Homefront. Part 43

Broker and Nina sat silent, listening to the cops go back and forth on the radio. No communication between them. Past getting ready. Past tactics.

Almost three minutes to the dot, Nygard yelled, "See it on the right!" He switched off the headlights, and they hurtled through a spun gray tunnel. Then Broker and Nina saw the blur of the display light, the red of the tractor. Other lights, car lights. The shadows of buildings.

"Here we go," Nygard yelled, swerving off the road, sledding through a ditch, throwing up a cloud of snow as the cruiser stove through the drifts, skidding into the yard.

Nina and Broker leaped out before the car even came to a halt, were already bounding forward when the barn erupted in a sheet of fire. The confusion of snow disappeared in the roaring yellow orange plume of light. Instinctively they looked away, protecting their eyesight.

A few seconds later, Nina screamed in a voice loud enough to carry over the roar of the fire: "Two o'clock!" "Two o'clock!"

Gator hugged the mudguard of an old rusty Deere at the edge of the tractor graveyard, where he had a good view of the open loafing shed in back of the barn. Caught movement, swung the Luger. Okay...

Huh? He held off, seeing the rabbit-a.s.s cat running out from the shed. Cutting in back of the shop. He giggled nervously. No s.h.i.t. Black cat crossing my path...

Then, just like hunting; let the doe go by, wait for the buck. He saw the kid dart from the shed, running like h.e.l.l, chasing the cat chasing the cat. Saw her dive into the snow, wrap the cat in her arms. Get up, running clumsy now, arms out of play, clutching the cat. G.o.dd.a.m.n G.o.dd.a.m.n, he thought, leveling the pistol. Why didn't I think of that? Why didn't I think of that?

No more than ten yards. Almost reach out and touch. Moving with her. All right, you little runt...

Just as he squeezed the trigger, the back end of the barn shuddered with a whoosh of flame, knocking him back, sending the shot wild, like he pulled the trigger and blew the f.u.c.ker up or something. Scorched his face. Blinding him. What the...

Blinking, he saw the kid, sprawled in the snow, not fifteen yards away. His eyes blooming with spots, Gator couldn't aim the pistol. He stepped out from cover. She saw him, pushed up on her feet, and started running again.

Gator's breath came in a helpless giggle as he sprinted after her. Gaining on her going past the shop-clinging to the d.a.m.n cat cut her speed. Rounding the house, reaching out now, feeling the tips of her hair whipping in the wind, grazing his fingertips.

"Got you," he yelled, grabbing a handful of her hair, yanking her roughly back as he skidded to a halt, grasping her hair at arm's length while she swung one arm, kicked at him. Her breath coming in fierce little sobs. d.a.m.n cat squirming in the crook of her elbow.

Heard someone yell over the rushing flames. Sheryl?

Stunned, he focused his eyes on the yard in front of the house, at the vision of two figures running in the h.e.l.lfire blaze. Running straight at him. A man on the left with a shotgun and a woman on the right, in pajamas it looked like, with her arms outstretched, hands empty. Behind them he saw the county cruiser at the end of a trough of snow, somebody who could have been Keith, one hand shielding his eyes from the fire, the other raising a pistol.

Immediately Gator wrapped the girl in his left arm, pulling her in close, and jammed the muzzle of the Luger against her head.

"Everybody stop where you are," he shouted.

They didn't stop.

They were all in. Broker keyed on Nina. "Call it!" he screamed, running at the guy who was holding a pistol to Kit's head fifty yards away.

"Break left, draw fire," Nina yelled back.

Without slowing his stride, Broker swerved to the left, danced briefly, giving her time to close the distance. Then he raised the shotgun and ran straight at the guy, screaming, out-of-his-mind crazy: "Let her go, or I'll blow your f.u.c.king head off. Let her go. LET HER GO!"

Nina continued forward, plodding now, arms outstretched, pleading, hysterical. "Don't hurt her. PLEASE. PLEASE. Don't hurt her." Slowed her pace to a deliberate walk, out of sync with the frantic screaming all around, the rolling fire light, the crunch of a secondary explosion, flaming debris arcing up. Thirty yards... Don't hurt her." Slowed her pace to a deliberate walk, out of sync with the frantic screaming all around, the rolling fire light, the crunch of a secondary explosion, flaming debris arcing up. Thirty yards...

Nygard's shaking voice calling out, "Wait, wait." Barlow behind him, yelling too. Kit's screams topping off the bedlam. "Mom, Dad!" "Mom, Dad!"

Twenty-five yards...

Gator's heart was about to come right out of his chest like the tiny monster in Alien. Alien. He clicked his eyes on the bedraggled imploring woman for half a second, then quickly fixed his attention on the guy. It was him. Broker. His gaunt wolf face gone to mindless rage, running in from the right. Screaming. Loony. With a leveled shotgun. Keith back there, gun out in a two-handed grip. This black woman in a state trooper's suit, all tucked and neat like a painted toy soldier. He clicked his eyes on the bedraggled imploring woman for half a second, then quickly fixed his attention on the guy. It was him. Broker. His gaunt wolf face gone to mindless rage, running in from the right. Screaming. Loony. With a leveled shotgun. Keith back there, gun out in a two-handed grip. This black woman in a state trooper's suit, all tucked and neat like a painted toy soldier.

"I'LL DO IT!" Gator screamed, pressing the pistol against the squirming kid's head. f.u.c.king cat clawing, going nuts. Gator screamed, pressing the pistol against the squirming kid's head. f.u.c.king cat clawing, going nuts. "I SWEAR..." "I SWEAR..."

Broker coming on with the shotgun, irrational. Barely twenty yards away now. He'd lost it. Eyes pure psycho in the firelight. Gonna shoot no matter what. "It's your kid?" "It's your kid?" Gator screamed, astounded. Gator screamed, astounded.

"Let her go!" Broker screamed back, coming on. Broker screamed back, coming on.

Even with the world blowing up all around, burning s.h.i.t falling from the sky, instinct demanded that Gator protect himself from crazy people. He switched the pistol toward Broker, thrust his arm and jerked the trigger.

The instant the man holding Kit took the pistol out of line, away from her head, Nina's right hand flashed for the small of her back.

This time it didn't come up empty.

She smoothly drew the .45 jammed in the drawstring of her sweatpants, swept it up, set the stance, slapped her left hand over her right, and extended. The iron triangle formed in her heart and forked down her arms. Undeterred by the fire and blowing snow, she instinctively pointed, not aimed. Squeezed hard on the grip. Soft on the trigger.

Chapter Fifty-six.

"What's Mom doing now?" Kit asked. Kit asked.

"She and Sergeant Barlow are putting a pressure bandage on her back," Broker said.

"What did you call it again?" Kit said.

"The bandage? It's called a flutter valve-"

"No." Kit knit her dirty forehead. "The way she's hurt?"

"It's called a sucking chest wound."

"But it's on her back," Kit said.

"Her lung's hurt, her lung's in her chest," Broker said in a calm voice. He stood on the road, oblivious to the raw carnage-scented smoke and fire; far enough back from the barn to be alternately chilled by the gusting wind and roasted by the flames. The night seemed softer, the barn burning down, the snow tamer, twisting on spiral zephyrs. The clouds still swirled with that orange glow, surreally enhanced, like Photoshop, by the blaze and rising smoke. But he couldn't really tell; he was drunk, on fire with adrenaline and relief.

So he just hugged Kit astraddle his hip and watched her face carefully in the flickering light for signs of shock. So far all she showed was an unwillingness to release her hold on the cat. And a voracious curiosity. Her wide green eyes were drinking it in; the burning barn, the body off in the snow, all the cops showing up, and her mom and the trooper sergeant working at strict combat speed to stabilize Ca.s.sie Bodine.

"What's that shiny stuff?" she asked.

"It's plastic wrapping from a bandage pack. They're taping it over the bullet hole and leaving a corner loose..."

"Why's that?'

"So Teddy's mom can breathe, honey," Broker said.

"Isn't she cold?"

"More important now to get her lung working; see, it was collapsed," Broker said.

Kit chewed her lower lip and scrutinized Nina and Sergeant Barlow, who knelt fifteen feet away. They held Ca.s.sie Bodine in an upright sitting position. They'd ripped away her clothes, and she shivered-eyes dilated, face waxy gray, naked to the waist. Her bare flank and lower back were splashed with orange Betadine disinfectant and frothy lung-shot blood. When they finished the tape job, they nodded to the two volunteer firemen crouching around them, holding a blanket as a windbreak. Nina and Barlow briefly discussed the bandage with one of the firemen, then scooted out of the way.

The fireman then covered Ca.s.sie with the blanket and lifted her carefully in a fireman's carry, keeping her upright while a third fireman gently fitted an oxygen mask to her face. Then they started walking down the road to where Howie Anderson stood, lit by the headlights of six police cars parked three by three on either side of the road. He held a mobile radio in his hand and was looking up into the fitful sky. Keith Nygard knelt next to a stretcher at Anderson's feet, where the woman who'd kidnapped Kit was swaddled in blankets, her head a loose mummy wrap of bandages. Right after Barlow discovered Ca.s.sie breathing, she'd found the other woman staggering from the barn fire; blind, her face and scalp a crisp.

When Nygard saw them bringing Ca.s.sie, he stood up, went to her, and put an arm lightly around her shoulder. He looked to Howie on the radio, said something to Ca.s.sie, then tilted his face up into the night.

Another fireman stood next to Broker with a blanket, wondered with his eyes if he should cover Kit.

"Not yet, we're good," Broker said quietly. He held Kit tighter as Nina approached, watching her stoop, wash her b.l.o.o.d.y hands in the snow, then wipe them on the thighs of her ragged sweat-pants. Standing, she swiped her hands a few more times down the front of her jacket, leaving a dirty crimson stain on the black ARMY type. ARMY type.

Nina reached up and stroked Kit's cheek with her knuckles, the cleanest part of her hand.

"Is Teddy's mom-" Kit said.

"She'll make it. Needs a good surgeon, though. Think she's got some rib splinters in that lung," Nina said, looking up at the sky. "They'll have a good medic on the Air Force chopper. One of the EMT guys said the emergency room in Bemidji is alerted, should get them there in minutes. Got a couple surgeons reporting in." She smiled at Kit. Keeping her voice low-key with tremendous effort, she said, "You're gonna get to see a Blackhawk land in a snowstorm, Little Bit."

Broker and Nina working so hard at rea.s.suring calm, they were almost moving in slow motion.

More urgently, Nina's eyes flitted up to Broker's. He nodded to her. I got her. She's okay, I got her. She's okay, he signaled with his eyes, tightening his arms on their daughter. "Did you talk at all?" he asked, nodding toward Ca.s.sie. he signaled with his eyes, tightening his arms on their daughter. "Did you talk at all?" he asked, nodding toward Ca.s.sie.

"She told me she wanted to talk to us. But said she better get with a lawyer first," Nina said. Then she turned. "Look, honey, here it comes."

They stood on the road in a tight huddle and watched the helicopter descend like a ferocious electric-eyed steel insect. Broker shielded Kit's face with his free hand from the tempest of rotor-driven snow. Watched them load the casualties. Two guys jumped off the bird, in parkas; one of them was wearing a tie.

"Here come the suits," Broker said in a dreamy voice, still floating on flowing adrenaline. His voice was lost in the clatter of the chopper lifting off.

Nygard, fiercely protective, steered the two guys away from Broker, Nina, and Kit. He walked them over to the side of the house, where two more state cops and eight deputies from three counties had gathered to gossip about the relative merits of the 1911 .45-caliber Colt semiautomatic pistol, longest-serving handgun in the U.S. Army's inventory.

The new arrivals viewed Gator Bodine's brains scattered on the snow like red scrambled eggs. Then they observed the pistol Nina had left in the snow, slide locked open, magazine out. Broker didn't pay them much attention. Wasn't the first time he'd seen a bunch of men, mouths gaping, staring at his wife.

Gliding, holding Kit so tight he could feel her heart thump, Broker reconstructed it; Gator's jerked shot had pa.s.sed a foot over his head as Nina drilled a bullet an inch above Gator's left eyebrow. Barlow had found Ca.s.sie and the burned woman. Nygard had yelled for help. Broker scooped up Kit. Nina ran to a.s.sist Barlow. Nygard had dashed into the burning barn, found the keys in the Nissan and backed it out.

Now the yellow tape was being strung. Procedure was setting in. Nygard escorted the two office guys over to the Nissan that was parked a hundred yards away. They huddled for a moment. Apparently having found something, the new guys started walking toward Broker, Kit, and Nina.

Nygard and Barlow blocked their path.

"Mom, Dad..." Kit's voice suddenly shuddered with a release of tension. As they drew closer, Kit's voice trembled. "I'm scared..."

"It's okay, it's okay," they said in unison as the alarm in her voice started to burst the tight st.i.tches of control in their own faces.

"I'm worried about Ditech, she's probably hungry being out in the cold in this strange place," Kit said, pressing her face into the bundle of black fur in the hollow of her neck.

"She'll be fine, just don't squeeze her too hard," Broker said.

"Got to hold her tight, so she don't get away."

As Kit said that, Broker and Nina's eyes met in the firelight. Tearing up, blinking, he lifted his eyes to the tall column of smoke towering up into the dark sky. That's when the adrenaline flamed out, leaving a terrible empty s.p.a.ce in his chest. Griffin...

Broker raised his free arm, reaching out. "I..." The words faltered. His knees buckled.

"It's okay. I hear you," Nina replied softly, slipping under his arm; leaning in, taking some of the weight. A slender trickle of tears cut through the soot and blood on her cheeks.

Barlow jogged over, her hands gloved with smeared white latex, dark face shiny in the firelight. Her teeth flashed a smile that ended in a tense grimace. "They found some old pictures in the Nissan with you in them. The BCA guy thinks they might mean something," she said to Broker.

Broker just nodded.

Barlow looked around, planted her hands on the heavy leather service belt strapped around her hips, and shook her head briefly. Her eyes came back to them. "You need anything, anything at all, I'm here."

"Keep them off us a few more minutes, okay?" Broker said, hugging his wife and daughter. "We need a little more time alone together."

Acknowledgments.

Dennis P. Moriarty; commander (retired), Washington County Sheriff 's Department; Washington County, Minnesota.

Patrick Olson; sergeant, Narcotics, Washington County Sheriff 's Department, Washington County, Minnesota.

Heather Nelson; princ.i.p.al, Stonebridge Elementary School, Stillwater, Minnesota.

Jennifer Kern; school psychologist, Stonebridge Elementary School, Stillwater, Minnesota.

Marybeth Rosell; a.s.sistant coach, St. Croix Swim Club, Stillwater Minnesota.

Jane Duncan; former NCAA national swimmer, Stillwater, Minnesota.

Rick Chapin; Tractor Authority, River Falls, Wisconsin.

Don Schoff; Schoff Farms, River Falls, Wisconsin.

Deborah Durkin; health studies coordinator, Minnesota Department of Health.

Craig Nagel, stonemason in the Socratic tradition, Pequot Lakes, Minnesota.

About the Author.Chuck Logan is the author of After the Rain After the Rain and four other novels featuring former Minnesota undercover copy Phil Broker. He lives in Stillwater, MN, with his wife and daughter. and four other novels featuring former Minnesota undercover copy Phil Broker. He lives in Stillwater, MN, with his wife and daughter.

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Also by Chuck Logan