“Brave?” Wallace sneered. “Is that what you call abducting an innocent woman and two young boys?”
Ronson lifted his shirt, exposing his scars. “You see these? Just fucking games, man. Gallagher kept those al Qaeda bastards off me as long as he could. They were cutting him to pieces and he was spitting it right back in their faces. Every time they moved on me, he found some way to bring the focus back to him. I wouldn’t be alive today if—”
“Who fucking cares,” snapped Wallace. “If this is what you do with your life, you don’t bloody deserve it.”
“I agree.” Crow lowered his shotgun and removed a large knife from a leather sheath on his belt. He held it up to the light. “I say we finish what they began.”
At the sight of the glistening knife, Ronson began to shake uncontrollably and the front of his boxers darkened with urine.
People like to say that what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. But in Wallace’s experience, the opposite held more truth. Ronson had been tortured to within an inch of his life and now it merely took the threat of violence to bring the nightmare flooding back.
Wallace held up one hand. “We don’t have time for this. We need to get to where that son of a bitch is holding Alicia and my boys.” He pointed at the cowering man on the couch. “He knows where that is.”
CHAPTER 58
When Sgt. Gallagher reached the reunited family, Alicia threw the boys behind her back and bared her teeth.
“You son of a bitch,” she snarled. “You said that well was dry. My boys are soaked to the bone, starved and frozen. You promised that if I—”
“They’re alive,” said Gallagher. “Be fucking grateful.”
Alicia pounced like a bobcat, her nails sinking into the man’s cheek and drawing blood as her teeth reached for his throat . . .
She howled in pain as Gallagher’s companion clamped a hand on her shoulder and squeezed the nerve cluster. The entire left side of her body went numb and she hung limply, powerlessly, in his grip.
Then the real pain came—
Gallagher slapped her back-handed.
Callused knuckle and sandpaper skin. His wedding ring, a simple platinum band, split her lip and rattled teeth.
She was torn loose of the soldier’s nerve-deadening grip and spilled to the wet ground, gasping and spitting blood.
Her first instinct was to curl into a ball, but Gallagher wasn’t done. His booted foot found her soft center before she could protect it.
Air exploded from her lungs and her eyes bulged.
The pain was crippling, but the only thought that flashed in her mind was a primal need to protect her children.
She tried to roll over, but became trapped on her back in the mud, her neck at a perilous angle as Gallagher’s foot began to descend again.
The heavy sole was aimed at her head.
A killing blow.
Fury had overtaken sense, her defiance triggering something dark and monstrous within him.
Alex, her oldest but still just a child, charged forward and threw himself at Gallagher’s leg. The top of his tiny skull smashed into the large man’s knee and yet he still found the strength to coil his arms and legs around the powerful limb and hold on for dear life.
Gallagher twisted in the air, his balance suddenly off kilter. His redirected foot missed Alicia and hit the slippery ground at an awkward angle. It skidded out from under him, causing his arms to windmill uselessly as he fell ungraciously on his backside into the mud.
But he didn’t stay there.
He was a soldier. A fighter whose only rules were maim or be maimed, kill or be killed.
Gallagher roared in anger and grabbed the young boy by the hair. He yanked him off his leg and shook him by the roots until the boy howled in agony. Then he pulled back his other fist—
“DON’T!” SCREAMED Alicia. “He’s just a child.”
Gallagher glanced over at the woman and flashed a cruel smile. Then he launched his crippled fist and smashed it into Alex’s agonized face.
The loss of his fingers weakened his punch, but Gallagher could still hit hard enough to snap the boy’s head back and deliver a man’s dose of pain. The boy’s eyes rolled in his head before his body slapped the ground.
Alicia howled and curled her body around her oldest son. The younger one held onto her back, weeping so hard that streams of snot flowed down his chin.
Gallagher rose to his feet and angrily shook off the mud. Embarrassed, he wanted to continue the hurt, but the woman and her children were too soft a target, too easy to break and destroy.
He stepped forward and pressed his muddy face as close to his soldier’s as a drill sergeant at boot camp.
“What are you doing just standing there,” he hissed. “You let that kid blindside me.”
“I figured you could handle him,” said Mr. Black.
Gallagher snorted. “Don’t get fucking smart. You’re not paid to think.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll be paid at all,” said Mr. Black. “You never asked for a ransom.”
Gallagher winced, but immediately extended the only whole finger remaining on his right hand and pressed it into the center of his soldier’s forehead.
Mr. Black didn’t flinch as the sharp nail bore into his flesh, the disfigured hand turning clockwise until its upraised thumb resembled the hammer of a gun.
“You’re my soldier,” said Gallagher. “I’m your sergeant. Don’t . . . ever . . . fucking . . . forget.”
Mr. Black didn’t say a word as Gallagher withdrew his finger and stepped back.
Gallagher walked around the weeping, huddled mess of bodies on the ground.
“Bring them inside,” he ordered. “We’ll deal with it there.”
CHAPTER 59
They travelled in Crow’s vehicle, a white Yukon Hybrid borrowed from Cheveyo.
Ronson had been given thirty seconds to wash and change clothes before his hands were tied behind his back and he was forcibly bundled into the vehicle. Crow chose to sit beside him in the middle row of seats, the business end of his shotgun pressed into the man’s side.
“If he tries to escape,” Crow explained to Wallace, “I’m angry enough about JoeJoe to pull the trigger. You might hesitate and that’s all the time a guy like this needs to fuck us both up.”
Wallace hadn’t argued.
From the driver’s seat, Wallace glanced in the rearview mirror, catching Ronson’s eye.
“What can we expect at Gallagher’s place?” he asked. “It sounds remote.”
“Yeah, the Sarge don’t like civilians much. Never has. He liked to say that if you weren’t following orders, specifically his orders, you were just in the way.”
“What about security?”
Ronson attempted to shrug, but his bonds were so tight that he could barely move his shoulders. He wet his lips instead.
“He’s a paranoid son-of-a-bitch, always has been. But the only time I was ever invited to his new place was when he first started construction. He held a small beer-and-barbecue lunch to show off the view. Carly and Katie were there. Bone and Desmond. The only one missing was Shep and this was before . . . well . . . before he blew himself to fucking pieces. Poor bastard. Anyways, I didn’t see any electronics and Gallagher didn’t ask for my advice. If he wanted to secure the perimeter, I’m pretty sure he would have asked for my input.”
“What about weapons?” asked Crow.
Ronson grinned. “Oh, there’ll be weapons. Count on it. Gallagher always kept an arsenal.”
Wallace’s eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t we find weapons in your house?”
“Me and guns are over, man,” said Ronson. “Don’t get me wrong, I could probably still shoot the ball sack off a housefly if I needed to, but I’m just as happy to never hold steel again. Let me rot my chops in cyberspace. Less painful for all concerned.”
“What about this other soldier?” asked Crow. “The black one.”
Ronson rolled his tongue i
nto his cheek and his eyes flickered across Crow’s face. “What did he do to your boy in Canada?”
Crow had trouble masking his anger. “Sliced his throat without blinking. He was also planning to gut me like a fish before we were interrupted.” His eyes locked on Ronson. “Just like your friends in the desert.”
Wallace flinched.
Ronson swallowed uneasily, but nodded as though he expected nothing less.
He said, “I’ve never seen anything like him. I’ve told you that Sergeant Gallagher can be mean, especially if he doesn’t like you or you go off task without permission, but Bone is a stone cold killer. Whenever we got in a tight spot, it was usually Bone who pulled us out.”
Ronson shook his head, remembering. “One time we were pinned down in a foxhole in the middle of fucking nowhere and that black ghost just up and disappeared. Then, before we knew it, the enemy starts screaming. Made the hair stand up on the back of our necks to hear it. By the time we scrambled out of that hole and reached their camp, every last one of them was dead. Bone was just squatting on the ground, picking his teeth with his knife and covered from head to toe in blood. He scares everybody except the Sarge.”
“We should kill him first, then,” said Crow.
Ronson snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
“You think he’s unkillable?”
Ronson shook off the question. “I didn’t say that. He’s human, I think, but it’ll take more than you to do it.” He chuckled. “To put it in perspective. Sergeant Gallagher and I were being held by al Qaeda in a secure bunker in the middle of an Iraqi village. The situation was so FUBAR that the entire United States military had thrown up its hands. But you know what? Even when it looked hopeless, the Sarge kept saying over and over that Bone was coming. I mean, I figured he was just trying to give me some hope to keep me alive, but he really believed it. And when that door burst open, I thought I was dreaming. Bone, Desmond and Shep did what the most powerful army in the world was afraid to: Kicked major ass and said to hell with taking names.”
Ronson laughed on the brink of hysteria. “And what do you have?” He jerked his head in Wallace’s direction. “He needed a goddamn bus to kill a woman and child.”
Wallace’s face instantly flushed with anger and his hands gripped the steering wheel so hard, his knuckles turned pure white.
“You son of a bitch,” Wallace growled. “I don’t know what this is about, but I didn’t kill anyone. You didn’t even read the goddamn story.”
THE BUS groaned and tipped further over the edge of the Lions Gate bridge. A heavy bolt snapped and the bike carrier shuddered, making the car slip deeper into the abyss and straining its tentative hold to the breaking point.
The woman’s terrified gaze locked on Wallace.
“Save my daughter,” she pleaded. “Please.”
Wallace forced his eyes to look away and carefully pulled his crushed foot out of the tangle of twisted metal where his brake pedal used to be. His trousers were sliced open from the knee down, exposing flesh, bloody and raw. He could even see bone, white amidst the throbbing purple of torn muscle and yellow fat. But despite the alarming pain, the tibia hadn’t snapped.
Gritting his teeth, he unclipped his safety harness. Gravity pulled him hard against the oversized steering wheel, but the belts had done their job. His chest wasn’t crushed. He could breathe. He was alive.
Wallace turned to stare back at his passengers. They were crying, frightened, bruised and battered, but they were all alive and their injuries appeared minimal.
“Move to the back,” he ordered. “Open the rear exit door and help each other get out.”
Forty faces stared back at him. They were frozen. In shock. Nobody moved.
Wallace peered through the crowd, separating wheat from chaff until he spotted a young Indo-Canadian businessman near the back. The cut of his suit suggested he could be a junior manager, but the shaved head and stainless-steel earring said he hadn’t yet given up his identity for a company car.
Wallace pointed a finger at him and raised his voice. “You, sir. You’re in charge. Get that exit door opened and help these people out of the bus and onto the bridge. Help is on its way, but I need you to do it now.”
It took a second, but the young man quickly accepted the challenge and headed to the rear of the bus. He glanced at the instructions printed beside the red emergency handle and gave it a yank in the correct direction. The door swung open and, as if the air was suddenly filled with pure oxygen, the other passengers snapped awake and began to scramble towards escape.
“Don’t panic,” Wallace yelled after them. “Look out for each other and everyone will be okay.”
With his passengers safely departing out the rear, Wallace returned his attention to the front.
The bus’s massive windshield had shattered in the crash and been ripped away, leaving nothing but strips of flapping rubber to mar the view. Beyond the long hood and the dangling car, there was only dark sky and darker water.
Wallace fought his panic and tightened his focus. He locked in on the woman and child. They badly needed help and he was all they had.
“I’m coming,” he said. “Hold tight.”
Wallace inhaled deeply before climbing out of his seat and over the dashboard. A powerful wind whipped at his uniform as he lay on his stomach and slid headfirst out the broken windshield.
“I KNOW it was an accident,” said Ronson, “but that doesn’t—”
Ronson’s words became trapped in his throat as Crow wrapped a hand around his throat and squeezed. Ronson’s eyes bulged and his face molted from veiny red to deathly blue. Crow showed no signs of letting go.
“We still need him,” said Wallace, although his heart wasn’t fully vested in his words.
Crow continued for a few seconds longer before letting go.
The ex-Marine rocked forward, gasping for air, his chest wheezing.
“Fuck,” he cried. “You’ve got issues, man.”
“Don’t you get it?” Crow hissed. “Why do you think the city gave him a goddamn medal? Nobody died. He rescued both the girl and her mother just seconds before their car dropped into the sea. He’s a genuine A+ fucking hero.”
“That’s not possible,” said Ronson. He sat up straight again, his throat as scarlet as a baboon’s ass. “Gallagher told us—”
“He lied,” said Wallace.
Ronson paled. “Why would he do that?”
Wallace stared straight ahead. His voice was low and cold. “That’s something we’ll be sure to ask.”
CHAPTER 60
In the kitchen, Alicia sat on one of the chairs and held her two boys close. She kissed their muddy cheeks and made comforting cooing noises in their ears. The older boy was shaken but awake; he trembled and mewled, while his younger brother sniffled and whimpered.
Gallagher was sickened by the sight. Weakness was a disease and children had to be taught at a young age how to stand alone, how to listen and obey without question. For these two, it was already too late.
Discipline hadn’t begun soon enough and irrational fears had been allowed to fester.
There are no monsters in the woods. Switch off the light and go to sleep.
If we want to eat, we kill. Animals aren’t pets.
Nightmares are for babies. You’re not a baby, Katie.
Gallagher shook his head, chasing noisy memories away.
He focused on Alicia. She refused to look at him.
Women were like that.
When a man is angry, he’ll never lower his gaze. But women liked to hide the knife until your back was turned and they were sure its point would stab deep.
A man had never wounded him so.
Alicia’s face was bruised; her lips bloody and swollen where his ring had cut her.
He wouldn’t apologize, but still he wished he hadn’t lashed out. He never wanted to hit. Never planned to choke or punch or kick.
He had marred her beauty, that pale skin and golden
hair . . . she was so much like his Carly.
He had noticed the resemblance the first time he saw her. In that photo. The photo with him. The false hero.
He had only wanted to talk to her. To find a voice that wasn’t full of anger and fear. Someone who could see beneath his scarred and blistered skin to the place where his heart still beat.
Carly had stopped looking. Stopped trying to understand. She had told him to his face that she wished al Qaeda had finished the job. She became a traitor who deserted him when he needed her most.
After the crash, just as he finally had a chance to confront her, to bring her home again, she took Katie and vanished from the hospital without a trace.
No note. No goodbye. Nothing.
The only thing he knew for sure was that she couldn’t have done it alone. She had help. She must have. And there was only one person she would have trusted: a fucking bus driver who reached across a watery abyss. He made her a ghost, just the same as if she never made it off that damn bridge.
Gallagher had searched for months, but Carly had learned well. She stayed completely off the grid. Never contacted the driver, nor anyone from her former life. For all he knew, she was no longer even on the continent.
The driver, however, was easy to find.
As was his wife.
Alicia welcomed him into her life with the click of a mouse. All it took was for him to create a Facebook account under a false name and a friendly female face with an interest in a hobby called felting. It had been so easy, he didn’t even need Ronson’s help.
In this chatty cyber world, Alicia shared her daily excitements and frustrations, the little secrets her husband was too busy to pay attention to, her dreams and desires. She even posted snippets of poetry. Sappy little verses about loss and longing that never seemed to rhyme.
He came to know her intimately; to understand her better than the bus driver ever could.
[2010] No Cry for Help Page 19