The height of the window required me to stand in order to see through it, so I backed off a few feet to conceal myself, set my feet, bent my knees a little, and waited. A few minutes passed. No sign of Mike.

Concerned, I shifted a few steps to my right, looked toward the mansion, and saw Sophia creeping closer to the shed where she was to take position. Reassured Mike as still out there somewhere, I swiveled the gun back to the semi and waited for him to show up.

Another few minutes passed before I saw Mike’s bulky form step away from the barn and approach the truck. He began a pattern of walking a few steps, examining the ground, glancing up, checking his surroundings, and walking a few more steps. Realizing I was on overwatch and not there to observe Mike’s activities, I began moving the scope from building to building, watching for movement, ears straining.

Sophia had reached the tool shed, a sliver of leg just visible around the corner. Confident no one would spot her in the dark, I did another sweep, letting my gaze linger on each outbuilding, then the mansion, and finally back to Sophia’s hiding spot.

Just as I began to turn away, I realized I could not see her leg.

Must have stepped to her right.

I was about call her on the radio just to be on the safe side when I heard raised voices and looked back to see three men emerge into view. One of them stepped out from a tack shed next to the barn, while the other two emerged from a small bunkhouse on the opposite side of the truck. They approached Mike with their weapons up, two of them carrying shotguns, the third a lever-action repeater.

“Fuck,” I whispered.

“Drop the gun,” one of the men shouted, the one from the tack shed.

Mike unslung his rifle and eased it to the ground, then did the same with his .45 automatic. “Okay, I’m unarmed,” he said.

Mike was lying; he always kept a .380 revolver in a concealed holster at the small of his back. I had personally witnessed him snap it out and hit a target center of mass at twenty-five yards faster than most people could clap their hands. But he sounded earnest enough, even managing to force a little manufactured fear into his voice.

Worried someone might be coming up behind me, I turned, knelt, and swept the loft, carbine just below my line of sight. Nothing. This meant one of two things: either they didn’t know I was up here, or whoever they sent after me was extremely stealthy. For the moment, all I could do was keep my ears open and hope it was the former, not the latter.

Returning my attention to the situation on the ground, I saw the two men from the bunkhouse closing in on Mike, one on either side. Stupid, I thought. If they shoot, they’ll hit each other. Mike recognized this, and I saw a slight tension gather in him as he prepared to make his move. But before he could, the third man, who had stopped ten feet in front of him, said, “Caul, move a few steps towards me you fucking idiot.”

The man looked up, realized his mistake, and scrambled to his right.

“What do you want?” Mike asked.

“Where are the rest of you,” said the man in charge, the one who had yelled at Caul.

“It’s just me.”

“Bullshit, Fed. There’s always more of you.”

I looked more closely at the leader. His hunting coveralls looked too big for him, his face sunken and gaunt, skin loose from rapid weight loss. The other two men didn’t look much better, dressed in filthy, billowy rags that probably fit not so long ago. The Outbreak and the hardships it caused were having that effect on most people, myself included.

“Fed?” Mike asked, genuinely confused. “Wait, you think I’m with the Army?”

The leader—who I dubbed Henry because of his lever-action rifle—started to say something else, but a shout from where I had last seen Sophia interrupted him. “Hey, I got another one!”

Henry grinned viciously, staring Mike in the eye. “Is that a fact?”

I felt cold, like someone had dumped ice water over my head. Shifting my aim, I saw a man nearly as big as Mike emerge from the side of the shed, one brawny arm around Sophia’s neck, the other holding a revolver to her head. She had a gag in her mouth, hands bound behind her back, one eye swollen nearly shut.

The sight shocked me into stillness. A grinding sound grated in my ears, and for a few seconds, I wondered what it was. Then I realized it was my own teeth.

I knew there wasn’t much time. Now that they had Sophia, there was no reason to keep Mike alive. My only hope was they would be less anxious to kill Sophia, for obvious reasons.

Henry, the leader, was the biggest threat. The others clearly deferred to him, so taking him out first would cause the most confusion. At least I hoped it would.

Steadying myself, I put the reticle just under Henry’s right arm, centered it on his ribcage, let out half a breath, and squeezed the trigger three times. The only sounds were a series of muted cracks, the clank of the chamber opening and closing, and three low thumps as the 5.56 rounds went straight through Henry and kicked up little puffs of dust a few feet to his left. He stiffened in shock and tried to scream, but all that came out was a high, strangled whine and a spray of blood.

The other two gunmen looked to their leader in confusion. One of them said, “Hey, you all right?”

Mike made his move.

One second he was standing with both hands in the air, the next his right arm was outstretched, pistol in hand. The gun barked twice. Without waiting to see what effect it had, Mike dove forward with surprising speed, rolled, and came one knee with his gun leveled. The two of us fired on the third man at the same time, Mike aiming at his chest, me aiming at his head. The poor bastard died with an almost comical look of surprise on his face. He did not even have a chance to shift his shotgun in Mike’s direction.

As Mike turned to cover the first man he had shot, I shifted my aim to the man holding Sophia. His mouth was a wide circle of shock, eyes bulging from his head. Mike’s gun rang out one more time, and in my peripheral vision, I saw the second gunman’s head snap back. He turned to his right and fired his last round at Henry, also snapping his head back.

Not wasting any time, Mike dropped the .380 and snatched up his rifle, then sprinted to the back of the truck. Crouching behind one of the axles, he sighted in on the man holding Sophia.

“Let her go,” he shouted, “and I’ll let you walk out of here.”

“Fuck you!” the man yelled back, pressing his revolver harder into Sophia’s temple. “Drop that gun or I’ll blow her fucking brains out.”

“You do that and I’ll kill you where you stand.”

I keyed my radio. “Mike, do what he says, but stay behind the truck. Ease to your left slowly, try to get him to point the gun away from Sophia. Don’t worry, I’ve got a clean shot.”

Mike nodded once, not looking over his shoulder. The last gunman shouted, “Do it now, fucker, or the bitch dies.”

“Okay, okay. Just don’t shoot, all right?” Mike made a show of holding up his rifle, switching it to safe, and tossing it aside. “I’m coming out now. Just don’t shoot.”

He was wasting his breath. Hostage situations are not like they make them out to be in the movies. If someone has a human shield, even an expert marksman would be hard pressed to shoot them without running a serious risk of hitting the hostage. Which is why, in real life, cops almost never try it. Furthermore, if you step out of cover to confront a hostage-taker, you are at the disadvantage of having to aim carefully. The other guy has no such problem. All he has to do is point the gun at you and fire until you go down. And it’s not like television where the bad guy just shoots one time. In real life, they spray bullets at you rapid fire, figuring at least one of them will hit you.