by Chris Holm
As Jake’s vision cleared, he noticed a mangled bike frame beside him on the trail. Its paint was blistered. Its seat and back wheel were missing. Its front wheel spun lazily on its axle, the bare rim clotted here and there with chunks of smoldering rubber. He couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the bike’s rider.
The dirt beneath Jake was spattered red. He raised a hand to his face. When he touched his nose, a jolt of pain made him recoil. He probed again more gingerly; it seemed to be crooked. A sticky gash caked with dirt and clotting blood ran across it. Blood seeped from both his nostrils.
Jake brushed the loose dirt from his face and hands. He ran his tongue over his upper teeth and spat out grit. The fog in his head lifted some, and flashes of memory returned. He tried to piece them together, but important bits were missing and they didn’t quite line up right, like the fragments of a broken glass. They were on their way home from Disneyland, he remembered, when they’d stopped off to re-create his parents’ honeymoon photo, and then…and then…
Wait. They. He and Emily and the kids.
Adrenaline surged through his system and brought his thoughts back to the here and now. They’d found the spot. Posed to record the video. Then something hit him from behind. And then blackness. And then this.
Fear twisted Jake’s guts. He looked around. The effort made his head pound, his vision swim. There wasn’t much to see, anyway—the air was choked with thick dark smoke that seared his lungs with every breath.
Jake tried to stand. The world seemed to wobble around him, and he was forced back to his knees. “Hannah! Aidan! Emily!” he shouted, his voice a dry croak, loud enough to strain his vocal cords, yet so faint that he could barely hear it.
There was no reply. He crawled upslope a ways and tried again. This time, he heard something. His name. High-pitched, frightened, questioning. Emily, he realized.
Jake scrabbled toward her on all fours. Put his hand in something sticky. Recoiled when he realized it was a rivulet of blood.
He followed it back to its source. It wasn’t Emily, but a woman clad in neon-green gym clothes. Jake vaguely recalled seeing her jog by before whatever happened had happened. Her exposed flesh was red and angry. A twisted hunk of metal jutted from the back of her head, charred black at the edges, bloody hair matted all around.
“Emily!” he screamed. “Where are you? Talk to me—are the kids with you? Are you okay?” It occurred to him he ought to hear Sophia crying. His heart tapped out a brittle rat-a-tat against his rib cage.
“I’m over here! I, uh, think I fell.” She sounded dazed, rattled, not herself. “Sophia’s here with me!”
“Where are Hannah and Aidan?”
“I—I don’t know!”
Jake crawled toward the sound of his wife’s voice, limbs protesting the whole way. He found her hovering over Sophia, who lay silent and unmoving atop Emily’s windbreaker. Emily’s forehead was sliced open and bled freely into her eyes.
“Oh God. Is she…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence lest uttering the words might make them so.
“She’s breathing,” Emily answered, her voice high and tremulous from worry, “but unconscious, and she’s got a goose egg on the back of her head. I…I must have landed on top of her when I fell.” Her chin quivered. Grief warped her features. “I know I shouldn’t have moved her, but I couldn’t leave her lying in the dirt.”
He put his hands on her face, palms to cheeks. “Look at me. This isn’t your fault. Whatever happened leveled all of us. And I promise you, Sophia’s going to be just fine.” Emily nodded. Blinked back tears. Put on a brave face. He wondered if her bravery felt as hollow as his did.
Jake knelt over Sophia. Placed a hand against her tiny chest and took heart in its steady rise and fall. Patted her cheek gently and said, “C’mon, little one—wake up for us, okay?”
Sophia didn’t stir. He patted her cheek once more, harder, and when that didn’t work, he shook her gently. He was about to try again when Emily placed her hands on his to still them and shook her head. “Careful,” she said, and only then did he realize he’d been on the verge of going too far, of shaking her too hard—his panic taking over.
And then, by some miracle, Sophia opened her eyes and began to cry.
Jake had never heard a sound so beautiful in all his life.
But his relief was short-lived. With Sophia awake and responsive, his priorities shifted.
“Em, think back. When you fell, did you see Hannah and Aidan?”
She frowned as she struggled to remember. “No. I don’t think so. They weren’t with you?”
He shook his head. “No. We got separated somehow, and when I came to—I—I don’t know. Help me up. I’m going to go find them.” She grabbed his elbow, and with her support, Jake found his feet. “Hannah!” he bellowed, fighting the urge to cough. “Aidan! Tell me where you are!”
“Dad!” It was Hannah, strong and clear. “Dad, we’re over here!”
He stumbled toward them, a smile breaking across his filthy, bloodied face when he saw shapes in the smoke resolve themselves into his children’s forms. Hannah sat with Aidan’s head in her lap, stroking his hair as he wept. They’d bickered the whole drive here, he recalled, but now she was there for him when he needed her. For a moment, Jake was overcome with pride; he felt as if he’d just been offered a glimpse of the amazing woman Hannah would become.
“Are you two all right?” he asked. Aidan shook his head, his tears carving arroyos in the dirt and ash that caked his face.
“I’m okay,” Hannah said, though she was scraped up pretty good, “but Aidan’s leg is broken. I don’t think we can move him without help.”
She was right, Jake realized. Aidan’s leg extended away from his body in an unnatural zigzag. Bone, jagged and gore-streaked, protruded from his shin.
“Where are Mom and Sophia?” Hannah asked.
“Back that way.”
“Are they…”
“They’re fine. We’re all going to be just fine,” he said, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. “You hear me, buddy?” Aidan nodded, and his sobbing abated some.
Jake knew Aidan needed medical attention, but he was worried that if he left to get help, he’d never find his way back here. Reflexively, he reached for the pocket where he normally kept his cell phone, but it wasn’t there. Right, he thought, I left the damn thing in the car, and Hannah had to lend me hers to take the video. It couldn’t have gone far.
He looked around—the ocean breeze taking mercy on him and dispersing the haze some—and spotted it lying a few feet from them at the path’s edge, its bedazzled edges sparkling, its screen a dark reflection of the sky.
He ran to it. Dialed 911. The phone rang twice, and then the call was dropped.
Jake tried again, muttering, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” as it began to ring. This time, an operator answered. “Oh, thank God,” he said. “My family and I are on the trails just up the hill from Fort Point, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. There was some kind of explosion.”
“We’re aware of the situation, sir,” the operator said. From the tension in her voice and the clamor behind her, it sounded like half of San Francisco had called it in. “Are any of you hurt?”
“My son’s leg is badly broken. I think he’s going to need a stretcher.”
“Are you in immediate danger?”
Jake looked around. The nearby trees were scorched bare. Ash rained lazily from the sky. “I…I don’t think so.”
“Okay. Just stay put, then. Help is on the way.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much.”
Jake trotted back to Emily, who held Sophia close and tried to calm her. Brought them over to where Aidan lay and told Emily the EMTs were coming. Jake was so overcome by everything that had transpired—and so relieved his kids were safe—he never stopped to wonder where the gaunt old man who’d been holding Hannah’s phone had gone.
5.
SO HE SAY
S, ‘Nicky, I’d like to introduce you to my uncle.’ And I reply, ‘Your uncle? Thank Christ—I thought that was your mother!’”
The table erupted with laughter. One of Pappas’s henchmen, Milos, slammed his palm down on the dark-stained wood so hard, their plates jumped. The other, Dimitris, just chuckled and shook his head. The two of them looked so alike that, for a time, Hendricks couldn’t tell them apart. Eventually, though, he was able to keep them straight, partly because Milos was by far the more gregarious of the two, his wide eyes dopey and inattentive while Dimitris’s were sly and watchful, and partly because Dimitris had an ugly scar that snaked around his right biceps and disappeared into his shirtsleeve. Hendricks had seen his share of scars like that during his black ops days. It was a shrapnel wound—which meant Dimitris was ex-military.
They’d been sitting here for nearly two hours, the table littered with picked-over plates of steamed mussels and fried calamari, grilled shrimp and baked stuffed lobster—even the remnants of a salt-crusted sea bass, roasted whole and filleted at the table by the chef. Bottles littered the table too. Ouzo for Dimitris—Barbayanni, a brand that Hendricks had never heard of before today. Cruzan Rum for Milos, who drank it straight—wincing every time—once his compatriots teased him for cutting it with Diet Coke. Johnnie Walker Blue for Hendricks. A bottle of an unpronounceable Greek red wine for Pappas.
Pappas’s goons seemed to have no compunction about getting drunk so long as Hendricks was too—in fact, their boss encouraged them—but Pappas chose to nurse his wine. He was shrewd and watchful even among friends, a trait Hendricks might’ve admired if he didn’t despise everything about the man.
“Another drink, Mr. Dalton?”
“I told you, Nick—please call me Jimmy. And I’m not even done with the last one yet!”
Pappas flashed Hendricks an impish grin. “Then I suggest you rectify that presently.”
Hendricks smiled back. “Hey, who am I to argue? You’re the boss.”
He blinked hard, reached clumsily for his drink, and knocked it over. Amber liquid spilled across the table. Hendricks frowned and blotted at it with a cloth napkin.
“On second thought,” he slurred, “I think I may’ve hit my limit.”
The chef—a scraggly tattooed guy named Noah who turned out to be a genius in the kitchen—came over to the table bearing a platter piled high with cheeses, fruit, and local honeycomb. He and Cameron were the only two working—Pappas had instructed Noah to give the rest of the dinner-shift staff the night off, and he’d slipped Cameron and the chef a thousand bucks apiece for their trouble.
“Noah!” shouted Milos. “Sit and have a drink with us.” Milos’s cheeks were flushed. His forehead gleamed with sweat. His smile was broad and guileless.
Noah looked uncertainly at Pappas, who gestured toward an empty chair. “By all means, Noah—join us.”
Noah sat down. Milos sloshed some rum into a dirty glass for him and poured another for himself. Dimitris poured a fresh drink too. The three men clinked and drank.
Milos slammed his empty glass on the table and stood, teetering slightly. “Dimitris,” he said, clapping Noah on the back, “pour this man another round. I gotta see a horse about a piss.”
“Yeah,” said Hendricks, rising unsteadily to his feet and staggering after Milos. “What he said.”
Hendricks had been waiting all afternoon for the right time to make his move. He wasn’t carrying any weapons because he’d had no way of knowing whether Pappas’s goons would pat him down when they arrived. That made taking on two armed thugs at once a risky proposition—riskier still if Pappas was also carrying. Plus, he wanted to keep the waitress and the chef out of the line of fire, if possible.
Once they rounded the corner to the restroom, Hendricks put on speed so that he and Milos reached the door at the same time. With Milos zigzagging drunkenly down the hall, it wasn’t hard for Hendricks to catch up. After a moment’s stop-start awkwardness, Hendricks pushed open the door and gestured for Milos to go first.
“Thanks, pal,” the big man said, his eyes glassy, that goofy smile still pasted on his face.
As Milos stepped across the threshold, Hendricks tripped him with an outstretched foot. Milos pitched forward. Hendricks followed him into the restroom, grabbed the back of Milos’s head as he went down, and slammed it into the sink. The porcelain cracked. Milos shuddered involuntarily, and then his limbs went loose. He was out before he hit the floor, head dented, blood oozing across the tiles.
Hendricks emptied Milos’s pockets. Found a wallet. A cell phone. Half a pack of gum. A tiny ball of plastic wrap knotted at one end and filled with white powder, likely cocaine. He ground his heel into the phone until it broke and left the rest of Milos’s pocket litter beside it. Then he relieved Milos of his pistol, a compact semiautomatic .22 rimfire he wore at the small of his back.
Shit. He should’ve figured. It seemed like big guys always carried little firearms. Hendricks thought it was because they put too much faith in their own strength, or maybe they believed that they looked bigger by comparison. Whatever the reason, it meant he’d be taking on Dimitris with a glorified cap gun.
At least it was loaded to capacity. A round in the chamber. Nine more in the magazine. He thumbed the safety off. Opened the restroom door a hair and listened. Milos had gone down so hard, Hendricks worried someone might’ve heard, but the merriment in the dining room continued unabated.
He slipped into the hall, eased the door closed behind him, and pushed through the swinging double doors to the kitchen. Cameron was standing at a stainless-steel prep station scarfing down a hodgepodge plate of leftovers.
“What are you…” she began. Her eyes widened when she saw the gun. Hendricks put a finger to his lips, and she fell silent. Then he gestured with his barrel toward the walk-in.
“But—”
“No buts. Go.”
When she reached the walk-in door, he jerked it open and gestured for her to get inside.
“And if I don’t?”
“You really want to find out?”
She glanced toward the kitchen door and the dining room beyond it. “I could scream.”
“You could—but you seem like a bright kid, so I’m betting you won’t.”
She eyed him for a moment and then stepped inside. “All the way,” he said. She sighed and headed for the back. “Good. Now sit.”
“Why?”
So I can close the door without you rushing it, he thought. “Because I said so,” he said.
She reluctantly complied, sitting down atop a stack of produce boxes. Her breath plumed. Gooseflesh sprung up on her bare arms.
“For what it’s worth,” he said as he swung the door shut, “this is for your own good.”
She said something in reply, but her voice was barely audible, blunted by the walk-in’s insulated walls.
Hendricks wedged a wooden spoon into the hole intended for a padlock and strode with purpose into the dining room, no longer bothering to feign drunkenness. For a moment, the three men at the table paid him little mind. But that changed when he shot Dimitris in the face.
It was nothing personal. A head shot was simply the quickest way to put a target down. Or, at least, it would have been if Hendricks had had a real gun to work with instead of this rinky-dink .22.
Dimitris took the shot just below his left eye, but it didn’t penetrate his cheekbone; it just deflected off it and furrowed his flesh from cheek to ear. There was a crash of plates and glass as Pappas upended the table and took shelter behind it. The chef, Noah, scurried after him.
Hendricks had hoped Dimitris would go down, but instead he growled in pain and rage and then charged. Hendricks fired again as Dimitris closed the gap. Caught him in the left biceps. But Dimitris just kept coming.
Hendricks tried to sidestep Dimitris, but there was a lot of him to sidestep. Dimitris swiped at Hendricks with one meaty fist. Hendricks blocked it with an outward sweep of his left forearm, his elbow a right ang
le. Dimitris countered with a vicious uppercut. The punch caught Hendricks in the jaw. His head snapped back. His knees buckled.
As Hendricks toppled, Dimitris went for his piece. Hendricks fired off a wild shot as he fell. It struck Dimitris in the side, but he still didn’t go down.
Hendricks landed on his back. The wind rushed out of him. Dimitris raised his weapon, a .22, just like his buddy’s. Hendricks put three rounds into his chest. Dimitris lost his grip on his gun at the impact, and it sailed across the room. He took a halting step toward Hendricks, and then finally collapsed, falling forward so that his weight pinned Hendricks to the floor.
A crack of gunfire, and Dimitris’s corpse bucked as if electrocuted. Another, and a floorboard three inches from Hendricks’s head kicked up splinters. Pappas was firing at him blindly around the table.
Hendricks rolled, heaving Dimitris’s body off him and using it for cover. Pappas hit his dead henchman in the leg, the back, the neck—none of the shots, thankfully, a through-and-through. Hendricks waited for a lull in the shooting, and then he put two rounds through the table Pappas hid behind. A .22 might not have much stopping power, but its slender rounds could sure as hell punch through a half an inch of lacquered wood. Pappas screamed, and his gun clattered to the floor.
Hendricks climbed to his feet and circled the table, the .22 held ready. When he came even with the table’s edge, he saw Pappas frantically applying pressure to a wound in his thigh. Noah sat wide-eyed and trembling beside him, face spattered with Pappas’s blood. As Hendricks approached, Noah crab-walked backward through the rubble from the upturned table and began to cry.
“Relax,” Hendricks said to him. “I’m not here for you—it’s Pappas that I want. Don’t cause any trouble, and I promise you’ll come out of this unharmed. Understand?”
Noah swallowed hard and nodded.
“Good.”
Hendricks knelt, his gun trained on Pappas, and pocketed the man’s dropped pistol—a .45. Its caliber explained the lack of through-and-throughs; fatter rounds spread out more when they hit, which in turn slows them down. That meant the .45 had more stopping power than Milos’s .22, but Hendricks didn’t trust any gun he hadn’t had the chance to inspect.