Where There's Smoke

But it became immediately obvious to each member of the team that Wingert’s band had meant what they’d said about choosing death over capture. The Rangers of Righteousness wanted to secure their place in history. There would be no laying down of arms, no hands raised, no peaceful surrender.

The lawmen were pinned down behind trees or vehicles, and all were vulnerable. Even a flicker of motion drew gunfire, and members of the Rangers had proven themselves to be excellent shots.

The team commander radioed the operations post, requesting that a helicopter be sent to prov

ide them air cover, but that idea was nixed because of the inclement weather.

Special Ops teams from local, state, and federal agencies were mobilized, but they would be driving to Golden Branch, and the roads weren’t ideal even in good weather. The team was told to stand by and to fire only in self-defense while men in safe, warm offices debated changing the rules of engagement to include using deadly force.

“They’re playing patty-cake because one of them is a woman,” the commander groused. “And God forbid we violate these killers’ civil rights. Nobody admires or respects us, you know,” he muttered to Headly, who was the rookie of the team.

“We’re feds, and even before Watergate, ‘government’ had become a dirty word. The whole damn country is going to hell in a handbasket, and we’re out here freezing our balls off, waiting for some bureaucrat to tell us it’s okay to blast these murdering thugs to hell and back.”

He had a military background and a decidedly hawkish viewpoint, but nobody, especially not he, wanted a bloodbath that morning.

Nobody got what they wanted.

While the reinforcements were still en route, the Rangers amped up their firepower. An ATF agent took a bullet in the thigh, and from the way it was bleeding it was feared his femoral artery had suffered damage, the extent of which was unknown, but on any scale that was life-threatening.

The commander reported this with a spate of obscenities about their being picked off one by effing one unless…

He was given the authorization to engage. With their assault rifles and one submachine gun, in the hands of the wounded ATF agent, they went on the offensive. The barrage lasted for seven minutes.

Return fire from the house decreased, then became sporadic. The commander ordered a cease-fire. They waited.

Suddenly, a man bleeding from several wounds, including a head wound, charged through the front door, screaming invectives and spraying rounds from his own submachine gun. It was a suicidal move, and he knew it. His reason for doing it would soon become apparent.

When the agents ceased firing, and their ears stopped ringing, they realized that the house had fallen eerily silent except for a loose shutter that clapped against an exterior wall whenever the wind caught it.

After a tense sixty seconds, the commander said, “I’m going in.” He levered himself up into a crouch as he replaced his spent cartridge with a fresh one.

Headly did the same. “I’m with you.”

Other team members stayed in place. After checking to see that they were loaded and ready, the commander crept from behind his cover and began running toward the house. Headly, with his heart tightly lodged in his throat, followed.

They ran past the body sprawled on the wet earth, took the steps up to the sagging porch, and then stood on either side of the gaping doorway, weapons raised. They waited, listening. Hearing nothing, the commander hitched his head and Headly barged in.

Bodies. Blood on every surface, the stench of it strong. Nothing was moving.

“Clear,” he shouted and stepped over a body on his way into an adjacent room, a bedroom with only a ratty mattress on the floor. In the center of it, the ticking was still wet with a nasty stain.

In less than sixty seconds from the time Headly had breached the door, they confirmed that five people were dead. Four bodies were found inside the house. The fifth was the man who’d died in the yard. They were visually identified as known members of the Rangers of Righteousness.

Conspicuously missing from the body count were Carl Wingert and his lover, Flora Stimel, the only woman of the group. There was no sign of the two of them except for a trail of blood leading away from the back of the house into the dense woods where tire tracks were found in the undergrowth. They had managed to escape, probably because their mortally wounded confederate had sacrificed himself, taking fire at the front of the house while they sneaked out the back.

Emergency and official vehicles quickly converged on the area. With them came the inevitable news vans, which were halted a mile away at the turnoff from the main road. The house and the area immediately surrounding it were sealed off so evidence could be collected, photos and measurements taken, and diagrams drawn before the bodies were removed.

Those involved realized that a thorough investigation of the incident would follow. Every action they’d taken would have to be explained and justified, not only to their superiors but also to a cynical and judgmental public.

Soon the derelict house was filled with people, each doing a specialized job. Headly found himself back in the bedroom, standing beside the coroner, who was sniffing at the stain on the soiled mattress. To Headly, it appeared that someone had peed in addition to bleeding profusely. “Urine?”

The coroner shook his head. “I believe it’s amniotic fluid.”

Headly thought surely he’d misheard him. “Amniotic fluid? Are you saying that Flora Stimel—”

“Gave birth.”