Blood On The Bridge

by Zack Klika

  A behemoth of a man was trying to prop himself up on an elbow. He had on jeans and a camouflage field jacket that looked old-school military. Whoever it was had blood trickling down his face and dripping off his chin. The blood splashed off the dirt beneath his body, absorbed by the dirt quicker than it could pool.

  Riley’s breathing had returned to normal by the time she noticed who the man was. Colonel Wright was in rough shape. She saw him try to stand up twice and each time fall back on his side. His current attempt was proving fruitful. Had he followed her out here? As Riley stood up, she spotted Thomas leaning against the back-left tire of her car. His chest was covered in red crumbling dirt, and his eyes were closed. Had he saved her life? Of course. But he wouldn’t be able to stop a second attempt on her life. Colonel Wright must have been following him when he found the spot Jennifer had photographed.

  Okay, she thought. Time to escape. Riley ran to Thomas and leaned him over, trying to clear the rear door he was blocking so she could put him in the back seat. He coughed up a bit of blood and opened his eyes before she could move him any farther. He tried to say something and threw his right arm in a flipping motion. Riley didn’t understand.

  “Behind you,” Thomas coughed, through bloodstained teeth.

  Riley spun and ducked at the same time and felt Colonel Wright’s forearm graze the top of her head as he missed his mark, probably her throat again. She dived left and rolled out of his reach, missing another swipe from his enormous hand.

  “It’s too late,” she told Colonel Wright, backing up as his heavy boots kicked up dust with every step.

  He gave her a quizzical look. “There it is. The begging. Jennifer didn’t beg for her life. She fought for it. Will you?”

  Riley thought about running for it, but she couldn’t just leave Thomas. If they were watching the video feed from the camera she’d set up, they were on their way. She just needed to buy a little bit of time.

  Chapter 58

  Conn hurtled down the back roads of the back forty going as fast as she could without losing control of her Crown Vic and careening into a tree. Lee was in the passenger seat with his laptop open, giving her a play-by-play of what was happening to Riley and the man who was trying to kill her. If Riley hadn’t already been on her way to the back forty when Lee called her, Conn would have stopped the whole plan. It was reckless and dangerous. Something an amateur would come up with.

  “She’s backing up and keeping distance between them,” Lee said with a strain in his voice that told Conn he didn’t want anything bad to happen to her.

  As dangerous as the plan was, it was equally as simple. Riley would place the camera in front of the bunkers and call Colonel Wright to set up a meeting for her payoff. Anyone in his situation would agree to the meeting, and immediately go to move the munitions. The role Conn had in the plan was simple. She was to be a witness to it all. Lee explained to her that this was the man who had threatened her son. And she knew if Sanchez was called in, he would just go straight for the bunkers.

  “I told you she should have waited,” Conn said, her knuckles cracking as she gripped the steering wheel.

  “I tried to call her, but there’s no reception back there.”

  “I know. That’s why she had you call me. She knew I wouldn’t have gone for this shit.”

  Conn and Lee had been waiting in a deserted playground parking lot when Lee saw Colonel Wright attack Riley. The park was just outside of the road Riley went down to get to the bunkers she’d told Lee about. The playground just happened to be a good spot for Lee to set up the video feed. Any farther out and the signal might not have picked up. Any closer and Colonel Wright might spot them on his way to move the stockpile.

  “What’s happening?” Conn asked.

  “Nothing. It looks like they’re talking. I think she’s stalling.”

  “That’s good.”

  Only a few more minutes. She knew these roads well. When she was an MP on base, she had patrolled the back forty her fair share. Some of the stupid shit soldiers did bewildered her at the time. They would do donuts in open areas, take their trucks off-roading, set up fire pits . . . It was as if they had no common sense. And they probably didn’t. Most of the soldiers they caught were enlisted guys who didn’t think there was anything wrong with destroying the area.

  Conn spotted the Birdcage through the bare trees. Colonel Wright and Riley looked her way when they heard her vehicle kicking up dirt and rocks. Conn wished Riley hadn’t looked because that gave Colonel Wright the opening he needed. He took one large step and wrapped an arm around Riley’s neck from behind, holding her tight against his body and pushing the point of a bayonet to her throat.

  Conn slammed to a halt just shy of Colonel Wright, hopped out of her vehicle, and drew her weapon. A drop of blood rolled down the smooth surface of the bayonet as it punctured Riley’s throat.

  “Drop the knife,” she yelled, her gun sights lined up with the middle of his forehead. “You’re under arrest.”

  Colonel Wright smiled wide, half of his face covered in dirt and sticky blood. He looked like something out of a demon’s nightmare.

  “We both know that’s not how this is going to play out.” He turned the bayonet just enough for the sun to catch the blade’s face and shoot a sliver of a glare across Conn’s face. “Drop your gun and kick it over.”

  Conn knew he had her. She was a good shot, but there was no telling how quick Colonel Wright’s reflexes were. She could potentially kill Riley if she took the shot. It wasn’t worth the risk.

  Anger rippled through Conn’s body, followed by a wave of guilt. Colonel Wright was the type of man who pushed women like her out of the military. The kind of man who saw women as nothing more than a means to populate America with more able bodies to wage the wars the future had in store. In his eyes, women would never be good enough to play in his Army. Then she remembered Jennifer. What he had done to her. And before the thought had completed itself, she was speaking.

  “You get off on hurting women?” she asked him, setting her gun down on the ground in front of her and brushing it off to the side with her shoe. “You couldn’t kill Jennifer, though. Had to hire someone else to do it.”

  Conn saw a disturbed look cross his face at the mention of Jennifer’s name.

  “Why don’t you try me on for size.” She could tell he was considering it. “You’re hurt. It should be a fair fight.”

  She watched him try to form a plan. Useless. There were four of them and one of him. Three vehicles that would need to be hidden. He couldn’t escape what was coming his way. He had miscalculated. Overplayed his hand. The old man was done. Conn could handle the sexism in the workplace, the sexual harassment she had experienced in the Army and at the police station, the soldiers who escaped justice because they fought for their country, hell, even someone threatening her son’s life, but what he did to Jennifer could not go unpunished.

  He was just shaking his head. The more she egged him on, the more his body shook.

  “Unless you don’t think you have it in you, old man,” she said.

  That did the trick. He threw Riley into the side of her car and lunged at Conn with the bayonet in hand. He was quicker than she had imagined. A flick of his wrist opened her shoulder a bit as she dodged out of the way. Blood soaked into the thick cotton sleeve of her brown sweater.

  She adjusted her movements to compensate for his speed and dodged a few more jabs from the knife. He looked frustrated. Like he knew she was toying with him. He might have had half a foot on her, but that only meant his vitals were more accessible to her. Colonel Wright jabbed again and Conn caught his arm, bending it back until the polished blade fell from his hand. The smell of tobacco and aftershave twirled in her nose as he tried to break away. He caught her with a head butt that sent her reeling.

  The taste of salt and something bitter mixed around in her mouth. He was back on her before she could wipe the blood from her lips. She wondered why he was moving so slowl
y. Was he toying with her? Maybe the blow to his head did more damage than she initially had thought. He seemed weak to her.

  She anticipated a kick and stepped into it, catching his leg halfway through its range of motion and kicking out his other leg from underneath him. They rolled around and she ended up on top of him. She buried her head into the side of his neck, trying to avoid the strikes from his fists and elbows. The blows were coming slower now because he was losing consciousness.

  Conn had her forearm digging into his throat with all of her weight behind it. He caught ahold of her throat with one of his hands and pushed her away, still on his back and only barely holding onto her neck because of a bloody and sweaty grip. A man like this could take a beating for days, Conn realized.

  She saw an opportunity and pushed off Colonel Wright’s chest, still holding onto his jacket by the neck and still on top of him. With the force of the push, she kicked her legs out around his right arm and head, while simultaneously grabbing hold of his right wrist with both hands, and locked her legs behind his neck. She had him in a perfect triangle choke. His eyes were turning red as he struggled to break free. He managed to get up on his knees and slammed her on her back two, three, four times. No use. She was locked in for the long haul.

  Conn arched her back and squeezed her thighs for dear life. His free hand flailed about. The only thing his squirming did was help her lock in an even tighter hold. He finally stopped, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, his arm falling from her leg to the ground. Out cold. It was finally over. But she wasn’t ready to release her grip. Killing him would have been self-defense. She had witnesses to that. Her grip released when she felt someone tugging at her arm. Lee was shouting at her, but she couldn’t make out the words. The adrenaline running through her body had given her tunnel vision. With a strong push of her leg, she kicked Colonel Wright off of her and staggered to her feet, almost falling over in the process. Lee caught her by the arm and helped her up.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “We need to get him to the hospital.”

  It was Thomas she was looking at.

  Chapter 59

  Riley sat in the same hospital where her investigation into Jennifer Carlson’s murder began. But now she was hoping to visit someone with a long life to live. The fluorescent lighting that ran along the center of the ceiling bathed her face in a harsh light, showing the remnants of blood and dirt from the previous hours’ events. Initially she had felt proud of her discovery from the photos and her plan to catch Colonel Wright. Then everything went wrong. Thomas almost died. Conn almost died. For some reason, mysterious to her, she was not bothered by the fact she almost had died as well. That was part of the deal she made with herself from the get-go. Death was always a possibility.

  After Conn overcame Colonel Wright, she made sure Riley was all right and helped Lee load Thomas into the back of Riley’s Volvo. Thomas had been wheeled away on a stretcher, unconscious and barely breathing, when Riley slammed to a stop in front of the emergency room of the Blanchfield Army Community Hospital.

  Riley received medical treatment for her wounds and then found a seat in the waiting area, where she would be notified on Thomas’s condition. She received a call from Conn while waiting and got the rundown on what happened after she left for the hospital.

  Conn had cuffed Colonel Wright and taken him straight to the military police station with Lee in tow to attest to her version of the story and show the video footage of Colonel Wright’s attack. The only problem Riley saw with the whole thing was that Colonel Wright had not been seen going into the bunker in the video Lee had. Surely his fingerprints would be all over everything in the bunker.

  But what if they weren’t? What if the bastard got away with all of this? The painkillers the doctor gave her for the cut on her head weren’t working fast enough. She shouldn’t be thinking this clearly. Her thoughts snapped back to Thomas as a doctor pushed through double swing doors and stopped in front of her.

  “Sergeant Riley?” he asked with a look of concern after taking in her condition.

  “How is he?” she asked point-blank. She had little use for formalities or manners after everything that had transpired.

  “He was in critical condition, but he’s pulled out of it.”

  Riley breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

  “The bullet didn’t hit any vital organs, but the round used should have caused death from bleed-out long before you got him here. Was the wound packed with dirt when you found him?”

  Riley stared blankly, having no idea what he was talking about.

  “He must have done it then. Either way, he may not have made it if he had been admitted any later.”

  Luckily the hospital was less than ten minutes away from the bunkers the way Riley drove. She had to laugh at the thought. The doctor tilted his head to the side and gave her that nuanced look of concern doctors and nurses worked so hard to perfect.

  “Are you feeling all right yourself?”

  “I’m more than fine now,” she said. “Can I see him?”

  “Not yet. He’s being prepped and moved to a room where he’ll be monitored closely. Should be another hour or so. I’ll let you know.”

  Riley gave him a nod and he left her there, disappearing behind the thick double doors he had materialized from just moments before. That he controlled so much of a person’s feelings, and could change them as quickly as he had Riley’s, didn’t seem right to her.

  The next thing she knew, her name was being said. She was not sure if it was a dream. Had she fallen asleep? Her eyes opened with more effort than seemed appropriate. The painkillers they had prescribed her must have knocked her out. The hospital lighting outlined a black figure standing in front of her. It was in the shape of a person. As her drug-impaired vision adjusted, she saw that it was Agent Sanchez.

  “Sergeant Riley,” he said loudly for the second time, maybe more. “There you go.”

  She rubbed her eyes and sat up straight, stretching her legs out in front of her and almost kicking Agent Sanchez in the shin.

  “I need you to come with me please,” he continued.

  Riley shook her head, trying her best to stay alert. “Where to?”

  “The station. I need to get a statement from you.”

  “We can do it here. I’m waiting to see Thomas.”

  “It needs to be at the station.”

  “No,” she said.

  She knew exactly what Sanchez was thinking: I have to play nice or she might publish a story about all of this. The fact he thought there was even a sliver of hope that he could conceal this made Riley suppress a grin. Of course she would write about this. The gross misuse of a soldier’s need for revenge for the Army’s personal interests. There was too much wrong with what had taken place. Names would be withheld of course, but actions would not.

  Agent Sanchez sighed and took a seat next to her.

  “Fine,” he said and turned on his recording device. “Start from the beginning please.”

  Riley told him that she figured it out from a visit to the museum on base and a side-by-side comparison of two photos Sanchez had had in his possession since Andrew’s death. He didn’t look happy with that part. She told him about how she had planned to catch Colonel Wright red-handed.

  He clicked the stop button on his recording device and slid it into his pocket when she finished. He stood up and looked Riley right in the eyes.

  “You’re lucky to be alive,” he said. “But you did a hell of a job. I’ll give you that.”

  Riley waited for the rest. She knew there would be more. He had probably been instructed well before that night to wrap up any loose ends and make sure everyone involved with Jennifer’s investigation was sworn to secrecy. An oath like that only held weight if the people swearing to it were afraid of the consequences should they let the secret out. Riley was not afraid. No, she had never been afraid of anything in her life. She had decided a long time ago there wasn’t enough time in life to waste any o
f it on fear.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something else as well,” he said while staring hard at Riley, probably to elicit some feeling of obedience in her before he went on. Riley held his stare. “What happened to Andrew, Jennifer, you . . . ,” he said.

  Go on, Riley thought.

  “. . . all of it. It has to remain a secret. Classified, that is.”

  Riley nodded. “Understood.”

  Agent Sanchez seemed caught off guard. Like talking to Riley was supposed to be the hard part of his ordeal.

  “I’ll leave you to Thomas then,” he said and turned to leave.

  “What if this story were to get out?” she asked after he had taken three steps down the hallway. “If someone accidentally let it slip?”

  His face seemed pleasant when he turned back to face Riley.

  “We’ll find out together, won’t we?” He grinned with a raised eyebrow and then walked off.

  Did he want her to run a story? Had he been on her side the entire time? That meant Colonel Wright was the one who got her in trouble with her commander, Captain Warren. The doctor came back into the waiting area.

  “You can see him now,” he said.

  Riley looked at him and stood up. “Thanks.”

  When she looked back down the hallway Agent Sanchez had already disappeared around a corner. She smiled and followed the doctor through the doors.

  Chapter 60

  Six Months Later

  Lee held the armrest tight as the airplane landed in Quantico, Virginia. That day in the back forty seemed like it had all happened just a few days ago. He never really had a chance to talk to Riley or Conn afterward. That was how working relationships were. One day you’re a tight-knit group trying to figure out where $20 million in stolen weapons went, and the next you’re on your way to the FBI’s Operational Technology Division to start an internship you had no idea even existed.