Chaser

by J. A. Konrath

And then I heard something bark.

  But it wasn’t a dog bark. It sounded like—

  “Mommy! Big Dick is scared!”

  Harry said that capybaras were highly tuned to danger. If they didn’t like a person, they let you know.

  “Panic room,” I ordered. “Everyone. Now.”

  Consuela gathered up the children and Big Dick, and I reached for Waddlebutt.

  The penguin pecked me in the neck.

  “Fine, buddy. You’re on your own.”

  I followed the rest of the group over to the steel door of Harry’s armory, waiting for Consuela to punch the code into the numeric pad.

  “Go ahead. Get us inside.”

  Consuela furrowed her brow and began to touch numbers. “It’s 5-3-1-8…”

  She paused.

  “Mommy, Big Dick is really scared.”

  “What’s the number, Consuela?”

  “I’m thinking, Miss Jack. Mister McGlade doesn’t like me cleaning in here. It’s 5-3-1-8-0… um… I know it is eight numbers. 5-3-1-8-0 and then…”

  Oh, shit.

  This was bad.

  This was very, very bad.

  I closed my eyes, tried to remember the first time I was in the armory. An exchange Phin and Harry had.

  “That’s as obvious as it gets, Harry.”

  “You bet your boobies, Phin. While standing on your head.”

  Phin found it obvious. What’s obvious about 53180?

  Bet your boobies. Standing on your head.

  Boobies.

  On your head. Upside-down.

  Shit, it’s an old trick that boys used to do with their school calculators. Punch in 5318008 and turn the calculated upside-down, it spelled BOOBIES.

  Thanks for being predictable, McGlade.

  I punched it in on the keypad and the metal door swung open, then I herded everyone inside.

  I immediately locked the door behind us. “Vests,” I told Consuela.

  She put on Harry Jr.’s, and I helped Sam get into hers.

  “Is someone bad here?” Sam asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Good question.

  Tom would be trying to get in touch with me again. When he couldn’t, he might come over himself to check. But the hospital was twenty minutes away. And the Cowboy could be waiting for people to show up. Planning on it.

  My breath caught.

  Phin would be here any minute. He could be walking right into an ambush.

  And even if no one showed up, Heckle and Jeckle disabled Harry’s security system. They’d probably be able to hack into the panic room.

  Or burn down the house, with us in it.

  I strapped on a hip holster for my Smith & Wesson and began cinching a Kevlar vest around my chest, trying to consider what would happen next.

  I knew the Cowboy. She wanted to face me. To beat me at quickdraw. Prove she was better.

  And she was better. I was fast. I was accurate. I had more fingers.

  But she was one of the best in the world. If not the best.

  There was no way I could beat her in a fair fight.

  I’d have to choose my weapon wisely. Something to give me the best possible advantage. So many to choose from.

  “Mommy, please don’t leave.”

  I pulled a gun strap over my neck and knelt down to Sam’s level.

  “You know how we’ve been using pretend names for a while?”

  She nodded, tears in her eyes.

  “We’ve been trying to hide from some bad people. But sometimes the bad people still find you. Then you have to stop hiding. You have to face the problem. You have to fight.”

  “You’re going to fight the bad people, Mommy?”

  I pushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Yes, pumpkin.”

  “What if the bad people beat you? What if they kill you?”

  “They can’t do that, Samantha.”

  “Why?”

  I kissed her forehead. “Because Mommy is going to kill them first.”

  I stood up, and saw Consuela holding a shotgun. “Shoot anything that comes in that isn’t me.”

  She nodded.

  I readied my weapon, Consuela got behind me to cover me, and I opened the panic room door and quickly stepped out into the hallway.

  The house was silent.

  Consuela shut the metal door, and I walked toward the kitchen, wishing my exosuit motors were quieter.

  She would be able to hear me. Sneaking up wouldn’t be an option.

  I paced down the hallway, standing behind Harry’s indoor water fountain.

  “I know you’re here,” I said, my voice echoing off the walls. “I’m in the hall.”

  I hoped I was wrong about all of this. I hoped it was all some stupid coincidence, and no one was in the house, and there wouldn’t be any climactic showdown with the most dangerous person I’d ever faced.

  “It’s been a long time, Jack. You’ve been a hard woman to find.”

  Ah… hell.

  This was really happening.

  “How did you find me? Cissick?”

  “That old, crippled guy? No. I found you through your husband. Phin.”

  The sick feeling in my stomach congealed into rock. “You’re lying. Phin wouldn’t have told you anything.”

  “He didn’t. I tracked you using his cell phone. Which I took from him… after I killed him.”

  She was lying.

  She had to be lying.

  Trying to psych me out.

  “How do you want to do this? Quickdraw, same as last time? Or maybe something different?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “How about ten paces, turn, and fire?”

  I heard her laugh. It was an ugly thing.

  “I’d love to try that with you, Jack. But I have concerns you’d cheat.”

  “Cheat?” I came up to Harry’s concrete indoor fountain and carefully unclipped the weapon strap, setting it in the water. “Why do you think I’d cheat?”

  “Because you’re angry I shot your husband. It was at the airport, Jack. Five times in the chest. Haven’t you been watching the news?”

  “Been busy.” Please don’t let that be true. “We going to do this, or not?”

  I heard the sound of glass breaking. In the other room.

  I stopped. Drew my S&W, aiming it ahead.

  Waiting to get the head shot. This time I was taking the head shot.

  But the Cowboy didn’t peek her head around the marble corner post. Instead, she stuck a broken piece of mirror out, only a few centimeters, showing me a reflection of her eye.

  “See? You’re cheating.”

  I slowly holstered my weapon.

  “Good girl. Maybe we can do this after all. Take five steps toward me.”

  I moved slowly, hand hovering half in inch above my revolver. If she made any fast moves, I’d fall sideways and empty my cylinder into her face. But I had a feeling she really wanted this showdown to happen, without any cheating.

  I clenched my free hand. If this bitch hurt Phin…

  She appeared behind the marble, moving slow and easy and calm.

  Like she’d stepped directly out of my nightmares.

  Black clothes. Black vest. Black gloves. Yellow shooting glasses.

  She’d come ready to fight.

  But so had I.

  “What’s with the legs?”

  “Spine injury.”

  “Did I have something to do with that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t worry. You won’t be crippled much longer. Come forward, meet me in the middle of this hall.”

  I did, every step an exercise in intense concentration. Waiting for her to make a move, knowing she was waiting for me to make a move, my adrenaline spiking so hard my shooting hand shook.

  It took forever, it happened too fast, but there I was, facing her, eye to eye.

  She seemed happy.

  “Your daughter is in the hou
se,” she said.

  I began to draw on her, right there, but quick as a snake her gun was already under my chin before I could even clear leather on my holster.

  There was no way in hell I could beat this woman.

  “Easy, Jack. If you play fair, I won’t hurt her. I promise. Besides, it would be fun, knowing that some day she’d grow up and come looking for me, trying to take revenge. Like an old cowboy movie. I’d like that. So if you want her to live long enough to try and avenge her mommy’s death, no cheating. Or else I’ll kill her while you watch. Do we understand each other?”

  I managed to nod, feeling my bladder shrink to the size of a grape.

  “Take your hand off the butt of your weapon, and turn around. Ten steps, then turn, draw, and fire. I’ll be watching you in this piece of mirror. You ready?”

  I couldn’t speak. Throat had dried up. I nodded.

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  I let my hands fall to my side and slowly turned away from the Cowboy. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw she had also turned.

  She grinned at me in the broken mirror she held in front of her.

  “We do this on ten. I’ll count out the steps. One…”

  I took a step forward.

  “Two.”

  Step.

  She didn’t kill Phin.

  “Three.”

  Step.

  Did she?

  “Four.”

  Step.

  Can I trust that she won’t go after Sam?

  “Five.”

  Step.

  In my head, I’ve already lost this.

  “Six.”

  Step.

  I’ve got to focus. Concentrate.

  “Seven.”

  Step.

  I can’t beat her.

  “Eight.”

  Step.

  I can’t beat her I can’t beat her I can’t beat her…

  “Nine.”

  Step.

  I stared at the fountain, only three steps ahead of me.

  She will go for the head shot.

  Time to see if this exosuit really can jump.

  “Ten!”

  I didn’t turn and fire.

  I leapt, getting two feet off the floor as bullets pummeled the back of my vest, overshooting my mark and hitting the top of the fountain, smack into the statue of the urinating man, flopping into the water as bullets continued to punch into my vest, reaching for the weapon I’d planted there, bringing it up and firing her way without even bothering to aim.

  But you really didn’t have to be accurate with a grenade launcher.

  Just as I fired, the Cowboy’s last bullet whizzed by my head, clipping the top of my earlobe.

  Then, as she began diving to the side, the grenade exploded right next to her.

  The blast might not have killed the monster.

  But the ton of collapsing marble surely did.

  The explosion rained chunks of stone on her, one large piece smashing her head like a melon.

  I tried climbing out of the fountain, but the exosuit had seized up in the water. I spent thirty awkward seconds trying to fight my way out of the straps, then crawled over the fountain’s edge, crawled toward the dead-as-fuck Cowboy, pushed rubble off her and tugged off her vest and patted her down and found it.

  Phin’s cell phone.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “No,” I said.

  “No!” I yelled

  “NO!” I screamed so hard my throat bled, feeling my entire world disintegrate as the sobs came so hard they threatened to break my back again.

  Three more gunshots, striking my back.

  I flopped forward, turned onto my side, and pulled my revolver, aiming where they’d come from.

  One of the twins. Heckle or Jeckle.

  I fired three times. Twice in the chest—hitting a bulletproof vest—once in the head.

  No vest there. The top of his skull came off like it was on a hinge.

  Another shot, from the opposite direction, tagging my forearm.

  My S&W went skittering across the floor, out of reach.

  I looked around for the Cowboy’s gun, found it, picked it up and fired as the other twin came at me.

  Empty chamber. The Cowboy had used all of her bullets.

  The Twin continued to walk over, his expression bewildered. “You killed Heckle.”

  The sobs shook me.

  “Where’s… where’s Phin?”

  “The Cowboy killed him.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed.

  For a moment, I wanted to die.

  But I could practically hear Phin’s voice in my head.

  “Don’t you dare give up, Jack. I married a fighter. Fight. Fight with everything you have.”

  I opened my eyes.

  Jeckle continued to approach.

  I kicked out my legs, hard as I could, managing to trip him.

  He went down, dropping his gun.

  We both went for it.

  I grabbed his waistband, but he got to the weapon first, bringing it around, aiming it at my face—

  BANG!

  The side of Jeckle’s head blew out like bloody fireworks.

  “I really hate coincidences.”

  “Fabler!”

  He hurried over, kicked the gun away from Jeckle, and knelt next to me.

  “You didn’t leave,” I sobbed, stating the obvious, overcome with so many emotions I was ready to burst.

  “I had a feeling there were still some of these assholes running around. I didn’t drive all the way from Kansas for just a cameo. You need a doctor.”

  “I need a phone,” I cried.

  “They had a van outside. Presley found a cell jammer.” Fabler took out his phone. “She killed it. I have a signal. I’m calling 911.”

  “Phin…” I said. “She killed Phin.”

  He called for help, and then I heard ringing and felt a vibration on my hip. My phone still worked. Number unknown.

  “Jack? It’s Fleming.”

  Chandler’s sister. The hacker.

  “She killed Phin.” I almost dropped the phone I was shaking so hard.

  “Phin’s not dead.”

  My breath caught.

  Time stopped.

  I waited for more.

  “The Cowboy shot him at O‘Hare. But Chandler made him take a GPS pill. She also washed his clothes in STF. Shear thickening fluid. It’s also known as liquid body armor. My own formula. He’s hurt bad, but still alive. They’ve got him at a hospital. But there’s a problem.”

  My mind reeled. Hearing he was alive was the happiest news I’d ever gotten, but what kind of problem? Paralyzed? Comatose? Brain dead?

  “Is he okay?”

  “He’ll live. But there are about twenty videos online of Phin slitting Hugo’s throat. That’s some murder in cold blood shit. Once the cops figure out who he is, they’re going to arrest him. If they haven’t already.”

  “So what do we do? Get a lawyer?”

  Fleming snorted. “You want to trust the legal system to work? Screw that.”

  “What’re my other options?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? We put a team together and go rescue your husband.”

  Seriously? “How big a team?”

  “How big is the Chicago Police Department? Get your ass to Chi-Town.”

  Fleming hung up.

  “My husband is alive,” I told Fabler. “But we have to move fast.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you were upgraded from cameo to costar.”

  “Cool. What’s the play?”

  “I’m going to talk to Consuela and tell her how to deal with this mess,” I said. “Then we’re going to Chicago and saving my man.”

  EPILOGUE

  HARRY

  When I opened my eyes, I saw Tangi and Harry Jr. in the room.

  For a bad moment, I thought I was still Plastic’s prisoner. But when I looked at my chest, the shit bag was gone, and instead I
was swathed in bandages.

  “Your friend Jack killed the bad guys and then Consuela lied to the police.”

  I blinked. “Harry Jr.? You can talk?”

  “Buttfucker,” he said.

  My heart swelled with pride. Which hurt, because; heart transplant.

  “Where’s Jack?” I asked Tangi.

  “She went to Chicago with those ridiculously expensive mercs you hired. She’s going to save her husband.”

  I began to sit up. Tangi stood, pushing me back down using one finger.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I gotta go to Chicago, help out my buds.”

  “You just had a heart transplant, you idiot. You can’t go anywhere.”

  “But… but… but… Jackie can’t have an adventure without me. It would be boring and humorless. Who’s going to supply all the bad puns? The inappropriate jokes? The toilet humor?”

  Tangi shrugged. “I guess they’ll make do without you.”

  “Make do? But it’s no fun without me! I’m the glue that holds this all together! I’m the one that everyone loves the most!”

  “Maybe you can call them every hour on the hour, offering your sage advice.”

  I considered it.

  Yeah. That would work.

  “Classic,” I said.

  A few seconds later, Tangi made a face and then began fanning the air in front of her. “Jesus, McGlade. Did you just shit your bed?”

  “Yes,” I told her. “Yes I sure did.”

  I was back, baby.

  Comic relief, here I come…

  To be continued in OLD FASHIONED

  PREVIEW OF

  OLD FASHIONED

  BY J.A. KONRATH

  JACK

  New house.

  New life.

  The front door was open, and Sam came in, gingerly carrying a box containing her new GameMaster 2.

  Thanks for the money, Harry McGlade.

  “Can we set this up now, Mommy?”

  “Later, pumpkin. We have a lot to unload from the moving truck.”

  “Is that nice old man going to help us?”

  “What nice old man?”

  “Standing on our lawn.”

  I patted her head and went out to check.

  Sure enough, standing on our lawn next to the realty sign that read SOLD was an unassuming elderly man. He stared at me blankly as I walked over.

  “Can I help you?”

  The man smiled, showing his perfect dentures. He stuck out a hand. “Larry Wintergarten. Looks like we’re going to be neighbors.”