Chapter 5 - Fire in the Night
By three in the morning, the temperature had plummeted to near freezing.
I hadn't slept. After Julian left, I brought the steel ammunition can into the kitchen, set up my camp stove to brew a pot of bitter black coffee, and spent four hours combing through the records Thomas Carter had left behind.
Grandpa had been meticulous. A career Master Chief doesn't simply hoard paper; he compiles an actionable operational dossier.
There were bank transfer slips from offshore accounts in the Caymans directly to Robert's private LLC. There were recorded transcripts of telephone conversations between Robert and Gregory Vance detailing plans to dump dredged industrial sludge from the Elizabeth River onto the back forty acres of Blackwood Farm to establish an environmental exemption before rezoning.
Robert wasn't just a desperate debtor; he was an active conspirator in an environmental crime that would have poisoned the local water table for three counties.
A sudden, low whine from Knox snapped me out of the documents.
I glanced up. The dog was standing by the back kitchen door, his head lowered, every muscle in his back rigid.
The wind outside had picked up, rattling the loose corrugated tin on the old tobacco barn three hundred yards behind the house. But this wasn't the wind.
Knox didn't move. He lifted his right front paw—a hard freeze.
*Intruder.*
I clicked off the camp stove. I moved to the mudroom, reached behind the coats hanging on the wooden pegs, and pulled out Grandpa’s Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun. I checked the chamber in complete silence: loaded with five rounds of 00 buckshot.
I slipped my boots on, leaving the laces untied, and clicked a small red-lens flashlight onto my belt. Red light preserves night vision; white light makes you a target.
"Heel," I whispered to Knox.
The dog fell into position behind my left leg, moving like a shadow across the floorboards.
I unlocked the back door, slipping out onto the rear porch.
The air smelled crisp and clean—until a sudden gust of wind brought a sharp, chemical stench that made my nostrils flare.
*Accelerant.* Diesel fuel mixed with commercial kerosene.
Through the darkness, near the dilapidated timber barn that sat beside Grandpa’s vintage 1968 John Deere tractor, a small amber flame flickered to life.
Two figures in dark hooded sweatshirts were kneeling by the northwest corner of the barn. One was holding a red plastic fuel canister, sloshing fuel along the dried cedar siding; the other was fumbling with a high-intensity road flare.
They weren't trying to scare me.
They were going to burn the barn, create a massive diversion, and let the wind carry the embers directly onto the wood-shingled roof of the farmhouse while I was presumed asleep inside.
A standard arson tactic used to wipe out historic properties that were holding up commercial real estate deals.
My pulse didn't race. My vision narrowed into sharp, tunnel-focused clarity. In the military, panic gets people killed. Precision keeps them alive.
I racked the slide of the Remington 870.
The loud, metallic *CLACK-CLACK* of the shotgun action cut through the quiet night like a thunderclap.
Both figures froze instantly.
"Drop the flare," I said, my voice carrying across the dark yard, flat, calm, and terrifyingly steady. "Drop the flare, or the dog eats whatever the buckshot leaves behind."
The man holding the flare turned, panic evident in his posture. Instead of dropping it, he made a frantic, desperate motion to fling the burning phosphorus directly against the fuel-soaked wood of the barn.
"Knox, hit!" I roared.
Knox exploded off the porch like a missile launched from a tube. Seventy pounds of pure muscle, teeth, and aerodynamic fury crossed fifty yards of open dirt in three seconds flat.
The man holding the flare didn't even have time to swing his arm.
Knox hit him at full sprint, striking him directly in the center of his chest. The man went down with a sickening thud, his scream instantly muffled as Knox’s jaws locked onto the thick fabric of his jacket sleeve, shaking him violently, pinning him to the frozen ground.
The flare flew out of his hand, landing in the dirt several feet away from the diesel pool.
The second man—the one holding the fuel canister—dropped the plastic jug and bolted toward the woods at the edge of the property.
I raised the shotgun, sighting the timber line three feet above his head, and pulled the trigger.
*BOOM!*
The muzzle flash lit up the entire yard in a blinding sheet of white fire. The blast tore through the branches of the loblolly pine directly above the fleeing man’s head, showering him with pine needles, wood splinters, and severed boughs.
The man shrieked, lost his footing in the wet mud, and went sprawling face-first into the brambles.
"Don't move!" I shouted, racking another shell into the chamber. "The next one takes off your legs!"
The man in the brambles lay completely still, his hands clawing into the mud, weeping loudly. "Don't shoot! Don't shoot, please! We were just hired! We didn't know anyone was inside!"
I walked across the yard with a deliberate, steady limp, the shotgun held at the low-ready position.
I reached the man pinned beneath Knox first. Knox was growling, a deep, rhythmic vibration that resonated through the man's chest, his yellow eyes wide and locked on the intruder's throat.
"Out, Knox," I commanded softly.
Knox released the arm instantly, stepping back two feet, but his teeth remained bared, his eyes fixed on the man’s jugular.
The intruder was a kid—no older than twenty-two, wearing a cheap nylon jacket, his face gray with shock and agony from a dislocated shoulder.
I pulled my zip-ties from my utility pocket, stepped on the small of his back, and bound his wrists behind him with a single, brutal yank. Then I walked to the edge of the woods and did the same to the second man.
I kicked the road flare into the wet mud, extinguishing the sputtering chemical flame, and pulled out my phone to dial 911.
While the phone rang, I grabbed the collar of the first kid's jacket, hauling him upright against the barn wall.
"Who paid you?" I asked quietly.
"I don't know his name!" the boy sobbed, his teeth chattering uncontrollably from shock and cold. "Some guy in a gray Mercedes at the diner in Suffolk! He gave us two thousand cash each! Said this place was abandoned and the owner needed an insurance payout before Monday!"
"Was his name Vance?"
The kid's eyes flared with terror. "I don't know! He didn't say! He just said if the barn burned, the old house would catch, and nobody would question an electrical fire in an old shack!"
The dispatcher answered on the other end of the line.
"Isle of Wight County Emergency, what is your location?"
"This is Commander Evelyn Carter," I said, staring down into the terrified eyes of the arsonist. "I have two felony arsonists detained at 4410 Blackwood Road. One has a dislocated shoulder from an apprehension dog; the other is uninjured. Send county sheriff deputies and an ambulance."
I hung up, looking toward the dark eastern horizon.
The first faint band of indigo light was beginning to break across the sky.
May you like
The skirmish was over. But the war for Blackwood Farm was just beginning.
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