Tony Wolf/Tim Buckthorn - 02 - Broken Shield

by J. D. Rhoades

  “Thanks,” he said, scanning with his sights along the gallery for more targets.

  “Maybe we need to continue this conversation outside,” she said. Her voice trembled a bit, even as she tried to keep it calm.

  “You know I have to do this,” he said.

  “I don’t know any such goddamn thing…” she fired off two more shots as the door of the room where the man had taken refuge began to open. “STAY IN THE ROOM, KNUCKLEHEAD!” she yelled, “AND SLIDE THE WEAPON OUT ON THE FLOOR!”

  “No!” the man in the room shouted back. “You’ll kill me!”

  “No I won’t,” Buckthorn called up. “I won’t shoot an unarmed man.”

  “Yes he will!” the half-buried man yelled. “He almost shot me! He’s crazy!”

  “Shut up,” Buckthorn and Dushane told him at the same time. He fell silent, staring at the two of them wide-eyed.

  “Come on, Tim,” she said, lowering the gun. “This isn’t you. You’re a sworn officer of the law, remember?”

  “We’ve had this conversation,” he said. “I couldn’t keep Loretta safe. I couldn’t keep my town safe. I can’t keep you safe.”

  “I’m sorry about Loretta. I really am. I liked her. I could see us being friends. I could…I could even see us being sisters. But she wouldn’t want this. She loved you. And as for me, I can take care of myself.”

  “No,” he said, “You can’t.” He gestured up the stairs. “They’re going to keep coming. The law can’t stop them. They’ve got walls of people they’ve paid off, a whole maze of lies and corruption they hide behind. They come out and strike like snakes. Then they slither back here. Well, I’m cleaning out the nest.”

  “That’s real poetic, Tim. Dramatic, even. But all this is going to accomplish is to get you locked up. Or killed.”

  “It’s a price I’m willing to pay.”

  “Well that’s great,” she said. “That’s just fucking fantastic. And I guess I was just a passing thing to you?”

  “No,” he said. “That’s not…”

  “Oh, shove it,” she said. “You’d rather martyr yourself like this than live with what you stupidly think is your own failure, not to mention being with me. It’s bullshit, Tim. It’s cowardly bullshit, and I’m calling you out on it.” She raised her pistol and pointed it at him. “Now drop the fucking weapon and put your hands on top of your head.”

  “If I don’t, are you going to shoot me?”

  “I might shoot you anyway,” she said. “I’m that pissed off.”

  He shook his head and chuckled. “You are really something, Agent Dushane.”

  “Too bad it took you so long to realize it. Now…GUN!” she turned and began firing up at the gallery again. Buckthorn pivoted and fired blindly. Another gunman, this one wielding what looked like a stubby MAC-10, had come out of the side hallway. His covering fire gave the man in the room a chance to scuttle out and join him. He heard Leila cry out in pain. He looked to see her stumbling backwards, behind the cover of the truck bed. A snarl twisted his face as the turned and began shooting back up, moving sideways towards her position as he fired. The men took cover again, and he darted around the truck.

  Leila was sitting on the floor, just inside the ruined doorway, leaning back against one of the truck tires. She had pulled her jacket off. The right sleeve of her white blouse was soaked in blood. She rolled up the sleeve, grimacing. More blood pulsed from a hole in her bicep. Her face was white with shock.

  “Happy now?” she snarled.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Donovan moved down the hallway, listening to the sounds of combat from below. He saw one of Monroe’s security guards at the end of the hall, where it connected with the gallery over the front entrance hall. He was breathing hard and his face was chalk-white. His weapon, a MAC-10, was cradled uselessly in his arms.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “The crazy bastard backed a goddamn truck through the front door,” the man said, “and dumped a fucking load of gravel in the front hall. Now he and some bitch are down there, shooting at anything that moves. I think they killed Boyle.”

  “So you’re hiding up here like a little girl?” Donovan snarled. “Get the fuck back in the game, boyo, before they come up those stairs after you.” From below, he could hear shouting from downstairs. It sounded like an argument.

  “Keep their attention up here,” he ordered the guard. “I’ll go down the back stairs and flank them through that front parlor, off to the side of the entrance.”

  The man shook his head. “They’ll shoot me.”

  “What’s your name, son?” Donovan asked.

  “Moody,” the man said. “Bill Moody.”

  Donovan raised his own weapon. “Well, Bill Moody,” he said, “I’ll shoot you myself if you don’t get your arse in gear.”

  Moody swallowed. “Okay.” Donovan turned and broke into a jog back down the hallway. He heard the rattle of gunfire behind him and a shout of pain. He wondered who’d been hit.

  He stopped first at the old man’s bedroom. “Buckthorn smashed a truck through the front…” he stopped. Monroe was lying on his back on the bed, his breath coming in a ghastly rattle. Patience sat in a chair beside the bed. She was holding one of the old man’s hands in hers, gently stroking it. “Hush now,” she whispered. “Hush now.”

  “What’s happening?” Donovan said.

  “Heart attack, I think,” she said. She looked at him and smiled. The sight made him uneasy. He saw the bruises rising on her cheek and her throat and felt a quick flash of guilt. He shouldn’t have lost his head like that. He wondered if what he’d done had unhinged her. “It won’t be long now.”

  The old man looked over at him. Spittle flecked the sides of his mouth. “Med…” he croaked. “G’me…med…”

  “He wants his medicine,” Patience said with that same uncanny smile.

  “But you’re not going to give it to him.”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s his time. Go do what you have to do.”

  He looked over her shoulder at the man on the bed. He was flailing weakly, his eyes filled with impotent rage.

  “Let me worry about him,” she said. “Go. Do this. And then you’ll be king.”

  It was an easy decision to make. Donovan wanted nothing more at that point than to be out of that room with the dying man and the woman who was his angel of death. He’d had dreams of being king, with Patience as his queen. But he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to lie next to her and close his eyes again. Not after seeing that smile. As he exited the room, he looked back to see her seated again in the chair.

  “Uck…ucking…itch…” Monroe was trying to speak, but the words couldn’t make it past the dying parts of his brain. The light in his eyes was dimming.

  “Hush now,” Patience murmured. “Hush now.”

  Donovan fled.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  “Sorry,” Buckthorn said. He stepped over her and knelt down, keeping one eye on the gallery.

  “Sorry isn’t going to plug this hole,” Dushane said. “So I guess you have to call off this nonsense and get me out of here.”

  He raised the rifle and fired off a couple of quick shots. The man who’d been inching down the gallery, trying to get a shot at them, scuttled back. He looked at her pistol lying next to her. “Can you shoot?”

  She shook her head. “Everything below the elbow is numb. Everything above it hurts like hell. Come on, Tim!”

  Instead of answering, Buckthorn opened the door of the truck and stood up on the running board for a moment, reaching inside. He came back out with the rifle in the crook of his arm and a brown paper bag in the other hand.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she said.

  “I need to get rid of those people up there,” he said. “This’ll help.”

  “What about me?” she demanded.

  “Once these people are taken care of,” he said, “you can get out on your own.” He pulled two 2-liter soda
bottles out of the bag. Each was half filled with a cloudy liquid.

  “What are those?” she said.

  “Distractions.” He set the bottles down in the gravel, rotating them back and forth to seat them more firmly. He looked up to make sure the gunmen above were still hanging back, then quickly unscrewed the caps.

  “Having a drink?” she said.

  “Not of this,” he replied. He pulled two rolled up cylinders of aluminum foil out of the bag. He looked up quickly, then shoved the cylinders into the necks of the bottles.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “You are not…”

  “Learned this one from a kid I know,” he said as he quickly screwed the caps back on. “A little Drano, a little water, pop in some aluminum foil…” He plucked the bottles up out of the gravel by the necks and shook them vigorously. Dushane looked on in horror as the liquid inside the bottle began to fizz and give off a white smoke. The plastic began to visibly stretch and expand. Buckthorn stepped to the end of the truck bed, then leaped out from cover and slung first one, then the other bottle up into the gallery. There was a stutter of gunfire and bullets clanged off the metal of the truck bed as Buckthorn leaped back. “Instant grenade,” he said.

  __________

  Moody was getting frustrated. He was glad when Boyle had bolted from the room along the gallery and joined him, not dead as he’d first thought. But he could still see the body of Mofield lying near the far door. The people below needed to pay for that; he’d known Mofield since they were in Kuwait in ‘91. But they’d retreated back behind the truck that filled the hall below, and every time he and Boyle tried to move down to get a better angle, they were driven back by a fusillade of bullets. It was a damned stalemate, and it was pissing Moody off. The Irishman had said he was going to try and flank their adversary, but Moody figured he’d just used that as an excuse to haul ass.

  Suddenly, the man below, the one they were pretty sure was Buckthorn, stepped out from cover. Moody was so startled, he didn’t raise his weapon until two objects he couldn’t identify were arcing through the air towards him. Boyle, crouched beside him, got off a couple of shots, but surprise had spoiled his aim as well, and the bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the truck. Moody looked down as one of the objects landed between him and Boyle. He barely had time to resister that it was a soda bottle before it exploded. The report deafened him, and his face and hands were immediately covered with an awful, caustic liquid that burned and fizzed. He could feel his flesh blistering, and he couldn’t see. He could hear Boyle screaming, and another voice crying in pain that he realized was his own. He heard the thunder of steps. He’s coming up the staircase, Moody thought. He fired blindly, unable to see who or what he was shooting at through the haze of agony that held his face in its awful grip. Then the shots slammed into him and took the pain away.

  __________

  Dushane slowly got to her feet as Buckthorn pounded up the staircase. From where she stood, she couldn’t see the gunmen on the second floor, but she could hear them screaming. There was a short burst of fire that blew bits of plaster out of the ceiling above Buckthorn’s head. She saw him crouch and fire, and the screaming stopped. Cursing under her breath, she bent down to pick up her gun with her left hand.

  “L.D.,” a voice said.

  She turned and stood up without picking up the weapon. Tony Wolf was standing in the rubble of the doorway, a shocked expression on his face. “You’re hurt,” he said.

  “Yeah,” she answered, her voice tight with pain.

  “Where’s Buckthorn?”

  She gestured with her good hand. “Took out two goons with a homemade grenade and ran upstairs. What’s going on out there?”

  He holstered his weapon, stepped forward and gently took her arm to examine the wound. “Local PD’s cordoned off the area. Waiting for the SWAT team.”

  “Sounds familiar,” she said. “But it’ll be too late by the time they get here. He’s not taking hostages.”

  “I know,” he said. “We need to get you out of here.”

  She looked back at the staircase, fighting back the urge to scream and pound the side of the truck in frustration. “I couldn’t talk him out of it, boss,” she said. “I thought I could.”

  “You tried,” Wolf said.

  “And don’t think I don’t appreciate it,” a voice said. They turned. Wolf reached for his holstered weapon, then froze. They saw a man with dark curly hair standing in the open doorway. He had a rifle raised to his shoulder and pointed at them. Dushane recognized him as the man from the construction site.

  “Mr. Donovan, I presume.”

  He smiled. “The same,” he said. “Now step away from that pistol on the ground, sweetness, before you get any silly ideas. And you,” he gestured at Wolf. “Take yours out of the holster, two fingers, very careful.”

  “Why?” Wolf said. “You’re going to kill us anyway.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. But if you don’t do as I say, you’ll definitely die. Then her. And I’ll make sure she does it slowly.”

  Wolf stared at him. She could see the hatred burning in his eyes. He reached down to his holster and pulled the gun out between two fingers.

  “Boss, no,” she said. But he dropped the gun into the rubble at his feet.

  “Now,” Donovan said, “let’s take a trip upstairs.” He gestured with the rifle. “You first.”

  They preceded him out from behind the shelter of the truck. The man who’d been half buried in the gravel had worked his way free. He was hobbling on one leg towards the opposite side of the house, bracing himself on the wall. The bottom of his right leg was canted at a sickening angle from the rest of it. He stopped and turned as he heard them.

  “Donovan,” he said. “I need a doctor.”

  “No you don’t,” Donovan said. He fired quickly, three rounds smashing the man into the wall. He slumped to the floor, a look of shock and agony on his face.

  “You fucking animal,” Dushane whispered.

  “Loose ends, dear,” he said. “Now walk.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  He’d emptied the last of the assault rifle’s magazine when he’d charged the last two guards. He considered stripping the ammunition from the three dead men in the gallery, but he found himself unslinging the shotgun as he stepped over them and advanced down the hall. It somehow felt righter. It was his own weapon, one he’d grown up with, and its familiar heft felt reassuring in his hands. He felt his heart racing, and his head was light with a reckless, unshackled feeling, as if he was racing down a dark road at maximum speed. He entered the bedroom, the gun held high in front of him.

  A red-haired woman sat by a hospital bed across the room. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she was smiling sweetly. There was a red, angry bruise on her cheek, and a ring of red marks around her throat. The man in the bed was still, unseeing eyes staring up at the ceiling. One side of his face was pulled down in a grotesque leer.

  “If you’ve come to see Mr. Monroe,” she said, “I’m afraid you’re too late.”

  “Stand up,” Buckthorn said. “Go over there by that wall.”

  Still smiling, she got up and complied. He moved across the room until he stood beside the bed.

  “He’s quite dead,” the red-haired woman said.

  “You don’t seem that upset about it,” Buckthorn said.

  She shrugged. “As jobs go, I’ve had worse. But it’s time we all moved on, don’t you think?”

  “Where’s Donovan?”

  “He went to fetch your friend,” she said. “He’ll be along directly.”

  “What do you mean?” he said.

  “You’ll see. But first, I want you to hear something.”

  He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What?”

  “In the bedside table,” she said, “there’s a small voice recorder. I want you to get it out. It’s already cued up.”

  “What’s on it?”

  “Something I think you’ll be interested in,” she
said.

  He sidled over to the table, never taking his eyes off of her.

  “Top drawer,” she said.

  He opened the drawer, felt around inside with one hand until he felt something made of hard plastic. He pulled it out.

  “Play it,” the woman said.

  He looked down until he found the “play” button. He pushed it. A wheezy old man’s voice came out of the tiny speaker. “The ones that killed my grandson,” the voice said. “I got names. Some hick deputy and two FBI people.”

  “I heard,” another voice said.

  “I want them dead…”

  __________

  He marched them down the hallway, two abreast, keeping his distance with the rifle. “That door there,” he said.

  The door was open. Wolf entered first, Dushane behind him. Before she could pass through the doorway, however, she felt Donovan’s hand snake around her neck and pull her against him. She felt something metal pressing against her temple. Donovan had either slung his rifle or put it down in favor of his pistol, the better to use her as a human shield.

  “Now, darlin’,” Donovan whispered in her ear. “Remember, no foolishness. Someone might get hurt.”

  She considered the odds of a quick snap of her head back into his nose, and decided she didn’t like them. The moment she moved, he was likely to pull the trigger. She was also beginning to feel weak and dizzy. She’d lost more blood than she thought.

  Donovan pushed her ahead of him, still holding her close from behind. As she entered the room, she saw Buckthorn. He was standing beside a red-haired woman sitting in a chair. She took in the woman’s bizarrely serene smile and the bruises on her face and neck. Buckthorn had a strange expression on his face. He was holding the shotgun in one hand and a small black object she couldn’t identify in the other. She looked behind them and drew a quick, shocked breath. An old man lay in the bed behind them. He was clearly dead.

  “Well now,” Donovan said. “Looks like we’re all here for the party. Mr. Buckthorn, put the shotgun on the floor.”