Don Winslow - Way Down on the High Lonely

“Karen, thank you for being our honored guest tonight and sharing this new tradition with us. And Peggy, I hope all your Irish Catholic family forgives you for sitting in here…”

“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” Peggy said.

“So, Shelly,” Steve said, “in honor of your grandparents and great-grandparents and the whole bunch of them who came before, would you light that candle now?”

As Steve watched and Peggy cried softly into her dinner napkin and Karen Hawley beamed, Shelly Mills in her white dress, her hair hanging long and straight and shining in the soft light, stood and lit the candles in the menorah.

When she finished, Steve poured the traditional wine into everyone’s glass and gave the traditional toast, “L’chaim-to life.”

“You know I’ll kill him!” Neal shouted out the firing slit. He had Jory in front of him, Ed’s pistol pointed at his head.

“I know!” Hansen shouted back.

“We’re coming out now!” Neal yelled back. “We’re getting in that truck and we’re driving to Austin! We’ll let him go when we get there! If I see, hear, or even smell anything I don’t like, I’ll blow the shit out of him! Do you understand me?”

“I understand!” Hansen yelled.

Neal turned to Ed, who had Graham over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. In his other hand he held the little black box.

“You ready?” Neal asked.

“Let’s do it.”

Neal took his hostage by the collar and pushed him to the door.

“Are you sure you can make this shot?” Hansen asked. He was worried. They’d done everything Neal had demanded. They’d unlocked the bunker door, opened the compound gate, and put the keys back in the truck’s ignition. They’d shut off the searchlights and taken the men out of the guard towers.

But a lot could go wrong, especially if Cal missed the shot.

“I’m sure,” Cal answered.

He was lying beside Hansen just inside the fence on the other side of the compound. Cal had the sniper rifle, its bipod planted in the snow, trained on the bunker door. The infrared scope gave him a perfect view in the darkness.

He had a man crouched in each tower and more men in the main bunker. Each one had his new M-16 locked, cocked, and ready to rock. One of Carter’s bodyguards was behind the machine gun in the main bunker, ready to sweep the forty yards of open ground that lay between the prisoners and their truck.

The gate was open now, but Cal had Craig lying out in the sagebrush ready to swing it shut just as soon as the firing started, just in case any of the intruders did make it into the truck.

But none of them are going to make it, Cal thought. Not carrying a wounded man. That’ll slow them all down, and Neal buddy will make an easy target, no matter how hard he tries to hide behind Jory. I’ll just have to shoot young Hansen first and then take out Neal.

And on the odd chance that the big son of a buck gets to the truck, we’ll just blow him to hell with the mines.

So come on out, boys. We’re ready for you.

“How many do you think are out there?” Ed asked.

“Twenty or so,” answered Neal. “Each of them with one of the rifles you brought them.”

“Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

“It’s about to be,” Neal answered.

He grabbed his hostage tighter and pushed the door open.

Cal watched through the night scope as Neal came out, holding his hostage in front of him. Ed followed, holding the one-armed little bastard over his shoulder like a grain sack.

“Is that Jory?” Hansen whispered. It was hard making him out in just the moonlight.

“Yep,” Cal answered. He recognized Jory’s cowboy hat. Too bad for Jory. He’d give it maybe another ten yards to try to get a clean shot at Neal’s head, but after that… well, so long Jory.

That bastard Carey was doing a good job staying covered. Five yards, six yards… Cal trained the cross hairs on Jory’s head.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” Hansen whispered.

Seven yards, eight… Cal started to put pressure on the trigger.

Okay, he thought, you have to get two shots off quick. First Jory, then Neal.

Nine yards… ten. At least it will be quick, Jory. Cal squeezed the trigger.

The bullet blew the cowboy hat off Randy’s head and splattered blood, bones, and brains over Neal. Neal let go and dashed for the truck. He heard the footsteps as Jory broke out from the bunker and came running behind him. The searchlights came on and bathed the compound in harsh white light.

Cal saw what was left of Randy’s face as his body spun and hit the ground. In the half second it took him to see his friend die, he lost Neal in the scope.

“Shit!” he yelled.

He stood up to signal Carter in the southeast watchtower.

The brownshirt bodyguard behind the machine gun waited until the lights came on, then aimed the gun a few feet ahead of the big man who was staggering forward, carrying the wounded man. He’d give him a little lead and then snake his fire backward. It was going to be almost too easy.

He got his aim and pressed the double trigger. His world exploded in an orange blaze as the gunpowder flashed up from the breach and seared his eyes.

The Reverend C. Wesley Carter heard the shot and then the scream, so he stood up in the watchtower. He put his hand to the detonator box and waited for the signal.

Cal could hear the screaming coming from the main bunker. “Don’t shoot any of the new guns!” Cal hollered. That son of a bitch Mackinnon had probably booby-trapped every one that he hadn’t demonstrated.

One of the men in the tower heard Cal yelling but couldn’t make out the words. He had a perfect bead on Neal, though. He pulled the trigger and the gun blew up in his hands.

“Hold your fire, everybody!” Cal yelled. “Get your own weapons out of the bunker!”

He looked to the gate and saw Vetter swing it shut.

“I’ve got you trapped, you son of a bitch!” he yelled at the truck. I hope I can still take you alive, he thought. I’ll take months to kill you.

Neal dove into the back of the truck, pulled Jory up behind him, and shut the doors. A window slid open at the front.

“You all right?” Ed shouted.

“We both made it! How’s Graham?”

“He’s okay, but the bastards closed the gate on us!”

Ed turned the ignition, hit the gas, and started for the gate.

Cal watched as the truck lurched forward. It was still all right. There was plenty of time to get the old weapons. That truck wasn’t going to ram through that gate.

Ed pointed his black box out the window and hit the button. The mine went off and the gate blew off its hinges. He hit the gas harder and rumbled down the road.

Carter watched the truck go through the gate. He was almost happy it had made it. Now, he thought, I will blow you back to hell. He checked the diagram Strekker had given him. He started to count down from five.

Cal picked himself up after the blast went off. It was chaos in the compound-the wounded were screaming, men were running all over hell and back looking for guns. What the hell happened with the mine? he wondered. Did Carter push the button early?

He looked up to the tower and could just make out Carter with his finger on the detonator box. So either Carter had panicked and pushed the wrong button or…

He started running toward the tower.

Carter saw the truck get near the mine hidden under the snow on the road. He also saw Cal running toward him. Not to worry, Mr. Strekker, I’m on the ball.

Cal waved his arms wildly and yelled, “Noooooo!”

Carter saw Cal give the signal. He flipped the toggle switch marked AP, RC 2. And that, he thought, will blow them back to the devil.

The first bomb went off in the ammunition bunker. It blew the wooden door off and, as Ed had planned, set off at least fifty secondary explosions as mortar shells, rockets, and bullets blew up in the fire. The next blast crumbled a watchtower. The next set off the tear gas Ed had placed in the detonator battery in the main bunker.