Daniel Suarez - Daemon

The first warning they received was the guttural sound of a powerful engine, then screeching tires. Sebeck and the other officers turned to face a full-sized black Hummer roaring out of the garage. It bore down on the nearest of them and crushed a deputy and an FBI agent into the side of an FBI sedan, hitting it so hard the car slid into the police cruiser behind it.

Sebeck stood in a paralysis of incomprehension. He could clearly see that no one was driving the Hummer. It sported six tall whip antennas—still wagging from the impact of the collision—and it had odd-looking sensors bolted to its hood, roof, and fenders.

The Hummer’s engine roared as it backed away from the wrecked car and the bodies tumbled onto the paving stones. The Hummer’s push-bar bumper was barely dented and was covered in blood.

It all happened so fast. Two men had just been killed. Adrenaline flooded into Sebeck’s system.

People ran in every direction, shouting. Sebeck looked back to the door of the mansion to see the other two bomb squad members running out of the house, screaming. One of them stumbled down the front steps and fell into the flower beds, where he went into convulsions.

Deputies and FBI agents drew pistols and fired at the Hummer as it screeched around the edge of the courtyard, building up speed again. Shots cracked in rapid succession, echoing against the side of the house. The familiar, pungent smell of smokeless powder brought Sebeck to his senses, and he pulled his Beretta from its holster. He rammed its slide back, gripped it with both hands, then opened fire. He aimed for the Hummer’s tires.

Sebeck could clearly see bullet impacts on the tires, but they had no effect. The tires were either run-flat or solid rubber. He brought his aim up to the windows—but remembered there was no one to shoot at.

Now the Hummer howled straight back toward them. Deputies and agents fired a few frantic last shots before scrambling from between the parked police vehicles. It crashed into the side of another patrol car, halving the car’s width and driving it back like a battering ram into two more cruisers. Those cars smashed into the patio wall, pinning a couple of officers there. The sheer force and loudness of the crash sent Sebeck running for the nearest high ground—a garden wall.

Screams of pain came to his ears from the pinned officers. He looked back and saw the Hummer seesawing backward as its gears whined. It swung wide and winged a fleeing officer with its fender. The man went rolling across the courtyard. Turning on him, the Hummer screeched forward before he could get up. The deputy went shrieking under its wheels. His body was dragged halfway across the courtyard before it fell loose.

Sebeck screamed in rage and emptied his pistol at the rear of the Hummer while it chased down two agents fleeing toward a garden pond.

An agent with a pump shotgun ran up to it as it passed by. He fired two rounds into it, blasting out its windows and sending pieces of plastic flying. He kept firing as it drove on.

Shouts filled the courtyard now. Nearby, Sebeck saw Decker screaming into his radio, “…do you copy?”

Back at the estate gates, Deputy Karla Gleason stood taking in the sun and watching for the expected arrival of the media. There hadn’t been any radio calls from the mansion—which was odd—but she stood next to her patrol car, attentive and wondering what the mansion would fetch on the real estate market.

Across the driveway, Deputy Gil Trevetti stood next to his cruiser, waving a curious passenger car on by. That’s when the crackling of gunfire reached Gleason’s ears. She and Trevetti exchanged looks, then ran for the fence line.

Everything looked normal. The mansion was partially masked by trees, so none of the police vehicles were visible from here. But now the gunfire crackled like firecrackers. It was an unbelievable amount of sustained shooting. Maybe it was fireworks.

Gleason pressed the button on her shoulder radio. “Unit 920 to any available Blue Team member: 10-73?”

No response.

“Repeat. Unit 920 to any available Blue Team member: 10-73?”

A distant truck engine raced, then a crash.

“What the hell’s going on, Gil?”

The unmistakable boom of a shotgun reached them over the grounds. Five shots in five seconds. Gleason shot skeet. She knew that sound well. She pressed the button on her shoulder radio. “920 to Control, multiple 10-57 at 1215 Potrero Road. Repeat, multiple, multiple 10-57. Code 30. Radio contact lost with Blue Team.”

The courtyard was chaos as the Hummer roared back in from the garden and smashed headlong into the ambulance, sending glass and metal debris flying. It surged ahead, pushing the ambulance sideways at the mouth of the driveway—blocking the exit.

The entire time, officers laid down sustained gunfire on it, pocking its body with bullet holes. The bullets didn’t appear to have much effect, even though some of the Hummer’s sensors now dangled loose on wires.

It slalomed across the courtyard, finally locking in on an agent firing at it from the garage. The man stopped shooting and ran for cover through the doorway.

The Hummer plowed through the entire wall after him and emerged on the far side, leaving shards of two-by-fours and shattered walls toppling in its wake.

Sebeck fired the last of his third clip into its rump as it roared back out into the garden. He added his own voice to the shouting and the cries of the injured. “Nathan!”

“Here, Pete!” Nathan came running across the courtyard with a shotgun and a box of shells in his hand. Several car trunks were wrenched open in the wreckage, and the officers raided them for heavier weapons.

Sebeck pointed to the bomb squad truck. “Stay with Mr. Ross, and make sure he gets out of here. He has information the FBI needs.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll help with the wounded. Move!”

Nathan gave him one last look, then raced off toward the bomb squad van. Sebeck dodged between damaged police vehicles and almost slipped on blood as he raced across the cobblestones. A severed arm lay next to a crumpled bumper. His mind had trouble wrapping itself around the sights and smells. Officers were trying to get a bleeding FBI agent out from under a smashed sedan before the Hummer returned. The wounded man screamed in agony and fear.

Nearby, Sebeck saw Aaron Larson attended to by an FBI agent and another deputy. Larson looked to be in tremendous pain. He was standing up, sandwiched between two damaged patrol cars.

Sebeck turned and called across the courtyard. “Get that truck over here! We need to pull these cars apart!” He holstered his pistol and ran to help. Shouted commands echoed from every corner of the courtyard.

“I can’t get anybody on the radio!”

“Cell phones don’t work either!”

“It’s coming back in!”

Decker climbed across the crumpled hood of his sedan. “Get the wounded into the vans! Fall back to the road!”

Sebeck was sprinting across the middle of the courtyard when the Hummer roared in behind him through an opening between the house and garage, sending debris flying.

“Pete, look out!” Gunfire erupted almost immediately. A bullet whined past Sebeck’s head. He ducked, then turned to see the Hummer bearing down on him. It was almost on him already. He felt the bass rumble of its engine in his chest, the black grill racing straight toward him.

Then it shuddered violently to a stop on the cobblestones just a foot away. Sebeck stood motionless—heart pounding—before the massive steel grill. His eyes focused on the Hummer’s front vanity plate: AUTOM8D. It was smeared with blood. The plate suddenly began to recede as the Hummer shifted into reverse and backed away from him. The Hummer then roared forward again, passing Sebeck wide on the left and accelerating toward the FBI agent and deputy helping Aaron Larson. They scattered as Larson screamed.