Chapter 10

Friday, two pm, seemed to take forever to arrive. They'd gone over the plan several times and Samuel and Jack checked out the location that morning just to be sure there would be no surprises. The windows of the empty store were covered with yellowed newspapers, and some of them curled away from the old tape holding the rest in place. It was impossible to see inside.

"I still don't feel right about this whole thing," Samuel said as he casually looked up and down the street. "And we should do this without Sam."

"That would be great, except we need cover on that roof up there, just in case, and the Axeman is the best sniper I know."

Samuel squinted at the three story building across the street. "I don't know, Fiona's pretty good."

"She's going to be watching Yvette and the kids with Sasha and Maddie. Keeping them safe." Jack shook his head. "I think we've got everything as under control as we can for now. Let's go back to Sam's place."

Samuel drove them back to his and Maddie's house, parked in the garage, and they walked to Sam's house. All the way they kept an eye open for suspicious people or traffic. So far, everything had been quiet. No show of strength from Raul. It made Samuel uneasy.

"This Raul must think he's got things sewn up pretty good," Jack declared as they neared the back door.

"Why do you say that? Because he hasn't been around to show himself?"

"Yeah. He's probably checked out Mike and figured he could take this guy on, get what he wants, and then some." Jack smiled. "Sam was always good at sewing fake intel around and confusing the enemy. He told me he had the FBI guys going crazy when they were keeping an eye on Mike and they wanted him to inform on them. That'll teach 'em to threaten Sam Axe."

Samuel laughed. "That's my boy!" He reached the screen door and touched the handle, and as he looked down, he froze.

"Hey, what's...uhoh." Jack looked down at where Samuel's eyes were focused and saw a small packet of C4 wedged under the threshold. It was wired to blow when the screen door opened. "When did they do that?"

"I don't know. Let's check out the front door." Carefully, Samuel backed up and off the steps. When his feet hit the ground, he and Jack hurried around to the front of the house.

Jack got on his cell phone. "Mike, it's Jack. Don't let anybody go out the back door! It's rigged to explode the second someone opens the screen...yeah, we're checking it out right now."

"It's also rigged, Jack." Samuel scurried down the front steps.

"The front door is booby trapped too." Jack swore as he looked around. They were the only two on the street for blocks. "They must have come by when we were gone. Were you guys sleeping in there, or what?" He listened to Michael and nodded. "No, Fi can stay with the kids and the women. I can take care of this." Jack broke the connection and walked with long strides to the garage. Inside, he raided the workbench and tool rack, and went outside to disable the explosives on the back door.

"Is there anything I can do," Samuel asked.

"Not really. Just stay back."

Jack knelt on the concrete steps and leaned in for a closer look. He shook his head. "Amateurs. I'll have this cut off in about 30 seconds." He picked up a pliers and moved in to work.

BOOM! The house shook from the explosion, and Jack looked up and around for the source. "What happened?"

Samuel ran to the front of the house to see, and he found the front door and porch engulfed in flames. A man in a postal uniform lay half on the porch, half on the steps, and Samuel grabbed him under the arms and pulled him onto the grass. He checked for a pulse, but the bloody mess that was the man's upper torso was enough to tell him that there was no hope. He shook his head as he gave the house a glance. The flames were aggressive, crawling up and eating the dry wood of the porch roof, licking at the windows upstairs and the eaves. He ran back to see how Jack was doing.

"You've gotta step it up there, Jack. The whole front of the house is on fire!" He looked up at the windows that looked out from the staircase landing inside. He saw the faces of Sam, Michael and Jesse looking down on him. Then he saw a wire running up the side of the wall, and it stopped just beneath the window. With his arms, he signaled them. "No, don't open that window!"

The faces disappeared and suddenly a chair crashed through the window panes. Samuel jumped out of the way to avoid being struck by it. In the same instant, the C4 under the window sill blew a huge hole in the wall and a fireball rolled up into the sky.

"Sammy!" Samuel screamed his name, his hands pressing against his head, and a sick feeling in his stomach.

To his surprise, an aluminum baseball bat poked through the smoke and ran around the hole, knocking away the charred pieces until it was a safe exit. "Jack, they're okay!" He ran to the side of the house where the hose was hooked up, turned on the spigot, and ran the hose back to the crude opening. He aimed the water at it and put out the flames enough for them to escape. "Come on! Get out of there now!" He kept the spray streaming as one by one the three men dropped down to the ground. When they were safe on solid earth, Samuel dropped the hose, strode up to his son, and got him into a vice-like embrace.

"I thought I was gonna lose you, Son."

"Are you kidding? Mike, Jesse and I would have gotten out of there just fine." Yet Sam held onto him tightly as well.

Sirens screamed down the street, and two firetrucks parked on the cross streets. Within a couple of minutes the firefighters had lines stretched and were putting water on the blaze. The exterior of the wood frame house was covered with stucco, but the old wood beneath it was like kindling for such a hot fire. The men backed away to stand in front of the garage.

"Thank God the kids are at my place," Jack whispered to Sam.

"Yeah. They must have known we didn't have them here, and they were just going to make sure we didn't make that meeting." Sam scowled, thinking. "But why would they do that? This wasn't going to get Raul his daughter back."

Jack, Michael, and Sam looked at each other. "Somehow they knew we moved the kids. I guess they weren't as amateurish as we thought."

Sam pushed through his friends and hit the garage door opener on his key fob. The door rose, and he got into his car.

"I'm going with him," Jack blurted and ran around to the passenger side.

"Samuel..." Michael began.

"I'll get my car." Samuel bolted for his house, got his car out of the garage in record time and hurried back to Sam's house to pick up Michael and Jesse. They were only a few minutes behind Sam and Jack. Will we be too late?