The sixth novel, After the Dogfights, depicts the life of a man who is so twisted with his incredible wealth that he routinely brutalizes people who work for him and then buys their silence.  Until, that is, he comes up against the son of a man who died as a result of his brutality.  The son refuses to back off his wrongful death lawsuit against the rich man, and hires Sam and Nick to provide protection for his family .

In the following chapter, Nick encounters intruders when he is staying in the client’s house overnight.  Sam is sleeping at home, but had left Ronin, his 150 pound Akita, with Nick.  It’s Nick, Ronin and an Ithaca Model 37 against the assassins.

from After the dog fights

About 4:00 a.m. Ronin alerted and nudged Nick’s hand.  Nick’s light sleep instantly became alarm.  His body was moving even before he was fully awake and his fingertips were closing on the forend of the Model 37, which was propped against the couch near his pillow.  He checked that the Les Baer was still holstered, rolled off the couch onto his knees and flipped the bandolier of double-ought bucks and slugs over his shoulder.  Then he listened.  Holding the shotgun in his right hand, he softly stroked Ronin with his left.  The hair was up on Ronin’s back.  The man and the dog were dead still, listening, Nick on his knees and Ronin next to him in a stiff-legged Akita stance. 

There was a prolonged scraping noise in the kitchen.  The intruder was cutting a circle of glass in order to reach through and unlock the kitchen door, but Ronin had alerted when he stepped on the porch.  Someone was now pushing on the kitchen door, but it was not opening.  Nick had installed a deadbolt near the floor, and the door would not open.  As Nick moved toward the kitchen in a crouch, he could hear the intruder still struggling with the door. 

Nick took cover behind the wall of the dining room that led into the kitchen and extracted his cell phone.  He pushed speed dial 9, which would ring on Sam’s phone in such a way as to tell him Nick was in trouble.  He put the cell phone on the floor so that it could continue ringing.   Just as he resumed his position behind the wall, waiting to see what the intruder would do next, the door crashed to the floor as if propelled by a rocket.   The intruder, a 400 pounder, had put his shoulder to the door, and the whole assembly including the door and its frame fell into the kitchen with the intruder on top of it. 

By now, Nick was around the corner of the wall separating the dining room and the kitchen and his shotgun was shouldered.  As soon as the big man regained his feet and his head appeared over top of a kitchen island that stood between them, Nick hit the light mounted on the shotgun, identified the black-masked target, and fired.  The target went down.  Quickly, Nick changed positions, moving to the other side of the arch separating the two rooms.

No sooner had he moved than a burst of MP5 fire ripped through the plaster where he had been standing.  When Nick moved, Ronin moved, and he crouched near Nick’s feet.   The  harsh sound of submachine gun once again ripped through the room where Nick had been standing.  Plaster and wood splinters flew in little explosions through the room.

Nick did a quick peek around the corner to locate the MP5 but he saw nothing.  He ducked back in.  His instinct was to advance to a position behind the kitchen island because from there he could see approaches to the door, but he was concerned that another intruder would enter somewhere behind him and get to the second floor while he was engaged in the kitchen.  He retreated to the living room to protect the stairway. 

Nick and Ronin were now crouched behind an overstuffed chair in the living room.  The stairway was fifteen meters to his right; the arch to the dining room was fifteen meters to his left.  Within a minute, he heard glass crunch in the kitchen.   It was probably the MP5 shooter, but it was uncertain where the intruder would go from there.  The house was set up so that he could go into the dining room and then into the living room past Nick, or he could go directly into a hallway and bypass the dining room altogether and approach the stairs from the hall.  If he did that, it would put him to Nick’s right.

From his position behind the chair, Nick could cover the stairway and also an intruder’s entrance into the living room from the kitchen. He leveled the shotgun at the arch leading to the dining room and the kitchen.  Ronin’s brown and black markings made him look like part of the floor and he stayed perfectly still, awaiting commands from Nick.

Nick did not hear the intruder come into the dining room, but he saw that Ronin was staring intently toward the dining room and the hair was up on his back.  Nick tightened his grip on the Model 37 and prepared for an attack. 

In Bloomfield, five miles away, Sam was already out of bed, slightly disoriented, a .45 in his hand, grabbing his pants, pulling them on, and jamming the Les Baer .45 into its holster.  He slid into his velcro sneakers, and slipped into a black t-shirt.  On his way out of the bedroom, he snagged his battle harness, which was ready and hanging on the door knob, and began fastening the tek-locs on the front of the harness.  The harness contained seven loaded .45 magazines, four twenty round M4 magazines, a Barbolight  flashlight on a lanyard, emergency medical dressings, and a six inch Ruana bowie knife. 

Sam took the stairs down two at a time and raced out the kitchen door, not even closing it on his way out.  The Audi was parked in the driveway and it beeped quietly as he activated the unlocking device.  Sam threw open the door and knocked himself hard in the head getting in.  He saw stars, but he fumbled for the ignition, willing himself to keep going, cursing at the pain in his head.  He finally found the ignition slot and started the big V8.  All four wheels bit in as he jammed the car into gear and accelerated in reverse out of the driveway.  He hit the street more by feel and sound than by sight.  The rear wheels hit the dip into the street and sparks flew when the frame scraped as the car continued out of the driveway.  As soon as he felt the rear wheels hit the dip, Sam quickly jammed on the brakes and steered right, sending the big car into a four wheel slide to the left.  He expertly snicked the selector into second gear and floored the accelerator, sending the 4.2 liter engine  into a roaring compliance that shot the car like a bullet down the residential street.   Sam steered into the corner of Friendship and Pacific at 5000 rpm, jamming on full throttle halfway through the turn.  The motor screamed like a lost soul thrown into the fires of hell, pulled the car around the corner with all four wheels spinning and left black marks on the pavement.  It was 4:12 a.m.

Ronin, meanwhile, had moved closer to Nick’s leg, as he was trained to do.  He lay flat on the floor and Nick could feel the vibration of Ronin’s low, almost silent growl and he stared at the dining room.  

In a flash almost too quick to see, the intruder did a quick peek into the living room and then ducked back behind the wall separating the living room from the dining room.  Nick quickly reached into his bandolier and removed a Brenneke slug.  This was a huge slug of lead with fins for stability that would penetrate stuff that double ought buck would not.  Nick released the round in the chamber, fingered in the Breneke, closed the chamber, and fired into the wall.  Instantly, he heard a thunk and then a scream as the slug penetrated the wall and hit the man behind it. 

But the intruder was wearing armor, and although the slug tore through his left arm rendering it useless, he was still able to fire the MP5.  The intruder realized that he had to act before he lost too much blood, and he stepped into the opening of the arch firing at where he imagined his opponent was located.  Again, Nick was ready.  He illuminated his target with the blinding Malkoff light fixed on his shotgun, and fired two quick rounds, hitting the assailant in the head.

As the shotgun’s light went off and the assailant’s body lay on the floor just inside the archway, there were popping sounds and something was hitting the floor all around him.  Nick realized that the sound was submachine gun fire.  His first thought was that someone had somehow got upstairs and was shooting, but then he realized that holes were appearing in the floor as the machine gun clattered.

Someone was in the basement shooting up, and they were shooting at the sound of the shotgun.  All the intruders were apparently all armed with submachine guns and the shooter in the basement was identifying Nick’s position by the shotgun blast.

He had to get out of there.  The realization was still being processed in his mind when Nick threw himself forward, heading toward the fallen body of the man he had just shot.  The shooter in the basement wouldn’t shoot in that direction.  But just as he cleared the chair, another intruder appeared near the stairs in the archway that led to the stairs.  The intruder  had come into the kitchen with his companion and they had split up, one going into the dining room and this one going into the hall leading to the stairs.  The intruder near the stairs fired at the sound of Nick’s movement and caught him in the middle of the room, hitting him with three rounds in the legs.  Nick fell and turned, firing at the new threat as he fell.  Two pellets hit the intruder’s vest and another two hit his arms, but he was able to fire another burst, again hitting Nick in the shoulder and chest.  Nick fell unconscious.

Seeing that Nick was down, the intruder slow-shuffle-stepped toward Nick, preparing the shoot him in the head when he got close enough to see clearly where he was hitting. 

In the midst of his next shuffle step, his gun trained on Nick’s body and his gaze intently watching for any sign of movement, he was hit from the side by a force that seemed something like a rocket propelled battering ram.  He fell to the side and backwards, completely disoriented.  His head, covered by a black balaclava the same as his companions, hit the floor, stunning him and loosening his grip on his weapon.  His next thought was that something was driving nails into his face and banging his head on the floor.   He screamed and flailed against the thing, whatever it was, but there was no light.  Everything was pitch black.  Even the ambient light in the room was mysteriously gone.  Maybe he was in hell. 

Actually he was very much alive.  He couldn’t see because his eyes were just inside Ronin’s mouth.  The nails that were being driven into his face were actually Ronin’s canine teeth.  They were penetrating the skull on either side of his eyes.

He had been knocked to the ground by a hundred fifty pound Akita running at full speed.  Ronin hit him with his paws and with the mass of his chest and then landed on the assailant’s chest as the intruder banged his head against the floor.  Going for the kill once the assailant was down, the big dog regained his balance, shifted his weight, and clamped down on the man’s face, penetrating the assaillant’s facial bones on either side of his eyes. 

Ronin dragged the assailant’s body back and forth across the floor as he maintained his grip on the man’s face and shook his head violently, lifting the man’s shoulders off the floor with each shake.

Meanwhile Claude and Jill had gathered their terrified boys and retreated to the safe area of the house, the third floor.  Claude threw all four of the deadbolts that he and Sam had just installed on the door and took his family to the bedroom with the coil of rope.  That door too could be locked with a deadbolt, and they would go out the window, down ten feet or so to a flat roof, only if they heard someone breaking in the door to the third floor.

The man in the basement had been whispering urgently into his headset for one of the other three intruders to answer him.  “Where the hell are you?  What’s happening?  Is everybody all right?”

There was no response and the only sound he could hear was something like a lion growling and banging something on the floor.  Thud,  Thud.  Thud.  More growling.  He had to assume the worst.  His companions were down and it was left to him to go into plan b.  Whatever that was upstairs, it was not friendly.  Maybe they had a big dog that would attack him as he tried to escape.  He fired a long burst through the floor hitting his companion thirteen times and Ronin twice.  Ronin yelped and fell over, whimpering, not knowing what had happened.

The man in the basement threw his MP5 down, all his magazines empty now, and quickly moved to the two five gallon cans of gasoline he had carried in through the basement window.  He moved the cans to opposite ends of the basement and tipped each over, spilling gasoline onto the floor.  He then hoisted himself up and out the window he had come in, looked around, making sure that there were no threats close by, and then turned back to the window, holding it open with one hand while he fired a flare into the basement with the other.  The entire basement went a brilliant  orange instantly with a whoosh and the heat of intense fire.  Timbers, floorboards, and debris lying around the basement were instantly involved in a tornado of fire and heat.

Upstairs, smoke was fast drifting through the house and on the first floor, orange fire could be seen through parts of the floor.  On the third floor, Claude and Jill smelled the smoke also, and Claude quickly threw the rope out the window.  It stretched to the ground and past the flat roof ten feet below.

They took the descent in stages.  Claude went down the rope to the flat roof and then each boy, then Jill. The next leg down was to the box gutter along the roofline of the house.  Box gutters are built into the ceiling rafters of the old houses.   The rafters extend outside the house and support a wooden box which contains the gutters.  This makes the gutters strong enough to stand on.  Using the rope, Claude walked down the roof to the box gutter, where he was able to stand.  Smoke was now coming out the basement windows and some windows on the first floor. 

The boys and Jill next walked down the roof using the rope.  Claude explained they would just do the same thing going down the rest of the way.  They would grab onto the knots and walk against the side of the house until they got to the ground.  There were some protests that were quickly met with parental anger.  “You’ll do it, goddam it.  Or you’ll die.  And you’ll kill me too because I’ll have to come back here to get you.  Watch me.  Go slow.  Grab each knot and just walk.  You’ll be o.k.”  Full of fear and confusion, they all followed Claude down the rope and to safety of the ground.

The family was huddled in a smoke stained group near a huge rhododendron bush when Sam’s Audi came screaming down Lange Avenue and slid into the driveway.  The car stopped half on the lawn and half in the driveway.   Sam emerged at a full run, an M4 in his hand, glanced at the family, saw that they were all there, and then dashed into the kitchen through the shredded door.

Smoke was everywhere and as he stepped into the kitchen, he stumbled and fell over the body of the four hundred pound intruder.  Rising to his hands and knees, he yelled, “Nick, Nick, where are you?”

To his right, through the dining room, Ronin barked.  It was a subdued bark, not like Ronin at all.  Crawling low into the living room, Sam called again.  Again, Ronin barked, and then he saw him.  Ronin had Nick by the collar and was trying to drag his body toward the kitchen door.  The big dog was backing toward the door with Nick’s shirt in his mouth, dragging Nick a few inches in short spurts of energy, straining, slipping and falling in the effort. 

Flames were everywhere now.  The draperies were blazing in bright oranges and blues and smoke billowed out of every opening in the floor and the walls.  You could not see the stairs at all. 

“Good boy,” Sam said to Ronin. 

Ronin whimpered and dropped to the floor in exhaustion, relinquishing to Sam his job of rescuing Nick.  And then Sam saw that there was blood on Ronin’s neck and legs and he realized Ronin had been hit.

He dropped the rifle and grabbed Nick by the bandolier of shotgun shells. 

“I’ll come back for you boy.  You know that.  Wait for me here.  It’s o.k.”

Then Sam launched himself on his belly, dragging Nick by the bandolier, back toward the kitchen door, pulling with all  his strength.  When he got to the body of the intruder just in front of the door, he had to pull Nick over top of the huge man to get him out.  On the concrete porch outside the kitchen door, Sam, still on the ground, slid down the steps himself pulling Nick after him down to the yard.  Claude ran over and helped him drag Nick clear and onto the lawn. 

Sam was blackened with soot and smoke and was coughing almost uncontrollably. 

“Jesus, Sam,” Claude said.

“Listen to me,” Sam gasped.  “Take my keys and get out of here.  Go to the airport.  They have your tickets there.  Don’t wait for the police.  They’ll hold you up and you’ll end up dead.  Go.”

“But what about you?”

“We’ll be fine.  Nick is breathing.  Go.  The first fire truck is here.  Don’t wait any longer.  Get out of here.”

Sam got to his feet and was getting his bearings and trying to shake himself out of a smoke-induced stupor when the fire captain came up to him.

“What happened here?  Are you o.k.?”

“Take care of my partner.  I think he’s been shot.  I gotta go back.”

“No way buddy.”

“Get out of my way, Sam coughed.” 

Sam’s face was black, he was coughing black flem, his clothes were singed, and he seemed to be armed with every weapon known to man.  The fire captain was accustomed to being in charge at the scene of a fire and he had stopped many people from going back into burning buildings, but he could see that this was not your normal situation. 

“You’ll die,” the fire captain said.

“My dog’s in there,” Sam coughed.

Sam tried to get his breath and looked at the house, which was, by now, fully involved with smoke billowing out the third floor windows and the roof.  Flames exploded out the basement and the first floor windows.  He couldn’t wait another second.  He would die rather than leave Ronin behind. 

The next thing Sam  knew, he was diving through the kitchen door and landing on the enormous body of the fallen intruder.  Instantly, he called Ronin and headed back into the dining room.  He heard nothing in response to his call.  Even on his belly, the smoke was now thick on the floor.   Knowing that he would quickly pass out with the smoke this thick, Sam reached into his medical dressing pouch and pulled out a thick gauze dressing which he quickly cinched around his mouth and nose.  Then he belly crawled through the dining room, feeling the heat so intense that he wondered if his entire body would be burned to a blackened shell.

Just then he bumped into Ronin.  The dog was unconscious.  Reversing directions, Sam grabbed Ronin by he collar and belly crawled back toward the kitchen door, struggling forward an inch at a time.  His strength was failing and it seemed that he was inside a furnace.  An overwhelming exhaustion was coming on.  Maybe he couldn’t make it.  Just then, he bumped into the huge body of the dead intruder.  It was impossible to tell how long he had been inside the inferno, but he had made it back to the door.  Adrenalin surged and he pulled Ronin over top of the enormous body, just as he had pulled Nick, and he tumbled out onto the concrete slab of the porch. 

Within seconds, a powerful stream of water hit him and pushed him a little sideways.  He could see steam rising from his body and Ronin’s and he could hear his clothes sizzling in the cold spray of water.  He lost consciousness with his arm around his dog.

Steel City VI will be published at some future date.