Fool's Run

by Sidney Williams

  I found the PSM and slid the weapon from my waistband. The grip didn’t fill my palm. It felt a little like a toy to my hand that was more familiar with my old service weapon, especially in this moment when I didn’t know what I might be facing.

  In spite of that, I reminded myself the weapon should have the power Arch had claimed, and I recalled the test firings out at his compound. Then I gently slipped the de-cocking lever out of its safety position the way he’d showed me. It had worked on the lug wrench back at the guest house. We’d see what the rounds did in the dark against something other than a paper silhouette if I had to use it again.

  Once inside the fort’s perimeter, I scanned the area. It was overgrown with brush and grass, and rows of dead shrubs that looked like a crop of witch’s brooms. The jagged and rectangular inner brick structure stood as Kenny had predicted across an expanse of grassy ground.

  I pulled Dagney close then moved past the stone remnants that had once formed a small pool, maybe a watering hole.

  Selecting an arched opening amid a row of archways on the main wall to my right, I did a quick check above to make sure no loose bricks were waiting to brain us then stepped forward. Grit and dead weeds scraped under my shoes on the brick floor as we entered. Keeping the steps short and cautious, I moved us on into shadow. I’d gone up a lot of halls and alleyways and into a lot of places chasing suspects or preparing to break up domestic situations or make collars.

  Often, I’d worn a vest, reducing the risk. Given what had happened already tonight, I should have one on now, should have asked Arch to supply one. In the past, I’d always felt my throat clinch and my muscles tingle with a hot fire at nerve ends, sensations that had to be overridden even as I calculated the actions of sweaty and desperate men.

  The ones who came after me here would be a little less nervous than the crooks I’d been after. They’d be thoughtful, canny, possibly trained soldiers. That didn’t really make me any more comfortable. A cool and calculated shot would kill me just as dead as a twitchy junkie’s erratic one. Then where would Juli be?

  I found a spot in shadow just our side of the opening so that I could look out. In what moon and starlight the night offered, all that grass and the weeds were teased by wind that danced across the grounds. I saw no men yet. They’d have to clear the same gates we did, but they might even have bolt cutters. They’d be along.

  I listened, trying to catch hints of voices or movement, but I picked up nothing. After letting a few heartbeats pass, I took a chance on poking my head out further. I still saw only the twitching brush. It was all over the ground and growing out the tops of the walls, vines spilling down like tangled hair.

  I pulled back inside, telling myself we just needed to move a short distance up the passage and find a defensible place, a nook to wait things out. The Coast Guard would be drawn to the boat by the distress signal and coordinates, I told myself, though then they’d have to look further when they found it aground. Despite that, their presence ought to scare our pursuers.

  A bit of outside light spilled in through archways ahead, giving me a view of the area stretching forward, piles of bricks, more archways. Beyond that, the passage branched into deeper shadows. It was like I was in the final act of the old black-and-white Bela Lugosi Dracula, looking for the count in his coffin in hidden chambers.

  I took slow steps forward, keeping Dagney behind me. Working to control my breathing, I led her on through black shadow, heading for the front wall.

  “You doing all right?” I asked in a low voice.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  “My name is Silas,” I said. “I have a little girl. She’s a little younger than you. I’m going to try to take as good of care of you as I would her. You understand?”

  She nodded.

  “This will be over soon,” I said.

  I’d comforted Juli after nightmares, wiping tears, but she’d been much younger. I didn’t really have training for this or know what a child comprehended.

  “If men come,” we need to be really quiet,” I said.

  “I know.”

  I hoped she could see my smile and nod.

  “Let’s go a little further, then we’ll rest,” I said.

  “All right.”

  I took her wrist again, and we inched along, keeping to the shadows.

  Finally, I heard the voices I’d expected outside, orders being barked. They’d found their way inside the walls. They’d risk coming in the passage. They didn’t know where we were or when I’d start shooting, so they’d fan out and do a systematic search. Some would go into the barracks. I’d figured they’d think that was the first place we’d head.

  Some would search the outer walls. I’d only have a few to deal with at a time, but they might even have night vision goggles.

  Who was I kidding?

  They probably had night vision goggles.

  I guided Dagney on with a little more speed until we found a narrow rectangular chamber in a spot in deep shadow near what would have to be the front wall. They would have called it a magazine and stored gunpowder there. We crouched and remained quiet, and seconds ticked past as we listened.

  Men or anything else might lurk our way along either right or left, but this was a pretty good spot. Not a tomb, I told myself.

  My mind chose then to remind me this was an area with open walls near water in Louisiana. Rats and large nutria—twenty-pound rodents with long and curved front teeth—might have sought shelter here. Gators? Snakes wouldn’t be out of the question, though they wouldn’t like the cold stone in the absence of sunlight. Still, if they sheltered here, I imagined water moccasins, pit vipers, black and invisible. Hopefully Dagney wouldn’t come up with these possibilities. I patted her shoulder to reassure and keep her quiet.

  Meanwhile, I held my breath and listened and realized I should have let Arch get me night-vision goggles of my own. Kenny’s MAC-1O might have been nice too. Walking into a spit of rapid fire would make the bad guys think twice.

  Who’d have imagined this might be a scenario? Had I ever thought it was a good idea? Things had been happening fast on the water.

  I heard only that deafening nothingness that permeates the world when all else is removed, that impossible-to-define absence that seems to bar anything.

  Had they entered the tunnels near us or were they waiting in the yard? Waiting on me to get antsy and make a move.

  I kept telling myself time was on our side, but I had to survive a while. The thought was agonizing of what would happen to Dagney if they killed me. I didn’t want to come this close and fail. Not her. Not Juli—my larger concern.

  Another horrible idea crept into my mind. Could Alexeeva call in favors that held the Coast Guard and other responders at bay?

  Time was on our side and on the enemy’s as well. Time and silence let every wrong scenario play in the screening room of my mind. Could they reach the coordinates of the initial distress call and think we’d gone down? How long would it take for them to rethink that?

  Getting crazy or claustrophobic would be a mistake, but my heart hammered. Every nerve ending tingled. My throat tightened. I remembered I hated walk-in closets. Then I forced myself to keep thinking. The first weapon in my arsenal would continue to be avoiding panic. If I could stay strategic, I’d extend our options all the way up to futile.

  I pressed my back to a wall and let the cool stone pull my temperature down in spite of the humidity. Then I checked left and right again, up and down the passage. At the moment no one was close.

  Someone might lurk nearby, might be comfortably ensconced near one of the openings, cooled by the night air, tingling as well but bolstered by the advantage of numbers and the possibility that I might grow impatient and make a mistake.

  I listened.

  No coughs.

  No sounds of movement.

  No pebbles of mortar nor brick shards kicked about by accident.

  No grinding of grit under a boot sole.

&nbs
p; These guys weren’t making mistakes.

  Of course, they were professional. Alexeeva had probably recruited right out of Russian special forces. What were they called? Spetsnaz?

  After seconds turned into a couple of minutes, I thought about moving, but we really had no advantage in that, no objective.

  I flexed my fingers around the weapon handle and worked to control my breathing.

  They were letting us stew.

  I was about to chance a look around the corner, when they changed their approach.

  “Hey, Mister?”

  Heavily accented. It carried from a distance along the front wall’s corridor with a slight echo effect.

  I didn’t react except to put a hand on Dagney’s forearm to remind her to stay silent.

  Footfalls sounded now, careful, slow steps from the direction the voice had come.

  Had they eliminated other possibilities like the barracks and tunnels in the other walls? Were they narrowing down our location? They’d have to be. They may already have an idea. This place wasn’t that large.

  Where the hell was the Coast Guard?

  They might be to a point of flushing us out. The one speaking might want us to move, maybe trying to flush us toward where others waited.

  I flipped the camera on on my phone and inched it around a corner, angling so I could see the screen, dim though it was. I could get a bit of a look up the passage, a bit of light spilling in through gun ports, a patchwork of shadow. Arches seemed to curve shadows, those shadows merging, melding into blackness just beyond some moonbeams. If someone waited in the shadows a short distance away, it was beyond my view.

  How long had passed since the distress signal? Long enough for the Coast Guard to mobilize. They’d have to be figuring out where our boat had been. Tracing the signal.

  Should we sit still?

  I slipped the satchel Kenny had given me off my shoulder and gently unzipped it, taking out a couple of flares.

  The voice sounded again, grim and heavily accented.

  “Do not shoot.”

  I remained still, pressed against the wall to my side and chanced a look in the direction of the voice. A tall and lean man with a needle face inched forward.

  He wore black tactical gear, a tight tactical helmet and a vest with a row of pocketed clips right below his breast bone. Those looked like they fit the nasty looking rifle on a strap over his right shoulder.

  “We know you, Mr. Silas Reardon.”

  So, someone had been in my apartment.

  Maybe it had been Culler, the guy working for my partner’s widow, and he’d turned up something with Alexeeva’s name which he or Joy had turned over to him just to jack me up.

  Somehow, they’d gotten wind and they’d been prepared tonight in case this was the night. Over prepared.

  “What do you want?” I asked, admitting nothing.

  He laughed.

  “The girl, of course.” He let that sit for a second. “And it is important for you not to win.”

  “Sets a bad precedent?”

  “Something like that.”

  I pressed back into the stonework as far as I could. Dagney stared at me wide-eyed, aware of the danger, more than aware of how sinister the man was.

  He slipped a black metal tactical knife from somewhere on his left side and let me see it wave about a bit then tossed it from hand to hand.

  He just laughed on top of that, and not a laugh of real emotion. Of course, that’s who you’d find for a mission like this, some sociopath without empathy. He stepped forward, deft, moving in and out of shadow with dance moves.

  I let the coolness from the stones seep into me again and glanced in the other direction. Of course, he was keeping me busy as men moved our way, guns ready but hoping to take Dagney without her getting hurt.

  The knife wielder would be in body armor, and the helmet protected his head. The same was probably true about the guys behind us.

  What else did I need to think about otherwise in the stone cavern?

  Ricochets.

  Cave-ins.

  Noise.

  A miss.

  Any outcomes seemed negative. I’d have to go with fighting chance despite the downside.

  “It’s a little damp in here,” the knife wielder said. “The girl. She might catch cold, but I am not hurting her.”

  He crouched on the balls of his feet, comfortable but ready for any move I made.

  What could I do with this? He was well trained. He’d maintain tremendous self-control, but he had to have adrenaline coursing just like I did. How could I get him on his feet?

  Toss a flare? Hmm.

  I eased back into the magazine, keeping the move as silent as I could. Then I turned on my phone for a little light, held up one of the flare’s I’d pulled out in front of Dagney and cracked the top off, showing her the striking motion. She nodded that she understood when I arched my eyebrows, so I motioned left in the direction of the group of men.

  She nodded again, and I looked back in the bag.

  “Mr. Reardon?”

  The usual. Fishing line. More flares. WD-40. No handy butane lighter to go with it, but getting all James Bond with a homemade flame thrower would probably get me killed before it startled my bad guy. A compressed canister air horn, the same. It would require fumbling to sound it while I needed to be in a shooting stance.

  Then my fingers brushed what might just work, at least for a quick surprise in these close quarters. I’d have to calculate, be very strategic with everything else and move fast, but it might just be exotic enough to elicit a move.

  Kenny’s fucking whistle. That shrill, spine chilling, ear splitting device. I recalled the odd, discordant note it had played out at their compound, the way it had startled me in the dark. Then I calculated my best options.

  Anything shy of watching the guy’s knife coming for my throat had to be dubbed an upside, so I did a few mental calculations, bowed my head, meditated and decided it was time to go ahead.

  I flexed my legs, sliding my back up the bricks behind me until I was in a standing position. Then I drew in a deep breath, put the whistle in my teeth, and held back the exhale. I didn’t want to play a tune too early.

  I spent a few seconds getting my left foot in position, an almost uncomfortably wide stance, the way Arch had shown me. Stretch now for ideal balance later. I recalled the man’s height, closed my eyes and formed a mental picture.

  Then I moved, pivoted with a single outward, sweeping step around the corner that put me in a balanced position. The PSM was comfortable in one palm, cupped in the other hand.

  Whee-ahhha-reeeeeeeeee!

  My deep breath produced a shrill and nearly deafening burst from the whistle.

  The soldier straightened, moving his knife up but acting disoriented.

  Dagney struck the flare in the same second. It worked on the first try because she ground it hard, determined to do as told here.

  I was already squeezing the trigger, the PSM barrel level to my best calculation of where the guy’s chest would be.

  Dagney hurled the flare back along the passage behind me. If they were in night vision gear that’d be a nice surprise, and I got the benefit of the glow.

  I didn’t get a hail of bullets in my back, so I had to count it as a win. They were well trained, careful not to squeeze triggers on impulse.

  The guy with the knife jerked backwards, struck somewhere. Then he jerked again, because I didn’t fire just once. If you’re firing to stop someone you keep at it.

  He flailed backwards.

  His knife fell. Clattered. His hand grabbed for the rifle on its strap, but he didn’t find it before his fall began. I ducked back into the magazine.

  Slugs bit into the bricks where I’d been. They’d overcome the flare.

  As the roar of all the blasting echoed around us, I felt dust and stone slivers bite at my cheek, but I still didn’t feel any lead. I pulled to the back wall at my right anyway, flattening myself, putting
an arm around Dagney.

  As echoes died, I didn’t hear any more from the knife guy. Arch’s soft armor-piercing shells might just have performed as advertised. At the very least maybe he’d felt enough sting of the steel tips along with the impact to be nicely stunned.

  I chanced a peek out and to my left as I changed clips. The men there weren’t rushing forward. They’d seen I could inflict harm and were regrouping.

  I found Dagney’s arm and yanked her from her spot, and we moved as I fired down the corridor. They were under orders not to hurt the girl. I prayed they would adhere to that.

  “Is that man dead?” Dagney asked as we rushed past the knife wielder.

  “Could be. I’m afraid he’s just resting.”

  I kept the PSM trained on him and closed my fingers around his rifle, a short, rapid-fire Russian variety looking a lot like an AK-47. It featured a long, curved clip, and his friends had probably thought it looked as cool, but it also seemed pretty effective for making noise.

  I had only seconds. The clips on his vest had been for a sidearm and were much shorter. I patted extra pockets on his legs and found a spare that would fit the rifle. Protracted rapid fire would deplete it quickly, and there was always the danger of jamming if you got too playful, but some rapid bursts might be helpful.

  We scrambled forward then, on into a nook at the next archway, and I wrapped an arm around her.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

  “Yes?”

  “Scared?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry about that. I’m going to get you out of here,” I said.

  I guided her to the archway’s edge, looking out into the expanse of weeds and dry brush. Off to my right, stone steps that looked reasonably stable led to the top of a wall. Tangles of brush had burst out of the earthen top, a jungle of living and dead shrubbery and vegetation that moved and danced in the breeze and spilled over the side.

  If I could get her to the top, and if Kenny were still around, we could go over into the water. Seemed too risky since I didn’t know where he was.

  I watched for a second and thought I caught sight of movement in the brush.

  “Did you notice how many men were back there?” I asked. “Two? Three? A crowd?”