JD04 - Reasonable Fear

by Scott Pratt

  The rain slacked off to a drizzle a little after midnight. I could hear the low rumblings of thunder as the storm glided off to the east. I lay there for another hour as doubt began to eat at me and I began to tell myself I was a fool. Around one, I heard the sound of another vehicle coming down the road, but this was different, louder.

  I rose up and looked in that direction. There were three vehicles driving toward me. As they passed the driveway they slowed ever so slightly, and something told me it was about to begin.

  Three vehicles? I wondered how many people were in them. I thought briefly about the promise I’d made to Mack McCoy to call him. I turned the phone on and noticed my hands were trembling. I told myself to calm down and changed my mind. It was me against them. There would be no cavalry.

  The vehicles had driven off into the darkness to the west, and I waited for them to return, telling myself to breathe deeply, to rely on the training I’d received so long ago, to remain steady in the confusion, the noise, the chaotic terror of men trying to kill each other. I thought about Caroline and Jack and Lilly and what I was willing to sacrifice for them and their safety. The answer, as it had always been, was everything. I listened for the sound of a vehicle, thinking they might turn off their lights, approach slowly, and park close by so they could get in and out fast. Nothing. Maybe the vehicles had been a group returning from a party or a bar, maybe a bunch of kids.

  And then I saw the first sicario.

  In the thermal sight, he was glowing like he was beneath a black light, approaching slowly from the northwest. They’d apparently driven a ways past my place and then walked back. He was carrying a rifle. I not only felt my heart pounding, I could hear it.

  Th-thump. Th-thump.

  A couple of seconds later, I saw another image, then another, then another, and then another.

  Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump.

  I waited several seconds, panning them as they walked across the field that abutted my property and into the yard on the west side of the house.

  Five of them.

  I started crawling.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Two of the men moved around the front of the house and stepped up onto the porch. One of them knelt at the door while the other hung back a few feet. By this time, I’d crawled to within a hundred feet if them, beneath a holly bush Caroline had planted a couple of days after my mother died. I couldn’t make out what they were doing. I couldn’t even see them without looking through the infrared scope.

  I expected them to try the unlocked door and walk through, but a few seconds later, they ran off of the porch and there was a loud explosion. They’d blown the door open, probably with a small C-4 charge. A half-second later, I heard another explosion that came from around back. They’d coordinated their attack. I’d barricaded the door in back, but there was no way a few pine two-by-fours would stand up to plastic explosive. I cursed myself for underestimating them.

  I could have shot the two in the front, but I waited, hoping they’d go inside. They crept back onto the porch, and through the scope, I saw one of them toss something through opening where the door had been. There was another explosion, a flash-bang grenade, and they rushed in. Less than a second after they cleared the doorway the first Claymore exploded and I knew they were dead. Two down.

  I panned the thermal scope to a man who’d been squatting next to a spruce tree near the driveway. He moved backward several yards to a pin oak for better cover. I put the crosshairs on the side of his head and squeezed the trigger. He crumpled and lay motionless.

  Three down. Two left.

  They were most likely inside, coming up the steps from Jack’s room toward the kitchen. The Claymores I’d set didn’t cover that part of the house. I could wait to see if they stumbled into one and blew themselves up, or I could go in and try to kill them myself. I flipped the selector switch on the M16 to full-automatic and ran for the front door.

  As I cleared the doorway, the smell of C-4, blood and intestinal fluid filled my nostrils. I stepped on one of the men who’d been hit by the mine and nearly fell. I flipped the flashlight on for a just a couple of seconds and pointed it at the men who’d rushed the front of the house. They were bloody corpses. The front entrance had been decimated, but there were no fires. I squatted next to the stairs that led up to Lilly’s room – less than five feet from the stairs that led down to Jack’s – and shouldered the M16, listening for a creak, anything. A few seconds later, I heard a faint sound. They were coming up the stairs. I peered through the scope. One of them appeared in a half-crouch.

  I opened up on him and tracked the weapon to my right and down, firing a dozen shots through the sheetrock wall in less than a second. I heard a several thumps, but I didn’t move. I stayed there for almost a minute, listening, the barrel of the M16 still pointed at the doorway. The rain outside had stopped. The wind had died down. The house was completely still. The last two men were dead on the staircase. They had to be.

  I stood and eased my way to the opening, keeping the weapon trained in front of me. I flipped on the flashlight. The two men were lying on top of each other on the landing below. One of them groaned, and I started cautiously down the steps. I pressed on the carotid of the man who was on top but felt nothing. I grabbed his collar and rolled him to the side. The man beneath was breathing laboriously. I knelt next to him. His eyes were open, and he looked at me.

  “Ayudame,” he whispered. “Ayduame.”

  “I don’t’ know what you’re saying.”

  “Mother of God, help me.” The English was so heavily accented I could barely understand.

  I took the knife out of its sheath and cut the black fatigue shirt he was wearing down the front. There were three small entry wounds from the M16 rounds: one just above his collar bone on the left side at the base of his neck, another a couple of inches from his left nipple near his armpit, and a third in his abdomen, about three inches beneath his sternum. All three wounds were bleeding, but the wound above his collar bone was lethal. Dark blood was spurting from it with every beat of his heart.

  I set the M16 down next to me, sliced a piece of fabric from his shirt, balled it up in my hand, and started applying pressure to the wound in his neck. His eyes hadn’t left my face.

  “Are you the lawyer?” he said.

  “You’re dying,” I said as his eyelids fluttered. “Make your peace.”

  The corners of his lips turned up slightly.

  “So are you,” he said.

  I saw a flash of white light as something crashed into the back of head, and then there was nothing.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Five men had walked through the field to the house. Four had gone on the attack while one stayed back. The Claymores took two of them and I’d killed two more on the stairwell. I’d put a bullet in the head of the man outside, and when I killed him, I thought he was probably El Maligno, the boss, supervising his little raid from afar.

  I was wrong.

  I looked around, straining to see in the darkness. There was a sharp pain at the base of my skull where I’d been struck by something, probably a rifle or pistol butt, and my head felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. I was sitting up, but I couldn’t move. A beam of a light came on and shined directly into my face.

  “Ah, so you’re finally awake,” a voice said from behind the beam. It was a deep baritone, accented, although not as thickly as the man on the stairs. “I was afraid I might have hit you too hard, maybe put you into a coma. That would have been too bad.”

  It was then that I realized why I couldn’t move. I’d been taped to a chair, just like Zack and Hector, with a board running up the middle of my back.

  “This is a nice place,” the voice said. “Look at all the damage you’ve done. You should be ashamed.”

  My first instinct was to ask him who he was, but I knew. Footsteps approached and the light came closer. He stopped less than a foot in front of me and knelt. He held the flashlight ben
eath his chin, pointing upward. It was a macabre image, a long, thin jaw, flat nose and black eyes. His lips curled into a smile.

  “This is the last face you’ll ever see.”

  I saw the scar. It was him. It was El Maligno.

  “Where is your wife? Your son and daughter? You can’t save them. I’ve been given my instructions. I’ve been paid. They can’t hide forever, you know. As a matter of fact, I feel certain they’ll come to your funeral, and when they do, I’ll be waiting. Senor Lipscomb wanted you to watch them die, but that doesn’t seem possible now.”

  He stood up and backed away. A few seconds later, he said, “Smile,” and there was a flash.

  “He wants photos,” El Maligno said.

  I struggled against the tape, but it was useless. It was like I’d been laced into a full-body straight jacket.

  “I’m wondering about you,” he said. “I’ve killed so many. It’s interesting to see how people react when they know they’re going to die, that all hope is lost. Some beg, some pray. Most of them soil themselves. Some try to be brave, but in the end, they cry. How about you? Will you cry?”

  “I’ll hunt you down in hell.”

  “Ah, defiance! Excellent! Would you like to know what I’m going to do to you? I’m going to cut your throat, but I’m going to do it slowly. Shallow incisions. I’ll probably have to make three, maybe four of them before I get to the jugular. I’ll be taking photographs along the way for Mister Lipscomb’s enjoyment. When I cut the jugular, I’m going to stand here and watch you bleed out. And then I’m going to cut your tongue out and take it to Senor Lipscomb as a souvenir.”

  I heard the click of a folding knife and suddenly, my mind began to take me to another place. I was barely conscious of the maniac approaching me. I felt at peace, almost serene. I saw Caroline in a white dress, standing on a beach next to a calm, clear ocean inlet. Her back was to me, and a soft, warm breeze was lifting her hair ever so slightly. She turned to me, smiling, and waved.

  “I’m coming,” I said.

  Something cold and sharp pressed against my neck.

  There was a flash of bright light and the room seemed to explode. Caroline dissolved as the flashlight El Maligno was carrying dropped to the floor.

  I became aware of someone to my right. Another flashlight beam illuminated a body on the floor at my feet. Then someone was kneeling. A hand reached out and pressed fingers into the flesh of El Maligno’s neck. I recognized the shape of a cowboy hat.

  “He’s dead,” a voice said.

  It was the most welcome voice I’d ever heard, and it belonged to Leon Bates.

  Chapter Forty

  I wanted to leave, to get straight back to Caroline and the kids, but I stuck around while Leon and his people did what they had to do. Before long, the place was crawling with sheriff’s department investigators, deputies and emergency medical people. I gave a written statement to Rudy Lane while deputies and investigators tagged and bagged evidence and the medical folks carted away the bodies. Bates gave Rudy a written statement, too, which reassured me. He also showed Rudy a digital camera that El Maligno had been carrying.

  “There’s a photo of brother Dillard on this camera,” Bates said. “I’m not gonna show it to you because I don’t think he’d want anybody to see it. If anybody questions how we handle this investigation, it’ll be my hole card.”

  It was good to know that Leon was back on my side. If anyone could keep the politicians at bay, it was him.

  After I talked to Rudy, I went into the bathroom and took the longest shower of my life. I dressed and walked around the inside of the house surveying the damage. The front entrance was destroyed and so was the entrance in back where they’d blown the door. The Claymore had torn up a couple of walls and shattered three windows. I’d put a dozen holes in the sheetrock by the stairwell leading to the basement. The bodies were gone, but there was still blood all over the place. It was pretty bad, but it was fixable. I figured it would take in the neighborhood of ten thousand dollars to get it back to where it was. I was so punchy that I actually wondered for a second whether my homeowner’s policy might cover the damage. I looked out the front window and saw news vans parked about a hundred yards up the road. Somebody had already leaked the story. By daybreak, dozens of gawkers were standing in the road like a herd of cattle.

  Mack and Leah McCoy showed up about the same time the reporters began arriving. I was sitting in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee when Mack strode into the room and stopped five feet away from me. I’d taken half a dozen aspirin by that time and my head was still pounding. He folded his arms across his massive chest and glowered at me.

  “You lied to me,” he said.

  “Not exactly. It happened fast, Mack.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s obvious you didn’t need my help, but from the looks of this place and from what I’ve already heard, you had more than a shotgun and a pistol.”

  It was the second time he’d made me smile.

  “You’re right. I lied.”

  “You know something? I always thought the Rangers were overrated. I guess maybe I was wrong.”

  “Wow, Mack, I’ll bet you don’t say that often.”

  “So what about your wife and kids? You said they’re in Michigan. When are they coming back?”

  I’d called Caroline and told her, without giving her many details, that I was okay and that I thought it might be over. She wanted to get Bo to take everyone straight to Detroit so they could fly home, but I told her to sit tight. There was one more thing I needed to confirm.

  “Not yet,” I said to Mack. “I have to talk to someone first.”

  I texted Erlene Barlowe a couple of hours later. I was surprised she responded immediately since she her club didn’t close until three in the morning. She was up, though, and agreed to meet me at the edge of a Wal Mart parking lot in Colonial Heights. She pulled up in her red Mercedes and motioned for me to get into her car, so I climbed in the passenger side. She was wearing a black and white cheetah print blouse with a plunging neckline and her usual black, spandex pants. She smelled like incense and cinnamon. She drove out of the parking lot and pulled onto Highway 36.

  “They’re talking about you on the radio, sugar,” she said.

  “What are they saying?”

  “Must have been some gunfight. They’re making it sound like the OK Corral.”

  “Yeah, it was pretty intense.”

  “They’re saying the sheriff was involved.”

  “He showed up out of nowhere,” I said. “I don’t know when and I don’t know why, but if he hadn’t, I’d be dead.”

  She looked over and gave me a coy smile.

  “Leon’s a good boy,” she said, “but like any man, he needs a little guidance now and then.”

  “What do you mean, a little guidance?”

  “He just needed a little talking to is all. Leon forgets sometimes what’s really important in life. He gets too involved in all that political mess, worries too much about what people think. I just reminded him what a good friend you’ve been. I reminded him how you stood up for him in front of that judge a few years back and how you let him take the credit when that awful Satan worshipper got killed and—”

  “Wait just a second,” I said. “How could you possibly know about that?”

  She winked at me, the smile still on her lips.

  “You and Leon?” I said. “How long? How serious is it?”

  “A southern girl doesn’t kiss and tell, sweetie.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. Leon Bates and Erlene Barlowe. Damn. Truth really was stranger than fiction.

  “So you’re the reason he showed up?”

  “I wouldn’t put it exactly like that,” she said, “but then again, maybe I would. I suppose my influence had something to do with him keeping a close eye on you last night. You know what he told me? He said you’re the bravest man he’s ever known. One of the smartest, too. He said those boys that came g
unning for you didn’t have a chance. He also said he didn’t feel the slightest bit of remorse over shooting that last man, what did he call him? El Malarkey or something like that. He said he didn’t feel a bit bad about shooting that man in the head. Said he’d do it again in a skinny minute.”

  I chuckled at the thought of Bates using the phrase “skinny minute.”

  “You’ve already talked to him then,” I said. “You guys must be pretty close.”

  “Stop it, sugar. I’m not going to reveal any intimate details. All I’ll say is that the sheriff and I have formed a mutual respect for each other.”

  Mutual respect. She was priceless.

  “What about John Lipscomb?” I said.

  Her eyes tightened just a tick and her voice took on a more serious tone.

  “I’m not going to say much about him either, but I’ll tell you just a couple of things. First, you don’t have to worry about him anymore. And second, I’m told he peed his pants and cried like a baby.”

  “So it’s over?”

  She nodded.

  “My girls can rest in peace now, and you can go ahead and tell your family it’s safe to come back home. John Lipscomb is in hell where he belongs.”

  By that time, Erlene had pulled onto I-81 and was now taking the ramp to I-26, headed south toward Johnson City and Erwin.

  “Where are we going?” I said.

  “John Lipscomb isn’t the only person in the world who has money,” she said. “I’ve got a beautiful place in the mountains over by Ashville. It’s less than an hour away. I have a private chef who is fixing us a lunch fit for a king. There’ll be wine and champagne and fancy fixins all over the place. We’re going to have us a little victory celebration.”