Blood Lines

by Mel Odom

  When the man attacked again, Shel tried to defend his shoulder. While trying to protect his injury, Shel left himself open for a left cross that almost put him down. Black comets whirled in his vision. He took a step back and lifted his hands.

  His opponent came at him again, trying for the shoulder once more. This time Shel ducked beneath the blow, shifted, and twisted in an explosion of effort that sent his right hand into the man’s stomach. Shel hit with everything he had. His fist sank into the man’s body and took the wind out of him.

  Semiparalyzed by the blow, the young Marine tried to step back. Shel moved with him, following up with another body blow with his left hand. Then he hooked the man twice in the side of his face with his right. The Marine’s eyes started to glaze. Fired up now, Shel brought his left hand up in an uppercut that caught his opponent under the chin.

  The man’s eyes rolled back into his head and he fell to the mat.

  Shel looked down at the man and felt proud. He’d been thinking the younger man was going to beat him. He could have lived with that in a combat exercise. He’d been beaten before. But in a real encounter, losing wasn’t an option.

  The DI knelt beside the man and placed two fingers on his jugular. Shel breathed out, his hands above his head, as he tried to get his respiration under control.

  “He’s got a pulse,” the DI said.

  “I didn’t try to hurt him any more than I had to,” Shel said.

  “I saw that,” the DI responded as he stood. “I also saw that he went for your shoulder.”

  “In a fight, I would have done the same thing.”

  “Maybe,” the DI said, “but this wasn’t a fight. This was a controlled exercise. When this young soldier comes to, I’m going to make sure he understands that.” He paused. “How’s the shoulder?”

  Shel moved it. The pain was there, but it was tolerable. He smiled. “Better and better every day.”

  35

  >> Mooney’s Tavern

  >> Jacksonville, North Carolina

  >> Six Days Later

  >> 1318 Hours

  Shel parked in the gravel parking lot in front of the tavern and got out. The day was too hot to wear a jacket to hide the pistol at his hip. He fished his NCIS ID from his pocket and draped it around his neck. He curved the bill of his NCIS hat over his sunglasses and signaled to Max to leave the Jeep.

  The Labrador dropped to the gravel and joined Shel.

  When he didn’t see Remy immediately, Shel tracked the loud hip-hop music to the SEAL’s car. Remy sat with his arms folded in the front seat. He had his eyes closed and his head bobbed with the beat.

  Shel stood at the side of the car. His shadow had just covered the window when Remy cracked his eyes open and looked up at him. One of his hands had slid smoothly to the pistol on his hip.

  Then Remy grinned and the window powered down. “Hey, jarhead. It’s been so long I thought maybe you’d forgotten your way here.”

  “Not hardly.” Shel smiled a little.

  Remy uncoiled, opened the door, and slid out of the car. “As I recall, it’s your time to buy.”

  “It isn’t,” Shel said, “but I’ll buy anyway.”

  “What’s the occasion?” Remy fell into step with Shel as they walked toward the tavern.

  “Docs just cleared me from light duty. No more desk jockey.”

  “Cool.” Remy yawned. “Now maybe I can start getting some sleep on that stakeout.”

  Even while on the desk, Shel had kept track of the team. Remy was currently assigned to follow up on leads dealing with a local loan shark who specialized in taking advantage of military men. Alcohol, drugs, sex, and loan sharks were always problems around military installations. Temptations were everywhere, and the young Marines and sailors were prime targets.

  “Will didn’t hang with you last night?” Shel asked.

  “He tried to.” Remy frowned. “A young Marine got into a bar fight with his wife’s boyfriend.”

  “Didn’t hear about that.”

  “That’s because you were probably sleeping.”

  Actually Shel hadn’t been. Lately he’d been poring over the information Estrella had gotten regarding his daddy. He was also monitoring the FBI’s manhunt for Victor Gant.

  So far the FBI hadn’t picked up the man’s trail. It was as if Victor Gant had vanished from the face of the earth. There was even some speculation that he’d left the country.

  Shel didn’t think that had happened. Victor Gant wasn’t the sort of man to walk away from the game when there were still cards on the table.

  “So Will covered the bar fight, and I stayed on the loan shark,” Remy said.

  “A bar fight? Doesn’t seem like anything we’d be interested in.”

  Remy frowned and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Before morning, it turned into a homicide investigation.”

  Shel shook his head.

  “Twenty-three-year-old Marine,” Remy said softly. “Just got back from Iraq.”

  “He was still jacked up from being over there,” Shel said.

  “Yeah. Made it worse, him finding his wife out with her boyfriend.”

  “The military and marriage don’t go together easily.”

  “Is that why you never married? ’Cause I was thinking maybe you just couldn’t find somebody that would have you.”

  Shel knew both of them just wanted to avoid the heaviness of the murder. They saw too much of that kind of work, and the violence that led up to it. “I thought that was your excuse.”

  “No, man,” Remy said. “I’m just selective. Haven’t found the right one yet.”

  >> 1331 Hours

  Minutes later, Shel and Remy sat at a back booth with plates of fajitas and iced tea. Max lay at Shel’s feet and watched them eat. Shel dropped food to the dog on a regular basis.

  “You know,” Remy said, “that dog doesn’t look Mexican.”

  Max cocked his head and looked at Remy.

  “It’s an acquired taste,” Shel said.

  Remy dropped a piece of fajita meat. Effortlessly Max caught the meat between his teeth. But he made no effort to eat it. Instead, he turned his liquid brown eyes on Shel.

  Shel signaled the dog to eat.

  Max tossed the meat up into the air and gulped it down with noisy chewing.

  “So it’s like that, is it?” Remy admonished Max. “You’re not going to eat for me unless Shel okays it.”

  Max just stared at him.

  “He’s a one-man dog,” Shel said. He dropped a hand to Max’s head and patted him.

  “I guess so. Must make a great partner.”

  “He doesn’t talk as much as some I’ve had,” Shel agreed.

  “Oh,” Remy groaned in protest, “you did not just go there.”

  Shel grinned. “I’ve missed this.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” Remy doubled his hand into a fist and offered his knuckles.

  Shel met Remy’s fist with his own; then they returned to eating.

  “Scary stuff in the tattoo parlor,” Remy said.

  “Yeah.” That was the first time either of them had mentioned the shooting. Shel knew neither of them would speak of it again. Being in special forces, both men acknowledged that death potentially lay in wait for them at all times, but they didn’t dwell on it. They couldn’t. If they did, it made the job impossible to do.

  “If Will pairs us up tonight,” Remy said, “you remember that you owe me.”

  “Do you really think Will will assign me to something as lame as a stakeout on a loan shark?”

  “Now you’re hurting me,” Remy said.

  Shel smiled. He had missed the camaraderie.

  “So where have you been?” Remy asked.

  “With the Marines,” Shel said. “Getting my head together.” He paused. “It’s nothing against you, Remy. But you’re not a Marine. I’m not knocking the SEALs, and I’m especially not knocking you. But a Marine’s place when he’s rebuilding himself is among Marines.”

&n
bsp; “No prob,” Remy said. “Whatever it takes. At least you’re back.”

  Shel nodded. “I am.”

  >> 1417 Hours

  Victor Gant sat astride his motorcycle in the trailer. He could hear the rumble of the big 18-wheeler’s engine as it pulled the bike trailer. A small floodlight at the front of the trailer barely broke the darkness.

  “Coming up on the stop,” Fat Mike said over the headset radio Victor wore.

  “Copy that,” Victor said. He wore road leathers and had a Kevlar vest under his colors. Normally he didn’t wear a helmet, but he did today. It was a full-face helmet that covered his jaw and chin too. A cut-down Mossberg shotgun was slung over his left shoulder. He wore his .45 in a shoulder holster under his colors. The chill calm that had always filled him before a hop through the jungle in Vietnam filled him now. Out of habit, he glanced at his watch.

  “Spotter confirms the Marine at the tavern,” Fat Mike said. “He’s headed out the door now. He’s got company.”

  “Who?” Victor hoped it was Coburn. His anger against the commander had sharpened over the past few weeks.

  “The black guy that was with the Marine at Spider’s.”

  Well, Victor said, that’ll have to be good enough. The black man had been there the night Bobby Lee was killed. Bagging the Marine and his friend would feel good.

  “Ready,” Fat Mike said.

  Immediately Victor flicked his thumb over the electric starter. The motorcycle’s big engine throbbed to life. Nine other engines did the same. Thunder filled the trailer.

  The 18-wheeler slowed. Victor felt the gradual reduction of speed. He grew even more calm. Let’s do this, he growled to himself.

  “All right,” Fat Mike said. “Your target’s on your left.”

  The truck stopped. The air brakes chuffed loudly enough to be heard over the warbling motorcycle engines.

  “I’m coming around,” Fat Mike advised.

  Victor glanced around at the men who were riding with him. All of them were seasoned criminals. Most of them had killed before. Some of them had been to prison before. Going back didn’t scare them, but they didn’t intend to do that.

  A moment later, Fat Mike pulled the trailer’s back door down. Bright sunlight cut into the gloom.

  “All right,” Victor said over the headset that connected him to the rest of his men. “Let’s ride.” He twisted the accelerator and let the clutch out.

  Victor took the lead and roared down the inclined ramp leading out of the trailer. When he reached bottom, he brought the motorcycle around and headed into the gravel parking lot. The other motorcycles trailed only a short distance behind him and flared out in a phalanx of thundering metal.

  Shel McHenry, the other man, and the dog were caught out in the open. Victor grinned as he saw the Marine look in his direction. With one quick grab, Victor yanked the shotgun from the shoulder scabbard and pointed it at the Marine. As cut-down as it was, the shotgun was more pistol than anything else.

  He squeezed the trigger. Double-ought buckshot exploded from the shotgun’s throat and sped toward Shel McHenry. The abbreviated weapon jumped erratically in Victor’s grasp, but the semiautomatic function fed a new shell into place.

  36

  >> Mooney’s Tavern

  >> Jacksonville, North Carolina

  >> 1417 Hours

  “Max!” Shel roared as he slapped his thigh to bring the dog in close to him. By then Shel was already in motion. The Purple Royals’ colors stood out and identified them at once.

  Remy broke for cover at the same time but in a separate direction to split the attention of their attackers. That was how they’d been trained for urban area action. Split, but not far, and regroup as needed. It made them harder to hit, more difficult to cover, and gave them overlapping fields of fire.

  A cloud of double-ought buckshot punched through the windshield of a parked Ford pickup. The loud report almost drowned out the noise of the breaking windshield, barely audible anyway over the rumbling Harley engines. Cube-shaped glass crunched under Shel’s feet as he beat a hasty retreat. He drew the SOCOM .45 from his hip and took a two-handed grip as he crouched behind an SUV.

  Bullets peppered the vehicle.

  Shel felt Max braced at his knees, ready to take action. The SUV sagged suddenly as the front tire blew. A quick step put Shel at the rear of the SUV. Pistol held high, he peered around the vehicle, then singled one of the bikers out of the pack. He aimed for the man’s center mass and fired twice.

  The first bullet took the mirror off the motorcycle’s left grip. The mirror had slid over in front of the biker’s chest. The second bullet hit the biker in the chest. He lost control of the motorcycle but didn’t let go of the handlebars.

  Before he could recover, the motorcycle ran into a parked car. The bike flipped onto its side and threw the rider to the ground. The biker pushed up on his hands and tried to get to his feet.

  Body armor, Shel realized. Their attackers had come loaded for bear, as his daddy would say.

  Remy wheeled from cover and took deliberate aim. One of his bullets struck the man’s helmet. The 9 mm round ricocheted off the helmet’s hard surface. The next two struck the biker in the neck. He struggled for a moment, then slumped to the ground.

  As he watched the man die, Shel hardened his heart. The way they were outnumbered, he knew they couldn’t afford to leave their enemies able to fight.

  Another biker brought his Harley around and planted his feet. He lowered an Uzi and unleashed a torrent of rounds in Remy’s direction. Remy ducked back immediately. Bullet holes chased him.

  Shel shifted and fired two shots into the man’s back without hesitation. This wasn’t one of the Louis L’Amour stories where two men faced each other and slapped leather like the books Shel had grown up on as a kid. This was war. In war, a warrior didn’t always call another man out and take him on face-to-face.

  The biker jerked and fell sideways. The fact that there was no blood reinforced to Shel that the men wore body armor.

  A Harley engine blasted to Shel’s left and raced closer. He turned and watched as the biker lifted a machine pistol in one big, hamlike hand. Shel stood his ground and fired instinctively. Running was only going to get him killed a heartbeat later, and by then the biker could have taken cover.

  Bullets cut the air only inches from Shel’s head and face. He didn’t hear them passing, but he felt the heated wind tug at his hair and pulse against his jaw. Two of his bullets caught the biker in his helmet. One of the rounds glanced from the rounded surface of the helmet, but the other crashed through the faceplate.

  The biker, suddenly slack, toppled. The motorcycle dropped with him, momentarily engaged gears, and spun out. The rear tire threw gravel like shrapnel. Then the engine sputtered and died.

  Down to five rounds in his pistol’s magazine, Shel took the opportunity to reload. He shoved the partially spent magazine into his back pocket so he could find it if he needed it. Then he ducked and ran around the SUV in order to change his position.

  Three attackers were down. Shel pulled up a mental image of the bikers. There had been ten of them when the shooting started.

  Shel stayed hunkered down behind the pickup while two motorcycles zipped by. The bikers sprayed the truck.

  Shiny chain links draped over the side of the pickup’s bed grabbed Shel’s attention. Judging from the mud caking the vehicle, the driver spent considerable time off-road. Moving quickly, Shel yanked the chain down with his free hand, then underhanded it at the next motorcycle.

  The chain struck the motorcycle’s side and wrapped up in the rear wheel. Before the biker knew what was happening, the motorcycle’s rear tire locked up. The rider flew over the handlebars and managed an inelegant face-plant.

  Conscious of everything around him, Shel watched as the downed biker forced himself up to his knees and halted there for a moment. Before he could move again, Shel took aim at the man’s neck and fired. The man rolled over and was still.


  In less than a minute, the parking area was riddled with bullets and spent brass. And nearly half of Victor Gant’s would-be murderers were down.

  Victor himself sat almost seventy yards away calmly reloading his cut-down shotgun. Shel took a bead and fired. The round slapped against Victor’s helmet and rocked his head back. Then he engaged the clutch and the accelerator and shot forward. He raised the shotgun before him and fired.

  Shel ducked the blast and felt the vehicle behind him shiver with the impacts. Victor Gant roared past him, followed quickly by the other survivors of the attack. When the last of the five went past, Shel stepped out and took aim at the last motorcycle’s rear tire.

  The tire exploded. Rubber came loose and flapped against the wheel housing. Out of control, the biker slammed into a twentysomething-year-old Trans Am. He didn’t get back up.

  Gun in hand, forcing himself to move, Shel crept toward the last man they’d downed. As Shel kept watch, Victor Gant’s bikers roared out onto the street. Shel reached into his pocket and took out his cell phone.

  Remy maintained his cover with his pistol extended and ready to use.

  Shel called NCIS headquarters and got Will on the phone. Briefly he outlined what had just taken place. Beneath his fingertips, the biker’s pulse was fast and weak.

  “Stay there,” Will advised. “Secure the site. Estrella’s already notifying Jacksonville PD and the sheriff’s department. They can get out roadblocks. We’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Copy that,” Shel said. Then he broke the phone connection and walked back to his Jeep to get a pair of disposable cuffs. He knew Victor Gant wasn’t going to let this go.

  >> 1423 Hours

  As he tightened the cuffs on the unconscious biker’s hands, Shel’s cell phone rang. He answered without checking caller ID, figuring it was Will or one of the team.