After Killian signed for his things and turned to leave, the officer said sincerely, “Merry Christmas, friend.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
BEFORE
The drive home from the police station took Killian through the center of Gettysburg’s historic downtown area. As a child, he had always loved walking the streets of the quaint town square with his parents during Christmas. All the decorated shops, along with the decorated square, left him feeling as if he were in a scene straight out of a Dicken’s tale. But now, as he drove slowly around the festive square’s traffic circle while tourists bundled up against the cold happily strolled the sidewalks, a chill, set deep and enduring within his bones from sleeping in a cold prison cell on a cold metal bench, reinvigorated itself and shuddered through him. Never had he felt as if he didn’t belong to a place as much as he felt toward his hometown right then.
Feeling like an alien, an imposter, he exited the circle heading south onto the Baltimore Pike and then sped up, wanting to remove himself and the stench of his imprisonment from the good cheer of the holiday revelers as fast as possible. Minutes later, as he approached the drive to his farm, he steered across the oncoming lane and pulled up to the mailbox. He opened the box and took out the stack of variously-sized envelopes and set them on his lap. As he fingered quickly through them and saw that they all seemed to be addressed to his late father, he took his foot off the break and let the car idle slowly forward as he leafed through the remaining few. But when he got to the last envelope, he stepped on the break again, jerking the car to a stop. He picked up the envelope and looked at it closer. It was addressed to a Senior Chief Killian Lebon. Its return address was his old Fleet Post Office address. He tapped the letter against the steering wheel and looked up at the country road that stretched out lonely before him, cutting through a thick forest of trees with barren branches reaching out above it like grasping skeletal fingers. He opened the letter. It was from his commanding officer.
Dear Senior Chief,
Hello, shipmate. I hope this letter finds you well. I would have liked to have called or even had a video chat with you instead of snail mail, but I’m sure you can appreciate that neither our optempo nor our opsec requirements permit such luxuries.
So, like I said I would, I reached out to my contact with the Peshmerga, and, as luck would have it, he was able to track down the fate of the Yazidi girl you so bravely rescued from the horrors of that ISIS sex slave house. From him I learned that the girl was twelve-years-old and her name was Shene Abdullah.
A pang of fear shot through Killian’s heart. The girl’s name was Shene Abdullah.
After you were medevaced out of the area, Shene was transported to a Syrian hospital in a village outside the immediate oparea where she was treated for her wounds, none of which were life-threatening thanks to your heroic efforts. While she was recovering, the Kurdish authorities were able to identify her. She was originally from Sinjar in Iraq. As you know, Sinjar is where most of the Yazidis captured by ISIS were from. At the time of her capture in 2014, the year ISIS overran Sinjar, Shene would have been only around eight-years-old at the time. Unfortunately, her home and entire neighborhood was destroyed by those terrorist fuckers and none of her immediate family members, her father, mother, an older brother, and a younger sister, have been located as of yet and are presumed to either be ISIS prisoners or dead. I’m guessing the fact that she had such a common last name didn’t help in the location of her family.
However, they were able to locate an uncle on her mother’s side by the name of Hassam. He lives alone on a small farm about twenty miles or so outside of Sinjar, the nearest village to it being Ain Fathi. He’s alone because he also lost a wife and two sons to the ISIS bastards. God only knows how he was able to survive. After Shene was discharged from the hospital, she was transferred to Kirkuk with other Kurdish refugees, and then eventually she was brought to her uncle’s farm to live.
Killian, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Shene is dead. Her uncle reported it to the police and sharia council in Ain Fathi that her death was the result of suicide. But according to my contact, after he did some asking around in Ain Fathi, he found out that it was pretty much common knowledge that Shene died not by her own hand, but by the hands of her uncle. Apparently he murdered her in a so-called honor killing not long after her arrival to his farm. The poor girl had gotten pregnant by one of those sick ISIS fucks and the uncle could not bear to have her or her unborn child living with the stain of those upon her who had brought so much death and destruction to his family. But even though it was obviously a murder since according to my contact her throat had been slit, both the Ain Fathi police and the local sharia council basically took the uncle at his word and pronounced her death a suicide with hardly an investigation.
I understand how devastating this news must be for you, Kill. But I also know you would want to hear the truth, regardless how horrible and difficult to hear it may be.
Again, I’m sorry for being the one to have to break such shitty news to you. It’s a fucked up world and there’s only so much one can do to try to unfuck it, even a badass like you, so try not to let all this shit get to you, okay?
Hey, we all miss you like hell, shipmate, and everyone sends their regards.
Stay strong, brother,
Darius
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
BEFORE
After reluctantly leaving Killian by himself to grieve for Diego, RJ had spent the rest of the day at the hospital and funeral home making the arrangements for their old friend’s interment. Afterwards, even though she was mentally drained and physically exhausted from having to focus all her energies on the death of a loved-one, she decided to, mostly in an effort to alleviate the guilt that had been gnawing at her stomach all day, swing by Killian’s farm to check in on him. She wished she hadn’t left him alone like she had. Although he had insisted on it, she didn’t feel right abandoning him like that right after he had learned of Diego’s death. But then again, she rationalized with herself, didn’t he abandon her, too? Didn’t she practically beg him for his support in dealing with the complexities of Diego’s death? Solitude in the face of grief was his choice, not hers.
She regretted the thought as soon as it came to her. Diego had told her all about what Killian had been through, not just the physical injuries he suffered from the explosion on his last, fateful mission, but also the deep, resultant psychological trauma from both the blast and from all the unimaginable, and unforgettable, horrors he had witnessed that day. She couldn’t even begin to conceive what it must have been like for him, someone so caring, so independent as he had always been, to suddenly become so physically and mentally debilitated.
Soon after she had turned onto Killian’s farm, as the gravel, sounding like the breaking of old, dried-out bones, crunched beneath the tow truck’s slow rolling tires, and after her headlights had cleared the winter-stripped forest that rimmed the property and did an aching sweep across the blackened rubble of the burned out lot, she saw that the old Ford pickup wasn’t parked at the farmhouse as it had been when she had left him earlier in the day. She wasn’t sure why, but as she pulled up to the house, a dark feeling came over her, one that left her with a deep sense that something wasn’t right, that Killian was in need of her; or, if not her, of at least someone.
Even though there were no lights on, she still went to the front door and knocked, hoping that perhaps he was inside sleeping. If he wasn’t home, she had no way of contacting him, for as far as she knew he had yet to have the landline in the house connected, nor had he yet purchased a cell phone; and, even if he had, she didn’t have the number for either. As she waited on the doorstep, the cold wind moaned as it whipped its way through the naked forest’s icy limbs, sending a fierce chill through her that rivaled the deep-set sense of dread she was already feeling. After there was no answer at the door, she had no choice but to return home. Exhausted, all she wanted was a quick dinner, a relaxing bath,
and a good night’s sleep. Yet she knew, all of it would be spoiled by her worry for Killian.
She woke early the next morning after a fitful, unsatisfying sleep and had to work hard to resist the urge to go right back to Killian’s house to make sure he had returned home okay during the night. As she quickly made her way through her morning routine, she chided herself for being such a worrywart. The man was a Navy SEAL, she told herself, a war veteran who had been through more harrowing situations than she could ever imagine. He certainly didn’t need her playing the role of his doting nanny.
She ate a light breakfast and then, despite it being Christmas Day, went out to the garage to continue working on tuning up Luther Rattus’s cherry red 1969 Camaro Z/28. Rattus was an old classmate and longtime customer of her late father’s and, no matter that the man subsisted on welfare and resided alone in a dilapidated trailer, probably one without heat and running water, somehow over the years he had managed to take great care of that old muscle car. And RJ had felt a special sense of pride in the fact that, when she took the business over after her father’s death, Rattus continued bringing the car to the garage for service, entrusting her, at the time an unproven seventeen-year-old wannabe mechanic, to maintain for him his one treasure in life.
Yet, despite how much she loved tinkering with that old Camaro, today she couldn’t concentrate. Her mind was constantly wandering back to Killian, wondering what he was doing, whether he was okay or not. After about an hour of accomplishing next to nothing, she couldn’t take it any longer and decided she had to check in on him. She would use the pretense that she was stopping by on a friendly visit to wish him a Merry Christmas and to invite him over for dinner. She hastily got cleaned up and headed out into the late morning’s heavily falling snow.
As she turned onto the drive and winded her way past the charred, snow-covered remains of Killian’s childhood home, she was relieved to see the old pickup truck had returned; although, instead of being parked at the farmhouse, it was now parked in front of the barn. When she first looked, she was certain she saw a light shining out from the opening of the barn door; however, by the time she pulled her tow truck next to Killian’s pickup, the barn was dark. She gave the horn a short tap to announce her arrival.
The black gap filling the slice of open space between the barn door and its frame conjured up the same sense of dread she had felt the night before. She tried to look through the opening into the darkness, but there wasn’t enough light leaking in to see anything inside. She knocked lamely on the big sliding door, the sound of which seemed to have gotten swept away with the blowing snow. When there was no answer, she stuck her mouth to the opening. “Hey, Killian, you in there?” she called out. Still no answer. She looked over to the farmhouse. It was dark with all the curtains drawn. She called out again, louder this time. Silence. The wind blew stronger, bringing with it the lonely caw of a distant crow and a stiff, foreboding chill.
She pounded harder on the door. “Hey, Killian, fair warning if you’re in there, I’m coming in.” It took both hands, a shoulder, and significant effort for her to slide the large door open just enough for her to slip through. Inside, the thin, cold light slicing in behind her didn’t provide enough coverage for her to see much farther into the barn than just a few feet. She felt around for a light switch on the wall next to the door. She found it and flicked it on. Nothing. She felt her pockets for her phone, for its light, but she had left it in the truck. She proceeded with caution, taking wary steps until her eyes could adjust to the dark. She thought she heard a creaking sound coming from overhead. She stopped and listened.
“Killian?” she said quietly. No response.
She took another tentative step forward and walked right into something. She jumped back from fright, unable to contain a short scream. The creaking sound was constant now with a slow metronomic beat. She followed the sound up into the rafters. At first, she couldn’t make out what she was looking at. Her first guess was that it was a punching bag. She reached out and felt it. It wasn’t a punching bag, that she was sure of. She stepped back and looked up at whatever it was that was hanging before her. Her eyes focused through the darkness and when everything finally came clear to her, she fell to the ground screaming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
BEFORE
Killian, his face purple from the noose clutched tight around his neck, hung lifelessly above RJ and stared down at her with wide, blank eyes. RJ, her mind numb with fear, lay immobile on the cold dirt floor and stared up at him in horror, transfixed not only by the emptiness of his gaze falling upon her, but also by his slow pendulating swaying and the soft discordant sound of the thick rafter from which he hung creaking in time. The first thought that was able to enter her mind was how painful his death must have been. But then, even as the fresh, horrifying imagery of his final moments haunted her, she remembered that, only moments ago, she had seen a light on in the barn when she was coming down the drive. How long does it take one to die from a hanging? Perhaps he wasn’t yet dead. It was this thinking that released her from her shock and forced her into action.
She scrambled to her feet, grabbed Killian around the thighs, and tried to lift him up, hoping to provide some relief to his neck. Right away she realized the futility of the effort. He was too heavy and too high up for her to be able to get enough lift on him to do any good. She reluctantly let go and rushed off to search for anything she could use that could assist her in getting him down. Right away she struck her shin on something hard and nearly fell back to the ground. A stepladder was lying on its side by her feet. She set it upright, realizing Killian must have used it to tie the rope to the rafter and then kicked it out from under his feet so he could hang. The thought of him going through such calculated yet desperate acts during his final moments would have broken RJ’s heart had she not been so focused on rescuing him now to consider it.
She found a workbench and went through it like a cyclone looking for anything she could use to cut him down. But she only found various-sized ballpeen hammers, a bellow, several different tongs, and other tools and objects unfamiliar to her. No knives or anything else that could be used to cut through the rope. She looked through the cupboards under the bench. She didn’t find a knife, but she did find a flashlight. And it worked.
She shined the light in wide arcs around the barn. There was something in the corner stall. She ran over to it. Inside, in the center, there was a large black anvil set atop a thick tree stump. Behind it near the wall there was a small brick structure. Was it a grill? A furnace? She wasn’t sure, but she was sure that there were no sharp objects anywhere. She was turning to exit the stall when something on the ground next to the furnace caught her eye. A blowtorch. A blowtorch can burn through rope. But how to ignite it? She flashed the light everywhere, looking for a match or a lighter. She found instead an object that reminded of her of high school science class. A flint spark lighter. She grabbed it and, with the blowtorch, rushed back to Killian.
As she worked to get the blowtorch lit she screamed at Killian, ordering him not to die on her. Her hands were shaking and it took several attempts before she was finally able to draw the needed sparks from the lighter to light the torch. But once lit she hurried up the ladder with it, tripping on the third step and nearly burning Killian as she involuntarily reached for him to steady herself. His limp, heavy body swung away from the weight of her hand, furthering her imbalance, but she didn’t fall and when she was settled on the highest step she would dare, she brought the flame to the rope as far above Killian’s head as she could reach. The rope was dry and the flame burned through it fast. Killian fell hard to the dirt floor.
To RJ all that happened next seemed to happen outside her body in slow-motion, dream-like effects. She saw herself kill the torch’s flame and throw it aside as she dove atop Killian, her fingers tearing at the rope jammed high around his neck. She heard herself begging for his neck not to be broken and for his throat not to be crushed. Although she always kept
her fingernails short as a mechanic, she watched the ends of them break as her fingers tried unsuccessfully to loosen the noose’s death grip of a knot at the back of his neck. She couldn’t get at it good enough with the position it was in. She needed to get him off his back, so she swung herself off his chest over to his left side and tried to roll him over. He was heavy, too heavy, so she hopped back on top of him, grabbed the knot from the back of his head, and tugged on it, trying to get it around to the side where she could work on it. The rope was so tight around his neck the knot barely moved. She tugged on it again and again, looking as if she were trying to ratchet his head on tight with a wrench made of rope. Finally, she got the knot to where it was sticking out parallel to his right shoulder. She watched, rooting herself on, as she once again tore into the knot, the ends of her fingers bloody, not relenting until she finally felt the slightest of release. Once started, she redoubled her efforts and attacked the vulnerability, screaming at Killian to stay alive until she was able to get enough slack in the noose to free it from his neck.
Reality snapped back into place and RJ was now one with herself, no longer an observer of the scene but its only active participant. She swung herself off Killian’s chest again and, from his left side, began administering heart compressions, counting each out loud. When she reached thirty compressions, she stopped and plugged his nose, opened his mouth, and breathed hard into it two times. She put two fingers to his neck but was unable to find a pulse. She put an ear to his chest to listen for a heartbeat, but she couldn’t be sure if what she was hearing was his heart or her own pulse pounding in her ears.
“Don’t you dare die on me, Killian Cahalane Lebon,” she screamed as she pounded down double-fisted on his chest. She was crying and beginning to reach a panic stage that threatened to incapacitate her. But somehow, she managed to keep it together enough for her to continue compressing Killian’s heart and breathing into his lungs.
The Good Kill Page 14