by Paul Herron
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Paul Crilley
Jacket design by Rob Grom. Jacket photo of barbed wire by Paul Bucknall/Arcangel. Jacket image of stormy sky/lightning by Shutterstock. Author photo © Paul Crilley. Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Grand Central Publishing
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104
grandcentralpublishing.com
twitter.com/grandcentralpub
First published in 2021 by Headline Publishing Group
First Grand Central Publishing edition: April 2021
Grand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Grand Central Publishing name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021931426
ISBNs: 978-1-5387-3703-3 (hardcover), 978-1-5387-3705-7 (ebook)
E3-20210305-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue: Three years ago
Chapter One: Friday, August 27: 6:00 a.m.
Chapter Two: Friday, August 27: 7:00 a.m.
Chapter Three: 7:30 a.m.
Chapter Four: Four years ago
Chapter Five: 8:15 a.m.
Chapter Six: Friday, August 27: 3:30 p.m.
Chapter Seven: 3:45 p.m.
Chapter Eight: 11:00 p.m.
Chapter Nine: 11:30 p.m.
Chapter Ten: Saturday, August 28: 12:30 a.m.
Chapter Eleven: 1:00 a.m.
Chapter Twelve: 1:30 a.m.
Chapter Thirteen: 2:00 a.m.
Chapter Fourteen: 2:50 a.m.
Chapter Fifteen: 3:20 a.m.
Chapter Sixteen: 3:45 a.m.
Chapter Seventeen: 4:10 a.m.
Chapter Eighteen: 4:20 a.m.
Chapter Nineteen: 4:50 a.m.
Chapter Twenty: 5:20 a.m.
Chapter Twenty-One: 5:50 a.m.
Chapter Twenty-Two: 6:10 a.m.
Chapter Twenty-Three: 6:30 a.m.
Chapter Twenty-Four: 6:40 a.m.
Chapter Twenty-Five: 7:20 a.m.
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Discover More
About the Author
For Jo
We survived, and there’s no doubt we’re stronger after everything we’ve been through. But still, after the couple of years we’ve had, I do find comfort in the words of one of the great philosophers of the twentieth century: “Things can only get better.”
And for Bella, Caeleb, and the new member of our family, Callum. You guys are literally giving me gray hairs, but I love you all anyway.
Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.
Tap here to learn more.
When two hurricanes come into close proximity to one another, the vortices can pull together, merging to form a much larger superstorm.
The phenomenon is called the Fujiwhara effect.
Prologue
Three years ago
Three names. Three bullets.
I made them myself. Cast the slugs from lead mixed with Amy’s melted-down wedding ring.
There’s a fourth bullet too. A special one just for me. It sits on the coffee table, glinting in the afternoon sun. First gold, then red, tiny dents and imperfections picked out in the casing as the light slowly fades.
I stare at it all afternoon, like a recovering alcoholic contemplating the bottles in a hotel mini fridge. I eventually decide to leave it where it is. Imagining Amy’s reaction is what tips the scales. She’d have kicked me in the balls for even considering it.
So I leave the last bullet behind in the house we once shared, the house we planned on raising our daughter in.
The house where Amy was murdered.
Something wakes you up. Something… other. Something that doesn’t belong.
You lie in bed, listening intently. It’s probably nothing. A car outside. A raccoon in the trash bins.
You check the clock by the bed: 3:46. Christ, you’re never going to get back to sleep now.
You reach out for Amy…
She isn’t there.
You touch the rumpled sheets. Still warm, slightly damp with her perspiration. The noise must have been her going to the bathroom.
You roll over. From this position you have a direct view of the bathroom. The door is wide open. The bathroom is empty.
There are rules for planning an ambush. I learned that in Afghanistan. In fact, there’s a shit-ton of rules, collectively known as mission analysis (METT-TC—mission, enemy, terrain, troops available, and time and civilian considerations), and course of action development (COA DEV). I don’t have the time, the backup, or the manpower for that kind of prep, but all the lists, all the rules, can be boiled down to four basic principles.
Planning, infiltration, actions on, and exfiltration.
Planning is the most important. You have to think the ambush through. Plot every last detail. Make sure there are no holes.
No mistakes.
You sit up in bed. Moonlight shines through the window, veiled by the net curtain wafting in the muggy midsummer breeze.
“Amy?”
No response. You get out of bed, head to the door, move out into the hallway. You lean over the banister. There’s a light on downstairs. The kitchen.
“Amy?”
Nothing.
You hesitate, an uneasy feeling waking in the pit of your stomach. You can’t explain it, but you suddenly feel that something is wrong. That something bad has happened.
The first job is to find a suitable kill zone. The place where the actual ambush will take place. A spot where the target needs to slow down is ideal, something like sharp bends in the road or a steep hill.
Whatever spot you pick, it’s important to make sure the location has good cover for yourself. You don’t want to be seen. Not until you’re ready for the kill shot.
You slip back into your room and grab your police-issue Beretta. You ratchet the slide, flick the safety off, and move down the stairs. A small passage to your left leads to the bathroom, a spare bedroom, and the kitchen. The living room is to your right.
You pause, wondering which direction to go. Then you hear a noise. A groan? You’re not sure, but it comes from the living room.
Generally, high ground is the best location for an ambush. Some natural obstacles to keep the enemy in the kill zone are a bonus. That allows the ambush force to control all phases of contact. I always preferred urban environments for that exact reason, but that’s not an option here. Firing an M249 in downtown Miami is going to draw too much attention.
But it’s Miami, I hear you say. Who the fuck’s going to notice gunfire? Sure, I
get it. But I don’t want to take the risk. I might not get to finish the job.
You also need to figure out what kind of ambush you’re planning. Hasty or deliberate. Hasty ambushes aren’t prearranged. They’re reactive, like when you’re on patrol and stumble across enemy troops. If I was going to do that, I could just follow the bastards home and shoot them as they get out of their cars. No. I want them to suffer. I want to look them in the eye.
I’m going for a deliberate ambush.
One that I can plan. One that I can control.
I’ve already gathered the intel I needed to plan the mission. Their movements, their habits, their preferred bars, the name of their drug dealer…
You creep forward, gun held ready. The moonlight shines through the front window. The dresser’s been ransacked, drawers pulled out, the contents dumped on the carpet.
Your gaze drops to the mess. Playing cards, coins, old USB sticks, bits and pieces lying every—
You freeze. There’s a larger shape on the floor.
Your eyes skip over it. Something inside forces you to look away, some protective instinct. Instead, you stare at a photograph of you and Amy that’s lying on the carpet. It’s the one you took when she first told you she was pregnant. She’s laughing. You’re holding her from behind, the cell phone in your hand as you snap the picture in the bedroom mirror.
Finally, you drag your eyes back to the shapeless mass. Your heart pounds loudly in your ears.
So—the things I have control over: location of ambush. My own location in relation to the ambush. And of course the mission statement: torture and kill, slowly and painfully, with extreme prejudice.
The things I don’t have control over: a platoon always needs an assault, support, and security element when launching an ambush. I don’t have support, or security to back me up. I’m on my own.
Also, you’re supposed to split your team. One group to execute the attack and one to lay down cover fire. Not gonna happen here.
But that’s fine. The kills are going to be mine alone. I don’t want anyone else involved.
You reach out and flick the light switch.
Your brain refuses to take it in.
Your vision is reduced to flashes, like Polaroid pictures, images that sear into your brain, images you will never forget.
Amy, sprawled facedown on the carpet.
The T-shirt she sleeps in riding high, revealing her panties and the small tattoo over her kidney.
Her caved-in skull, hair matted and soaked with blood.
The aluminum baseball bat lying next to her.
The dark stain that has spread out over the gray carpet.
The bulge of her pregnant stomach.
You slump back against the wall. The gun falls from your fingers as you drop to the carpet, staring at your wife.
The most important rule of any ambush, after all the prep, all the work, is speed. You have to shock your enemy. Scare the shit out of them. Go in hard, shoot everyone, then get the hell out. You want your contact to last less than sixty seconds.
That’s not happening tonight. I’m going to make this last as long as possible.
You don’t give the investigating detectives the footage from your security camera. You tell them you’d taken the memory card out and hadn’t replaced it. You get looks. What kind of cop doesn’t keep their own security camera working?
You don’t care what they think. You keep the footage for yourself. Watch the three men break into your home, editing the frames into a loop and playing it over and over until their faces are imprinted in your mind.
After a while, staring at the video loop, you have the weirdest feeling that you actually know them. Every curve and angle of their faces is so familiar it’s like you’re looking at old friends.
When your bereavement leave is over, you use the police database to ID the killers. It doesn’t take long. They have rap sheets longer than your arm.
Marcus Tully, Barry Novak, and Luther Wright.
Three names.
You write down their addresses, their known associates.
Then you launch the first phase of the operation—gathering intel.
You find Marcus Tully first. He’s still living with his mother in a one-bedroom apartment deep in Overtown.
Barry Novak is a veteran. That surprises you. Disappoints you. He served in Afghanistan five years before your tour. Not in Marjah. Somewhere else. He lives on his own. He visits a support group for ex-army. He sees a shrink, drinks a bottle of vodka every night. The guy has PTSD. You can see it a mile away.
Tough shit.
Luther Wright is the outsider. The guy who always hangs on the outskirts of the gang, hoping he’ll gain cred just by association. He’s a yes-man. Does whatever he’s told.
Phase one complete. Next step is to check known associates.
As soon as you see that one of those associates is a drug dealer, the beginnings of a plan form in your head.
I’m using the M249 Paratrooper for the ambush. The Para. It’s a compact version of the M249 SAW, with a shorter barrel and sliding aluminum buttstock. Easier to move around with.
I had to call in a lot of favors from an old army buddy to get it. He wanted to sell me an M27, but I never liked them. Thirty-round magazines just don’t compare to the linked ammunition the M249 uses. It’s older than the M27, but I like that. It’s more familiar in my hands. I trained with it. I know it.
I’m positioned at the top of a rise above a deserted logging mill outside Overtown. It’s perfect for what I need. Far enough from town that no one will hear the gunfire, and it only has one road in and out, so I don’t have to cover multiple escape routes.
I stare through the rifle scope, moving it slowly across the abandoned mill. It was built in the thirties, a series of old wooden buildings with portable office cabins dumped at one end. The place shut down around two years ago when three employees died. I was part of the investigation into their deaths. It was the owner’s fault. No safety protocols. No upkeep of the saws or equipment. One of the belts was so worn it flew off, took a guy’s head off, sliced through the second guy’s stomach right to the spine, and got stuck in the last guy’s throat.
The mill itself and the road leading through the trees lie below me in a shallow valley. At the top of the opposite valley wall is an open-sided shed holding a large pile of tied-together tree trunks, obviously stored there in preparation for the mill. I placed two propane tanks against the tree trunks earlier, one on either side, right against the wire lashing them together. I checked the wood while I was placing the tanks. A lot of the trunks are rotten and damp, but that’s fine for my needs. I might not even use the tanks, but preparation is key.
An hour before dawn is the perfect time for a shock attack. The target is usually deep in sleep, his or her body totally shut down. The victim doesn’t know what the hell is going on.
You already know that the drug dealer—Elias Finch—lives alone. You go in hard with a bright flashlight shining in his face, grabbing him and throwing him to the floor. Finch lets out an unearthly moan of terror. You’ve heard it before on raids. Nine out of ten people you’ve come at like this make the same sound. Animalistic, terrified, primeval.
You hit Finch with the butt of your gun and knock him out cold. You wait, listening, controlling your breathing. A dog barks in the distance. You hear a car drive past the dingy house. The headlights shine through the curtains and swing on past.
Satisfied, you drag Finch to the living room. If you can even call it that. You’ve seen the same room a hundred times before. Usually bare floorboards, but sometimes a stained carpet. A couch with cigarette holes burned into it, unknown stains forming a map of spilled drink and bodily fluids. An old table, this one covered in used syringes, overflowing ashtrays, empty beer bottles, and, surprisingly, a few novels. That’s a first for you. You don’t think you’ve ever been in a drug dealer’s house that had books. A TV, sure. A game console, definitely. Something to mindlessly
zone out in front of while they wait for the high to kick in. But books? No.
There’s a rickety table and chairs in the kitchen. You drag one of the chairs into the living room and haul Finch into it, using the rope you brought to tie him in place.
Then you wait.
He wakes up half an hour later. Sees you sitting on the couch with your gun resting on your lap. He opens his mouth to scream, but you just raise a finger to your lips.
He’s not as stupid as he looks. His mouth snaps shut. He stares at you with wide, terrified eyes.
You’ve planned everything for today. It’s Friday, and you know this is when Tully phones Finch to organize drugs for himself, Wright, and Novak.
“When Tully calls,” you say to Finch, “tell him not to come here. Tell him you think the cops have been watching. Tell him you’ll bring his drugs to the lumberyard tonight at seven. The abandoned one about two miles outside of town. Nod if you understand.”
Finch nods.
“If you try to warn them, I’ll shoot you in the eye. Understand?”
Finch nods again, more frantically this time.
You sit there for most of the day before Tully finally calls Finch’s cell phone.
You hold the gun to Finch’s eye and the phone to his ear. He tells Tully everything you want him to.
Tully’s not happy. He’s used to getting the drugs as soon as he calls, taking them to Novak’s house and shooting up there before heading out to a dive bar on the outskirts of Overtown called Double Down Tavern. You’ve already followed them there a few times as you considered your plan. It’s got blacked-out windows and plastic seats out front for when it’s too crowded inside. A neon sign hangs above the door—a purple pool cue that’s supposed to move back and forth. But it’s broken, so all it does is flicker on and off, buzzing loudly.
Finch tells them he has no choice. It’s either meet at the lumberyard or they go without. Tully reluctantly agrees.
You hang up the phone. Then you sit and stare at Finch, wondering what to do about him. You could just kill him. You’d be doing everyone a favor. You want to. You want to raze everything to the ground. Anyone and anything connected with the men who killed your family.