“I can’t believe this,” Kate said. “Do you really think he’s going to be able to watch our backs?”
“He wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” Jake said. “And he wouldn’t have come if he didn’t think he could do the job. He knows what’s at stake.”
Walter came over to the table and sat down. He’d slathered his biscuits with gravy. “This is my kind of grub. Just don’t tell my cardiologist. He’d have a fit.”
“Do you remember Kate?” Jake said, tipping his head toward her.
“Of course I do.” Walter reached across the table to shake her hand. “You grew up to be a knockout.”
“Thanks,” Kate said.
“You obviously got your looks from your mother,” Walter said, winking, though with one of his eyes patched, it was hard for Kate to tell for sure. It might just have been a twitch. “You were the only kid I ever met who carried a Glock around like a teddy bear. I bet you’re still a better shot than your father.”
“I’m a decent shot,” she said. “How’s your shooting these days, Walter?”
“I could shoot a grape off the head of a one-legged hooker from twice that distance.”
She didn’t think that was an expression and was afraid to ask for more details, so she let it ride. “Good to know. I appreciate you coming here and on such short notice.”
“Always glad to serve God and country.”
“This isn’t for God and country,” Kate said.
“It is as far as I’m concerned,” he said.
Clay got out of the pool, wrapped a towel around his waist, and came over to the table, dripping water and leaving a trail of wet footprints in his wake.
“Does anyone remember if I locked the Humvee?” he asked.
Walter narrowed his good eye at him. “You think you might have left a vehicle unlocked that’s loaded with assault weapons, explosives, hand grenades, and rocket launchers?”
“Actually, I was thinking about the iPhone I left on the seat,” Clay said. “I’d hate to lose it.”
“I’ll go check in a minute,” Jake said. “This is my daughter Kate, by the way.”
Clay looked her over from head to toe. “You’re fit, fertile, and have fine birthing hips.”
“Birthing hips?” Kate asked.
“He’s inviting you to ride out the apocalypse with him at his place,” Jake said. “And then help repopulate the human race.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
Jake shrugged. “It’s meant as a compliment.”
“Think on it,” Clay said. “But don’t take too long. The end of days could come at any time.”
Nick sauntered over with a rolled-up newspaper under his arm. “I see the A-Team has arrived.”
“Good to see you, Nick.” Jake got up and shook his hand. “This is a slick operation you’ve cooked up.”
“It wasn’t me,” Nick said. “This is all Kate.”
“Well done,” Jake said to his daughter. “I could have used you in Costa Rica in ’88.”
“What were you doing in Costa Rica?” Kate asked.
Clay wagged a finger at Jake. “That’s still classified.”
“Oops,” Jake said. “Forget I mentioned it.”
Nick held out his hand to Walter. “You must be Eagle Eye.”
“What gave me away?” Walter shook Nick’s hand.
“Your steely gaze,” Nick said, then offered his hand to Clay. “Thanks for coming down, Clay, and bringing the party favors.”
Clay grasped Nick’s hand. “It’s a good opportunity to make sure everything is in working order for the day of reckoning.”
“You’re not sure the ordnance works?” Kate asked.
“I’ve acquired a considerable stockpile but haven’t had a chance to use most of it,” Clay said. “Some of it dates back to Desert Storm.”
“I’m sure it’s all fine,” Jake said, “but I’ll go see if it’s still there.” And he headed out to the parking lot.
Nick turned to Willie. “I need you to give me a ride.”
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Nick took the newspaper out from under his arm. “To buy a pickup I found for sale in the classifieds and to case the Valor Oil refinery.” He turned back to Kate. “What time do you want to do this?”
“Three o’clock,” Kate said. “That way Carter’s men will have the sun in their eyes if they look up toward the hunting blind where Dad, Clay, and Walter will be positioned.”
“We should swing by Kentucky Fried Chicken and grab a bucket on the way out there,” Walter said. “I get dizzy on an empty stomach, and four o’clock is my dinnertime.”
Carter Grove sat on his porch in a rocking chair, enjoying a glass of iced tea as he gazed proudly at his property. In the mid-1800s it had belonged to Dr. Hardin Davison, then one of the most powerful men in Hancock County. Able to act with absolute impunity, Davison was notorious for the day in 1859 when he walked into the Hawesville jail and emptied his gun into an injured unarmed sleeping man locked in a cell. No one dared raise a hand to prosecute Davison for the cold-blooded murder of a man who’d simply disagreed with him. And when a local lawyer criticized the town for letting the crime go unpunished, Davison slipped a bomb hidden in a basket of eggs into the man’s office. The bomb didn’t go off when it was supposed to, and Davison went back to check on it. And that’s when it exploded.
Davison’s four sons didn’t fare much better in luck or intelligence. One accidentally shot himself while beating his dog with his musket. One fell off a boat while partying and drowned. One was shot while trying to blow up the Owensboro courthouse. Another was shot fighting for the Confederacy.
Carter Grove was a distant relative of Hardin Davison, and among his many reasons for buying the land was to bring it back into the family fold and to erase, by his own bold actions, the embarrassing legacy. There was no question that Carter was now one of the most powerful men in Hancock County, even as a largely absentee owner, so he felt he’d achieved his goal of erasing the stain left by Davison on his family line. He’d certainly proved to be smarter, and luckier, than his cursed ancestor and his sons.
At least he had until 2:55 that afternoon. That’s when the squeal of rubber, shrieking like a woman in a horror movie, drew Carter’s attention to the road. A Valor Oil gasoline tanker, the kind that regularly serviced all the properties in the area, was weaving wildly down the hill, the driver struggling to maintain control of the big rig.
Carter rose slowly from his rocking chair, his eyes on the road, as Randisi and the guards spilled out of the house onto the porch. The truck veered sharply across the roadway, crashed through Carter’s picket fence, and barreled across the field like a runaway freight train. The driver’s side cab door flew open and the driver jumped out, the only sensible thing to do since the truck was headed straight toward the gasoline tank and pumps thirty yards from the house.
Carter and his men hit the floor as the fuel truck smashed into the gasoline tank, setting off a tremendous explosion that rocked the ground like an earthquake, the concussive force of the blast shattering the windows of the house and lifting the big rig into the air atop a massive fireball.
At that same instant, from his perch beside Jake in the hunting blind, Walter “Eagle Eye” Wurzel shot out the surveillance cameras on the west side of the house with his sniper rifle. The gunshots were completely muffled by the blast.
Walter lowered the rifle and reached for a chicken leg from the KFC bucket that was between them. “Your daughter knows how to party.”
“She learned from the best,” Jake said, watching the scene through the scope of the rocket launcher he balanced on his shoulder.
The big rig plummeted to earth and broke apart, shaking the ground once again.
Carter Grove struggled to his feet and looked out at the raging fire that, for the moment, was isolated to the immediate area surrounding the gasoline pumps and wasn’t yet threatening the house, the outbuildings, or the propan
e tank. The odds against a fuel tanker losing control and smashing into his gasoline tank, of all the structures on his property, were astronomical. That it occurred on one of the few days he happened to be there, with his entire collection of stolen art, seemed even more improbable.
Carter knew that the explosion was undoubtedly heard and felt all over the area and that the smoke from the fireball could be seen for miles. Soon volunteer firefighters from nearby ranches, and the fire truck from Pellville, the nearest station, would begin converging on Carter’s property, as well as the sheriff, his deputies, and curious neighbors. If something was going to happen, it would happen now.
“Secure the house and grab the driver,” Carter ordered Randisi. “Find out what he knows. I’ll be in the security center.”
“Yes, sir,” Randisi said, slipping a communicator into his ear and moving to gather his men.
Carter headed to the game-cleaning facility, where his security center doubled as a safe room. It was beneath the building and manned at all times by a BlackRhino operative. From there, Carter would be locked in a bunker beneath the floor, well-armed with guns and explosives, and able to monitor all the cameras on the property.
Randisi had three of the guards stay behind at the house while he took the other two men with him around the edge of the fire to apprehend the driver.
The three men surrounded the driver, who was lying facedown in the grass, and aimed their guns at him.
“Get up,” Randisi ordered. “Very slowly.”
The driver rolled over, dazed, and Randisi was stunned to see that it was a woman, her big boobs just about bursting out of her Valor Oil shirt.
“Well, hot damn,” Willie said. “I’m still alive.”
“For the moment,” Randisi said.
Randisi trained his gun on Willie.
“Who are you working for?” Randisi demanded.
“Valor Oil,” she said, pointing to the logo on her chest. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Why did you crash the truck?”
“It was an accident. My brakes failed. I lost control of the rig.”
“There are acres of wide open field, and yet you just happened to hit the one gasoline tank. You expect me to believe that?”
“Welcome to my life,” she said. “I’m the unluckiest person on earth. They’ll probably take my license and my double-wide for this. You think I did it on purpose? Why would anybody want to blow up your gasoline tank?”
“You tell me,” Randisi said.
“I have no idea.”
“Think of one.” He grabbed her by the arm, jerked her to her feet, and pushed her toward the house. “Or your luck might get a whole lot worse.”
Carter took a seat in the underground security center at the command console beside Vin Turbo, a bald, steroid-pumped BlackRhino operative whose real name was Irving Herkowitz and who’d got the inspiration for his name from actor Vin Diesel, whose real name was Mark Vincent.
“We’ve lost the cameras on the west side of the house,” Vin said, stating the obvious. Carter could see the dark screens among the two dozen monitors in front of them. “The blast knocked them out.”
It made sense. That side of the house faced the gasoline tank. But it also faced the wooded hillside, which was the only place an attack force could approach the property without being seen, otherwise they’d have to come from the road or across an open field. It was another unsettling coincidence. There had been too many coincidences already.
“Pull up the feeds from all the working cameras around the house,” Carter said. “And see if you can turn the cameras on the back of the barn toward the hillside so we aren’t completely blind to the west.”
“Yes, sir,” Vin said.
Randisi radioed in. “We’ve got the driver. It’s a woman. She says her brakes went out.”
“Does she have ID?” Carter asked.
“It was in the truck.”
“Of course it was,” he said.
“We’re taking her into the house for a forceful discussion.”
“Good. I think the explosion was a distraction. An attack could be imminent.”
“From whom?”
It could be anybody, Carter thought. Assassins from a banana republic he’d tried to topple. Terrorists seeking revenge for the extraordinary rendition of one of their leaders. Commandos sent by some dictator he’d helped depose. Crazed environmentalists he’d pissed off with oil drilling policies he’d championed as White House chief of staff. Carter had made a lot of enemies.
“I don’t know,” Carter said. “Just keep your eyes open and don’t let anyone inside the house. If the deputies or firefighters ask what happened to the driver, tell them you don’t know. When they’re gone, bring her to the game-cleaning room.”
That was where Carter had held many forceful discussions with people who were reluctant to talk. He found that they became much chattier when they found out firsthand how game is cleaned and meat is processed.
The volunteers who comprised the Hawesville and Pellville fire departments were local farmers and merchants. They always carried their firefighting equipment in their cars so they could arrive prepared at a scene rather than waste valuable time rushing back to the station house to get suited up. In most cases, the firefighters would already be clearing structures of people, and fighting the blaze, when the fire trucks finally showed up.
Nick Fox was the first volunteer firefighter to arrive at Carter’s ranch. He was driving a stolen rusted-out Ford pickup, and he was was wearing gear he’d stolen from the Owensboro fire station. He slipped a respirator over his face, put a helmet on his head, grabbed a fire extinguisher from the truckbed, and headed for the flames.
A moment later, Kate pulled up in the Ford Explorer they’d rented the day before at the Owensboro airport. She was also already in her protective gear. She added her respirator and helmet, grabbed a driptorch and a shovel from the backseat, and hurried after Nick, who’d started to spray the flames with his extinguisher.
More and more volunteer firefighters streamed to the ranch, rushing to battle the flames. They knew better than to try to fight a gasoline fire with water. They used fire extinguishers or shoveled dirt onto the blaze, but they weren’t making much headway.
Nick and Kate split themselves off from the others and drifted toward the house. Nick went to the front porch, where Randisi stood. Kate headed to the west side of the house.
Randisi came down the steps to cut Nick off. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“My job is to clear all the buildings and get a head count of everybody who is here,” Nick said, salting his voice with a Kentucky twang and hoping Randisi wouldn’t recognize him from his eyes. “How many are inside and elsewhere on the property? We need to make sure everybody is safe and accounted for.”
“What you need to do is turn around and put out the fire.”
“The blast was pretty strong. There could be embers smoldering on the roof or under the porch. A fire could ignite at any moment. It’s procedure to clear the buildings and check for smoke. So I’d appreciate it if you’d cooperate.”
“I won’t tell you again.” Randisi opened his jacket, exposing the gun in his shoulder holster. “Back off from the house.”
• • •
The gasoline tank wasn’t the only flammable object on the west side of the property. There was also the white propane tank, which was positioned closer to the house, the barn, and the game-cleaning facility, since they used the gas for various purposes in each of the buildings.
Clay popped up in camouflage gear from his hiding place in the brush at the bottom of the hill, lobbed a grenade under the propane tank, and ducked down again.
Kate saw the grenade land and took cover behind the house, her back against the wall. Her sudden appearance startled the guard who was patrolling back there, but before he could ask her what she was doing, the propane tank exploded.
The blast rocked the property. It was a smaller explosion th
an the first, but it felt stronger, perhaps because of its proximity. All the firemen and guards, and even Willie and the two BlackRhino operatives in the house, instinctively ducked or dove to the ground to protect themselves.
Walter used the explosion to muffle his gunshots as he destroyed the security cameras on the barn.
The instant Randisi ducked, Nick swung his fire extinguisher into the operative’s face, knocking him out and breaking his jaw.
The guard who’d been standing near Kate started to get up, and she took him out with a roundhouse kick to the head that flipped him over onto his back. She removed his gun, jammed it into her pocket, and ran to the front of the house.
A guard who’d been on the east side of the house ran around to the front and froze when he saw Randisi down and Nick standing over him. The guard whipped out his gun and aimed at Nick’s head.
“Oh my God,” Nick said, staggering back from Randisi. “Oh my God.”
“What happened?” the guard asked.
“He took a piece of shrapnel in the gut. There’s so much blood. Oh my God.”
The guard came over to check, keeping his gun trained on Nick. The instant the guard stole a glance at Randisi, Nick slammed his extinguisher into the guard’s stomach and whacked him across the head with it. The guard went down like a sandbag on top of Randisi.
When the propane blast hit, the feeds around the barn had abruptly blinked out. The camera behind the house was still working, so Carter saw the firefighter take cover just before the propane tank blew up. And then Carter saw the same firefighter kick a guard’s ass. It was obvious now that the explosion was a trick to bring in commandos disguised as firefighters. He didn’t know how many of the firefighters were real and how many weren’t, but they all had to be considered enemy combatants. They all had to die.
Carter was just about to warn Randisi when he glanced at the feed from the camera in the front of the house and saw a firefighter take down the armed, stone cold BlackRhino killer with his fire extinguisher.
It was infuriating. His men were supposed to be the best of the best and they were being knocked down like bowling pins. There were only two BlackRhino operatives left standing, and they were both inside the house with the big rig driver, who was probably another commando.