The Silent Sea (Oregon Files 7)

Next, it hit the couch hard enough to shove it into the men hiding behind it and then punched a hole in the Sheetrock wall, before dropping to the floor. It spun like a top until the last of the gas escaped.

Juan knew how lucky they had been. Depending on the type of ammunition they were facing, the tank could easily have exploded and started a chain reaction with the dozen or more bottles next to them. They were sitting in what amounted to a death trap.

“Forget the guns,” Juan shouted. “We need to get out of here.”

“I can’t make it,” James wheezed. His lungs were working overtime but he wasn’t getting enough air. “I need the oxygen. I won’t last five minutes.”

“We stay here, we won’t last five seconds!” Cabrillo said, even though he saw the truth. James Ronish couldn’t be moved.

The firing subsided as the Argentines regrouped after the first frantic moments of the gun battle. The only thing that made sense was that they needed Ronish alive. Juan knew he and Max hadn’t been trailed to Washington, so he assumed that the men outside had followed the same informational bread crumbs as he had. It meant they knew something about the Flying Dutchman’s fateful voyage that he did not. Some piece of information that only James Ronish had. And he felt certain it ha

d nothing to do with Pierre Devereaux’s pirate loot.

Cabrillo pulled the Glock’s trigger three times, laying down suppressing fire to keep the Argentines pinned. Their next tactic would be to encircle the house and come in from multiple angles. Juan still didn’t know how he was going to get the three of them out of this.

“Mr. Ronish,” he said, “they’re here because of something your brothers found in the Treasure Pit. Something linked to the blimp we discovered. What did they find?”

Another crackle of gunfire from outside drowned out Ronish’s answer. Dust filled the air from the destroyed drywall, and sofa stuffing was falling like snow. Ronish suddenly stiffened and whimpered softly.

He’d been hit. In the darkness, Cabrillo put his hand on the older man’s chest. Feeling nothing, he moved his hand lower. Ronish hadn’t been hit in the stomach, so Juan moved to his legs. In just the few seconds since the round penetrated his body, the amount of blood pumping from his thigh told Juan that the bullet had severed Ronish’s femoral artery. Without medical help, he’d bleed out in minutes. Juan transferred his pistol to his left hand and pressed into the wound as hard as he could, while Max fired out through the picture window. There were definitely fewer men on the front yard. One or two of the Argentines were flanking them.

“What did they find?” Juan asked desperately.

“A way to the junk” was the pained reply. “The mantel. I kept a rub.”

Juan vaguely recalled a framed piece of art above the faux-brick fireplace. Had it been some sort of rubbing? He didn’t remember. It had made barely a passing impression. He looked through the darkness in the direction of the mantel and fired. The muzzle flash revealed the outline of the picture on the wall but no details. It was much too big to be easily portable.

“Mr. Ronish, please. What do you mean ‘a way to the junk’?”

“I wish they’d never gone to the island,” he replied. He was in shock, his body’s response to his plummeting blood pressure. “It all would have turned out different.”

Max changed out an empty magazine. Both men had brought only two spares from the Houston safe house.

Juan could no longer feel Ronish’s heart pumping blood against his hand over the wound. The old man was gone. He didn’t feel responsible. At least not directly. The Argentines would have killed him with or without the Corporation’s presence. But had Juan and his team not stumbled onto the wreckage of the Flying Dutchman, James Ronish would have lived out his final days in obscurity. And therein lay the indirect guilt.

A voice boomed from outside. He spoke English. “I compliment you on your mastery of my language. My pilot thought you were from Buenos Aires.

“And you sound like that Chihuahua from the taco ads.” Juan couldn’t resist. Adrenaline was seething in his veins like champagne bubbles.”

The Argentine shouted a curse that brought into question the marital status of Juan’s parents. “I give you one chance. Leave the house through the back door and my men will not fire. Ronish stays.”

A kitchen window shattered. A few seconds later, wavering light came from the archway connecting it to the dining room. They’d tossed a Molotov cocktail to hasten the decision.

Juan jumped from the floor, firing from the hip through the window, and swept the rubbing, or whatever it was, from the wall. He heaved it into the kitchen like a Frisbee. The frame caught on the jamb, breaking the glass, and it vanished from sight.

Max opened fire again, covering Cabrillo while he changed mags, and together the two men ran down the hallway leading to the bedrooms. The house was a standard ranch, like millions of others built after World War II, like the one Juan had lived in until his father’s accounting practice took off, like the ones all his friends lived in, like the one Max had grown up in. The two men could navigate it with their eyes closed.

The master bedroom was the last door on the left, just past the single bath. Juan even knew where the bed would be placed, as it was the only logical location, and he jumped on it, bending his knees to absorb some of the spring, and leapt again. He covered his head with his hands when he smashed through the window.

He hit the wet, needle-covered ground, shoulder-rolled, and came up with his gun ready. The muzzle flash from a snap shot fired from the far corner of the house gave away the gunman’s location. Cabrillo put two rounds downrange. He didn’t hear the meaty slap of a strike, but a low, mounting wail rose from the patch of darkness where the shooter had been.

Max came through the window a second later, having paused to let Juan clear the area. His exit wasn’t as dramatic as Cabrillo’s, but he made it nevertheless. They moved through the downpour as fast as they could, the wind and rain masking the sound of their escape. There was barely enough light to see but enough so they didn’t run headlong into any trees. After five minutes, and several random turns, Juan slowed and dropped to his belly behind a fallen log.

Max’s deep chest pumped like a bellows next to him. “You mind telling me,” he panted, “what the hell they’re doing here?”

Cabrillo’s breathing was far less labored, but he was twenty years younger than his friend and, unlike Max, knew what a workout routine was. “That, dear Maxwell, is the million-dollar question. Are you okay?”

“Just a small cut on my hand from going through the window. You?”