A Particular Darkness

by Robert E. Dunn

  Damon’s rifle fired again from outside. I didn’t know if he had a target or was shooting blind. It didn’t matter, I was up and moving before he had the bolt back and a new round chambered. With a firm two-handed grip I left the kitchen keeping my back to the wall and my weapon out front.

  One more time Damon used his rifle for suppressing fire and I saw it was aimed. He was standing at the window edge targeting a huge leather couch. I darted to the opposite wall and made sure that he saw me before I took a knee and sighted the top edge of the center cushion.

  I saw the AR-15 muzzle rise before I saw the man behind it. It popped up just where I was aiming then hesitated. I shifted my sights right, to the far cushion, where the butt of the weapon would be tucked under a shoulder. Before I could call him out, Gagarin jumped up. I don’t think I was who he expected. I saw surprise on his face as he tried to shift his momentum my direction. He might even have been trying to stop bringing his weapon to bear. He never got the chance. That’s to say, I never gave him the chance. I placed two, center mass.

  Things like that happen quickly. It wasn’t until his carbine went flying over the furniture and Gagarin dropped behind it that I understood he was wearing body armor. My 9mm would not have pierced most vests, but he was going to be hurting. That wasn’t enough for the moment. I dashed forward and around the far side of the couch, approaching from behind his head. Even hurting it was possible that he could pull a handgun.

  Gagarin didn’t have any fight left in him. He was gasping for air and scratching at the hook and loop straps that held his vest in place. Not for the first time, I wished Billy was here. He would have known exactly what to do. I didn’t know if it would be best to take him out of the armor to let his chest expand better or if the vest was keeping pressure where it was needed. I opted for removing it.

  Pulling the straps made a loud tearing sound. That was when I noticed that the rest of the world had gone almost silent. That happens after a gunfight. It’s like the force and violence is a surprise to everything. No birds were chirping outside. Inside, the house was silent. Even Gagarin, once I had the vest off of him, was breathing more quietly. Although each breath he took came with a small rasping, bubble sound. I opened his shirt and found the skin of his chest a vicious looking red that was already streaking black. I believed his sternum was broken.

  “Where’s Billy?” I asked. My voice sounded louder and more frantic than I would have hoped. Self-consciously I looked to see if Damon had heard.

  He wasn’t with me. I sat up to look over the back of the couch for him. Nothing. I was alone in the house with Gagarin.

  I opened my mouth to call out, then heard the engines. They were approaching fast from the land side of the cabin. Under the motor sound was the crunch of dry limbs and foliage. Two vehicles, maybe more, were approaching fast and not worried about staying on the path.

  “Damon!” I shouted, both a question and alarm. That got no response so I turned back to the man stirring uncomfortably on the floor. “Where is he?” That time my question to Gagarin was followed by a shake applied by gripping his loose collar.

  The pain contorted his face into bright surprise. “Who?” He managed to gasp.

  “The man you beat up in your back room,” I dragged the explanation from the center of my chest and it came out sounding like a snarl. Then I tried shaking understanding back into him. If the pain in his chest would have let him scream, he would have. “The deputy you took from Dogwood.”

  “I did not take. He saved me.” His accent was thick again and tinged with panic. Gagarin appeared to be close to tears, although from fear or pain, I couldn’t tell. I never even considered the possibility it was from remorse. “He saf-ed me.”

  “From what?”

  He started crying.

  “From what?” I asked again, jamming a thumb into his chest. I didn’t have time for his tears.

  “Them!” His shout was all force and no volume. And as he fell into quiet wailing I heard the vehicles stop.

  I ran to the shattered window and looked outside. That I could see, there were two SUVs stopped and idling on the grass. One of them was the same one I had watched chase Dewey into the water. Silas Boone stepped out of that one.

  “Hey you, Russian son of a bitch,” Boone called toward the house. “The time for retribution is at hand.” He laughed like he had made a great joke. “Come out and take it like a man.”

  “Do not let them have me.” Gagarin pleaded in a rough whisper. “Please.”

  “Why do they want you?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  I went from the window to stand over him and asked again “Why. Answer me or go to them.” I told him.

  It was good he believed me because I meant it.

  “They say—I killed—one—of theirs.” He punched the sentence out in gasping breaths.

  “One of theirs?”

  “You asked me,” he was still pleading. “You showed picture.”

  “Daniel Boone?”

  Gagarin nodded. “Yes.”

  “You killed Daniel Boone?”

  “No,” he said. “No. But they believe.”

  “Why?”

  Chapter 16

  Gagarin never got to answer me about why the mercenaries thought he killed Daniel Boone. The moment I asked him, a burst of automatic weapons fire ripped through the walls of the cabin. I dropped to the floor then rolled to where he’d dropped the AR-15. I ejected the magazine and cleared the chamber to check the count—nine. I reloaded the free round, seated the mag, and pulled the charging bolt, all in a few seconds. Some things you never forget.

  Then I went to the front door. Before I went through, I had to pause and breathe. Anyone who tells you, confrontations like this don’t bother them, is psychotic. I’m not that far gone. I was terrified. The thing is, being afraid is okay. Looking it, is not. Men like that crew will eat you alive if they think you’re not fully ready to fight every inch. So I went out the door.

  There was one man standing at the passenger door of Boone’s car and three men at the other SUV. They all looked like shadow-specters beyond the yellow wash of high beams. Judging from their reaction, they must have thought the same about me when I stepped out into the glare spilling onto the front porch. In the moment of surprise I raised my weapon and killed the headlights of the second SUV. All five of the men dropped almost in unison.

  “What do you want with him?” I shouted into the echoing quiet after the gunshots.

  “The fuck?” Boone practically screamed at me as he got back onto his feet. He must not have taken my restraint as guaranteed because he kept the vehicle between us.

  Keeping behind cover was the right thing to do. Or it would have been. I think he was conflicted by the idea of hiding from a woman. His body was behind the SUV but from the shoulders up he was wide open. I sighted his throat and had to convince myself not to pull the trigger—yet.

  “Don’t you know when to quit?” he shouted across the yard at me.

  “No,” I answered without shouting. He heard me okay.

  “Just give us the Russian.”

  “Why do you want him?”

  “Just leave us to it and we’ll do your job for you.” Boone sounded like a man trying hard to be reasonable.

  “I’ve already done that job. You’re the next one on my list.” I doubt that I sounded very reasonable to anyone at that point.

  “You don’t understand the situation here—Hurricane.” The name seemed to taste bad in his mouth. “We have the guns and the men. What have you got?”

  I didn’t really have an answer for that. I was a suspended cop out of my jurisdiction with a, possibly unstable, civilian backing me up. I wasn’t even sure about that. Damon had disappeared.

  “I’ve got this—” I displayed the Ar-15. “And I’ve got more balls than you ever had.” Goading him may not have the best idea. Fear brings out the worst in me. At least in the bad light they couldn’t see my hands shaking.


  A couple of his buddies laughed and Boone shot a look that shut them up. Next he turned back to me and said, “What about the deputy?”

  Despite my determination not to give him any reaction, something must have showed in my face or body.

  Silas Boone, grinned a fun-house expression at me then cackled murderous glee. “That got you all shut up, didn’t it? There something going on there? Deputy boy, your man?”

  “I’ve called for backup, Boone.” I lied hoping my shout would help sell it. It didn’t.

  “Bullshit,” he yelled right back. “If that was true you wouldn’t tell me about it. Besides that, who do you think you’re messin’ with? We monitor your frequencies. There’s no one coming.”

  At that moment I heard the sound of another truck approaching. There was not a chance in hell it was someone coming to help me.

  “We—on the other hand,” he cackled again. “Oh, we got a deep bench with hitters on deck.”

  “Didn’t anyone ever tell you, sports metaphors turn girls off?” At that point I was simply talking to buy time. I was out of ideas and about out of hope. Damon was gone I was sure, wisely fled back to his boat.

  “Bitch,” Boone shouted as the third vehicle pulled to a stop. “I’m going to turn you off for good.”

  Before he could get his weapon trained on me, someone came staggering from around the side of the house. Gagarin had his vest back on but hanging loose from the shoulders. His hands were behind his back. He was crying as he stumbled into the light.

  “Do not shoot me,” he begged through the tears and the snot. “Do not shoot. I did none of the things you think. I am not your man.”

  Boone cackled like a crazy chicken. “Oh—you ain’t a man all right. But you’re mine.”

  “Gagarin—don’t,” I called.

  He ignored me. “Please. Please do not shoot me.”

  When he was beside the porch I could see a bit of wire dangling from his clasped hands. His wrists were bound behind his back. I hadn’t tied him.

  Damon.

  “Come back, Gagarin,” I shouted. “Don’t go to those men.”

  “I am have to,” he cried. The man was terrified but more afraid of what was behind him than in front. He kept moving forward.

  When Gagarin reached the front of the SUV, Boone grabbed him by the arm and dragged him around to the passenger door. “I guess you are just not very good at your job, are you, Hurricane?” He taunted me as he shoved Gagarin in the vehicle. Once he slammed the door shut, he thumped his chest and shouted louder. “What’re you gonna do now—bitch?”

  I lowered my sights and put a high velocity round right through his damaged leg. The frail bone must have disintegrated because the leg bent the wrong way and Boone pitched forward onto his shocked face.

  Before he hit the ground I was dropping behind a porch column and the other men were firing wildly. Those who had just arrived, were firing from behind open truck doors. Wood shattered and splinters rained down on me as I tried to make myself as small as possible. In the staccato rumble of automatic fire, I caught the single bark of a. 30-06.

  One of the gunmen dropped.

  From someplace hidden, Damon fired another round. It removed another shooter from behind a truck door.

  The killers shifted focus from me to shoot into the woodpile by the shed where Damon and I had first come to the clearing. A head high stack of oak piled in three rows was better cover than an SUV. Other than the engine block a car is mostly empty space covered with glass and sheet metal.

  With no one shooting at me I was able to move to a safer position off the porch and cover behind the stone corner of the cabin foundation. As I moved I was able to see one of the men helping Boone up and into the back of the truck. That man then ran around to the front of the SUV with Gagarin in the front seat.

  I aimed from a prone position planning on shooting the man if he started driving. I never got the chance. The man in the driver’s seat turned to scream at Gagarin. It was an explosion of rage but silent outside the cab.

  Damon’s .30-06 blasted again. Even through all the gunfire I could pick out the one hunting rifle. That time though, I saw no one hit or fall. From where I was I could see the barrel sticking out beyond the wall of firewood but when I tried to follow the line of sight it seemed wrong. Like he was aiming into the woods beyond the fight.

  When I looked back to the cluster of cars and shooting men, I saw something I hope to never witness again. Gagarin’s head exploded within the SUV showering blood on the passenger side windows. For an instant, the man in the driver’s seat was paralyzed by shock. But only for an instant. He was a professional.

  But so was Damon.

  The man jerked the shifter down and into drive. The wheels spun in the grass for a moment. On that melee there was no missing the sound of the .30-06. I heard the shot and saw the man drop onto the steering wheel. That time there was no burst of gore simply a gunshot followed by death.

  The other SUV and the truck surged forward spinning into tight turns. Dirt and weeds flew from behind them in broad sprays as they fishtailed. In a moment they had traction. The two vehicles left the one stuttering to an idling stop.

  The quiet in that moment was almost intolerably deep. As it lay over me, an insulation against the world, it was also an echo chamber for my thoughts.

  How had it come to this? Why?

  Nothing, no thought I could muster, made any sense to me.

  I’d let my anger and fear tempt me into a gunfight with the men who, I believed, were holding Billy. I qualified that because I was no longer sure of anything. Gagarin was involved but not involved. He said he didn’t kill Daniel Boone and that he was rescued from the mercenaries by Billy.

  I was waiting for Damon to show. He’d restrained and then released Gagarin but had he killed him too? I tried mentally replaying the fight and couldn’t piece things together. The .30-06 had a report distinct from the automatic weapons but there were so many bullets fired.

  Where is he?

  I had expected Damon to come to the cabin after the vehicles had carried away the danger. Then I wondered if he’d been hit. Or maybe he thought I should come to him.

  I didn’t stand right away. I couldn’t. It’s hard to give up cover when you have it so I scooted along the cabin’s foundation until the whole scene was blocked. Keeping to a crouch, I made my way back to the shed and woodpile ready to drop at any moment.

  No one was there. I scanned the fight scene, staying behind cover. After that I watched the gaping windows and crushed back door of the cabin, scanning for any movement. Nothing.

  The first sound I was aware of for fully five minutes came as a rustling of dry sticks in the woods behind me. I followed, thinking Damon might be after someone. Or the opposite might be true. Either way . . .

  The trip back to the boat seemed much quicker than the slow stalk we had made away from it. Mostly that was because I had given up the idea of stealth as a personal impossibility so I ran. That is, I jogged as well as I could through dark underbrush. It was all for nothing. When I got to the covered lake finger where we had secreted the boat—it was gone.

  With no choice, I made my way back to the cabin as quickly and loudly as possible. By that time, the darkness under the trees was so thick my jog had become a careful picking of steps. I’d started to think I was still back in the cave with Billy. Or was I hoping? That time though, the cavern mouth was illuminated by firelight not sunlight.

  The cabin was on fire.

  It wasn’t a huge blaze—yet. The front was boiling with bright flame and the back, the crashed open door and broken windows were flowing with smoke. Above the roof, the columns of soot looked like black snakes silhouetted by stars.

  At the edge of the clearing around the cabin, I waited, watching. I wanted to cry. The snakes weaving over everything in starlight, were laughing. They wanted me to cry too. Or they wanted me to drink. Glittering on the front porch rail, barely beyond the licking reach of flaming to
ngues, was a bottle of whiskey. Worse than that, the SUV in which Gagarin and the driver had both been shot, was gone.

  Life, karma, or something was continuing to taunt me.

  I broke cover and ran. This time I didn’t crouch. Around the back of the cabin I bolted and up the three steps. There on the little porch I got to hands and knees and crawled under billowing smoke to search the floor. It took a lung-charring moment, but I found what I was looking for. There were a couple of sets of keys that I had knocked from a holder when I kicked the door in. Only one had a car key with a remote fob.

  Behind the magnolia, I started the Ford truck and sat, once again, in quiet fear. Eventually, after I really had started crying, I dropped the shifter into drive and left the burning cabin as quickly as the truck would take me.

  After a firefight is the dangerous time for your sanity. Your body, pumped on adrenaline, becomes a limp rag as the chemical energy fades. Some people want to sleep. Some become giddy and laugh uncontrollably or make inappropriate jokes. I’ve heard some people describe it as arousing, a sexual feeling. There is no telling how your body will react. One thing that you can be sure of though, is the brain. In the time after the conflict, every violent moment gets written into your memory like something carved in hard wood with a dull knife. That’s why the most common phrase you hear in support of a troubled friend is Try not to think about it. But everyone thinks about it.

  That’s the hard thing, knowing how close your story was to the end. Of course that begs the questions. They all begin with the word why. Why me? Why them? Why didn’t I—

  As I found the dirt road, my adrenaline charge was trickling away. I was asking all the questions. It was gone completely as the truck bumped up onto asphalt. I was picking apart and second-guessing each moment since Damon and I had first taken cover behind the woodshed.

  Miles burned away under my tires as I dissolved into depression. Headlights swept over the faded yellow lines on the county blacktop illuminating nothing but my past. The truck, and the sound of tires, carried me from one violence to another. Before I knew it I was surrounded by the blowing brown dust of Iraq. I was splayed out on my belly and when I opened my eyes, I saw the stain of my blood. It was already mixed with the dirt, surrendering its color into the dun shades of the desert.