“I think,” she gave it seconds of quiet contemplation, “three.”
A better move might be to another section of wall or the ruins of the barracks. Confuse them and buy a little more time. Really only a few minutes had passed since we’d sent the distress signal and bee-lined here.
The Coast Guard and perhaps others might be getting close. Shouldn’t they already be here?
Maybe I just needed to shake things up.
“You see that center building?” I asked.
She nodded.
“We’re going to run for it. I’m going to fire bursts from this rifle. That’ll make them keep their heads down until we’re close to the wall. Just get to the wall, don’t go inside. One might be in there, and it’s not a stable structure anyway.”
She nodded.
“I understand,” she said.
“On three.”
I counted.
She sprinted.
I leaned out of the arched opening and squeezed the rifle’s trigger, sending shells spewing. They wouldn’t know where I was aiming. A quick burst, then I stopped squeezing.
And ran, following Dagney.
I swung the weapon high at my side and delivered another, ongoing burst back the way I’d come until I caught up with her.
Then I threw an arm around her and ushered her on into the barracks wall where we crouched in shadow near the jagged corner.
The noise of the rifle had served to keep everyone cautious.
I pushed Dagney past embrasures at the end of the building, paused when we reached a doorway that was missing bricks in several places but looked stable. I looked inside, glanced around and found the first jagged and crumbling chamber empty, so we moved in there and quickly pressed against an inside wall.
It wasn’t the best position, but it was defensible.
They’d regroup in a second and pour everything they had into closing in on us since they knew where we were, and they knew their time was running out too.
With one clip for each weapon remaining I could only distract them with a run-and-gun for so long.
Staying cautious, I moved over to an embrasure and took a look out at the expanse of ground, at the brush and dry shrubs. The men emerged then, slowly. The three Dagney had counted, then another, moving forward with a mixture of commando caution and determination, half crouched.
I studied the overgrowth atop the wall again then turned my attention back to the men. They’d rush our way in a moment, counting on their protective gear and the fact I couldn’t get all of them while I was moving, not even with rapid fire.
I needed a better plan.
“Hang on,” I shouted. “I’ll step out.”
Chapter 49
“I want you to keep your head down,” I said. “Understand?”
Dagney nodded.
I elicited promises of how careful she’d be and warned her several times of what to expect.
“I got it,” she said.
“Great.”
I slipped rolled bits of fabric into her ears. Then I gave her hands a squeeze around the PSM. She held it between both palms, the safety off. I left her standing under a patch of roof we’d decided must be reasonably sound.
Moving slowly, I kept back from openings in the wall so I wasn’t readily visible through any embrasures or doorways and hoping they weren’t bothering with heat sensitive viewers. I slipped out the opening at the end of the building.
“I’m over here,” I said.
The men converged then. Still careful and cautious, but moving just a little closer together since I held the rifle loosely in an arm raised at my side, non-aggressive.
“I just don’t want the girl hurt,” I said.
They stopped about eight feet in front me, fanned out on the parade ground. Weapons leveled my way.
“I’ll put this down,” I said. “You’ve got us.”
They stayed where they were, watching me crouch.
Then Dagney screamed. “Get them, Keeeennnnnnyyyyyy.”
I rolled back through the passage I’d exited, ducking behind the stone wall.
I caught just a glimpse of the blaze of muzzle flare in the dark and their legs being ripped apart. Despite their training, I heard cries over the rapid spit from the MAC-10.
I lifted my head after the firing ceased in just a couple of seconds, raising just enough over an embrasure edge to peer into the yard.
The men lay on the ground, moving slightly but not concerned with weapons at the moment. They were focused on bleeding.
I watched dry shrubbery move beyond them, a large and bulky mass of switches, brush and grass inching cautiously forward. Kenny in a makeshift ghillie suit, not quite as nice as the one he’d worn the first day I met him but effective. They hadn’t noticed him. They hadn’t known to watch for Birnam Wood to come to Dunsinane.
He inched forward, the MAC-10’s long black suppressor angled downward but ready, and when he neared them, he kicked weapons away, out of reach. No one resisted.
I stepped out slowly, looking around for more, but there were no more in evidence.
I kept my commandeered rifle ready, flexing a finger around the trigger but being careful not to send a burst.
“They’re not moving,” Kenny said. He lifted his weapon with a gesture. “Hollow points.”
He was right. They’d be in agony.
I turned around, walked back into the citadel and found Dagney.
“In a little while you’ll be home,” I said.
As we stepped out, I heard a helicopter in the distance.
“I went back by the boat. I saw the bad guys shoot up the radio before they started in,” Kenny said. “That’s why I came in.”
“That was a good thing.”
He jerked his head skyward. “The coast guard lost GPS on us if they had it, but they’re looking.”
That explained a lot. They really did think we’d gone down.
“The boat traceable to us?” I asked.
Kenny shook his head.
“Let ’em keep looking,” I said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Chapter 50
A massive pelican swooped toward a squat, brown piling protruding from blue water in the inlet that ran beside my table. It was about 11 a.m., sunny, and a cool breeze drifted across the open-air deck at the waterfront restaurant. It was about like any seaside restaurant with nautical décor and faux thatch accents over the bar. I pushed the remnants of a fish sandwich around on my plate as excursion boats cruised past. As they called it on the Florida waterfront, Tuesday.
Arch, who’d made his way to a stashed Nissan Frontier with a dual cab, had picked us up when we reached a spot where I had cell coverage. We put Dagney in the back seat where she promptly dozed.
We found The Holsts staying in a long-term hotel in Metairie. It was actually not far from the causeway. I called from the lobby following an earlier, cryptic message suggesting I had Dagney and that she was safe. I didn’t elaborate on the events at the fort.
They’d told me then where to find them.
I walked her through the lobby with an arm around her shoulders. We’d all cleaned up as much as possible at one of those mega gas-convenience stores where we could blend with a lot of weary travelers who buzzed about and didn’t pay much attention to us. I’d bought her pizza and a pink rain jacket, one of those that you purchase flat and folded in a tight plastic bag… so I wouldn’t stand out in quite the way I would walking a kid in an evening dress into a hotel.
The Holsts came out of the elevators in a cluster as we approached the doors, rushing at first, all hope and expectations. Recognition came after a brief pause.
Dagney remained stiff and a little uncertain after they swarmed her and the first hugs were executed. She looked at her mother’s face then into the eyes of her sister and father.
Her gaze returned to her sister and some exchange of understanding passed silently between them, and then Dahlia stepped closer, touched her hair and tha
t progressed into a tight hug with tears spilling from corners of tightly closed eyes.
When they parted, a bit of a smile crossed Dagney’s features, still dappled with smeared makeup in spite of scrubbing at the quick stop. She remained a little confused, not sure how to respond or act.
Adam Holst turned to me and shook my hand, mouthed a thank you. His eyes were teary. Grace’s cheeks were actually streaked with glistening streams. She embraced me.
Then, after a bit of an awkward exchange about talking to me later, they turned their attention back to their daughters. In a few seconds, the elevator doors sighed again, and the parents ushered the daughters inside.
There’d be a lot of therapy in their future, but the doors closed on a family drunk with relief.
I wondered if the couple would stay together. That’s me. Ever the optimist.
At the waterfront, a little girl about Juli’s age rushed to the deck railing and clapped as the pelican landed atop the piling. The bird stretched its wings to their full and impressive span for a few seconds before folding them into a casual position.
Once he felt comfortable, he peered down at the narrow inlet, probably scanning for fish but looking contemplative. I knew how he felt.
“Is he sleeping?” she asked.
“Resting his eyes,” I said.
Taras had shown up on my doorstep two days after Dagney had been returned and the Holsts had moved to another new location.
I had the PSM at my spine again, ready for a quick draw I’d continued to practice. Nestor, the big one, would not be far behind him, but he showed no sign of aggression.
“Very impressive, Mr. Reardon,” he said.
I didn’t respond.
“We’d received word you might move on us in some way, but we didn’t know when.”
I remained silent.
“We had an interest in you anyway.”
“I’d heard your boss liked a game.”
“He has many interests as well. You know Mr. Maier’s father was German, hence the name, but his mother was Russian. She wept for him.”
Maier? They had had an eye out for the guy killed in the altercation that had sent me to jail? Or picked up on it when my name came up. Wheels within wheels.
“I did some time for that. You here to see that I pay more?”
“No. That might have been the case, but to Mr. Alexeeva, you have passed through the realm of Czernobog, the dark god. You have earned the right to step into the light.”
“Sounds like quite an honor.”
And I had something new to google.
“May I reach into my pocket?” he asked.
I nodded but kept my hand behind my back. He knew what was there.
He slipped out a large brown envelope.
“You have fought well. Played the game well. This is information that may be of use,” he said.
Weird set of values and a strange sense of honor not to mention possibly odd remnants of Volkhvy practice. Or whatever aspects he chose to play with and craft to his needs. All of it was probably calculated to preserve and contribute to his own folklore.
Some days he lets opponents walk away….
I didn’t look in the envelope until I’d watched Taras walk back to a car and leave.
It contained information about Sandra and Juli, not an exact location, but a lead.
I felt elated and chilled, probably his plan. I had a lead, but I got the message. If he wanted to find them, he could. And we’d seen what he could do. Was it supposed to mean he wasn’t finished with me? Or that he was?
Rose had stepped in to help my attorney with the legal hassles of me leaving the state.
Alexeeva’s info showed Finn had spent time in a rehab facility in Orlando. That had been overlooked or privacy rights had concealed it from general searches but not from Alexeeva’s network apparently.
Finn had checked out, but he was probably still somewhere in that vicinity. I at least had a new starting point beyond the last known residence.
I felt as free as I had since my release, sitting on that deck with sea air sweeping in.
The Holsts had been generous following the reunion. I could run a while with the funds and mull over regrets.
Rose and I had talked later about tying Alexeeva to everything, but even with events starting at his Metairie house, the avenues for his deniability were high, his power significant, and my exposure was pretty severe and Arch, Kenny, Crystal, Amara and even Jael might be dragged into it.
Wounded men and a possible corpse had been left behind, questionably legal weapons had been used, and I had consorted with suspected criminals of a couple of stripes and racked up quite a few other things that wouldn’t really dress up my resume.
Attorneys with polished oratorical skills would leave me on a witness stand looking like I’d been through a paper shredder.
Moates was a little less complicated. Rose arranged meetings with Hollie, her lawyer and the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana plus an SEC representative in order to surrender information and tell what she knew about Moates’ operation.
Moates and Hollie had made it out of Alexeeva’s estate in the car we’d arrived in, taking advantage of the confusion surrounding the extraction. We’d discussed that scenario as one option for them since we’d feared we needed Arch available to help with Dagney.
I was glad they had not come to harm as part of our scheme. That was one bit of karmic destiny I’d escaped.
Rose and I had agreed it was the best way and that saving a few people their savings would have to be the victory. Plus, it would inconvenience Alexeeva in any money laundering possibilities he’d hoped for.
It gave Hollie a shot at a deal, the most decent thing to be done where she was concerned. Alexeeva might get to go on, but Moates was through bilking old people.
Hollie had actually mouthed a quiet thank you at one point. She’d wanted it to be over for a while and hadn’t known how to disentangle herself.
Moates’ troubles with the law might actually have the benefit of pacifying Alexeeva and any need he had for retribution. Or Moates might get a shank sometime down the road in medium security lockup. Maybe he’d saved enough for one of those prison consultants you hear about to help him get ready for the inside.
Maybe my karmic debt on that front was simply delayed.
Jael had shown me how to set a Google Alert to watch for a Moates indictment.
Everything was three weeks in the past now. I had no idea how events would go from here or when and if I might stop looking over my shoulder.
I finished lunch and walked down to the docks behind the restaurant to watch more boats for a while. The pelican was still on his perch and looking content at the moment.
They offer a lot of Bible studies in prisons. They want to give you hope even if there isn’t any. Like any prisoner I attended to get out of my cell for a while.
I’d sat in one group or another at the detention center with a young, second-string minister from a megachurch in a city somewhere close enough for the drive. He had a divinity degree, and he wanted somewhere to use it since the senior pastor got all of the good speaking gigs.
He’d spent a few hours going over the 102nd Psalm one afternoon, the song of a man overwhelmed by his troubles, a song of despair, a lament. Great stuff for the incarcerated.
He’d drawn my attention back from a gaze out a window by pouring over a line in the text. I’m not sure what version he was reading from, but it stuck with me.
“I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert. I watch, and am as a sparrow alone on the house top.”
The loneliness and despair of that had imprinted, and the minister had gone on to blather about the plight of a water bird in a desolate landscape and the other appropriate metaphors in the passage.
I couldn’t speak to where the pelican in my current view had been—maybe some fool’s run of his own—but perhaps he had returned from a wilderness and rested
here, happy to be where fish swam and the air was warm and moist with the smell of open water.
“Is he sad?” the little girl from the deck had asked.
“I think he’s content at least,” I’d said. “And he sees possibilities.”
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