David Morrell: The naked edge

"You're about to learn."

"You dumb bastard. After all your bragging, you missed!" the spotter said.

"Hey, it wasn't my fault! How was I to know somebody'd start shooting down there? How was I to know the target would-"

"Quit making excuses! How are you going to fix this?"

"Wait for another shot."

"Now that he knows he's a target, you think he's just going to waltz outside and show himself?" the spotter demanded.

"To get to the car maybe. Or the helicopter. Hell, he's got to do something. He knows he's stuck. He can't phone for help. Sooner or later-"

"He's got food. Water. He can stay there for days. But we didn't come prepared for a damned siege."

"So you make mistakes, too, huh?"

"And you're one of them. Do this right!"

With a sigh of impatience, the shooter reached into his backpack and selected a box of ammunition. He worked the Remington's bolt and ejected the two remaining rounds from the rifle. Then he inserted four rounds from the fresh box of ammunition. Each cartridge had a red tip.

"Tracers?"

"Incendiaries. I brought them in case this turned out to be a night shoot. For the same reason, I also brought an infrared scope. If he tries to leave when it's dark, I'll get him."

"But it won't be dark for another four hours!"

"Doesn't matter." The shooter steadied his aim toward a large white tank beside a shed about fifty yards from the lodge. "I'll get the target out of the lodge if I shoot one of these babies into that propane tank. Hell, the explosion will probably level the place."

"No. Don't." The spotter was appalled.

"What's the matter?"

"The neighbors in the other valleys are used to hearing shots on this property. But an explosion would attract every police officer and emergency crew from here to Jackson."

"Yeah, there's that, I suppose. Okay, I've got another way." The shooter switched his aim toward the lodge. "Tell Beta the target'll be outside in fifteen minutes."

Heart pounding, Cavanaugh raced across the communal room and tugged open a door next to the battered upright piano. He pulled out an AR-15, the semi-automatic civilian version of the M-16.

He gave it to Angelo, along with a loaded thirty-round magazine. "Watch the front."

"Got it."

"Wait. Take this." Cavanaugh grabbed a walkie-talkie off a shelf and tossed it to him.

As Angelo hurried toward the front windows, Cavanaugh took out another AR-15. "I'll watch the east and try to locate the sniper. Mrs. Patterson, get down in the basement."

"No. Tell me how to help."

"Stay out of sight."

"I'm not going to hide." Fear made her voice tremble. "There's a revolver in a kitchen drawer. You taught me how to use it."

"Stay behind cover!" Cavanaugh yelled as she ran toward the kitchen. "Keep your walkie-talkie close! Jamie?"

"I'll take the back," she said.

With no AR-15s remaining, Cavanaugh gave her a Ruger Mini-14, a streamlined semi-automatic rifle favored by ranchers. He stared into her eyes, praying she wouldn't be killed.

"You can count on me," she said.

He touched her hand. "I know." He felt his throat tighten as she grabbed a box of ammunition and hurried away.

"William, come with me."

Cavanaugh tugged the attorney back into the office.

"The good news is, the log walls of this building are so thick, we don't need to worry about bullets coming through."

"You're implying that in most houses bullets can come through walls? Dear God, what's the bad news?"

"The windows are the only target the sniper now has. He'll focus on them."

"Then how are we supposed to look out there and see if anybody's attacking?"

"Stay to the side. Keep your face from the opening. Peer out at an angle." Cavanaugh spoke those words into his walkie-talkie. "Mrs. Patterson, did you hear that?"

Her voice was staticky. "Yes."

"Angelo, see anything?"

"Nada." His voice came from the walkie-talkie.

"Jamie?"

"Clear."

"Mrs. Patterson?"

"Nothing."

"What about the security monitors?"

"All I see are bushes and trees."

"Maybe it's finished." Breathing loudly, William crouched near Cavanaugh against a wall in the office. "The sniper that fired at you. Now that he missed, maybe he's gone."

Cavanaugh inched toward the undamaged eastern window, the one behind his desk, trying to get a glimpse of where the shooter might be hiding on the aspen-covered ridge. He eased closer to the window.

Its screen bulged inward. Something snapped through the room and struck the leather chair that William had earlier sat in. The glowing object plowed through the chair and hit the wall. Smoke rose.

Cavanaugh yelled into the walkie-talkie, "The shooter's using incendiaries!"

Crawling in a direction that didn't make him a target through the window, he reached a closet, tugged at its door, and took out a fire extinguisher. As flames writhed from the chair and the wall, he aimed the nozzle and pulled the trigger. A pungent cloud spewed toward the fire, smothering it.

"Still nothing." Angelo's voice crackled from the walkie-talkie.

"Same here," Mrs. Patterson's voice said.

"Nobody," Jamie's voice reported.

"He's definitely using a suppressor!" Cavanaugh told them. "I can't place where the shots are coming from!"

With a snap as from a whip, another tracer tore through the screen, this one shattering a lamp. More smoke rose. Flames wavered. Cavanaugh pressed the extinguisher's trigger, another cloud of retardant gushing over the fire.

William coughed from the assault to his throat and lungs.

"Mrs. Patterson," Cavanaugh said into the walkie-talkie. "There's a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. Get it ready."

On the ridge, the sniper worked the bolt on his rifle, chambering another round.

"Clever," the spotter said, peering through binoculars at the haze in a ground-level room down there.

"I'm just getting started. Check the attic window on this side." The sniper shifted his aim toward the top of the building. With practiced ease, he pulled the trigger and absorbed the recoil as the rifle's sound suppressor made a noise similar to a fist hitting a pillow. Keeping his eye on the powerful scope, he saw a hole appear in the attic window. "Keep handing me ammunition."

"Still incendiaries?" the spotter asked.

"What else? When you were a kid, didn't you like to play with fire?"

"No, I just tortured animals."

"Tortured…? That's a joke, right?"

"Of course."

"Man, sometimes you worry me." The shooter squeezed off another round, then quickly reloaded.

In an amazingly smooth, fast series, he pumped incendiary bullets through every window on the eastern side of the lodge's second level.

As the haze from the fire retardant settled, Cavanaugh said, "He's concentrating on this window. I can't take the chance of looking out. Let's go." He tugged William toward the door.

Entering the communal room, he saw Jamie crouched next to a screen door at the back, a log wall protecting her as she scanned the meadow and the ridge to the north. He noticed that she now wore her pistol in a holster on her right hip.

"Even if the horses can't hear the shots, they sense what's going on," Jamie said.

"He'd better not hurt them." Cavanaugh heard them whinnying in alarm. Then he realized that hurting the horses was exactly the right tactic for the shooter to use. Wound, but not kill. Make the horses scream in pain. Make Cavanaugh's rage get the better of him. Force him to do something foolish.

No. He strained to channel his adrenaline, to make his body do what was necessary, to shut out every thought and emotion that didn't contribute to survival.