Southern Cross

by Jen Blood

  “So he really is keeping this in the family,” Blaze said.

  The next photo showed a couple of the kids seated at the table. Another photo showed four or five crowded in together on a double mattress. I stopped at sight of a little blonde girl with her thumb in her mouth, and a boy of seven or eight watching over her like it was his mission in life.

  My stomach dropped. “That’s Casey Clinton’s brother and sister,” I said. “What the hell are they doing in there?”

  Blaze raised her hand to hold me off, suddenly tense. “That’s not my biggest concern right now.” She looked at Abbott. “What the hell is that?”

  I had to squint to see what she was pointing to: a small bundle of cylindrical tubes, barely visible beside the wooden stairs leading out. Abbott frowned and flipped to the next picture—a close-up of the same bundle.

  “Dynamite,” he said. “The whole place is rigged with it. That’s why we didn’t just move in and take the kids out. I’m guessing they have the detonator up top, but we weren’t able to find it or determine whether we’re looking at a timer or a remote trigger. There’s no sign of a blasting cap.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Blaze said, flipping back through the pictures. “Those are homemade. That’s why they didn’t bother with security: when you have that many explosives, you don’t need somebody watching the place. We make a single wrong move and that entire house comes down on those kids.”

  “If we take our time, we can get everyone out,” Juarez said. “We just can’t lose our heads. I know we’re on a deadline, but if we rush this, no one’s coming out of this alive.”

  “There’s a problem with that,” Abbott said.

  “What?” Blaze snapped.

  “That,” he said. He indicated the pitcher I’d noticed beside the sandwiches in one of the photos. Next to it was a vial, so small that it was barely visible.

  “What are we looking at?” I asked.

  “Cyanide,” Blaze said softly. The word alone sent a chill through me. “They’re gonna poison them. Before they ever set off any explosives, they’ll just tell the kids to drink up. Everyone goes to sleep…”

  “And no one wakes up,” Juarez finished grimly.

  <><><>

  Once we knew what we were facing, Blaze got everyone motivated and we headed into the forest together. The second the woods closed in this time, I felt the same sense of panic that had all but buried me just after Black Falls. I’d been avoiding the woods for awhile, but obviously there wasn’t much choice now.

  Blaze and Juarez and the rest of the team were up ahead, absorbed in the mission. I took a breath, but the air went down wrong and my heart sped up while my chest got tighter. I kept my head down and put one foot in front of the other. Sometimes, that’s the best you can hope for.

  The soldiers hadn’t been kidding when they’d said Barnel’s cabin was well hidden. If I’d been on my own, I think I would have tripped over the damned thing before I saw it: a small wooden cabin with a front porch and boarded windows, almost completely hidden by the undergrowth. By the time we got there, I was lightheaded from all that fresh air not getting to my lungs. The others circled up while I stood on the sidelines, waiting for some direction. I didn’t even know what the hell I was doing out there; Diggs knew the area and he knew Barnel, so he could clearly add something to the mix.

  Other than mind-numbing terror, I wasn’t sure what I brought to the table.

  They set Diggs and me and a couple of agents up out of the way with a video feed of the cellar, and Blaze ordered us to keep still. I sat on a fallen tree and didn’t speak. On the little screen in front of us, I could see half-a-dozen of the kids now gathered around the table playing UNO. Casey’s brother and sister had joined in. The pitcher stood between them, the vial still full beside it.

  The air smelled damp and clean, the byproduct of a rainy spring. It occurred to me that the paths were wet enough that you wouldn’t hear someone coming from behind. I thought of Will Rainier’s hand twisted in my hair, a knife blade across my cheek and his mouth at my ear. Every time I catch you, I get a little more. That’s the game. So far, breathing wasn’t getting any easier.

  “So… David Bowie? Cake? Prince, for sure,” Diggs said quietly as he sat down beside me. I jumped, my heart hammering. He leaned in a little, voice low and light, his hand falling to the small of my back. “Keep breathing, Sol. It’s just another jungle, ace.”

  My heart slowed. I gave myself a minute before I responded. “Prince what?” I asked. To my relief, I didn’t sound nearly as shaky as I felt.

  “Your top twenty-four,” he said.

  Of course. “I told you—I’m not playing that game with you.”

  “Why not? I won’t judge.”

  I scoffed. I felt my breathing slowly shift. “Sure you won’t.”

  “Don’t you want to know my top twenty-four?” he whispered, close to my ear.

  “I already know them.” He gave me a look that suggested I was full of shit, which I chose to ignore. “What? You don’t think I’ve been paying attention all these years? Twenty bucks says I can name every one of them,” I said. “In order.”

  “If you do me, does that mean I get to do you?” he asked.

  I rolled my eyes. Before I could respond, Blaze took her place in a little clearing in front of the house. I held up my hand to Diggs. “Hang on. I think the games are about to begin.”

  From our vantage, safely out of the line of fire, I could just see Blaze take another step forward with megaphone in hand. The second she was in the open, someone got a shot off from inside the house, kicking up the dirt a couple of yards from Blaze’s feet. She backed up, holding up a hand to keep anyone from firing back.

  “My name is Special Agent Allie Blaze,” she said once she was safely under cover again. “I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’d like to end this before anyone gets hurt—is there someone in there I could speak with?”

  On our subterranean camera, a couple of the kids looked up anxiously at the sound of the gunshot. Willa Clinton, Casey’s little sister, started to cry. The old couple gathered everyone together around the table. I eyed the vial beside the pitcher uneasily.

  After an eternity and a half, the muzzle of a shotgun appeared in the front doorway of the cabin. The teenage girl we’d seen in the photo emerged, the gun raised to her chest, sights trained directly on Blaze.

  “We don’t have any quarrel with you,” she said. Her voice was strained, her arms shaking under the weight of the gun she held. “So please just get on out of here.”

  I’d expected some backwoods Daisy Mae spouting scripture, but this girl was anything but. She had braces and a patch of acne on her forehead, and the fear in her eyes was palpable.

  “I’m sorry,” Blaze said, “but I can’t go yet—not until everyone in there gets out safely and I’m able to locate Reverend Barnel. That’s my only job here. Can you tell me your name?”

  The girl hesitated. It looked like she’d been crying. “Jessie,” she said after a second, confirming what Diggs had said. “Jessie Barnel. Nobody’s getting out of here, though—you may as well just forget it. My granddaddy saw to that… He’s goin’ back to the beginning, he said. Back to where it all went wrong… granddaddy got word from on high. He’s to start there. We’ll be goin’ home with the Lord by sundown, Miss.”

  Her voice trembled.

  “You can call me Allie,” Blaze said. She’d made the transition from drill sergeant to den mother seamlessly. “Jessie, no one has to go home with the Lord today, all right? Nobody has to go anywhere but right back where they belong. We can put today behind us. I just need you to put that gun down, sweetheart.”

  On the video screen, Willa was still crying. The old man sat down at the table with her on his knee, bouncing her gently. Dougie Clinton looked ready to strangle him. Then, I watched with my stomach in a sailor’s knot as the old woman picked up the vial of cyanide and pulled the pitcher toward her. The agent beside us had his
walkie talkie in hand. He spoke into it quietly.

  “Keith, what’s your status? There’s activity below.”

  Blaze must have had an earpiece in, because her shoulders tensed at the words. She lifted the megaphone again.

  “Jessie, I know you have children in there. Those kids’ families are looking for them; they just want them to come home safely. Now, I know your grandfather is a good man.”

  To my surprise, a tear rolled down Jessie’s cheek, a flicker of something in her eyes. Anger, I thought—and not necessarily directed at us. Blaze didn’t miss it.

  “As good a man as he is, the position he’s put you in here isn’t fair. You’re a smart girl—I did a little checking, and it turns out you’re at the top of your class. You don’t belong here, Jessie.”

  The old woman on the video dumped the vial into the pitcher. She stirred it, her face chillingly impassive, and then began pouring the liquid into a dozen paper cups.

  “We have to move,” the agent said into his walkie talkie. He said it quietly enough, but there was no mistaking his urgency. Jessie’s head came up, like she was listening to someone inside the house. Her hands tensed around the gun.

  “Whoever’s in the woods out back best leave here,” Jessie said. She shifted, eyes taking on a wild quality that wasn’t reassuring. “My granny isn’t happy about this. We can’t have you folks back there.”

  “Jessie—” Blaze began. A shot erupted from the house, this time in the back. A second later, “Agent down!” crackled over the walkie talkie. Jessie jumped, her gun going off in the process. Another shot came from the back of the house. Most of the kids were crying on the video screen by now. Those who weren’t just looked terrified. The old couple began handing out paper cups, moving with unnerving efficiency.

  Someone fired back from the woods. This time Jessie took aim, her rifle pointed directly at Blaze.

  “Y’all need to go!” the girl said. “You got no idea what you’re doing.”

  “Jessie, please—let us get you out of there. Set down your gun, and let us take care of your family. You shouldn’t have to face something like this.” Blaze took a step into the clearing, both hands in the air. The girl’s arms were shaking so much now that I didn’t know how she held the damned gun up. Dougie Clinton and four other kids in the cellar picked up their paper cups. I wasn’t breathing. No one was, as far as I could see. Diggs sat rigid beside me, his hand clasped tightly in mine. I didn’t even remember taking hold of it.

  “Dammit,” he whispered under his breath. “Why the hell isn’t anyone doing anything?”

  “We have agents right now who can move in there and take care of this, Jessie,” Blaze said. “I have a daughter your age, honey—this isn’t the kind of thing I’d ever want her to go through. I know your granddaddy feels the same.”

  Jessie shook her head furiously, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Then you don’t know my granddaddy,” she half-whispered. Her eyes hardened. My hand tightened around Diggs’, and I think everyone there knew what was coming next:

  She fired the gun.

  It hit Blaze square in the chest, knocking her backward. The girl chambered a second bullet. Before she could take aim, a shot sounded from the woods. The girl fell to her knees, still holding tight to the rifle, blood spreading in a neat circle at the upper left of her dress. Her eyes went wide.

  More shots erupted from the cabin, from the deep bass of a shotgun to the steady rat-a-tat of automatic weapons in the back. Juarez bolted from the woods, moving fast and low. He reached Blaze and she got to her feet, still gasping from the impact of buckshot on Kevlar, and the two retreated back to the trees.

  “Hold your fire!” Blaze shouted hoarsely to her team.

  Meanwhile, Diggs and I watched as the video picture jumped, like someone had jarred the camera. Two boys of no more than five drank down the liquid in their paper cups, one of them crying. Dougie looked at his but didn’t touch it. I watched as, in the chaos, he quietly took Willa’s from her and put it back on the table. Good boy.

  The forest was alive with gunfire now, all of it coming from inside the cabin as agents and National Guard alike took cover. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a full breath. Another little girl drank from her cup, even as the first two boys sank to the floor as though suddenly too tired to stand.

  Jessie sat on the front porch, her back against the door, blood soaking the front of her dress now. She still clung to the rifle. She’d gone very, very pale.

  And then, down below, I watched on the video feed as the old woman suddenly looked up, eyes wide. The picture jostled again. The kids’ faces turned up in the same direction. Someone had entered the room.

  The woman clutched something by her side that I hadn’t seen before—something dark and metallic.

  “The detonator,” Diggs whispered next to me. I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or himself. I could barely hear him over the rushing in my ears.

  I heard a single shot from inside the house, and a second later the old lady dropped. The metal box fell to the floor. I waited for the world to explode.

  It didn’t.

  The old man grabbed the pitcher on the table and I watched as he drank down whatever was left. The kids looked on, crying in stark terror as three agents in full SWAT garb—one of them Juarez—appeared on screen.

  Juarez went up the stairs, rifle up, while the others focused on evacuating the kids. Time ground to a halt. There was another series of shots fired inside the cabin, and then possibly the longest silence I’ve ever endured. If I could have summoned enough focus to pray, I’m pretty sure I would have in that moment. As it was, all I could do was sit there and wait, as though in suspended animation, for someone to tell us what the hell had happened.

  Finally, Juarez’s voice came on over the radio. “House is secure. We need medics in here now!”

  The front door opened and Juarez emerged. He took the rifle from Jessie’s hand gently. She closed her eyes, tears still falling, and surrendered.

  Diggs and I dove into the fray as soon as we were cleared to do so, me joining a team of medics who’d just swarmed in while Diggs went around to the back to help round up whatever kids were still mobile. A broad-shouldered Hispanic woman nodded me over to a clearing not far from the trees where the injured were being moved.

  “You’re Solomon?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “I’m Stacy. Blaze said you’re cleared to lend a hand. You up for that?”

  “Yeah, of course,” I agreed. My hands were shaking and I was pretty sure I was about to puke on someone’s shoes, but it didn’t look like anyone else was volunteering for the job.

  Juarez came over carrying one of the two boys I’d seen drink the poison. I was on the job and thoroughly focused, but I still managed to brush my hand over Juarez’s as he lay the boy on the ground in front of us. Another of the agents had the other boy, and another couple of EMTs went to work on him while Stacy and I looked for signs of life in our patient.

  “His name’s Tom. The other boy’s Greg,” Juarez said. He hovered over us, forehead furrowed.

  “You know what they gave him?” Stacy asked.

  “Cyanide,” Juarez said promptly. I fought an overwhelming urge to panic, ordering myself back to that quiet, steady place my mother taught me to rely on as a teenager. “What can I do?” Juarez asked.

  “Go help the other agents,” Stacy said smoothly. “We’ve got this.”

  As soon as he was gone, Stacy shook the little boy gently. “Tom, can you hear me?” There was no response.

  Close up, he seemed impossibly small, with curly black hair and dark skin. The other boy started to seize, and I realized at a glance that the two must be brothers. The other team tried to stabilize him. Stacy snapped her fingers at me.

  “Hey—focus. This is our patient.”

  I nodded. It wasn’t easy, though: our patient had a pulse. Our patient was breathing. We gave him a dose of amyl nitrite and set up an IV
of sodium nitrite as soon as he was stable. Meanwhile, the other boy wasn’t moving. The paramedics stopped chest compressions after what seemed an eternity.

  “Greg Hernandez, age approximately six years,” one of the EMTs said. “Time of death, 11:52 a.m. March 15, 2013.”

  I sat back on my heels and surveyed the rest of the scene, trying to get my bearings. Diggs stood at the edge of the woods holding Willa Clinton, Doug beside them. They were laughing, Willa’s arms so tight around Diggs’ neck I didn’t know how he could breathe.

  Jessie Barnel was already being carried out—they’d either sedated her or she’d lost consciousness, but she was still alive. Of the six members of Barnel’s crew inside the house, she was the only survivor.

  We prepped Tom for air evac, and then Stacy shook my hand. “We’ve got this. Thanks—we’ll let you know how he does.”

  I nodded.

  Beside me, the other little boy lay alone, a blanket pulled over his small body. For a second or two I just stood there, swaying, sure I would be sick. Across the way, Juarez knelt beside Blaze, their heads bent in conversation. She still sat propped against a tree, but he offered her his hand and she got to her feet.

  Limping and rung out, we left the Barnel compound.

  Chapter Nineteen

  DANNY

  12:06:02

  Danny was asleep, dreaming of home, when the door opened and someone shined what felt like a floodlight into the room. He blinked in the glare.

  “We’re going for a little walk,” a woman said. The same woman who’d talked to him outside Casey’s garage—that soft, silky voice was unforgettable.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  She lowered the light and stalked into the room. Danny recognized her from around town, but he didn’t know that he’d ever talked to her before that night at Casey’s.

  Jenny Burkett knelt beside him and picked up a black hood she’d tossed in. She was pretty—not Justice pretty, either. She was Hollywood hot, with blonde hair, great curves, and a soft, full mouth. She brushed against him, looking like she knew just what he was thinking. She moved in closer, ‘til her mouth was at his ear.