Decker tested each floorboard with his weight before edging over to the hayloft doors and opening them just a crack.
Twin pairs of headlights were cutting through the darkness around the farmyard. The doors of the Hummer with the cracked windshield opened and four men climbed out. They wore all black, including ski masks, and carried automatic weapons. The doors of the second Hummer opened and three more men got out. In the blink of an eye they fanned out, and within seconds they had the barn surrounded.
Decker turned back to Jamison. “Well, our options seem limited.”
“Yeah, as in zero,” she replied grimly.
Decker reached into his pocket and pulled out the device Robie had given him.
Jamison noted this and said, “Little late for that.”
“I was thinking the same thing but what do we have to lose now?”
The shots outside drew their attention back to the hayloft doors.
As they watched, the lead Hummer exploded and the detonation lifted the multiton vehicle straight up into the air before it slammed back down to earth, a collision that burst all four tires.
“What the hell?” began Jamison.
They dropped to the floor and slid backward as automatic gunfire started up again.
A few moments later Decker crawled forward and peered through the crack in the doors. He watched as two of the men in black were gunned down. Three more rushed from around the rear of the barn and took up position behind the destroyed Hummer.
They fired into the distance and received return fire.
Decker pointed his gun out the crack, took aim, and shot one of the men in the back. He fell to the dirt. The other men turned and fired at the barn.
Decker slammed the door shut, and he and Jamison took up cover behind a thick bale of rotted hay. Multiple rounds ripped through the wooden doors and into the straw.
There was more gunfire, another detonation. Screams, more gunfire, shouts. And then, the sound of a vehicle starting up.
Decker and Jamison crawled forward in time to see the second Hummer racing back down the road. Soon, it had disappeared into the darkness.
Jamison looked at Decker and said breathlessly, “What the hell just happened?”
Before Decker could answer, the phone Robie had given him buzzed. He answered it.
Will Robie said, “You can come down now.”
ROBIE ANDREELwere in the front seats and Jamison and Decker in the rear of Reel’s SUV as they drove back to London. When Jamison and Decker had come out of the barn, they had been met by the pair along with a number of dead bodies.
Robie had introduced Jessica Reel to them. She had said nothing, only nodding curtly in their direction.
“How’d you know where we were?” asked Jamison.
Before Robie could answer, Decker held up the phone. “This has a tracking device.”
Robie nodded. “We followed you to your destination. Then saw the Hummers on the return trip. It was a close call.”
“I wish you didn’t have to keep saving my life,” said Decker quite frankly. “It’s getting a little bit hairy.”
“I can see that.”
“What did you find out with Purdy’s mother?” asked Reel as she steered the SUV.
“Ben Purdy was last there around ten months ago. The Air Force has been by looking for him a few times. No one else. We took some things from his room. They may be clues.” He held up the printed pages.
Robie took them and looked the pages over. “A bunch of different military installations. What do you think he was looking for?”