Threat warning

by John Gilstrap

  He tried not to think about what might have happened to his mom through all of this. If they knew about Brother Stephen, then they had to have done something about her. He tried telling himself that it couldn’t be any worse than what Brother Stephen had been trying to do, but he knew that wasn’t true. He’d seen movies, and he’d read books. He knew all about how awful people could be to each other.

  For the life of him, though, he couldn’t begin to understand why it was happening to them.

  He pushed it all away, because the only way to keep the panic at bay was to keep yourself from thinking about it. Besides, he had a far more pressing matter to address. With difficulty, he rose to his knees, and then to his feet. He walked through the dark to the seam of light he knew to be the door, and knocked on it with his left hand.

  “Hey!” he yelled. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “What do you want?” a male voice yelled, startling Jonathan out of an empty place in his head. He shifted his eyes to the remote image and saw that the sentries at the door down the hall had both turned to face it.

  “Well, hold it,” the guard said again.

  Jonathan couldn’t hear what was being said from the other side of the door, but the phrase “hold it” could only mean that the prisoner was asking to use the restroom.

  The female guard-the shooter from the bridge-sagged her shoulders and said something that Jonathan couldn’t hear, but looked like an argument in favor of bladder maintenance. She held out her hand, and her partner gave her a key.

  “Looks like they’re opening the door,” Venice reported from her screen. By giving the updates to the rest of the team, she saved Jonathan possible exposure by being overheard.

  The door down the hall opened, and out stepped the young man Jonathan recognized from his picture to be Ryan Nasbe. He was smaller than Jonathan had been expecting, and he carried himself as if he was in pain, sort of hunched at the shoulders, consistent with the broken arm that Kendig Neen had alluded to in his telephone conversation.

  The male guard led the way down the hall, directly toward Jonathan’s camera. He looked young, fit, and strong-exactly the opposite of what Jonathan would have liked. He was big enough to block the camera’s view of Ryan until he passed the lens, and that’s when Jonathan got his first solid look at the boy’s arm.

  “It’s definitely Ryan Nasbe,” Venice reported. “And his arm is heavily bandaged. Looks like it might be broken.”

  “Do you need me, Boss?” Boxers asked, his whisper barely audible.

  “Negative,” he whispered.

  “I’m on my way,” the Big Guy said.

  “Scorpion says negative,” Venice said. “He’ll call if he needs you.”

  “We need to take him now,” Boxers insisted. “These guys up here just sentenced him to death. Him and his mother both.”

  All of them were past the camera now, but Jonathan could hear them in the hallway outside his door.

  “Hold your position, Big Guy,” Venice said. “Scorpion is very exposed. You’ll have no cover.”

  A door on the opposite side opened. “Make it fast,” the male guard said.

  Jonathan considered firing up another camera so he could peer under his door into the hallway, but decided that it would take too long and risk making too much noise.

  “Can you at least close the door?” Ryan’s voice sounded young for sixteen, but Jonathan liked the attitude he heard. He was more impatient than whining.

  “Just do what you need to do and get it over with.”

  Jonathan realized now that the unlocked door he’d encountered was the bathroom for this level.

  “For heaven’s sake,” the female said. “There are no windows in there. Let him go to the bathroom in peace.”

  A cell phone rang.

  “I swear to God, kid. If you step out of line-if you lock the door or even think an ugly thought, I’m going to bend that break backwards.”

  The door closed.

  The cell phone’s third ring was cut short. “This is Brother Zebediah.”

  Boxers said, “Scorpion, I know you can’t respond, but listen to me.” He was speaking a little louder now, less guarded. That must mean he was no longer directly in harm’s way. “I urge you in the strongest possible terms to take him now if you have a shot.”

  Zebediah said into his phone, “I understand. Yes, sir. Right now.”

  Jonathan drew his KA-BAR knife from its scabbard on his shoulder. It would take only seconds. At this distance, he could be in the hallway and have both guards bleeding to death in less than three seconds, well before they would be able to process that they were under attack. One slash each across the throat, and they’d fall like big bricks. He’d have Ryan, and they’d be out of here, and then they could sweep in and rescue Christyne.

  Brother Zebediah closed his phone-Jonathan could hear the snap of the plastic-and said, “It’s time.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Both of them. Now.”

  Jonathan glanced back at the screen of his PDA. Both of them. Christyne Nasbe wasn’t here. They’d left the door Ryan had been imprisoned behind open and unguarded. If she were here, someone would be guarding her.

  “One is better than none,” Boxers said in his ear, as if reading his thoughts.

  Ryan had never realized just how useless his left hand was to him until he tried manipulating himself to pee. You had the zipper, the underwear and finally the business parts. For a while there, the smart money said that he’d end up letting fly while still inside his trousers, but in the end, he got everything where it needed to be, but without much time to spare.

  Then, when he was done, there was the whole matter of reassembling himself. On a different day, it would have been funny. He was smiling, in fact, when he opened the door again and addressed his captors. “Wow, do I feel bet-”

  Something clearly had changed. Brother Zebediah looked way angrier than before, and Sister Colleen looked as if she might cry.

  Ryan stopped and took a step backward. “What?”

  They grabbed him.

  The boy yelled, “Ow!” and there was a scuffle on the other side of the door. “My arm! What did I do? Please!”

  Jonathan’s fist tightened on the knife handle. The screams were excruciating to hear.

  There was more scuffling, and something hit the door to Jonathan’s room hard. He imagined that it was a person, and because it wasn’t accompanied by a shriek of pain, he figured it had to be one of the guards.

  “Stop fighting,” Brother Zebediah commanded. “You’re coming with us one way or the other.”

  “I’m not fighting you!” Ryan yelled. “You’re hurting me!”

  That last part sounded farther away. A moment later, the door at the end of the hallway opened and closed, and then Jonathan was bathed again in silence.

  He keyed his mike. “They’re coming toward you, Big Guy. Do not take them here. PC-Two is not accounted for. We’ll let PC-One lead us there.”

  “For all we know, PC-Two is already dead,” Boxers said. Then his voice dropped again to a barely perceptible whisper. “I see them. Shit, there’s only two guards.”

  “Gunslinger here,” Gail said over the radio. “I’m flooded with guards out here, white side. Soldiers. Whatever. I count fifteen, and many are armed with rifles. I concur with Scorpion. We need to let them go.”

  “But I can take them.”

  “Stand down, Big Guy,” Jonathan said.

  Boxers hissed, “This is a mistake.”

  “Stand. Down,” Jonathan said forcefully. “It’s my mistake to make.”

  He wondered if the Nasbes would disagree.

  Outside, Gail had positioned herself in the trees out front, roughly in the position that Jonathan had held earlier. Once the team was inside, it made sense for her to reposition herself to where the action was. And as the parade of people took to their cars, she realized that it was time to reposition yet again.

  She’d been listenin
g to the communications, so she knew that they were taking Ryan Nasbe to his execution. The presence of all the cars indicated that they had to drive to the place of execution, and that meant that she had to follow them or lose them.

  She needed to get to the truck. That meant running faster and farther than she had in a very long time, but only after she’d backed away far enough from the house that she could afford to make some noise. She gave it about twenty yards-long enough that she heard the sound of engines starting-and then she started to jog. Having arrived in the daytime, yet leaving at night, she had to guess at her directions until she fished her GPS out of a pouch pocket in her pants. It confirmed that she was right.

  Tree branches slashed at her as she sprinted through the night, and bushes conspired to trip her. But for the night vision, it would have been impossible. As it was, her rucksack, with all of its equipment and bulk was making it nearly impossible.

  She keyed her mike. “I’m following them in the car. Be advised I’m shedding my ruck in the woods.” As she shrugged out of the straps and let the pack fall to the ground, she punched a button on the GPS to mark the spot so they could come back and get it later, if that’s what they decided to do. Forty pounds lighter now, she was still burdened with her rifle, sidearm and ammunition, yet she still felt light enough to float away.

  Between clatter of her equipment and the racket raised by plowing through the underbrush, she knew she was making way too much noise, but she didn’t know another way.

  A voice yelled from the dark, “Hey! Stop.”

  At the very same instant, Venice said in her ear, “Gunslinger, there’s a sentry on the live feed. He’s very near you.”

  Gail’s heart skipped, but she kept moving.

  “Stop!” the voice yelled again. “Stop or I’ll shoot you.”

  “He’s gaining,” Venice said. “And the cars are loading.”

  Jonathan’s voice crackled in her ear: “Turn and shoot, Gunslinger.”

  “I swear to God, I will shoot you!” the pursuer yelled.

  Gail slid to a halt and turned. The sentry was indeed close, maybe twenty feet away. In the green glow of the night vision, he looked young, but it was hard to assign an age. Early twenties, maybe.

  “Who are you and what are you doing here?” the sentry asked. His voice cracked, the fear obvious. He held his rifle at chest height, the stock tucked under his armpit. Either he hadn’t been trained, or the training hadn’t stuck.

  Gail said nothing.

  “Cars are rolling,” Venice said.

  “What’s Gunslinger doing?”

  “Looks like she’s talking. The guard has her at gunpoint.”

  “I said, who are you?” the sentry pressed.

  “Gunslinger, Big Guy and I are on the way,” Jonathan said. “We’re clear of the house.”

  Gail searched her brain for alternatives. Things were unraveling quickly.

  The sentry stopped. “What… holy shit, you’ve got a gun!” He shouldered his weapon.

  That was it. As Gail dropped to a knee, the sudden movement must have startled the sentry because he fired a wild shot as she swung her M4 up to her shoulder. She fired three times, hitting him twice in the chest and once in the head, the third bullet drilling him after he was dead.

  “Shots fired! Shots fired!” she heard in her ear. She thought it was Jonathan, but wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything other than the fact that she’d just killed a young man in cold blood.

  The voice in her ear said, “Gunslinger, sit rep.”

  He lay so still. Such was the awesome power of a bullet that it could end everything in a fraction of a second, snuffing a life that had barely begun.

  “Gunslinger! Answer up.”

  Venice said, “She’s not moving, but appears to be okay.”

  “Gunslinger, Gunslinger. Can you hear me?” Now the stress in the voice-it was definitely Jonathan’s-was obvious. She could hear the impact of his running footsteps in his words.

  Her body felt leaden, paralyzed. By any reasonable standard, she had just committed murder. Jonathan would tell her otherwise-that the larger cause justified the sacrifice-but that wouldn’t change the facts. She knew the elements of the law, and if presented with these facts-an armed trespasser kills the owner of the trespassed property-the most junior prosecutor in the most backward jurisdiction in the country would walk away with a conviction without even breaking a sweat.

  “Gail! Are you all right?”

  She slapped her transmit button. “I’m fine. He’s dead.”

  And Ryan Nasbe would die if she didn’t get her ass in gear and do something. There’d be plenty of time to beat herself up later. The sentry would be dead forever, after all.

  She took off at a run again, her GPS taking her directly to the spot where they’d cut the wire. She scaled the fence, vaulted to the other side, and then headed for the truck.

  “Mother Hen, this is Gail.” She couldn’t bring herself to use her Gunslinger handle. Not now. “Are the cars all gone?”

  “Negative, but I saw the Nasbe boy get loaded into a white pickup truck. He appears to be hurting badly. His truck has left.”

  “Any obvious response to the gunshots?” Jonathan asked.

  “Nothing I can see,” Venice said.

  “Gunslinger, hold your position at the vehicle. We’ll be with you in three minutes.”

  I don’t have three minutes, she didn’t say. In fact, she didn’t say anything. She had a job to do. Doing it right, she decided, meant not waiting for anyone.

  She found the truck right where they’d left it along the side of the narrow road, its doors unlocked, keys in the ignition.

  “Gunslinger, Scorpion. Did you copy?”

  She hesitated for an instant, and then pressed the transmit button. “I copied,” she said. “But I’m not waiting. They’re leaving now. I’m following. I’ll report back what I find.”

  The engine turned on the first crank, and two seconds later, she was on her way to somewhere.

  CHAPTER TWENTY – SIX

  “How’s that plan working for you now, Boss?” Boxers poked as they arrived at their parking spot to find the truck gone. His chest heaved for air.

  “Well, what do you expect?” Jonathan poked back. “As slow as you run, they could’ve gotten to Ohio before you got to the fence.” In addition to the limitations brought by size and girth, Boxers had adopted a titanium rod for a femur after some unpleasantness while in the employ of Uncle Sam.

  Without discussing a plan, they started walking down the road in the direction of the Dodge’s skid marks. “God had to make you fast to compensate for bein’ so small.”

  Jonathan laughed.

  They kept to the middle of the road as they walked because it was faster. On a bright night like this, out in the open, it was in many ways easier to see without night vision than with it, so Jonathan lifted the lenses out of the way. He’d have done it a minute ago, but Boxers beat him to it, and it was never a good idea to let the Big Guy think that you were imitating him.

  “So, do you think she bolted on us?” Boxers asked. His tone was light, but Jonathan knew it was a serious question.

  “No, she’s following them.”

  They walked in silence. Their years together had imbued Jonathan with the ability to read his friend’s mind. He knew what was coming, and he knew that Boxers was twitchy as hell just thinking the thoughts.

  “Hey, Boss, I’ve got a question for you,” he said at last.

  Jonathan glanced over at him.

  “It’s about Gail.”

  “What about her?”

  Boxers cleared his throat, readjusted his M4 against his vest. “Look, I know you two are close. I think you think that other people don’t know, but it’s pretty obvious-”

  “Get to the question, Box.”

  “Yeah, well.” He cleared his throat again. “Do you think she’s really up to all this?”

  “Which ‘all this’ are you talking abo
ut?” Jonathan knew the answer, but there was something enticing about prolonging the discomfort.

  “Look, I know she’s great at door crashing, and she can track down evidence like nobody’s business.”

  “But?”

  Another throat clearing. “Well, she’s, you know, a cop.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “I mean in her blood,” Boxers said. “I mean at the same level where you and I are soldiers. First and last.”

  “You’re asking if she’s trustworthy? If she’ll do her job?”

  “If she’ll do her job without hesitating.”

  Jonathan craned his neck to look at the Big Guy. “She killed the sentry a few minutes ago.”

  “Well,” Boxers hedged.

  “She killed him. Shot him dead.”

  It was Boxers’ turn to look incredulous. “Were you listening to the same radio traffic I was?”

  “She shot him.”

  “Right. About thirty seconds after you would have.”

  “We weren’t there,” Jonathan said. “It’s not for us to judge.”

  “Oh, really? Seems to me that I’m one of the first to get drilled if she screws up.”

  Jonathan felt his blood pressure rising. “Careful, Box.” “Careful about what? I’m not talking about Gail the person, I’m talking about Gail the operative.”

  Jonathan let silence reign for a minute or more. “I have the same concerns, okay?” he said, finally. “Warrants and probable cause are part of her DNA, and that’s a potential hazard to us. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  “Don’t treat me like I’m the bad guy here, Dig. We live and die as a team. This ain’t personal. Not toward anyone.”

  Jonathan let it go.

  “They’ve headed into the compound,” Gail announced on the radio. “The whole parade of cars went in there.”

  Jonathan keyed his mike. “Where are you?”

  “On my way to pick you up.”

  Eight minutes later, they were outside the gate where Gail had seen the tail end of the motorcade disappear into the night. They sat in the Dodge, engine and lights off, watching.