Long Way Home (Matthew Riker Book 3)

by J. T. Baier

  25

  The interior of Megan’s home was mostly dark. The only light was the glow from the TV through the window blinds. Riker could see the silhouette of Megan’s car sitting in the driveway in the starless night. He watched the home from down the street sitting in bushes along the roadside. He was tucked into the light brush sitting motionless. Everything about the night reminded him of the first time he came to Megan’s home. A perfect small town with the sights and smells to match. The only major difference was the team of men coming to kill him.

  A smile crossed his lips as he thought of his old call sign and how he got it, Scarecrow.

  Riker checked his minimal gear. There were a few dozen zip ties in his back pockets. They were already made into loops with two connected to each other. He would be able to quickly tighten them to subdue any attackers. He also had a two-foot section of rebar. It was a simple weapon, but a very effective one. In close proximity he would have the advantage over anyone with a rifle. In his pocket was a remote control that controlled the lighting he had set up around the home.

  Riker wondered if any of the men coming for him was the man that killed Coach. He hoped that he would not have to kill any of the men this evening, but he would make an exception for that murderer. His second thought was of Luke. The idea that his old friend might be part of the team sent to kill him sent a sinking feeling into his stomach.

  Riker knew that pondering unknown possibilities would not help him survive the upcoming attack and he pushed the thoughts from his mind. Instead, he focused on the location of traps that he had set up and the advantages that he could gain from his surroundings. His wait was short as two trucks pulled up on the side of the street one hundred yards from Megan’s house.

  Each truck had five men in the bed. All of the men had shotguns. Once the trucks stopped the men hopped out and stalked towards Megan’s house. The drivers of the trucks stayed in place with the engines running and the lights off.

  Riker had guessed that they would come from the direction of town. The trucks had driven past him, and he sat on the opposite side of the road watching the attackers approach Megan’s home. Riker waited until they were close to the home and then he began his attack.

  Riker crouched and moved across the street. He went around to the driver’s side of the truck parked farthest from the home and crouched low heading to the driver’s door. The night was dark and he hoped that both drivers were watching the men approach the home and not on guard for a rear attack. He reached the first driver’s door. From his crouching position, he slid a hand up and grabbed the handle. In one swift motion, he opened the door and stood up while sliding his left arm into the cab before the door had fully opened. His arm went around the driver’s neck and Riker pulled him from his seat.

  The driver let out a muffled sound and grabbed the steering wheel to keep from being pulled entirely from the truck. He fell sideways half out of the truck and Riker wrapped his arm around the man’s neck completing the choke hold. He went limp and Riker pulled him from the truck onto the ground. Riker used the zip ties to secure his arms behind his back and rolled him under the truck hiding the unconscious man.

  He closed the door softly and moved to the second truck. The driver must have been focused on the men approaching Megan’s house since he was still sitting in the truck. Riker glanced up to see that the men with the shotguns had reached Megan’s driveway. They were about to begin their assault on the home.

  The men moved down the driveway and Riker closed his eyes and turned his head from the home. Then he hit the switch in his pocket turning on the floodlights. Four lights at five hundred lumens each clicked on. The men with the guns shielded their eyes, but it was too late to save any night vision that they had. All of them would be left with a large afterimage in their vision for several minutes. Riker switched the lights back off.

  “Don’t let them get away!” One of the men shouted. “Cover the back of the house; we’ll take the front.”

  Riker opened the door of the second truck and pulled the driver out. His arms flailed trying to grab onto anything that would keep him from being pulled from the vehicle, but in his panic, he was simply pulled from his seat. His body would have hit the gravel on the side of the road, but Riker’s arm was securely wrapped around his neck. His arms continued to swing wildly for a few seconds until his body went limp. Riker pulled another set of ties from his back pocket and screams echoed into the night from the direction of Megan's home.

  Riker ran towards the house. His night vision was intact and he could make out four men on the porch. Three more had gone around the house on the side closest to Riker. He guessed that the other three went around the other side. They were running to the back of the home to cut off any escape. Unfortunately for them, the paths to the side of the home were lined with roofing paper with the adhesive side up. Each sheet was cut four feet in length and had rows of two-inch nails sticking up.

  All three men on the side of the home Riker could see were on the ground. Their screams echoed through the night air and they struggled to remove the nails from their feet and limbs.

  Riker moved swiftly and silently towards the men at the front of the home. Two stood at the base of the steps to the porch. The others moved to the front door. One of the men stumbled while climbing the steps, betrayed by his lack of vision. He reached out to catch himself with his hand, and a nail slid through the center of his palm. An inch of the metal stuck up through the back of his hand and the palm was stuck to the tar paper that held the nail.

  He screamed and dropped his shotgun. When he pulled his arm back away from the nail, the paper came up with it. He swung the hand around in panic to remove the nail. Four feet of paper swung around with nails spaced five inches apart.

  The man next to him stopped and tried to steady his friend. When he turned to help his friend he saw a figure approaching the men at the bottom of the stairs from behind.

  Riker swiftly reached the two men at the bottom of the steps. Each held a shotgun at the ready, but they were distracted by their screaming companion on the porch. Riker moved to the side of the man on the right, putting the guy between himself and the other armed man. Riker grabbed the middle of the shotgun barrel and swung the steel rebar down towards the man’s arm. The man flinched, pulling the trigger as the metal slammed into his right wrist. Buckshot tore into each man on the porch. The center of the blast passed between the men into Megan’s front door, but shot tore into the side of each man. The attacker with the nail through his hand spun and fell. He landed on the tack strip of nails sending one into his side. The sleeve of the other man on the porch was torn up above the elbow. Tattered fabric and shredded flesh were exposed. He dropped his weapon and grabbed at the bleeding limb.

  Riker pushed the man that he had hit with the rebar into the man standing next to him. They stumbled and fell, one man landing on top of the other. Riker took no chances and swung the rebar before they had even hit the ground. The metal connected with the hands of the second gunman. The fingers seemed to bend in odd fashion when the center of the hand crumbled.

  Riker dropped to the ground and his skills as a wrestler took over. The men were stunned and easy to handle. He grabbed the broken limbs and secured them behind their backs.

  He did the same with the injured men on the porch. Once they were tied in place, he moved to the side of the house farthest from the trucks.

  When Riker came around the corner of the house he saw a man on the ground holding his foot which was stuck to tar paper. Two other men were trying to hold him steady and free the injured foot from the nail and adhesive. When they saw Riker moving in, it was too late.

  The first swing of the steel rod connected with the jaw of one of the men helping his friend. Blood sprayed from underneath his chin as his head snapped back. He fell like a fresh cut tree, landing on the lawn with a thud. The other two men scrambled to grab their shotguns which were on the ground next to them. Riker simply stepped on the barrel of one of
the guns, pinning it to the ground. He swung his rod again, bringing it down on the assailant’s shoulder. The man let out a grunt of pain and Riker brought the bar into the air ready to slam it into the man with a nail through his foot.

  The injured man raised his hands in front of his face and screamed out, “Don’t hurt me. I surrender.”

  “Lay on your stomach with your hands behind your back,” Riker commanded.

  Moments later all three men were bound face down on the lawn. Riker could hear men yelling at each other on the other side of the house. He picked up a shotgun and made his way around the back. Peering around the corner, Riker saw one man lying on the ground attempting to pull tar paper and a nail from his foot. The other two men were shining their phone lights at the ground around them watching for other traps.

  Riker fired his shotgun at the ground between the men. “Drop your weapons or the next round takes your head off!”

  The man on the ground raised his hands into the air. One of the men with a phone dropped his shotgun and raised his hands in the air. The last man took off running. He only went a few steps before a nail pierced his foot and he fell forward. He tried to catch himself but only managed to put another nail through his forearm from another strip of nails.

  Riker bound the three men, leaving them face down on the lawn. Two still had nails through their limbs and tar stuck to their bodies.

  He stood up, breathing deep as the adrenaline surged through him, and allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. He’d successfully defended his territory from an attack; there was something primal in the act and in the way it made him feel. He took one more deep breath, then went back to work.

  As Riker began to force all of the men to the front of the home he heard a siren in the distance. By the time the police car pulled into the driveway, he had twelve men lying face down in front of the home.

  The car came to a stop and the door flew open. An officer got out, staying behind the door for cover and pointing a gun over the window.

  “No one move!”

  Riker slowly raised both of his hands above his head. “Good evening, Officer Alvarez. We need to talk.”

  26

  “Mr. Riker,” Alvarez called. “What exactly is going on here?”

  Riker didn’t move, and he kept his hands high. He tried not to blink against the beam of the flashlight pointed at his face and the weapon that surely accompanied it. He knew this would be a tense moment for the officers—responding to a call at night to a place where violence had clearly just occurred—so he decided to go with the short version of events. “Some guys attacked my cousin Megan’s home. Thankfully, I was able to subdue them.”

  There was a long silence as Alvarez and her partner took in that information. Finally, Alvarez spoke. “How many men?”

  “Twelve.”

  “Jesus!” Alvarez’s partner exclaimed. “You took out twelve guys?”

  “They’re all alive. Some of them need medical attention, but they’ll live. You’ll find them lying with their hands zipped tied. I can give you their exact locations if it would be helpful. Three of them are just to my left on the lawn.”

  The beam of the flashlight left his face and swept over the grass to Riker’s left, settling on the prone figures lying there. After a moment, Alvarez let out a heavy sigh, and her hand went to the radio clipped to her shoulder. “Sharon, it’s Alvarez. We’re going to need some backup. And a couple ambulances.”

  “Copy that, Alvarez.”

  The next twenty minutes went by in a flurry of activity. Riker stayed quiet and polite, speaking only when Alvarez or one of the other officers asked him a question. He gave them the location of all the restrained individuals, and he matter-of-factly and succinctly answered their queries about the strange injuries some of the men had sustained. The officers looked at him suspiciously at first, as if there had to be more to the story than he was sharing, but their attitudes started to change as they rounded up the men. All of these individuals were clearly known to the police and none of them seemed to be fans. Riker’s position was also helped by the behavior of the men themselves. Most of them refused to say anything, even when the cops asked them direct questions. The ones who spoke were belligerent toward the officers. Slowly but surely, the officers started to relax their attitudes toward Riker.

  When the last of the men had been loaded into an ambulance, Alvarez approached Riker. Her weapon was back in its holster, and she wore an expression that was something between bemusement and concern. “You wanted to talk?”

  Riker just nodded. He figured he’d let her lead the way in the conversation.

  “You’ve been in town, what, a couple days now?”

  “Not quite four days.”

  She put her hand on her hip. “You want to tell me how a guy goes about making enemies with just about every man in this town with a drug arrest on his record over the course of four days?”

  Riker shrugged. “Winning personality, I guess.”

  Alvarez glanced over her shoulder, making sure no one else was in earshot. “Mr. Riker, I certainly admire your abilities. Taking out twelve guys who were attacking you in the dead of night is damn impressive.”

  Riker accepted the compliment with a nod.

  “All the same, I can’t help but be a little concerned. Do you think these guys are going to stop here? They’ll probably be out on bail by the end of the day, and I’m kinda doubting they’ll just forget what happened tonight.”

  Riker considered that a moment before answering. “How long have you been on the force, Officer?”

  “Six years next month.”

  “And have you worked in any other police departments?”

  “Not that it matters, but I have not. Why?” There was an edge of annoyance in her voice now.

  “Because most towns the size of Kingsport don’t have a criminal element like the one you’ve got here.” He watched her face carefully in the glow of the moonlight. He had a good feeling about Alvarez, but he still wasn’t completely sure he could trust her. What happened next would help determine that.

  She met his gaze for a moment, then looked away. “We have our problems. I’m not going to deny that. Heroin and opioid addictions are out of control.”

  He wasn’t ready to tell her about the facility he’d attacked outside of town, but there was no reason to beat around the bush about the root cause of the problems. “It’s not just people selling and buying drugs. There’s something bigger happening. Drugs are being produced in Kingsport. The question is why.”

  She regarded him for a long moment before answering. “Mr. Riker, as you said yourself, you’ve been here for four days. Don’t presume that you know more about the situation here than I do.”

  “I’m not trying to presume anything. I’m just stating facts. What’s happening here is far bigger than any small-town police force is equipped to handle on their own. You need the Feds on this. Get the DEA involved.”

  She let out a soft chuckle. “You think we haven’t? Chief Myers has been working with them for the past two years. They are monitoring the supply chain and gathering evidence. These things don’t just happen overnight.”

  Riker didn’t bother arguing with that. Instead, he nodded toward the departing ambulance. “You have an opportunity here. Those guys are spooked. You could find out some valuable information with a little interrogation.”

  “Not likely. Every one of those guys has been arrested at least twice. They’ll lawyer up so fast that we won’t have time to ask a single question first.”

  Riker shook his head. “The guy with the hooked nose and the blond hair?”

  “Michael Smitty,” Alvarez offered.

  “He was hesitant compared to the others. Didn’t want to be here. You get him alone, away from his buddies, he’ll talk. Maybe you could even find out who’s really running things in this town.”

  She frowned, but then nodded. “I’ll give it a try. But I want you to do something for me too.”

&n
bsp; “What is it?”

  “Get somewhere safe. You might think you understand what’s happening in Kingsport, but you don’t. Taking down twelve guys is damn impressive, but this won’t end there. You’re in dangerous waters. This is my town. Let me and my colleagues handle things from here.”

  Riker glanced over at the front porch and saw Megan sitting on the stoop, her arms wrapped around her chest. He looked back at Alvarez. “Your point is taken, Officer. I appreciate your concern.”

  Alvarez stared at him for another moment, her mouth half-open, like she wanted to say more, but then she turned and headed back toward her squad car.

  Riker waited until she was gone and then joined Megan on the porch. Not long ago, the yard had been filled with police, paramedics, and nosy neighbors, but now all was dark and they were alone. It was almost as if the past few hours had never happened. But the slight shake in Megan’s shoulders as she sat silently told another story.

  “You all right?” Riker asked.

  “Yes.” She paused. “Maybe. I don’t know.” She turned to look at him. “You were amazing tonight.”

  “You weren’t so bad yourself.”

  She let out a joyless laugh. “You kidding me? What did I do? Picked up you and Donnie at the drug lab and hid inside while you took out the bad guys? You call that help?”

  “I do,” Riker said. “You stood in the face of evil and didn’t flinch. Staying inside tonight was the right move. If you’d come out and tried to help, you might have gotten hurt. Or one of those guys might have grabbed you to use as a hostage. You did the right thing.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “I am. And if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, I want you to do the same thing again.”

  She let out another laugh. “Let’s hope I never do. You beat the bad guys. This is finally over.”

  Riker knew she was wrong on that front, but he didn’t want to take away her happy illusion just yet. The chaos of having twelve of their men arrested and their drug lab destroyed would buy Riker a few hours before the bad guys struck again, and he needed to make sure he used that time well.