Victor Gant stood in the darkness and tried to spot the fleeing horseman. He heard the horse’s hooves striking the earth, but he couldn’t see a thing.
He ran forward and took a position against the corral fence. He rested the barrel of the M4 he carried on the topmost railing and took out the high-intensity halogen flashlight clipped to his belt. With a press of his thumb, he brought the flashlight to life and aimed it in the direction Tyrel McHenry had taken.
It was no use, though. The light illuminated the ground in front of him, but the beam vanished in the dank black of the night.
Victor cursed when he realized Tyrel had escaped. In the next instant a spark of light flared in the darkness. The corral post shivered under the assault rifle, and wood chips flew into the air. Aware that the bullet had missed him by inches, Victor extinguished the flashlight and threw himself to the ground.
The harsh crack of the shot rolled over him.
“Find that muzzle flash!” he roared at his crew. “Find that shooter and light him up!”
Other bikers fell into position against the railing. Some of them raked the darkness with bullets.
Victor lay there for a moment, but there weren’t any more shots from Tyrel McHenry. He’d taken his opportunity to make a quick kill and turned his attention to getting out of there.
Grudgingly Victor knew he would have done the same thing. Taking a chance on killing an enemy when that enemy wasn’t expecting it was good. Bringing enemy fire to his position, especially when he was in full retreat, was just suicidal.
“Victor,” Fat Mike called out of the darkness.
“Here.” Victor pushed himself up and stood near the corral. He didn’t move away from the fence post. It was also possible that Tyrel would take up one final position and try for a kill once everyone let their guards down.
“Thought he got you,” Fat Mike said.
“He almost did.”
“He shoots good. Nervy cuss, ain’t he?”
“You planning on an adoption, Fat Mike?” Victor demanded angrily.
“Nope. Just observing, is all.”
Victor stared at the darkness, then looked around at his crew. He appeared to be two men short.
“I take it Tyrel didn’t just escape, did he?” Victor asked. “I guess a couple of men had to go and get themselves shot.”
“Dirty Bob and Dead Ear,” someone volunteered. “The old man got ’em as they were comin’ through the window.”
“How are they?”
“Dead. One shot, one kill. That old man must have ice water in his veins to stay holed up like that and come out shootin’.”
Victor walked toward the main house and deliberately ignored the fact that the younger biker was referring to Tyrel McHenry as old. Tyrel was a couple of years younger than Victor.
“Anybody else at home?” Victor asked.
“Nope,” another man said. “Done been through it. He was here by himself.”
And he got away, Victor thought bitterly. His cell phone rang, and he pulled it from his pocket. “Yeah.”
“That cop Loco shot was on the radio when he went down.” Buster, an ex-communications officer from the Army who’d been discharged for dealing drugs in the first Iraq War, was monitoring the law enforcement frequencies. “Word went out. That twenty is about to be flooded by county Mounties.”
“Affirmative,” Victor snarled. He folded the phone and put it back in his pocket. Then he raised his voice. “Pack it in. We’re outta here. We’re about to be eyebrow-deep in cops.”
“What about Dirty Bob and Dead Ear?” one of the bikers asked.
“We got a klick-run ahead of us,” Victor said. “You want to superman it and hump them out of here, feel free.” He turned toward the front of the ranch where they’d left the motorcycles and began trotting.
Behind him, Fat Mike cursed disconsolately. As big as he was, Fat Mike was already carrying the equivalent of a dead man’s weight strapped to him.
Victor focused on the run. He’d get another chance at Shel McHenry. Victor felt that in his bones. The big Marine wasn’t the type to clear out of a situation.
A grin pasted itself on Victor’s face. He’d promised Tran after tonight’s attempt that he’d get out of the United States for a while. If the Marine came after him, he was going to have to do it on dangerous terrain.
No one knew Vietnam like Victor Gant did.
›› 2201 Hours (Central Time Zone)
Shel slotted himself into the breakneck convoy that raced down the farm-to-market road toward the Rafter M. He’d positioned himself the third vehicle back. Not close enough to the front of the pack to appear anxious to take over the operation, but not so far back that he missed out on a good look at the scene when they arrived.
“They need to turn off the flashing lights.” Don sat in the passenger seat and clung to the seat belt. “Those bikers are going to see us coming for miles.”
Shel silently agreed. But he knew trying to tell the deputies that would only start an argument. They were driven by the adrenaline of knowing one of their number had gone down in the line of fire. For most of them, this was probably the first time that had happened. They weren’t thinking right now; they were reacting.
“That’s pretty smart for a preacher.” Shel tried to sound as though he wasn’t worried about their daddy.
“It’s common sense.” Don shook his head. “I grew up watching the same Western movies you did.” He pointed. “Look. There’s the ranch house.”
Shel peered through the night and spotted the house in the distance. He was relieved to see it sitting there quietly in the darkness. He’d been expecting to find it lit up with muzzle flashes or engulfed in flames.
The lead deputy cruiser veered without warning and suddenly raced for the ditch on the right side of the road. Over Shel’s shoulder, Max barked and ran to the driver’s side window in back. Shel’s hand was already on his pistol when he heard the shots.
A moment later, the second deputy cruiser came under fire. Bullets ripped through the windshield and tore across the flashing light bar.
In the next moment, powerful motorcycle engines thundered to life. The bikers rose from the ditch on the right as their machines struggled with the grade because of their weight.
“Get down!” Shel ordered when he noticed Don was sitting frozen in the passenger seat, watching the outbreak of violence around them.
Shel transferred his pistol to his left hand and cupped his right behind Don’s head to pull him down. He knew that Max had already gone to cover.
Bullets slammed against the SUV and ripped through the windshield. Safety glass trickled into Shel’s lap as he held the wheel straight with his right knee and took aim at the first biker he saw. The pistol jumped in his fist as soon as he had a lock on the target.
The biker jerked, and the motorcycle went out of control. It fell over sideways and skidded across the road under the SUV.
Shel let go of Don and grabbed for the wheel. It didn’t do any real good. The motorcycle had lodged under the SUV and made the vehicle unmanageable. Still, he almost had it under control when the deputy cruiser behind him slammed into him. The air bags blossomed with staccato blasts and trapped Shel and Don.
The other bikers sped past and were gone in a heartbeat.
Shel tore the air bag free with his hand and cleared his way out of the SUV. He flung open the bullet-riddled door and turned to face the retreating bikers. In the darkness, he couldn’t tell how many of them there were. He opened fire immediately and hoped he got lucky.
If he hit any of the Purple Royals, they gave no indication of it.
A quick check of the vehicles revealed that the first two and his own were definitely out of commission. He ran to the next cruiser as he fed a new magazine into his pistol. Max paced him.
The deputy in the car was bleeding from a head wound while he fought the air bag. A quick glance told Shel that the man had received the wound from the wreck, not from a bullet.
“You okay?” Shel asked.