The Argentine Major who Cabrillo had talked his way past at the logging camp jumped from view. The automatic’s report had been concussive in the foyer, but Juan could hear voices outside. The Major wasn’t alone.

Cabrillo ignored his mind’s desire to understand what had just happened. He leapt forward and slammed the door closed. The lock was about the cheapest made and yet he threw it anyway. Every second could count.

Max tackled a stunned James Ronish so that they hit the floor together, Hanley’s arm over the older man’s back. Cabrillo ducked through into the kitchen, found the light switch, and flicked it off. He then padded into the living room and simply knocked the floor lamp onto its side. The dim bulb went out with a pop. Next, he snapped off the television, plunging the old house into complete darkness.

“What’s going on?” Ronish wailed.

“More of my reckless youth coming back to haunt me,” Cabrillo muttered, and flipped over a moth-eaten couch for additional cover.

Seconds ticked by. Max helped Ronish over to Juan’s makeshift redoubt.

“How many?”

“At least two,” Juan said. “The one at the door is an officer of the Ninth Brigade.”

“I figured since you shot at him that he wasn’t selling Avon.” The front picture window exploded under a murderous onslaught of gunfire. Glass rained on the men as they cowered behind the sofa. The house’s thin walls didn’t slow the high-powered rounds, so smoking holes appeared in the wallboard. The bullets passed through the living room, and probably didn’t stop until they hit trees in Ronish’s backyard.

“Those are rifles,” Max said. He had his pistol out now but looked at it dubiously. Judging by the rate of fire screaming overhead, they weren’t just outgunned, they were outmanned as well.

“Do you have any weapons?” Juan asked.

To his credit, the old man answered quickly, “Yeah. I got a .357 in my bedside table and a 30.06 in the closet. The rifle’s empty, but the ammo’s on the top shelf under a bunch of baseball caps. Last door on the left.”

Before Cabrillo could retrieve the guns, an Argentine round slammed into one of the oxygen tanks Ronish kept for when he ran errands. The bullet blew through the tough steel skin and fortunately the oxygen didn’t explode, but the twenty-pound bottle took off like a rocket. It crashed into the dining-room table, snapping a leg and sending it crashing under the weight of old magazines.

Next, it hit the couch hard enough to shove it into the men hiding behind it and then punched a hole in the Sheetrock wall, before dropping to the floor. It spun like a top until the last of the gas escaped.