Drone

“Hold,” Pearce replied. He pulled a four-inch-long Black Hornet Nano helicopter drone from his pocket and activated the flight software on his iPhone. The half-ounce surveillance drone featured a small camera. No telling what or who might be waiting inside. Pearce powered up the unit and tossed it through the window. Forty seconds later, the Norwegian-built drone had circumnavigated the two-room shack. No trip wires, no bad guys.

“All clear,” Pearce said. “But stay frosty. Go.”

Pearce and Tamar burst into the two-room shack at the same time. They cleared the shack.

Cigarette butts on the plywood floor, ashtrays overflowing on the card table. Dirty dishes in the filthy washtub. Christ on the bedroom wall staring down at the unmade bed tangled with bloody sheets.

Pearce pocketed the Hornet.

“Clear.”

“Clear.”

Tamar’s eyes posed the obvious question.

Pearce checked his tablet. The transponder signal still flashed. It was only accurate to ten meters. “Better check outside,” he said.

He stepped off of the porch into the blinding sun, heading for the far side of the house. Clothes already sticky with sweat. Tamar took the opposite tack and headed for the animals. Judy was still crouched low by the boy, shooing flies. She’d covered his lifeless face with a square of gauze from the medical kit.

Pearce checked the side of the shack. A rabbit cage with three fat rabbits and a rusty rake leaning against the wall. Farther back, an outhouse. Flies. Stink.

A bad kind of stink.

Pistol up, Pearce opened the door. A corpse. Pants down around his ankles. Bled out. Pearce didn’t have to raise the slumped head.

Must be the dad, he told himself.

Tamar screamed.

Pearce bolted toward her. She stood near the pig trough, clutching her horrified face in her hands.

It was Udi.

Pearce recognized the mop of hair and the thick hands, but not much else. The pigs had gutted him. Had devoured his face.

Tamar howled, crazed with rage. Her Uzi split the air, slugs slapping the huge pig bellies. The swine screamed as if possessed, charging and slipping through the mud and gore, dropping one by one, as 9mm rounds sliced through their spinal cords and brain stems.

Tamar stopped firing, pirouetted, arms flailing. The Uzi sailed through the air as she spilled into the grass, her shoulder painted red.

A shot rang out. The bullet zooped like an angry bee past Pearce’s ear. He dropped to one knee, trying to see where it came from.

Judy ran full throttle toward Tamar, despite Troy screaming in her ear, “Down, down, down!” until she dropped by her friend’s side with the med kit. She began unzipping it when a geyser of dirt leaped up between them.

“Let’s go!” Pearce shouted as he grabbed Tamar’s shirt collar and dragged her toward the tractor, Judy close behind.

Pearce lay Tamar behind the shelter of the big rear steel wheel where Judy could safely work on her. Pearce crouched behind the small front wheel. Another rifle crack. A round spanged against the tractor.

“Status!” Ian shouted.

Judy tore open the med kit and ripped open bandages.

“Tamar’s hit. Judy and I are under cover.”

“I’m calling in support—”

“Stand down, Ian. I need that guy alive.”

“But Troy—”

“That’s an order.” Pearce tapped his earpiece, cutting Ian off. He pulled his Glock from his holster and handed it to Judy. “Take this.” And he added, “Just in case.”

Another bullet hit the tractor. The steel fender rang like a church bell.

Judy shook her head as she applied pressure bandages to Tamar’s shoulder wound. “Forget it. Just go!”

Pearce glanced through the tractor. Two hundred yards away, sunlight winked off of a scope. A man stood in the bed of a pickup truck using the roof as a rifle bench. Too close for comfort, especially with a scope.

Judy was right.

Just go.

Pearce dashed back toward the motorcycle in the grass. He’d seen the key in the ignition. He prayed there was still enough gas in the tank. Dirt puffed next to his foot. Pearce pumped the kick-starter twice and the engine roared to life. He gunned the throttle hard, popping the clutch and shifting gears as fast as he could. The bike tore up dirt clods behind him as he raced toward the berm. He took the hill at an angle and jumped it easily, crashing both tires into the dirt road just a few feet behind the pickup, fishtailing ahead of him, racing away. The man in the back of the battered gray Dodge crashed to the steel deck, dropping his rifle in the bed. Otherwise he could’ve shot Pearce dead without even aiming.

The truck picked up speed, throwing dirt and rocks behind it. Pearce could feel the grit blasting against his face; his Oakleys saved his eyes. He kept the throttle full-on with his right hand while he slid the M-4 sling around with his left. He raised the carbine up and fired three three-round bursts, trying not to hit anyone.