“He was cool under pressure and can handle himself. You have to lead the group, though.”
“Goes without saying.” Davidson’s wave of a hand dismissed the subject. “I know you’re a Navy man, Cassidy. But what you should understand is I’ve been the head of my company for two decades. I forgot more about leadership than you ever knew.”
“Alright, Big Man, use your knowledge here.” Tom hesitated, assessing if leaving the group to Davidson made sense. Barb handled him, but without her, Tom worried. “You were okay with leaving Robertelli. And the kid. If we work together, we’ll make it without losing anybody else.”
“I put Dixie on duty watching the stupid kid. Our park ranger stitched him up, but mentally he’s as cuckoo as his old man.”
Chapter 9 – Schoolhouse Rock
Reagan
The horse’s hooves rhythmically clomped along the tracks as Reagan, Scotty, and Jon chased Andy Robertelli. Reagan led the way weaving through the brush. Limbs slapped against her legs and her hat hung by the string around her neck. The distant hum of the ATV echoed. Andy had a head start on his ATV, but they charged to intercept his escape. They stuck to the tracks and downhill terrain. For a brief second, Andy’s crimson cap bobbed into view as he screeched around a corner. A large stone tunnel loomed ahead. Moss and vines covered the entrance. Grass and yellow weeds grew between the railroad ties. As they entered the tunnel, Scotty ducked his head afraid of hitting the ledge. When they reached the other side, the sun glistened for the first time in days. Intense heat simmered and baked the tracks. They charged a steep hill and spotted Andy a hundred yards at the bottom. Jon grabbed his reins with his teeth and steadied his shotgun.
“What are you doing?” Reagan asked.
Jon slung the gun from the ready to shoot position and hustled to regroup. “He’s too far anyway.”
Reagan returned her attention to the coach. He swerved off the tracks and weaved around a railroad crossing gate. He whipped the ATV onto the road and it teetered on two wheels before flipping. Andy scrambled to his feet and limped into a jog, the crashed vehicle abandoned.
“We’ve got him now,” Scotty said spurring his horse.
They closed the distance between Andy and the road. Reagan pointed to a brick building. The color reminded her of red dirt in the Texas Panhandle. “Andy’s heading inside.” The coach hobbled through the arched openings and disappeared inside the school.
Reagan dismounted first and wrapped Bailey’s reins around a flagpole. The string clanked against the top of the pole as the wind whipped. She swung her rifle and stepped free of the strap. Scotty and Jon joined her. “Don’t shoot unless you have to.”
“You’re kidding. This guy’s taken plenty of shots at us.” Jon snarled his lip. “And now he’s got our radio.”
“He might know something about Nate Campbell or the people shooting at us,” Reagan whispered. “We take him alive.”
“You got it, Boss.” Scotty reached for the door and held it open. Jon stalked through first, his shotgun scanning the dark corners of the abandoned middle school.
Reagan crossed the school’s purple insignia ‘Franklin Middle School Bobcats’, painted on the tile floor. The door slammed and the light sucked from the building.
“Why don’t schools ever have windows?” Scotty asked. “Are they going for prison chic?”
Reagan reached inside her pack and slapped the flashlight against her thigh. When the light flickered on, she tossed it to Scotty. He held the light in his right hand and crossed it with his Colt .45 like a cop in the movies.
Jon’s blatant footsteps echoed in the empty hallway. “We should separate and cover more ground.”
“If we split up, Andy can pick us off one-by-one,” Reagan said. “Stay close.”
In a triangle formation, they snaked the locker lined hallway. Some of the purple locker doors were thrown open, contents spilling onto the scuffed floor. Reagan cracked a classroom door and checked inside. “Clear.”
Jon edged forward and did the same to a room on the right. The door squeaked and slammed into the wall. “Clear.”
They continued, methodically checking each classroom. Scotty pressed his back against a trophy case and clicked off the flashlight. He nudged his chin to the ajar door at the end of the hall. Before they entered, the door swung open and smacked Scotty in the nose. A flash of gray barreled out and heaved a textbook at Jon. Reagan ducked under the second flying book and regained her footing. She didn’t have time to aim and instead, swung her rifle like a bat. She connected with a rotund stomach and the coach folded in half like a pocketknife.
Scotty appeared by her side before Andy reached for his weapon. “Uh, uh, uh Jungle Boy,” Scotty smirked as he cocked his .45.
Andy slid his 9mm down the dusty hallway floor and two muddy palms raised in the air as the coach rose to his knees. He fisted his Alabama ballcap. “Do you work for Nottingham?”
“Nottingham?” Scotty’s eyebrows arched.
Reagan’s eyes darted to Jon, who trained his shotgun on Andy. She wanted to get answers but worried Jon might shoot first. “Are you talking about the Merry Men?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Andy sneered. “So, are you or not?”
Reagan shook her head. “I don’t think you’re in a position to interrogate us, Nick Saban.”
“I don’t have time for this.” Andy’s voice sputtered in a crackling Tennessee drawl. Even in the dark school, she saw the ruby hue of his face. “He’s getting away.”
Scotty turned on the flashlight. “Who?”
“Nate Campbell,” Andy said.
“Okay, freeze,” Reagan said motioning like a referee on an incomplete pass. “Stop shouting buzzwords. All we want is our radio.” Andy stayed silent. Reagan sighed. “My name is Reagan Cassidy; this is Scotty Malone and Jon Little.”
“Cassidy? Figures. Guessing you know Tom.” He sniffled and whipped his nose. “The name’s Andy and I was hunting the Merry Men.”
“Didn’t you say you were after Nate Campbell?” Scotty asked.
“Same thing,” Andy said.
Reagan lowered her gun. “I don’t think so, Robertelli.”
Andy raised a thin red brow at the mention of his last name. “Guess you met up with your Pops?”
“Not exactly.” Reagan hesitated. “Why don’t we head to the station and compare notes?”
“Every second I waste talking to you people, Campbell gets further away.” Andy slapped his thigh with his cap.
Reagan studied the vacancy in Andy’s blue eyes. “And why are you desperate to find the park ranger?”
“Because he has my wife,” the coach croaked.
Jon adjusted his grip. “He’s just stalling. Grab the radio and let’s roll.”
Andy inched closer to Jon. “Like I said, I don’t have your radio.”
Reagan’s head shook. “Barb saw you take it. There’s no denying you have it.”
“I thought you weren’t with Tom.”
“I’m not.” Reagan’s eyes fell to Andy’s pack, probably where he stashed the radio. “But I did hear about you and how you abandoned your son, Gus.”
Andy faltered and Reagan snatched the pack. She emptied the contents and handed the radio to Scotty.
“The radio could lead me to Mandy.” Fury clouded Andy’s eyes and he lunged.
The walls vibrated and heat rose from the tile floor like lava spilling from a volcano. A gale breeze tunneled through the hall scattering loose-leaf papers. A bright light materialized in the center between two trophy cases. The glare intensified and Reagan couldn’t keep her eyes open. A shrill scream pierced the silence and the ache in her neck returned. She didn’t recall having the pain since they jumped to Louisiana. A hand gripped her shoulder and her first reaction was to fight. Her eyes snapped open to Scotty yanking her away from the center. Everything went dark and a man emerged where the light had been. Her knees wobbled as penetrating slate eyes leered at her. The mammoth man, the size of a def
ensive end, stood six-foot-six and weighed north of three-hundred pounds. His cropped hair and handlebar mustache added to his menacing physique. A silver handgun glistened at his side, like a toy in his meaty mitts. Scotty said something Reagan couldn’t understand. The Frankenstein beast raised the Glock and fired a single shot at Robertelli. The coach collapsed in the hall and Frankenstein’s rage switched to Reagan and Scotty.
Scotty propelled Reagan into a classroom as he fired a shot and slammed the door. “He appeared out of thin air,” Reagan whispered.
Chapter 10 – Rundown
Tom
With reservations about abandoning his people, Tom led the trio of fighters from the hilltop. Darkness arrived – an advantage for the hunters and perhaps a surprise for the hunted.
Cold breath escaped from Robin as she launched into a story about Bill Stutley. “Don’t let his rotund, squatty body fool you. The little, fat sucker is strong. He’s smart and sneaky. We were on an excursion and divided into two teams on a war game exercise. The biggest guy in our group, Marion, who we all called Duke, got mad at Bill and threw a punch. Bill pushed and pushed the guy all day and into the night. We all saw it coming. Anyway, I saw this smirk from Bill after the punch. The fight ended right there. A few hours later sitting around the bar, I asked why he smirked. He told me he wanted to gauge Duke’s punching power to survive if it came to it someday. He took on the toughest, meanest dude in our group as research. I asked if the punch hurt and Bill said he didn’t feel much. All of his life he’s pushed his body to experience hardship and it makes him like a cockroach, able to survive when most people would not.”
“Okay, I get what you mean about him.” Tom held a gloved hand to stop the posse a few miles beyond the Bass Pro. The Merry Men left an easy-to-follow trail after the birds attacked. “And Bill’s smart?”
“Smarter than almost everyone. The guy we killed, Gilbert, was street smart, quick. Bill too. Able to lie and be at ease in a stressful situation. The cockroach stuff – he thinks he’ll survive. But his mind is borderline brilliant too. A con man. My guess is he knows more about this whole thing than anybody besides Scarlett.”
A few paces ahead, Hunter spun. “You’re pretty good at observation, but how were you not curious about this crazy experiment?”
“I observe people like a cop. But this situation? The money blinded me I guess.”
Motioning Hunter to keep going and cutting eyes every direction ready for a trap, Tom marched on a few paces. “Spill some details on Stutley’s partner.”
Robin sighed. “We called them Costanza and Benes after those characters on Seinfeld.”
“I already tagged Stutley with the comparison,” Tom said. “His partner doesn’t look like Benes. I’d go with Mary Ellen from The Waltons.”
“That’s some old show my father watched so I’ll take your word. She’s a freaky athlete. Fast as a deer and fights like a guy. With fists, kicks, slaps, and claws. Whatever it takes. She’s worse than me on the analytical side, but she’s snarky. Thinks she knows more than she does and she showed her hand too fast in the games we played. She’ll often act before thinking.”
“Will she talk if we snatch her?” Tom asked. “Because Stutley doesn’t seem like he will. At least nothing we could believe.”
“Right, you make a great point. Bill will talk your ear off and probably give ten stories and one of them might be the truth. I have no idea what’s in his head, but I’m guessing it might be money. Elaine’s a follower, though she acts like she isn’t. She’ll crack and I know her weak spots.”
Hunter stopped. “I’m not comfortable beating information out of a woman.”
Robin bulldozed by the boys. “Good thing I’m comfortable with it. I owe her a little payback for the smacks she got in on me.”
After a hearty slap to Hunter’s back, Tom snickered. “No room for chivalry out here in the wild west, Big Game.”
A fierce wind forced the trio into a convenience store and Robin delivered a dossier on the Merry Men as Hunter sampled convenience store food. “Seven duos. Most divided into a thinker and a fighter. Or an approximation. Gilbert Whitehead was the big cheese, the overall leader. His partner is a mountain of a man. He’s the guy Bill pushed. Marion Fair was his assigned name, but we called him Duke. All muscles, no brain and does what Gilbert says. Or said.”
“Tell us about Jon Little, your partner.”
“He has brains and brawn. I never got a really good sense of him, but I thought I could trust him. He’s capable for sure. He’s stoic, but I sometimes had the feeling he was playing a part.”
As Robin talked, Tom jotted notes on a pad he snatched from a shelf. “Okay, how about the smart lady.”
“Scarlet Williams is like a college professor. All brains and no imagination. Not a good shot, fighter, or athlete. I mean she’s willing to do all those things, but she came in last among the women. But if we can get to her, she’s got the best shot of figuring all of this out. And she has some leadership skills for sure.” Robin’s passion showed even in the darkness, the only light spilling from Tom’s flashlight. “Scarlett’s partner is Sunny Miller, a tall Asian woman maybe forty. She’s quiet and stern and a martial arts fighter. I never crossed her.”
“An interesting crew.” Hunter’s gloves lay on a counter and he munched on a hot dog from under a heating lamp. “This is still pretty good.” He squirted mustard, dolloped relish and swallowed another one in two bites. “Tell us about the next pair.”
“Sure, uh let’s see. The two Ricks. Rick English and Lee Richards. They look similar and both are from somewhere in the northeast. Boston with one of them and, like, Rhode Island for the other one. Mid to late thirties, suit-wearing enforcers. One of them is smarter, but to tell the truth, I always mixed them up. Then we have Jacki Kingston and T.C. Friar.”
“I was waiting for Friar Tuck,” Tom smirked.
“Both smart, but Jacki is wily. She’s the youngest at twenty-two, three years younger than me. She might’ve had a thing for Gilbert or maybe she was trying to manipulate him. I like T.C., an ex-cop like me. Fifteen years older than me and he’s seen a lot. He was a black cop in Los Angeles and the racial tension forced him to leave. He observes things and like Hunter, he’s well-read.
“Artie Bland and Clorinda Aquino. Artie leads her around and she does what he says. It’s an odd pairing. He’s crafty and can adapt. He likes to win and when he doesn’t, you don’t wanna be around him. She takes on his personality when she’s with him. The last pair: An old man and the kid. I forgot about Dave Doncaster being about the same age as Jacki. He might even be younger. He has a baby-face. A dolphin in the water, that kid. Tall and lanky and a little goofy looking with surfer hair and 90s glasses. Guy Guisborne is the old vet. A tough guy, a street fighter. We all wondered if he’s maybe connected. Like mafia. A hard, old guy who reminds me of DeNiro, the older version. He’s smart, but not book smart.”
“Hey, Travis Wayne told me right before we switched places his group was attacked by goons on snowmobiles. The good guys killed one of the attackers.” Hunter washed down the fourth hotdog with a Dr Pepper from the fountain. “Travis Wayne said it was a young kid. Sounds like it could be Dave.”
“Man, I hate to hear about Dave. Guy probably had quite a grip on him. And Guy was close to Gilbert.” She cut her eyes to Hunter. “You’re gonna kill yourself eating those spoiled hotdogs.”
“Looking over all these names, they’ve got muscle and brains.” Tom tapped the pen on the notebook. “We better be ready if we encounter any more of them. Any chance some of them are like you and willing to help us?”
“Sure, I’d guess most of them are like me and want out. Nottingham’s money isn’t worth all of this.” She froze and terror hit her face.
Tackling her, Tom dove to the ground as the store windows shattered.
Chapter 11 – Frankenstein
Reagan
Scotty wedged his shoulder against the locked door as Reagan manhandled a desk.
They blocked the only entrance as the Frankenstein beast pounded outside.
“This isn’t going to hold him for long,” Scotty said drawing his weapon.
“Who is this guy?” Reagan readied her rifle as a shot from outside cracked the glass pane. “One of the Merry Men?”
“I’ll take correct answer for a thousand, Alex.” Scotty ducked behind an overturned hard-plastic chair-desk, weapon poised to fire. “Hopefully Jon made it.”
Looking for an alternate escape, Reagan checked over her shoulder. “Whoever he is, he killed Robertelli.” The classroom was situated in the middle of the building, without an exterior window. A world map hung above the chalkboard and textbooks were strewn across the desks.
Scotty transferred the radio to Reagan. “Make sure to get this to our people.”
“Don’t pawn that off on me, George Strait. We’re ditching school together.”
Another gunshot splintered the door and Frankenstein rammed it with his shoulder. “It won’t be long before he gets in. When he does, I’ll hold him off and you run for the horses.”
“When he comes through the door, we’ll fire.”
Scotty sighed. “Someone needs to make sure our people get the radio. It’s the only way we can reach our families.”
Silence engulfed the school as Reagan and Scotty bickered. “Did he vanish as quickly as he came?”
Reagan’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I guess anything’s possible.”
“Reagan, Scotty?” Its Jon. Are you in there?”
Reagan stepped closer. “What happened to Frankenstein?”
“Beats me,” Jon called. “I dove into the room across the hall when he shot the coach. Looks safe out here.”
Scotty weaved his head to see through the fractured window pane. “Frankenstein isn’t holding him at gunpoint.”
Reagan kept her weapon drawn as she exited the classroom. Her eyes perused the shadowed hall. She knelt next to Andy in search of a pulse. “He’s dead.”
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