’t sound good, does it?” Gaudet’s voice came through the radio.

“Let’s bargain.” It was T.J.

“No deal.” Gaudet. It was obvious he had no regard for T.J.

“They must have used lightweight concrete. Probably shorted the cement. It is going faster than I hoped,” Gaudet said.

Sam could hear the drill grinding. Above him the ceiling had been blown out and holes ripped through the walls. He tried to think, searching for a way to get Anna.

“Soon we’ll be at the steel. Maybe they used cheap steel too.”

The sound of a large helicopter shook the night air. It was far off but coming closer. An explosion reverberated through the atmosphere.

“The Canadian government just discovered we have missile launchers on top of the mountain.”

“Victoria’s not far. Neither is Vancouver. They’ll have more.”

“Yes. And we will shoot them down at five thousand meters. Then, Sam-they’ll be cautious. We will have ample time, I assure you. One thing I’ve been wanting to do is give Anna a good shot of the Nervous Flyer formula. I think I’ll take her with me. She can screw me for the oil antidote. Where we’re taking her they’ll appreciate that.”

Sam tried to clear his mind of anger and frustration. Anna was weeping.

Suddenly Anna screamed an incredible shriek. Sweat poured down Sam. His body shook, his mind threatened to betray him. Still he didn’t move. With Gaudet using Anna as a shield, he couldn’t even sacrifice himself to kill them. Grandfather had given his life. Gaudet would not give him that chance. Grandfather was fond of saying that a man’s ideas were more deadly than his arrows. More than bullets, Sam needed something completely unexpected.

A new plan brought him energy. Running out the back of the house with near-reckless abandon, he made his way through a rapid stream of bullets to the tree line. Three rounds grazed him as he dived into the forest. The shooting came from men skirmishing from various haphazard bunkers or corners of the house. He found Yodo, wounded in both arms but alive and functional.

“We have to take the bunker in the trees.”

Yodo nodded.

“I need one rocket.”

Gaudet would have been talking to thin air as Sam ran, and any second it would start to worry him.

“You’ve left us, Sam. I may have to kill her after all.”

“I’m here,” Sam said into the radio.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting ready to catch you when you escape. I’ve already lost Anna.”

Sam didn’t listen to the response; he ran with Yodo, making a big arc. Nobody would be expecting an attack on this bunker from the ground. It was too far from the house. They went into the trees and passed through gaping holes in the chain-link fence. They used night vision, but made no effort to be quiet and still drew no fire. Sam wondered if Gaudet’s men were deserting, or more likely dead or wounded.

Twenty yards from the sandbags they stopped.

“We go in shooting,” Sam said.

“For Shohei,” Yodo said, and with one hand on his automatic he charged the bunker, Sam immediately behind.

As they neared the sandbags they heard a radioed voice in the bunker-Sam thought it Gaudet’s. After a clipped response the man rose to shoot, his outline green and ghostly through Sam’s goggles. Sam and Yodo both fired, and the man’s body jerked as the rounds worked their way up his torso.

Sam vaulted the sandbags and hoisted a rocket launcher, nodded at Yodo, and left as quickly as they’d entered.

“What are you doing, Sam? I’d whittle on Anna’s face but I have a lot of men that want her.”

“Me too,” Sam said.

Gaudet laughed.

“Getting back to the house might not be easy,” Sam said to Yodo.

“I go first,” Yodo said.

Yodo ran and Sam followed. They both shot at muzzle blasts on the way in. Yodo went down, hit after about twenty yards. Sam dropped and crawled to him, the rocket launcher slung on his back. Yodo was trying to use his belt to tie off his leg, but it was a struggle with his already injured arms and hands.

“You go,” Yodo said. “I cover.”

Yodo shot and reloaded as Sam crawled frantically for the side porch.

He climbed through the ruined doorway and ran down the hall without incident.

Anna was crying.

“Here I am,” he said on the radio.

“Good. The drill is going through the steel quickly. Would you like to know how we’re going to get them out?”

Sam looked up at the holes in the ceiling. “I imagine you’ll tell me.”

Huge pockmarks in the walls would make climbing easy. Keeping the rocket launcher tied over his back, he began climbing. He hauled himself up through the hole and into the second story.

“We have a special form of mustard gas we will drip in through the hole a bit at a time. It sticks to the skin and peels it like you might peel an orange. They’ll be out in no time. What do you think, Sam?”

“Hell of a plan.”

A bathroom stood above the safe room. The floor consisted of bare marble and carpet over marble.

“The beauty is that even while it doesn’t kill them, nobody could stand to remain inside. Look, we are almost through the steel. This was a real cheap installation. The owner should seek a refund.”

“I’ll make a note of that.”

“Tell me, do you prefer Anna’s breasts or her thighs? I want to know what to leave you.”

“Frankly I was always partial to her smile.”

Sam knew that in the end he would have to guess. Right now he wanted so much to believe in magic. Outside he heard a flurry of shots and the occasional rocket concussion.

“Sam, I am warning you, you need to be careful about charging in here. With the gas canisters out, you could have us all with no skin. Anna has beautiful skin-I don’t think she’d like that.”

Sam suspected that the gas wasn’t in the safe room yet. Maybe it didn’t exist at all. Something about the tone of Gaudet’s voice told him. Now he heard Gaudet talking on his radio, but couldn’t discern the words.

Sam closed his eyes and leaned against a wall near the tub. He had to know the unknowable. He concentrated on the safe and the utility room below him, remembering every detail. The top of the safe extended up between the floors; its rear wall lay directly against the utility room’s. But there had to be two or three meters of space between the safe’s sides and the utility room’s side walls.

Given that those walls were reinforced, a blast at the back of the room would funnel both shock waves and debris around the sides of the safe and toward the hallway door, following the path of least resistance.

Gaudet would have his men arranged to provide the greatest cover from a conventional attack. Anna would be in the utility room’s doorway, facing the hall and farthest from the safe-a human shield against any hallway assault. Between her and the safe would stand T.J., Gaudet, and the others, with T.J. and Gaudet nearest Anna. This meant that Anna would be partially shielded from the blast by her captors’ bodies-perhaps enough to save her life, perhaps not.

A direct hit to the top of the safe could kill Grady and Jason inside, so Sam would fire the rocket to strike a glancing blow at the top of the box. He could scarcely believe he was considering doing this. But what else could he do?

His feet moved silently across the floor. Keeping the first-floor layout in his mind, he stepped into the bathtub and aimed the rocket at an angle to the floor toward the rear wall, the point of entry where the carpet met marble. It was a huge risk for Anna, but Sam did not expect to be around to see the result.