Oath of Office

Two of the cops hit the ground instantly. Others ducked back inside the truck, or behind it. Behind the armored car, three men burst out of the cable TV van. Smith lit them up. One of them, caught by a rain of bullets, did a crazy dance in the street.

“Excellent, Mr. Smith,” Brown said into the Motorola.

One of the police had gotten halfway across the street before he was shot. Now he was crawling toward the near sidewalk, maybe hoping to reach the shrubbery in front of the house. He wore body armor. He was probably hit where the gaps were, but he might still be a threat.

“You’ve got one on the ground still coming! I want him out of the game.”

Almost immediately, a hail of bullets struck the man, making his body twitch and shudder. Brown saw the kill shot in slow motion. It hit the man in the gap at the back of his neck, between the top of his torso armor and the bottom of his helmet. A spray cloud of blood filled the air and the man went completely still.

“Nice shooting, Mr. Smith. Lovely shooting. Now keep them all locked down.”

Brown slipped back into the command room. The fishing boat was pulling up. Before it even reached the dock, a team of black-jacketed and helmeted men began to jump across.

“Masks on downstairs!” Brown said. “Incoming through that sliding door. Prepare to return fire.”

“Affirmative,” someone said.

The invaders took up positions on the dock. They carried heavy armored ballistic shields and got low behind them. A man popped up and raised a tear gas gun. Brown reached for his own mask and watched the projectile fly toward the house. It hit the glass door and punched through into the main room.

A different man popped up and fired another canister. Then a third man fired yet another. All the tear gas canisters burst through the glass and into the house. The glass door was gone. On Brown’s screen, the area near the foyer began to fill with smoke.

“Status downstairs?” Brown said. A few seconds passed.

“Status!”

“No worries, matey,” the Australian said. “A little smoke, so what? We’ve got our masks on.”

“Fire when ready,” Brown said.

He watched as the men at the sliding door opened fire toward the dock. The invaders were pinned down out there. They couldn’t get up from behind their ballistic shields. And Brown’s men had stacks of ammunition ready.

“Good shooting, boys,” he said into the walkie-talkie. “Be sure to sink their boat while you’re at it.”

Brown smirked to himself. They could hold out here for days.

*

It was a rout. There were men down all over the place.

Luke walked toward the house, scanning carefully. The worst of the shooting was coming from a man in the upstairs window. He was making Swiss cheese out of these cops. Luke was close to the side of the house. From his angle he didn’t have a shot, but the man also probably couldn’t see him.

As Luke watched, the bad guy finished a downed cop with a kill shot to the back of the neck.

“Ed, how’s your look on that upstairs shooter?”

“I can put one right down his throat. Pretty sure he doesn’t see me over here.”

Luke nodded. “Let’s do that first. It’s getting messy out here.”

“You sure you want that?” Ed said.

Luke studied the upstairs. The windowless room was on the far side of the house from the sniper’s nest.

“I’m still banking they’re in that room with no windows,” he said.

Please.

“Just say the word,” Ed said.

“Go.”

Luke heard the distinctive hollow report of the grenade launcher.

Doonk!

A missile flew from behind the line of cars across the street. It had no arc – just a sharp flat line zooming up on a diagonal. It hit right where the window was. A split second passed, then:

BANG.

The side of the house blew outward, chunks of wood, glass, steel, and fiberglass. The gun in the window went silent.

“Nice, Ed. Real nice. Now give me that hole in the wall.”

“What do you say?” Ed said.

“Pretty please.”

Luke raced around and ducked behind a car.

Doonk!

Another flat line zoomed by, four feet above the ground. It hit the side of the house like a car crash, and punched a gaping wound through the wall. A fireball erupted inside, spitting smoke and debris.

Luke nearly jumped up.

“Hold on,” Ed said. “One more on its way.”

Ed fired again, and this one went deep into the house. Red and orange flared through the hole. The ground trembled. Okay. It was time to go.

Luke climbed to his feet and started running.

*

The first explosion was above his head. The entire house shook from it. Brown glanced at the upstairs hallway on his screen.

The far end of it was gone. The spot where Smith had been stationed was no longer there. There was just a ragged hole where the window and Mr. Smith used to be.

“Mr. Smith?” Brown said. “Mr. Smith, are you there?”