Battle Cry

by Dustin Stevens

Sweat ran in thin rivulets from under my helmet. Burned my eyes. Tasted salty on my lips.

  Every physiological response my body had was redlined as I tucked my legs up higher, searching in vain for someplace to aim.

  Swinging my gaze in long sweeps, I scoured the ground before me. Seeing precious little that looked even vaguely promising, I settled my focus on a small clearing in the distance. A single break from the solid canopy beneath me.

  Rocking back a few more inches, I turned my body slightly to the side. Began to steer toward it, my breathing no more than shallow pulls.

  Peeled my lips back over my teeth, a deep and guttural cry rising up from my diaphragm.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Going to the Clady home and sorting through their things. Meeting with the nurse at a dog park at the crack of dawn. Searching through the clutter and debris that was Mike Lincoln’s house. Driving through Chula Vista in full disguise.

  Marching into The Wolf Den, gun in hand.

  The list of things Elsa Teller has been forced to do in the last week is fast growing longer than on any other assignment she can remember. More of a high-level operator, she prefers to think of herself as a project manager. Someone that serves as the face of things.

  Shows up and handles the necessary conversations. Makes phone calls, ensuring that everyone is on task.

  Not the person to actually get down into the muck.

  A fact that can’t help but bring a scowl to her face, both for all that has transpired in the last week and for the place she is now sitting.

  Work assigned to someone in her role is usually much higher brow in nature. A donor calls with a particular request. A potential bit of bad press needs to be headed off. Permits, or licenses, or zoning ordinances, or whatever else, need to be shifted to benefit the right people.

  The sorts of things that are generally massaged away either through money or pressure.

  This whole damn COFA issue having proven susceptible to neither.

  “Miss Teller,” Myles Morgan says, swinging through the glass door into the office. “Back so soon. Wonderful.”

  Despite the words chosen, there is exactly zero underlying warmth or enthusiasm. Nothing to intimate they are anything more than mockery.

  A feeling Teller can’t help but match. This being their third meeting already in the last week, it is her hope that it will be the last for the foreseeable future, the trips here easily outpacing everything else she’s been forced to do as the most miserable.

  “A pleasure as always,” Teller replies. Making no effort to rise from her seat, she adds, “Almost didn’t recognize you without your first dinner of the night in hand.”

  Seeing the barb strike flesh, the skin around his eyes tightening, she can’t help but go in a bit further. “It’s Monday, so that means...Popeye’s? Or KFC?”

  She almost adds that it is definitely something fried to kick off the week before pulling up just short.

  As she’s learned innumerable times over the years, sometimes when dealing with men, it is better to stop just short of the finish.

  More lines appear on Morgan’s features as he drops himself into his seat. Parked at an angle, he makes no effort to square himself to her. Fingers laced before him, he glares for a moment, his forehead a rosy sheen.

  “As much fun as it is matching wits with you-” Morgan begins, cut off as Teller lets out a snort.

  Eyes narrowing, he stares at her a moment, trying his best to appear imposing. A poor effort to assert dominance, steeped in wanting to maintain the office as his home turf.

  A marking of territory he would probably better achieve by pissing on the rug.

  “Why the hell are you here?” he eventually asks, revealing the same sentiment that has permeated Teller through most of the afternoon.

  Like so many things, the relationship is one that neither of them had anything to do with creating. Even less interest in maintaining. Two sides brought together by people sitting much higher in the pecking order, tossing the logistics of the interaction to those on further down.

  Long past are the times at even feigning collegiality. The few moments of banal small talk before getting down to it.

  Now, they just descend directly into open hostility, both reticent to the fact that this is a marriage of necessity and nothing more.

  Something that, mercifully, looks to be fast coming to a close.

  “I come bearing good news,” Teller replies.

  Across from her, Morgan says nothing. His eyebrows rise slightly, the skin held taut by an extreme amount of prior botox injections.

  “The doctor is dead,” she says. “And the woman will be soon.”

  There is no immediate reaction. Nothing as Morgan processes what was just shared. Sitting and staring back, he eventually smirks, chin tilting just slightly.

  “And to you that’s good news?” he replies. “How damaged are you?”

  The question flies right past, Teller recognizing it as nothing more than another weak attempt to gain the upper hand. A middle-aged man with a growing paunch unsure how to handle a younger, smarter female making herself at home in his office.

  And his head, if he really wants to admit it.

  Not about to acknowledge the crack with a response, Teller instead focuses on the first part of his statement.

  “That’s not just good news, it’s damn good news,” she answers. “Because as you may or may not recall, without the doctor, there is no clinic.”

  It is apparent the instant the information aligns in his mind. His lips parts slightly, his mind superimposing what she is saying onto the reason for their meeting.

  The man wasn’t entirely wrong to insinuate how indelicate it might be for her to state that the death of two people is a good thing. A necessary thing, certainly. Perhaps even a merciful thing, depending on how one wanted to look at it.

  But not really a good thing. No matter how big a pain in the ass both have been to her recently, she doesn’t wish them dead.

  Just the issue they represent.

  Teller’s joy isn’t in their demise. It is in the fact that without them around, there is no longer any reason for her and Morgan to continue their forced interaction.

  “And once the woman is gone, there is no longer any issue either,” she adds.

  Flicking his gaze toward the windows lining the side of the office, Morgan stares off for a moment. Teller waits as he processes things in his own slow pace, his focus eventually shifting back to her.

  “And I assume this means...”

  “That our little get-togethers will go back to being occasional – or, even better - non-existent?” she asks. “We can only hope.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The first bit of rain lands on my exposed forearm. Unlike the thin drops that fly in sideways, pushed by the wind along the coast, this is big and fat. It plops straight down, leaving a wet spot the size of a dime, two more landing soon thereafter.

  All day, the heavens have been holding back. Fighting to keep from unleashing what we’ve all known was coming.

  Now, it appears to have finally arrived. And if these first couple drops are any indicator, it will be lingering. Moving slow and dumping a tremendous amount of water in its wake.

  “You guys get everything?” I ask, securing the nylon duffel bag into the space behind the bench seat in the front of Jeff Swinger’s truck. Weighing no more than a few pounds, the item tucks away easily.

  Pulling back, I can see Valerie standing beside me. Arms folded across her stomach, rain has started to fall on her as well, spotting the plain long-sleeve t-shirt she wears.

  Beside us, it begins to hit the front hood, pinging softly against the metal.

  “Yeah,” Valerie replies. Her gaze flits from me to the open door of her room. A thin smile crosses her lips, though there is no joy in it. “I mean, it’s not like we have a lot.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  For both of us, the words are a vast understatement. A
simple sentence directed at the few material possessions we both currently own, but easily extrapolated into so much more.

  A week and a half ago, we both had homes. Places with food in the kitchen and closets full of clothes. Bathroom essentials that weren’t travel size.

  She had work and friends and whatever else.

  I had my Mira.

  Now, this is what we’ve been reduced to. Holed up in a tiny hovel of a motel, one of us waiting to speak with a detective and the other about to steal off into the night before he arrives.

  How either of us got here is a question probably best left for another time, even if it does sit at the forefront of both our minds.

  Turning over a shoulder, I match her glance to the room. Through the open door I can see Swinger, his enormous proportions made even more cartoonish as he walks beside the diminutive Fran Ogo. Plastic bag looped over a tattooed forearm, the other is extended beside him, her hand resting on it.

  “I’m so sorry about this,” I say, turning back to Valerie. “I know this-”

  “Isn’t your idea,” she finishes. “And it isn’t your fault.”

  The residual glow from the inside of their room blinks out as Swinger and Fran step outside and pull the door shut. Without it, the world is somehow even darker, the few bulbs along the front of the motel the sole illumination.

  Even the omnipresent glow of San Diego in the distance now seems to be gone, blotted out by the storm overhead.

  How much of what is happening is my fault is yet another question probably best not delved too deep into right now. One of hundreds I’ve been asking myself since leaving Daniel Lucero earlier today, none of them having answers readily available.

  There is no denying I did not start this. Never had I crossed paths with Mike Lincoln, or the Wolves, or even Senator Carter Flynn. For reasons I’m still attempting to work out, they thought my wife was a threat and decided to end it in the most extreme way possible.

  What could be grounds for debate is the ways in which I’ve handled things since. If taking matters into my own hands was a wise decision. If any of us should be staying here at the Valley View.

  If pulling my friends in was reckless and selfish, even now as I’m relying on their help once again.

  “We all set?” Swinger asks. Coming to a stop by the front headlights, he allows Fran to continue on. There he waits in silence as I take his place, helping her up into the raised cab of his truck.

  Once she is up and in, sliding into the middle of the seat, I pull back. Turning to Valerie a final time, I glance from her to the head of the parking lot.

  Since the moment I got off the phone with Marsh, I’ve been waiting for his headlights to appear. For him and Tinley to arrive and find me standing here with the Ogos, confirming whatever it is they’re after.

  Pulse starting to rise, I continue to count the seconds in my mind.

  The rain grows a bit stronger, the back of my shirt sticking to my skin.

  “I’ll be in touch as soon as we’re done,” I say, pulling my gaze from the parking lot and back to her.

  There is infinitely more I could say to her. More apologies. Admonishments not to reach out until she hears from me. Comfort that she is with one of the best and most capable men I’ve ever known.

  I don’t bother with any of them. Voicing them will likely only betray the mix of trepidations I have roiling through me. Will certainly expend precious time we don’t have.

  Seeming to sense all of this, Valerie nods slightly. Extending a hand, she rests it on my forearm. Squeezing softly, she says, “Be careful,” before climbing into the truck beside her grandmother.

  The instant she is past the threshold and safely inside, I swing the door shut. Turning back to the front of the truck, I meet Swinger by the front grille, rain continuing to fall on both of us.

  Extending a hand before me, I say, “Thank you for doing this.”

  Meeting my grip, he swings his free hand before him, waving off the comment. Plastic sack still gripped tight, it sounds like a maraca, the tiny vials inside still half-full of medication.

  Life-saving pills that at some point soon, Fran Ogo will need refilled.

  And have nowhere to get them.

  “We’ll stay in the area for a while,” he replies. “Maybe find somewhere for food or something. If it gets down to it, they can stay at my place tonight.”

  Nodding in agreement, I release his grip. “And listen, if you don’t hear from me in an hour or two-”

  “Already talked to Wendell,” Swinger replies, this time verbally waving off my comment. “We got you covered.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Byrdie knew the instant he saw the lights that they didn’t belong to any of the Wolves. Sitting way up high, there was no way to mistake the twin orbs cutting through the darkness for a pair of motorcycles growing closer. Nor was there any chance of confusing them with one of the nondescript sedans that the Wolves used when trying to be inconspicuous.

  Lights still off in his room, he’d been pacing when they first appeared. Wringing his hands before him, he’d been making steady passes along the front of the room. Even sweeps from one side to the other, his gaze never leaving the windows as he went.

  Left to right meant he was staring down the length of the motel, looking for any more movement from Clady.

  Heading back the opposite direction, watching for the Wolves or anybody else that might be approaching.

  The moment the lights first appeared, Byrdie had pulled up short. Recognizing them on sight for what they weren’t, he’d slid sideways to the corner of the room and peeled back a corner of the curtain.

  Shoulder pressed tight into the wall, he’d watched as the twin strobes pierced the night. As the vehicle they belonged to slowly came into view, a massive rig sitting on a raised chassis.

  Bright paint and polished chrome both flashed from the light above his door as the vehicle rolled on. Not once did it slow as it moved by, the faint rumble of an oversized engine cutting through the quiet evening.

  Not wanting to let the curtain drop, to draw any attention his way, Byrdie had stood perfectly still. He’d remained motionless, hidden in the shadows of his room, and watched as the truck pulled in beside Clady’s car.

  Digging into his rear pocket, Byrdie had pulled out his cellphone. Cupping his hand around the screen to keep the light from being seen, he’d hit the first number in the call log.

  Snapper had picked up halfway through the first ring.

  “Yeah?”

  “We’ve got movement over here,” Byrdie whispered.

  Much like the last time they spoke, he could hear commotion in the background. Boots hitting against floorboards. Voices moving in various directions.

  “Clady’s running,” Snapper said. Definitely a statement rather than a question.

  “No,” Byrdie replied, staring intently through the window. “At least, it doesn’t look like it. Jacked up truck just rolled in. Big guy, lot of ink, climbed out.”

  “The friend,” Snapper interjected. “The one the guys saw with Clady at his house on Saturday.”

  Nodding in the darkness, Byrdie responded, “Sure looks like it.”

  “So he’s calling in backup?”

  Remaining silent, Byrdie watched as the door on past Clady’s opened and the younger woman from the Ogo house a week before exited.

  A moment later, Clady came out as well, a small bag in hand.

  “Looks more like an evacuation,” Byrdie replied. “He’s called in his friend to get the women far away.”

  Continuing to stare, Byrdie had watched as the older woman came out and climbed into the truck. Next in order was the younger one, both getting inside as Clady and his friend stood out in front of the engine.

  “You think he made you?” Snapper asked.

  Shifting his gaze from the scene down the row to his sedan and back, Byrdie hadn’t known how that would be possible. The vehicle was one he’d stolen just the day before, having
driven it only to Chula Vista and now back.

  Clady wasn’t there when he’d arrived. He’d been wearing a disguise in the thin chance the woman recognized him from the brief tussle in their living room a week before.

  “No chance,” Byrdie replied, a stance he still maintains as he now watches the larger man climb into his truck. Engine already running, he pulls directly away from the motel, front headlights flashing.

  Finger still holding the curtain out a few inches, Byrdie drops straight to the floor. Making sure he is completely out of sight, he says, “They’re on the move now. You want me with Clady or the women?”

  Left to his own preferences, there is no question which way Byrdie would lean. Now that he knows the man is alone, he’d march down to Clady’s room this instant. Approach with gun in hand, knock on the door, and keep pulling the trigger until the clip was empty.

  Not that he has that kind of freedom right now. Not if he wants to ingratiate himself back into the Wolves.

  Ascend to the spot that has eluded him for so long.

  Waiting until the taillights of the truck are past and the metallic din of the engine has died away, Byrdie rises to full height. He watches as the truck grows smaller. Turns back the opposite direction, checking to see if Clady is on the move himself.

  “Come on, man. Where am I going, Clady or the women?”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Despite what he told Kyle Clady, Detective Malcolm Marsh has never heard of the Valley View Inn & Suites. If pressed, he would guess that nobody has. Not in a city rife with chain establishments, the few standalones there are tending to be something with a Spanish title.

  Much like the taco shop Wilson Ramirez sent him to a couple days prior, the Valley View is without a website. There is no listing for it on Yelp.

  How the hell Clady even ended up there, Marsh can only speculate.

  Not that any of that means he was going to balk at the chance to go wherever he had to for this meeting.

  The first time Marsh encountered Kyle Clady was in Balboa Park eleven nights ago. Called to the scene from his Central Distinct precinct office, he’d arrived to find Clady shirtless and handcuffed in the back of a squad car. Trench torn through his triceps by a bullet graze, one entire arm was stained with blood. Stray streaks of it painted his cheeks and torso.