Support and Defend Read Free Page B

property. At first he detected no movement other than an occasional shuffling in the chicken coop and a large lizard scurrying along the top of a wooden fence by the vegetable garden. But just as he was about to head back to the woodshed, he sensed motion in the dark closer to the house. He moved a few feet to the right and craned his neck farther to see what was there.
    He saw them now in the night. One hundred feet away stood two figures; at least one of them was armed with a weapon hanging from a sling over his shoulder. They both wore dark clothing and stood close to each other in the center of the backyard, facing Arik’s home.
    Dom thought one of them might have been wearing a mask, because no moonlight reflected off his facial features. He couldn’t tell anything about their ethnicity or their intentions, or even the make of the one weapon he saw. He tucked himself back into the palms and headed back to the Israeli, careful to move as silently as possible.
    When Dom arrived back behind the woodshed he almost passed Arik without seeing him.
    “Report,” Arik said, revealing himself in the near total darkness.
    “Two men. I saw one gun. SMG or some sort of little machine pistol. Couldn’t tell what kind. They are watching the house from the far side of the chicken coop. Are the guys in front armed?”
    “Micro-Uzi on one. He’s got a mask. Other one might have a pistol, but can’t see his hands clearly.”
    Dom’s mind was racing. “Shit. Any chance they are Indian police?”
    Yacoby shook his head.
    “What do you think?”
    “Two-man fire teams. It’s a classic fedayeen configuration.” Caruso knew fedayeen meant Islamic fighter.
    “Lashkar?” Dom asked. Lashkar-e-Taiba was a Pakistani based terrorist organization that had been active in India for years.
    “Maybe,” replied Arik, but he didn’t sound convinced.
    “You think they will hit the house?”
    Before Arik could reply, a woman’s shout cut through the hot night air. It was Hanna, Arik’s wife, Dom recognized it instantly. She sounded more confrontational than afraid, but her raised voice in the otherwise silent night was bone chilling.
    Yacoby lurched up, ready to run to the sound of his wife’s cry, but he caught himself and knelt back down. He whispered, “They already have. These are perimeter security. There are others inside. At least two. Could be more.”
    Dom looked to the Israeli with horror. He noted the relevant calm in Yacoby’s voice. He was intense, but there was no panic. He had to have been thinking about his wife and kids, but he somehow had the ability to push that aside and concentrate on the problem before him.
    Getting past the four men outside.
    Caruso asked, “How do you want to do it?”
    Arik kept his eyes on the bungalow. He spoke quickly but softly. “It would take a half-hour to get the local police here, and I have no confidence they won’t just make the situation worse. None of my neighbors have a landline or a firearm. I have to deal with this situation myself.”
    “Right.”
    “Hanna and I have a plan in the case of trouble. If she had time, she would have put the kids in the bathroom off our bedroom. That’s where I’m heading. I’m going straight for the house. Side door to the kitchen off the driveway.”
    “And me?”
    “You stay here. Watch the men in the back and sound an alert if there is trouble.”
    Caruso shook his head. “Not happening. I’m in this with you, all the way. I can cover you better in the house.”
    Arik did not turn his head to look at Dom, he gave only a slight nod, his eyes still riveted on the scene in front of him. “Good. We go for the side door together. Once inside, I’ll grab a kitchen knife and try to make it to my family on the second floor. You grab a knife and be ready to engage these four out here if they try to come in.”
    This sounded to Dom like a suicide mission, but he saw no other choice.
    Yacoby stood slowly, readied himself to move forward, but