Daemon

The sheer force and loudness of the crash sent Sebeck running for the nearest high ground – a garden wall.
    Screams of pain came to his ears from the pinned officers. He looked back and saw the Hummer seesawing backward as its gears whined. It swung wide and winged a fleeing officer with its fender. The man went rolling across the courtyard. Turning on him, the Hummer screeched forward before he could get up. The deputy went shrieking under its wheels. His body was dragged halfway across the courtyard before it fell loose.
    Sebeck screamed in rage and emptied his pistol at the rear of the Hummer while it chased down two agents fleeing toward a garden pond.
    An agent with a pump shotgun ran up to it as it passed by. He fired two rounds into it, blasting out its windows and sending pieces of plastic flying. He kept firing as it drove on.
    Shouts filled the courtyard now. Nearby, Sebeck saw Decker screaming into his radio, ‘… do you copy?’
    Back at the estate gates, Deputy Karla Gleason stood taking in the sun and watching for the expected arrival of the media. There hadn’t been any radio calls from the mansion – which was odd – but she stood next to her patrol car, attentive and wondering what the mansion would fetch on the real estate market.
    Across the driveway, Deputy Gil Trevetti stood next to his cruiser, waving a curious passenger car on by. That’s when the crackling of gunfire reached Gleason’s ears. She and Trevetti exchanged looks, then ran for the fence line.
    Everything looked normal. The mansion was partially masked by trees, so none of the police vehicles were visible from here. But now the gunfire crackled like firecrackers. It was an unbelievable amount of sustained shooting. Maybe it
was
fireworks.
    Gleason pressed the button on her shoulder radio. ‘Unit 920 to any available Blue Team member: 10-73?’
    No response.
    ‘Repeat. Unit 920 to any available Blue Team member: 10-73?’
    A distant truck engine raced, then a crash.
    ‘What the hell’s going on, Gil?’
    The unmistakable boom of a shotgun reached them over the grounds. Five shots in five seconds. Gleason shot skeet. She knew that sound well. She pressed the button on her shoulder radio. ‘920 to Control, multiple 10-57 at 1215 Potrero Road. Repeat, multiple, multiple 10-57. Code 30. Radio contact lost with Blue Team.’
    The courtyard was chaos as the Hummer roared back in from the garden and smashed headlong into the ambulance, sending glass and metal debris flying. It surged ahead, pushing the ambulance sideways at the mouth of the driveway – blocking the exit.
    The entire time, officers laid down sustained gunfire on it, pocking its body with bullet holes. The bullets didn’t appear to have much effect, even though some of the Hummer’s sensors now dangled loose on wires.
    It slalomed across the courtyard, finally locking in on an agent firing at it from the garage. The man stopped shooting and ran for cover through the doorway.
    The Hummer plowed through the entire wall after him and emerged on the far side, leaving shards of two-by-fours and shattered walls toppling in its wake.
    Sebeck fired the last of his third clip into its rump as it roared back out into the garden. He added his own voice to the shouting and the cries of the injured. ‘Nathan!’
    ‘Here, Pete!’ Nathan came running across the courtyard with a shotgun and a box of shells in his hand. Several car trunks were wrenched open in the wreckage, and the officers raided them for heavier weapons.
    Sebeck pointed to the bomb squad truck. ‘Stay with Mr Ross, and make sure he gets out of here. He has information the FBI needs.’
    ‘What about you?’
    ‘I’ll help with the wounded. Move!’
    Nathan gave him one last look, then raced off toward the bomb squad van. Sebeck dodged between damaged police vehicles and almost slipped on blood as he raced across the cobblestones. A severed arm lay next to a crumpled bumper. His mind had trouble wrapping itself around the sights and smells. Officers were trying to get a bleeding FBI agent out from under a smashed sedan before the Hummer returned. The wounded man screamed in agony and fear.
    Nearby, Sebeck saw Aaron Larson attended to by an FBI agent and another deputy. Larson looked to be in tremendous pain. He was standing up, sandwiched between two damaged patrol cars.
    Sebeck turned and called across the courtyard. ‘Get thattruck over here! We need to pull these cars apart!’ He holstered his