* * *
Very little about this pickup and delivery had felt right to Dom, and now this traffic stop was icing on the cake. He fumbled with his phone as he extracted it from his pocket.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
“We sit,” Pam replied. A retired cop, she’d chosen social work as her second career. The same customer base, she’d explained, but nobody wants to shoot the lady with the clipboard and a smile. “Put the phone back in your pocket. You don’t want to have anything in your hands. They’ll tell us everything we need to know.”
Out front, the cop’s door opened and a uniformed officer took a position behind his engine block, his hands full of pistol. “Holy shit!” Dom exclaimed out of reflex. It came out much louder than he wanted.
Pam seemed less unnerved. “What the hell?”
Behind them, Ryder and Jeff almost collided heads as they leaned into the center space to see out the front windshield.
“Oh, my God,” Jeff blurted. “Are they going to shoot us?”
“Stay in your seats, boys,” Dom said. He thought it was damned good question, though. He waited for Pam to explain, but she continued to scowl at the man with the gun.
An electronic loudspeaker popped from behind. “Driver, turn off your engine and drop the keys out the window.”
“Remember,” Pam said in a clipped tone as she keyed the engine off. “You want your hands to be empty.”
“What the hell is going on?” Dom asked.
“Ask me again in five minutes,” Pam replied. “They think we’re people we’re not, and this is a felony stop. Do everything they say. Move slowly and keep your hands visible at all times.” She made a show of dangling her keys out the window before dropping them to the pavement.
The cop on the loudspeaker said, “Driver, open your door and step out of the car. Keep your hands visible at all times.”
“I told you,” she said. Pam moved carefully. With her left hand extended out her window, she reached across her body with her right hand to pull the handle that opened the door. When it was unlatched, she used her foot to push it all the way open.
“Driver, step out, hands at your sides, fingers splayed, and side-step two steps to your left. Leave the door open.”
Pam gave Dom a look he wasn’t sure how to interpret and went about the business of following directions. She slid off her seat, her feet found the ground, and then she stepped off to the side. She stood with her arms out to her sides, cruciform, in a posture that impressed Dom as one that would quickly become exhausting.
“I’m really scared,” said the younger brother. Jeff. Dom owed it to them to remember their names.
“This will all be over in a few minutes,” Dom assured.
“Front seat passenger,” the guy on the loudspeaker said. “Same drill. Open your door, keep your hands visible . . .” The instructions were pretty much the same as before.
Dom turned so he could see both faces. Adolescents looked so much younger when they were frightened. “Ryder and Jeff, listen to me,” he said. “There’s been some kind of misunderstanding. I’m sure everything will be fine. After I get out, I want you both to listen carefully and do exactly what the officer tells you to do.”
“Are we in trouble, Father?” Ryder asked. His voice trembled.
“I don’t know,” Dom said. “But if you do what they say, everything will be fine.”
Father Dom slid out of the passenger side door and then moved away from the van.
“Hands farther out to the side,” the cop commanded. Dom raised his hands higher, splayed his fingers further out. Could they not see his white collar?
“Stay cool, officers,” Dom said. “I’m a priest and my driver is a retired police officer.”
For a second or two, nothing happened. Maybe longer. This was wrong. All of it seemed unreal. Unearned.
The kids.
Dom turned to look back at the boys, and that’s when he heard the gunshot. Pam fell, and then something kicked Dom hard in the chest. As he fell to the street, he wondered how anything could feel so hot and not set him on fire.
He thought, Please, God, forgive me. Everything went dark.
* * *
The spatter from Pam’s exploding head painted the window just inches from Ryder’s face. He jumped and screamed something even he didn’t understand. Another shot followed an instant later, and Father Dom dropped from view.
“No!” Jeff yelled. “Oh, my God they killed them!”
Ryder didn’t say anything. His mouth wouldn’t work. Through the smear of gore, he watched the cop from the front racing toward the van. His flashlight beam bounced as he ran. Ryder’s stomach churned. He thought he might puke.
Except he didn’t have time.
The cop pulled his sliding door open at the same time the other cop opened the slider on Jeff’s side. They opened them hard, causing the panels to rebound halfway closed again.
“Get out,” the closest cop said.
“What did you do?” Ryder shouted. “You killed them!”
The cop pressed his pistol against Ryder’s forehead. “Open that mouth of yours again if you want to join them.”
To Ryder’s right, Jeff started to yell. “Leave me alone! Ryder! Help!”
The other cop slapped Jeff across the forehead with the barrel of his pistol, and the boy collapsed.
“Jesus!” Ryder yelled. “Jeff! Goddammit, leave him alone!”
The last part of his words sounded clipped and garbled as a rough sack was shoved over his head and tied tight across his neck. Out of reflex, Ryder brought his hands to his throat and pulled at the cinch.
“No!” he yelled, and he punched blindly at his attacker. “Get this thing off—”
A light flashed behind his eyes and there was nothing.
* * *
Dom hurt. His chest felt hot, hollow and numb all at the same time. He thought his eyes were open, but the world was very dark. He thought he could see the outline of trees across the black sky, but he couldn’t be sure.
“I’m alive,” he said aloud. It was a test of his voice. It didn’t sound right, as if coming from someone else and far away. “But I’m dead soon.” The words didn’t frighten him, though maybe they should. What they did was focus him.
He needed help, but out here at this hour, he could go undiscovered for longer than it would take for him to bleed out.
Ancient first aid training from back in his Army days tried to form in his mind. Should he raise his legs to counter the onset of shock, or should he try to raise his torso to slow down the bleeding?
Dom winced against anticipated pain as he finger-walked his left hand to his pants pocket where he could find his phone. Moving an arm meant flexing a chest muscle, though, and that brought the fiery agony back in Technicolor.
“Awww, dammit!” he grunted as he brought the phone up to his face. He shut his eyes against the brightness of the screen. He pressed the voice command button and said, “Dial Digger on cell.”
The phone replied, “Dialing Digger Grave on cell.” The electronic lady’s voice sounded even bitchier than usual.
As the call connected and he heard the ring tone, he prayed not to hear the voice mailbox message. Dom didn’t know if he had that much consciousness left in him.
After the third ring (or was it the thirtieth?) he heard a click, and then the raspy, sleep-addled voice of his old friend. “Jesus, Dom, it’s late. What the hell?”
“Dig, I’ve been shot.”
“Are you serious?” Jonathan Grave seemed one hundred percent awake now.
“I’m somewhere on the Cove Road,” Dom said. He spoke quickly because he knew he didn’t have time. “Trace the cell signal and get me some help. It’s bad.”
“Oh, holy crap,” Jonathan said. “Shit.”
“Dig, listen to me,” Dom continued. “It was cops. They shot me and the driver.”
“The kids, too?”
“I don’t know. I think they took them.
I need help, brother.”
“It’s on the way,” Jonathan said. “Keep your phone on.”
Dom nodded his answer as he lost his grip.
Photo by Amy Cesal
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN GILSTRAP is the New York Times bestselling author of more than fourteen novels, including the acclaimed Jonathan Grave thrillers. Against All Enemies won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Paperback of 2015. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages worldwide. An expert in explosives safety and a former firefighter, he holds a master’s degree from the University of Southern California and a bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia. Please visit him on Facebook or at www.johngilstrap.com.
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