by Jonas Saul
Then Aaron started toward the car. That wasn’t how he wanted them to meet for the first time so Whitman made a U-turn and got out of there, only to return minutes later. After parking the car, he entered the lobby and was astounded to see Sarah heading for the exit at the front.
Their first meeting in years was good, heartwarming, but too short. He followed her outside, saw what was happening and jumped on that man before he could be hit by the car. When the local authorities began to arrive, Whitman suspected Spencer wouldn’t be overjoyed to hear he had been detained in a Mexican police station, but what could he do? They placed him in the van with Sarah and released him within minutes of arrival at the station. His police ID got him out of the building without being written up or offering a statement.
Waiting had always been his strong suit. He hunkered down and decided to wait for Sarah to be alone so they could talk. One hour, maybe two. With or without Aaron. He just wanted to talk, then he’d be on his way, back to Toronto, back to the new life he’d built for himself as John Whitman. Back to work for Spencer. He’d waited all these years to make contact with Sarah; he could wait a few more days.
But could Spencer wait for his return? No one knew a thing until Parkman called asking about Drake. That had fucked things up for him. And how did Parkman get involved? Whitman had kept himself hidden. Only Sarah had seen him. He made sure to wait to speak to Sarah first, get her to understand the importance of his new identity, then let Aaron know, or Parkman if necessary.
Whitman had to stay as Whitman. If the Hungarians learned that Drake Bellamy didn’t die in Lake Ontario, the old nightmare would start up again.
When the police station released Sarah into that woman’s care, he thought it best she go with her. Whitman figured his only play was to watch Aaron. Eventually Aaron would meet Sarah and then Whitman could talk to them together. If that didn’t work, he would approach Parkman, let him know what had happened. With Spencer on his way to Mexico now, Whitman would be collected and returned to Toronto like a piece of misplaced luggage.
He had come here to see if Sarah needed any help with the Enzo Cartel and was stuck trying to locate her by staking out her boyfriend. Not exactly a successful trip. Sarah didn’t need him or his help. Evidently, she was quite capable of taking care of herself. All this did was expose his new identity to people who knew him as Drake. Something Spencer told him to avoid at all cost.
How angry Spencer was going to be remained to be seen. What struck Whitman as curious though, were the two cars filled with five men that looked strangely like the same officers at the police station where they’d taken Sarah. The same ones who told him Sarah had been released.
These two cars were driven around the back of the hotel. When Whitman sauntered back there, the vehicles were empty. Not a good sign considering Aaron and Parkman were inside the hotel. They too had been to the police station earlier and made it known they were looking for Sarah. This was the same Aaron Stevens that just escaped cartel custody. The boyfriend of the girl who caused so much havoc in Mexico over the previous few days. It was quite plausible to Whitman that those two vehicles were filled with five men bent on revenge. Five men who at that moment could be killing Aaron and Parkman.
John Whitman had ran for the back door of the hotel but stopped short and dove behind a large garbage bin when three men came out pushing a bound Aaron toward the first car. Once he was inside, the car drove away.
Whitman ran around to the front, deducing that the other car was for Parkman and the other two men. Both vehicles would be gone forever and Sarah’s colleagues with them if he didn’t get to his car and drive around to the back in time.
Which didn’t happen.
But lucky for him—or lucky for Parkman and Aaron—the second vehicle drove by his parked rental just as he turned the key in the ignition. In his mirror, he watched them turn a corner. Then he did a U-turn and raced after them, following as close as he could all the way out of the city, heading south into open country.
When they turned off the highway, Whitman passed the dirt patch of a road and continued on so as not to be detected. His cell phone had rang several times with Spencer’s name on call display, but he ignored it. He was in strategy mode. He had to think. What were these members of the law community going to do with Aaron and Parkman? Why bring them out here?
Of course this had all the earmarks of an execution, but at what gain? The Enzo Cartel was dead. Who were they working for? Was this part of Mexico so lawless that they would risk taking them out of the hotel without masks on? Unless the cover story was Parkman and Aaron were arrested. Then escaped and were found here, shot execution style.
Whatever the reason, Whitman had enough certainty to believe this was the end of the road for Sarah’s men and he was the only one who could do anything about it.
He parked the rental a dozen feet off the highway, obscured by bushes, got out and doubled back. He walked down the dirt patch of a road, mindful of where his shoes touched the ground. After a hundred yards, he found a thick piece of wood on the ground that resembled a baseball bat, just a little shorter.
Sarah had saved his life at a baseball game in Toronto. And now he would take part in saving Aaron’s life with a club that could pass as a bat.
He kept moving in the moonlit darkness until the vague shapes of the two vehicles came into view up ahead. A dim light flickered in the darkness to the right of the vehicles. After another ten steps, he made out a small building, like a tiny barn. The light flickered on its windowsill.
Voices to his left stopped him in his tracks. He got to his knees and closed his eyes to listen. Two men whispered a few feet behind the vehicles. After a moment, he opened his eyes and glanced toward the sound of their voices. A cigarette flared.
Something moved to his right. He now counted three men of the five.
After another moment on his knees, the fourth man exited the small barn. He walked to the men with the cigarette. Aaron and Parkman were probably inside the barn. He hoped they were still alive. He prayed he wasn’t too late. Sarah would never forgive him having come this far.
He tightened his grip on the piece of wood. They had guns. That didn’t stop him before.
He got up off his numbed knees and started toward the trio of men standing behind their cars, using the few trees behind them for cover.
Twenty feet from them. He inched forward. Their volume increased as he neared them. His stomach tied itself into a knot. Who would he hit first? Could he get to the second man before a gun came out? These were trained police officers. What would happen if luck wasn’t on his side? He had the element of surprise, but that would only last for the bashing of one head. And if he got shot?
But what would happen to Aaron and Parkman if he did nothing? And could he live with that knowing he would be rotting in a grave if it weren’t for Sarah.
This was for Sarah. He owed her his life.
Ten feet. Each step tentative, each step careful. Six feet. He was close enough to jump and swing. He would connect with the first man quite easily.
One more step. A branch broke underfoot. One of the men turned toward him.
A gun went off inside the little barn. The men turned that way.
One ran toward the barn while the other two produced guns from their waistband.
Was that it? Who was dead? Aaron or Parkman? Did the man who had just run inside go in to finish the other one off?
He got here too late. He had failed Sarah.
The least he could do was kill a few dirty cops in her honor. When they cleaned up this crime scene, she’d hear the whole story and know someone had been watching over her men.
Another weapon fired inside the barn.
There goes the other one, he thought with dismay. I’m so sorry, Sarah.
John Whitman jumped from cover and swung his wooden club.
Chapter 34
Parkman tried to ignore the pain. Fought back the screams, the chills, and listened to Aaron ratt
le off his plan in a hushed tone. They exchanged guns. Parkman now held the weapon Aaron had used. The empty one.
Aaron gripped the loaded weapon down at his side and sat up straight.
One of the cops entered through the open door, a stunned look on his face. He grinned at the sight of blood running through Parkman’s fingers, a gun in his right hand, concealed behind his leg.
Aaron had set his presumably empty weapon on his thigh. He gestured at Parkman with his empty hand.
“I did what you asked.” He looked frantic, haggard. “One bullet. I shot Parkman. Just like you asked.” Aaron’s eyes were glazed over in tears.
Parkman lifted his hand away from the smeared blood and showed the Mexican the wound. It wasn’t nearly big enough or in the right spot to kill him. Nothing more than a graze on his arm.
The Mexican laughed. Shoulders hitching, gut clenching with the effort. He laughed and shook his head back and forth like he couldn’t believe it.
He held his hand out, open-palmed at Parkman. The cop wanted Parkman’s loaded gun. Parkman tossed it aside. It clanged down behind the cop’s feet and slid into the wall under the window with the burning candle. He didn’t want him to see that was the weapon that had been fired.
The man jerked around to face Aaron, his laughter cut off. The cop’s gun came up, aimed at Aaron’s face. Parkman’s breath caught in his throat.
Aaron’s reflexes kicked in. He jerked to the side as fast as the cop moved, his weapon up high, in kill shot range. Then he was falling to the side, off the chair. Aaron’s aim stayed true, over his shoulder. He fired the one bullet in the gun at the exact moment the cop’s weapon spit at Aaron.
Parkman’s heart skipped a beat, then lurched into the base of his throat as he waited for the explosion from under Aaron’s chair. A blanket of understanding covered Parkman by the time Aaron smashed onto the dirty floor. There was no bomb attached to the chairs. Nothing exploded. The Mexican had laughed because the joke was on them.
But he wasn’t laughing anymore because Aaron’s aim had been true. The cop dropped to his knees, paused for a maddening second, then fell sideways, his face twisted toward Parkman. A hole had opened by his mouth, his mouth grotesquely larger than it was supposed to be. Blood pooled outward from the head wound, slowed, then stopped after the man’s heart ceased to pump.
Parkman clutched at his chest. A gasp restarted him breathing. Aaron rolled, spun over and jumped to his feet, staying down.
“Those fuckers,” he whispered between clenched teeth. “They lied to us about the bombs.”
“Now one of theirs is down,” Parkman said under his breath.
Aaron dropped to the dead cop and coaxed the gun out from his thick fingers. “We can handle this.” He held the gun up. “And we’ve got hope.”
Gunfire erupted outside. The sound of hammers smacking dead wood resounded throughout the shack as bullet after bullet connected with the shack’s frail wooden walls. They dove for the floor as bullets whizzed by their heads. Aaron’s arm wrapped over Parkman’s back. It seemed like ten minutes or more, but was probably only ten seconds, until the gunfire stopped.
“There’s no escaping here,” a man shouted on a bullhorn. “This is the end of the road.”
“You hit?” Parkman asked.
“No.” Then, “What next? We can’t shoot blindly out a window into the darkness. Don’t have much ammo.”
“We wait.”
“Wait? For what?”
“No idea. But I’m sure I’ll come up with something soon.”
“Great.”
“Or they’ll come in blazing and you can pick them off one by one with that.” Parkman gestured at the gun in Aaron’s hand.
Aaron rolled away from him and disappeared in the darkness behind the candle that still burned on the center table.
Someone shouted a maniacal wail in the distance somewhere. The sound of a dull thud was accompanied by grunts and shouts of pain. Maybe help had arrived. Maybe, just maybe, if someone did come and wounded the men outside the shack, they could walk out of here.
Maybe.
Parkman had lost so much blood, his energy waned. He sunk lower, closer to the floor. He had managed to stem most of the bleeding, but he was weakening. Aaron needed to fashion a tourniquet soon.
“Someone’s out there,” Aaron said in a hushed tone. “I think that someone is on our side.”
Parkman made out Aaron’s silhouette by the window in the corner and thought about how crazy human nature was. To imagine hope in such ways. They were driven to a remote spot of Mexico to be executed. These were the kind of cops who had done it before. They knew what they were doing. These kinds of people would’ve known if they were followed. The only person who could be out there was Sarah. If Vivian had told her where to be and when to be there, she could’ve lain in wait for them to arrive and be, right now, attacking the cops one by one. But he knew Sarah’s body wasn’t in that place physically. She was still wounded by the heroin Enzo had pumped her body with. It wasn’t Sarah outside. And if not, then who? Who was attacking the Mexican police officers?
Another fusillade of gunfire roared out of the darkness covering the shack with fresh holes from the back.
Parkman kicked the table from between the two chairs and huddled behind it, praying the bullets would stop before they punctured him somewhere he wouldn’t walk away from.
Chapter 35
Whitman landed the club on the back of the closest man’s upper neck before his feet touched the ground. The man barely emitted a sound as his knees collapsed and he fell to the baked earth like his pockets were filled with lead. The other man was so surprised that he reared back, took in the scene and began to bring his gun around.
Before the man’s gun was in place to fire, the club knocked it from his grasp. Continuing in a circle, the club came around in a vicious backswing which broke teeth out of the man’s mouth. He stumbled, hands up to ward off another attack. Whitman swung, fueled with anger, the end of the wooden club glistening crimson in the moonlight. The audible crack of the man’s nose sounded in the quiet night as someone else began shooting from behind the barn.
The man fell beside his colleague and Whitman dove to the ground, thinking the shooter was firing at him. The wood of the barn crackled and splintered as it took bullet after bullet. Evidently someone on the other side of the barn thought either Aaron or Parkman, or both of them, were still alive.
The cop rolled to the side, blood covering his face, and tried to reach the gun he’d dropped. Whitman got up on his knees, raised the wooden club two-handed, saw the fear in the cop’s eyes, then swung like he was trying to drive a golf ball three hundred yards. The man’s jaw snapped off its hinges, knocking the man unconscious.
He foraged in the pockets of the wounded men and came up with a wallet from each man. ID confirmed they were police officers.
“Shit,” he whispered to himself.
Upon further examination, he discovered a brand new iPhone Six in the pocket of the guy to his right. Luckily, it wasn’t locked. Whitman was able to open the camera feature, and press record. It was dark so the camera itself wouldn’t pick up much, but it would gather audio. When they were clear of this situation, he’d take the ID and the iPhone as proof of self-defense.
Balancing the camera on a nearby rock, he aimed it at the barn-like building. When Whitman turned back to the carnage, he broke the scene down mentally, cataloging events as he was trained to do, which was something that had grown on him naturally.
Five cops. Two down. One in the barn, probably wounded or dead after two gunshots came from inside the barn. Had to deal with the other two cops before he considered the one inside.
He snatched the gun by the unconscious man’s leg and crouched. Staying low, he ran for a nearby tree to study the area. The noise of weapons ceased. He waited. If they fired again, maybe he’d see a flash from the gun.
A rustling came from inside the cabin. He got lower to the ground, tightened
his grip on the gun, his hand slippery now with sweat. The night air was warm. The breeze carried the smell of discharged firearms similar to a gun range. He counted his breaths, slowing his heart, focusing. Calculated attacks, well thought out ideas, won over rash decisions and stupid ideas when dealing with armed men. The only enemy he had out here was time. As soon as the two men at the back of the barn realized their friends were down, they would run for it. That could be any moment, any second.
They would run to their cars.
Whitman turned back to the vehicles five feet from him. One last look to the rear of the cabin, then he rolled to the first car. Pressing the tip of the gun to the rubber of the back wheel, he pulled the trigger. With an audible hiss, the wheel discharged the air. He did the same to the front right tire, then moved on to the next car.