The Wolves Within

by David Lucin

  Hands planted on the table, Dad pushed himself up. “Mr. Ortiz,” he said to Esteban, “please take Philip and secure him alongside our other captives for now. He’s no longer needed and has become a liability.”

  Esteban. Philip spun around in his chair to see the former teacher lumbering toward him. “You don’t have to do this,” he pleaded. “It’s not worth it. Think of Ophelia. I can guarantee you, if you go down this road, there’s no coming back. We’ll all end up like Rachel.”

  The man’s steps slowed, but he didn’t stop. Behind him, Felix looked to Philip, then to Dad, then to Philip again. Alisha and Isaac had moved several paces closer to the table. Both had hands on the weapons holstered on their belts.

  “Esteban,” Philip tried again. He considered sharing that the Beaumonts and the police were outside and that they had the compound surrounded, but he didn’t want to risk sacrificing their element of surprise. More than that, he feared Dad would act rashly and perhaps harm the mayor. Or kill her. “My dad, he’s not thinking straight. We can end this together. You can go home—tonight—and see your daughter.”

  From his pocket, Esteban produced a long black zip tie. He grimaced, blinked heavily, then said, “I’m sorry, sir.”

  20

  “How long has it been?” Bryce asked.

  He and Jenn had taken up a position about two hundred yards north of CFF’s compound. A total of twelve guards were dispersed throughout the surrounding woods, while Ed and Gary waited with Liam and his team of police at a vacant office complex on the south side of I-40, ready to drive up and help besiege the warehouse at a moment’s notice.

  “Twenty-seven minutes,” she whispered after checking her watch. Among the underbrush and from this distance, she was confident that no one could see or hear her, but she kept quiet regardless.

  Bryce made a grumbling sound. “Philip’s running out of time. What do you think’s going on in there?”

  Jenn shrugged as best as she could while lying down. A lot was riding on Philip being able to convince his father to surrender. If he couldn’t, Vincent might clue into the fact that the cops and Beaumonts had surrounded him, leading to a standoff and hostage situation. Whenever Jenn envisioned that scenario, it never ended peacefully or with Mayor Andrews alive. Jenn didn’t care for the woman, but she was an innocent bystander in all of this. The cost of her poor leadership shouldn’t be her life.

  “I still don’t see anyone else,” Bryce said, peering through a pair of binoculars. “I think it’s just the one guard at the front.”

  She snatched away the binoculars and brought them to her eyes. There were no windows on this side of the building, only a single man door and a faded green dumpster beside it. The entire place was enclosed with a fence taller than Bryce and reinforced with mean-looking barbed wire, but they’d come prepared for that: poking out of Jenn’s new backpack—well, an old backpack on loan from Sophie—was the handle to a set of bolt cutters. “The master key,” as Ed had called them. They should only be needed if Dylan ordered an attack, something Jenn hoped wouldn’t happen.

  Moving from left to right, she scanned the area for what felt like the fiftieth time. From her position, she hadn’t seen a single CFF sentry. Waiting in the woods to the west, Dylan had a clear line of sight to the front entrance, where a lone guard with a rifle and a radio stood watch. He could also see the loading bays on the south side and had spotted no sign of life there, either.

  “Nope, nobody,” Jenn said and returned the binoculars. “I really expected more than one guy.”

  “They could be inside,” Bryce offered. “Or maybe this is it. If I was CFF and got away from the farm last night, no chance I’d be running back to Vincent Grierson. I’d be hiding out and waiting for this all to blow over.”

  “You think his people abandoned him?”

  “It’s possible.”

  He pulled a blade of grass from the ground and began shredding it with his fingers as Dylan’s voice came through in Jenn’s earpiece. “Thirty-one minutes,” he said. “Time’s up. Jansen, you copy?”

  She perked up at her name. “I’m here,” she replied into the mic clipped to her shoulder.

  “We have to get closer and surround the building, but with that guard out front, we can’t make a move on the gate. I need you and Bryce to sneak in and apprehend him—quietly.”

  Bryce tilted his head at her and mouthed, What?

  “Can you repeat that?” Jenn asked.

  “From where he’s standing,” Dylan continued, “the guard has no visual on you or your approach, and there aren’t any windows on your side of the building. Plus, you have bolt cutters for the wire. If he sees you or you’re in trouble, Mikey will put him down.”

  Automatically, the part of her brain in charge of self-preservation sought an excuse for why this wouldn’t work: Bryce was too big and clumsy to climb the fence, she’d lost the bolt cutters, the guard would hear her approach, and more. Her conscious brain, though, answered Dylan with, “Roger that. Moving now.”

  “We really doing this?” Bryce asked her. “I was not expecting to have to be stealthy.”

  “Boss’s orders,” she said, trying to project confidence.

  He picked up his rifle. “Then what’s the plan?”

  Simply shooting the guard was out of the question; Dylan specified “quietly,” and Vincent would certainly hear gunfire from inside the warehouse. They could try to knock him out by striking him with the bolt cutters, but she wasn’t confident they could get close enough before he saw them and spoke into his radio. “I think we need to surprise him, guns up, and threaten to shoot if he tries anything.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. You go around the south end and I go around the north? That way, we’ll come at him from both sides.”

  “No,” Jenn said, and a memory of Val showing her how to use an AR in Phoenix popped into her head. She’d stressed the importance of knowing what was behind every target. “If he’s between us and we need to shoot him, we could hit each other.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Right. Good call.”

  “We both move at him from this side,” Jenn proposed. “Tell him to drop to his knees and put his hands on his head. Same as at the farm, just without yelling.”

  Bryce fidgeted with another blade of grass. “That’ll have to do. Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Keeping low, rifle in hand, Jenn led the way through the woods. Bryce’s steps and heavy breathing made too much noise. She wanted to scream at him to be quiet, but soon, they were at the fence. There, he whispered, “I’ll boost you up,” then pulled the bolt cutters from her backpack and handed them over.

  Right foot planted in the chain-links to stabilize herself, her left resting on Bryce’s interlocked fingers, she aimed the bolt cutters at the three lines of wire. She was surprised by how easily the first one broke and fell away. With sweaty hands, she cut the last two, then signaled for Bryce to let her down. After stealing a glance toward the front of the building, half-expecting to be shot at, she only saw trees and the parking lot. No word from Dylan that the guard had moved, either.

  “I’ll go first,” she whispered as Bryce secured the bolt cutters in her bag. “Keep an eye out.”

  He gave her a thumbs-up.

  Weapon over her shoulder, she began climbing. To begin, she tried scaling quickly, rattling the fence and making noise, so she slowed down and paced herself. At the top, she anchored her right foot on the brace bar and then swung herself over, careful to steady her rifle so it didn’t clank against any metal. Halfway down the far side, she pushed off and landed on the asphalt below with a muffled thwump.

  Another quick check toward the front of the building revealed no movement, so she bolted the fifty or so feet to the backside of the warehouse, aiming for the green dumpster. She was there within seconds, but her lungs screamed for air like she’d run a half-marathon.

  It was Bryce’s turn, so she poked her rifle out from behind the dumpster, pointed
it in the direction of the entrance, and waved for him to join her.

  The big man struggled to climb the fence, taking twice as long as she had. Or so she thought. Maybe he only seemed to be moving slowly because she was so anxious about him being in the open. Her bouncing knee would agree.

  Breathe, she told herself. Three seconds in, hold, three seconds out. She touched the cross at her neck for good measure, then returned to covering for Bryce as he reached the top of the fence. Unlike her, he didn’t bother climbing down this side, not even partway; he simply leaped off. She cringed when he hit the asphalt, expecting the impact to sound like a meteor strike, but he landed with surprising grace and made no noise.

  “Ready?” he huffed out when he came up beside her at the dumpster.

  No. “Yeah, this way.”

  Her left hip tight to the wall, she approached the corner of the building, where they’d pop out and catch the guard by surprise. If she appeared out of nowhere, gun raised, he might panic and throw his arms in the air. Or he might shoot her. Thankfully, Mikey was out there with a high-powered rifle. Hopefully he was indeed a crack shot, as Liam had said.

  At the corner, she paused and allowed herself a quick peek around. Looking distracted and bored, a man with a beard, buzzed hair, and camo pants leaned against the handrail to the steps. He was oddly familiar, but Jenn was too focused on his AR to think much harder about why. It was slung over his shoulder. Bad form. With the weapon in that position, he’d waste a crucial second bringing it to bear.

  She tugged her head behind the corner again, but only for long enough to nod at Bryce, who nodded in return. After touching the cross, she held her rifle tight, pictured Val here with her, and sprung into the open.

  The guard saw her almost immediately, but he was too late; Jenn already had her sights trained on his chest. He went to grip his weapon, but Bryce hissed, quietly but firmly, “No, no, no. Don’t even think about it. Hands to the sky, big guy.”

  “Do it,” Jenn ordered when the guard hesitated. “Right now.” She was tempted to shout and come off as more threatening but couldn’t risk giving herself away to those in the warehouse. As far as she knew, there was somebody waiting behind one of those boarded-up windows.

  The guard finally complied and lifted his hands. Bryce was on him in a flash, shoving him flat to the asphalt. With her boot, Jenn pushed his AR out of reach. “You make a sound,” Bryce threatened, “and I’m putting you down.”

  No response, which likely meant the guard understood.

  Dylan said over the radio, “Jansen, front gate. Now.”

  She ran for it, slinging off her backpack on the way, then dropped it and pulled out the bolt cutters. As she lined up the blades with the padlock, bodies appeared in the woods across the street, rushing toward her. With a grunt and a grimace, she squeezed with all her strength until the lock snapped. She had the gate open a fraction of a second before Dylan came through, followed by Mikey and then Yannick and six others.

  They split off to the left and right, sticking close to the building to avoid being spotted through a window. Fortunately, all the ones Jenn had seen so far were covered with plywood. Too bad that made it difficult to glimpse what was inside. She still had no idea how many were in there with Philip. Maybe the guard with the beard would spill that information.

  Jenn came up beside Dylan as he marched toward Bryce, who had bound the guard’s wrists and was pressing a knee between his shoulder blades. She began to ask what the next step was and if Liam was on his way here, but a crackling voice from somewhere said, “Mr. McIntyre.”

  In less time than it took Jenn to blink, Dylan had his rifle up. More slowly, hers followed. Heart thundering in her chest, she swung her weapon in a wide arc, then noticed Bryce holding up a radio.

  “Mr. McIntyre.” The voice belonged to a man and sounded familiar. Jenn recognized it from that day on the farm, and her blood ran cold.

  Vincent Grierson.

  “Mr. McIntyre,” Grierson repeated. “Are you there?”

  * * *

  “Mr. McIntyre,” Dad repeated into the radio. “Are you there?”

  Again, no response.

  Next to the mayor’s husband, Isaac standing guard six feet to his left, Philip squirmed in his seat. Unlike at the Beaumonts’ shop, his limbs weren’t tied to the chair, but his wrists were bound in front of him and there were zip ties keeping his ankles together. He could stand but not walk or run, only clumsily hop.

  “Mr. McIntyre!”

  Why wasn’t he responding? The guy was lazy, yes, and more than a little stupid, but he should know better than to leave Dad waiting. Philip’s first thought was that he was in the midst of relieving himself. Then he considered the possibility that the Beaumonts had made their move. His allotted thirty minutes must be up by now. He hadn’t heard any gunshots, though. Could someone have taken McIntyre by surprise?

  With a point, Dad signaled to Alisha. “Alisha, my dear, if you would be so kind as to go check on—”

  “McIntyre here,” came the reply from Dad’s radio.

  Dad held up a hand to keep Alisha in place, then answered with, “At last. Is there a reason for the delay?”

  “No,” McIntyre said quickly. “Sorry, boss. What’s up?”

  He sounded off. Was it the short, clipped sentences? The man didn’t usually speak like that.

  Esteban, who lorded between Philip and Dad at the central table, lifted an eyebrow. Worryingly, he did not make eye contact with Philip. Had he misread Esteban all along? Was he truly this loyal to CFF? Philip was so sure that Esteban would have supported him. Felix might have, but not without Esteban leading the way; the kid was too young and too much of a follower to take that kind of risk on his own.

  “Please fetch the truck and bring it around,” Dad ordered McIntyre. “We’re leaving as soon as possible.”

  Philip pressed his teeth together, hard. Whenever he came to the compound, he parked in a patch of nearby woods, where no passersby would see. There weren’t many this far outside of town, but Dad always insisted on using caution. On Philip’s way here, the parking lot was empty, so he assumed his father’s SUV was in the usual spot. If the Beaumonts apprehended McIntyre while he was heading out there and he didn’t come back, then . . .

  Dad’s radio crackled to life. “Is this Vincent Grierson?”

  The voice made Philip’s breath catch in his chest—it belonged to Dylan Baker.

  Isaac and Alisha glanced at each other in confusion. Esteban had frozen, his body angled so he could see everyone in the room, including Felix, who was chewing on a thumbnail near the door to the offices.

  Dad squinted as he responded. “To whom am I speaking?”

  “Dylan Baker, Beaumont head of security.” His tone was flat: no panic, no urgency. All business. “We’ve apprehended your guard and have the warehouse surrounded. Police are en route as we speak.”

  Smoothly and with precision, Esteban drew his weapon. Isaac’s and Alisha’s were already out. Andrews had woken up. Both she and her husband were making sounds into the duct tape over their mouths and struggling against their restraints.

  Dad threw Philip a sharp, narrow-eyed glare. In it was so much judgment, so much contempt. It reminded him of the day he came home after flunking out of university. He nearly wilted. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he would have. Now he partly relished in confirming what Dylan had said. “That’s right. They’re out there. It’s over. We can still walk away from this. Tell Dylan you’re surrendering. Nobody has to get hurt today.”

  Felix’s hand found the butt of his pistol, but the fear plastered on his face masked every other emotion, making it impossible to guess at his intentions.

  A long, tense silence smothered the room, and Philip struggled to take in air. The blood pumped through his veins so hard he thought they might burst. He was about to say more, to make one last plea for sanity, but his father loosed a slow, quiet, hollow chuckle before saying to Philip, “You’ve betrayed me, haven’t
you? Betrayed all of us. I should have seen it the moment you walked in here. You’re working with them now.”

  The accusation stung, but only a little, possibly because it wasn’t so much an accusation as a statement of fact. Or maybe his father’s opinion of him just didn’t matter anymore. “I’m doing it to help you,” he insisted. “There’s no way you can win this.”

  “Mr. Grierson,” Dylan said through the radio. “Is Mayor Andrews there? May we speak to her to confirm she’s all right?”

  Dad ignored him and pointed the radio’s antenna at Philip. “You’re wrong. I should have known your commitment was wavering the moment you questioned me that day.”

  He hasn’t heard a word I’ve said. Philip wondered if Dad had some sort of death wish. Had he made peace with the idea of being killed in this warehouse? Now that his plan to avenge Mom had failed, did he intend to join her?

  Philip threw out a final Hail Mary to Esteban. “It’s not too late to make the right choice here. If you keep following him”—he chinned toward his father—“there’s only one way this’ll end. He’s too proud to walk out of here in handcuffs. Ophelia doesn’t need to lose her dad for him, of all people.”

  Esteban’s bottom lip quivered, and the lines around his mouth grew more pronounced. So did the ones on the bridge of his nose. Philip thought he might have been getting through to him, but Dad boomed, “Quiet!” His fist hit the fold-up table with enough force to shake the empty scotch bottle. “This isn’t over until I say it’s over. We still hold the upper hand.”

  The radio crackled. “Mr. Grierson?” Dylan tried again. “Are you there?”

  This time, Dad replied, his cheeks cherry red. “Yes, Mr. Baker, I am here. As are Mayor Andrews and her husband.” He paused for a moment but left his thumb on the talk button, watching Andrews twist and wiggle and cry. Philip considered shouting so Dylan could hear, but what should he say? How many guns were in here? Their positions? That knowledge might be helpful if the Beaumonts assaulted. He was ready to try when Dad said, “I demand to speak to Chief Morrison immediately.”