Oath of Office. Jack Mars

projectile fly toward the house. It hit the glass door and punched through into the main room.

      A different man popped up and fired another canister. Then a third man fired yet another. All the tear gas canisters burst through the glass and into the house. The glass door was gone. On Brown’s screen, the area near the foyer began to fill with smoke.

      “Status downstairs?” Brown said. A few seconds passed.

      “Status!”

      “No worries, matey,” the Australian said. “A little smoke, so what? We’ve got our masks on.”

      “Fire when ready,” Brown said.

      He watched as the men at the sliding door opened fire toward the dock. The invaders were pinned down out there. They couldn’t get up from behind their ballistic shields. And Brown’s men had stacks of ammunition ready.

      “Good shooting, boys,” he said into the walkie-talkie. “Be sure to sink their boat while you’re at it.”

      Brown smirked to himself. They could hold out here for days.

*

      It was a rout. There were men down all over the place.

      Luke walked toward the house, scanning carefully. The worst of the shooting was coming from a man in the upstairs window. He was making Swiss cheese out of these cops. Luke was close to the side of the house. From his angle he didn’t have a shot, but the man also probably couldn’t see him.

      As Luke watched, the bad guy finished a downed cop with a kill shot to the back of the neck.

      “Ed, how’s your look on that upstairs shooter?”

      “I can put one right down his throat. Pretty sure he doesn’t see me over here.”

      Luke nodded. “Let’s do that first. It’s getting messy out here.”

      “You sure you want that?” Ed said.

      Luke studied the upstairs. The windowless room was on the far side of the house from the sniper’s nest.

      “I’m still banking they’re in that room with no windows,” he said.

      Please.

      “Just say the word,” Ed said.

      “Go.”

      Luke heard the distinctive hollow report of the grenade launcher.

      Doonk!

      A missile flew from behind the line of cars across the street. It had no arc – just a sharp flat line zooming up on a diagonal. It hit right where the window was. A split second passed, then:

      BANG.

      The side of the house blew outward, chunks of wood, glass, steel, and fiberglass. The gun in the window went silent.

      “Nice, Ed. Real nice. Now give me that hole in the wall.”

      “What do you say?” Ed said.

      “Pretty please.”

      Luke raced around and ducked behind a car.

      Doonk!

      Another flat line zoomed by, four feet above the ground. It hit the side of the house like a car crash, and punched a gaping wound through the wall. A fireball erupted inside, spitting smoke and debris.

      Luke nearly jumped up.

      “Hold on,” Ed said. “One more on its way.”

      Ed fired again, and this one went deep into the house. Red and orange flared through the hole. The ground trembled. Okay. It was time to go.

      Luke climbed to his feet and started running.

*

      The first explosion was above his head. The entire house shook from it. Brown glanced at the upstairs hallway on his screen.

      The far end of it was gone. The spot where Smith had been stationed was no longer there. There was just a ragged hole where the window and Mr. Smith used to be.

      “Mr. Smith?” Brown said. “Mr. Smith, are you there?”

      No answer.

      “Anybody see where that came from?”

      “You’re the eyes, Yank,” came a voice.

      They had trouble.

      A few seconds later, a rocket hit the front of the house. The shockwave knocked Brown off his feet. The walls were collapsing. The kitchen ceiling suddenly caved in. Brown lay on the floor among falling junk. This had gone the opposite of what he expected. Cops rammed down doors – they didn’t fire rockets through walls.

      Another rocket hit, this one deep inside the house. Brown covered his head. Everything shook. The whole house could come down.

      A moment passed. Someone was screaming now. Otherwise, it was quiet. Brown jumped up and ran for the stairs. On the way out of the room, he grabbed his handgun and one grenade.

      He passed through the main room. It was carnage, a slaughterhouse. The room was on fire. One of the Beards was dead. More than dead – blown to shredded pieces all over the place. The Australian had panicked and taken his mask off. His face was covered in dark blood, but Brown couldn’t tell where he was hit.

      “I can’t see!” the man screamed. “I can’t see!”

      His eyes were wide open.

      A man in body armor and helmet stepped calmly through the shattered wall. He quieted the Australian with an ugly blat of automatic gunfire. The Australian’s head popped apart like a cherry tomato. He stood without a head for a second or two, and then dropped bonelessly to the floor.

      The second Beard lay on the ground near the back door, the double-steel reinforced door which Brown had been so delighted about just a few moments ago. The cops were never going to get through that door. Beard #2 was cut up from the explosion, but still in the fight. He dragged himself to the wall, propped himself upright, and reached for the gun strapped at his shoulder.

      The intruder shot Beard #2 in the face at point-blank range. Blood and bone and gray matter splattered against the wall.

      Brown turned and stormed up the stairs.

*

      The air was thick with smoke, but Luke saw the man bolt for the stairs. He glanced around the room. Everyone else was dead.

      Satisfied, he took the stairs at a run. His own breathing sounded loud in his ears.

      He was vulnerable here. The stairs were so narrow it would be the perfect time for someone to spray gunfire down on him. No one did.

      At the top, the air was clearer than below. To his left was the shattered window and wall where the sniper had taken position. The sniper’s legs were on the floor. His tan work boots pointed in opposite directions. The rest of him was gone.

      Luke went right. Instinctively, he ran to the room at the far end of the hall. He dropped his Uzi in the hallway. He took the pump shotgun off his shoulder and dropped that, too. He slid his Glock from its holster.

      He turned left and into the room.

      Becca and Gunner sat tied to two folding chairs. Their arms were pulled behind their backs. Their hair was wild, as if some funny person had just mussed it with his hand. Indeed, a man stood behind them. He dropped two black hoods to the floor and placed the muzzle of his gun to the back of Becca’s head. He crouched very low, putting Becca in front of him as a human shield.

      Becca’s eyes were very wide. Gunner’s were tightly closed. He was weeping uncontrollably. His entire body shook with silent sobs. He had wet his pants.

      Was it worth it?

      To see them like this, helpless, in terror, had it been worth it? Luke had helped stop a coup d’état the night before. He had saved the new President from almost certain death, but was it worth this?

      “Luke?” Becca said, as if she didn’t recognize him.

      Of course she didn’t. He pulled his helmet off.

      “Luke,” she said. She gasped, maybe in