G. Moffat - Blindside

They walked briskly to the corner of the building at the end of the street and stopped. Grange took his gun from its holster and gripped it with both hands, bringing the gun up until it was just under his chin. The two men copied him. Grange turned to them.

‘We go out together,’ he said. ‘You guys move to cover the sides of the truck and I’ll cover the front. Any movement you don’t like, anything you see you don’t like, you shoot.’

The men nodded.

‘On three.’

Grange held a hand up with three fingers extended. He started to count down silently from three.

Webb’s voice sounded in Ruiz’s car. They were stationary at the intersection, watching the men in the sedan.

‘Get the men in that sedan out and secured. Grange is covering the truck.’

‘Copy,’ Ruiz said, opening his door and stepping out on to the street.

Martinez got out after him on the other side of the car. They drew their weapons and started towards the sedan.

The driver of the sedan was looking at his phone as it glowed in the car. The driver of the pick-up truck was calling. That meant it was time.

‘Get the guns out of the trunk,’ he told his passenger.

The passenger nodded and opened his door. The driver reached around to the floor behind his seat and picked up a handgun.

He looked in his rearview mirror and saw the two FBI agents approaching at a fast walk, their guns raised. He reached over to grab his passenger, but the man had stepped out of the car.

He heard them shouting.

‘Freeze. FBI.’

Grange moved quickly to stand directly in front of the truck, maybe eight feet from the front grille. He raised his weapon and pointed at the driver’s head through the windscreen.

The two agents with him ran to their positions on either side of the truck, level with the front doors. They trained their guns on the men in the rear seats.

No one in the truck moved.

‘FBI,’ Grange shouted. ‘All of you in the truck slowly put your hands out of the windows where I can see them.’

Still no one moved.

‘Do it now.’

Ruiz stopped after shouting his warning and aimed his gun at the back of the headrest of the driver’s seat of the sedan. Martinez was focused on the passenger who had stepped away from the car by about three feet. The man stood still with his hands by his side. He held a gun in one hand.

‘Driver,’ Ruiz shouted. ‘Hands out of the window slowly. Do it now.’

The passenger looked from Martinez to Ruiz and into the car.

The driver made no move to put his hands out of the window.

Ruiz felt like his head was about to explode. His finger tightened a fraction on the trigger of his gun. He started to walk slowly forward. Martinez copied him.

They were fifteen feet from the rear of the car.

The driver of the truck looked past his passenger at the FBI agent pointing his gun into the rear of the truck’s cab. He turned his head to look at the agent on his side. Finally, he looked back at Grange.

The two agents at the side looked scared.

Grange didn’t.

Looked like a gunfighter.

That was a problem.

‘Hands. Out. Of. The. Car. Right. Now,’ Grange shouted. ‘Last warning.’ The men in the back turned the rifles on their laps until they were able to get their fingers inside the trigger guards. They eased them slowly forward until they were, as best they could tell, aimed through the doors of the truck at the two agents.

Grange was done. These guys were not moving. Which meant only one thing. He squeezed the trigger of his gun twice in quick succession.

The truck’s windshield burst in a cloud of red as the bullets tore into the driver and killed him.

The two men in the back of the truck pulled the triggers of their rifles, the roar of the powerful guns deafening within the confines of the truck’s cab.

The rifle bullets crashed into and through the truck doors, most of them deflected from their true path as a result of the impact.

The two agents with Grange fired almost simultaneously, shattering the rear windows of the truck.

The truck’s passenger lifted the handgun he held in his lap to aim at Grange. Fired.

Bullets cracked out of the ruined windscreen and fizzed by Grange’s head.

Grange didn’t flinch. Took aim at the passenger and fired twice.

One of the bullets took the top of the passenger’s head off.

The agent to Grange’s left fell silently to the ground, half his face missing.

Grange emptied his clip into the interior of the truck.

The air in the truck fogged with blood and dust from the shredded seats.

The gunfire stopped.

The exchange had lasted less than five seconds.

In the truck: three dead and one seriously wounded.

Outside: one agent dead.

If Grange had notches on his belt the count would have increased to six.

Ruiz heard the gunfire; cracks in the near distance, the sound dissipating quickly in the air.

It stopped.

‘Man down.’ Grange’s voice sounded in his earpiece. ‘He’s dead. Truck is out of commission.’

Ruiz and Martinez kept walking. The passenger of the sedan came to a decision. He dropped his gun and slowly lifted his hands into the air.

Ruiz reached the door of the car, yanked it open and hauled the driver out on to the road with one hand. The man didn’t resist, a handgun slipping from his grasp and skittering away across the road. Ruiz put him face down on the tarmac, crouched over him and pinned the man’s neck with his knee.

Martinez told the passenger to turn around. When he did, Martinez stepped up and kicked the back of his knees hard. As the man fell forward with a shout, Martinez pushed him in the back. He moved quickly to put plastic ties around the prone man’s wrists. Ruiz did the same with the driver.

‘Sedan secured,’ Ruiz said over the radio.

He turned his head to the side, felt like vomiting on to the road. Managed to hold it in.

Webb had been watching the diner on the monitor when the gunfire at the truck started. The radio traffic that followed was brief. Both vehicles were secure, but he had lost an agent.

When he looked back at the monitor, the two agents at the front of the diner were now out on the street sprinting towards the sound of the gunfire. Webb had not told them to leave their positions.

The homeless man was walking around the internal dividing wall of the diner.

Webb turned and ran for the door.

Logan smelled the man before he saw him, his nose wrinkling at the stench. Cahill saw him come in and the gunfire started outside.

Cahill stood, his chair clattering back against the wall.

Logan noticed the homeless man did not even flinch at the sound.

Hunter got up and walked to the front of the diner as the FBI agents there drew their weapons and ran out the door.

Collins stayed seated.

The homeless man walked to Matt Horn’s table and stopped in front of Horn. He had on several layers of old clothes, including a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. He reached up, pulled the hood back off his head and raised his other hand to point a gun at Horn.

Logan reached for his gun. Knew he wouldn’t make it in time. No one else was watching.

‘I loved you like a son,’ Seth Raines told Horn.

Then shot him in the face.

Horn toppled back off his chair, blood, bone and brain matter splattering the wall behind him.

Raines turned in a sweeping motion towards Hunter, pulling the trigger of his gun.

Hunter had flinched when Raines shot Horn, the movement saving his life.

Raines fired twice at Hunter as he turned, the motion taking his aim just a little off and Hunter’s flinch bringing his head down under the trajectory of the bullets.