Chen Jia tried the last of the five sets of keys in the van, but it still would not start. Unsure what to do, she rushed to the open garage door and looked out. The side gate to the property led to a narrow winding dirt road that went both left and right, and since all the shooting she heard was either in the house behind her or on her right at the front of the property, she thought about taking the kids and running for the gate.
But just as she thought this, bullets whizzed by in front of her, making a snapping sound as they pierced the air.
She fled back inside. To the kids she said, “We can’t go this way. We have to go back in the house.”
The little girl said, “My daddy is here.”
Jia shook her head. “What? No, that’s the army.”
“He’s here,” she said again. “He shot the man who was about to kill us. Only my daddy would do that. He will help you.”
Jia didn’t think anyone was going to help her, especially not the father of the man whose children she’d been complicit in the kidnapping of. She wanted to be sick yet again but knew the dry heaves wouldn’t help her out of her predicament.
She began to panic.
The young American girl walked up to her in the garage and took her hand. “What is your name?”
“Jia,” she said distractedly. “It’s Jia.”
“I’m Mandy and this is my brother, Huck.”
Jia just looked at her, her panic momentarily abating.
“What are you going to name your daughter?”
Gunfire tore through the air outside.
“I…I don’t know.”
Mandy thought a moment and said, “When we get out of here, I’ll help you think of a name.”
Jia’s eyes filled with tears. She didn’t think she was going to get out of here. The gunfire was so intense outside, and it seemed to be getting closer and closer every second.
Finally, Jia said, “Let’s go look for your father.”
They began climbing the stairs, but just as they did so, a door opened above them. To her horror, the mercenary leader that Kang referred to as Condor spun into the stairwell and pointed his gun at all three of them.
Mandy, Huck, and Jia froze as a second armed mercenary appeared.
Condor shouted to the woman now. “Where’s Kang?”
“He, he left with the others.”
“Any cars down there?”
“One,” she said. “But I can’t find the keys.”
“Shit.” He seemed to think a moment. “Okay, it will take too long to hot-wire it. We’re all going out the back, over the wall, and down the hill on foot.”
The kids began walking up the stairs, but Jia stood where she was.
Tremaine aimed his rifle at her forehead from five meters away. “You are my hostage, too, bitch.”
She began climbing the stairs, her hands raised.
Josh Duffy knelt over the body of the dead contractor with the knife that he had shot minutes earlier, as Nichole and Isaac provided security. He was looking for a radio, and he quickly found it.
Pressing the talk button as he and the others went back inside the home, he said, “Condor. It’s Duff, over.”
Seconds later he heard a response.
“Was that you out back before the army came?”
“That was me.”
“Nice shot. Right in my solar plexus.”
“Just saying ‘hi.’ ”
Tremaine laughed into the radio. He said, “Hell of a way to communicate. I’ve got your kids. You have my computer?”
“I do, but I watched as you ordered a guy to kill the kids. If they’re still alive, I want to hear from them.”
There was a slight pause, and then Mandy’s voice came over the radio. “We’re on the stairs coming up.”
Tremaine seemed to pull the radio away from the precocious girl. Angrily he said, “I can fucking end them right now, Duff! I’m coming up. I have my man Junior here with me, and we will conduct our transaction with you and be on our way.”
“Where do you think you’re going to go?”
“I’ve got another hostage. One of the Chinese. Kang isn’t going to get out of this clean as long as I have her. He’ll have to come back and get us, or I’ll put her in front of a TV camera.”
Duff said, “I’m already in the house. From the sound of the fighting out there, I’m guessing the army will be in the building in a couple minutes, tops.”
A door opened on the left side of the den; Duff and Nichole crouched down behind the kitchen island, pointing their gun towards the movement. Isaac went flat on the floor, then began crawling down the length of the island, remaining hidden.
No one appeared at first, and then Duff heard, “We’re coming out, Duff.”
Huck appeared first, his eyes wide and filled with tears, then Mandy. She looked around the room, and Duff saw that she had managed to keep her cool, even in the midst of all this madness.
A contractor Duff had not seen before came out—this must have been Junior—and he held a pistol at his daughter’s head. Similar to Isaac, the man had bloody dressing wrapped around his midsection.
Following them was the Chinese woman Duff had seen on the back patio, and directly behind her Conrad Tremaine emerged with a hand on the woman’s neck, and his handgun pointed at Huck in front of him.
A heavy machine gun opened up out front for the first time, and this made Duff think the army had already received reinforcements, because the weapon hadn’t been firing the last several minutes.
Duff pulled the tablet computer out of his backpack and held it up, his gun still on Tremaine. “Here it is. Like I told you, I shot it when I killed your Russian.”
“I’ll take it just the same, Duff. Throw it over here and I’ll give you your kids back. Me and her are going to go out back, you’re going to wait right here while we go, and then you—”
A sound in the corridor on Tremaine’s left turned his head, but he kept his gun pointed at Huck.
Junior turned to look as well, but like his boss, he knew the Americans would shoot them if they didn’t keep their guns on the hostages.
Suddenly, Professor Addo came running into the room with his rifle down at his waist, and he pointed it towards the group that just came out of the stairwell.
Duff shifted aim to fire on the man in the rebel attire; he had no idea who he was, but the man looked as if he was about to fire in the direction of his kids.
But before he could aim in on this new threat, a single shot rang out.
The man in a rebel uniform slammed back against the wall on his right and then tumbled to the ground, shot by Isaac Opoku from behind the kitchen island.
Duff looked back to his kids just as Mandy reached up and grabbed the wrist of the hand Tremaine held his gun with, and she pushed it up and away. Tremaine ducked behind the girl as he wrestled it free, giving Duff no shot on him, so Duff instead charged forward, intent on tackling Tremaine and leaving the other contractor to Nichole and Isaac.
Tremaine got the pistol back, began to raise it at Duff, but was unable to do so before Duff crashed into him, knocking him away from his daughter, then back through the door behind him and into the stairwell.
The two men tumbled down the entire flight of stairs towards the garage.
Back upstairs, Junior fired once at Isaac, then spun away from the kids to go to the aid of his boss, but then Nichole Duffy rose from the near side of the island and shot the man in the side of the head, killing him instantly.
The Chinese woman raced across the big den and ducked down behind a table; Nichole ran to Mandy and Huck, grabbed them both tightly as if she were lifting them for a hug, but instead she whipped around with them and began running for the sliding door to the patio. Halfway there, though, she saw an armed man in a camouflage rebel uniform running around the side of the property, heading her way.
She turned back into the room and yelled to Isaac.
“We have to make a stand right here!”
She put the kids behind the kitchen island. “Get down!”
“You have to help Jia!” Mandy said.
Nichole looked down at her as she raised her rifle. “Who?”
“The Chinese lady. She’s our friend!”
Isaac fired at the rebel coming through the back door, hitting the man in the stomach and the pelvis, dropping him dead.
Once the shooting stopped, Nichole yelled to the woman hidden under a table. “Jia! Come to me with your hands up!”
The Chinese woman rose and, with hands raised, began moving towards Nichole.
At the bottom of the stairs, Tremaine pulled his backup knife as he sat up on the floor, still dazed from the violent fall. Duff sat up next to him, and Tremaine swung out. The American fell back, and then Tremaine stabbed down at him.
Duff rolled out of the way just as the blade slammed into the concrete, and then the American tried to quickly get up and out of the way.
Tremaine was on his knees. When Duff rose to his feet, the South African swung his massive blade at the closest part of the man to him, his left leg.
The knife smacked into a carbon fiber and steel prosthesis, doing no damage, and then Duff used his good leg to kick Tremaine in the face.
Upstairs, Isaac fired up the corridor at a group of mercenaries who’d escaped into the house to flee the withering fire at the front gate. He ducked out of the line of fire as the men there responded to his shooting, and then he dropped to his knees, swung back out into the corridor, and dumped half a magazine at the men in the entryway.
Nichole hugged her children quickly, then said, “I have to go help Daddy. I want you to run out that back door and hide in the trees, can you do that?”
“Jia is going to come with us. She’s pregnant.”
Nichole looked to the Asian woman. She said, “You’re MSS?”
She shook her head. “Just a contractor.”
Nichole frisked her quickly, then looked down to Mandy and Huck. She grabbed Jia by the arm, pulled her close, leaned into her ear, and whispered. “Listen, bitch. You charmed my kids, but I’d just as soon shoot you right here. You try anything and I will cut your fucking head off, you understand?”
The Chinese woman looked like she was about to vomit, but she nodded.
“Take them out to the trees,” Nichole ordered. “I’m right behind you.”
Jia took Mandy’s hand, and Mandy grabbed her brother by the hand, and then all three began running. Nichole covered for them until they disappeared, and then she ran to Isaac. He had to reload, so she began firing up the corridor towards the front of the house.
His reload complete, they realized they couldn’t cross to the stairway Duff had just fallen down, because the shooting from the entry hall was too heavy.
Nichole knew that—for now, at least—her husband was on his own.
Duff pulled a wrench off the table next to the door to the stairs and swung it at Tremaine, hitting his big knife. With his backhand swing Duff caught the bigger man on the chin, snapping his head back, but the Sentinel leader recovered quickly.
Both the men’s rifles were somewhere on the stairs, Duff had no pistol, and Tremaine seemed to have lost his somewhere.
They separated a few feet now, and their eyes met. Tremaine said, “You fecked up everything, you piece of shit!”
“I’m about to fuck you up.”
“Come on, then!”
Duff closed on Tremaine, swung his wrench but missed.
Tremaine jabbed out with the knife as the American tried to duck away from it, but the blade tip stabbed Duff in the neck, slicing open a shallow cut below his Adam’s apple. A second swing of the wrench hit the man in the shoulder, and they broke away from each other again in the garage.
Duff put his hand to his throat, felt blood running down onto his chest.
He took a breath to make sure his windpipe hadn’t been sliced open. He found he was able to breathe, but a sharp pain told him his injury was serious.
Tremaine closed on him with a wild smile. “You’re gonna want to get that looked at, friend.”
Duff said nothing.
“Where’s the fecking computer? Give it to me and you can go. Take your fecking kids, I don’t care.”
Duff shook his head now. It hurt to speak, but he did it anyway. “I’m not leaving here till you’re dead. The second you brought my kids into this, it was only going to end one way.”
Tremaine smiled, wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm. Holding the knife up in front of him, he said, “Fine with me, bro. Charge me with that wrench again and see how that works out for you.”
Duff did so. He swung the wrench, hit the knife and knocked it to the side, then leapt forward and caught Tremaine by the torso, getting his arms under both of Tremaine’s arms so that he couldn’t use them to stab down.
Duff used all his might to generate force on his legs. His prosthesis pushed off on the concrete, then his right leg, and soon Tremaine was backpedaling, still ensnared in the American’s strong grip.
Tremaine slammed into the side of the van parked in the middle of the garage, shattering a window with the back of his head, and Duff lurched up, knocking the South African’s arm up higher and causing him to drop his knife.
Duff took the man in a wrist lock and sent him back down onto the ground. He fell with him, their body armor slamming together as Tremaine impacted the concrete and Duff impacted Tremaine.
Once on the ground Duff reached out, put his hand on the blade of the knife, and spun it around, wrapping his fingers around the hilt.
As Tremaine frantically tried to control Duff’s hand, Duff positioned the knife over Tremaine’s throat.
The South African held the blade back, using all his strength to prevent being stabbed, and he wrapped his hands around Duff’s, fighting for control of the weapon.
Duff rose to his knees, still struggling to keep the knife over the South African’s body. Tremaine kept the blade a few inches away from his own neck. He said, “You’re weak, Duff.”
Duff felt himself losing the battle, but as sweat and blood dripped on the man below him, he managed a little smile. “Yeah…but I’m smart.”
He launched his body into the air. With all his body weight, he threw himself onto the knife pointed down at Tremaine’s neck, and the weight and momentum forced the blade in deep, right above the man’s clavicle.
Duff rolled off quickly and kept rolling as Tremaine flailed, the knife stuck in him and blood gushing wildly, spurting on the floor of the garage.
The wound was fatal, this Duff knew, so he didn’t wait around to watch the man’s death throes, because his own wound very well could be fatal if he didn’t get it treated. Instead he climbed back to his feet on exhausted legs, then began racing back up the stairs, grabbing Tremaine’s rifle as he passed it, leaving the South African to his fate.
Nichole and Isaac had kept the enemy in the front entry hall, thinning their numbers, but then a group of four more mercenaries entered from the front door and began pouring fire towards the den area.
Nichole’s rifle ran empty. She spun out of the way to reload as Isaac kept up the fire, and then the door across from them opened again, and she saw her husband there. He was on his feet, but blood ran from his throat. She looked at him in horror; instantly she realized she had to stop his bleeding or he’d lose consciousness in minutes, but she had no way to get to him across the fatal funnel of the corridor.
She dropped to the floor, fell out into the line of fire, and began firing fully automatic bursts to cover for Josh.
Behind and above, her husband began firing in the same direction, and he took the opportunity to cross over into the kitchen.
Soon all three of them were running through the backyard. They found Mandy and Huck with the Chinese woman in the trees, then they all made their way to where the rope still hung over the wall.
Isaac climbed over first while Nichole used a dressing from the med pouch on her body armor to wrap tightly over her husband’s neck wound, only somewhat stanching the blood for now.
It took two full minutes to get all six over the wall and into the rocks and trees beyond; Jia needed a lot of help from Isaac and Nichole, but she made it over, and then they all ran for the Toyota pickup Duff had left a quarter mile away.
Nichole held her husband up, Mandy held her father’s hand, and Isaac carried Huck.
Jia dropped to her knees at one point and heaved, but Nichole grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back up, and in seconds they were moving again.
No one spoke, out of fear and the adrenaline and exhaustion and pain on the adults’ bodies, and bewilderment and disbelief in the minds of the kids.
Behind them, the last of the gunfire drifted off down the hill and over the city.