Won't Back Down

by J. D. Rhoades

  When she recovers her senses, she’s lying in a shallow stream. Her left leg is screaming with pain. She feels a drop of rain strike her face and tries to sit up. A trickle of blood down her face goes into her eyes and she tries to wipe it away. The rain begins to fall faster, and that helps clear her vision. She looks down at her leg and nearly throws up when she sees the angle at which it’s bent. A bolt of lightning strikes nearby, lighting up the night and revealing the gleam of bone poking from beneath the skin. The rain is coming down in torrents now, rivulets cascading down the steep walls of the ravine. She realizes that the stream in which she’s lying is beginning to rise.

  “Well, shit,” she mutters.

  ONE HUNDRED-

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Please give me my son back,” Marie tries to keep the fear and rage from her voice.

  One of the sisters, the one with the scars around her mouth, is holding Francis on her lap. The boy is clearly uncomfortable; he’s squirming and fussing, trying to get down, but the woman holds him fast, smiling horribly, and whispering what Marie assumes are endearments in her native tongue.

  “You must forgive my sister,” the leader says. “She cannot have children of her own anymore.” She gives Marie a sad smile that manages to be as terrifying as that of the woman holding Francis. “The one child she did have was the result of a gang rape she suffered at the hands of Russian soldiers. How could he keep such a child? How could she even carry the seed of such monsters to birth?” The leader sighs. “Still, she agonized. And some choices were taken away. Our country was destroyed by the Russians, and if there was a doctor, they were treating wounded. Who cared about a poor raped Muslim girl? Except her family.” She walks over and stands beside the woman holding Francis, putting an affectionate hand on her shoulder. The mute woman looks up, puts her hand on her sister’s, then pats Francis on the head and lets him down. He runs immediately to Marie, who gathers him up in a protective hug.

  The leader is still smiling, running a hand through her mutilated sister’s thick hair, as she goes on with her story. “On the day the child was born, the three of us took it to the river. It was a boy. We all held it, and kissed it, then we gave it to Marina and watched as she held it beneath the water until it was dead.”

  Marie clutches her son tighter as the leader lets her sister’s hand go and crosses the room to look down at them with cold eyes. “So, do not think that because we are women, we will not do what needs to be done.” She nods at Francis, and the threat is unmistakable. “Call Keller again.”

  ONE HUNDRED-

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The storm breaks as they make their way down the twisted uneven path towards the trailhead. Keller takes the lead with his commandeered rifle, while Bassim and Ben carry the stretcher holding Meadow. Alia brings up the rear, carrying her father’s pistol, looking back over her shoulder nervously. Keller’s stripped the bodies of both gunmen of weapons. The blood-stained tactical vest he took from the one mauled by Hera bulges with extra magazines and flash-bang grenades.

  Bassim and Ben keep slipping in the mud bog the trail is turning into, but they manage not to drop the stretcher. Finally, soaked to the skin and near exhaustion, they reach the parking lot. “Put her in the back of my car,” Keller tells the boys. “I’ll see if I can find the nearest hospital.” He pulls out his phone and frowns at what he sees. Five messages, all from Marie. He presses the button to dial back.

  She picks up on the first ring. “Jack,” she says.

  He immediately picks up on the tone on her voice. “What’s wrong?”

  Another female voice comes on the line. “Jack Keller?”

  “Who the hell are you? Where’s Marie?”

  “I will make you an offer,” the woman says, with just a trace of accent. “Sheikh Al-Mansour wants his money. We have your woman and son. We will trade them for what we want.”

  “What money?”

  The answer is a cry of pain in the background, from Marie. “My sister has just broken one of your woman’s fingers. If you continue to play stupid, we will break them all. Then we will begin on her with the knife. In front of your son. Do we understand one another?”

  Keller bows his head, feeling the tide of black rage bubbling up inside him.

  “I said, do you understand?”

  “Perfectly,” he says.

  “Good. If you do not know where the money is, then find the Khoury children. You can make them tell. Or bring them to us and we will find out. But if you try to disobey or trick us—”

  “I won’t. I’ll get you the money.”

  “—I say, if you try that, then your woman and son will not be dead when you find them. But you will wish they were when you see what we leave behind.” The woman on the other end hangs up.

  Keller closes his eyes, resisting the urge to scream and throw the cell phone into the night.

  “The money.”

  Keller looks up to see Alia standing before him. Her clothing is soaked and clinging to her, but she doesn’t seem to notice the rain. She puts a hand on Keller’s shoulder. “I heard your side. What about the money?”

  Keller can barely get the words out. “Someone has Marie. And my son. They’re going to hurt them if I don’t get the money from you and give it to them.”

  She nods. “Then you must give it to them.”

  He shakes his head. “I can’t. I can’t ask you to—”

  “Jack,” she says gently, “what has that money brought us but pain?” Her voice breaks as she says, “My father is dead because of it.” She gestures up the trail. “Three men are dead in those woods because of it. And I don’t know how many more.” She shakes her head. “That money is a curse. I hope it brings as much sorrow to these people, whoever they are, as it has to us.”

  “What’s going on?” Bassim steps up to stand by his sister.

  “Change in plans,” Keller says. “The three of you take my car. Get Meadow to a hospital, as fast as you can. I’m going to go get Marie.”

  “With the money,” Alia tells him.

  Bassim blinks. “Wait, our money? To Officer Jones? Why?” By now, Ben has joined them.

  Keller doesn’t have time to dissemble. “Someone else has come for the money. I don’t know who they are, but they mentioned the name Al-Mansour.” He sees Alia flinch visibly. “You know the name?”

  She nods and looks down. “He was…he worked with my father. In Iraq.”

  “Well, he thinks he’s entitled to the money. And he’s sent people to take Marie and Francis. To trade for them.”

  “What?” Ben shouts.

  “So, we are giving them the money.” Alia’s voice is calm, but she’s visibly trembling. “If that’s all they want.”

  “Like hell,” Bassim shakes his head. “That’s our money.”

  She turns on him savagely. “And it is worth more lives? Officer Jones, who’s never been anything kind to us? Francis, that sweet little boy? You’d have them die? For money?”

  He looks down. “No.” He looks back up at Keller. “Sorry.”

  Keller nods. “It’s hidden somewhere? Like maybe an abandoned store?”

  She looks surprised.

  “Meadow had the store marked on her map,” Keller explains.

  She nods. “Meadow has the key. I’ll get it for you.”

  “Okay.” Keller turns to Ben. “Take Meadow in my car. Alia will ride with me in my truck. When we get there, I’ll load up and take the money to them while the three of you get Meadow to the nearest emergency room.”

  “I’m going with you,” Ben says.

  Keller shakes his head. “No way.”

  “That’s my mother and my little brother, Jack.”

  “Yeah. And you’re fifteen. You’ll just be in my way.”

  Ben looks furious as he turns away and stomps off in the direction of the Crown Vic.

  Keller looks at Alia and Bassim. “Get moving.”

  ON
E HUNDRED-

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Hang in there, Meds.” Ben pulls in behind the truck as it stops in front of the abandoned store. He sees Alia jump from the passenger side, with Keller following. He turns and looks into the backseat, where Bassim is sitting with Meadow’s feel on his lap. “How is she?”

  “I don’t know, man. I’m not a doctor. Still breathing. So that’s good.”

  The passenger door opens and Alia slips in. “Come on,” she says. “I looked up where the hospital is on Jack’s cell phone.”

  Ben opens the door. “Can you drive?”

  “Why?”

  Ben starts to get out.

  She grabs his arm. “Ben, no. He said you couldn’t come with him.”

  “I have to, Alia. That’s my mom and my little brother those people have.”

  “Please, Ben.” Her eyes are wide and he can see tears glistening in them in the dim glow of the interior. “I need you to help us. And I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”

  He sees Keller dragging one of the chests they’d hidden earlier to the truck. He pulls away from Alia and goes to help. The earlier downpour had subsided to a few drops here and there and the clouds above are beginning to break up. He grabs the other end of the chest and helps Keller muscle it into the bed of the truck.

  “Thanks,” Keller says. “But you’re still not coming with me.”

  “Jack…”

  “If we stand here arguing and your friend bleeds out as a result, how are you going to feel?”

  Ben stands, hands clenching and unclenching with fury, then turns and runs back to the car.

  “Five miles,” Alia says, “and take a right.” Ben just nods and steps hard on the gas, gravel shooting from beneath the spinning wheels.

  When they reach the turn, Ben glances in the rearview mirror. He sees the headlights of Keller’s truck, then the big vehicle roars by as Ben turns back to the road in front of him. He wants to bang his head on the steering wheel until everything goes dark. He knows Keller’s right. He knows his recent performance proves he’s not ready for the type of fight that Keller seems to take to as if a war zone was his natural habitat. Still, he can’t help but feel like a coward, letting someone else go to help his family. The thoughts go around and around in his head, and he grips the wheel tightly, barely hearing Alia’s tersely delivered directions. Finally, they pull into the brightly lit drive of a hospital, beneath a large red glowing sign that says EMERGENCY. The car’s barely stopped before Alia is out of the door and running for the glass front doors. Ben gets out and goes around to the side to help Bassim with Meadow.

  As they’re easing her out of the car, the doors crash open and a pair of men in blue scrubs run out, a large wheeled gurney between them. “Don’t move her,” one shouts. “We’ll take her.”

  Bassim lowers the limp girl back onto the car seat.

  The men shoulder Ben aside, firmly but not roughly, and gently lift Meadow onto the gurney. One of them, a dark-skinned black man, turns to Alia, who’s followed them out at a run. “Go back inside, ma’am,” he says. “Give the girl up front her information.” They begin rolling Meadow into the hospital.

  Ben’s heart feels like it’s in his throat because of how small and frail she looks. “Will she be all right?” he calls.

  “If God wills it,” the man calls back.

  Bassim looks surprised. “He’s a Muslim?”

  “Maybe,” Ben says, “but it’s the kind of thing people say a lot around here.” He slams the passenger door and walks around the car to the driver’s side. “I’ll call later,” he says. “Go on in and help Meadow.” He gets behind the wheel.

  “Wait,” Alia says, “Where are you going?”

  He doesn’t answer. He presses the accelerator of his grandfather’s old car and the tires squeal on the pavement as he pulls away. Headed for home.

  ONE HUNDRED-

  THIRTY

  Keller pulls into the entrance to the driveway and stops. He can see the lights of the farmhouse, yellow and welcoming in the night, as if everything’s normal. He doesn’t know how many people are waiting inside. The woman on the phone had mentioned her sisters, but that could mean anything from two other women to an entire crazy death cult. He’s got the shotgun and the automatic rifle he’d taken from the gunman at Troutman’s. With a start, he realizes he left the other rifle with Ben. Well, it’s not like he has more than two hands. He’d like to have had Alia’s father’s pistol, not to mention Marie’s. But he’d been in a hurry, and, he admits to himself, thoroughly taken over by rage. He takes a deep breath. He can’t make any more mistakes like that. And, truth be told, one more gun might not make that much difference. He’s going to have to go in unarmed, if he doesn’t want whoever’s in there to murder Marie and his son.

  He sees the door of the farmhouse open, with two figures silhouetted in the light, one behind the other. That’s how confident these people are, Keller thinks. They know I can’t take the shot. Well, maybe I can use that cockiness against them. He drives the truck slowly down the long drive. As he gets closer, the two figures in the doorway resolve into Marie and a dark-haired woman whose face he can make out over Marie’s shoulder, peering intently at the truck. The woman behind Marie is holding a pistol. The pistol is pointed at Marie’s head. Keller’s hands twist on the wheel as if he’s got them wrapped around the dark-haired woman’s neck. He pulls the truck to a stop in the dirt just in front of the porch and kills the engine.

  “Hands where I can see them,” the woman holding the gun calls out.

  Keller raises his hands and displays them, palms out.

  The dark-haired woman steps to one side, pulling Marie with her, as another woman, shorter, but with the same dark hair and slender build, slides out between them and the doorframe. She’s carrying a stubby-barreled submachine gun. In a few quick strides, she’s at the door of the truck, pulling at the door handle with one hand while pointing the gun at his head with the other. Keller sizes her up. The scar on her face tells him that she’s not a stranger to violence. Still, she’s not a big woman, and she’s made the common mistake of getting too close. He could knock her down with the door. Jump her. Take the gun away. Come up shooting. But that would just get Marie killed, and he doesn’t know where Francis is. There’s at least one more player here, maybe more, and he needs to know who that is. The woman with the scar knows that, and that’s why she feels comfortable being this close.

  Keller’s anger is still there, his old familiar companion, but he feels himself floating above it, buoyed up by it over the despair that threatens to drown him, even as he’s coldly calculating angles and chances of taking out his targets. It’s a place that’s become too familiar to him, but he puts the feeling of wrongness that shivers through him aside, all his faculties devoted to getting the people he loves out of this.

  He steps down from the truck, hands up. “I’ve got the money,” he says. “It’s in the back of the truck.”

  The woman holding the gun nods. “Come in, then.” She steps aside, still holding the gun at Marie’s head.

  He sidles past them, turning to look at Marie. He looks down at her hand and sees the pinky of her left hand is crudely splinted with what looks like surgical tape and broken Popsicle sticks. “You okay?”

  “I’ve been better,” she says grimly.

  He just nods and looks around the room. “Where’s Francis?”

  “In his room,” Marie says. “They drugged him. He’s out.”

  A third woman steps into the living room, also carrying a submachine gun. He takes a look at her and sees the network of scars around her mouth. She looks back at him and smiles.

  The woman in the doorway speaks. “It seems that Liza has taken quite a shine to your little boy. So don’t worry. He will have a good home.”

  As the implication of what she’s saying sinks in, Marie’s face goes white. “No,” she whispers.

  “Mari
e,” Keller says. She doesn’t seem to hear him at first. “Marie,” he says, still quiet, but more firmly. She looks back at him, her face slack with despair. “Look at me,” he orders. It takes her a moment, but after a few long seconds, she manages to focus her eyes on him. “Three of them?” he says.

  She looks confused for a second, then nods. “Three.”

  He nods toward the one standing by the hallway door, the one with the scarred mouth. He doesn’t speak. She looks from him to the woman, then back at him. “Do you trust me?” he says.

  This time she nods without hesitation. “I do.”

  The woman with the scarred mouth frowns, then waves her hand at the woman in the doorway, who’s looking out into the driveway and doesn’t notice. The woman in the doorway calls out something to the woman still outside. Keller doesn’t know the language, but it sounds like a question, and he thinks he knows what it is. He’s moving before the answer comes in a bright flash and a loud bang, followed by a scream of pain as the flash-bang grenade Keller wired into the lid of the footlocker goes off directly in the face of the woman who’s just pried it open.

  ONE HUNDRED-

  THIRTY-ONE

  Keller’s moving as soon as he hears the report of the stun grenade, his body aimed straight at the woman in the doorway who’s standing, looking slack-jawed at the sight of her sister rolling on the ground, howling like an animal and clawing at her face. The flash-bang is designed to stun, not kill or injure, but Keller figures the magnesium/potassium perchlorate core of the weapon must have gone off directly in the woman’s face as she leaned over to examine the treasure chest she’d just pried open. He has to give her sister credit; she recovers from the shock of what’s happened within a half second and is turning to bring her weapon to point at the people in the house when Keller tackles her, wrapping her up and bringing them both crashing to the wooden floor of the porch. The barrel of the machine gun rides up, blasting chips of wood from the ceiling. Keller grabs the body of the weapon and pushes it back over the woman’s head, another quick burst stuttering into the darkness. She writhes like a serpent beneath him, managing to squirm clear and dump him onto the porch. He manages to maintain enough grip on the gun to tear it from her grasp and toss it away, skittering across the porch. That doesn’t stop his assailant; she leaps on top of him, her fists a blur as she pounds at his face. He manages to get his forearms up to block some of the blows, but she’s almost superhumanly fast. At least a half dozen punches connect with his face. He feels his nose break under one punch, and the next one coming directly behind it onto the broken bone sends a lightning bolt of agony through his head that leaves him temporarily stunned. The punches stop coming for a moment, and Keller recovers enough of his faculties to see that the woman straddling him has pulled out a long-bladed knife and is holding it in both hands, her eyes filled with triumph as she prepares to plunge the blade into his throat. Fucking hell, he thinks, I’m about to be killed by a girl half my size. How the fuck did that happen?