John Sandford - The Night Crew

'Maybe I oughta make the ran.'

'No. You've got the rifle, I've just got this thing,' Anna said, holding up the pistol. 'At fifty feet I might not be able to hit the house.'

As she said it, she slipped under the lowest rail of the corral. Whatever was in the corral stayed at the back. She could here it stomping nervously, maybe the Llama, maybe a pony, as she moved to the gate.

Taking a breath, she glanced back at the spot where she'd left Jake, and stuck one leg through the gate.

BAAAAAZZZZZZZZ.

The buzzer sounded like the end of the world, as loud as a jet plane, fifteen feet overhead.

In a half-second, she knew exactly what had happened: the gate was alarmed, just like the gate at the bottom of the hill. A light beam or movement sensor was probably buried in the gatepost, out beyond the gate itself, so an animal inside the corral couldn't set it offbut she'd put her leg right through it.

She'd been so occupied with the thought of closing on the house that she hadn't thought to look. And she didn't stop to think when the buzzer went. Instead, she scrambled sideways, across the corral, to the far corner, holding tight to the pistol.

The buzzing went on for three or four seconds, and then, just as abruptly, stopped. For another twenty seconds, nothing moved inside the house, and Anna, watching the back door, began to relax.

'Anna?' Jake's stage whisper cut through the dead silence. She turned her head to answer when the back door banged open, and what looked like a drank staggered onto the back porch, twisting, turning in the dim light.

'Anna?' The voice. She knew it this time. 'Anna, I know you're out there.'

Anna, straining toward the turning figure, finally made it out; not one person, but two. A man with his arm around a woman's neck, the woman struggling against him; and when her struggles became too violent, he would lever her off the ground until she stopped.

'Anna.' Judge was screaming her name. Anna said nothing. Maybe he'd decide that an animal had set off the alarm. Maybe he'd come out where they could get at him: but at the moment, the woman's body blocked any possibility of a shot.

'Are you out there? I know you're out there.' The straggle on the porch started again, and Anna lifted the pistol and aimed it, took it down again: no way.

'Anna.' He was bawling into the night. Then: 'You think I'm fucking around? Think again, huh? Think again, Anna.'

He moved back toward the door, reached inside, and clicked on a yellow porch light.

'I know you're out there. You like to make movies? Make a movie of this.'

He suddenly kicked the straggling woman's legs from beneath her and she went down. At the same moment, he let go of his grip on her neck. She landed on one thigh and her hand, twisted, head down: the man pointed his hand at her head and there was a sudden crack, and an arrow of flame, and the woman flattened.

Shot in the head.

Anna, not thinking, only reacting, thrust her pistol at the door and fired, and a half-second later Jake opened up: but the man was already back through the door. Anna, though, was rolling under the bottom bar of the corral, on her feet, running at the porch, firing a second time at the dark rectangle of the open door. In the back of her head she could hear Jake screaming, 'Anna! Anna! No, Anna!'

But at the same instant, she was through the door. To her left, the back of the man, turning to look at her just as he went through an internal doorway.

Steve Judge, but strangely different than the animal rights raider she remembered: he seemed older, thinner, harsher, wilder, with a long black pistol in one hand. But he was reeling away from the gunfire, and in the half-second he was visible to Anna, she managed to get the gun down and fire another shot, wildly, but in his direction. He screamed, then a second later, fired back, the bullet burying itself in the wall to Anna's left.

Belatedly, she went down, now holding the pistol out in front of her. And from behind, Harper was suddenly there with the rifle. He knelt beside her, and she saw that he was feeding fresh shells into the magazine.

'He's through there,' Anna said, in a harsh whisper. 'He's running. Let's take him.'

'For Christ's sake, rush him in a dark house? He'd take both of us.'

'We gotta.'

'No. What we gotta do, is look at the woman on the porch.'

Anna turned her head: 'JeezI thought she was dead. He shot her in the head.'

'I didn't have time to look, but lots of times, people don't die.'

'Keep the gun on the door,' Anna said. 'I'll go look.'

'Is he still inside?'

'I didn't hear the front door go. I think so.'

Harper braced the rifle against the wall as Anna slithered toward the door. Just before she got to the doorstep, Judge screamed from the front: 'Anna. I'm gonna cut your friend's belly open. You wanna hear it?'

Anna stopped, glanced at Harper.

Harper shrugged, got halfway to his feet and whispered, 'Yell something at him. A threat, anything.'

Anna screamed, 'You motherfucker, if you hurt Pam, I'll cut your balls off. I promise, I'll cut your balls.'

As she screamed, Harper pushed to his feet, did a quick tiptoe across the door, hesitated just an instant at the far door where Anna had last seen Judge. He looked back, then burst through the door, out of sight: Anna was four steps behind him, but the dark room ahead was suddenly lit by a half dozen muzzle blasts, the crashing of furniture, Harper screaming, another shot, and the banging of the front door.

Then Anna was through into the dark chaos of the office, pushing the gun in front of her, moving. and stumbling over a body.

'Christ.' Harper.

'You hurt?'

'Yeah, I'm shot in the hip,' he groaned. 'Not bad, but it hurts like a sonofabitch.'

'Where is he? Outside?'

'Yeah, I heard the door. He's gone.'

'How about Pam?'

'I don't know. I don't know if he had her.'

'I believed him.'

'Well, if he had her, he didn't take her with him, because he went out of here in a hurry. Christ, we were six feet apart, I just couldn't get the gun around.'

There was light coming into the room from the back, from the room they'd just rushed through. Anna said, 'Move around into the light, stay behind the desk, I gotta look and see how bad it is.'

And at that moment, someone groaned from the other side of the room. The groan was hurt enough, harsh enough, that the hair stood up on Anna's.

Harper whispered, 'Pam.'

Anna groped in her pocket, and found the flashlight had stayed with her through the wild scramble across the yard and into the house. She wrapped her fist around it, and shot the needle of light across the room. She passed over Glass's body the first time, then wondered about the shadow in the corner, and came back to it.

Yes. A body, not a shadow. Anna left Harper, creeping across the office carpet, got to Glass, rolled her. Couldn't see; put her head close to the other woman's ear and said, 'Pamthis is Anna. How bad are you?'

Glass muttered something unintelligible. Anna looked around, trying to think what to do. Had to get her to some light. Finally, afraid that she might be hurting her worse, she tugged and pulled Glass across the carpet. Glass remained inert, sometimes mumbling to herself.

'How bad?' Harper whispered.

'I don't know. We need light.'

'Pull that desk around.'

Anna managed to move one of the desks enough to provide cover from the only window that Judge could see through: and turned on a light.

Pam Glass had been terribly beaten: her nose was broken, her teeth were broken, one cheekbone was wrong, her lips were twice as big as they should be, and the color of fresh liver.

'Aw, Jesus,' Anna said. But she could do nothing about it. 'Let me look at your hip,' she said to Harper. Harper rolled, showed her a bullet hole passing through his jeans in his thigh just below his butt. There was no exit wound.