On the Bourbon Trail – chapter 14
It was the Yakuza who prodded the players into action. They needed to draw out a sniper, or else crouch behind their SUVs all day. They moved on Raylan and his unarmed posse of mismatched miscreants, their plan obvious and effective: they would force Tim's hand, draw out a shot from him, make him give away his position. It was inevitable that he would.
Tim had one eye on the scope, watching the Japanese sniper through the lens, the other following the movements of the three Yakuza splitting up, darting quietly from cover to cover in a crouch, positioning themselves to come at Raylan from two sides. Of course, their real objective was hiding somewhere up the hill, and Tim knew that. Another few steps and they would leave him no option but to pick a target from among them to assist Raylan, not a difficult moral choice for Tim – an enemy is an enemy – but this kind of sacrifice did deserve some respect. The Yakuza were willingly playing a game of Russian roulette to forward the group's cause. One of them would be taking a bullet and Tim wondered at the loyalty, that they would do that for their boss, or whatever it was that brought them here. Expensive whiskey? Tim mused how far he would be prepared to go for sixty-five cases of Old Pappy. Not that far. But then again, he had just stuck his neck out for a slandering asshole with a skewed perspective on the world who happily stole from other people to make himself rich. Though it wasn't really Franklin's hide that was the motivating factor here. Raylan was down there, too, and Kurt, and Duffy. Duffy didn't count, but Tim would take a bullet for Kurt, no question. And would he for Raylan?
Tim didn't get a chance to finish his game of 'rationalize your actions;' Raylan interjected his will into the day's events, decided to see what was going on, creeping to one end of his particular Suburban shield. He poked his head around. An assault rifle twitched in his direction. Tim's target was decided for him and he pulled the trigger and hit his mark. The Japanese sniper was watching for that moment, aimed at Tim's rifle's muzzle flare and pulled his trigger. The round snapped the air near Tim's head, wet-your-pants close. Tim wet his lip instead, acquired a new target and sent off his own bullet in reply, a bullet sent with the advantage of higher terrain and better sight-lines. The Japanese sniper went down and didn't get back up again, his gambit a failure, but now the rest of the Japanese crime family present at the country estate knew exactly where Tim was hiding.
"Shit," said Raylan, understanding the significance of what just happened. Turning, he looked in Tim's direction, trying to spot him, but there was nothing but bush to be seen and he gave up, moving quickly to the other end of his SUV expecting the Yakuza to move in and surround him.
But all their focus was now on Tim. Eliminate that threat and Raylan's position was weakened to indefensible. The teams had a position on the mystery sniper and were moving carefully up the hill toward him.
Raylan could see the trouble headed Tim's way, but all that trouble was out of the range of his Glock. Short of a kamikaze run up the slope, there was nothing effective he could do. But he did what he could. He shifted to his feet, pushing his weight up an inch or two, and started firing indiscriminately over the hood of the vehicle he was using as cover hoping to get some of the attention aimed his way, improve the odds for Tim. But the Yakuza were a reasonably disciplined bunch, and they mostly ignored Raylan. One or two in the yard volleyed effectively enough with their semi-automatics that Duffy finally pulled Raylan back down.
"You're wasting ammunition."
"He's a sitting duck."
"He's a well-armed sitting duck."
"It won't matter."
"Nothing will matter if we don't get out of here."
For the second time that day Raylan was feeling helpless and it rankled. He wished he'd had the chance to grab an assault rifle, too. "Shit," he said, "I hate being in the debt of a cowardly sniper." He glared at Craig Franklin, and Franklin blanched. "How about I hand you a stick and you can charge them, go rescue that cowardly sniper?"
Franklin went whiter.
Tim gripped his handgun and took a breath, then another, waiting for the enemy to get closer before starting the turkey shoot. He didn't much like being the turkey.
The patrols closed the distance.
The range of his handgun was maybe a tenth of the assault rifles'; his magazine held half the rounds. Strategically, they were too close for his bolt-action rifle at this point. He might take down one or two before they zeroed in on him and turned him into a lace curtain with their automatics from a safe distance – best to wait until they were in range and try to take out as many as he could with his handgun, hopefully give Raylan a chance to make an opportunity for himself.
They continued moving forward toward him, keeping to cover, maybe fifty yards away now.
Yep, he was well and truly turkeyed. Miljana would be some pissed. He was some pissed. This was not the vacation he had in mind when he packed his gear and went hiking. Another breath and the man on point was within range, Tim fired twice, dropping him neatly and permanently, two more shots for a second, skittered a bullet off a third as the remainder dropped, too, for cover, and opened up on the suspicious pile of leaves.
A few more shots fired wildly, then Tim ducked and prayed and changed out his magazine. He could hear the bullets hitting around him, burying themselves deep in the leaves and logs piled at the front of his hide. Not great shooting, he thought, reactionary. Been there, done that. He remembered getting over it – that panicked trigger finger – sometime during his first combat rotation after being smoked for a good hour by his rifle squad leader back at base. Lesson learned: Don't shoot if you haven't got a target or a reason. He reminisced while waiting for a round to find flesh, or the firing to slow enough to offer an opportunity to engage. He pictured his sergeant, dog-tired from their mission, still in his combat gear, cursing him inventively and ferociously while managing to stand on one leg and keep his boot hovering over Tim's head at the exact height to force Tim to hold a plank, shaking arms not quite fully extended, a full ruck plus ammo on his back. He grinned into the dirt at the scene, remembered thinking at the time that things couldn't possibly get worse. He hated being so spectacularly wrong.
Crack.
Tim twitched at the new noise, back to the present. The vision of his sergeant vanished in the leaves pressed against his face while he strained to hear the sound that he swore he just heard.
Crack.
Someone firing a high-powered rifle, somewhere…to his right?
Crack.
Another shot, some urgent Japanese voices.
Crack.
He could no longer hear rounds hitting his hide.
Crack.
Cautiously lifting his head, Tim put an eye to the scope and zeroed in on the sniper rifle on the SUV below, but no one had volunteered to take the place of the dead man. That rifle was silent.
Crack.
No rounds splitting the air near his head.
Crack.
Weaver? A nice thought.
The Yakuza teams were scrambling for cover from the new threat, grouping on Tim's left. Tim lifted his head a bit more, peering over the berm he'd made for his rifle to rest on. Another body had joined the two that Tim had shot, and the distracted Yakuza were offering a few targets, so Tim chose one and aimed, fired two rounds and dropped another. Now they were retreating, skidding back down the hill away from Tim and toward better cover.
Raylan saw an opportunity to join in, pushed his gang down flat in the grass and fired over their heads at the teams on the ridge coming back his way.
Tim set down his handgun and got back in position behind his rifle. The three of them, Raylan, Weaver and Tim, now had the Yakuza separated and on the defensive again. One more fell among the bullets before they could regroup at the back of the house. Tim was happy not to be the turkey anymore, adjusted himself to a more comfortable hunting position and waited for a head to pop up.
But it was a .50 caliber machine gun that showed itself instead, pulled from the SUV closest to the road and set up on the hood. The Yakuza had had enough.
"Fuck." The word came out a mousy squeak. Frantically, Tim swung his barrel to the right side of the yard, hoping to get a shot at the man behind the machine gun. He could just make out the hands calmly and expertly loading the ammo belt into the feed tray, but no clear angle. He fired a round, heard it hit the shield. Where the fuck did they get that? he thought, watching helplessly, the bolt latch release locked down, fully automatic, the barrel adjusted his way. "Fuck," he repeated, once again burying himself into the forest floor.
Gug-gug-gug-gug-gug-gug-gug-gug-gug. The sound was unmistakable, devastating, petrifying. The woods around Tim exploded, leaves and wood splinters airborne in an organic fireworks show. A branch from the tree above, severed from the trunk, landed across Tim's legs.
Kurt shrieked; he and Franklin and Duffy managed to get even lower to the ground and covered their ears.
Gug-gug-gug-gug-gug-gug-gug.
"Fuck!"
Tim yelled it this time, aimed it at the .50 caliber rounds that were eating their way like Pac Man through his bit of forest. He pushed back up to man his rifle, reckless, desperate to finish this, put his eye to the scope, but instead of a huge mother-fucking bullet coming his way what he saw was the help he'd begged for, or maybe it was dumb luck. A black sedan appeared out of nowhere, manifesting somehow from between the air molecules, and careened headlong into the SUV where the machine gun was perched. The gug-gug-gug ended abruptly, the aural rift filled with the grind of two masses colliding, the groan of metal giving way, then a silence as loud as the battle.
Tim had to close his gaping mouth to form the word, "Fuck," one last time. He wasn't quite sure that he actually saw what he saw, but the mangle of machine gun, SUV and sedan was undeniably real.
A few other heads popped up behind vehicles, disbelief, staring, guns slowly raised again, Japanese voices, the battle winding up for a second round. But a cliché of well-timed sirens interrupted before another shot could be fired, Sheriff's cruisers and three US Marshals vehicles crowding the yard, more weapons, more yelling, southern midland American English mixed in with the Japanese, a bullhorn, a bull voice, Art, hands being raised, guns being dropped, orderly mayhem. Dumb luck or divine intervention – Tim didn't really care which – had arrived in force.
It ended a lot faster than it started.
Raylan picked up his hat and settled it on his head, then patted Kurt on the back and stood up, a cavalier smile and wave for Art.
Tim uncramped his hand from the trigger of his rifle and let his shoulders droop, the relief spreading to each limb as he watched Rachel and Art take control of the battlefield. His mouth gaped a second time when the door to the .50-caliber-machine-gun-defeating sedan opened and Nelson lurched out holding his head in one hand and his Glock in the other.
xxxxxxxxx