He saw the dilation of Scar’s pupils, the bead of sweat on his temple, heard the floorboard creak under Tiny’s weight as he stepped closer. Mike’s brain, trained by decades of special operations, instantly calculated the tactical solution. Threat One: Scar.
Contact distance. Weapon: shotgun in right hand, muzzle down, finger off the trigger. Left hand reaching for a grab.
Threat Two: Tiny. Distance: six feet, to the right. Hands empty, bat still in the pack. Dangerous due to size.
Threat Three: Jimmy. Distance: nine feet, by the table. Holding the service pistol he just found.
He doesn’t know how to use it, but he might fire out of panic. Priority: neutralize the leader, use him as a shield, seize the weapon. Mike didn’t wait.
His left hand flashed upward with unnatural speed, intercepting Scar’s wrist. Simultaneously, his right hand delivered a short, devastating palm strike to the underside of Scar’s chin. There was a sickening crack.
The thug’s jaw slammed shut with enough force to shatter teeth and cause an immediate concussion. Scar didn’t even have time to scream. His eyes rolled back, and his knees buckled.
But Mike didn’t let him fall. He yanked the limp body toward him, spinning it to face Jimmy. In the same motion, Mike stripped the shotgun from the leader’s failing grip.
“What the—” Tiny managed to yell, staring in shock as the frail old man turned into a blur of motion. Jimmy panicked and raised the pistol. His hands were shaking.
“Don’t move! I’ll shoot!” he screamed, pointing the barrel at Mike, who was now safely tucked behind Scar’s semi-conscious body. “Drop the gun, kid!” Mike growled from behind his human shield.
His voice sounded like grinding stone. “That pistol isn’t loaded. I keep the mags separate.” It was a bluff. A partial bluff.
The magazine was in the gun, but there wasn’t a round in the chamber. And the old slide required a heavy pull that a panicked city kid might not know how to manage. Jimmy hesitated, looking from the gun to Mike.
Animal terror filled his eyes. He pulled the trigger. Click!
Nothing. The hammer dropped on an empty chamber. That split second was all Mike needed. He shoved Scar’s heavy body directly into Tiny.
Tiny instinctively reached out to catch his leader, losing his balance as he tripped over the scattered furniture. Mike didn’t fire the shotgun. In the small room, the blast would have deafened him, and the long barrel was clumsy for close quarters.
He used the buttstock. Stepping forward, he delivered a precise strike to Tiny’s knee. Tiny howled, collapsing to the floor and clutching his leg. The pain was paralyzing. Only Jimmy was left.
The kid, realizing the gun wouldn’t fire, threw it at Mike in a panic and bolted for the door, tripping over the mess they’d made. “Stay put!” Mike roared. But Jimmy was already out the door and into the freezing darkness of the gathering dusk.
Mike paused for a second. Two down, one on the run. The situation had shifted, but it wasn’t over.
Scar was out cold. Tiny was on the floor, moaning. But Jimmy… Jimmy was outside, and he might have his own weapon, the one he’d arrived with.
More importantly, he’d run into the woods. The woods Mike knew by heart, but where darkness made a stray bullet a deadly lottery. Mike reached down and picked up his service pistol from the floor.
With a practiced motion, he racked the slide. A round seated perfectly. The weapon was hot.
He looked at the thugs on the floor. “Stay quiet if you want to keep breathing!” he snapped at Tiny, who looked at him with pure terror. The big man’s eyes asked the silent question: “Who are you?”
Mike didn’t answer. He threw his jacket back on and stepped toward the door. The hunt was just beginning.
They had come to his home. They had threatened him. They had touched his past. Now they would find out why there had once been a bounty on his head that no one was ever able to collect.
Stepping onto the porch, Mike inhaled the freezing air. Adrenaline surged through him, washing away the aches of age. He felt twenty years younger.
Jimmy’s tracks in the snow were clear—deep ruts from a panicked run. He hadn’t run toward the road where they’d likely left their car; he’d run deeper into the brush, toward the ravines. Fool.
In the ravines, the snow was waist-deep, and that was where the wild things lived. Mike checked the magazine of the shotgun he’d taken from Scar. Four shells.
Plus a full mag in his pistol. More than enough for one scared kid. But something was bothering the old operator.
The intuition that had saved him a hundred times whispered that this was too simple. Three city punks in the middle of nowhere? How did they find the cabin?
Who tipped them off? And why were they so sure he had money? He stepped off the porch, walking silently, like a ghost…
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