Burned Bridges

by A. J. Stewart

“We had to clean up Dennison’s mess. He wanted to fix the problem. Make himself the big man. But he was shite. He thought he’d earn brownie points if he killed you. But my orders were to keep you alive. Because at that point they figured your death would attract too much attention.”

  “But the women and children at Dennison’s safe house?”

  “Casualties of war.”

  “They were little kids.”

  “Little kids grow to become men. And in that part of the world, they don’t forget a damned thing. They remember who done them wrong. They remember for a thousand years. Better that they not grow up.”

  “That’s cold.”

  McConnell shrugged. “You’re no angel, remember.”

  Flynn remembered plenty. The ghosts visited often. But he had never put a double tap into a child.

  McConnell stepped backward away from Flynn. As he moved, the light cascading over him lessened, until he reached the edge of the tire fort, where it became a soft glow. He looked at Beth. She was hanging limply from her bindings, her wind and strength gone. McConnell studied her for moment.

  “A pretty one.”

  Flynn wanted him talking. “Where’s your team?”

  McConnell kept his eyes on Beth. “You did a good job on them, back at the house.”

  “They made mistakes.”

  “They made one. Those electric shock guns. We should have just shot you in the legs.”

  “Four guys, that’s all you’ve got?”

  McConnell nodded and looked at Flynn. “Don’t be stupid. Don’t go thinking that you’ve almost won. I had four guys because I didn’t call for backup. I wanted you for myself. You did something with their shipment. They blamed me, even though it was this muppet that lost it.” He turned and spat on Ox Dennison’s body. “And I needed to clean it up.”

  “You should have come for me. You shouldn’t have involved Beth.”

  “I didn’t. That was Dennison. You don’t get it, do you? They are everywhere. They were in your pretty girl’s law offices. They heard her use your stupid phrase about the bogeyman. You shouldnae have a catchphrase, Flynn. Makes you famous.”

  “They can’t have operatives everywhere, McConnell. The name of the organization would be everywhere.”

  “It is everywhere, you dullard. You call it what you want. Government. Big business. The church.” McConnell smiled through his rough beard. “They have a billion eyes and ears. The minions working for them don’t even know they’re doing it. Take your girlie’s clients. They think they’re bankers. But everything they say is recorded and run through a super computer, searching for key phrases. Homeland security departments look for words like attack or bomb. But the same programs look for phrases like yours. And after all these years, they found one. So they called me back from the Middle East to check it out. But old Dennison here had his own little network and got wind of it. We were both in Iraq, so he called his sister from over there. Got the jump on me.” He looked at the body in the gravel. “Not again. Now I right this, and I get my life back.”

  “You get your life back from whom?”

  McConnell smiled. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “What’s the eight?”

  “You can’t fix this one, Fontaine. Or Flynn, is it now? The eight are the system. And you can’t beat the system.”

  “I can beat anybody.”

  “That’s cocky, especially for you.”

  “I’m motivated.”

  “No. You’re not. And that’s the problem.”

  McConnell stuck Flynn’s gun in the utility belt of his uniform and bent down next to the nearest burning drum. There was a small five-gallon gasoline canister sitting near the base. The fuel that the Dennisons used to start their fires. McConnell unscrewed the cap and then picked up the canister. He adjusted the strap on his rifle so it was pointing in Flynn’s direction.

  “Time to choose, Flynn. One of these lassies is going to burn. I’m going to keep the other one until you bring the shipment to me. That’s motivation. Now, you choose which one is which. Who burns?”

  Beth found her second wind. She stood bolt upright against the tires as if backing away from McConnell and the can of gasoline. Her eyes were wide. Flynn looked to Hutton. She was looking at Cameron Dennison. Cameron had wandered next to the nearest burning drum, where the firelight lit her from below.

  “Come on, Flynn. You were always the leader. The pick of the litter. So make your choice. Don’t make me burn them both.”

  Flynn said nothing.

  “You’re going to kill them both, Flynn. Choose!” McConnell shouted the last order. Flynn knew he was testing the Scotsman’s patience. He knew the man was generally a cool customer. But he also knew that his attention could waver. So Flynn waited. He tensed and cocked his left leg and looked at the muzzle on the rifle and glanced at the handgun that Cameron Dennison held by her side. Her mouth had formed a grin. It wasn’t a look that would win any elections.

  “Choose,” screamed McConnell.

  “I choose Beth.” He looked at her. She was his link to a normal life. His chance at love and a future without the bloodshed of his past. And it was gone. Up in smoke, as the saying went. Her eyes were on him. Wide and beyond fear. What he saw was hatred.

  McConnell nodded. “And you call me cold.” He dumped the gasoline around the base of the tires Beth was tied to, splashing it around. Then he threw the can away into the fort and took a lighter from his belt. Flicked on a small flame.

  And dropped it.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Gasoline liquid burns. But gasoline vapor explodes. So the base of the tire turret burst with a whoomp, pulsing flame outward. Not a long way, but enough. McConnell took a reflex step back to avoid the momentary burst. The muzzle of his rifle pointed out to his right, into the darkness beyond the sedan on cinderblocks. Not where Flynn was.

  But Flynn was no longer where he had been either. McConnell’s lighter was in midair, dropping toward the gasoline when he pushed away. He pumped his arms hard, pumped his legs harder. It was the advantage of a Legion career. All that marching made his legs strong. But marching was essentially an aerobic activity, which burned a lot of calories. It kept him lean and trim up top. Which made him fast. Not Olympic sprint fast. That was as much genetics as training. But faster than most. He was halfway through the arc of the headlights when the gasoline ignited and the flame burst from the base of the tires to which Beth was tied.

  McConnell reflexed away from the flame. It was then he saw the movement. A flash across the bright lights. His momentum had taken his rifle out on a wide arc away from the field of light, and he had to arrest that momentum before he could bring it back again. It took half a second to slow the rifle, stop it out wide and start it moving back toward Flynn.

  It was a half second Flynn used to leap up, like a runner in the steeplechase. Not like a hurdler. In the hurdles, the runner jumped over the barrier, but in the steeplechase he aimed to land on the barrier, to use it to propel him forward. Over some kind of obstacle, like a pool of water. But Flynn’s obstacle wasn’t water. And he wasn’t planning on going over it.

  He pushed off with his left foot, up into the air. It needed to be well timed, and it was. He knew the drum well. They were standard across the world, despite the different measurement conventions. In the US they were called fifty-five-gallon barrels, in British imperial measures forty-four-gallons drums, and in metric two hundred liters. For ease of transport and storage, the standard height was 33.5 inches, or 851 millimeters. Flynn knew from long practice that his best running box jump under fatigue was a meter high. That gave him 149 millimeters leeway. His right foot landed on the rimmed edge of the capped oil drum. His knee bent and took the impact and then extended in one fluid motion. He swung his left leg through its natural arc and onward, propelling himself farther forward and upward.

  The first shot cracked from McConnell’s rifle as Flynn pushed up from the top of the drum. But the rifle was just moving
back across its arc, and the shot passed between the barn and the house and away into the dark mountains beyond. The second shot rang out as the rifle swept around and hit one of the headlights on the Yukon. Then McConnell swung the rifle around toward the oil drum.

  Flynn launched himself up from the drum into the air. His arms were wide and high as if he were attempting to fly. His legs came up into a midair tuck like lifting the landing gear on an aircraft. He felt the heat from the next drum. It was open and flame spewed from it. He should have been filled with panic, his breathing uncontrollable. But he wasn’t. He was doing what he had been raised to do. He was taking action. He was defending those that could not defend themselves, just as his father had. Flynn could only imagine what he must have looked like, flying through the air, arms splayed, legs tucked, lit by fire like a gargoyle burst to life. He flew over the top of the flame, over the second drum. As his momentum waned and gravity took hold and he descended toward earth, he pushed out with his legs.

  The third shot flew behind Flynn and smacked into the side of the farmhouse. Flynn kicked out and twisted his body. It was like some strange karate move. Not a recommended tactic. He was going to land hard on the ground, and nine times out of ten he didn’t want to be lying on the ground in any kind of fight, let alone a firefight. But this wasn’t nine of ten. This was the tenth time.

  He thrust his feet out and his boots connected with the dumbstruck face of Cameron Dennison. She had been watching the flame burst from around Beth’s feet and turned to see Flynn launch through the night sky at her. His boots cracked into her chin and cheekbone and sent her flying backward into a mound of tires. Flynn twisted and braced and hit the ground with a shocking thud.

  It hurt. But not enough to stop him moving. Maybe broken ribs. Something to check on later. Now he was on the ground but behind cover. He pushed up and dove for the side of the farmhouse. A fourth and fifth shot hit the drums between him and McConnell. One of the rounds hit the full drum, and as he landed by the house, Flynn heard the gasoline spilling through the hole. He had tested the drum on his earlier visit and knew it to be full, but unless McConnell was using incendiary rounds it was unlikely to explode from a rifle shot.

  Flynn felt for the grass at the base of the farmhouse and wrapped his hands around the shotgun he had taken from Cameron Dennison’s armoire. He swung it around and got into a crouch and spent a second considering the order of his next moves. McConnell was firing. Cameron was down but probably not out. Hutton was tied up between him and McConnell.

  And Beth was burning.

  He moved as fast as he could while staying below the height of the oil drums. He swung the shotgun up and out. A shotgun didn’t hit a pinpoint target like a bullet. It sprayed lead shot across a wide area. The further it traveled, the wider the spray got. And Beth was out there, somewhere near McConnell. So Flynn aimed out toward the sedan on cinderblocks and fired. He shot with the gun in one hand. The recoil on a Remington can knock an inexperienced shooter off their feet, if the weapon is not tucked tight into their shoulder and their feet are not splayed and planted firmly on the ground. Flynn expected the impact. He didn’t hit the ground. But the recoil spun him around like an ice skater. He spun into the side of the tires that Hutton was tied to. But Hutton was not next in line.

  “You’re crazy, your woman’s out here,” screamed McConnell. He popped off three more rounds into the side of the house, and Flynn recognized the sound of a Glock. McConnell had emptied the five rounds in the box magazine attached to his AS50. Now he was using Flynn’s handgun. But he didn’t know exactly where Flynn was. Flynn pushed off the turret toward Cameron. She was on her back, dazed but trying to sit up. Flynn didn’t know if she still had Hutton’s firearm. He didn’t ask. He swung the shotgun around to grab it by the barrel and fore-end and then drove it down into Cameron’s face. Some newer rifles had a rubber pad attached to the stock to lessen the impact of the recoil. An original Remington was all wood. It made a sickening crack on impact. Nose and cheekbone splitting. He didn’t wait to observe the result.

  Flynn spun back around to Hutton and pulled the Glauca knife from his pocket. He flicked out the blade and held it high and slashed down hard. The blade was sharp and it had little trouble with the oily rubber tied around Hutton. He slashed again and again, hitting the tires behind as he did. Hutton saw what he was doing and pulled at her bonds. Another slash and another cut and Hutton pulled and the rubber snapped.

  Hutton fell forward and instinctively rolled away from the enemy. Flynn grabbed her arms and dragged her behind the tire turret. He dropped the shotgun and pulled her up and held her in place against the tires with his hand in the middle of her back. Then he cut the bonds that held her hands behind her. He snapped up the shotgun and flipped the knife around in his hand so the handle faced her.

  “Beth,” he said.

  Hutton nodded. She pressed against the tire turret and looked around toward Beth.

  Flynn ran the other way.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Flynn ran into the tire fort. It was a dark maze, a mix of neat stacks of truck tires ten feet tall and mounds of car tires that reached as high as the farmhouse. He ran for one of the mounds. It was not easy going. Any football player can recount their training days, working hard to lift their knees high into the air as they stepped in and out of tires placed on the grass. One misstep, one toe connecting with the lip of a tire, and that was it. Crash and burn.

  It was like running up a sand hill. Lots of effort for little reward. But Flynn needed the high ground. Initially. He got about a third of the way up. Beth’s screams rang around the farm. He didn’t have time to get higher. It would have to do. From this height he could see the old sedan across the way, and the big barn. Fires burned in between and lit the ragged shapes of the tires like a vision of hell. He raised the shotgun to his shoulder and fired at the rear side of the turret Beth was fixed to. It was high and wide, spattering the turret with pellets. But it wasn’t the shot that was important. It was the muzzle flash.

  The burst of flame as the gunpowder exploded from the barrel was like a lighthouse beacon on a rocky shore. High and handsome and obvious as hell. Flynn didn’t clamber down from his perch. He jumped. He hit the ground and rolled as three shots hit the mound of tires up high. Flynn rolled to his feet and ran back, farther into the maze of tires. He heard McConnell cry out.

  “That’s your two, Flynn. You idiot.”

  Flynn ran. McConnell was right. It was his two. Two barrels, two shots. But Flynn knew something McConnell didn’t know. He had learned it from Ox. He’d learned it by scoping the farm from his own position up the hill among the pines. He knew what a position on the hill could see. And what couldn’t be seen. Ox had seen him place the MP5K under the sedan on the cinderblocks from his position up on the hill. But he couldn’t see the back side of the house. He couldn’t see the side of the house next to the tires. Flynn hadn’t seen that spot from his position up there. So neither had McConnell, who had clearly been watching from a position higher on the hill where he didn’t have full visibility of the farm. He had taken the high position to watch Flynn while he was watching the farm. So he hadn’t seen Flynn go in and out of the back of the house and hadn’t seen him place the shotgun in the grass.

  McConnell didn’t know about the spare shells in his pocket.

  Flynn ran. Then he stopped. Near the rear of the tire fort. He was surrounded by tires. He broke the shotgun open and pulled out the warm shell casings, blasted open at the end. He dropped the spent shells into the pocket on the right side of his coat and pulled out two fresh shells from the pocket on the left. Slipped them into the barrels and clicked the breech closed.

  Now he had to move. He liked the odds of a shotgun in close quarters against a sniper rifle. The rifle was long and unwieldy. It wasn’t for close action. But McConnell also had Flynn’s Glock, which gave him a close-quarters option. Flynn’s advantage would be in the middle distance. The shotgun was like a cheap came
ra. Point and shoot. No problems with accuracy. A spatter of shots far and wide. But that offered a disadvantage. He couldn’t shoot in the general direction of Beth and Hutton. Not even roughly, not even a little. Too much risk. Because with luck they would be mobile. And if the tire fort was somewhat of a circle, he was right across the diameter from where Beth was tied up.

  So he ran. Into the maze of tires. He had a plan. An illogical plan. Not a plan that would have passed muster by any military general in the history of the world. He was taking the low ground. McConnell was a sniper. Snipers loved the high ground. He would go for it. The highest ground available. The top of the mound of tires. It was a gamble. By Flynn and by McConnell. Flynn’s gamble was becoming a fish in a barrel. McConnell’s gamble was the climb.

  Flynn found a pocket in the maze of tires. In another context it might be called a dead end. But he would be able to see McConnell coming from the front, and he could hear him coming across the top of the tires from behind. Most importantly, he would be shooting up and away from the farm and wherever Hutton bunkered down with Beth. He pushed in against the tires and waited. His eyes on the large mound. Sights fixed at the peak. McConnell’s best option was to edge up the mound backward. Butt down, face out, rifle at the ready.

  Flynn didn’t look for McConnell. He looked for movement. Gave it over to the dinosaur part of his brain. The prehistoric instinct of a predator. And he saw it. A flicker, the slightest hint of movement as the sniper moved into place. Without the drum fires he would never have seen it. On the outer edge of his peripheral vision. Not on the tire mound at all. On the roof of the farmhouse. It was a good placement. McConnell could see the driveway and fort and the turnaround and the barn. Flynn trained his eyes on the spot and waited for them to adjust. No more movement. McConnell was better than that. Not the best, not even close. But certainly good enough to stay damn still once he was in place. Flynn waited and looked and saw. The muzzle of the rifle, low on its bipod mount. Behind it a shape, indistinct from the roof and the trees and the night sky beyond. But a shape that he knew to be McConnell. It wasn’t rocket science. Sniper rifles didn’t fire themselves.