Snake Bite

by Jim Heskett

  “Don’t turn around,” the cop said. “Don’t make any sudden movements. Keep your hands away from your bodies and drop your pistols.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Serena said.

  “I don’t want to do this,” Brendall said, his voice cracking. “They’re making me. I have a family. Please, don’t make me have to shoot you. Now, drop your guns.”

  Layne dropped his first. “It’s okay, Serena. Go ahead.”

  Scowling, she complied, and then Layne watched Brendall in the reflection of a window next to the front door. Standing only five feet behind them.

  “Mr. Gaynor!” Brendall shouted at the house. “They’re outside. I brought them right to you.”

  Nothing but silence came back. For a few seconds, they all stood, breathing. Arms up, Layne waited to see what the cop would do.

  Layne watched Brendall’s head tilt and then a worried look cross his face. Breathing erratically, he lowered his pistol arm a few inches.

  Layne spun and launched himself down the steps from the porch. He opened his arms wide and had just enough time to take in the panic on Brendall’s face before they collided. Layne wrapped his arms around the big cop, twisting on the way to the ground. As soon as they’d hit, Layne snatched one of Brendall’s wrists and pushed it up toward the middle of his back.

  The big guy howled, and Layne grabbed his other wrist. The cop struggled, but his heart didn’t seem to be in it. Last time they’d tussled, they seemed evenly matched. This time, an aura of defeat clouded Brendall’s moves.

  “Serena, a little help, please. He has cuffs on him.”

  She jogged over and snatched the handcuffs from his back pocket. She grabbed hold of Brendall’s arms so Layne could open the cuffs and slap them on. The cop grunted, but he didn’t resist. He seemed resigned to his fate.

  “I’m sorry,” Brendall said, near tears. “I didn’t want to do this.”

  Layne pulled him to his feet. “I know. That’s why I’m not going to kill you.” He took the cop’s phone out of his pocket and walked him over to the rental car, then sat him in the backseat.

  “Where is my friend?”

  Brendall shook his head. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t. They came to me a few days ago and arranged everything. They’re going to kill my family. Please, you have to know I didn’t want to do this. I was supposed to help them, but I wanted to help you, too. I want you to find your friend, but I couldn’t help you too much. Do you understand? I had to do enough to make them think I was on their side.”

  Layne chewed on his lip for a few seconds. “Who is inside that house now?”

  “Don’t let them hurt my family,” Brendall said, blubbering.

  “Your family is going to be fine. Ronald has no reason to hurt them. Now, tell me what I need to know before we stumble into an ambush. Who are we going to find in this house if we walk in there right now?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. They said if you figured out where the house was, it didn’t matter.”

  “Why?”

  “No idea. It looks like they’re gone.”

  Brendall appeared to be correct, but Layne didn’t know how to interpret the scene. For a few seconds, he watched the cop’s face, trying to think it through. He turned to Serena. “What’s your read on this?”

  “I think he’s telling the truth. But I think we should still check the house.”

  Layne nodded his agreement and held up Brendall’s phone. “Your PIN?”

  “020406.”

  Layne typed in the PIN and then said, “Call your wife. Tell her to leave town.”

  Brendall hesitated for a moment, then he used a voice command to call his wife. He invented a story about exterminators coming by the house later and made his wife promise she would take their son to her sister’s in Flagstaff. After the call completed, Brendall said, “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Layne said as he shut and locked the car. Cuffed in the backseat, Layne still wanted to question him later.

  “You not worried about him escaping?” Serena asked.

  “No. Even if he does, I doubt he would come after us. He’s compromised, but he’s not a bad guy.”

  “Let’s do it, then.”

  They found the front door of the house unlocked. Weapons out, they entered. A tall and open entry room greeted them, a chandelier hanging from a chain above their heads. Layne stepped out from underneath it even though he didn’t expect it to be booby-trapped. Couldn’t be too careful.

  In the silence, Layne knew the house was empty. But it didn’t make sense.

  “Do we call local PD?” Serena asked.

  “When we leave. Let’s try to find out if Harry was here at some point.”

  They split up, weapons ready. Layne checked the kitchen, a living room, laundry room. In the last, he found a few spots of dark red on the floor. He knelt down on the tile to get a closer look, and it definitely looked like blood. Only a day or two old.

  Layne heard a whiff of sound behind him, then something zip through the air. A pinch came to his neck, like a mosquito bite below his jawline.

  His hand snaked up and touched the tip of a tiny stick jutting from his flesh. A dart. He yanked it out and spun to see a man leaning out of a closet in the living room. His arms were locked out, with the dart gun clenched in his hands.

  Layne tried to stand as a wave of exhaustion passed through him. A weight pressed on his shoulders, his stomach compressed, making him nauseous. He hadn’t eaten anything today, but he retched as his stomach seized and he tried to dry heave.

  Despite his eyes fluttering and trying to shut, he lumbered to his feet and staggered toward the man. The guy reached for something on his belt as he ejected a cartridge from his dart gun. He was trying to load another dart, while backpedaling away, into the kitchen.

  Layne’s feet didn’t work right, and each step came down like a thousand pounds of dead weight. Like gravity boots. But, he only had to get his arms around his target to bring him down. If the guy got another dart loaded and fired, Layne didn’t think he could stay upright.

  “Hey,” shouted Serena, from somewhere off to the right. The guy turned, and Layne lobbed a five-hundred-pound swipe, knocking the dart gun out of his hand.

  The guy then reached into the back of his waistband for a pistol. But, he never had a chance. Serena appeared, dashing in from the hallway. She fired a single shot, tagging the man in his forehead. The blast of the gun should’ve sounded like thunder, but it was muted to Layne. Not more than a thump to his drugged brain.

  As the guy slumped down to the tiled floor, Layne’s legs also went out from underneath him. He felt himself crashing down. His eyes shut.

  A second later, or a minute later, or an hour later, he felt a sharp slap to the side of his face. He woke to find Serena kneeling in front of him. He could smell her hair and something fruity in whatever lotion she’d used this morning. The angles of her face, the almonds of her eyes. Layne had noted before on several occasions how much Serena looked like the ex-girlfriend he’d lost to suicide back in college, but the resemblance now smacked him harder than Serena’s open palm. So beautiful.

  “Parrish. Wake up.”

  He reached out and touched her face, gently, with the pads of two fingers. “Hey. It’s good to see you.”

  She frowned at him. “Are you okay?”

  At that moment, he remembered himself, and he drew back his fingers. “I’m not right. He tagged me with a dart.”

  She picked up the gun and the spare dart cartridge the guy had been trying to load. “Yep. I can’t tell what this is, some kind of benzo mix, if I had to guess.” She dropped the dart gun and put her hands on Layne’s shoulders. “On your feet.”

  “I don’t think I can,” he said, his words thick and slurred.

  She wrapped her arms around him and hoisted him up, then she lugged him into the kitchen. He tried to assist her, but his frame weighed a million pounds. With a considerable grunt, she pushed
him into a chair at the table, then she slumped next to him. Panting.

  “Thank you,” he said, trying to keep his eyes open. “How’s your cat?”

  “He’s great. Don’t fall asleep.”

  He realized there were two of her, and he wasn’t sure which one to look at. “I’m fine.”

  “I think I found something upstairs. Can you manage walking?”

  “I think so.” He gripped his pistol and used all his effort to stand. Serena helped him down a hall, up the stairs, and then he leaned against the doorway. He was out of breath from the exertion.

  “What have you got?” he said.

  She beckoned him inside and pointed to a pad of paper on a little desk against the wall. Someone had been doodling. Little geometric shapes, boxes with a rounded top. Harry.

  Layne squinted at it until the designs came into focus. “This is him. K-Books. He used to doodle this on excavations.”

  “On what?”

  “Operations. I meant to say operations.”

  Serena holstered her pistol. “Copy that, but there’s no one here now. What do we do?”

  Layne looked around the room until something caught his attention. A wooden bed frame, with something carved into it. He approached and knelt down to find the letters “RG” carved into the wood. He had to blink several times to focus his bleary eyes. A hand placed against the wall kept him steady.

  “Does this look recent to you?”

  Serena nodded. “Yes. RG? Is that Ronald Gaynor? Did Harry do that?”

  “Not sure.” Layne flicked a finger along the grooves of the carving. Why would Harry carve RG into the bedpost?

  29

  The last room had been comfortable. Claustrophobic because of the locked door and sealed windows, but comfortable. Harry’s new room was not. It was barely bigger than a closet, with two chairs and a toilet. No sink. A bundle of blankets dropped in one corner. No window. A single lightbulb hung from a chain above, the exposed bulb hurting Harry’s eyes every time he looked anywhere near it.

  They’d moved him quickly. With a bag over his head, he hadn’t seen anything. He couldn’t walk well, either, since Ronald’s assault with the marble-topped umbrella the day before. Every part of Harry hurt. He couldn’t grip anything with one hand. They had not brought him pen and paper to occupy himself like the last place. No books, romance or otherwise.

  He sank onto the pile of blankets. They smelled like cat piss. Only a couple days ago he had complained about the hardness of his bed and had been given a memory foam mattress topper. Now, they’d stuck him in a dungeon with no bed. They had created this room to feel like a horror. No doubt about it.

  Maybe Layne could devise a way to take the lightbulb and the cord and turn it into a device to tunnel out of here, but Harry didn’t know the first thing about doing something like that. And he didn’t think it would matter. Harry would be dead in a few hours. He knew that for certain.

  He pictured his son, the last time they’d seen each other, five days ago. Harry had been hoping to spend a decent amount of time with his son on Sunday since he knew he’d be leaving for a solo vacation the next day and would not see the boy for almost a week.

  He and his son had been on the couch, playing a video game. Harry didn’t like fighting games, he preferred games with a story, but that’s what his son wanted to play, so he joined in the fighting game and relished the chance to steal a little quality time. Competitive, but quality time. His son was now a teenager which meant he increasingly wanted to do things with his friends, instead of his lame parents. Harry had to take time when he could get it.

  Next, he thought of Ashleigh, the strange looks on her face over the last couple of meetings they’d had as this deadline drew closer. She was hiding something, definitely. But, whatever that thing was, Harry didn’t know.

  Had leaving the door unlocked been on purpose? Or simply a mistake, an absent-minded side effect of the pressure she was under to make Layne find the report? She hadn’t been by yet to check on him in this new prison cell. And, he didn’t know if asking her would be a smart move or not.

  And no one had said a word to him about why they had all so suddenly packed up and moved the entire operation to a new location. Again, with the bag over his head, he didn’t know anything about their current spot. But, he knew it was within a twenty-minute drive.

  Although he didn’t know why they had moved, Harry had to believe it was due to Layne. Layne had to be inbound, on Ronald’s heels. It was the only logical explanation.

  If they had found the mansion and figured out which room had been Harry’s cell, then he still had a chance.

  And, he had to hope Layne would see and understand the initials carved into the bedpost. RG. Harry couldn’t have been bold enough to write more than that, in case Ronald might see it. But, if Layne could think about it, he might figure it out, the same as Harry had, and then he would know Ronald Gaynor’s real identity and why he was here, doing all this.

  INTERLUDE #6

  Littlefield, TX | Eight years ago

  Layne pops in a fresh nicotine lozenge as he settles in the grass. Next to him, Juliana grimaces as she shifts her leg. Both of them prone, keeping low. The rain has stopped, but they’re both covered in muck from hours of a downpour. It doesn’t matter to Layne. He even grabs a handful and wipes it on his cheeks and his neck. It’s been a while since he’s been out in the sun, so his lily-white skin could use a coating to keep him camouflaged in the dark.

  “You sure you’re okay?” he asks, surveying the bandage covering the bullet, still lodged in her calf.

  “I’ll be fine. Stop worrying about me. I’m not planning to do a lot of running, anyway.” She holds up her hand and flexes her index finger, simulating the press of a gun trigger. “This works fine.”

  He grunts but doesn’t argue with her anymore. It’s four o’clock in the morning, and the sun still hovers below the horizon. They’ll have to go soon. Layne was tempted to let her sleep in, but that would have been a mistake. No telling if their targets intend to stick around or abscond into obscurity. After the semi-public shootout at the motel, it doesn’t make sense for Vixen—if she even exists—and her crew to still be here. That strongly suggests there’s something valuable on this property.

  Juliana yawns. He considers saying something to her, but he doesn’t. Since he declined to sleep with her last night, things have been a little weird between them. But it’s okay. Layne still trusts her to act like a professional.

  They need to begin their assault soon, no matter what. If the mysterious Vixen and the stolen report are in there, they won’t be for long. They’re probably packing up right now. Once they’re in the wind, it becomes much harder to find them again.

  “What do you see?” she asks.

  Layne settles the binoculars and focuses them on the area. “The house itself is maybe a thousand square feet. It’s back from the road, with at least a city block of land around it.”

  “In Texas, you’d probably say it in acres.”

  Layne clears his throat. “Sure. Whatever. There’s also a separate structure, looks like a barn. About five hundred feet from the house. Do I have to say that in acres, too?”

  She snickers. “If that barn leads into the underground complex, we should look there first. It might be less-trafficked.”

  “Not the house?”

  “There are lights on, but I’ve seen no one going in or out of there since we’ve been here. Plus, if they’ve set traps or explosives or something like that, the house will be where they expect to draw people. The lights on are like a flame for a moth. You agree or disagree?”

  “It makes sense,” Layne says.

  “Anyone outside?”

  “No. And there are only five cars here now.”

  “Our Latino friend is still here?”

  “Unknown. I never saw which car he was driving. And unknown on Vixen. But, this is what we have, so this is what we go with.”

  Jules squeezes hi
s shoulder. “It’s good enough for me. Are you ready?”

  He stows the binoculars and rises to his knees, giving her a look. “If you can’t go, I’ll understand. We can abort and tell Control it’s not a good time. We found them once, we can do it again.”

  “I told you to stop,” she says, grimacing as she pulls herself into a sit. “This is not the first time I’ve been shot, Boy Scout.”

  “That, I believe,” he says, and her face lights up when he grins at her.

  “If they leave, maybe they don’t have the NSA report next time we catch up to them.”

  “Maybe they don’t have it this time, either. I didn’t really expect you to back out, but I wanted to give you the satisfaction of being able to claim you weathered great personal pain to complete the mission.”

  She giggles as she checks her weapons. “It’s been good working with you again.”

  “You too, Jules. You really going to take a job in California?”

  “I think so. I think my government days are over.”

  He nods. “Sometimes, I think that, too.”

  “No way. You’re a lifer. I knew it from the first moment I laid eyes on you.”

  “Sure,” he says, scoffing. “I’ve got my eyes on a post-espionage career, too.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “Security, but not consulting or bodyguard work. I want to have my own business. Personal security. Evaluating people’s homes and designing security systems, installing alarms and safes, that sort of thing. I’ve been studying the electrical work and logistics on the side.”

  “That would be a great setup to rob people. They’ll tell you exactly where their valuables are. It’s brilliant.”

  He eyes her for a second until he realizes she’s mostly kidding. “Yes, except I’m not going to do that.”

  “I know, Boy Scout. If you found a penny on the ground, you’d set up a website to locate the rightful owner.”