Battle Lines (The Survivalist Book 5) (32 page)

“Remember your training,” she whispered. It was a mantra she had repeated many times when facing similar life-and-death struggles. While it did little to improve her situation, it did help to calm her nerves.

The SpeedHawk landed in a small clearing thirty yards from the museum’s stone staircase. The twin engines powered down, and the rotor came to a lazy stop. Even before the blades had stopped spinning, four men hopped out with silenced MP5 submachine guns. They spread out, quickly setting up a perimeter. All four men wore the same black uniforms and, at first glance, were indistinguishable in terms of their respective function or rank. The pilot remained behind, but Leila suspected that others could fly the helicopter if it came to that. A good special ops team could suffer the loss of any member without sacrificing the mission.

The men shuffled up the stairs, two of them facing forward, the other two to the rear. Their movements were efficient and well-practiced. When they came to the hole that Mason had gone down, they had a brief discussion, the details of which she couldn’t quite make out. One of the men radioed something, and a few moments later, the pilot emerged from the helicopter. He was carrying a Heckler & Koch USP45 in one hand and a radio in the other.

The team covered him while he advanced, and within seconds, he was standing by their side. They conversed briefly before tying off a black nylon-laid rope and dropping it down into the hole. The first soldier grabbed the rope and disappeared into the darkness. Almost immediately, a scream sounded from below. The pilot leaned over the hole with a flashlight and conversed with the first man. He nodded a few times, and then motioned for the other three soldiers to go down.

When they were safely away, the pilot turned and stood watch over the entry point. Despite being left behind, his job was perhaps the most critical of all. The team couldn’t afford to have someone come along and block what might be their only way out.

Leila quickly ran through her options. She could just sit tight and wait. It was doubtful that they would find her. However, if she did that, Marshal Raines would have to deal with the soldiers on his own. Even for a man of his caliber, four-to-one odds would not be easily overcome. On the other hand, if she could manage to come in from behind, together they might yet win the day. That’s not to say that it would be easy. Defeating a team of elite killers would require every bit of skill she and the marshal possessed, not to mention a healthy dose of luck. But she had to try. He was the best lead yet to accomplishing her mission.

“Let’s get this done,” she whispered.

She grabbed a porcelain teapot from the rubble and hurled it high over the soldier’s head. As soon as it hit, he spun with the USP45 up and ready. Leila stepped out from behind the carriage and rushed toward him. They were forty yards apart, a difficult shot using her weak hand. She preferred to be within twenty. She raced ahead, stumbling over debris, but never falling. Thirty-five yards. Thirty. Twenty-five. The soldier turned toward her, and Leila instinctively fired. Four quick shots, the Beretta bucking in her left hand.

The first bullet caught him in the hip, and the second grazed his right ear. The next two ricocheted off the debris. He fell to one knee but managed to return fire, the USP45’s muzzle flipping up as it spit fire. Leila felt a sharp sting on her right calf. She fired twice more. One caught him in the shoulder. The other went wide. The soldier jerked as the slug hit him, but he quickly brought his gun back on target, firing two more shots. One grazed Leila’s scalp, and the other passed over her head.

She was within ten yards and still firing.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Three more shots. One punched a hole through his throat. The other two missed. Still, he refused to fall. The gun wavered in his hand as he tried to line up for a kill shot. Leila’s injured leg suddenly buckled, and she fell hard on a pile of concrete and metal piping. She pushed up onto her elbows, struggling to suck in a breath. Another shot rang out, the slug passing so close that it burned through a lock of her hair. She jammed the Beretta forward and frantically squeezed the trigger over and over. When the slide finally locked to the rear, the soldier lay flat on his back, riddled with bullet holes.

Leila high-crawled toward him, glass and stone cutting into her forearms. She clambered on top of the man, mixing her blood with his. He tried to swing the USP45 up toward her, but she batted it away, knocking the pistol from his grip. He pushed at her, his arms heavy and weak, as she whipped the Beretta down, splitting the side of his face.

“Die all ready!” she screamed, hammering him repeatedly with the muzzle of the pistol.

When he finally stopped moving, Leila toppled off the man, weak and utterly spent. She lay on her back struggling to catch her breath, her leg and scalp both burning hot with pain. Afraid that the other soldiers might come up the rope to investigate, she forced herself to sit up and retrieve the dead soldier’s USP45.

Keeping the pistol trained on the hole, she turned to inspect her leg. On one side of the calf was a smooth hole about the diameter of a dime, and on the other, a slightly ragged hole of roughly the same dimension. Both of them pulsed blood. She used her bandaged hand to apply pressure, but the gauze quickly became soaked in blood. She set the gun in her lap and worked the wound with both hands, hoping to stem the flow of blood. That didn’t work either.

“Shit,” she breathed. The bullet had hit her fibular artery.

She slid her hands up and squeezed behind the knee, compressing the posterior tibial artery that supplied blood to the lower portion of her leg. The bleeding slowed but didn’t stop. In that instant, the inevitability of her death became clear. If a hospital had been within an hour or two, she might have survived. But there were no hospitals, no doctors, no one standing ready to save the injured. She was dead. She had failed her country and her family.

Leila closed her eyes and thought of her dead sister’s face.

“I’m coming, Roni. Just a few more minutes.”

Mason hurried into the Masonic lodge and took cover behind the pews. Bowie sat beside him, a low growl rumbling in his chest. They heard a scream, followed by shouts of profanity.

Mason grinned. They had found his
punji
trap. He swung the M4 up and rested it on the pew, aiming directly at the door. Ten seconds later, a gunshot sounded, followed by a long agonizing scream and then more cursing. While the soldiers may have attributed the nail board to simple misfortune, they would recognize the cartridge trap for what it was. From here forward, they would assume everything was booby-trapped.

Mason heard the moans of an injured man outside the lodge’s door.

“I’m going to kill you for that!” a voice bellowed. “Whoever you are, I want you to know that I’m coming for you.”

Mason shouted over the top of the pew.

“I’m Deputy Marshal Mason Raines. I will continue to treat you men as enemy combatants unless you surrender your arms.”

There were hushed whispers as the soldiers talked among themselves.

“Is Lenny Bruce in there with you?”

Mason saw no point in lying. They were coming in either way.

“He is.”

More hushed conversation.

“If you send him out, we’ll leave the same way we came in.”

Mason took aim at the hinge side of the door and fired a single shot. It wasn’t likely that the men would be standing directly in front of the door, but one might have moved up beside it to better converse.

A soldier screamed and fell against the door, pushing it open. The string that Mason had tied to the inside of the door immediately pulled tight, tripping the trigger and launching the blade. The tip of the sword caught the soldier an inch beneath his Adam’s apple, passing through his neck and opening his trachea. He fell to his knees, clutching his throat as he choked on his own blood. Another soldier tried to grab him by the shoulder, but two near misses from Mason’s rifle caused him to rethink the rescue. After a few seconds, the injured soldier collapsed to the floor. One down.

Two rifles poked blindly around the door, spraying automatic fire across the room. Mason ducked back behind the pews, peeking through a small crack in the wood. Another soldier hobbled back down the hall, seeking better cover, but as he did, he set off one of the cartridge traps. The bullet blew a hole through his foot and sliced up into his groin. He fell, clutching at his gonads as he cried for help. Dead or not, he too was out of the fight.

As the automatic fire eased off to allow for magazine changes, Mason retreated through the back door, pulling Bowie with him. He kicked the door shut, sliding a heavy crate over to hold it in place. Bowie struggled to get to the soldiers, growling.

“Bowie!”

The dog looked up at him.

“I’m sorry, boy, but this isn’t your fight.”

Bowie looked confused, not at all accustomed to being relegated a bystander.

“Go to Lenny,” Mason said, pointing down the hallway.

The dog stared at him as if he didn’t understand.

“I mean it. Go!”

Bowie turned and raced down the hall, disappearing into the room.

Splinters of wood exploded toward Mason as bullets blasted through the door. He ducked down and raced behind the first stack of papers. No sooner had he taken cover than something slammed against the door, knocking the crate aside. Mason fired several three-round bursts, spreading them evenly across the open doorway. None found their mark.

A small black aluminum canister tumbled in through the doorway. Mason recognized it immediately as an M84 magnesium-based flashbang grenade. He released his M4, letting it dangle from the sling, and pressed both hands against his ears as he raced for the opposite doorway. The grenade blew two seconds after it left the solder’s hand, emitting a deafening 180-decibel report and a flash of light brighter than one million candles. Mason had managed to get outside the five-foot zone of greatest impact, but the detonation still left him dazed. He stumbled into the final room, pushing the door closed behind him.

He had managed to keep his vision intact by squinting and facing away from the flash, but his ears were ringing, making it difficult to maintain awareness of the battlefield. The soldiers had taken a huge chance using the M84. It could easily have caused a cave-in, crushing everyone inside. Whether it was a careful calculation or the act of desperate men, the flashbang grenade had been effective at driving him back.

“Lenny! Can you shoot—”

Mason stopped when he saw Bowie licking the side of Lenny’s face. The man’s eyes were open, but the life had left them. His Bible lay open on his lap, perhaps offering a few final words of comfort. Lenny had made his own exit from the world, and it was not at the hand of an assassin.

Mason hurried to the opposite door and motioned for Bowie to go ahead of him. Together, they raced down the hallway and up the mound of debris leading out. Gunshots sounded behind them as they crawled out through the hole. Mason quickly slung the M4 across his back and raced over to his final trap. Facing away from it, he bent over and heel-kicked the top of the wagon with everything he had. It jerked to the side but didn’t fall.

A soldier suddenly poked up through the hole with an MP5 at the ready. Before he could take aim, Bowie grabbed him by the back of the neck and dragged him out. He screamed and flailed against the dog. Even as the first soldier was being mauled, the muzzle of another rifle poked up through the hole.

Mason leaned forward and kicked the wagon again. This time it made a creaking noise as it started to slide out from under the pole. Objects were in motion, and nothing could stop what would happen next. A thunderous crash sounded, and the ground shook beneath his feet as gravity finally brought the utility pole down. It crashed onto the museum’s floor, collapsing it inward and creating a giant sinkhole. Mason fell to his knees and grabbed a metal water pipe to keep from being sucked into the vortex of concrete and stone.

The man wrestling with Bowie wrapped his legs around the dog and rolled away from the sinkhole. They fought ferociously, Bowie biting his arms and legs as the soldier fought to keep the giant dog away from his throat. Each time the soldier reached for the knife in his boot, Bowie lunged forward, forcing him to once again go on the defensive. It became a matter of will and strength, and while the soldier was fierce, Bowie fought as if he was not of this world. Piece by piece, he tore the man apart. First came his fingers. Then his ears. And finally, his throat.

When the collapsing floor settled, crushing all those below, Mason got to his feet and called Bowie to him. The dog slowly ambled over, licking the blood from the fur around his mouth.

“That’s a good boy,” he said, leaning over and patting him on the side.

While Bowie’s ferocity was disturbing to witness, Mason would never discourage it. A warrior’s two greatest enemies were hesitation and mercy, and he wasn’t about to instill either in his wolfhound.