Page 45 of Cross Down
Chapter
54
Overall, Maynard feelsgood about the operation, even with just a 50 percent success rate. He came in with three personnel and he’s leaving with three personnel. Cameron and Roccilli are bitching and moaning because they took rounds to their ballistic vests, but they’re alive, although they might have broken ribs.
Juarez got the worst of it, with a round taking off most of his left pinkie, but since he’s right-handed, a stump wrapped with a bandage won’t slow him down much. Juarez endures the pain in silence, and Maynard gives him props.
Maynard sustained a hit to his ballistic helmet. His head is throbbing, a reminder that if the bullet had been a few inches lower, this crew would be wondering what to do with his body.
Cameron comes back from the tree line. “Definitely Carr,” he says. “Face is fucked up, but yeah, it’s him.”
“Any blood trail leading out?” Maynard asks.
“Nope,” Cameron says. “Sampson got away. Probably heading down the shoreline.”
Maynard rubs his aching head. “Maybe. But the guy is good. The best I’ve ever come up against.”
Juarez asks, “Meaning what?”
“Meaning I wouldn’t be surprised if the slippery bastard is out there in the dark looking at us.”
Roccilli says, “Think we should try to track him?”
“You want to give him another chance to shoot you? When he and his bud were in the cabin, that was a good target. Going after him now won’t have a happy outcome. No, we’ve done what we can. We’re following him. We’ll get him tomorrow or the day after.”
“Why not stake out his vehicle?” Cameron asks.
“Sure, and explain that to the neighbors while we’re stumbling through their property.”
Juarez says, “We should burn this place down, then.”
“Why?” Maynard asks. “You pissed because you got an ouchie on your left finger? Really? Macho man like you? You want to burn down his place for revenge?”
Juarez and the two others are quiet. Maynard says, “You see the lights around the lake? That means neighbors. They hear gunshots, they figure,What the hell, maybe somebody’s drunk, shooting into the air.We burn down this cottage, the volunteer fire department will respond and they’ll see the spent brass and the guy in the woods with half a head. Then local law enforcement gets spun up. No, we get going now, regroup, and choose a time to hit him again.”
Nods from his crew and they start moving back to where their truck is hidden. Maynard can’t resist. He pauses, waves to the woods. “Later, John.”
Chapter
55
In my hidingspot, I grit my teeth in anger and to control the shivering that threatens to take over my body. I’m focusing on my own survival and getting what intelligence I can on the crew who ambushed us.
Mel is dead.
And it’s my fault.
I should have prepped the cottage better, should have set up better routes for bailing out when the shooting broke out, and we should have kept on moving once we got out of the cottage. Instead, we felt a bit safe outside of the kill zone and turned to gauge our enemy, and that’s when Mel got clipped.
I keep looking at the crew. There are four of them and they’re talking and pointing, and my pistol is firm in my cold hand. But I don’t have a good shot. I could get one, maybe two, but then I’d be a target for return fire and in an indefensible position, one Glock pistol against several automatic weapons. This isn’t a James Bond movie, where one guy can take out four men armed with high-powered machine guns in a lengthy shooting scene. In the real world, that one guy would be down in fifteen seconds.
I wait.
Continue to shiver.
I hear voices rise up and then they’re done. They grab their gear and start walking up the dirt road—luckily away from my vehicle—then the tail-end guy stops. He’s partially illuminated by this stretch’s lone streetlight. It feels like he’s staring right at me.
He raises his arm and calls out, “Later, John.”
