She threw him a weak smile. “Okay considering the circumstances.”
“She’s not responsible for any of this, Jeff,” Arthur said. “There’s nothing to be gained from putting Sonyea in further danger. She has family.”
That revelation only inflamed matters. “I had family, too,” Jeff growled. “Part of it was here when I left. Now I don’t know where to find any of them. I don’t know if I’ll ever see any of them again.”
“That’s no reason to punish an innocent woman,” Arthur said. “Could you live with something like that? Is that the kind of man you are?”
Jeff retreated into his head but Arthur couldn’t tell if he was considering what kind of man he was or if his fevered state simply overwhelmed him for a moment.
“You did it, Jeff,” Sonyea said, a fake smile plastered on her face, a cheery lilt in her voice.
This seemed to reanimate him and his head turned toward her. “What?”
“Arthur asked what kind of man you are and I think you know now, don’t you? You’re the kind of man who did what your dad couldn’t do. You were determined to get me here and you did. You were determined to show your dad you were a better man than he gave you credit for. You’ve done it.” The entire time she spoke, Sonyea made eye contact with Arthur, trying to say just enough with her expressions that he would understand the dynamic, that he could perhaps follow her lead.
It took him a moment but he eventually caught on. “That’s right,” Arthur said. “Your dad would be pissed that you were able to do something he couldn’t. He’d be spitting nails right now if he were here. He’d be pacing back and forth in that camper of his cussing and complaining.”
The image of that brought a smile to Jeff’s tortured face.
“But it’s over now, son,” Arthur said. “Let’s put down the gun and you can go find your family.” Arthur said it in a gentle, soothing voice that he rarely had to call upon. He wasn’t even certain from where he resurrected it.
Jeff shook his head. “It’s not over until you go.”
“Go?” Arthur asked.
“Jeff, they’re not going anywhere,” Sonyea said, starting to fall apart now, crying. She thought she’d had this but he was still hung up on pushing them out, something she understood would never happen.
“You have to leave the compound,” Jeff said.
“That’s not happening,” Arthur said. “I didn’t do it for your dad and I won’t do it for you.”
“I’ll kill her.”
“Then I’ll kill you,” Arthur said. “If I don’t, then Robert will. If he doesn’t, the gunmen I have watching this position right now will. You see, you don’t have a play here. We don’t negotiate with kidnappers.”
Jeff looked around nervously, his movements erratic and bird-like, apparently not having thought there might be other people watching him. Aiming at him. He should have known. He should have expected it. Sensed it.
“Lay down the gun,” Arthur repeated.
Jeff appeared to be considering it, seemed to be wavering.
“Take this victory,” Arthur said. “Leave knowing that you did something your dad couldn’t. If you die here, you lose.”
Jeff looked down at the front of his body armor, then fumbled around with his free hand. Arthur sensed he was looking for a knife. This was over. The kid was done. He was going to take his personal victory and move on.
With Jeff unable to lay a hand on a knife, Arthur reached for his own blade. His hand was closing around the grip when he heard the roar of an approaching diesel engine. A crew cab pickup crested the hill, a plume of gray dust rising behind it.
The appearance of the truck broke whatever conciliatory mood Jeff was in. He snapped to attention and panicked, back-pedaling. Sonyea’s hands shot back to her throat, slipping fingers beneath the zip tie to prevent it from choking her.
“Stop!” Jeff shouted.
Arthur was wincing. This was it, the gun had to go off now. Arthur leapt up onto the side of the gate. “NO!”
Then there was a shot.
40
Brandon didn’t get clearance for the shot. There wasn’t time. He didn’t want a headshot. People didn’t always fall limp when they died. People with a bullet in their head could stiffen like they were having a seizure. Brandon felt the only safe way to prevent the falling body from pulling a stiff finger into the trigger was to sever that physical connection between the brain and trigger.
When he heard the truck, he knew negotiations had failed. Things were about to go upside down. Then it got worse. The cook staggered backward, pulling Sonyea with his rifle. She was going to die.
Brandon had already adjusted his zero for the distance. He dropped his crosshairs to Jeff’s wrist, where it protruded behind the grip of the AR. Before Jeff could pick up momentum, before his gait became erratic, Brandon squeezed the trigger and Jeff’s wrist exploded into bloody strings. Whatever flaps of flesh and muscle remained were outside of his ability to control.
Jeff yelped, at first thinking he’d accidentally pulled the trigger and fired his own weapon. Then he stared in bewilderment at the gushing crimson and the exposed stark white bones of his wrist. The AR disentangled from his limp fingers and fell hanging against Sonyea’s back.
She had no idea what was happening and screamed. She felt the weight of the weapon against her and interpreted that as Jeff preparing to fire. She had no idea he was injured and assumed she was going to die at any moment.
Arthur had no idea what was happening at first either. He couldn’t believe that one of his men had taken a shot under such circumstances. He couldn’t believe Kevin would have given them clearance to do so. Then Jeff raised the mutilated remainder of his hand in front of his own face and he knew what had happened.
“Sonyea!” Arthur shouted.
In her panic she fell backward, landing on the rifle. She was still terrified of choking, her eyes wild as she tried to process what was going on around her—the approaching truck, the gunshot, the bleeding Jeff, and the shouting Arthur.
Arthur was scaling the gate, trying to get to Sonyea. The truck barreled toward Robert. He was distracted by the shot, trying to figure out if Sonyea was injured, and didn’t see its approach. When he finally processed the urgency of the growing roar of its engine, it was nearly too late. It was bearing down on him, murderous glee in the driver’s eyes.
Robert leapt for the ditch, the impact stunning his already battered body. His eyes watered and his breath left him. The passenger leaned out his window and opened fire on the gate. A round struck Arthur center-mass as he tried to top the gate. It hit armor but the impact knocked Arthur off the gate and onto his back.
There was another shot and the driver’s head peeled open. He sagged onto the wheel and the truck veered off to the side, quickly losing momentum. The passenger door sprang open and two men rolled out. Robert, still flat in the ditch, opened up on them with his Glock. His shots were followed by a barrage from the compound as Fire Team Alpha tried to take down the two attackers.
“Watch for friendlies!” Kevin bellowed into the radio. “We have three friendlies downrange!”
The fire team was aware of this and the men were placing their shots as judiciously as possible. Still, there were pounds of lead flying. Robert was certain he hit one of the men but their body armor was absorbing it. They didn’t slow. Instinctively, they seemed to sense that the high-value target there was Sonyea and that was where they were headed.
Arthur, flat on his back, struggled to breathe. He heard the men running toward Sonyea but he couldn’t do a thing about it. Bullets whistling around him, he rolled onto his stomach. He crawled for what little cover he had, moving agonizingly slow. When he finally got behind his side-by-side, he rolled onto his back again, uncertain if he was going to live long enough to see how this ended.
The two surviving men from the truck closed on Sonyea and the fire tapered off, no one feeling they had a shot with her so close. Robert got to his feet and loped
toward them. They were sixty yards away now. A close distance for anyone but an injured, dehydrated, and nearly broken man.
Each man looped an arm under Sonyea and dragged her toward the woods. This pulled her hands away from the zip tie around her neck. Her face reddened as she choked. The men either didn’t understand what was happening to her or didn’t care.
There was a lone shot from a high-powered rifle and one man dropped like his plug had been pulled, a spray of red mist surrounding his head like an angry aura. Before Brandon could take out the remaining attacker, they hit the trees and disappeared into the concealment of deep forest.
Robert lurched into the woods, burning pain as fuel, and setting an intercept course. The other man had to be fast but he was dragging Sonyea like an anchor behind him. That would slow him down.
The woods were alive with the sound of running feet, like herds of fleeing animals. There was Robert, Sonyea and her attacker, plus whatever men from the compound had been dispatched to join the fight. There were gunshots now, spaced evenly. It sounded like only one weapon, like the man with Sonyea returning fire in an attempt to discourage pursuit. Arthur’s men would be afraid to shoot unless they had a certain shot.
Then Robert saw the man pass through a clearing in the woods. He dropped Sonyea at his feet and Robert couldn’t see her for the dense underbrush. The man pulled out a knife and Robert raised his handgun but the man dropped out of sight.
Robert panicked, thinking the man might have stabbed Sonyea. He staggered in that direction with all the stealth of a moose in a Maine forest. Robert broke into the clearing, uncertain of what he’d find. The man was over the nearly unconscious Sonyea, slicing the zip tie from her neck. At Robert’s appearance, the man sprang up with the knife.
Robert didn’t think. He jumped onto the man, grabbing the knife hand with both of his and using his momentum to propel them backwards, away from Sonyea. Robert was not a fighter in the best of times but he knew he needed to stop this man and he needed to control that blade. He thought he had that dealt with until they hit ground and he lost his grip.
He felt pressure on his back as the man tried to stab him with several quick thrusts. There was no pause, nothing but reaction on the man’s part. He knew what he was doing. Robert was just reacting, trying to stay alive. Fortunately, the steel plates in his armor deflected the knife blade but it gave the man the feedback he needed. He knew his next strike needed to be outside of a protected area. He raised the knife to plunge it in Robert’s neck.
Sonyea tried to scream, thinking Robert was dead, but only a croak escaped, her throat raw from the zip tie that had just been cut loose. Robert raised his body and hooked both arms around his attacker’s, trying to lock him up. The strength he normally had for such a maneuver was not there. His bicep, injured by a bullet, burned from both the raw flesh and the damaged nerves. His shoulder, injured and perhaps still carrying a bullet, felt like it had already been stabbed several times. Couple that with too little food and water and you had a man who was about to die.
Before Robert even sensed what was happening, the man rolled them. Robert was on the ground then, trying with his failing strength to ward off the knife blade coming closer and closer to his face. He wondered what had happened to his pistol, perhaps lost somewhere when he leapt onto this man. It didn’t matter. He certainly couldn’t free up a hand to reach for it. He tried to look for Sonyea but could not see her. He was going to die.
When he finally looked up into the face of the man who would kill him, he saw a grimace turning into the smile. The man could feel that Robert’s muscles were failing. This was going to be over soon. Then Robert saw a shadow rise behind the man. A red face, ligature marks on the neck, dirty, stained with tears, and holding an AR pistol like an avenging angel.
When Robert smiled, his attacker looked at him in confusion. It would be his last expression before his head puffed up, absorbing the energy of two nearly simultaneous rifle rounds at point-blank range. Then Robert closed his eyes and the warm blood hit his face like stepping into a hot shower.
The body thudded forward onto Robert, the soggy mass of his head settling onto him like a warm sponge. He rolled to his side, shoving the body off, and dragging a sleeve across his face. Sonyea dropped to his side and started wiping at his face with a bandana. Unable to see if it was someone come to his aid or a renewal of the attack, Robert started to move away.
“It’s me, Robert,” Sonyea said. “Let me help you.”
There were people crashing through the underbrush around them and Robert began to panic again. Sonyea put a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay. It’s our people,” Sonyea said. “We’re safe now. We got them all.”
“What the…?” It was Kevin. He’d thundered into the clearing with two other men. Brandon was just behind them, carrying the sniper rifle. He dropped at Robert’s side, wasting no time tearing open a trauma kit.
“Most of this blood isn’t his,” Sonyea said. “He was fighting the guy that had me. When I shot him, he bled all over Robert.”
Kevin pulled another bandana from his own pocket and helped clean Robert. “Brandon, get Arthur on the radio. Tell him we’re all clear.”
“Roger that,” Brandon said, standing and tugging his radio out of a pouch.
“Let’s get him to his feet,” Kevin said.
Sonyea stood, then staggered. Brandon rushed to her side and steadied her.
“You two!” Kevin called to two other men in the group who were still scanning the woods at high ready. “Get over here and help me. These two have nothing left.”
The men swooped in and helped Robert to his feet. Robert groaned as he stood.
“Any injuries that need immediate attention?” Kevin asked.
“I don’t think so,” Robert replied.
“Then we’ll let Doc tend to you when we get you back over the fence.”
41
The facilities in the infirmary were field-hospital crude. The building was of recent construction, with solar power and running water, but it lacked the equipment of most basic doctor’s offices. This was a station where people got patched up and sent back to work. There was a homemade exam table and a couple of cots against the wall. Sonyea was in one cot, behind a curtain, cleaning up. Robert was on the exam table and Doc was going over him inch-by-inch.
“Not sure how you made it back here, Robert,” Doc said. “The bicep wound is ugly. It has to hurt pretty badly. You’re also going to need a couple of dozen stitches.”
“You’re right. It does hurt.”
“I might have laid down and gone fetal,” the doc mumbled.
“Sometimes the only direction is forward,” Robert said. “That’s kind of how it felt out there. Like there was only one choice, once I ruled out packing up my toys and going home.”
The doc was focused intently on cleaning Robert’s bullet wound. “It’s a grazing wound but there’s muscle damage. You’ll have to baby it a while to let it heal, then do some physical therapy to regain the flexibility. I really need to put your arm in a sling or the wound won’t heal properly. It’s going to hamper your mobility.”
“Physical therapy?” Robert asked. “A sling?”
“Maybe two slings. One for the bicep wound, one because I’m going to need to dig around in your shoulder and make sure there aren’t any bullet fragments floating around.”
“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Robert said. “You do the best you can and I’ll wear a sling if conditions allow it.”
The doc didn’t look satisfied with that answer but continued to clean dirt out of Robert’s wound with an irrigation syringe. “How you doing back there, Sonyea?” the doctor called.
“Wishing I had a hot bath waiting on me,” she said. “It would take about three of them to get all the road grime off of me.”
“We can probably arrange that,” Doc said. “Arthur has a tub and shower at his place, unless you’ve got a hankering for a galvanized washt
ub and heating water on a fire.”
“Did I hear my name mentioned?” Arthur said, cracking the infirmary door and sticking his head in.
“Speak of the devil,” Doc replied.
“Can we come in?” Arthur asked.
Doc nodded. “Sure.”
Arthur pushed the door open and entered, Kevin behind him.
“Stay over there,” Sonyea said. “I’m getting dressed.”
“I respect a lady’s privacy,” Arthur said. “Especially one who can shoot.”
In other times the comment may have brought a laugh but it didn’t even raise a smile among this worn down group.
“You okay, Arthur?” Robert asked. He’d been told that a gunshot to the chest had taken Arthur out of the fight when the truckload of men showed up.
“Nasty bruise and a broken rib. Hurts to breathe and hurts to move,” he replied. “Things happened fast and I didn’t think ahead. I was wearing light armor instead of heavy. Almost cost me big time.”
Robert nodded. “Armor saved my life. The guy running away with Sonyea tried to stick a fighting knife in my back. The plate blocked it.”
“Deflected it,” the doc corrected. “It still sliced your back beyond your plate, just didn’t penetrate.”
“He glued me back shut,” Robert clarified.
Sonyea popped out from behind the curtain. She was wearing clean clothes and had scrubbed off the worst of the dirt, which only served to make the numerous cuts, bruises, and scrapes more evident.
“I’m sorry for what you all went through,” Arthur said. “I appreciate the effort you made, though I know things didn’t turn out like you planned.”
“Story of my life,” Robert said.
“I’m assuming Jeff didn’t make it?” Sonyea asked. There was a weight in her voice that implied a desired outcome. She wanted him to be alive. She wanted him to have a chance to mature and find his place in the world.
No one leapt forward to respond to that. Kevin and Arthur looked down, probably trying to find a neutral explanation.
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