Behind one of the boulders, over a football field away, she saw a hint of movement.
Parkowski used her thumb to move the rifle’s safety to the “single” position.
Placing its butt against her good shoulder, she leaned out to the window and put her eye against the rifle’s optic.
Whatever had been there was gone.
Parkowski was about to pull back when she saw a dark figure lean out of the boulder’s right side.
She moved the rifle so that the crosshair was right over it and fired.
Big mistake.
Parkowski had forgotten that the glass was mostly still there.
It shattered, blowing shards everywhere, including one back into the rifle’s scope.
The spent piece of brass bounced on the worn hardwood floor.
“Shit,” she said. Parkowski leaned back to check her rifle’s optic as a hail of bullets slammed into the house.
Thankfully, the walls were thick enough to stop any from penetrating through them.
The rest shredded Chang’s couch.
Her scope was fine. A piece of glass had gotten into it, but she deftly removed it and threw it on the floor.
Parkowski leaned back and fired, almost blindly, into the night.
One, two, three, four trigger pulls.
One, two, three, four rounds went out towards the boulder.
The first was fairly accurate.
The next three went wild, all high.
Parkowski leaned back as the assailants — there had to be more than one — returned fire.
Even with her earplugs in, she could hear the supersonic bullets slam into the house.
Only a few pieces of glass remained in the corners, the rest of the window completely obliterated. The rest had been shot out by her opponents.
She was no firearm expert, but the people outside — whoever they were — seemed to be firing different weapons than the submachine guns in the frantic chase from Los Angeles to Barstow. From their description, Chang had told her that their weapon of choice was a Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine gun, firing a 9 mm round that matched her shoulder wound, with a distinct chatter. The rounds being fired at her now were larger, with a louder report, probably from a rifle not unlike her own.
Did that mean that they were with a different organization?
Or did it mean that they were experts, who had selected a different weapon with increased range?
Parkowski did some mental math. There were thirty rounds in the magazine to start, and she had expended five. That left twenty-five before she had to reload.
But she realized she had been trying to do too much. Parkowski had neglected to grab an extra magazine from the duffel bag.
She took a deep breath and poked her head around the edge of the window, just enough to see the expanse between the road and the house.
This time, she didn’t see anything.
As she pulled her head back, another hail of bullets slammed into the house, most just above where her crouched body was.
They had night vision — or even worse, thermal — goggles too.
“Fuck,” Parkowski said.
Another coordinated volley came in from the boulders.
She wasn’t sure what their endgame was. They hadn’t made any attempt to communicate, to ask for their surrender. They had just started shooting when she appeared in the window with her rifle.
Parkowski became hyper-aware of a different sound, a lower, harsher crack close to her position.
Her boyfriend had switched weapons.
She leaned out and fired another pair of bullets in the vague direction of her assailants, then leaned back to safety.
Just what were they trying to do?
Her heart beat faster than it ever had before. One wrong move, one miscalculation, and she would die under a hail of bullets fired by people much more skilled than her.
Parkowski wished more than anything she could talk with her boyfriend. DePresti was an acquisition officer, an engineer — the farthest thing from a combat expert — but his time in the military had rubbed off on him. Whatever basic combat training he had experienced was definitely paying off. He seemed cool, collected, and ready to defend the house. But, they hadn’t figured out any method to communicate once the bullets started flying.
They hadn’t had time.
There was a strange lull, a pause in the response by their enemy.
She wasn’t sure why.
Parkowski poked her head out, kept it there.
No response.
She leaned back. “Mike!” she screamed, barely able to hear the sound of her own voice through her earplugs.
A moment later he appeared next to her.
DePresti’s face was bloody, but he looked coherent and his hazel eyes were locked in.
“What happened?” Parkowski asked as she carefully took a fingernail-sized shard of glass out of his cheek.
“Window exploded into me,” DePresti said loudly. “I’m fine, it missed my eyes.”
“What are they doing?” she questioned.
He shrugged. “I honestly have no idea. If I were them, I’d coordinate my assault so that one group can advance while the other pins us down, then repeat the process. I don’t know what their end game is.”
“Me either,” Parkowski said. “Do they want to capture us, or do they want us dead?”
DePresti shrugged. He handed her a pair of magazines. “Use these wisely.”
