by Connor Mccoy
A slight creak behind him tickled at his ears.
He turned—and was immediately faced with a tall man brandishing a gun at him.
“Drop it,” the man ordered.
Damn. Instead of getting the drop on whoever was stalking Domino, he was the one taken by surprise. He had no choice. He let his knife fall to the floor.
Chapter Fifteen
Jacob recognized the firearm. No doubt about it. This man was holding Domino’s gun. What did that mean? This man obviously stole it from Domino. Had he killed her?
He must be Diablo. He looks like he could be the devil himself.
He didn’t care if the man opened fire on him. He wanted to leap out and strangle this bastard with all of his strength. That Jacob managed to hold fast was a miracle.
“Hands up.” Diablo stepped a little closer. “I overheard you coming. I try looking for workers and one just happens to come my way. So, what’s your story? You’re the Papa Bear, right? You’re that woman’s man.”
Jacob decided to put on a timid act. He had to convince this brute that he was not a threat. If Jacob was to die, he would at least know what had happened to his wife. And if she still was alive, he vowed to take this man out, even if he died in the process.
“Yeh—yes, sir,” Jacob said.
“I can’t hear you!” Diablo roared.
“Yes, sir!” Jacob cried out. His fear of Domino’s fate helped sell his emotional delivery.
“I thought so. Now, are there any more of you around? Don’t lie!”
Jacob trembled. If Diablo had interrogated Domino, then he might know about his children. If Jacob said no and Diablo knew otherwise, then the madman might decide to blow Jacob’s brains out on the spot. But on the other hand, he couldn’t alert this man to the presence of Brandon and Jubilee.
“Hey! You listening to me?” demanded Diablo.
“I don’t know!” Jacob repeated it several times. It wasn’t hard for him to say, as he truly didn’t know what to tell the man.
“I do have children, but I don’t know where they are! They could be miles from here by now!” That would have to do. Acknowledge the truth, but push enough doubt in Diablo’s mind that he wouldn’t care to look for them.
“So, you do have kids.” Diablo’s voice actually softened a little. “I figured from looking at that woman that you’d have banged out a couple. She don’t look too bad.”
I must have him fooled. I need to ask him. I’ve got to.
“My--my wife. Do--do you know where she is?” Jacob asked.
“Yeah, yeah I do.”
Jacob clenched his fists tightly against his chin. “Could you please tell me?”
“I’ll show you.” Diablo leaned in close, his hot breath brushing against Jacob’s face. “But if you go, you’re becoming my slave for tonight. You got that?”
Jacob didn’t like the sound of that, but he was making progress. He was sure his time would come. “Okay. I’ll go with you.”
Diablo led Jacob to the bunker entrance. Relief and fear both mixed inside Jacob. He figured Domino had made it here, but the fact that Diablo had cornered his wife down there troubled him. He wondered if Diablo had found the armory that Doc Sam had been maintaining there.
But then he wouldn’t be using Domino’s gun. He’d have something else, something bigger, or he’d be carrying multiple firearms.
“You go first.” Diablo stood back after opening the bunker door, his weapon aimed at Jacob. “You so much as scratch your ass as you’re walking and I fill it full of holes.”
Jacob nodded. “Okay, okay. I’m going.” He started down the steps, keeping his arms out where Diablo could see his hands.
He reached the bottom of the stairwell, stopping at the closed door that led into the bunker. “Hold it.” Diablo opened the door, then stepped back. “Go.”
Jacob wanted to rush through the door. He barely kept himself from a brisk walk inside, but Diablo appeared not to mind. When he did see his wife handcuffed to a bed, however, he damned all restraint and ran to her.
“Domino!” Now he certainly was not acting as he wept. He kneeled down beside her.
Domino was no less restrained. “Jacob! My God! Oh, I feared the worst!”
Jacob embraced his wife tightly as she rested her cheek against his. Domino whispered in Jacob’s ear. “The kids?”
“They’re okay,” Jacob whispered back.
“Alright you two, break it up.” Diablo crossed into the center of the room. “I thought I heard you two whispering. I don’t like that. You talk, you talk openly.”
Jacob quaked as he pulled away from his wife. He wasn’t sure how much he was acting any longer. He had reunited with his beloved, but now what was he to do?
Nguyen’s blood ran cold. He couldn’t deny what he saw through the eyepiece as he looked through the window and into the garage. Jacob had been captured!
“Doctor!” Brandon cried out, “What’s wrong?”
Jubilee trembled. “Daddy?”
Doctor Nguyen knew he could not lie to these children. “I’m afraid Diablo has taken him prisoner.”
“Then we have to save him!” Brandon, clenching his fists, fled from the kitchen, racing through the hallway toward the front door. Jubilee followed his lead.
Doctor Nguyen ran after them. “No!” These were brave, loyal children, but the garage was no place for them. “You two only will put your parents in even worse peril. Diablo will not hesitate to kill you. You have to stay away from him.”
“But we can’t leave them!” Jubilee stormed up to Nguyen. “He’ll kill them anyway!”
“We need a plan!” Brandon pumped his right fist over and over. “We can outthink that guy! We’re smart!”
“What we need are guns!” Jubilee looked around the house. “But we don’t have any!”
“No, we do have guns, we just don’t have bullets,” Brandon replied.
Jubilee’s face turned red. “You know what I mean!”
Nguyen thought of the gun on his belt. Without ammunition, it might as well squirt water for all the good it did. He was sure Sam had weapons stashed around this house, but with his passing, Nguyen had no way to ask his friend where they were.
“Well, maybe we can jury-rig a weapon,” Brandon said, “You know, kind of like the A-Team or MacGyver.”
Nguyen chuckled. “Rather old television for someone your age.”
“Mom said they were ‘acceptable’ shows.” Brandon chuckled. “They didn’t have bad words in them.”
“Okay, forget about TV shows! We need to think of something, fast!” Jubilee was pacing around in a furious circle by the door.
Talking about old TV shows might have seemed inappropriate in their current plight, but it did start Nguyen’s wheels churning. Yes, he could outwit that brute. He was sure of it. He had seen his lot back in Middleburg when his brother had begun gathering fighting men to become resource runners and a select few to act as reapers. Many of them weren’t especially bright. They were desperate men who feared where their next meal would come from.
Nguyen sympathized with them, to a point. He understood their desperation. Sadly, he and his brother had exploited that desperation for their own ends. In a sense, Nguyen had had a hand in helping create the system that launched the Lutz cousins and Diablo out into these communities to commit their evil deeds.
I wonder if Diablo would recognize me if I walked up to him? Diablo’s face was familiar, but only vaguely. Diablo easily could have been part of a crowd that Nguyen had witnessed in those first hours in Middleburg after the lights had gone out. What would Diablo say or do if he thought the brother of Middleburg’s potentate was right there in front of him?
Nguyen snapped his fingers. “That’s it,” he said quietly.
The Avery children turned their full attention to him. “What’s it?” Brandon asked.
Nguyen rubbed his fingers together. “A plan.” He stepped into the room’s deepest shadow. “I think we are smarter
than him, young Brandon and Jubilee. Very much.”
Jacob eyed the central supply closet. The wall beside it concealed a panel that, when opened, led to the armory. As he watched Diablo pace back and forth by the open central supply closet, Jacob tried to hammer out a plan. If he just could get his hands on a gun and get a clear shot at Diablo, he could end this horror in a few seconds.
But too many steps were involved. He never could get the armory door open, get a gun, aim and shoot before Diablo turned his own gun on him and Domino. He’d have to be Superman to pull off that feat.
So, he had to buy more time. Getting Diablo to talk seemed like the best move. Diablo was glancing at the supply closet as if formulating a plan. Cutting into his concentration might delay things a little.
“What do you want us to do?” Jacob asked, taking care to sound meek.
Diablo turned to him as if he was annoyed that he had asked anything. Perhaps Jacob had cut into the man’s concentration after all. “You’re going to help unload this beauty. I got people who are looking for supplies and I can’t go home empty-handed.”
“Me and my wife, you mean?” Jacob nodded to Domino.
“She’s too banged up. Besides, she makes for a nice insurance policy in case you ever decide to do something stupid,” Diablo replied. “Of course, if your kids ever show up, I might just trade them out for her. I think you two would behave if your little boy or girl was locked up in here.”
The thought of Brandon or Jubilee in this man’s clutches almost set him off. How Jacob managed to keep still and maintain his act only could be attributed to providence.
Diablo scratched the underside of his chin. “Of course, your lady might be valuable, too. I wonder if some folks back home would be interested in paying a nice sum for her.”
Jacob could not hold back his outrage. “You would sell her?”
“Calm down. I don’t think it’d be worth the trouble of hauling her to Middleburg anyway. But if you two should live past tomorrow, you might want to dig the biggest hole you can and hide from the world, because it ain’t going to be pretty for anyone, especially the women.”
He leaned down, pointing the barrel of the gun closer to Jacob’s head. “Of course, I don’t go for that shit anyway. I’d sooner plug a woman than violate her. So, I suggest you make sure it doesn’t suit me to put a bullet in your woman’s head. Now, start unloading the goods.”
Jacob sprang from the floor and hurried to the supply closet. He looked for supplies that might take a while to unload. He didn’t want to start off quickly. Not only did he want to buy time, but he wanted to conserve his strength. He didn’t want to work himself ragged clearing out the bunker and not have anything left to fight this guy with.
He found a shelf of freeze-dried food. All of them were in little bags, which were held in a container that Jacob easily could lift. However, he decided to start transporting the bags individually. He still was exhausted from the day’s ordeals, so it wasn’t as if he was completely deceptive in his actions. He probably was capable of lifting and carrying only small items for the moment.
He began forming a small pile on the floor between the supply closet and the armory. It provided him with the proper excuse to stay close to the armory door in case he did want to try something.
“I, uh, I wanted to ask you something,” Domino said.
Jacob turned his head, thinking his wife was addressing him, but she was looking straight at Diablo. “Your name? I guess that’s a nickname, right? Where did it come from? Did your friends call you that?”
Diablo turned his back to Jacob. “Well, I wouldn’t call them friends. One fella, his name was Jake. I called him Jaker the Quaker. He was a co-worker, a guy who drove trucks. Always talked big but hid behind me when shit got real.”
Diablo took a step closer to Domino as he spoke. She did it. She got his mind engaged. Now Jacob had his chance. Slowly, he reached for the secret panel in the wall. The door separation was concealed by a flap that blended in with the wall. Jacob just had to lift the flap up carefully to reveal it. From there, he could open up the armory panel.
Diablo continued. “Jaker would get himself in real shit. One day a guy came after him in a bar. I slammed his ass good into a table. He threw the first punch, then turned around and sued me after I put him in the hospital for a few days.” Diablo curled the fingers of his right hand into a fist. “When the lights went out, first thing I did was hunt down that man and put a bullet in his head. Then I took out Jaker for good measure.”
Domino shook her head. “I see.” Meanwhile, Jacob had opened up the panel. With a push of his hand, he could separate the panel from the armory inside.
“Jaker called me Diablo. He thought I could take care of any problem that came his way. Of course, the little shit caused all of them with his big mouth. Now I don’t have to deal with any of that anymore. It’s like the world just decided to do me a big favor and get rid of all my problems for me.”
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Jacob spotted Diablo turning around. Jacob quickly turned back to his pile, pushing the panel back down and then slipping his hand away.
“What are you up to?” Diablo asked.
Jacob turned his head. “What do you mean?”
Diablo marched up to him. “You were pulling away your hand rather quick.” He glanced at the wall by the storage closet door. “What were you reaching for? I don’t see anything.”
“I-I was bracing myself. I almost slipped and fell,” Jacob said.
Diablo leaned a little closer to the wall. “Something’s funny here.” He felt along the surface. His finger then grazed the area where Jacob had separated the panel.
Jacob gasped. The tip of Diablo’s finger caught under the panel. Jacob had not been able to close it back up all the way.
“So what’s this?” Diablo slipped his fingers underneath the panel.
Damn! He’s going to find the armory! Jacob felt his only hope might be to take Diablo by surprise before he could discover the armory.
But before Jacob could act, a shout rang out that held him firm.
“Hold it!”
Diablo turned his head. “Who the hell said that?” He was so agitated that he stormed clear away from the wall and toward the open stairwell door where the voice had come from.
Doctor Nguyen stood in the stairwell, his gun trained on Diablo. “I did, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut up and listen to me. I’m Hien Nguyen, the brother of Middleburg’s potentate, Trang Nguyen. I think you’ve heard of me.”
Chapter Sixteen
Jacob could not believe it. Doctor, what are you doing? This monster’s going to kill you!
Both men had guns drawn on each other, but unless Nguyen was able to reload his gun with ammo from Doc Sam’s house before he had come down here, he was spent. The doctor was gambling with his life, big time.
But if the doctor was holding an inferior hand, Diablo did not act as if he believed it. “You’re the boss man’s brother?” It sounded only half like a question.
“You’ve seen me before,” Nguyen said.
“Yeah, well, you guys all look alike to me,” Diablo replied.
“What a pleasant sentiment.” Nguyen descended one step. “If you know who I am, then you know it wouldn’t be a wise move to cross me. Did you think you came to Trapp all alone, that my brother didn’t keep tabs on you, like he tracks everyone from Middleburg? You know that even reapers may have their own reapers to watch over them.”
Diablo’s head vibrated. Doctor Nguyen was leaving a mark. Even this guy, tough as he was, knew the game Trang Nguyen was playing, that it was better to take any apparent threat from that town seriously.
“So you’re my reaper?” Diablo asked.
“I was. I could be. But plans have changed. I need you.” Nguyen nodded to the stairs behind him. “The doctor’s house has a lot of medical supplies that my brother wants.”
“I know that. I was planning to raid it mysel
f once I finished with these two,” Diablo said.
“You’re wasting time!” Nguyen said with a flash of anger. “This town is well organized. If they sense bandits are in their midst, they will descend upon us in great numbers. We have men outside, but not enough to tame this community if they rise up. Just leave these two and hurry upstairs. We need to make our escape under the cover of darkness while we still have it. The medical supplies are far more important. My brother wants them.”
“You said there are other men out there?” Diablo asked.
“Oh yes. They will assist us, but if you decide to take any liberties with your position, they won’t hesitate to reap you. My brother values strong hands, but he also wants those hands to be under his control.” Nguyen ascended a step. “So, leave those two and let’s get to work. They won’t be any trouble.”
Diablo did not move. Jacob’s mind raced with options. Should he try rushing Diablo while his attention was fixed on Doctor Nguyen? He continued to doubt his current physical condition. It was too risky.
But if he was to shoot Doctor Nguyen, that might give me an opening to hit this guy from behind…
He cringed. To even think such a morbid thought disgusted him. Yet, he had to be ready to act at a moment’s notice. He might only be able to save one life today .He vowed that if it came down to that, the life would be his wife’s.
“Hurry!” Nguyen barked. “We have lost precious time as it is, and the men above will not wait forever.”
Diablo let out a sigh. “Go.” He marched up to the steps. Nguyen backed up the steps, slipping once, but quickly regaining composure.
I don’t believe it. Doctor Nguyen actually is leading him out of here.
Each step the men took felt like an eternity. Was there a chance Diablo would murder the doctor and then turn back to him and Domino?
The two men were now in the stairwell, out of sight except for their shadows. Jacob waited for what he believed was the inevitable gunshot. He turned more fully to Domino. Her fingers were curled up. She wanted to do something.