by Scott Blade
"You broke my nose again!" Daniels said.
"Drive!" Widow said. He took out the Glock and pointed it at Daniels.
Daniels' hands shook, but he picked up the keys, started the car, and drove through the gate.
They continued for over a minute until Widow saw the house in the distance around a bend in the driveway.
Widow said, "Look at this place! It looks like something Oprah would live in."
Daniels said nothing.
The estate was enormous. There were clusters of trees on all sides, a huge fountain with various colored lights lighting up the water, and huge column pillars at the front of the house. The drive was lit by lights dug into the sides of the road. The trees were illuminated by ground lights. Widow heard sprinklers going off somewhere in the distance.
Widow said, "Pull off here."
He pointed at a dark area in the grass, behind some trees. Daniels listened and turned the wheel, and they drove off the road. Daniels parked the cruiser and cut off the engine and the lights.
"Pop the trunk," Widow said.
Daniels popped the trunk.
Widow took the keys and got out of the car. He escorted Daniels around to the trunk.
He said, "Put your hands together."
Daniels put his hands together.
"Close your eyes," Widow said.
Daniels closed his eyes.
Widow put the Glock back in his pocket, scooped up the duct tape from the trunk, and taped Daniels' hands together at the wrists. Then he shoved him back, and he tumbled into the trunk.
Daniels opened his eyes. He was in the trunk.
He asked, "Are you going to kill me?"
"I'm going to lock you in here," he said, "I don't kill unarmed men."
Daniels got all the way into the trunk, tucking his legs down against the back of the tire well.
Widow stood over the trunk and left it open. He vanished from sight. Daniels heard one of the backseat doors open, and Widow leaned in and then back out, closing the door.
Widow returned and stared down at him. There was something in his hand. It was the last of the meth heads' Molotov cocktails. Widow found it and hid it in the backseat.
He looked down at Daniels and showed the Molotov cocktail to him.
He said, "Then again. Agent Tyler would be alive if you weren't a piece of shit!"
Widow slammed the trunk. Daniels shouted at him from under the metal lid.
Widow went around to the nose of the cruiser and lit the wick on the Molotov cocktail with the cigarette lighter from the car. He tossed it into the car.
The front bench lit up fast.
He turned, took the Glock, the Sig, the bow and arrows, and headed toward the house.
The police cruiser went up in flames in minutes.
Sixty-Four
Widow crept through the darkness and trees. He stayed near the tree line, not sure if Gaden’s property had motion lights or not. He wasn’t sure if they had guard dogs, which would be worse than the lights. Lights didn’t have teeth.
He walked as close to the house as he could and waited. He saw the fountain a lot better from here. It was on, and the water was flowing. It kept changing formation and colors. Even in the cold, the thing was on. Widow figured it was heated and set on a timer to go all night, which was technically over, but Alaska in the autumn didn’t have sunrise till eight-thirty in the morning.
The sunrise was just starting to come on. White light peeked over the edge of the world.
Just then, Daniels’ police cruiser exploded. The fire must’ve hit the gas tank. The explosion was loud and powerful and distracting, which was what Widow was betting on.
He stared straight ahead and saw guards dressed in the same uniforms like the one back at the gate. They came running from behind the house and the other side. He saw a garage door opening on the other corner of the house. He saw two golf carts come out with guards on both. He watched them drive off, chasing after the first round of guards, to the fire.
Once they were out of the way, he started to the house. Then he stopped. He saw movement at the top of huge stone steps that led to the front door. It was two more guards, only these weren’t dressed in uniforms. They wore casual clothes. And they were armed with serious firepower.
They came out armed with MP5s. They weren’t a part of the regular guard unit. That was for damn sure. These two guys looked like they had clocked serious battle time. They both wore all black, including winter coats, but Widow could see them in the light from the front of the house. Their faces were suntanned like they’d just gotten back from the desert.
They were private military, mercenaries—no doubt about it. They came down the steps and started to walk straight for him like they knew his position.
They both clicked on flashlights attached to their weapons. Widow scrambled for the nearest tree. He ducked down behind the trunk. He waited.
They got closer. He peeked around the side to get a look. He saw them using hand signals. They were searching for him. They must’ve figured his path up from the gate and the fiery police cruiser. That’s how they guessed his location.
Damn, he thought. It was stupid for him to take a straight line up from the car.
Widow wanted to maintain stealth as long as he could, so he took out the bow and set an arrow in the knock until he heard the click. Then he came around the tree and aimed at the guards. He was out of their flashlight beams, but only for now. If they were as good as he figured, they would spread apart before the tree line, which they did.
One went right and one went left. Widow was dead center between them and about thirty feet away from the one on his right. He waited, stayed low, kept the bowstring on his cheek. He followed the one closest to him. He saw the flashlight beam wash across the trees, just missing him.
He breathed in and breathed out, slowly. He waited. He pressed the bow with his left hand and felt it pushing back. The pressure built.
The mercenary in his sight went farther and farther. He took another step to the north and another.
Widow relaxed his fingers, and trigger-pulled. The arrow went flying out of the bow. It glided through the air silently. It hissed and then slammed straight into the mercenary’s neck. He dropped the MP5 and stumbled back into a tree. He grasped at his neck and the arrow in it. Desperate, he clutched at it, trying to pull it out.
Widow sidestepped around the tree and came out on the opposite side, taking up another arrow and sliding it into the knock. He heard the click and drew the string back. He steadied his stance and drew the string all the way back to his cheek and aimed at the second mercenary.
The second mercenary heard the other one hit the tree. He turned and started scanning for him. He pointed the MP5 in the direction of the sound and washed the flashlight beam right over his dying friend. He missed Widow.
Widow released the arrow. It hissed through the air and caught the guy right in the shoulder. He dropped the MP5 and clutched at the arrow and his shoulder. He let out a scream.
Widow ran at the guy, taking out an arrow on the run. The second mercenary saw him coming at him in the dark and went for the MP5. He squirmed across the ground and got his hand on it and rolled onto his back. He aimed it at the dark figure running at him.
Widow had an arrow in the knock as he ran, and he aimed it, not a recommended course of action. Running with a loaded bow was like running with scissors. You never know who could get hurt. But in this case, it was his target.
Widow released the string and the arrow hissed through the air. It was an insane shot. The arrow burst through the guy’s left nostril, cutting straight through cartilage and weak bone until the tip lodged into his brainpan.
The second mercenary stared back at Widow over the shaft of the arrow. He stopped moving. He just stared, cold and dead.
Widow got to him. He had one arrow left. He pulled it out of the guy’s face, but the hilt came out without an arrowhead. He stared at it. It must’ve broken somewhere when he
was scrambling around maybe. He took out the arrowhead, which looked like a tiny spear now. He shrugged and decided to keep it. He stuffed it down deep into his front jeans pocket.
Widow tossed the quiver and the broken hilt and took up the MP5. He checked it: full load. He searched the guy and found a knife and a radio. He took both and switched the volume on the radio all the way down, so it didn’t crackle and give away his position. He clipped it to his belt. He put the bow back around his shoulder and used the MP5 instead because it didn’t come with a strap.
The knife was the same as Sathers’. It was an Ontario MK III, same black steel, same sawtooth top edge as Sathers’. He took out the sheath from the dead mercenary and pocketed the knife in the sheath. He didn’t want to be running around with the blade exposed.
Widow left the dead mercenary and checked the first one. He was still alive, but he would be dead soon enough. Widow took up his MP5 as well and ejected the magazine. He pocketed the extra magazine and tossed the weapon too far for the mercenary to crawl to it.
He left the guy there to die and took off for the house.
Widow ran to the garage and entered. The garage was massive. He looked around and counted twenty parked cars. They were all expensive, all washed, and all buffed to sparkling shines. There were SUVs and sedans and trucks and sports cars. There were Mercedes and Bentleys and Lamborghinis and Ferraris and Porsches. One red Lotus sports car stuck out. The sticker price for each vehicle was more than he’d made in a year at NCIS. He used the MP5 as his point weapon and passed the cars. He saw a long built-in worktable. Above it were regular garage things: tools, cabinets, and stored plastic containers with more tools. Then he saw the car keys for each car hanging from hooks in an opened metal case.
He entered the house through a door in the garage. Normally, he would go slowly and steadily, but he wanted to find Gray fast, so he moved fast. He entered the house and cleared it room by room.
The inside of the house was grand and huge. The ceilings were twenty feet high, even higher in the main room. Crown molding and expensive fixtures and handcrafted details were everywhere. From the outside, he had guessed that it was owned by a multimillionaire, but now he was sure a multimillionaire couldn’t afford it. The Gadens must’ve been billionaires. They had to be. The light bill alone was probably a hundred thousand a month. The inside of the house was built and designed and maintained at no expense spared.
There was gold trim everywhere. Widow stared at it, and he couldn’t rule out that it wasn’t real gold. Every room had a grand chandelier of some massive size and more lights than he had time to count.
First, he cleared the kitchen. No one was there. Then he cleared a hallway and a bathroom and a downstairs guest bedroom. No one was around so far. Back in the hallway, he barely heard faint noises coming from a closed door. The door was extremely heavy, like a bomb shelter door might be. It was reinforced hardened wood and metal. It was seriously out of place. He went over to it and pushed it open slowly. He aimed down the MP5’s sights and saw a staircase that led down to a basement. There was light coming up from the basement.
Widow entered. A metal arm closed the door behind him slowly. He eased down the stairs and got to the bottom and saw something that both horrified him and enraged him in that same, singular moment.
Gray was lying on a tabletop. She was zip-tied, hands and feet. Her hands were in front of her. She was stripped down to her bra and panties. And she was covered in water. Her hair was drenched. Her head was drenched. Her breasts were soaked.
Her head was hung off the table’s edge. She looked like something out of a torture movie.
She wasn’t alone in the room. There were two big guys in there, more of Gaden’s crew. Both of them had their backs to Widow. One of them was holding a wet towel. And the other held a large bucket of ice-cold water.
The first one grabbed Gray by her hair and tossed the towel over her face.
He said, “You’re going to talk, bitch. There’s no getting away from it.”
The second one stepped in over her and was about to start pouring water over the towel as the first held her head up by her hair.
They were waterboarding her.
The second guy said, “You’re going to talk after this, or we’re going to remove the last articles of clothing you got.”
Widow did something he tried to avoid. He shot them both in the backs.
First, he flipped the fire selector switch to a three-round burst. Then he aimed and fired.
He aimed high. He didn’t want to chance a bullet hitting Gray, in case any of them were through and throughs. None of them were.
There were three loud pops and a split-second later, another three loud pops! All six bullets left three bullet holes in their backs lined up vertically like triple portals in a birdfeeder.
Both guys slumped forward from the blasts and clumped into each other and fell backward. They dropped the wet towel and the bucket of water. Water spilled all over them, and the bucket rolled away.
They grabbed at their backs in unison, both with extreme pain on their faces. They both made sounds and said something, but Widow couldn’t hear them because the gunshots echoed through the basement. That was when Widow noticed the soundproofing foam, stuck up all over the place.
Widow realized that it wasn’t just a basement they were using as a makeshift torture room for Gray. This hadn’t been a one-time thing. There were knives and blades and all forms of weapons all over the room, stuck up on hooks like tools from the garage in the meth head house.
And there was a sledgehammer on one wall. It was much newer than the one he had used earlier. It was stainless steel with a black rubber grip.
The soundproof foam was installed to keep houseguests and probably the staff from hearing things they weren’t supposed hear.
No one came down the stairs to check on the gunshots because no one had heard them. The room was soundproofed. Maybe audible, brief pops could be heard just outside the basement door, but that was it, and that was all.
Gray strained to lift her head to see what had happened. She squinted in the bright basement lights and saw him standing there. Water on her eyes blurred her vision, and he looked like an apparition.
“Widow?” she asked.
He lowered the MP5 and ran over to her. He set the weapon on a counter and turned to her and cradled her head with one hand.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” he said.
He took out the knife, unsheathed it, and cut through her zip ties. She didn’t rub her wrists like in the movies. She grabbed at him and pulled herself up, and he scooped her up in his arms. She kissed him like she had never kissed any man before and he knew it because he felt it. It was all wet and all lips and tongue.
She stopped and hugged him tightly. He held her in his arms off her feet for a long time. She grabbed hold of him and didn’t let go. She didn’t want to let go. He didn’t want to let go.
She whispered in his ear.
“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
Gray held onto Widow for a long, long minute. He disengaged first and looked into her eyes. Her face was now covered in soot from hugging him for so long.
She said, “You can put me down now.”
“Are you okay?”
“I am now.”
He set her down on her feet.
“Anything broken?” he asked.
“No.”
He looked her over anyway. He looked her top to bottom and then spun her around and looked her over from bottom to top. The zip ties had bruised her wrists and ankles. Her body looked fine. A dark shiner was welling up around her eye.
He reached out and touched her chin and moved her face from side to side, checking out the shiner.
She said, “Widow, I’m fine. They didn’t hit me. This is from one of those yahoos back at the shantytown.”
He let go of her chin.
He asked, “What about these guys? They assault you?”
He pointed at the dead bodies on the floor.
“No. They stripped off my clothes, piece by piece. I thought they were going to rape me. I was so scared,” she said and paused a long beat.
She said, “But it never got that far. I’m fine. Really.”
“Okay. Where are your clothes?”
She looked around. Then she went over to the metal counter and opened up a cabinet on the bottom. She reached in and came back out with her clothes in a pile. She held her pants, her top, her jacket, and even her gun, still in its holster. But there were no shoes.
She dressed in everything she could and walked barefoot.
Widow escorted her up the stairs and back down the hall and through the kitchen to the garage. He opened the door and walked her out. He snatched a set of car keys off the rack and clicked the button. The red Lotus beeped to life.
He clicked the button to start the engine, and the car fired up like a beast waking from a deep hibernation. He walked her over to the car, opened the door, and plopped her down in the driver’s seat.
“Widow, what are you doing?” she asked.
“You’re getting out of here.”
“No! Not without you!”
Widow didn’t respond to that.
He said, “Take that drive all the way out. Stomp on the gas the whole way. The gate should be open, but if it’s not, crash through. Drive fast! Stop for no one! If a guard gets in your way, run him down! I mean it!”
She clawed and grappled at his Havelock and pulled him down.
“Get in, Widow!” she cried. “Get in! Now! We go together!”
He grabbed her hands, gently, and leaned in and kissed her passionately, like it was the last time he might see her, which it probably was. Then he backed out, removed her hands from his coat, and put them on the wheel. He tossed the keys into her lap.
He said, “I can’t. I have something left to do.”
And he closed the door. She pressed a button and the window jetted down.
She said, “You’re not a one-man justice department! Get in! Come with me!”
“I can’t. I’ve got a score to settle with Gaden and Fallow. They murdered Cho. They murdered Shore. They murdered Eggers. My brothers-in-arms. They’re the reason Tyler’s dead. And they threatened those little girls. I can’t let that stand. I just can’t.”
