The Kiwi Target

Oldshire Station. We’ve been attacked and are on fire. Jack McHugh, the manager, has been shot. We need help, a doctor, an d the police.”
    ”Right away,” the operator said, her voice crisp and clear.
    Peter hung up and ran back to where the flames were still flooding the side of the house.
    Both Tom and Derek knew what they were doing. Derek was using a hose. Tom was working like a madman spading up soil from the lawn and flinging it onto what remained of the burning fuel.
    From the fire rack Peter seized another spade to help, but the first time he thrust the tool into the ground, his right shoulder burned with a fire of its own and he was forced to stop; he could endure no more. Staying on his feet with an effort, he went to Louise and took the rifle from her. “Look after Jack,” he said.
    He saw Louise run to her father and kneel down beside him. Because his own pain was pounding relentlessly, he was grateful to be standing still. The man on the ground moved occasionally, but he made no attempt to get to his feet.
    Another pair of headlights came into view, a truck stopped, and four men jumped out to help. After that it was much easier. Peter’s shoulder had frozen into position; he could not move it at all. For the first time he wondered if it was broken.
    To his left a light came on in the sky, and the sound of a helicopter grew rapidly in volume. Visibility had to be poor even in the bright moonlight, but with his landing light the pilot put the machine down smoothly on the far edge of the lawn.
    Louise appeared beside him. “That’ll be the doctor,” she said. “You’d better meet him.”
    Peter gave her back her rifle and ran toward the machine. The doctor lost no time in getting out. He was a big, burly man and bearded, with the authority of his profession surrounding him. Peter had never met him, but that didn’t matter. “Jack McHugh’s been shot,” he said. “He’s lying there on the lawn—we didn’t try to move him.”
    “You did right. Any others?”
    “Two of the three who attacked us. They may be dead; Louise shot them with a rifle.”
    “She isn’t likely to have missed,” the doctor said. Bag in hand, he hurried to look after Jack.
    In a moment or two Peter felt his tension begin to lessen. The fire was virtually out, and there was expert help on hand. Since he could do nothing more there, he went back to where Louise was standing guard over the prisoner. “I’ll take over,” he told her, and held out his left hand for the rifle.
    “No,” Louise said. “Leave him to me.” Her tone was not vengeful, but the man she was watching had shot her father.
    From inside the house the sound of the alarm bell came once more. Shortly a police car, its blue roof light rotating, came in and stopped. Sergeant Bill Woodley was first out, followed by two uniformed constables. Woodley took in the whole scene with one sweeping glance as Peter came to meet him. “We got a ‘most urgent’ from the telephone operator,” he said. “What happened, briefly?”
    “Three men attacked the station sometime after midnight. They set fire to the house, and when Jack came running out, they shot him.”
    “Did you see that?”
    “Yes. Louise shot one of them when he tried to kill me. Another one of them came charging across the lawn in a car, trying to hit Jack. She shot him, too.”
    Woodley nodded toward the silent wreck. “That’s the car, I take it.”
    “Yes. There’s a man on the south end of the lawn where Louise dropped him, dead or injured. Another one in the car.” Without using words, Woodley gestured to one of the constables to check out the man lying on the grass. The second he sent to inspect the car.
    “And the one Louise is holding?”
    “That’s the man who shot Jack. When I saw Jack go down, I took him out.”
    “How?”
    “With an open field tackle.”
    “Could you see that the man you faced had a gun?”
    “I didn’t have to.”
    “Of course. Then what did you do?”
    “I went after him. He took a shot at me but missed when I went into a broken field pattern. As soon as I was close enough, I made a diving tackle and took him down.”
    “You’re a football player?”
    “Yes.”
    The first constable came up to report. “He’s dead, sergeant. I’ll ask the doctor to confirm it, but he took a bullet right through the heart.”
    The other constable, looking slightly sick, came from the opposite direction. “There’s a corpse in the car,” he said.