by H. L. Wegley
“For what it’s worth, now that I’ve drug you into this, I’m glad I’ve got an experienced warfighter with me.”
“Warfighter? I’ve been through three or four firefights. That doesn’t make me a warfighter. And, Lex, you didn’t drag me in. When thugs kidnap little boys from my house, I’m in all the way. I know it’s wrong, but right now, I don’t really want to save them for the justice system. I just want to take them all out.”
“There’s my SUV.” He pointed ahead, beside a dense stand of pine trees.
“I’m stopping. Let’s leave my car here and move on foot to your car. Maybe we can use it for cover while we check out the house.”
They both got out and crept through the tree shadows toward Lex’s SUV.
“I’d hoped that we’d see Gemma waiting here. But she set herself up to get caught. What she was thinking?”
“Probably the same thing you’re thinking about. Those two boys. Something happened in the short time she and boys were together, didn’t it?”
“Yeah. The boys thought they’d found their mother and, Gemma didn’t say much, but you could see it in her eyes. But, no matter how you slice it, she lied to me in that note, KC.”
“To save your life, you numbskull. And the boys’ lives too.”
He didn’t reply.
The pain of reading Gemma’s note, KC’s rebuttal to it, and now a battle with all their lives on the line—it wasn’t a time for arguing with KC.
“Get down. I think I saw the house.” KC slunk down near the ground and scurried to the back of Lex’s SUV.
Lex followed her.
When they lifted their heads to the missing rear window, Lex was looking through the tinted windshield to see the house. It was unlikely anyone could see them from the house, nearly a hundred yards away.
Gemma’s in there.
That thought ate away at him like hydrochloric acid.
Forget her. Gemma lied, dude.
But I think I love her.
You’re crazy, man. Don’t do anything rash.
He couldn’t help it. His thoughts had become a rash of rash thoughts and, in a few seconds, he was going to act on one of them.
“KC, if I could offer myself for Gemma, or the boys, I could get inside. Maybe make something happen.”
“You’d make something happen, alright. Two murders … or more.”
“Uncalex, they’re bad men. Don’t go in there.”
Lex whirled and then lowered his gun.
Josh and Caleb stood hardly ten feet away.
Lex pulled them behind the SUV then knelt and wrapped his arms around them. “Are you okay?”
“We’re okay,” Josh said.
“How did you get away?”
“Caleb shot them with his squirt gun.”
That didn’t make sense, but he had the boys in his arms, two very bright boys. “Josh, Caleb, do you know who’s in the house?”
“Yeah. A really bad guy called Blade. Another guy named Walker and Kirby. But Kirby can’t see much.”
“What about Gemma?”
“Walker snuck up on her and got her while she was ‘gotiating with them.”
“Is she okay?”
“Uh, I think so,” Josh said. “But we haven’t seen her since Walker took her inside.”
Caleb wiped his eye. “Don’t let them hurt her, Uncalex.”
Lex looked up at KC. “The odds are better than we thought. I need to go in there.” Lex stood and released the boys.
“That’s stupid, really stupid, Lex. Once they have you and Gemma, they can kill you both and their mission is complete.”
“I’ve got to try. If this goes badly, will you—”
“It won’t go that way if you don’t go in.”
He turned and faced KC. “But will you make sure that—”
“You know I would.” She looked down at the twins then back at Lex.
“You both mind KC until I get back.” Lex looked down at the boys.
Josh was gone.
“Caleb, where’s Josh?”
Caleb shrugged. “Maybe he had to go to the bathroom.”
Lex scanned the area around the vehicles and around the trees behind them.
KC tapped his shoulder and pointed toward the back corner of the garage. “He just came out of the trees, headed toward the garage.”
“Caleb, you know where he’s going, don’t you?”
Caleb hung his head and nodded. “To the garage. There’s a doggie door back there.”
Lex gripped Caleb’s shoulders. “He’s not planning to go inside, is he?”
“He won.”
“What do you mean?”
“Josh said to pick a number from one to ten. I picked four and he said I lost. But I think he cheated so he could go.”
“Caleb, when we get home I’m going to—” The reality was they may not get to any home on planet Earth.
KC laid her hand on Lex’s shoulder. “At least they both didn’t go.”
“It was a dumb thing to do.”
“Like what you wanted to do, Lex?”
“For a kid it’s dumb.”
“I don’t think so.” Caleb avoided looking at Lex’s eyes.
“You don’t think so. So why wasn’t it a dumb thing to do?”
Finally, Caleb met Lex’s gaze with burning intensity in his young eyes and determination painted on his face. “Cuz Josh got two hundred and you don’t. You’ll see, Uncalex.”
* * *
“Kirby, Blade, Walker!”
Blade turned toward the hallway and looked down it. Where had those words come from? It sounded like a kid, one of the twins. “Did you hear that, Walker?”
“It’s those boys. We need to grab them before they get away.”
“You mean before Lex James finds out we don’t have them?” Blade said.
“We still have Gemma Saint,” Walker said
“I don’t trust Kirby’s judgment on her and James’s relationship. She may not be enough to hold him off.”
The shrill voice sounded again. “We know who you are and what you did. If you don’t let Gemma go, we’re gonna tell the president.”
Blade swore.
“The kid knows how to hit right where it hurts,” Kirby said.
“Shut up, Kirby. Nobody’s going to get the chance to tell the president anything.”
Walker stood. “The garage. Let’s get those two nits.”
Blade ran down the hallway and flung open the door to the garage.
The rear end of a small boy slipped through the pet door and it closed behind him.
Walker stood in the doorway to the house. “Don’t let him get away.”
Blade glanced back at him. “I’ve got the little runt.”
Blade ran to the side garage door and pulled it open.
The kid was running toward the trees near the back corner of the house.
Walker looked out the open door. “He’s getting away.”
“Not going to happen.”
Blade sprinted toward the trees where the kid was headed.
Chapter 26
“I thought I heard Josh.” Lex crept forward through the trees toward the garage on the right side of the house.
He glanced back when he heard footsteps behind him.
KC followed with her M4 in ready position.
Josh came into view around the corner of the garage. He ran full speed for the trees forty yards ahead.
A large man rounded the corner of the garage. He spotted Josh and took off after him.
Lex stiffened, then lurched forward. He had to get to Josh before the man reached him.
The staccato cracking of an automatic rifle near his right ear stopped him.
Dirt exploded into the air in front of the man.
Josh kept running.
The man whirled and leaped for the protection of the garage.
“Darn!” KC blew out her disgust in a sharp blast. “I wanted to shoot him. Should have shot him, but I … he
ld back. Killing someone isn’t …”
“It’s okay. You saved Josh, KC. But wait till I get my hands on that rascal.”
Caleb peeked around KC’s side. “Uncalex, you need to ask Josh what he was doin’ before ya’ do somethin’ ya’ might regret.”
“Maybe you should ask,” KC placed a hand on Caleb’s head.
“Maybe.” Lex circled through the trees until he reached Josh.
“Uncalex, I—”
“Listen, Josh,” Lex pulled him into the trees and headed back to KC’s location. “These men are dangerous. They’re killers. Never do that again.”
“I told them we knew their names and we’re gonna tell the president if they hurt Gemma.”
“Great! That’s just great.”
KC and Caleb stepped out from behind a large tree.
Lex pulled Josh toward them. “Did you hear that, KC?”
“You mean about Josh’s threats to the FBI?”
“Yeah. We’re all threats because we can identify them, and Josh just confirmed that. Now all includes you, KC. If they didn’t want all of us before, they do now.”
“But they can’t be sure who’s out here. Especially after hearing automatic rifle fire.” KC scanned the house and garage. “It looks like they’re all back inside the house. We’d better take advantage of that to come up with a plan to spring Gemma and then get out of here.”
“That’s okay for starters,” Lex said. “But we need more than that. We’ve got to find someone in the DOJ that we trust, someone who has enough clout to start an investigation to clean house in that whole department, maybe our intelligence organizations too.”
KC nodded. “When we can’t get justice from the Department of Justice, the whole nation’s at risk of either imploding or exploding.”
“At least we have one thing going for us.”
“You mean president Gramm?”
“Yeah. A person with some integrity. The DOJ is under his administration. Worst case, he can fire our do-nothing Attorney General and bring in a housecleaner,” Lex said.
“Only if he can get the senate to approve them. When part of his own DOJ, half of Congress, and much of the judiciary turn on a president, it can completely stop an administration.” KC pushed the safety lever on her rifle. “Or completely start a rebellion.”
Lex pointed toward the vehicles. “We can’t solve our nation’s problems here. Let’s work on solving the problem of freeing Gemma. Got any ideas?”
“Uncalex?”
“Not now, Josh. KC and I need to decide how we’re going to rescue Gemma.”
“But, Uncalex—”
“Josh, I told you—”
Caleb grabbed his arm. “You gonna plan without all the facts?”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t ask us how we got away or what we found out when we were in that house.”
KC mussed Josh’s hair. “He’s right. We could use a little intelligence.”
“Yeah,” Caleb said. “We got two hundred and mom always said we should give to people who are less—who don’t …” Caleb’s big Brown eyes looked up at Lex, then at KC.
KC covered her mouth with her hand. It looked like she was about to laugh.
Lex got the message. “Poor Uncle Lex with an IQ from the dregs of the genius barrel needs you to give him some intelligence.”
“Yeah. I can. There’s three bad guys in there, Blade, Walker, and Kirby,” Josh said.
“Yeah,” Caleb said. “But only two of them can see.”
KC lifted Caleb’s chin and looked into his eyes. “Do you mean one of them is blind?”
Caleb moved her hand and nodded. “I blinded him. That’s how Josh and I excaped’d him.”
“Yeah,” Josh nodded. “We put toilet bowl cleaner with bleach in Caleb’s squirt gun and shot Kirby in the eyes.”
“Yeah. And when he yelled, I shot some in his mouth. Then he went crazy and we got away through the doggie door.”
Lex put a hand on both twins’ heads. “Didn’t someone say every generation born is an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it’s too late? What am I going to do with you two?”
One corner of KC’s mouth turned up. “Well, you’d better not underestimate them, like Kirby obviously did. Based on the intelligence, we may have only two men to deal with to get Gemma out. Our odds are getting better.”
“Except they have the oddsmaker … Gemma. And I’m afraid of what they might do to her.”
“You could tell them the truth, Lex. It couldn’t hurt.”
“What truth?”
“That you love Gemma.” KC’s gaze locked on his.
The boys focused on him too.
“Come on, KC. Why would you say something like—”
“Because it’s true.”
“You don’t love someone after only—look, if I said that, they would use her to control me.”
“So, are you saying it’s true? You’re sure not denying it.”
“We runned off Melissa, but we’d never do that to Gemma,” Josh said.
“Yeah. We’d never get rid of Gemma, ‘cause she’s like Mama.”
Caleb’s remark hit Lex in his mental solar plexus, derailing his train of thought and knocking out all his words. The boys were already attached to Gemma, though they had spent only a short time with her. But Gemma had detached herself from Lex. The outcome looked like a lose-lose-lose proposition.
Lex shook his head. “How could telling these thugs something like that possibly help?”
“Think about it, Lex. As long as they have her and not you, they won’t hurt her, if they’re convinced you have some strong feelings for her.”
“I already told’em not to hurt her, because she was gonna be our mama, but I’ll tell’em again,” Josh said.
“You make one move toward that house and I’ll lock you in my SUV.”
“Uncalex, the sun’s not down yet. We’d suffercate,” Josh said.
“Yeah. And die of heat exhaust.”
“Heat exhaust? You two are full of that.”
Josh raised his eyebrows.
Caleb looked at Josh and shrugged.
“Back to Gemma,” Lex said.
KC stuck a thumb out at the twins. “Sounds like your boys, with their two hundred, already took care of her for the time being.”
He didn’t reply. How does a person admit that his four-year-old knows more about relationships than a twentysomething father?
KC studied the house through a tiny gap in the trees. “It would help if we knew where she was in the house.”
“Probly where they put Caleb and me.”
“Yeah, in the big bedroom on the other side of the house from the garage,” Caleb said.
“Well, now we know something,” KC said.
Lex nodded. “We do. And that’s where I’ll break in as soon as it gets dark.”
KC stared at him like she was waiting for something.
Lex stared back at her, and his blank stare was all she was going to get.
The whole subject of Gemma was irritating him and, now, he was supposed to tell the Fibbies he loved her?
“Well,” KC said. “If that look is all you’ve got, it’s not much of a plan. Only enough to get you killed over a woman you don’t give a rip about.”
Chapter 27
Blade moved the living room curtain an inch to the side and studied the area in the trees where the shots had come from.
It was still light outside, but he saw no one. “Did you see the shooter?”
“No. But I’m guessing it was a military rifle,” Walker said. “AK-47s don’t crack like that. And it was not a semi-automatic.”
“Fully automatic,” Blade said. “Where would Lex James get a gun like that? Maybe he has help out there.”
“You mean help like those two little monsters that are too smart for their own good?”
“No. Like KC Daniels. With her in on it, they could have recruited
some others. Maybe an army.”
“Come on. You don’t believe all those stories you’ve heard about her. They’re just legends. Hyperbole and myth.”
Blade shook his head. “Legends don’t shoot at you in automatic mode. I barely made it back to the garage. We don’t know how many are out there. We could be outmanned and outgunned.”
Blade pulled out his secure phone. “I’m calling Drake and the chopper crew. They can be here by the time it gets dark, and they can come in behind whoever’s out there. He can take them out or, at least, tell us how many there are. Right now, our little saint may be the only thing that’s keeping them from attacking us.”
“Speaking of Ms. Saint,” Walker said. “I’m going to the bedroom to check on her. I don’t like the way Kirby was looking at her. If he were to do anything to her, and we needed her for a hostage—well, it might not go well.”
“Kirby can’t even see her, Walker.”
“No. But he remembers what she looks like. That’s enough to distract any red-blooded male.”
Blade chewed on his lip and weighed his options. “Check on him. If you’re certain he’s becoming a liability … kill him.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Just like we’ll do with Ms. Saint if she loses her usefulness.”
Chapter 28
You are an idiot, Gemma Saint.
She had completely alienated Lex and then tried to make a deal with three depraved men to free the twins. But she had gotten captured only to find out the twins had escaped, evidently making a fool out of Kirby in the process, a blind fool.
But Kirby wasn’t completely blind, and he had expressed far too much interest in Gemma when they had locked her in the master bedroom with her hands zip-tied and her feet taped together. Then he had tossed her on the king-size bed.
Something was happening outside. The Twins were gone but, sometime after she learned of their escape, there were gunshots.
Gemma had thoroughly discouraged Lex. If he had come, he was probably here only for his boys. If so, he had likely found them by now, so he had no reason to stay. No logical reason. Unless … maybe he couldn’t forget those thirty-six hours they had spent together and all that had happened between them.
Their feelings ran too deep to deny. Their needs, each supplied by the other—it all seemed orchestrated by Someone who knew what Lex, Gemma, and the twins needed.
