When the Man Comes Around

by Bradley Wright

  The force of the blow pushed the man backward, pulling the corkscrew free, and Lawson closed on him, this time slamming it through the man’s right eye. The guard would have screamed, but it came out more of a gargle due to the bloody hole in his throat. The man fell to his back, clutching at his eye. Lawson reached down, turned him on his stomach, and broke his neck with a twist of his head. The snap echoed in the cellar. Lawson searched the man’s clothes, and found what he was looking for, a knife. He let the man hold on to the corkscrew for him but took his gun. A Glock. But the gun would be a last resort now that he had a knife. Silent kills would be imperative as long as he could make them happen. It was his only shot at getting to Lexi.

  42

  So far, the way in had proved fruitful. He had acquired twice as many weapons as he had when he entered. He figured that gave him at least double the chance he had before of making it upstairs. Maybe two floors. He didn’t know exactly where the gathering of terrible human beings would be.

  “Kenny?” a man called from just outside the entrance to the cellar.

  Lawson slid onto his knees down behind a few barrels that lay stacked horizontally on top of each other. He heard the door open, and just a couple of seconds later . . .

  “Kenny! What the—”

  The footsteps were fast and easier to hear as the man ran toward his fallen colleague. Lawson pressed the button on the switchblade, and before the blade could even fully eject, it was on its way toward the oncoming man. It sank in about midthigh, and the force of the puncture spun the running man around, and with a scream of pain he landed on his back. He scrambled for his gun, but it was too late. Lawson was already on top of him, fully mounted. Lawson reached back and pulled the blade from the man’s thigh, and as he applied downward pressure on the man’s throat with his left forearm, he held the tip of it just centimeters above the man’s left eye.

  “Your friend is dead,” Lawson said, his tone even, cold. The man’s eyes were wide with fear. He had not expected his trip to the cellar to end up there. “You’ll be the same way if you hesitate to tell me how to get to De Luca.”

  Lawson let up on the man’s neck just enough to allow him to speak. The man’s face was red from the pressure. The man looked familiar, but Lawson couldn’t place him.

  “I . . . I can’t do that.”

  Lawson responded by turning the knife downward in his hand, then jamming the blade in between two of the man’s ribs, pulling it out immediately, and putting it right back above the man’s eye. Lawson choked off the man’s scream by once again pressing down on his throat with his forearm.

  “You think this is a game? You tell me how to get to De Luca and all the pitfalls in between, or the next time I stab you, it will be the last. I’d tell you to ask your buddy over there”—Lawson nodded toward the dead guard on the floor several feet away—“but he’s busy walking toward the light.”

  Lawson let up once again on the man’s neck. The man gasped for air, but he knew better than to scream. After a couple moans of pain, he managed words.

  “There’s an elevator on the far wall.” His eyes glanced over Lawson’s shoulder. Lawson followed the man’s eyes to the gold elevator doors.

  “Where does it lead?”

  “Second floor. It opens up right into his office.”

  “And?” Lawson prodded.

  “And there are bookshelves, several rows of them. He wants people to think he’s smart. Then there’s a sitting area, then his desk. It’s a big room. Like a miniature library.”

  “Where’s the other entrance to the office?”

  “A door to the upstairs hallway is on the same wall as the elevator. On the far right side if you’re facing the wall. There will be two men guarding the door in the hallway. One man as soon as the elevator opens. You’re a dead man as soon as you get up there.”

  The man was doing his best to gain Lawson’s favor. Lawson appreciated the details, but the outcome for this man was going to be the same as his friend, regardless of what he said.

  Lawson rerouted. “So if I take the stairs, how many men in between?”

  “Two outside the front door on the main level. Two at the back door.” Lawson had already seen those two from the pool house. “And like I said, two guarding the office door upstairs.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it, I swear. There are more people in the office with De Luca, but I don’t know who they are. A woman and a man I’ve never seen before. And some other guy that’s only been around a couple of times.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know. The guys think he works for the government somehow. He just has that look.”

  That didn’t mean anything to Lawson, but he could only pray that he could get lucky enough to find Adam Billings in that office too. He knew that wouldn’t be the case. The director of the FBI wouldn’t take the chance to be seen here. It was just wishful thinking.

  “Anything else?”

  The man glanced at the knife, then back to Lawson. “Look, man. I know who you are. I was in High Desert State Prison last year before I came to work for De Luca. You’re a badass. But . . .”

  The man was hesitant.

  “But what?” Lawson said.

  “But they are waiting for you. They know you’re coming, and they have your daughter. A man just came in with her a few minutes ago. He said he shot and killed you, but De Luca said to remain on high alert. Nobody really knows the guy with your daughter, so it was hard to believe him. Especially those of us who know of you. Look, the only reason I know it’s your daughter is because I was at the Pink Kitten when her stepdad brought her in. That’s the guy that’s with the woman upstairs.”

  Lawson’s muscles tensed hearing that his daughter was there. With them. Scared to death and thinking that he was dead, and believing there was no way she was going to be saved. He knew she was there, but hearing it jolted an anger so deep, so profound, it literally burned. The man began to wince beneath him because Lawson had unknowingly been applying pressure with his forearm.

  “If I don’t save her, they are going to kill her,” Lawson said, referring to Lexi. “Are you okay working for a man capable of that?”

  Strained, the man said, “Come on, man. We are all capable of crazy things under the wrong circumstances.”

  This man just took up for De Luca. He rationalized the fact that killing his innocent little girl could be okay under certain circumstances.

  The guard added for good measure, “You know I’m right. I saw you in prison, man. You were an animal.”

  Lawson slid the knife into the man’s throat. “Maybe I still am.”

  He took the knife with him as he stood. The man bled out on the ground below him. “Any man who stands between me and my daughter is going to end up just like you. I don’t care what the circumstances are.”

  Lawson said this more to himself than to the dying man on the floor. He didn’t need a justification to kill a man who helped keep his daughter captive. Or maybe he did, and that’s why he felt compelled to say it. Either way, he knew that what he said was true. He would gladly kill them all. And if there was truth to what this man said, that Lawson was in fact an animal when he was locked inside that prison, he prayed to God that that animal was still in there. Because this was as good a time as any for a killer instinct to rise to the surface.

  Lawson took the guard’s gun as he took his last breath.

  Two guns, one knife, and ten years’ worth of rage. If any man alive was going to keep Lawson from saving his daughter, it was going to take one hell of a man.

  43

  Lawson kept one pistol in his hand as he opened the door to leave the cellar. As he ascended the stairs, he tried to check his breathing, but the adrenaline flowed through his veins like a river. The stairway to the cellar was concealed, a door at the top, leading to what Lawson imagined would be somewhere near the center of the house. He turned the knob, a slow and fluid motion, and pushed the door ajar. It opene
d to the kitchen, and through the small slit it looked to be empty.

  Lawson stepped out into what a real estate agent would call a chef’s kitchen. Lauren had dabbled in real estate back in Kentucky, and he heard a few of these sell words thrown around. In this case, it basically meant a kitchen with all the high-end bells and whistles. And as he looked over the white marble countertops, when he saw the Sub-Zero refrigerator, he got an idea.

  He walked over to the window above the sink that looked out to the back. The back door wasn’t visible from there, so he couldn’t see if the guards had retaken their post. He would worry about them later. He went to the fridge, grabbed a wheel of cheese and a handful of grapes. He placed them on the wooden-block cutting board. Then he took a knife from the carousel holder, a bottle of wine from the miniature counter rack, a glass hanging from under the cabinet, the white towel from the oven door, and voilà, he had a miniature charcuterie platter. He carried the cutting board like a waiter in his left hand while keeping the Glock in his right. He glanced around the kitchen entrance into the hallway. The coast was clear, so he moved forward to the front door. Once certain he was alone in the foyer, he placed the cutting board on a nearby table and swapped the gun for the switchblade he had confiscated in the cellar.

  With the blade extended, he pulled on the massive oak front door as smoothly as he could. As the large door moved inward, he could see the left shoulder of the guard posted on the left side of the door. The guard didn’t move as the large door swept inward, and Lawson hoped guard number two on the other side was just as clueless.

  Once the door was opened just enough for him to slide through, he moved forward. He readied the knife with the blade facing down in his right hand. He brought it up to his chest, and the moment the guard’s neck came into view, he stabbed right, sinking it into the man’s jugular vein, and immediately pulled out, turned his fist palm up, and stabbed blindly to the left, but all he hit was the other side of the front door. The blade carved into the wood, and as Lawson stepped out to see what he had missed, there was no guard to be found.

  “Damn that feels much better,” a man said, walking around the house on Lawson’s left. He was dressed in a black suit like the rest of the guards, zipping up his fly. His face registered Lawson, then his comrade bleeding out below Lawson’s feet. He reached for his gun that was tucked in his hip holster. Lawson covered the ten feet between them in three quick steps and tackled the guard out onto the plush lawn, driving him down into the ground with his shoulder. Lawson heard the air get knocked out of the guard when Lawson’s big body landed full weight on top of him, but this man was no stranger to a fight. Lawson could tell that instantly when the man rolled and his back hit the ground, flipping Lawson forward a few feet away. Both men rose to their feet at the same time, both about the same height and build.

  The two of them rushed at each other, the guard reaching back for a powerful right hand, Lawson leading with a quick left jab that got there first. It snapped the guard’s head back, and Lawson twisted his hips around to the left, delivering a leg kick to the man’s calf muscle. His leg buckled beneath him, he staggered back, but before he could recover, like a pit bull Lawson was on him. A left hook to the man’s jaw that stood him up straight, a right cross that toppled him over like a bowling pin. Lawson walked over to the front door, pulled the knife from the oak door, walked back over to the guard, and made certain he couldn’t come back to haunt him.

  Lawson wiped the blood on the blade of his knife against the stiff grass in an attempt to clean it. He then removed the guard’s earpiece, placed it in his ear, took the sunglasses from his lapel pocket, and slid them over his eyes. Lastly, he removed the man’s black suit jacket, put it on, and walked back inside the house like he was a regular there.

  He double-checked that he still had both pistols. He took one of them out and draped the white kitchen towel over it. He then picked up the cheese platter with his left hand, supporting it underneath with the concealed pistol, and made his way up the long, winding staircase.

  In his ear, he heard one of the other guards in the house ask if everything was clear, that he had heard some commotion at the front door. Lawson pressed the small button on the earpiece and gave a one-word answer. “Clear.”

  The guard spoke again. “No sign of Lawson Raines? Or the police? There are still lights flashing in the neighborhood behind us. I know that guy said Raines is dead, but boss said to stay alert.”

  There was the second confirmation. Bobby had in fact brought Lexi to De Luca. The guard in the cellar had been right, Bobby had told him that he shot and killed Lawson. Maybe that was why their guard had been down and Lawson was able to move through them a little more easily than expected. Or maybe that was why Nero De Luca was so worried about his organization, because his men were quite a bit less than spectacular.

  “No sign.” Again, Lawson kept it short.

  Lawson reached the top of the stairs and paused before he made his right turn in the direction he was told two guards would be waiting at the door to De Luca’s office.

  “What the hell crawled up your ass, Williams?” the man said in his ear.

  Lawson didn’t answer. When he stepped into the hallway, in front of him were two men guarding a door, just like he was told. One of the men had his hand to his ear, probably the man he was hearing in the earpiece. Both men startled when they noticed Lawson walking toward them.

  “Damn, Williams, you scared the hell out of me. I didn’t know boss called for a snack.” The guard was eyeing Lawson’s cheese platter.

  Lawson continued to walk toward them with confidence. He knew they would recognize he wasn’t who they thought he was at any second. He hoped he could be at arm’s length first.

  “Hey, you’re not––” Both men reached for their guns.

  So much for another silent kill. The party was about to start, and it was going to be a loud one. He sure could have used that silenced SIG that Cassie had brought him right about now. Instead, when he squeezed the trigger on the Glock four times in quick succession, the bangs in that hallway sounded like the grand finale at a fireworks show. And the two men on the wrong end of the bullets fell like the sparks of those fireworks as they rain down the dark sky. Lawson heard a different man’s voice in his ear, frantically shouting to know what was going on. He dropped the cutting board just before he put another bullet in each man in the hallway.

  Lawson looked up at the wall above him. The camera fixed to the wall moved and focused on him. He removed his sunglasses and stared into the lens. As he removed the suit jacket he’d borrowed from the outside guard, his stomach turned when he heard De Luca’s voice in his earpiece.

  “Back from the dead, I see. Your partner’s husband must not be as good a shot as he thinks he is.”

  Lawson didn’t speak, he just continued to glare into the camera.

  “Just how exactly do you think this is going to end, Mr. Raines?”

  Lawson broke his silence. “You’re going to give me my daughter.”

  “And if I don’t?” De Luca’s voice was full of arrogance.

  Lawson involuntarily clenched his fists as he answered. “You’re a dead man.”

  “It hardly seems like you’re in the position to be making threats. She’s such a beautiful young lady. So much life ahead of her.”

  Lawson’s chest was heaving. Sweat began to roll down the small of his back. His insides were burning white hot at the sound of De Luca’s taunts. After letting De Luca’s words hang for a moment, Lawson decided to cut through the bullshit. “You let her go, I let you live, and I walk away. Any other scenario, and I don’t quit coming until you’re six feet under.”

  “You’ve got no leverage, Raines. You have no proof to trade for your daughter’s life. You have nothing to offer me.”

  “And you have nothing to gain by killing her. Even if you did survive me, the police would put you away forever for murdering a twelve-year-old girl.”

  De Luca laughed. “As yo
u are fully aware, Lawson . . . I own the police. This ends how I want it to end.”

  Lawson’s heart nearly stopped when he heard Lexi’s voice in a panic. “Lawson, just run! He’ll kill you if you don’t!”

  Then De Luca. “Shut her up.”

  Then Lexi screamed so loud he could hear it through the office door.

  The negotiations were over.

  44

  Hearing Lexi scream rebooted Lawson’s processor. Consequences dropped from his conscience, and he turned, opened the door, shot three times at the back of the office to give himself cover, then dove behind the first row of bookshelves.

  Gunfire came in return, but Lawson had seen what he needed to see. There were two men dressed as security behind De Luca’s desk. Two other men stood beside Lexi and her aunt Erin, one of which was Erin’s husband, Dan. The other man was too far away to place. And of course, there was De Luca.

  Pages from books blown to bits by the security guards’ bullets were showering all around Lawson as he sat with his back leaning against the book shelves. In between the shots being fired he could hear Lexi screaming for him. He could hear Erin shouting in fear as well. As soon as one of the men’s guns clicked empty, they would reload and keep shooting. One gun was an automatic, spraying bullets by the dozen, and one was a pistol. Lawson was pinned down. Nowhere to go. But he still had the advantage. He was sheltered, the guards firing on him had no cover. He just needed to find a small window to get some shots off of his own, but the bullets were still steadily coming his way.

  He looked down as he pulled out the pistol with the fresh magazine. It was already locked and loaded. He closed his eyes for a moment as the chorus of gunshots blasting through books and wooden shelving filled the air entirely. He took a deep breath when he heard Lexi scream again, and to his surprise Lauren’s face appeared. She wasn’t smiling, she wasn’t speaking; instead she just gave a solemn nod. Lawson wasn’t a man who ever contemplated the afterlife. He’d always felt it was a waste of time pondering something that no one had ever seen. But what he felt when he saw Lauren nod to him in his mind’s eye was something more than just a daydream. And even though he knew it wasn’t really her, and she wasn’t really there, he felt a calm come over him.