Snake Bite

by Jim Heskett

  “I don’t know about that. I could probably take a penny and keep my conscience clean. Either way, we should get going.”

  “You ready?”

  He inserts the mag into his pistol. “I’m ready.”

  “You got my back?”

  “Roger that.”

  Then, they both skulk across the pasture, toward a house that may or may not contain the stolen report.

  30

  Cornelius Mayweather stood at the wrought-iron gate of the mansion, the one Ronald and the crew had abandoned about an hour before. He frowned at the car-sized hole in the fence next to it. Such wanton destruction of property, and for no good reason.

  This was how these government types always behaved. Like bulldozers, willing to do whatever they felt like doing in the pursuit of their goals. This was why they were so dangerous and needed to be taught a lesson. And Layne Parrish was more dangerous than most because of his unpredictability.

  Who were these people, Layne and his new female companion?

  The whole situation confused Corn. He didn’t quite know why Ronald had everyone leave the mansion so suddenly. Weren’t they trying to force Layne to find the government report stolen all those years ago? Why would the fact that they hadn’t found it yet make Ronald feel the need to flee? Unless he was trying to buy time, to keep Layne confused, and hope that he would focus on getting the report instead of trying to locate Harry.

  “Hmm,” Corn said as he examined the skin on the back of his hand, now sunburn-free. “Yeah, that actually makes sense.”

  But, it was another in a string of strange happenings with Ronald. Corn had ascended to his position with the man by not asking questions and completing tasks efficiently and effectively, but too much weirdness had happened. Ronald had been evasive around any talk of this report. They were supposed to meet with the buyer in an hour, but Ronald didn’t seem too worried about that. Without the report, the sale couldn’t go through. But, Ronald had said nothing about trying to push back the meeting, making other arrangements, or anything like that.

  Corn was perfectly capable of following orders. But, next time he saw Ronald, he expected answers.

  Corn sniffed and checked the magazine of his pistol. It didn’t matter, really, if his boss didn’t have answers to his questions. Corn earned money by doing what the boss required. Everything else was details.

  He glanced back at the car, at the grocery store bag sitting in the passenger seat. He had hoped the cake he’d bought for Ronald would keep in the car, but with this heat, it had turned into a soppy mess. He hadn’t expected Layne and company to—yet again—drive far out of town and spend a whole morning on a wild goose chase.

  The cake was supposed to be a celebratory cake, anyway, for the sale of the NSA report. They had no report and looked like they didn’t have time to get it. So, it ultimately didn’t matter. There was probably no meal or dessert Corn could make to rectify this situation.

  Shit, he might not even have a job a few hours from now. With so much up in the air, Corn didn’t know what to think about a lot of things.

  He glanced at the house. Corn had arrived as Layne and his new female companion Serena Rojas were walking inside. As far as he could tell, they didn’t notice his arrival. They were crossing the threshold as he’d parked, without turning their heads back or pausing.

  Currently, those two were inside the mansion. Hunting around, looking for clues, scrambling. They wouldn’t find anything though. Not if Ronald’s crew had done their job and cleaned up the house before the evacuation.

  Ronald had said one of the crew--a white Pahana member named Trevor--would wait behind. Just in case Brendall failed to keep them on track and they made it here. Which, it seemed they had. Darts full of sedatives to take Layne and Serena out, and then they would at least have these hunters off their trail.

  That didn’t get them the report, but it would equal one problem solved.

  No sign of Officer Brendall, either, in the front yard. Corn didn’t like all these unanswered questions and open loops. This whole day had been a mess.

  Corn dialed his boss, and the older man picked up on the second ring.

  “Mr. Gaynor, it’s me.”

  “I was wondering when I was going to hear from you.”

  “I’m at the mansion. They’re inside. I showed up a little too late to stop them, but I can play cleanup if Trevor can’t get it done.”

  “Any indication they found the report?”

  Corn shook his head even though his boss wouldn’t be able to see it. “Nope. I’ve been on them all day, and there’s nothing to suggest they’ve found it. They drove out to Gila County and had themselves some excitement in the slums outside of town. Whatever they were hoping to find there, they left in a hurry.”

  “Interesting. Do you see Trevor?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Damn it,” Ronald said, grunting. “You have to assume he failed, so you need to think about taking them out. We don’t have time for this anymore. Kill all three of them, and make it clean. This is getting out of control, and we need to rein everything back in. We’re not coming back to the mansion. Make sure it’s neat and tidy, okay?”

  Corn had so many questions. First of all, why they weren’t coming back to the mansion. Second, why kill Layne and his crew? It seemed they were more useful alive than dead.

  “You sure I should kill them?”

  “If you can, interrogate them first. Make sure they haven’t found our prize. We’re going to get ready for a possible assault here. Come back as soon as you can.”

  And that only spurred more questions. Why would Ronald prepare for an assault at the alternate location if he ordered Corn to kill the three of them? Was Ronald expecting cops? Someone else? Or, was he expecting Corn to fail?

  But, all he said was, “Yes, sir. I’ll take care of this and then be there in about a half hour.”

  Ronald ended the call, and Corn slicked a hand through his hair. He walked through the hole in the fence, keeping his eyes on the house. No telling where the three of them were. At this distance, he didn’t think he could hit any of them. With a sniper rifle, sure, but he didn’t have one. He liked to travel light. Pistols were his day-to-day gear.

  A muffled gunshot came from inside the house. Corn ducked down, hiding behind a prickly bush in the yard. He watched the windows, eyes alert. That could have been Trevor taking out one of them, but Ronald had said Trevor would use a dart gun. The purpose was not to kill them.

  Corn’s mind swam, trying to process what he heard but couldn’t see. Had Trevor subdued them? No, Corn had a feeling things had gone bad in the house. Trevor was probably dead in there.

  A minute later, his fears were confirmed, when he watched two shadows through the upper front window. They were ascending the stairs, which meant the gunshot had been for Trevor.

  Corn took out his pistol and pointed it at the ground. He pursed his lips and waited for his breathing to settle before continuing.

  As he neared the front patio, he noticed something strange. The rental car Layne had been using was parked close to the house. The rear passenger door sat open, with a pair of handcuffs sprawled on the driveway.

  What had happened before he got here? All these pieces didn’t fit.

  He rounded the car, keeping his stance light and his arms locked. Finger on the trigger. He walked alongside the back seat and lifted the gun, but nothing was inside the vehicle.

  A whiff of air materialized to his right. Corn turned to see big Officer Brendall leap out from a hiding spot at the front of the car, racing toward him on a collision course.

  31

  Layne turned when he heard Serena stop behind him. The room moved like jerky webcam footage as he faced her.

  “You done staring at that thing?” she asked.

  The initials RG carved into the bedpost. Small, innocuous, near the bottom. Definitely carved in secret, hoping someone would only see it if they knew where to look. If this had been Ha
rry’s room during his imprisonment here, then he had most likely written the words. The cuts in the wood looked fresh, done with fingernails, not a knife. Someone had to work hard to make those indentations in the wood.

  Layne rose to his feet and dusted off his hands on his jeans. His head swam, the remnants of the dart’s sedatives like undertow trying to pull him down.

  So many jumbled flashes populated his thoughts. Mostly, difficulty accepting one key decision. Maybe instead of trying to find Harry, he should have focused on the NSA report. Maybe, despite everything Daphne had said, the report had not been shredded eight years ago, after the Texas op. Maybe.

  Layne might have doomed one of his oldest friends to death with this choice. They were out of time and out of chances. If they didn’t find Harry within the next thirty or forty-five minutes, Ronald would kill him. Layne had no choice but to assume his adversary would keep to his word.

  “Yeah, I’m done. You find anything interesting?”

  “Nope. This place is clean. Maybe with a few hours and a forensics team, we could do more.”

  “Alright. Let’s figure out what’s next.”

  Serena frowned at him. “What is next?”

  “I don’t know. There were two other houses on that revised map section Daphne sent to us. It could be as simple as that.”

  “Could be,” she said.

  Layne opened his mouth to say something else, but he stopped when the sound of a bullet cracked the air. He angled his neck toward the window in this room. He couldn’t see much, only the hole in the fence he’d made on the way in.

  “Outside,” Serena said.

  He didn’t respond. Layne drew his pistol and raced out of the room, toward the front door. Wobbling as he went, he narrowed his eyes to cut out the blurred edges of his vision. When he threw open the front door, he saw several perplexing things. The door to his rental car was open, and the handcuffs were on the ground. How had Brendall escaped?

  But, that didn’t matter. The big guy had escaped, and Layne now saw he was currently wrestling with someone. A tall and thin man in a suit. They were fighting for control of a gun, pointed straight up. The gun fired again as the guy’s finger jerked on the trigger. The bullet soared into the air, harmlessly out of reach of both the strugglers. Their grunts echoed across the valley.

  Layne rushed forward. But, he didn’t exactly know what to do when he got down there. No idea who this lanky guy was or why he was fighting with Brendall. He didn’t look like a cop, for sure.

  The guy grunted as he pushed Brendall back up against the car, and now, Layne did recognize him, once he could see his face. The sniper who had accompanied Ronald at the little sit down a few days ago. This was Ronald’s man.

  Serena came out behind Layne, sprinting. Layne was within a few steps of the two combatants when the guy managed to lower the gun. He pressed the nose of his pistol against Brendall’s chest.

  Layne was four steps away. He felt like he was in slow-motion, his fuzzy brain ordering his legs to run harder. One more step, and the tall man’s finger wrapped around the trigger.

  Layne leaped.

  But he wasn’t fast enough. The gun went off, spraying blood back onto the guy. His suit, his face, his hair. Brendall’s eyes shot wide open, his mouth dropping. The guy stepped back as Brendall slumped to the ground. The pistol pivoted, aiming straight for Layne.

  Layne ducked down, but Serena shot first. She sent three bullets into the guy’s torso. One into his stomach, two into his chest. All well-aimed shots, leaving no question they would prove fatal.

  He staggered back and tried to raise his gun, and now, Layne was within striking distance. He whipped a hand up and batted the gun away. It skittered into the dirt, landing harmlessly out of reach.

  The man, gasping for air, sank to his knees. The front of his suit now red with blood. A moment later, his eyes closed, then he fell backward, onto the driveway. His limbs jittered a few times, and he was dead within seconds.

  “Shit,” Serena said, panting. “I didn’t mean to kill him.”

  “It’s okay,” Layne said, eyeing Brendall. The cop had fallen forward, face-down. Not breathing. Layne felt for a pulse and couldn’t locate one.

  “Sorry, big guy. I know you didn’t want any of this.” Layne patted him on the shoulder a couple times and resolved to stop by Brendall’s house when this was all over to explain it to his wife. To explain what he could, of course. He probably wouldn’t be able to tell her everything.

  But, he couldn’t tell her anything if he didn’t live out the day.

  Layne walked over to the intruder and reached into his back pocket. He fished out a wallet and checked the ID. Cornelius Mayweather. It looked real enough, but he didn't recognize the name.

  “Do you know this guy?” Serena asked.

  “He works for Ronald Gaynor.” Layne then rifled through his other pockets to find his phone. It was one of those with facial recognition, which was exactly what they needed. Layne used two fingers to hold the guy’s eyes open, then he pointed the phone at his face. He wasn’t sure if it would work, but a split second later, the phone unlocked.

  Serena stood over him. Panting, the veins on her forearm standing out. “What are you looking for?”

  Instead of answering, Layne thumbed through recent messages. He found a text conversation with Ronald, and near the bottom, an address for something called the “alternate location.”

  “We got it,” Layne said. “Let’s end this.”

  32

  Harry sat slumped in the pile of musty and damp bedding in the corner of his little prison cell. Four walls and a door. Barely bigger than a closet. His head throbbed, his fingers pulsed, his knee ached. Injuries from Ronald’s weighted umbrella. A day later, most of it had settled into a quivering ache, dull at times and sharp at times. Ashleigh had slipped him Vicodin last night so he could sleep, and the lingering bleariness had made today drift by in a half-dream state.

  He kept wondering how things could have gone differently if he’d made different choices. If he’d stayed home on Sunday, instead of going to play D&D with Ethan and Danny. If he hadn’t gone on vacation eight years ago and therefore missed the Texas operation. A lot of things could have been different. A lot of choices could have taken him down different paths.

  Or, maybe he would have ended up in exactly the same spot.

  Harry sighed as he listened to feet shuffling outside the door. With a click, it unlocked, and in walked Ashleigh to the small space. Her beautiful and angular face drawn down, hands clasped in front. She appeared mournful. The harsh light from the bulb overhead shined a bright white spot on her forehead.

  "I just wanted to check and see if you are okay," she said.

  Harry tilted his face up toward the light, letting her see the bruise on his face. "Do I look okay?"

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I'm so sorry. Ronald is normally a very reasonable man. But he can lose his temper sometimes. He doesn’t tolerate lies and mistakes.“

  “Mistakes,” Harry mused out loud. He met her eyes. “Did you leave the door unlocked for me?"

  "I didn't."

  He didn’t know if he believed her or not. Ashleigh had secrets, for sure. Would she let him die? If he pressed, what would she do?

  No more time to theorize. Harry had to make a play.

  "Help me get out of here. I know I don't know you very well, Ashleigh, but I don't think you want to see me dead. You know he's going to kill me. I've seen his face, and I know his name. There's no reason for him to keep me alive, one way or the other, no matter how this ends. Please."

  For a moment, the expression on her face wavered. Fleeting seconds of doubt and hopefulness and sorrow. Rapidly changing from one to another. But, in the end, her eyes fell. “When I was asked to leave the FBI Training Academy, I was angry. So angry, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I would cry for hours, exercise like mad, eat a pint of ice cream and binge a show for an entire day, buried under blankets on the
couch. None of it worked to fix me feeling like a failure.”

  Harry waited and watched, curious to see where she would go with this line of thinking, if he could just let her talk it out.

  “When Ronald came to me, he gave me a purpose. A way to get back at the people who did me wrong, but more than that. It’s not just about revenge. It’s about justice. It’s about taking a thing that’s been tarnished and polishing it.”

  “But is it okay to kill people to get to that end?”

  She shrugged. “Everybody dies. Does our government kill people? Does the US kill innocent people in the name of justice? Do they act like American lives are worth more than the lives of people in other countries? Because that’s what this is really about.”

  “Even if that’s true, can you say you’re okay with me dying?”

  She breathed for a few seconds. “No, I don’t want you to die.”

  “Then help me.”

  "You know I can't."

  “Ronald is lying.”

  She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

  Harry leaned forward, deciding to push it. "But, you know other things. Do you know his real name, do you know who he really is?"

  Now, she appeared confused. But, he couldn’t tell if it was genuine. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "But you have doubts, don't you? You know there are things about him that don't add up."

  After a moment’s hesitation, Ashleigh nodded. "There's all this weird stuff about his boss. I don't understand what's going on. There is supposed to be a buyer for the report, but Ronald has been so strange about it. The buyer meet is right now. Like, literally, right now, but we don’t have the report, so we have nothing to sell.”

  Harry waited for her, and her face pulled into a deep frown. Her eyes misted.

  “If he knew what I’ve been doing, he would be mad. Very mad.”

  “What have you been doing?”

  “Reporting directly to his boss. Going above his head. If he finds out…” She stammered for a few seconds, her eyes searching the floor. Then, she seemed to remember where she was, and she looked up at Harry. She straightened up and dabbed the corners of her eyes. "I really can't be talking about this with you."