Map of Sanguine Springs

  Map of Sanguine Springs

  Sanguine Springs

  Jael ran uphill, breath coming as steam. She dodged branches. Weaved between trunks. Her moccasins slid on last year's leaves. She extended her arms for balance, mindful of where she put her hands.

  She clutched kitchen knives in each hand. Three in one fist, two in the other. Blades down in an inverted grip. Japanese steel. Sharpened often. Dull knives cause more injuries than sharp ones. These were keen enough to peel a tomato without bursting its membrane—or to separate the tissue of joint and marrow. Either way they'd do. They always did.

  She'd spent the last five minutes stalking the gunmen. No plan. Only the hunt. She kept to the shadows, half cursing the floodlights. Floodlights. Cameras. Someone was ready for this. Brad. It had to be. Dalotto was too clueless.

  Gunfire echoed from the north side of the hamlet. Her prey opened fire themselves, peppering the front of a house with indiscriminate fire. Jake's house.

  Allison. She was in there.

  She'd closed on the oblivious fireteam, knives out, ready to kill, when one of their heads exploded. The gunfire stopped. Her prey took cover, heads ratcheting around in search of their attacker. One man—their leader?—gave an order before firing into the bushes between Brad and Tony's houses.

  Jael fell back, retreating to the cover of her own backyard. She circled the house, hoping to flank the fireteam and score a kill of her own. Three men left—that she knew of. But there were more, the unknowns. She would need to step lightly with so many dancers at the ball.

  Jael breathed, light mist dissipating from her lips. She'd been close. Close enough to see their faces. White faces, accented English. European? Definitely not Palestinian. It gnawed at her. The PLO sent their own zealots eager for glory and blood. And if they did call in a hit, they used local muscle. These men were not locals. These were professionals. Mercenaries. Which meant either the PLO had upgraded their hiring practices, or someone else was footing the bill. Someone with deeper pockets and different priorities. The Syrians?

  Her thoughts were interrupted when a shadow with a long gun hobbled past her position. A man, muttering low in German. One of them.

  Jael shuffled the knives to her right hand, keeping one in her left. She raised it, then threw. The blade found its mark, landing with a thunk. The figure faltered, then recovered. He swore in German, then limped behind a tree.

  Damn it! Jael sucked air through gritted teeth. She hit him. She knew it. But the target had barely stumbled. And now, he was lost to the night.

  I have to get closer. Jael continued to circle her house, wary of the wooded shadows. Who knew where the lucky gunman was now. But she couldn't stop. Not while her would-be executioners put everyone in the hamlet at risk.

  Jael rounded the corner of the house, crossing the front. She kept low in her own landscaping, using arborvitae and blue atlas cedar as concealment. Her pine needle mulch was whisper silent as she crept towards the remaining invaders.

  Then a voice filled the night.

  "Give my regards to Matilda! Tell her this is what happens when you cross "Sweet Tony" Dalotto!"

  Jael went to ground. Through the bushes she saw him. Her clueless neighbor, standing alone. Face red, feet planted, bathrobe flapping in the breeze—comical, if not for the tommy gun at his hip. "Tony?" Jael mouthed silently, as the balding man laid into the attackers.

  The Thompson's rhythmic chatter sent the gunmen flying for cover behind trees. An opening. Jael rose, then dropped back as Tony's indiscriminate fire swept her way. He doesn't know it's me. Jael swore. She was close, just a few yards from the nearest attacker. But Tony Dalotto didn't have the presence of mind to check his targets before pulling the trigger.

  She lay there a solid minute, pinned down on the pine needles, weighing her options, when the gunmen struck back. Cutting the corner, peeking around trunks, they fired blind. Not to kill, but to drive back. They succeeded, forcing Tony back into the relative safety of his pockmarked abode.

  The three gunmen rounded the trees. Then, they did something odd. The men dropped down immediately, hugging tight to those same trunks—only now, their backs faced Tony's house. Completely exposed. It made no sense.

  That was when, above the town, a machine gun opened up.

  Not the Thompson. Not a M16 or AK variant either. This was heavier. Beefy. The kind of sound that made your chest cavity vibrate. An honest-to-God heavy machine gun, firing from somewhere above the town.

  The tall lodgepole pine in the center of the cul-de-sac began to shake. The tall tree protested, shedding needles, bark and branches as the gunner whittled it down to pickup sticks. And when it was gone? Tony's house would be a clear shot. The goomba was going to die.

  Or. Maybe not. The gunmen were pinned down. Not Jael. Her yard lay outside the field of fire. For now.

  Jael made her decision. She ducked low, retracing her steps. Circling behind her house. She entered the darkened woods, running uphill, perpendicular to the machine gun's line of fire, praying she didn't run into the gunman from earlier. Her knuckles flexed, squeezing the remaining knives tight.

  She'd deal with him if he showed up. But whoever was behind that gun had just become priority one.

  Jael raced through the woods. She remembered the days of her youth. The days of her training. Recalled a number of ways to reach a man's heart. To kill.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Fortunately for her, knives were always her best bet.

  Allison crept across the basement floor. No lights—not with the gunmen upstairs, searching. Her heart pounded.

  The darkness smelled of rust and dust and something chemical. Kerosene? No, fuel oil. The light on her prosthesis blinked. The LED filled the room, closing her momentarily with a vision like sonar or impromptu night vision. Allison saw ahead of her, just yards away, metal shelves with her father's belongings, still unsorted, and beyond them, an elephantine shape. Shadowy. Cylindrical.

  The fuel tank. The oil tank for the furnace.

  It was the biggest thing in the room. Instinctively, she made for it, wedging her back against the dusty concrete wall and pressing tight. She squeezed herself behind the oil tank.

  After moving in a couple of feet, she felt a sudden space behind her, as if the wall had opened up to give her room to breathe. Her hips brushed against something hard protruding from the wall. A slight metallic rattle sounded.

  A doorknob. She reached back, her prosthesis brushing a latch. Yes—she was standing in a doorway.

  Allison turned, held her prosthesis up, and waited for the next pulse of light. When it came, she took in all that she could. A door to some closet or other room in the basement.

  She hadn't noticed it the one other time she'd been down here with Uncle Brad. She'd been in such a whirlwind of feelings trying to learn how to operate the house she had just set foot in—the house her father had lived and died in—that she hadn't taken full stock of the space. What is this closet doing here behind the tank? Can I get in? Will they see it? Will they see me?

  She tried the knob.

  It gave freely, but the door seemed stuck, wedged in place. Her arm flashed again, giving her sight. A metal door—not swollen like wood, but rusted shut.

  She turned the knob and gave another try with her shoulder. Thump.

  Upstairs, footsteps. Men's voices continued. They were being thorough. She heard breaking glass, furniture scuffing. Outside, someone had started firing another gun. It was loud and chattery.

  Maybe we're being invaded, like in that movie from the '80s. This isn't real. This can't be real. I wish I was back in LA.

  No. Her mind recoiled, thinking of Hadley and the dream she had woken from. Not LA. I wish I was back... I don't know. I just wish I was somewhere other than here.

  The footsteps above sounded closer. They had reentered the kitchen, living, and dining area. She heard feet walking around, heard the scuff of the table being moved. Then a voice, German, said something, and the footsteps headed toward the door—the basement door.

  They're coming.

  Allison knew she had no chance to stay hidden behind the oil tank. She took a breath and shoved with her shoulder against the door. It gave as the first sound of feet found the stairs, a rattling, clattering noise that covered up her own egress, the door squeaking open ominously. Allison tumbled into the dark, falling on her backside. She scrambled up, cobwebs clutching at her hands, and grabbed the door to push it shut as the light flicked on.

  Flashlights moved across the room, aiding the searchers. Why are they looking for me? she wondered.

  Then, before she could push the door shut, a beam focused on the upper lintel.

  "Was ist das?" a voice cried.

  A rifle opened up—a single shot. Allison yelped and slammed the door shut. Whatever rust had held it in place had been removed by her entry. Despite her fears that the door would not close, it found its home, the latch clicking in place.

  Above the latch, she felt something. A deadbolt's seed-shaped knob. She threw it in place and backed away from the door as another few rounds shot through the top and pelted the metal. The air filled again with that thick kerosene smell, stronger now. She heard a glug-glug-glug-glug-type noise and wondered what it was before her toes became wet.

  The rifle bullets had punctured the oil tank. The fuel oil was leaking into the basement now.

  Allison backed away, wondering when she would find the wall. It's no good. This closet will be just another place for them to find me and kill me.

  Then her prosthesis glowed again. She saw something on the wall. A corded metal wire, the sort used in basements, leading down to a switch.

  Well, they know where I am already, she thought, and reached for the switch, flipping it on.

  After a moment of darkness, a light flicked on above her—a single bulb flaring to uncertain brightness, its amber glow trapped inside a glass and cage enclosure. Down the ceiling, another flicked on, and another, and beyond that, a burnt-out bulb. More lights. More blown bulbs. They stretched out of sight down a long, narrow, concrete-lined hallway, hundreds of yards deep.

  This was no closet.

  Nearer, the wall bore a warning in stenciled letters: PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

  Allison stared at the faded yellow text, jaw hanging open. What sort of town is this? she wondered.

  Then she heard pounding on the door. Turning back, she saw the knob rattle without giving. The deadbolt was holding. Then more pounding, and pounding. But for how long?

  She looked back down the hallway, feeling the breath in her lungs constrict. She thought of the dream that had woken her, the nightmare of Hadley in the dead-end alley. Was this hallway just another nightmare? Had she even woken up?

  But the hallway had to be better than standing here and facing them.

  "Schnell, schnell!" a voice called on the other side of the wall. "Die Tür! Die Tür!"

  I have to get out of here, thought Allison.

  Barefoot, stumbling, she hurried down the hall into the clammy and shadowy unknown.

  "Halte! Hold fire! Hold fire," Lukas shouted, shoving Dieter's rifle to the side. His blood boiled.

  She had gotten away. Somehow, the target had been alerted to their coming.

  Johansen had been right.

  From the lights flicking on to the inadvertent gunfire to the return fire, this whole night had gone sideways. The operation was a total pig show—a living illustration of Murphy's Law.

  Lukas held his MCX overhead in both hands like a caveman's club, fighting the urge to dash it to the ground. Instead, he closed his eyes and breathed, forcing the anger and frustration back into his subconscious. Dieter was still with him, looking at him for orders.

  The door.

  They needed to break it down. Lukas gestured to the spreading pool of fuel oil on the ground. "We can't risk firing. Not now."

  "Why not ignite it and walk away?" Dieter asked.

  "You like getting paid?" Lukas asked in reply. "It's hard to prove the target is dead when all you have is a photo of a smoking pile of ash."

  The two men scanned the basement. To their luck, it was crammed with tools, half-packed in boxes piled on shelves. It took only a moment to find a pry bar and a wood axe, though the latter proved useless in the tight confines.

  Lukas shimmied between the gas tank and the wall, feeling his stomach and chest constrict as his plate carrier scraped concrete. This target had better be worth it, he thought as he wriggled into place against the door. He hammered on it with his fist, then tried the knob. Locked. Of course—she's no idiot.

  He pounded again, then stuck the pry bar into the frame and applied force. Outside, he could hear the reverberations in the air as the Ma Deuce on the hill continued its work. Lukas smiled at that. At least the resistance wouldn't be a factor any longer.

  The door's resistance gave as the deadbolt—still strong—carved through the rotting wood around its strike plate, decades of rust giving way. Lukas raised his slung Sig Sauer MCX to confront Allison, then stopped short.

  She was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a hallway stretched out in front of him, fading into the unknown distance.

  "Scheisse," Lukas muttered. Murphy had been a verdammt optimist.

  "What do you see?" Dieter asked.

  "A fatal funnel," Lukas called. "A corridor, length unknown. It was not in the area study." He sighed. "Get your ass over here. This will take both of us."

  Once Dieter had squeezed through the gap by the oil tank, they both stood with boots soaked in fuel oil, the sharp petroleum stench overwhelming. They fired a few bursts down the hallway, unable to get a visual on the target, then began a slow, methodical cover-and-move pursuit down the unexpected corridor toward their prey.