by BJ Bourg
“Earlier this evening, and due to the threat these individuals pose to the community at large, I issued a shoot-on-sight order,” Turner said. “That order means if any of you come into contact with these barbaric animals, you are not to hesitate and you are not to issue a warning. You are to properly identify the suspects and then engage them immediately with all the firepower at your disposal. Your very life depends on your quick and unwavering action. If you hesitate, you will surely die. These people will not give you a second chance. Is that clear?”
“But isn’t it our job to offer them a chance to surrender?” asked the same concerned officer. “If not, aren’t we just like them?”
“It’s your job to finish your shift on the right side of the grave,” Turner said. “If you have a problem with my order, you can excuse yourself from this meeting, because you won’t like what’s about to happen next.”
The officer gulped and licked his lips, but he didn’t leave. Sheriff Turner nodded and relayed the same information he had told me earlier about them wanting the Trans Am with a new license plate on it. He then provided the general location of the meeting and let them know about the phone call that was to come later. He admitted it would be impossible to cover every cane field road leading out of the area, and he also admitted the suspects might change the location when they called.
“Before I detail my plan, I want to impress upon all of you that this is our one chance at capturing them,” he said in deliberate fashion, slowly scanning every face in the room. “We have to be extremely careful not to spook them, or they could take a lot of innocent people with them. Inaction is not an option. If we sit back and do nothing, they’ll find a way out of the area. While that might make our community safer, they’ll simply pose a threat to someone else. The next blood they spill will most likely be that of a police officer, and I won’t let that happen.”
As far as I could see, everyone in the room nodded in agreement.
“Furthermore,” the sheriff continued, “they said if they see anything that resembles a cop car following Dwight or driving down the Cool Ridge Highway or through any of the cane field roads, they’ll head straight for the Cool Ridge Lower Elementary and start killing kids. They said if the buses don’t run tomorrow morning, they’d know Dwight went to the police and they’ll going to start going door-to-door and executing people.”
“Is there any option where they don’t start killing people?” asked Lou Baker.
“As long as Dwight does what they tell him to do and he doesn’t involve the police, they won’t go on a killing spree,” Turner said with a sigh. “This leaves only one option that I can tell. I’ve come up with a plan to put a stop to this carnage, but it’s a daring plan and I’ll need a volunteer.”
Turner paused and again studied the faces of those in attendance. When our eyes met, I cocked my head to the side, more curious than ever about his plan.
Without saying another word, Turner spun and walked to a dry erase board. Picking up a marker, he began drawing on the board. I could tell immediately that he had never been falsely accused of being an artist. However, although crude, the images he created were easily identifiable. He pointed first to the horse and then to the car he had drawn as he detailed his plan.
“We don’t have a giant wooden horse, so we’re gonna use a Trans Am to enact the old Trojan horse tactic we learned from the Greeks,” he said. “When Dwight delivers his car to the killers, we’re gonna have an officer hiding in the trunk, ready to take them out.”
The room exploded in chatter. I, for one, was intrigued. If Roy and Shannon still believed they could trust Dwight, then the plan could surely work. As far as we knew, they didn’t have any other contacts in the area, so there was no way they would know that Dwight had been taken into custody.
“Wait a minute,” said Lou. “How is this supposed to work?”
“Dwight said the suspects stored their weapons in the trunk of his car when they used it the first time,” Turner explained. “So, when they open the trunk to stash the weapons, our undercover officer will get the drop on them and take them out. If they don’t move to the trunk, our officer will pull the release latch for the trunk and come out shooting.”
“I don’t know, Sheriff,” Lou said in a challenging tone. “This sounds crazy. This reads like a suicide mission to me.”
Surprisingly, Sheriff Turner remained patient and he didn’t deny that it was a suicide mission. “If you have a better suggestion, Lou, I’d love to hear it, because I’m all out of ideas.”
“Why don’t we storm the area tonight?” Lou’s eyes perused the crowd in search of support. “If we hit them hard and fast, we can surprise them and overpower them.”
“We don’t know exactly where they are,” Sheriff Turner said patiently. “They called from a cell phone that was registered to their latest victim. We tried pinging it, but it’s been turned off. We believe they’re somewhere close to the meeting spot, but without pinpointing their exact location we’d be shooting in the dark. As Clint mentioned to me earlier, if they hit the sugar cane roads to the east where the crops haven’t been harvested, they could reach La Mort or even New Orleans and we’d never find them again.”
“What about a helicopter?” Lou offered weakly.
“They told Dwight if they see a single helicopter fly over their area, they’ll assume he went to the cops and they’ll shoot it out of the sky and then go on a killing spree,” the sheriff said. “They’ve got fully automatic weapons. I will not sacrifice another helicopter crew to such an attack from the ground.”
Lou shuffled his feet uneasily, remembering—as we all were at that moment—the deputies we lost when a law enforcement helicopter had been shot down almost a year ago. The memories from that night were still very fresh in the minds of nearly everyone in the room.
After a long moment of silence, Turner slowly scanned the room again. “Now, all I need is a volunteer.”
If I thought the room was quiet before, it was even more so now. I could almost hear the blood moving through my veins. Lou seemed to sink back into the crowd. A number of officers shifted their weight, with most of them staring down at the ground. Susan and I locked eyes from across the room. She must’ve seen the expression on my face, because her face turned pale and she started to shake her head.
“I’ll do it,” I said, quickly averting my eyes from Susan’s gaze. “It should be me.”
“Clint, you…you’re in a leadership position,” Sheriff Turner said quickly, looking from me to Susan and then back to me. “You can’t do this. You…you’re a commanding officer at the police department. You’re the chief of detectives. You’re too important to the agency. You can’t do this.”
“I can and I will.”
“But…but what about Gracie?” Sheriff Turner was flabbergasted. It was as though he never considered the possibility that I would volunteer. “You’ve got a family. This is an assignment for a young officer, someone without a—”
“Everyone has a family,” I said, cutting him off. “They might not all have kids or a wife, but they all have families. This case began with me, and it’s gonna end with me.”
CHAPTER 49
Three hours later…
“Sometimes, it’s really hard being your wife,” Susan said when I got home after visiting Grace at my mom’s house. I sighed, not knowing how best to respond. Achilles and Coco offered a much warmer greeting, as had Grace, and I stood there rubbing their snouts.
Like most normal people, Grace had been sleeping when I’d arrived at my mom’s house in the middle of the night, but she had come wide awake when I’d called her name. She had been thrilled to see me and had jumped right out of her bed. However, after twenty minutes of sitting in my lap on the sofa listening to me telling stories, she had fallen asleep again. I hadn’t minded one bit. I had sat there and watched her sleeping. It had been the most peaceful sight I’d seen in days and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so relaxed.
Alarmed by my unexpected visit in the middle of the night, my mom had wanted to know what was wrong. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the next day might be my last, so I only told her I missed Grace and wanted to spend a little time with her. She seemed to accept that explanation and didn’t press me, but she had taken a seat beside Grace and me and begun talking about when I was a child. She told story after story and, before I knew it, two hours had passed.
Now, I looked up at Susan and our eyes met from across the living room. She was sitting on the sofa still wearing her work clothes. I could tell she had been crying.
“I’m sorry, Sue.” I shoved my dog-licked hands deep in my pockets. “Someone has to do it.”
“Where’ve you been?”
“I stopped by my mom’s house and spent some time with Gracie.”
“That’s good.” She smiled briefly, but her face didn’t light up like it usually did. “Did you hear that Amy made it out of surgery?”
“Yeah, Baylor said they think she’ll pull through, but that she’s still critical and she hasn’t regained consciousness. He also said it would’ve been much worse had she not been wearing her body armor.”
“Yeah, that’s what I heard, too. I was able to speak with one of the doctors before I left the hospital earlier.” She sighed heavily and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. “The doctor said Amy coded twice on the operating table. It took hours for them to piece her back together and do what they could to repair all the internal damage.” She hesitated and turned her head. When she looked back at me, her eyes were glassy. “I…I just keep thinking that’ll be you tomorrow.”
“But the element of surprise will be on my side,” I explained. “Amy was ambushed. She never had a chance—and neither did Jenny or Daryl. Tomorrow will be different.”
“I sure hope so.” She sat thoughtfully for a second and then asked if anyone had heard back from the authorities in Cook County, Illinois.
I nodded. “The sheriff up there confirmed that Floyd O’Neill was murdered. It happened while he slept. Someone—they know now it was his daughter—shot him in the face with a shotgun. She left the shotgun in his bed to make it look like a suicide, but the detectives there never bought it. The scene was too sketchy.”
“Were they able to provide any intel on Shannon?” Susan asked. “Anything we might be able to use against her? Any vulnerabilities?”
“Well, the intel they provided isn’t good.” I shifted my weight. “They say she was an only child and Floyd spent all of his free time training her to be a soldier. He had an arsenal of weapons and—according to a family friend—Shannon is proficient with all of them.”
“Dear God, Clint.” After a long moment of silence, with Susan sitting there shaking her head, she finally stood and extended a hand, palm up. “Why don’t you come have a shower with me? Afterward, we can go to bed. Tomorrow’s going to be a rough day for all of us—especially you—so we might as well spend some quiet time together.”
I took her hand and followed her up the stairs. She led me into the bathroom, where she slowly removed my clothes. Once I was naked, she removed her own clothes, guided me into the shower, and proceeded to scrub me down. I reciprocated. After we were done, I reached for a fresh towel that hung on a peg outside the shower, but she pushed my hand away.
“Let me,” she said, and took the towel. As she gently dried the water from my body—beginning at my hair and working slowly toward my feet—she spoke softly. “I remember the first time I wore a dress for you. It was the first time I’d ever put on a dress to impress a man. It was also the first time I’d ever baked a cake for a man. I arrived just in time, didn’t I?”
My eyes were closed, but I could sense Susan frowning. I opened my eyes to confirm my suspicions.
“Yeah, you arrived just in time,” I said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be rubbing me down right now.”
She stood and smiled, which made the dimple on her upper left cheek magically appear. I leaned forward and kissed it. When I leaned back, she was frowning again.
“Is there any way I can talk you out of this?” she asked.
It was my turn to frown. “I’m sorry, Love. This is something I have to do. ”
She nodded and rested her head against my bare chest. “Well, then, you’d better stay safe and come home in one piece,” she mumbled, her mouth tickling my flesh. “If not, I will find you, and there’ll be hell to pay.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Trust me.”
“Yeah, well, I’d feel much better if you had an angel watching over you.”
“I do have an angel watching over me,” I said under my breath, thinking about Abigail. While I didn’t want to leave Susan and Grace behind, the thought of seeing my first daughter again did give me a sense of joy. Viewed from that perspective, I realized it didn’t matter how things turned out tomorrow. Either way, I would come out a winner.
CHAPTER 50
I slept deeper that night than I had in months. I think the sheer weight of the stress I was under had pushed me into a deep state of unconsciousness. I saw Amy in my dreams. Or, at least I thought it was Amy. I couldn’t identify her because her face was riddled with bullet holes, but it seemed to be her. Next, I saw Abigail. She was smiling and beckoning me to join her. I started moving in her direction. I walked and then I ran, but she seemed to keep moving farther and farther away from me. No matter how hard I ran, I couldn’t close the gap between us. Finally, Grace called out to me and I turned to see what she wanted. She wasn’t there. When I turned back toward Abigail, she was also gone. I thought I heard Achilles barking from somewhere in the distance. I tried to look for him, but my eyes were closed. I forced them open to find myself lying in my bed. The sun was up.
Although I realized today might surely be my last day on earth, I felt oddly at peace. I knew it probably had something to do with the realization I’d come to during the night. Susan, on the other hand, appeared anxious when I found her in the kitchen making breakfast. There was a half empty pot of coffee on the counter, and something told me it wasn’t the first pot she’d gone through this morning. I tried making small talk to get her mind off of things, but she wasn’t in the mood for conversation. She seemed lost in thought, so I limited my comments to those that were absolutely necessary. I did touch her every time I walked by her, and she seemed to appreciate this.
After breakfast, I put on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, boots, and my tactical vest that was loaded with level IV hard armor. The word POLICE appeared in large bold letters above the magazine pouches, so there was no need for a badge or uniform shirt. After shoving four fully-loaded, 25-round AR-10 magazines into the pouches, I strapped on my drop-leg holster. While the trunk of a Trans Am was deep and relatively spacious, I figured I might find myself cramped up at some point, so I wanted my Beretta 9mm pistol riding low on my leg.
Susan had been messing around in my closet while I got dressed, and I turned when I heard her approaching.
“Take this,” she said softly, shoving my Glock 22, .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol in my direction. “Two guns are better than one.”
I hesitated. While I often used different handguns for different jobs, I had retired my Glock 22 a couple of years ago after using it to kill a man in my home.
“You’ll be locked in the trunk and there’s no telling what could happen,” Susan explained. “You might not be able to access your rifle or reach your right side, so you’ll need a pistol in reach of your left hand.”
“I can take my 1911,” I said. “I’ve got a left-handed holster in my vest.”
“You know your 1911 only holds nine rounds on a full stomach,” she said stubbornly. “This one holds sixteen.”
I hesitated, staring at the pistol like it was a rattlesnake. Finally, I sighed and hefted it in my left hand. It was familiar and comfortable—like an old shoe—and I nodded in resignation. “Okay, you’re right, I’ll need all the help I can get.”
After checking the time,
I grabbed my AR-10 and followed Susan out the door. She wasn’t wearing a uniform today. Instead, she wore snug-fitting jeans and a department-issued T-shirt. She had taken her AR-15 with her and I knew she was itching to go with me.
“I called Baylor while you were sleeping,” she said as she drove up our street and then headed north through town. “He said the doctors are feeling much more optimistic this morning. They said Amy’s not out of the woods yet, but she’s improving by the hour.”
“Oh, God, that’s such a relief!” I took a deep breath and blew it out in a long sigh. The tightness that I’d been feeling in my chest ever since Amy had been shot suddenly began to dissipate. “She’s tough, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah, she’s always been a fighter and—when it counted the most—she fought like a true champion.”
After our brief exchange, we both sat in silence as Susan drove us to the Criminal Operations Center. I knew Susan was worried about me, but I was worried about Dwight Bell. I didn’t know how I would protect him when the shooting started, and that bothered me. He was risking his life to help us get close to Roy and Shannon. I didn’t want him to die because of it.
“Well, here we are,” Susan said twenty minutes later when we arrived. She leaned over and kissed me fully on the mouth. I kissed her back and felt a stirring in my chest as our tongues came together. We must’ve stayed like that for a full minute.
“Please don’t get killed,” she said, her chest heaving. “I could live without you if I had to, but I don’t want to.”
I didn’t want to make any promises I couldn’t keep, so I only smiled and kissed her once more before exiting the vehicle. She followed me into the bureau and we found Sheriff Turner, Mallory, Melvin, Regan, Takecia and two dozen SWAT officers in the conference room. They all looked up when we entered.
