Walking to the end of the bed, she took up the plastic chart hanging from the side of it. Checking over the top page, she saw that the man was still listed as John Doe, had been dropped off on the front steps earlier in the day.
Skipping past it, she went on to the second page, a quick rundown of initial findings upon his arrival. Preciously thin on details, it looked like they had been jotted in a hurry, the guy rushed straight into surgery.
But it had everything she needed.
Returning the chart to the side of the bed, Lipski walked back up to her original position. Still barely awake, the young man tracked her movements, his gaze a far cry from lucid as he watched her go.
A state that would not do for what she needed.
Meaning she was going to have to help him along.
“Can you tell me your name?”
There was no response, the young man simply continuing to stare at her.
Reaching out, she rested a hand on his right chest plate, exactly where the chart had noted his wound. Feeling the thick wad of gauze and tape beneath her palm, she applied the slightest bit of pressure.
As she did, the sounds of the heart rate monitor increased, the beeping almost doubling in rate beside her.
“Let’s try this again,” she said. “Can you tell me your name?”
Chapter Seventy-Six
“You ready?”
Radney Creel didn’t need to see the person asking the question to know who it was, the voice one that he had heard far too many times in the preceding week.
With each progressive thing that had come from it, his animosity for the owner, and the situation as a whole, had grown in direct correlation.
Now, sitting in the semi-darkness of the Baxter warehouse, the production line shut down and the employees sent home for the evening, he made no effort to hide the scowl on his face, letting the vitriol he felt for the entire affair spread plain across his features.
Ditto for the plume of cigar smoke drifting over, burning his nostrils.
He was better than this. Baxter knew it. Had known it when he saddled him with Elijah Pyle, when he insisted on sending over the young men in the gaudy yellow truck.
Tim Scarberry was just one man, somebody that had spent some time in the military before going state’s witness, tucking his tail between his legs and running off to hide.
Creel didn’t need help to take down anybody.
Especially someone like him.
“Are you?” he replied.
A slight chuckle was the only response as Pyle emerged from the shadows. Walking in a gait that could best be described as a saunter, he stepped into the stray light of the security post outside filtering in through the open door, reflecting off the moisture coating his skin.
Pulling up a few feet away, he leaned his body against the frame of a ’71 Gran Torino, the piece nothing more than a prop for the cover story the place was operating under.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he held no weapon for one of the few times since Creel had known him, despite knowing they were never beyond arm’s reach.
“I know our time together has been rather short,” Pyle replied, “but have you ever known me not to be?”
For a moment, Creel wanted to respond. He wanted to unleash the venom on his tongue, lash at Pyle about how thus far all he’d seen was the guy take a sadistic amount of pleasure in torturing an old man and shooting two unarmed kids.
Just as fast, he let it pass.
It wasn’t like there was anything good that could come from it.
“You think it’ll even matter?” Creel replied instead.
Raising his eyebrows slightly, Pyle shifted his gaze over a shoulder, looking to the second-floor office peering out over the operation, the light on, the silhouette of Vic Baxter still inside.
“Boss seems pretty convinced.”
A second batch of retorts sprang instantly to mind for Creel, each with even more concentrated wrath than what he’d wanted to hurl at Pyle.
“Yeah, well, boss has been convinced of a lot of things lately. Doesn’t mean they were all right.”
Twisting back, Pyle made no attempt to hide the smile creasing one corner of his mouth, his head rocking slightly.
“Yeah, no argument here on that one.”
Whether the comment was a shot aimed directly at him or not, Creel couldn’t be certain.
“What’s your plan for after this?” Creel asked, not in the least bit caring, but wanting to push the conversation into safer territory before they ended up shooting at each other.
Pausing, waiting just long enough to let it be known that the sentiment was noticed and matched, Pyle said, “Go back to doing what I do.”
What or where that was, Creel didn’t feign to know. Didn’t care enough to follow up on.
It wasn’t like that was the point in his original question anyway.
“You?” Pyle asked.
To that, Creel cast him a sideways glance, acting as if pondering the question.
In the wake of all this, he would have a great many things to consider, none more pressing than the status of his employment with Baxter, his place in the life in general.
Years before, he had fallen into it, his skillset and his need for employment making it a good fit.
Now, with his bank accounts full and his soul drained, it seemed like a decent enough time to consider a change of course.
Especially given the deterioration of things with Baxter.
“Go back to doing what I do,” he echoed.
Nodding as if accepting the answer, or merely not wanting to push it any further, Pyle shifted his attention outside, both men standing and staring into the semi-darkness, waiting for an enemy they weren’t entirely sure was going to show.
“This goes down - if it goes down - I got dibs on Scarberry,” Pyle said.
Not giving a damn what the man thought he had dibs on, Creel didn’t bother to respond, keeping his features glacial as he maintained his stare, eyes focused on nothing.
A pose he kept even after Pyle pushed himself away from the Gran Torino, retreating back into the darkness.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
The hinges on the trunk of the Charger rose without a sound. As they did so, an automatic light tucked up high in the back corner sprang to life, illuminating everything within in a filmy yellow glow.
An abundance that was not insubstantial, as evidenced by the audible gasp of Lou beside me.
“Damn,” she managed. “It’s like an episode of Supernatural back here.”
With one hand resting atop the trunk lid, I shifted to look at her, my expression blank.
“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what that means.”
“Supernatural,” she repeated, staring down at the assorted weaponry before looking up to me, “it’s this show about two brothers who drive all over the country, fighting off evil spirits and things.”
Based on the look I was giving her, she must have registered that her explanation was doing little to help her cause.
“Anyway, they have a massive collection of stuff in their trunk like this,” she managed, turning to look back down, her frustration growing. “Where the hell did you get all this anyway?”
Reaching down, she snapped up a snub nose grenade launcher, the circular assembly already loaded with shells, everything but the stock removed for easy firing.
“Uncle Jep,” I replied, releasing my grip on the lid and going down beside her, rummaging for my own battle gear of choice. “A great man, but it could be argued he was a bit of a doomsday prepper.”
“Uh, yeah,” Lou said. “A bit. And it looks like he was preparing for the zombie apocalypse as well.”
Parked just off the edge of a small country two-lane, the sole light beyond the reach of the one under the trunk was from the moon and the occasional firefly floating like dust motes through the air.
Around us, the forest pressed in tight from every angle, crickets just beginning their evening se
renade.
And just as it had been since the moment I’d gotten to Tennessee, the heat was overbearing, somehow seeming a bit higher now that we were in Georgia.
Grasping a pair of Heckler & Koch’s from the bottom of the collection, Lou held them up to the light, rotating them slightly, checking over the frame of each.
“Nice,” she muttered.
Grunting in agreement, I continued rooting around until I found what I was looking for, a Bizon submachine gun. Pulling it out, I ejected the helical magazine, hefting it in my hand to ensure it was full, before reinserting it, the metal ramming home with a satisfying click.
Beyond the initial comments about the bounty stowed in the trunk – obvious attempts at levity in the face of peril – we both worked in relative silence, selecting what we wanted, steeling ourselves for what lay ahead.
What exactly we would find up there was anybody’s guess. A quick trip through Google Earth had given us a rudimentary schematic of Baxter’s compound, but beyond that, we could be walking into anything.
And likely were, especially given that at least two men had driven away that afternoon, giving him plenty of time to regroup.
Not that it especially mattered to either one of us at this point. Each had been personally offended, attacked, prodded into action.
No chance we were going to sit back any longer.
Come what may.
The plan, as it were, was preciously thin, decided on after more than two hours of back and forth between us.
Even at that, no small amount of trepidation existed, the air between us so taut it threatened to burst, like a helium balloon pushed beyond maximum capacity.
“You good?” I asked, setting the submachine gun aside and grabbing two more clips for the Beretta, my knife still stowed in the rear of my pants.
“Good,” Lou replied, holding her hand up to catch a bit of moonlight, the glow glinting off the set of brass knuckles she was wearing. Staring at them for a moment, she jerked her attention up to me, and said, “When we get up there, just remember what we talked about?”
“What’s that?”
“No cowboy shit, no hero complex,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”
Without even meaning to, I couldn’t help but smirk. Slamming the hood of the trunk, I motioned with my chin toward her outstretched hand, the array of hardware strapped to her body.
“Yeah, I can see that.”
Chapter Seventy-Eight
HK was the shorthand term for the weapons manufacturer Heckler & Koch, a German defense contractor that had been making weapons dating back to World War II. Smaller, sleeker, than most guns built by their American counterparts, they boasted all of the traditional hallmarks of German engineering while sacrificing nothing in terms of power or precision.
Both good reasons why there was one now gripped in either of Talula Davis’s hands as she made her way through the forest.
But not the biggest one.
That honor was reserved for the fact that to her knowledge, the Baxters had never manufactured a single knockoff HK, the German design much too advanced for their operation, which by extension meant that none of them had ever made it to the reservation.
The very same reason her father had always insisted on carrying one, even when the higher-ups at his job took him to task for it.
Squeezing their grips in her hands, Davis picked her way through the trees, moving as quickly as silence would allow. Raised up onto the balls of her feet, she darted from tree to tree, ignoring the sweat that flowed freely down her body, striping her exposed torso.
Not that she was too overly worried about somebody lying in wait for her, the night vision goggles strapped to the top of her head giving her a clear read on her surroundings, nothing more than a squirrel or the occasional bird dotting the area around her.
A bit older in model, they were bulky and hot as hell, but a necessary evil for sure.
Aside from the weapons, the most important thing to their plan at the moment, allowing her to get into position, to be where she needed to be in time.
Counting the minutes in her head, Davis continued picking her way forward. Increasing her pace to a jog, she hurtled over a felled log, the faintest hint of glow appearing in the distance.
Her heart rate rising with it, she continued pressing forward.
Splitting from Tim was not ideal, something both of them conceded freely, but it was the only way to proceed. Not knowing who might be ahead, how many there could be or the arsenal they could be staring at, they knew there would be no chance of them sneaking up, hoping to pick off a few strays and work their way inward.
Working with precious little data, they had to go fast and they had to go big, hoping the combination of surprise and confusion would be enough to get them what they needed.
Which was why she now found herself piecing her way forward.
Whether any of it was a good idea, was a move either of them should be making, was now long past the point. Both had been pulled into something too large to ignore, had committed to seeing it through to the end.
Now there was only the matter of doing just that, putting their heads down and surging forward, letting things play out as they may.
Ahead of her, the faint light grew steadily larger, the rough outline of a structure coming into view. Reaching up, she dimmed the visual on the goggles just slightly, slowing her pace back to a walk, sweeping her gaze from side to side.
Coming ever closer until the warehouse blazed brightly before her, the view so strong it almost burned her eyes, Davis tucked herself down behind the base of an enormous cottonwood, completely hidden from the world behind her.
Stripping off the goggles, she left them on the ground beside her, gripping the HK’s tight in either hand.
It was time.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
“Get your ass in the air and get to Atlanta!”
There was no further discussion, no waiting for a response of any kind. The conversation had already lasted minutes longer than Deputy Marshal Abby Lipski wanted it to, the directive she was spitting out not that hard to understand.
The victim of the gunshot wound at the hospital was named Lance Murray, and even in his weakened state, he had turned out to be a more formidable opponent than Lipski had expected.
Formidable enough that it wasn’t until she had drawn her weapon and dug the heel of her gun into the thick gauze covering his right breastplate that he had finally cracked, giving up the information she needed.
Doing so had required her locking the door, had taken the combined efforts of Marshals Burrows and Marlucci to fend off a team of medical personnel once the young man started howling in pain, but it had managed to do the job.
Twenty-seven years of age, Murray worked for what he claimed was an auto body shop in Georgia, the place just an hour northwest of Atlanta.
At first mention of the city, Lipski had felt the familiar pangs of tension gathering in her stomach, pushing everything of the last day to an even higher level.
Once he confessed that his employer was one Vic Baxter, it had reached a fevered pitch, sweat dotting her body, oozing from every possible opening it could find.
The total interrogation had taken just fifteen minutes, but by the time it was completed, Lipski felt as if she had been through a rugby match. Hair disheveled, her clothing askew, most of the monitors and lines attached to Murray had been destroyed, the interior of the room resembling a trailer park in the wake of a tornado.
An exhausted and bloodied young man lying at its core.
Stepping out into the hallway, she hadn’t even feigned trying to compose herself, ignoring the distressed shouts of nurses and orderlies as they arrived in her wake.
Like a great many things that had happened in the previous few days, it would likely cost her her job, not that that was looking so terrible at the moment.
Somehow, the thought of being home for Burgerville night with her children sounded much better than wh
at she was currently doing, no matter how much of the country she was getting to see.
Country such as the stretch of Georgia highway they were now on, lights and sirens blazing, the SUV nudging triple digits at every available opportunity.
With the plane up north in Knoxville, the decision to drive had been made by the time she and her team reached the first floor of Monroe County Hospital.
Piling in, she had given Colvin the same address she’d just pried from Murray before getting on the phone and calling the plane, telling them to get to Georgia.
Seated in the front seat, every emotion, every feeling, every everything from the past few days was sealed just beneath the surface, a roiling tempest threatening to be unleashed at any moment.
Things were coming to a head. The scene at the farmhouse confirmed that.
There would be no tomorrow. However this was going to end, it was going to be soon, under the cover of darkness.
Flicking her gaze to the GPS on the front dash, she saw the remaining mileage to their destination, dividing that by the speed they were currently running at.
“Must go faster,” she muttered, her voice just loud enough to be heard over the wail of the sirens. “Must go faster.”
Chapter Eighty
No matter what Lou said standing behind the car, watching her duck off into the woods was one of the hardest things I’d done in a long time.
Not because – as she put it – I had some sort of hero complex. Definitely not over some form of misplaced misogyny.
Because I couldn’t promise her what laid ahead. I didn’t know if Baxter was armed to the teeth, an army stowed away inside, waiting for our arrival, laughing at how they’d been able to lure me in so easily.
Even after what she’d shared about her father, let it be known that she had far more in common with me than just being an adolescent acquaintance, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being a tiny bit responsible.
I was, after all, the reason Uncle Jep was murdered, the basis for why she was ever brought in at all.
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