Down the Broken Road

by J. R. Backlund

  Across the street, less than thirty yards away, Stoller moved behind a silver SUV. Through the windows of the car behind it, she could see him with his arms outstretched. He held a black semiauto, and it looked like he had it trained on another car somewhere further ahead. He fired a pair of shots and stepped around the SUV before sprinting to get behind the next car in the line.

  He was moving in on his target, firing a couple of rounds at a time to keep their heads down while he advanced on them. Rachel had to halt his advance before he got there, but he was out of sight now. She looked up the sidewalk and found an oak tree that would give her cover. There was a gap, though, between it and the last car on this side of the street. She would be exposed, if only for a second.

  She ran to the last car and huddled by the rear wheel. The tree was directly in front of her. It couldn’t have been more than thirty feet, but it might as well have been a mile, if Stoller caught her in the open.

  She flinched before she registered that another shot had been fired. Then there were two more in quick succession. Stoller was making another run.

  Rachel had to move. She backed up a few paces, hoping she could use the extra space to get up to full speed by the time she cleared the car. She took a couple of quick breaths and broke into a sprint. The cars across the street became a blur in her peripheral vision.

  Somewhere in that haze of colored shapes, Stoller was behind cover, possibly taking aim, matching her pace as he prepared to fire. He wouldn’t take the shot until she was just a step away from safety. The bullet would strike her in midstride and she would spill to the ground, dying on a sidewalk on a beautiful summer day in Monroe.

  She skidded to a stop behind the tree and leaned against it for just a moment to steady herself. She had made it unscathed. And, as far as she could tell, she hadn’t been spotted.

  She extended her arms and braced her shooting hand against the trunk. Her feet edged sideways a few inches at a time, keeping her stance balanced as she circled to search for Stoller. She was adding a sliver to her visual field with each step. Then he appeared.

  Leaning against the trunk of a car, he looked ready to make another run. She took aim, but he shifted away from her, moving to the corner on the passenger side. It was no longer a clean shot—she had missed her opportunity. She cursed at herself for not putting him down the night before. Her fear of being charged with another murder … her fear that he would somehow survive her attempt to gun him down in the cab of his truck … had kept her from pulling the trigger. She regretted that decision now. If anyone died today, it would be because she had failed to act when she’d had the chance.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Braddock. He was two cars away from Stoller, reaching around the hood, searching for a target. Hughes was doing the same on the other side.

  Stoller fired, and Hughes ducked. Then he came back up and shot twice. He turned and looked at Braddock, yelled something and held up his pistol. It looked like he was out of ammo. Braddock moved to his side and fired a single shot.

  Stoller had a fresh magazine in his hand. He fired, then ejected the spent magazine and slid the new one in.

  Rachel took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, aimed at the corner of the car window where she expected to see Stoller pass by, and waited.

  Stoller rose, fired twice, and started to move.

  Rachel squeezed her trigger and felt the gun pop in her hand. The window became a haze of shattered glass. From that distance, she couldn’t see through it, but she knew he hadn’t made it to the next car. Her shot had stopped him.

  “Danny,” she yelled, “he’s on the sidewalk.”

  Stoller rose, blood streaming down his cheek on the left side of his face. She tried to aim at him, but he was too fast. Bark exploded off the oak as he fired a volley at her. She spun for cover and crouched down.

  There were other shots—Braddock returning fire. Stoller fired back at him. She looked around the other side of the tree to see if she could help.

  Stoller was moving away, firing a shot every few steps to cover his retreat. Sirens blared from several directions. Rachel stood and tried to get a sight picture, but Stoller was running hard now. He turned a corner and disappeared.

  “Rachel,” Braddock yelled. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  “I’m good. But you better get over here.”

  She rushed across the street, staying low and keeping an eye toward the corner in case Stoller returned. When she got there, Braddock and Hughes were knelt over Gulani. He was on his back, unconscious. His shirt was blood-soaked and his lips were turning blue.

  “He’s losing blood too fast,” Braddock said, pressing his hands against a spot on his shoulder.

  Hughes was on his phone trying to guide an ambulance their way. Two Monroe PD patrol cars were stopped up the street by the diner. She could see one of the officers. He had his weapon out, held low as he talked to a hysterical woman pointing in their direction.

  Rachel lifted Gulani’s shirt and spotted a second wound seeping blood. It was in his abdomen, just under his ribcage. She dropped to her knees and covered the hole with her hands and pushed against it, trying to slow the bleeding.

  “Where are they?” she asked Hughes.

  He shook his head and started cursing at the 911 operator.

  Gulani’s breathing was rapid and shallow, and Rachel knew, no matter how much pressure they kept on the wounds, they wouldn’t be able to stop them from bleeding internally.

  Braddock looked at her and said, “He’s not gonna make it.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Stoller turned into an industrial park on the north end of town and hid the F-150 between a pair of red cargo containers. He killed the engine and checked his face in the mirror. The woman had almost made a direct hit. Luckily, her bullet had struck the car’s rear door at the base of the window, sending pieces of glass and metal flying after him.

  There was a hole just beneath his cheekbone. Something was inside it—glass or a bullet fragment. He tried to dig it out, sucking a breath through clenched teeth as the pain grew. But it was deep, and his fingers were too large.

  He gave up, knowing that it didn’t matter anyway. In a few hours, he would be dead. He had accepted that now. There was no saving him. Duty demanded that he protect what was most important to him, and that required a sacrifice.

  But first, he needed a car.

  He grabbed his bag and got out, moved to the corner of the container, and looked around. The park housed a logistics center where tractor trailers were loaded with goods for delivery around the state. It was closed on Sunday, so the expanse of concrete surrounding the warehouse was barren. There was no one around.

  He ran along a fence at the edge of the pavement. Overhanging trees on the adjacent property offered some cover. He got to the end of the fence and watched the road beyond, keeping an eye out for cops. Across the street, another fence separated the industrial area from a neighborhood.

  A car approached. A large sedan with an old man behind the wheel. Stoller turned around and leaned against the fence, showing the driver his back and trying to look like he belonged there. After the car passed, he turned around and gave the street a final look. It was clear.

  He dashed across and tossed his bag over the fence, then propped his foot and scaled it. When he cleared the top, he didn’t bother trying to lower himself gently. He dropped to the ground, crashing on his side. It took some of his wind away, but he didn’t mind. The pain made him feel alive. Soon enough, he wouldn’t feel anything at all.

  He jumped up and grabbed his bag, then ran to the side of the nearest house. Voices came through a window—a man and a woman. He listened for a minute, hoping he wouldn’t hear children. They sounded older, perhaps in their sixties. If they had grandkids, they weren’t around today.

  He reached into the bag and took out his gun. There was a side door to the garage. He tested it and found that it was unlocked. He crept in and looked
around.

  A pair of SUVs were crammed into the space. A Nissan Pathfinder and a Hyundai Tucson. The Tucson looked newer. It was white and inconspicuous and probably belonged to the woman. He would take it and make his way north. After a quick stop, of course. He had to say good-bye.

  The old couple would have to be detained. He had come prepared for that. Inside the bag, there was duct tape and the package of zip ties Gordon had bought for the woman. There was also some rope he could use to secure them to something heavy and rigid, like a bed frame. He would tie them up and destroy their phones and make his escape.

  Eventually, someone would find them, and the car would become a target. But he was willing to bet that he could get where he needed to go and do what he needed to do before that happened. He only needed a few hours.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The emergency room doors opened up with a frenzy as the EMTs handed Gulani off to the doctor and his team of nurses. They wheeled him around a corner and through another pair of doors into a hall, making their way to a trauma bay. Rachel could hear the doctor yelling orders as the automatic doors drew to a close.

  Then there was silence. The first instant of calm since the shooting had started. Downtown, things were different, Rachel knew. Monroe PD officers and Union County sheriff’s deputies were scouring the streets, talking to witnesses, and searching every nook and cranny to make sure Stoller wasn’t still there, wandering around on foot or hiding in some alleyway. A SWAT team had been dispatched to his house, but they had come up empty—no sign of him or his truck.

  Rachel looked at her hands, coated with sticky blood, and tried to take stock of what had happened. And, more importantly, why. Her first thought was that Stoller had seen Gulani as a liability. He had come after him in an attempt to keep him from talking. But to gun him down in broad daylight in front of a hundred witnesses? What crime could he be trying to cover up? What could be worse than first-degree murder? He had to know that he would never get away with shooting Gulani dead in the street. Every cop in town was now after him. It didn’t make any sense.

  Unless it wasn’t the crime that he was trying to hide.

  A thought struck Rachel. She started for the admissions counter, but a hand stopped her. It was Hughes. He had been outside on his phone, but he was back now and he looked furious. He pushed her against the wall and put a finger in her face.

  “Enough fucking around,” he said.

  Braddock yelled, “Hey,” and started for Hughes. “Get off her.”

  Rachel put her hand up and said, “It’s okay, Danny.”

  He stopped short, but his hands were clenched into fists. His eyes threatened violence.

  Hughes didn’t back down. He said, “I don’t like getting shot at. I want to know what the hell is going on, and I want to know right now.”

  Rachel explained everything. She told him about her time on the Larson case as an SBI agent, how it seemed to be connected to the Hubbard murder, though she didn’t know exactly how yet. She told him about Parker’s story and how he had located a witness. When she described Stoller’s attack on them at Ramirez’s house, Hughes finally eased back, giving her some room.

  Braddock, calmer now that Hughes was no longer in Rachel’s face, chimed in. “We think it might be about the heroin. Could be, they got their hands on some raw opium in Afghanistan. And maybe that firefight in Larson’s journal had something to do with it.”

  Hughes exhaled a deep breath and said, “Well, I don’t know anything about heroin, but when I talked to Buckley, he said there was a rumor about that attack. He said he’d heard that they weren’t attacked at all. Some of the guys in their platoon were saying that Stoller and the others just shot an innocent kid for the hell of it.”

  “Damn,” Braddock said. “That’s messed up. Doesn’t really help us, though, does it?”

  Rachel was staring at the floor, thinking. She felt the blood, dried and crusty on her palms, and said, “I need to go wash up.”

  Braddock looked at his own hands. “Yeah, me too.”

  She went to the restroom and scrubbed the blood off, left her fingers soaking under the running water as her mind shifted into high gear. The faces of the killers appeared to her. Stoller, cold and calm, a relentless force with no emotion. Martin, cautious and nervous, who hid his fear with curses and taunts. And Gordon, the man with the temper.

  Then she thought about Hubbard.

  She dried her hands and went out to find Braddock and Hughes seated in the waiting area. Hughes reached over, shook Braddock’s hand, and said, “By the way, thanks for saving my ass.”

  Braddock had told Rachel the story on the ride to the hospital. He had heard a scream from outside, looked in its direction, and saw Stoller approaching with a gun. He had jumped up and run for the door, drawing his weapon along the way. Stoller shot Gulani twice, saw Hughes going for his service pistol, and took aim. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk, taken completely by surprise, Hughes was an easy target.

  Braddock had come out shooting. He had missed, but it had been enough to get Stoller to dive behind a car. Then he’d helped Hughes pull Gulani to safety.

  “Anytime,” Braddock said.

  “Mind if I interrupt this little love fest?” Rachel asked.

  He looked up at her. “Shoot.”

  “Poor choice of words,” Hughes said.

  Rachel asked, “What are the chances that four homicidal maniacs would all find each other in the same squad in the Army?”

  Braddock looked at her like he hadn’t understood the question. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking about living in constant fear and anger…” She paced in front of them. Her hands gestured as she spoke, as if they were urging the words up and out of her. “… and about wanting to get payback for being attacked all the time.”

  Hughes leaned back in his seat. “I can sympathize.”

  “And I’m thinking about peer pressure.” She stopped walking and sat down. “Especially the kind of peer pressure that young soldiers can put on each other.”

  Braddock said, “You’ve got a theory?”

  She nodded. “Larson’s journal talks about the frustration of dealing with asymmetrical warfare. How they were always getting sniped at or hit with a grenade or an IED. But, for a while, they never got any payback. And they never got any warning from the villagers, so some of the guys started seeing all of them as Taliban or al-Qaeda sympathizers.”

  “You think they decided to take it out on this Afghani kid?” Hughes asked.

  “Maybe some of them did. Imagine, you’re a nineteen-year-old private. Your buddies are all talking trash about wanting to kill an enemy. They say they might as well just shoot a villager, because they’re all terrorist sympathizers anyway. Savages, is what they called them. And you, as that nineteen-year-old kid, start to join in on the trash talking.

  “Then one day, it’s not just talk anymore. Three of your squad mates, all higher rank and a little older than you, decide it’s time to act. They spot a target out in a field, and they want to take it out. They all aim their rifles and get ready to fire. And right up to that very instant, you’ve been acting like you’re on the exact same page with them. You really just wanted to fit in, but now it’s about to actually happen. What do you do?”

  “You go along with it,” Hughes said.

  Braddock shook his head. “I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.”

  “But would you have the courage to stop them?” she asked. “Right then and there, with someone like Stoller in charge of you?”

  His expression changed. He looked less certain, as if he was conceding that her narrative was plausible.

  “You just became Adam Hubbard,” she said. “Imagine how he must’ve felt, watching this teenager get murdered by his friends. Maybe even taking part in it. He’s tortured by guilt. He gets pills for a back injury, but they’re really to mask a different kind of pain.”

  “I’d buy that,” Braddock said.

  She l
ooked at Hughes. “You said Buckley told you there was a rumor that Stoller and the others shot the teenager for the hell of it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What might you do if you were Larson and you got wind of that rumor?”

  “I guess I might call CID,” he said.

  “Exactly. But it’s a difficult thing to prove. A shooting that’s several years old. A crime scene that’s half a world away. The investigators probably tell Larson they need a witness. Or perhaps one of the shooters to turn on the others.”

  Braddock said, “I know who I’d choose out of that bunch, if I were Larson.”

  “Which explains the phone calls leading up to Larson’s death,” she said. “He was trying to convince Hubbard to flip.”

  Hughes: “So they kill Larson, thinking that’ll be enough to make it go away?”

  Rachel nodded. “Killing both of them at the same time would’ve made the connection obvious. And without Larson to prod him, they probably expected Hubbard to just lose himself in a bottle of pills. Which is pretty much what happened until Parker came along asking questions. I think Hubbard’s guilt started rearing its ugly head again, and Gordon had had enough. He decided Hubbard had to go.”

  “What makes you think it was Gordon?”

  “He’s the one with the temper. I’ve seen it myself. It doesn’t take much to send him into a rage. Hubbard was beaten with a brick until half his face was caved in.”

  “Ouch,” he said.

  “Yeah. I’ve seen the autopsy photos. Ouch is right.”

  “But that wasn’t the end of it,” Braddock said.

  “No. Poor Bryce just wouldn’t let it go.”

  “You gotta admit, though,” Hughes said, “the whole heroin overdose thing was pretty clever.”

  Something about that bothered Rachel. “Yeah. Almost a little too clever for these guys. It’s not like they have a problem with shooting people. Then there’s the heroin itself.”

  “You think they got it from Gulani?” Braddock asked. “Since he knows all the addicts, maybe that’s how he fits into this.”