“Hell no,” Jonathan laughed. “I don’t want anybody thinking I’m the pussy.”

Boxers called from downstairs, “Hey Scorpion, it’s time to go. I want to set up the ambush while there’s still a little light left.”

Julie’s horror deepened. “Ambush,” she repeated.

Jonathan’s radio crackled, “Scorpion, Mother Hen. They’re moving. I don’t know how many, but the one I can still see is moving, and it looks like he’s coming your way.

Boxers was right; it was time to go.

They’d stacked their tactical gear at the end of the living room farthest from the windows. Jonathan pulled Dragon Skin vests from one of the duffels and passed them out to the Hugheses. “Wear these,” he instructed. He handed a second one to Thomas and added, “Take this one to your father, and make sure he wears it. If he objects kick him in the leg.” The two that remained were originally for himself and Boxers, but that would leave Gail and Jesse without any. He picked up the remaining two and handed them to the cops from Samson.

Jesse took his, but when Gail shook her head, he hesitated. “You’re the ones who’ll be out there exposed,” she said. “You keep them.”

Jonathan shook his head. “No, thanks, I move better without it. Besides, you’re my guest.”

“I won’t do it,” Gail said. Jesse looked like he wanted to shoot her.

Jonathan wouldn’t budge. “My war, my rules,” he said. “Besides, if the time comes when you need these, you’re really going to need them.”

She hesitated.

“Please,” Jonathan insisted. He leaned in close and whispered, “I’m serious. If the bad guys break through, you two will be the only ones with your heads about you. If you go down, everybody’s got a lot worse chance of coming through alive.”

That won her over. She accepted the vest and slipped it over her head. Jesse was way ahead of her.

“Besides,” Jonathan said, “I’ve got this.” He turned his attention to his load-bearing tactical vest. Constructed of a lighter Kevlar material that provided some limited protection against small caliber handguns and shrapnel, the tactical vest would do nothing to slow down a rifle bullet. On the positive side, it was ten pounds lighter than the Dragon Skin, and made running a hell of a lot easier. Plus, it had huge storage capacity for ammo.

Boxers was delighted to see that the vests were no longer in play. He never liked the damn things anyway. If it weren’t for the standing orders from Digger, he’d never even pack one.

“Remember the night vision,” Jonathan reminded as he stuffed the pouches of his vest with as much as they would hold. “Put them on your heads now, and then turn them on when you hear the shooting. Remember what I taught you this afternoon. Julie, if you’re not going to be shooting, you’ve got to be reloading mags. Meanwhile, if things go to shit, Sheriff Bonneville here is in charge. Any questions?”

He almost laughed at the blank expressions. Yeah, there were questions. Too many to verbalize. Jonathan looked Thomas in the eye. “Beer.”

Thomas gave a nervous smile. “Balloons.”

“Don’t worry, kid, you’ve got what it takes. Just don’t give up. Whatever you do, don’t give up.”

Jonathan looked to Gail to see if she had caught that lastching, and when the sheriff responded with a nod, it was time to go. “Equipment check, Big Guy.”

This was a ritual before every engagement, no matter how large or small. They wore all black, from head to foot, including black Nomex gloves with leather palms for extra grip. Their Kevlar helmets supported their own NVGs as well as their commo gear. A transceiver ran from radios in Velcro pockets on their shoulder into their right ears. The radios could be set to voice-activated or PTT (push-to-talk) mode, and Security Solutions’ SOPs required the latter, with the microphone triggered by a button in the center of their chests. Jonathan pushed his. “Radio check, one, two, three.”

Boxers gave a thumbs-up. “I’m good.”

Jonathan looked to Gail, who realized with a start that she hadn’t yet turned her radio on. Jonathan repeated the three-count, and she nodded. “I can hear you,” she said, just to make it official.

“Mother, are you on the air?”

“I’m here, Scorpion,” she said. “Be careful.”

In sheaths mounted on their left shoulders, they each carried a K-Bar knife, and on their chests they each carried two fragmentation grenades. Around their bellies, their ammo pouches carried 400 rounds of ammunition for their M4s, 40 extra rounds for their sidearms, and 18 twelve-gauge rounds for their specially modified pistol-gripped Mossberg shotguns. They carried the M4s across their chests in combat slings, with the Mossbergs dangling by bungee slings from their armpits. The sidearms-Boxers still preferred the new Beretta standard issue over Jonathan’s Colt 1911.45-were strapped to their thighs.

Believing that it was never possible to have too many weapons in a battle, Jonathan also carried a backup snub-nose.38 in the left-hand thigh pocket of his Royal Robbins 5.11 trousers. With the checkoff lists complete, they were ready to go.

“Jesus, look at you,” Thomas said. His voice floated with admiration. “You’re ready to take on an army. Leave a couple of bad guys for us.”

Julie gasped, “Thomas Hughes!”

Jonathan smiled. This Hughes kid was not the stereotypical music major. He had fight in him. It’s a shame his mother saw that as a bad thing.

Only twenty minutes of daylight remained as they slid out the window to the porch. “One more thing,” he said, looking back inside. “Keep an eye on the computer. As soon as you see vehicles, take your places.” They nodded, but they were unfocused.

“Hey,” Jonathan said, “look at me. When this is over, we’ll have a hell of a story to tell. If you want victory, we can have it. I’ll see you all on the other side.”

Chapter Forty-one

Charlie Warren felt Garino shift uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. He knew what question was coming before the driver had a chance to ask it. “You sure you want to keep waiting?”

Charlie checked his watch. It was 9:20. “Ivan set H-Hour for 10:30. We go in at 10:10.” It was the third time he’d answered the same question. “The plan hasn’t changed. The plan isn’t going to change.”

“I just don’t want to be late,” Garino said.

Glick concurred from the backseat. “He’s got a point, Charlie. We wait too long, we run the risk of something going wrong approach of the movies was suicide in real life, as was running and ducking. In low light, a moving target was easier to detect than a stationary one. It’s why ambushers have the advantage over ambushees.

“Over here, assholes!” Boxers yelled, and he emptied half a magazine toward the spot where the enemy had last formed a line. It was a damned risky way of getting your enemies to reveal themselves, but Boxers had never been averse to risk.

The attackers opened up with everything they had, ripping the night apart with noise and light, thus sealing their fate. Jonathan knew his cue. A shooter’s face resided three feet behind a muzzle flash. He picked a flash, and squeezed off a burst. When that rifle dropped, he found another flash and repeated the process, although without a hit, he thought.

Predictably, the rifle fire turned, and Jonathan dove to the ground under a storm of bullets that shredded the foliage around him. He tried to make himself disappear into the ground behind a hardwood. He could feel the impact of bullets through the trunk.

Moments earlier, in the lodge, the Hughes family had gathered around the computer screen to watch. The heat signatures from six separate vehicles lined up along the ridge that ran behind the cabin.

“How could he have left us like this?” Julie railed. “We even talked about it. How could he do this?”