Live Bait

by David Archer

  Sam looked at her for a moment, and licked his lips. “Like shit,” he said. His eyes drooped and then closed, and he went back to sleep.

  The doctor kept Sam sedated through the rest of the night, but then canceled the order the following morning. Sam finally rejoined the land of the living at around nine a.m. and was surprised to find the room overflowing. Indie was there, of course, along with Denny, Darren, Summer, Jade, Steve, Walter, Rob and several others. Evan Reese was there, standing in the corner like he was trying not to be noticed.

  Denny was the first to speak. “Hey, mate,” he said. “Looks like you managed to forget the plan. I don’t remember anything in the plan about you getting yourself shot to shit.”

  Sam stared into his face for a moment, then grinned. “I think you’re right,” he said, and everyone chuckled. “Any line on Heinrich?”

  “Nothing yet, I’m afraid,” Darren said. “There’s an APB out nationwide, and every way in and out of the country is being watched by both people and computers. If he pokes his head out, we’re going to find him.”

  Indie pushed both of the men out of the way and leaned down to kiss Sam full on the lips. Darren whistled, Denny groaned, and Steve Beck said, “Nobody ever did that for me when I got shot.” Another round of laughter made its way through them, but then things settled back to normal.

  Indie had already told everyone what had happened while they were in the nightclub and Denny had told her about climbing up onto a nearby building with an extra sniper rifle. He went over it again for Sam, and then Rob Feinstein took his place beside the bed.

  “Sam, Denny and my guys took out eleven of Heinrich’s people,” he said, “and I think we put a bit of a crimp into his plans. Indie has made a report already on the offer he made to you, and that’s been passed on to the CIA and NSA. It turns out that the CIA already knew a bit about this, the plan to unite a lot of the African countries, but the official position of the United States government is that it’s nothing more than your typical backwater country rebellion. They’ve been working with intelligence agencies throughout Africa on this for more than a year, and Heinrich’s attempt to get his hands on those giant nukes is enough to make most of those countries renounce him. They’re even spreading the word to the general population about it, and I think they’re hoping that the people will say they don’t want any part of someone who would employ such tactics.”

  “Heinrich Wegner is one of those charismatic madmen that crop up from time to time,” Sam said. “Hitler, Stalin, Castro—he’s that sort, the kind that can rally the people around him, but then use them for his own evil ends. I’m just sorry this bastard got away. Sooner or later, you can bet he’s going to be causing problems somewhere again.”

  Steve grimaced. “Actually, I don’t think it’ll be all that long. I’ve been talking to Darren, and he says Heinrich is the kind who won’t give up on revenge until he gets it. Sam, we need to keep heavy security on you until he’s caught.”

  Sam shrugged, but it used muscles all the way down to his leg, so he winced. “Fine, then send me on home, and we can let Rob and his guys camp out in my backyard.”

  “Not so fast, there, slugger,” Indie said. “The doctor says you’re not going anywhere for a few days. I called Ron and he already took care of all the insurance details and such. I’m afraid you’re stuck here until the doctor gives you the all clear.”

  Sam looked at her for a moment, but then he turned his eyes toward the door.

  “Now, if that don’t beat all,” said a deep, southern drawl. “Never thought I’d see you laying down on the job, son.”

  Sam broke into a big grin. “Screw you, Harry,” he said. “As I recall, you looked a lot like this not that long ago. What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in a safe house, taking care of my kids.”

  “I am taking care of your kids,” Harry said. “Kathy and the grandmother twins are bringing them up now. Ron called in some favors and got us a place to stay out here until you are up on your feet again.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  There was more commotion and the crowd had to part to let Kim, Grace and Kathy into the room, but it was Kenzie who shoved everyone aside as she marched right up to the bed. She climbed up onto the chair beside it, leaned on the safety rail and looked Sam in the eye.

  “Daddy,” she said, her voice dripping with scorn and disappointment. “You went and got shot again!”

  Sam gave her a wry grin. “Honey, I promise you it wasn’t my idea,” he said. “Bad guys just don’t always listen, you know what I mean?”

  Denny quietly collected all of the Windlass personnel and suggested they get back to their hotel rooms and let the family have some time together. Sam and Indie got a few more hugs, and then they were left with just Harry and his wife, the two grandmothers and their children. They all stayed until lunch time, and then Sam suggested that they take Indie to wherever they were staying and get her settled in. If they had to put up with security and a safe house, he could at least know that his family was protected from Heinrich.

  Sam slept through a lot of the afternoon, and then woke to find Indie back at his side. “I tried, Sam,” she said. “The kids are having a good time with the grandmas, which now includes Kathy Winslow, by the way, and with Harry. Kenzie thinks we ought to adopt a couple of the security people, because they get down on the floor and play with her, and I almost felt like I wasn’t needed. For right now, my place is here with you, Sam.”

  Sam reached out and took her hand, then brought it to his lips and kissed it. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said. They spent the rest of the day together, and Indie finally went back to the house at just before seven, when Kenzie called and asked her to please, please, please come home.

  Morning came and the doctor showed up earlier than Sam expected. He walked in and took a look at the chart hanging on the bed, then spent half an hour looking closely at Sam’s wounds and stitches. He called in the nurse who was on duty for the day and conferred quietly with her in the corner, then turned around and looked at Sam.

  “Mr. Prichard,” he said, “I have been doing this job for nearly fifteen years, now, and I have never seen anyone heal as quickly as you are. You’re not completely back to normal, but I wouldn’t have expected to see this much healing in less than four or five days. Everything is drawing together nicely, and if you’re willing to be careful, I’d have to say it would be okay for you to be discharged today, if you like.”

  Sam stared at him. “If I like? How soon can we get me out of here? I’m dying to spend some time with my family.”

  “I can imagine,” Doctor Rashid said with a chuckle. “I met your daughter. She congratulated me on doing such a good job putting you back together. I think you’d better watch that one, she’s likely to turn out smarter and tougher than you.”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me,” Sam said.

  “Well, I'll get everything started. If you want to call your wife, she can probably pick you up in about an hour.” He turned without another word and walked out of the room.

  Sam reached over and picked up his phone and Indie answered on the first ring. “Don’t pay the ransom,” he said. “They’re letting me go. Think you can arrange a ride to come pick me up?”

  Indie squealed with delight. “We're going to be right there,” she said.

  She arrived forty minutes later, accompanied by Alisha and Miranda, two of the female security officers that were protecting the family. The doctor had gotten all the paperwork finished by then and the nurse had brought it in for Sam to sign. She had given him three prescriptions, a couple of antibiotics and another one for pain. Sam promised to get them filled as soon as he could and then an orderly brought a wheelchair to carry him down to the exit.

  The wheelchair was a good idea, Sam admitted. He’d been shot in the left leg, and it was still extremely sore. Between that and the pain in his right hip that was always with him, walking was not going to be something he could do easily for the next
few days. When they got to the hospital exit, the orderly had to help him get up out of the wheelchair and slide into the back seat of the SUV beside Indie.

  The ride to the current safe house took a little over half an hour, and Indie stayed close so that they were cuddled up together the whole time. When they got to the house, Jerry, another security guard, came out to help Sam up the walk. He helped them settle him onto the couch and produced a footstool to prop his legs up while Indie went to fix him what Sam called, “a cup of real coffee.”

  Kenzie had come running and jumped on the couch beside him and little Bo kicked until Grace was forced to put him down on the floor, then got onto his feet and raced at lightning speed toward his daddy. He was talking quite a bit lately, but Sam was still surprised to hear him saying, “Daddy home, daddy home,” all the way across the room. Sam couldn’t lean down to pick him up, so Kenzie jumped down, wrapped her arms around her baby brother and hoisted him up onto the couch. Sam ignored the pain when the little boy crawled onto his lap, sitting on his very sore leg.

  With Bo in his lap and Kenzie cuddled up beside him, Sam was a happy man. When Indie returned with the coffee and squeezed in on the other side, he announced himself absolutely ecstatic.

  “Good to have you back, Sam, boy,” Harry said. “Me and Bo need help, we’ve been the only roosters in the henhouse.”

  Jerry glared at him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You don’t count,” Harry said. “You’re on salary.”

  “Well, I’m back,” Sam said. “And from what the doctor tells me, I’m going to be sitting around home a lot the next couple weeks. It’s probably going to be that long before I feel like trying to get up and move, anyway.”

  “You can stay right on the couch,” Indie said. “If you need anything, I'll get it for you.”

  “Yeah? How’s that going to work when I need to go to the bathroom?”

  “Okay, there, you’re on your own. I don’t think we’ve ever figured out a way for me to do that for you.”

  Harry grinned at her. “Well, you could always…”

  “Shut it, Harry,” Kathy said. “Don’t you dare.”

  Everyone chuckled and Sam settled in to enjoy the day with his family. It was planned for them to fly back to Denver the following day, but Sam was worried about going home. Harry told him that Ron said they could continue to use the Boulder safe house for as long as they needed it, and Sam decreed that they would stay there for at least a couple more weeks.

  They stayed in the living room the entire day, watched several movies and spent time talking. Alisha made pizza for lunch and they ate where they sat, but then Indie insisted on cooking dinner. She had sent one of the girls to the grocery store earlier, so she could make lasagna. It was Sam’s favorite, and she wanted to make it for him to celebrate his release from the hospital.

  When eight o’clock came, she and her mother put the kids to bed, then Indie curled up beside Sam on the couch. They found another movie to watch and the rest of the adults decided to leave them alone. They sat there until the movie was over, then started another.

  It was after eleven o’clock when they were startled to see Kim, Indie’s mother, come shuffling into the room. Her eyes were barely open, and she looked like she was sleepwalking.

  “Mom?” Indie asked. “Are you okay?”

  “Samuel,” Kim said, her voice deeper than normal. “He’s coming.”

  The hairs on the back of Sam’s neck suddenly stood up. “Beauregard?”

  “Yes. He’s coming, Sam, he’s coming now.” Kim suddenly stumbled and shook her head, then blinked several times. “Indiana? What did I… Oh. Beauregard?”

  “Get her back in the bedroom,” Sam said. “Security! Security, get in here!”

  Alex and Betty were on night duty and came running. “I don’t have time to explain, but Heinrich is on the way here. I don’t know how he found us, but he has. Get me a gun, and wake the rest of them.”

  “No need,” Jerry said, rushing into the room. He was wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else, but he had a pair of shoulder holsters strapped over his bare chest.

  Indie came back from taking her mother back to her room and handed Sam a pistol. It was the Glock that he normally carried, and he quickly checked the magazine and racked one into the chamber.

  Ignoring the pain in his legs, Sam got to his feet. Indie passed him his cane and he used it to get to the front door, then looked out through the small windows on it. “Two of you at the back door,” he ordered. “Jerry, you stay here with me. The rest of you watch the windows, keep moving. Protect Indie and the children first, got that?”

  “They got it, Sam,” Harry said. He had stepped into the living room wearing pajamas, but the Colt Python in his hand was enough to say that he meant business. “Where’d the tip come from?”

  “Beauregard,” Sam said scornfully. “That’s why I can’t refuse to believe it.”

  “Sometimes I love that old spook,” Harry said. “But this ain’t one of ’em.” He moved over to stand beside a window, then pulled the curtain aside just enough to peek out. “I don’t see any activity out front. I’m going to the back.”

  He started across the room, but the big picture window suddenly exploded. A bullet struck the wall, and it must’ve passed directly behind where Harry was at the moment. The old man dropped to the floor and scurried back to the window. He looked up at the hole in the glass, then at the one in the wall, mentally calculated the trajectory and then popped up and fired three rounds in rapid succession.

  He had just dropped to the floor again when another shot came through the window. At the same time, Sam heard a gunshot toward the back of the house and he turned and started hobbling that direction. “Cover Harry,” he shouted.

  Jerry stepped back from the door and aimed through one of the small windows, then squeezed off a shot. Outside, a man screamed as his bullet found its way home.

  At the back door, Alisha was crouching down and there was a pair of bullet holes just over her head. The back door had a larger window, but it was still intact. Sam raised his head enough to look outside, spotted a muzzle flash as the shooter popped off a shot at the window to his right, then squeezed off a double tap. The shooter fell and Sam dropped low again.

  “Any idea how many are out there?” he asked Alisha, but she shook her head.

  “Only saw one, so far,” she said. “There’s at least one more, though, because he was signaling somebody off to the right, my right.”

  “To the right? That’s where the kids are,” Sam said, and he took off hobbling at his best speed down the hall. He had almost reached the room where the children were sleeping when he heard Kenzie scream and he hit the door with his shoulder, not even bothering with the knob.

  Heinrich Wegner and another man were in the room, both of them with guns pointed at the children. Sam froze and lowered his weapon.

  “Heinrich,” he said, “don’t do this. Heinrich, they’re just kids, for God’s sake.”

  “Yes, Sam Prichard,” Heinrich said, his voice a snarl, “they’re your kids! And Mitchell was my sister’s little boy! What better vengeance could there be?”

  He looked down at Kenzie, who was staring straight at his face. She had only screamed once, but now the only expression on her face was pure rage. “You shot my daddy!” she shouted. “You’re a bad man!”

  Heinrich blinked and stared at her for just a second, but it was all the time Sam needed. He raised his weapon again and squeezed the trigger twice, so quickly that it almost sounded like one long, single shot.

  The man with Heinrich dropped instantly to the floor. Heinrich spun to look at Sam, started to turn his gun toward him and then stopped. He opened his mouth to say something, but then his face registered surprise.

  The gun was suddenly too heavy to hold, and he looked down at himself. A spreading bloodstain on his chest was just off-center, slightly to the left of his sternum, and he actually poked a finger into the hole. He pulled it
out and looked at the blood on its tip as the gun fell from his hand.

  He looked at Sam and held that bloody finger up high. “So be it,” he said softly, and then coughed. He stood for another couple of seconds and then collapsed, falling onto Kenzie’s bed.

  There were a few more gunshots from other parts of the house, but Indie came rushing into the room and snatched up her daughter. Sam used his left arm, the stronger one, to pick up Bo, and then followed her back into the hallway.

  Police sirens cut through the air and the shooters outside suddenly disappeared. When the police arrived a few minutes later, they found four bodies outside, including one man who was still alive and likely to recover. He was rushed to the hospital under police guard while the medical examiner was called out to deal with the ones who were dead.

  “Can you identify any of these people?” the senior officer asked.

  Sam took him into Kenzie’s room and pointed at Heinrich. “That is Heinrich Wegner, a known terrorist. He was trying to kill my children.”

  The officer looked at the two bodies, then up at Sam. “You killed them?”

  “Yes.”

  The officer looked at them again, then nodded to Sam. “A good night’s work, then,” he said.

  The sun was up by the time everything was finished, the bodies hauled away and all the paperwork done. Bo had managed to go back to sleep, but Kenzie was clinging to her mother.

  Sam looked at his little girl. “Kenzie?” he asked. “Are you okay? That was something I hoped you’d never have to see.”

  She looked up at him for a moment in silence, then slowly nodded her head. “I’m okay,” she said. “And Bo is okay. We’re all okay, Daddy, because you saved us.”

  Sam looked at her for a long moment, then nodded slowly. He turned and looked at his wife for a moment, then reached into his pocket and took out his phone.

  Indie watched him carefully, but said nothing. Sam tapped an icon in his contacts list and put the phone to his ear.

  “Ron?” he said a moment later. “It’s Sam. I’m calling to tell you that I quit.”