Broken Heartland (28 page)

Galen stopped. His gun hand came up, but too late. The cab followed the rest of that hulking machine out into the farm yard.

Heather slowed, swung the shovel back. She wanted to hit Galen's gun arm. She didn't want to bean him. That might kill him.

She was ready to swing when he started sprinting again. It took her a moment to follow.

Galen ran straight to the middle of the hole in the wall. He brought the gun up again. He was going to shoot whoever was driving that Caterpillar in the back. She went full out, bringing the shovel off her shoulder in a sweeping blow. He realized she was there at the last instant and jumped and the flat of the shovel slammed into his shoulder instead of his arm because he'd tried to aim the gun at her instead. It didn't matter. He howled as the gun went skittering across the building's concrete floor. And then a hail of bullets came screaming through the opening the Cat had torn as it exited. Someone was shooting at it, from the house, and that put Galen and her in the line of fire.

She hadn't even noticed the other Caterpillar until she turned around to run. Another, smaller one, with its blade resting on the floor. The perfect shield, and she dove for it. Something slapped her on the hip before she got there and sent her rolling into the treads instead of fully behind the blade. Her leg went numb and she felt something moist running down her hip and thought she was hit. But she couldn't make herself check her own wound. Her eyes were locked on Galen, now doubled over on the concrete, holding his belly with his one good hand. The hand wasn't enough. Something wet and ropy oozed around it and spoiled the floor. So did Two's lunch.

***

Greer went through the door, low, covering the hall leading into the house, but swiveling to look back toward the garage. English might have shot Greer if the sheriff hadn't dropped his pistol to grab guns from the two men who lay on the floor at his feet and stained the carpet.

If he had, it only would have been to wound. And even that was just something he liked to imagine. He needed help, as usual. Also, as usual, the kind he'd get wasn't what he'd had in mind. For the moment, it seemed, he'd have to put up with Greer's cowboy, shoot-first style.

The sheriff dropped the long arms on their recently deceased owners and recovered his pistol. Then he followed Greer into the hall.

“Check the garage,” Greer said.

“Check it yourself,” the sheriff nearly answered. But Greer was the expert on house-to-house combat, so English nodded and said something else. “Several innocent and unarmed civilians may be here. Don't shoot anyone unless you absolutely have to.”

Greer grinned. “You either. Neuhauser's in there with these hired guns. He'll back our play when we get to them.”

Oh good, the sheriff thought. The guy who'd pulled a gun on him earlier this afternoon was going to have the opportunity to do it again. But he didn't say anything. He ducked down the hall and went into the garage. There were three vehicles in it. The white Ford he'd followed here hadn't quite managed to stop before it flattened its front end against the back wall. Its trunk was open. There was a dead body in there, and a trussed up and angry highway patrolman. Englishman recognized them both, the boy from the accident and the asshole who'd taken pot shots at his daughter in the school parking lot. He left them both where they were.

Next was a Dodge station wagon, similar to the one Deputy Wynn had chased across the county until he ran into that school bus. And last, an emergency medical services truck, the kind city fire departments use to respond to 911 calls. This one was marked AMBULANCE, though with no indication of a jurisdiction.

The ambulance took longer because he had to open the back and make sure no one was inside. Greer was at the door between the house and the garage when the sheriff finished his sweep.

“I was beginning to think you ran into problems…or just ran.”

“Garage is clear,” the sheriff told him. “You want to take the left side of the hall and leave the right to me, or you want back-up at each room?”

“Let's each work doors. I think everybody's in the kitchen where the action is, but when we go in there we need to know our backs are clear.”

The first door on the sheriff's right was the one with the two dead farmers in it. With the window out, someone else could have entered, so he gave it a quick look again.

The next room held a pair of single beds with personal items scattered about. Two people were using the room, if the pair of duffel bags was an indication.

Next, a bathroom, surprisingly feminine. In it, four tooth brushes and shaving kits were neatly laid out military style. The men guarding this house weren't mobsters. They were professionals. Government? Military? Mercenaries? He waved Greer over. “Pros,” he said.

“Yeah,” Greer said. “We knew one of them in Iraq. A hired gun.”

They each had one more room to sweep. The sheriff's had a small bathroom of its own. Someone had gotten preferential treatment, but not a squad leader. There were suitcases in this room, enough clothes to last a month. The double bed wasn't made and the bathroom was messy. This guy might have hired the others, but he wasn't their equal.

“Three people living in the rooms on my side,” the sheriff said. “Five toothbrushes in two bathrooms, though.”

“Two sharing one room on my side. The other rooms were empty.”

“So five, anyway, and Galen Siegrist,” the sheriff said.

Greer shrugged. “There's another wing.”

They were at the spot where the hall opened out onto the living room, which was also empty. There was one more door, the kitchen most likely. That's where the shooting had been coming from. It was quiet now, except for the throaty rumble of a big motor.

Greer offered a grenade to the sheriff. “Flash-bang?” he said.

The sheriff declined.

“Okay, then. Follow me.”

Greer put a shoulder to the door. The sheriff followed, but Greer didn't clear the doorway.

“Damn,” the lieutenant said. “You again?” And then, “What's with the bulldozer?”

***

With so many other weapons going off, Deputy Heather decided a quick burst into the window she'd already damaged wasn't likely to be noticed. She pointed the gun at the bottom edge of the glass and tapped the trigger. The tap resulted in four shots, and a new series of holes radiating spider-web cracks more or less where she wanted them. She used the gun's butt to turn the cracks and holes into an opening big enough for her, then followed the gun into the room.

It was a master bedroom, complete with a pretty fancy bath containing a custom shower and a whirlpool tub. The bed was neatly made, but there was nothing to personalize the room. It had all the mandatory furniture, but the only things that told her Galen Siegrist slept here were pictures of his parents and a pair of portraits on the wall. One was a Jesus whose features appeared more Nordic than Semitic. The other was an angry old man she thought she should recognize but didn't. She wasted no time on drawers or closets. She had one thing to do—make sure nothing bad happened to her father.

The bedroom door opened onto an empty hall and across from it, an office—unused. Galen must prefer the one in the warehouse. It was a big office, though, with windows facing west and south. The bulldozer was walking across the farm yard behind the house, slowly closing the distance between itself and the people who were spraying it with machine-gun fire. She slipped back into the long hall, down which the sound of that gunfire echoed. She followed it, checking the rooms on either side as she went. A second master suite, also occupied, though from the look of the suitcase, temporarily, and another, smaller bedroom with its own bath. More suitcases, so it was also being used by someone passing through. There were stairs to the basement, as well, and then a formal dining area off which a vast and empty living room opened on a door to the front yard and the nose of her father's pickup. No people, though, so she focused on the swinging door she thought must lead to the kitchen.

She paused there. When she went through, she needed to do it right. She moved her badge from inside her jacket and pinned it over her heart. She checked her weapon. She didn't know much about it. She knew it used bullets in a big hurry and that she would inevitably run out before long if she continued pressing that trigger. It seemed to have a pretty large magazine, though, and all the automatics she knew about always locked the breech open when they'd fired their last shell. This one's breech was just the way it had been before she'd hosed a couple of buildings and blown out a window. What was still in there would have to be enough. Especially since she didn't intend to shoot anyone.

Heather took a deep breath, put her foot in the middle of the door, and kicked. She followed her foot into the room—it was the kitchen—and she arrived at a particularly opportune moment. One of the gunmen was in the middle of exchanging clips. He was kneeling beside the back door with an empty gun in one hand and a full magazine in another. When he saw her, he dropped them both. Another gunman had his back to the wall by a kitchen window, his head turned away from her and toward his comrade. When he saw his friend drop his weapon, he did the same.

There were three other men in the room. One of them was Lieutenant Greer's buddy, Neuhauser. Another looked faintly familiar—a little, middle-aged guy who was balding and had one of those haircuts designed to hide the fact, though it simply looked silly. The third was a stranger, a big guy like the two she'd just disarmed by appearing where and when she had.

Neuhauser was on the other side of a counter that extended into the room like a peninsula. He surprised her by swinging his weapon to cover the two who were still armed. The little bald guy froze, but the big one moved like a cat. He snaked an arm out and grabbed the little guy and pulled him back into the opening of a stairwell. She had plenty of time to shoot them, and Neuhauser looked to be on the verge of it when a burst of return fire from the bulldozer tore through the already ruined windows and turned part of the kitchen cabinets into wood chips. The big one and the bald one were gone down the steps when she managed to refocus on them. And one of the other big guys was trying to sneak a hand inside his coat. She let her gun slide over to point directly at him and shook her head. At that moment, Lieutenant Greer burst into the room from another door in the far wall.

“Damn,” the lieutenant said when he saw her. “You again?” And then he looked out the back windows and added, “What's with the bulldozer?”

A timely question, since the thing was only a few yards away now, and headed straight for them.

***

Greer stood in the door and blocked the sheriff from entering the kitchen. The lieutenant couldn't believe it. The English girl had beaten him again. Was she that good, or just that lucky?

“Get their guns,” he told Neuhauser. “Then herd them out front.” He nodded toward the bulldozer. “We need to be out of here when that thing arrives.”

“What's going on in there?” the sheriff said from directly behind him.

“Two more, still armed, went into the basement,” Neuhauser said, kicking guns aside, and putting the two big guys up against the wall while he patted them down and confiscated a pair of pistols and knives. He ripped out their radio equipment and battery packs, too. And by the time Neuhauser shoved them toward the living room, the English girl had slipped back through the swinging door on the other side of the room just before her father bulled his way in.

“Leave the ones in the basement, for now,” the sheriff said the moment he saw the Caterpillar. “If that thing comes through the wall, the floor in here won't hold it.”

Greer hadn't thought of that. He'd planned on letting Neuhauser and the sheriff take these two out front and put them in custody somehow, while he went after the ones downstairs. The sheriff's observation changed his mind. Besides, he didn't especially care about this private little army. Chucky Williams was who he wanted. And Chucky wasn't one of those who'd just gone where the bulldozer might soon be following. In fact, if he had to guess, Chucky was most likely driving the thing.

“You heard the sheriff,” he told Neuhauser and the prisoners. “Out front, now.”

Greer led the way, backing across the front room and then scrambling over the hood of the sheriff's truck, all the while keeping the pair of hired gunmen covered. They came next in the little parade, followed by Neuhauser and finally the sheriff.

“Where you want 'em?” Greer asked, as the sheriff's head emerged over the hood of his truck.

“In the ditch, other side of the road,” the sheriff said. “You guys have any grenades that'll stop that thing if it does get through the house?”

Greer didn't answer. He'd used the sheriff's distraction at climbing over the hood to signal Neuhauser and sprint toward the nearest corner of the house.

Newt got the message. “Probably can't stop it,” Neuhauser said, occupying the sheriff's attention, “but we can sure make things unpleasant for whoever's driving it.”

The Cat hit the building as Greer went around the back corner. The earth shook and the building moaned and things started collapsing. The lieutenant found the open window on the Caterpillar's cab over the sight of his M-4. He fired a grenade. The explosion and shrapnel cleansed the interior. The machine rocked when the grenade blew, but kept moving, and the back wall of the Siegrist place collapsed in a heap of bricks and mortar.

Greer swiveled his gun, looking for a target. Chucky Williams hadn't been in the smoking ruin that had once been the Cat's cab. The machine was on its own.

***

When the doctor came back down into the basement, Mad Dog thought his voice was shriller and he was breathing too fast.

“Customers are here,” the man said. “But the place is under assault. Law enforcement, maybe. We must be ready in case we have to leave suddenly.”