No mercy

by John Gilstrap

  Stephenson scowled-a good sign that he was paying attention. “Why especially you?”

  “Because we won’t be in here with you. We’ll be out there.” He tossed his head toward one of the windows.

  “Oh, fine,” Julie erupted.

  Thomas squirmed. “Mom.”

  Jonathan looked at her patiently. “Remember the plan. If we can maneuver well and if the pieces all fall into place, this lodge will never come into play. That’s the goal. But if they send a lot of people, or if we get hit early, you need to be prepared to defend yourselves.

  “Steve, I want you to stay on the second floor. The elevation improves the satellite link, and I don’t want you tearing open that leg. The rest of you will spread out downstairs. If they get past us at the ambush site, they’ll come up the main road and fan out along the tree line before making their assault across the lawn. Use the NVGs I gave you-night vision goggles. The instant you hear shooting in the distance, put them on and keep them on until this thing is over. If you see anyone approaching and you don’t recognize them, shoot, understand? Remember there are six sides to this building-you can’t forget the roof and the crawl spaceballoons?” Thomas groused.

  “Hell no,” Jonathan laughed. “I don’t want anybody thinking I’m the pussy.”

  Boxers called from downstairs, “Hey Scorpion, it’s time to go. I want to set up the ambush while there’s still a little light left.”

  Julie’s horror deepened. “Ambush,” she repeated.

  Jonathan’s radio crackled, “Scorpion, Mother Hen. They’re moving. I don’t know how many, but the one I can still see is moving, and it looks like he’s coming your way.

  Boxers was right; it was time to go.

  They’d stacked their tactical gear at the end of the living room farthest from the windows. Jonathan pulled Dragon Skin vests from one of the duffels and passed them out to the Hugheses. “Wear these,” he instructed. He handed a second one to Thomas and added, “Take this one to your father, and make sure he wears it. If he objects kick him in the leg.” The two that remained were originally for himself and Boxers, but that would leave Gail and Jesse without any. He picked up the remaining two and handed them to the cops from Samson.

  Jesse took his, but when Gail shook her head, he hesitated. “You’re the ones who’ll be out there exposed,” she said. “You keep them.”

  Jonathan shook his head. “No, thanks, I move better without it. Besides, you’re my guest.”

  “I won’t do it,” Gail said. Jesse looked like he wanted to shoot her.

  Jonathan wouldn’t budge. “My war, my rules,” he said. “Besides, if the time comes when you need these, you’re really going to need them.”

  She hesitated.

  “Please,” Jonathan insisted. He leaned in close and whispered, “I’m serious. If the bad guys break through, you two will be the only ones with your heads about you. If you go down, everybody’s got a lot worse chance of coming through alive.”

  That won her over. She accepted the vest and slipped it over her head. Jesse was way ahead of her.

  “Besides,” Jonathan said, “I’ve got this.” He turned his attention to his load-bearing tactical vest. Constructed of a lighter Kevlar material that provided some limited protection against small caliber handguns and shrapnel, the tactical vest would do nothing to slow down a rifle bullet. On the positive side, it was ten pounds lighter than the Dragon Skin, and made running a hell of a lot easier. Plus, it had huge storage capacity for ammo.

  Boxers was delighted to see that the vests were no longer in play. He never liked the damn things anyway. If it weren’t for the standing orders from Digger, he’d never even pack one.

  “Remember the night vision,” Jonathan reminded as he stuffed the pouches of his vest with as much as they would hold. “Put them on your heads now, and then turn them on when you hear the shooting. Remember what I taught you this afternoon. Julie, if you’re not going to be shooting, you’ve got to be reloading mags. Meanwhile, if things go to shit, Sheriff Bonneville here is in charge. Any questions?”

  He almost laughed at the blank expressions. Yeah, there were questions. Too many to verbalize. Jonathan looked Thomas in the eye. “Beer.”

  Thomas gave a nervous smile. “Balloons.”

  “Don’t worry, kid, you’ve got what it takes. Just don’t give up. Whatever you do, don’t give up.”

  Jonathan looked to Gail to see if she had caught that lastching, and when the sheriff responded with a nod, it was time to go. “Equipment check, Big Guy.”

  This was a ritual before every engagement, no matter how large or small. They wore all black, from head to foot, including black Nomex gloves with leather palms for extra grip. Their Kevlar helmets supported their own NVGs as well as their commo gear. A transceiver ran from radios in Velcro pockets on their shoulder into their right ears. The radios could be set to voice-activated or PTT (push-to-talk) mode, and Security Solutions’ SOPs required the latter, with the microphone triggered by a button in the center of their chests. Jonathan pushed his. “Radio check, one, two, three.”

  Boxers gave a thumbs-up. “I’m good.”

  Jonathan looked to Gail, who realized with a start that she hadn’t yet turned her radio on. Jonathan repeated the three-count, and she nodded. “I can hear you,” she said, just to make it official.

  “Mother, are you on the air?”

  “I’m here, Scorpion,” she said. “Be careful.”

  In sheaths mounted on their left shoulders, they each carried a K-Bar knife, and on their chests they each carried two fragmentation grenades. Around their bellies, their ammo pouches carried 400 rounds of ammunition for their M4s, 40 extra rounds for their sidearms, and 18 twelve-gauge rounds for their specially modified pistol-gripped Mossberg shotguns. They carried the M4s across their chests in combat slings, with the Mossbergs dangling by bungee slings from their armpits. The sidearms-Boxers still preferred the new Beretta standard issue over Jonathan’s Colt 1911. 45-were strapped to their thighs.

  Believing that it was never possible to have too many weapons in a battle, Jonathan also carried a backup snub-nose. 38 in the left-hand thigh pocket of his Royal Robbins 5.11 trousers. With the checkoff lists complete, they were ready to go.

  “Jesus, look at you,” Thomas said. His voice floated with admiration. “You’re ready to take on an army. Leave a couple of bad guys for us.”

  Julie gasped, “Thomas Hughes!”

  Jonathan smiled. This Hughes kid was not the stereotypical music major. He had fight in him. It’s a shame his mother saw that as a bad thing.

  Only twenty minutes of daylight remained as they slid out the window to the porch. “One more thing,” he said, looking back inside. “Keep an eye on the computer. As soon as you see vehicles, take your places.” They nodded, but they were unfocused.

  “Hey,” Jonathan said, “look at me. When this is over, we’ll have a hell of a story to tell. If you want victory, we can have it. I’ll see you all on the other side.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Charlie Warren felt Garino shift uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. He knew what question was coming before the driver had a chance to ask it. “You sure you want to keep waiting?”

  Charlie checked his watch. It was 9:20. “Ivan set H-Hour for 10:30. We go in at 10:10.” It was the third time he’d answered the same question. “The plan hasn’t changed. The plan isn’t going to change.”

  “I just don’t want to be late,” Garino said.

  Glick concurred from the backseat. “He’s got a point, Charlie. We wait too long, we run the risk of something going wrong approach of the movies was suicide in real life, as was running and ducking. In low light, a moving target was easier to detect than a stationary one. It’s why ambushers have the advantage over ambushees.

  “Over here, assholes!” Boxers yelled, and he emptied half a magazine toward the spot where the enemy had last formed a line. It was a damned risky way of getting your enemies to reveal t
hemselves, but Boxers had never been averse to risk.

  The attackers opened up with everything they had, ripping the night apart with noise and light, thus sealing their fate. Jonathan knew his cue. A shooter’s face resided three feet behind a muzzle flash. He picked a flash, and squeezed off a burst. When that rifle dropped, he found another flash and repeated the process, although without a hit, he thought.

  Predictably, the rifle fire turned, and Jonathan dove to the ground under a storm of bullets that shredded the foliage around him. He tried to make himself disappear into the ground behind a hardwood. He could feel the impact of bullets through the trunk.

  Moments earlier, in the lodge, the Hughes family had gathered around the computer screen to watch. The heat signatures from six separate vehicles lined up along the ridge that ran behind the cabin.

  “How could he have left us like this?” Julie railed. “We even talked about it. How could he do this?”

  Thomas barked, “What the fuck difference does it make now?” She looked like she’d been slapped, and he enjoyed it. “They’re there and we’re here.”

  They’d taken off their night vision to keep from whiting them out with the computer screen, and in the blue glow, Thomas watched his father rub his neck the way he always did when he was contemplating a problem.

  In the distance, they heard three quick shots, and then a second later, three explosions that seemed to trigger the rolling fusillade that was Jonathan’s firefight.

  Thomas climbed from behind the blanket-formed light lock and darted to the front window. He replaced the goggles and looked toward the shooting. “Sounds like they’re tearing ’em up,” he said. He looked back to his family. “It’s really happening.” He brought his rifle up and waited.

  Behind him, Julie huddled with Stephenson, and that pissed Thomas off. He wanted his father to quit coddling her and take command. He wanted him to step up like Scorpion and issue orders for everyone.

  Thomas hated the fact that they were hiding-cowering-as Scorpion did the dirty work. It was shameful. When this was over “Oh, God,” Stephenson said from the light lock. “They’re swarming down the hill in the rear. The picture just refreshed. My God, there are so many!”

  Thomas moved back to the light lock to see for himself. He could see people now. His eyes went first to the fighters who were engaging Scorpion, frozen in time as they faced off almost nose to nose. Then he saw the swarm of images on their way down the hill.

  He counted them. Jesus, could that possibly be right? Could there possibly be twenty attackers, plus the ones with Scorpion? They were still a long way off-a half mile or more, probably-but they were on their way in a wide loop that looked like a noose around the cabin. “We need to get ready,” he said. “We need to get downstairs.” He shouted, “Gail! Jesse! They’re on their way!” He started for the stairs.

  Julie grabbed him to make him are you doing this?” Venice demanded.

  The intruder refused to answer. At gunpoint, she’d been forced to bind her own ankles with duct tape to the legs of a guest chair in her office, and then to tape her own left wrist to the arm of the same chair. When the intruder was satisfied with her work, he then bound her right wrist and revisited the other three points of bondage with much tighter, more aggressive loops. Finally, he fastened her elbows, eliminating movement.

  When that was done, the man, whom she now recognized from her Internet searches to be Carlyle Industries’ security chief and from Mama’s description as the man who’d approached Roman, slid behind her desk and squinted at her computer screen.

  “For heaven’s sake!” Venice barked. “Would you please say something?”

  Charlie Warren’s head didn’t move as his gaze shifted to her. “Watch the attitude, Ms. Alexander. You are two strips of tape away from suffocation.” A smile bloomed on his handsome face. “There’s also that fine son of yours to worry about. Much too young to die.”

  Something inside Venice dissolved. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Maybe I already have.” He transformed his voice to a mocking falsetto. “Ow! Ow, you’re hurting me! Please stop! Mommeee!”

  Enraged and terrified, Venice pulled at her bonds.

  Charlie Warren laughed. “You know I’ll just shoot you if you wriggle free, right? Go for it.” He squinted as he watched the images on the screen. “Ooh, looks like they’re in trouble.”

  The world tilted inside Venice’s head. The image of Roman yelling out to her was so real, so vivid. Could this man really do such unspeakable things to a child?

  Of course he could. Look what they did to Tibor and to Ellen. When the stakes were high enough, she realized, cruelty had no limits. This man in her chair, behind her computer screen, was a monster.

  Why hadn’t he killed her already? He needed her to be alive. But why?

  Her role was a tactical one, she realized. He needed her alive for a specific reason. She reran the events of the past week and she landed on her answer. “I’m your insurance policy,” she announced.

  His gaze shifted again from the screen.

  “You need me alive as a bargaining chip in case Ivan Patrick fails. If Digger-if Jonathan lives through the attack, you’re going to use me to get your weapons back.”

  The man tried to maintain a poker face, but she could see that she’d nailed it.

  In an unexpected burst of bravado, she added, “And you are Charles Warren, security director for Carlyle Industries. Your picture is on the Web site. That’s probably not very smart.”

  “I’d be careful,” Charlie warned, looking back to the screen. “Start thinking too hard and I’ll have no choice but to kill you.”

  “You’re going to kill me anyway.” She wanted to sound bold, but angered herself with a tiny catch in her voice.

  The man smiled. “Maybe I should get it over with.”

  Venice smiled back. “You can’t. Not yet. Jonathan wouldn’t do anything to help you unless he had-what does he call it? Proof of life. Like the mo” Jonathan panted into his radio. When he got no reply, he tried again. “Gail, how are you holding out up there?”

  Still nothing. What the hell was going on with the radios? First it was Venice and now the Hugheses. Without either of them, he was blind out here.

  It sounded like they were locked in one hell of a war.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Dom hated being outside the loop on Digger’s escapades. Tonight in particular, he had the sense that his old friend was in over his head, and he wanted to do something. The fact that Venice was ignoring her phone made it even worse.

  He stayed out of it because Digger wanted it that way, probably to save him from the burden of the violence, but Dom sensed that there was also an element of shame. Noble rationale notwithstanding, he hated being left outside the circle.

  He couldn’t take it anymore. As a Seinfeld episode reran on the rectory television, he realized that he no longer cared what Digger thought. Dom’s rightful place tonight was at the firehouse helping Venice cope with the stress of being Digger’s link to the world. If that pissed her boss off, then let him be pissed.

  Grabbing a gray jacket to ward against the chilly evening, he called to Father Timothy and told him he was going for a walk.

  The breeze off the water made the night feel more like March than April. He shot the collar of his jacket and stuffed his hands into the front pockets as he made his way down the hill toward the firehouse, two blocks away. Scanning the dark, empty streets, it was hard to imagine the madhouse it was going to be in two short months when the tourists returned. He made a mental note to remind the Town Council to repair the streetlights. On a moonless night like this, footing was treacherous for anyone who didn’t know the lay of the land. After years of practice, Dom knew to expect the loose bricks in the sidewalk near the corner at Second Street, and he adjusted his stride accordingly.

  Passing the darkened silhouette of St. Kate’s on his left, he fought the urge to double-check the sanctuary doors. He wasn’t a
fan of locked churches anyway. If the fear of mortal sin still prevailed in society, he’d have left the doors open to serve the homeless. He considered it a failure of the modern church that such kindness was no longer possible in today’s world.

  Just past the church and its grounds rose the six-foot colonial-style brick wall that surrounded the parking lot and back doors of the firehouse. Jonathan had erected the wall within months of purchasing the property as a means to keep people from turning into his parking lot from Church Street, and to provide some element of privacy.

  Approaching First Street at the bottom of the hill and the marina that lay across, the temperature dropped another five degrees. Dom had always loved this view of the water through the forest of darkened masts, swaying in the gentle waves of the river.

  He turned the corner and knew that the peace would not last. In the otherwise deserted streets, a heavily jacketed man sat across from the firehouse on a public bench in the tiny Veteran’s Park among last summer’s flower carcasses. The newspaper he held spread above his lap could not possibly be legible in the yellow glow of the single streetlight across the street.

  “Hello,” Dom said with his most priestly smile.

  The man looked startled at first, then grunted a quick, “Good evening, Father,” before he returned to his paper.

  Dom noted the formality and ct least a Catholic.

  There are no coincidences.

  It all felt very wrong. Over the span of a second or two, he inventoried the status quo, beginning with the fact that Digger was in the middle of an uncontrolled shit storm. Add to that the fact that Venice didn’t answer her phone-Venice always answered her phone-and cap it with a stranger sitting in a place where no reasonable man would be, reading in light that allowed him to see virtually nothing.

  Something bad was about to happen.

  No coincidences.

  Maybe something bad was already happening.

  Dom said nothing more to the man. He just kept walking. He turned left at the corner of Gibbon Creek Road, at the far end of the firehouse, and fought the urge to quicken his pace as he turned left again and entered the alley formed by the portion of Jonathan’s brick wall that separated his parking lot from St. Kate’s. The night felt suddenly colder, and Dom found himself wishing that he’d grabbed a heavier jacket.