by Ethan Cross
He squeezed the grip of his Taurus PT845 pistol and tried his best to quiet his breathing. He held the gun in his right hand and the phone in his left. When the time was right, he would need the light from the phone’s display to illuminate his target.
Then he heard it.
The crunching of broken glass beneath a person’s foot.
Then nothing.
His enemy realized that they had given themselves away and were waiting for him to make a move. But war was a game of wills. In a combat situation such as this, the most patient and disciplined soldier won the day.
His enemy couldn’t see him hiding behind the corner. They would have to choose whether to move forward or back. He imagined them second-guessing and worrying and trying to predict his tactics just as he had done with them. He had turned the tables on the predator and now he would—
The phone vibrated in his left hand, and the display lit up.
It startled him and forced a split second’s hesitation.
And then the enemy converged on him with swift and violent determination.
~~*~~
Katherine frowned as she reached Black’s voicemail. Why hadn’t he answered? Were they really under attack? Or was she just acting like a child again?
She opened the glove box and pulled out the flashlight. If Black was in trouble, she had to help. And if not, it was time that they took the evidence and left. They could worry about repacking the storage unit in the morning.
Then she realized with a start that the lights of the parking lot still burned brightly. If it really was nothing more than a power outage, then she reasoned that all of the lights would have been extinguished.
She grabbed up her phone in order to call for backup. She briefly considered calling her office but decided that a simple 911 call would bring help much faster.
Her finger had pressed the nine and strayed toward the one when a hand wrapped around her mouth and an arm snaked around her chest, crushing her into the seat.
Someone in the back of the car. Someone trying to kill her.
She tried to scream, but a gag muffled the sound. No, not a gag. A piece of cloth. A cloth covered in the sweet chemical scent of chloroform.
She struggled against the strong arm choking the life from her. Clawing, scratching. She reached for her Glock, managed to pull it from the holster, and then fell into sleep.
~~*~~
In the dim light of the phone’s display, the first man threw off his NVGs and used his whole body as a weapon to ram Black like a charging rhino. The squat black-skinned attacker couldn’t match Jonas in size, but the man was thickly muscled and clearly knew how to use a lower center of gravity against a larger opponent. Black rocked back on his heels, arms flailing. Then the man focused on Black’s right hand, knocking the pistol free. It clattered across the polished concrete.
The second man kept his distance but took aim with a strange looking submachine gun. Then he pulled off his own NVGs and flipped on a tactical light located on the end of his gun.
Analyzing the situation within a split second and letting the pain and adrenaline fuel his attack, Jonas Black regained his footing and deflected the black man’s next blow. Then he followed it with a swift and violent strike of his own.
An open palm was often thought of as a less effective blow than the traditional closed-fist punch. But in reality, an open palmed blow could be very damaging when a person applied enough force behind it. The palm covered a lot of area, almost the entire side of a man’s face, even more so when dealing with palms the size of Jonas Black’s. Plus, a closed-fisted punch could inflict almost as much damage to the attacker’s hand as the receiver’s face, while the open palm could administer just as much force with less risk of injury.
Knowing this through instinct and training, Jonas slapped both palms against the black man’s ears and temples. Then he chopped the man in the neck and thrust his palm up beneath the attacker’s chin. As the man’s head flew back, Jonas’s fingers closed over the man’s face and found the black man’s eye sockets. Instinctively attacking the weakest areas of his opponent’s body, Jonas pressed his index and ring fingers into the man’s eyes. The black man screamed in agony, and he shoved the attacker back toward his companion.
But the second man was ready. This attacker, a stocky Hispanic man with a shaved head and thick mustache, had kept his distance. He sidestepped his companion and opened fire.
Black tried to dive away, but he couldn’t react in time. He screamed in anguish as he felt the rounds tear into the muscles of his thighs. A cold fire rippled out from the impacts, and he fought to stay upright.
But the trauma was too much for his body, and despite his best efforts, he fell back against the concrete. The air expelled from his lungs with the impact. He couldn’t breathe, and his legs tingled with a strange numbness that seemed to be spreading throughout the rest of his body.
He frantically scanned the floor for his gun and caught sight of it a few feet away. Scrambling on hands and knees, he thrust his body toward the weapon.
But the Hispanic man didn’t let up. Black felt the same cold fire strike his shoulders and arms. More rounds from the strange submachine gun tearing into his flesh.
Dizziness. Disorientation. Confusion.
The world pulsed and spun end over end.
He felt nauseated. So sleepy. He just wanted to lay his head against the concrete and forget about everything. Forget about Corrigan and Munroe, and the case, and Katherine, and his nephew and sister-in-law. Just give up and let it end. Let it finally end.
He wrestled against the sudden desire to sleep but was no match for it. He felt cold and tingly all over. So weak. So tired.
Then calm acceptance and warmth flooded his sensations and blocked out the rest of the world.
He wondered absently as he slipped away if this was what it felt like to die.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Standing atop a secluded bluff overlooking the Potomac River, Antonio de Almeida steeled his resolve for what came next. The smell of ozone and pollen filled the air from the recent summer storm. The rain had dissipated, but the fog still clung to the earth like a blanket. Almeida couldn’t even see the river through the mist, but he heard the slapping of water against the base of the precipice below. He waved smelling salts beneath the noses of Jonas Black and Katherine O’Connell. The pair sat inside Katherine’s Dodge Charger. Almeida and his men had driven them up to the edge of the bluff and placed Katherine behind the wheel with Black occupying the passenger seat. As the salts took effect, the captives sprung to life, but no part of their bodies moved except for their eyes, which frantically scanned the car’s interior.
“What the hell?” Black said in a tired whisper.
Almeida leaned down into the open driver’s side window. “My men shot you with a tranquilizer gun, and we brought you here. But don’t bother trying to move your arms or legs. I’ve paralyzed your limbs by injecting a local anesthetic called lidocaine into your brachial plexus nerves and subarachnoid block.”
“What do you want from us?” Katherine said.
“I want you to tell me where Munroe has hidden the flash drive.”
Black said, “You’re wasting your time. We don’t know where it is.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I suppose it doesn’t really matter anyway. My associate will have Munroe in custody shortly, and I know for certain that he can tell me its whereabouts. But still, you could save your friend a lot of unnecessary pain, if you told me now.”
“We don’t know.”
“What about Corrigan and Gelman? What information have they shared? I, of course, have the earnings statement that you retrieved from the storage unit, and we took all the other files just to be safe. But it would be helpful if I knew how much Munroe knows as well.”
“Corrigan wouldn’t talk and neither did Gelman.
But it doesn’t really matter what I tell you, does it? You’re going to kill us either way.”
Almeida laid a hand on Black’s shoulder and nodded thoughtfully. “It brings me no pleasure to do so, but it’s a necessary evil. I’ve given you and Munroe ample opportunity to walk away, but you kept pushing. We’re soldiers, Mr. Black, and war has its casualties.”
“You’re not a soldier, and this isn’t a war.”
“I’m afraid that it is, whether you know it or not, and one that your government has declared on us. Twelve months ago a group of US black ops commandos similar to yourself infiltrated one of our compounds in Mexico in an attempt to assassinate our leader. Luckily, Vaquero wasn’t there. Instead, they killed his wife, three sons, and his daughter. I was the godfather of the two youngest. Of course, your government denies responsibility, claiming that it was a rival organization. And now, your masters intend to pass a law declaring us as terrorists. They come into our country and murder our families and then call us terrorists.”
“You kidnap tourists, sell drugs to kids, murder anyone who gets in your way, and lord knows what else. You may not be Al Qaeda, but you’re close enough for me. You’re criminals, not revolutionaries. Just a pack of killers and thieves.”
“I know that I’m a sinner, and I ask for forgiveness every day. But you’re a soldier just like me, and unlike most normal people, you and I will do what is necessary to win the war. That’s what I’m doing, Mr. Black. The leaders of your country are a pack of bullies who think that they know what’s best for the rest of the world. But soon they will be forced to reconsider their positions on many things. Unfortunately, you and your companions are collateral damage in that fight. For that, I am sorry. I will pray for you. And I suggest you spend the next few moments asking for forgiveness of your own.”
Then Almeida reached up to the steering column, put the car in neutral, and started them rolling toward the edge of the bluff.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Jonas Black didn’t spend his last moments praying. Instead, he tensed and untensed all his muscles in an attempt to wake them from their chemically-induced sleep. Moving only his eyes, he looked over at Katherine. Tears dampened her cheeks. Hues of red flushed her pale, freckled cheeks. She huffed in quick, short gasps. But she also wasn’t screaming or displaying any other hysterics. Her eyes darted back and forth, scanning for a way out.
He continued to tense and untense, willing his muscles to break free of the bonds and move. For his entire life, an overly high-tolerance for pain killers and anesthetic had plagued him. Now he hoped that it could save their lives.
Still, he couldn’t be sure that his tolerance applied to the drug Almeida had administered. And maybe the Colombian had increased the dosage to account for his large size. Maybe Almeida had upped the dosage just to be thorough.
The car’s roll toward the edge started slowly. Then momentum built, and their speed increased.
If he could just move his foot enough to hit the brake…
He felt his toes twitch. Adrenaline pumped harder through his veins as death approached. Fingers flexed. His hand opened slightly. If he could raise his arm and throw the vehicle into park, it would at least stop their slide toward the edge. Almeida would see that they had stopped, but Black needed to focus on one problem at a time.
He fought to bring up his arm or foot, and with every second, some movement returned. But with every tick of the clock, they also inched closer to the edge of the bluff and the cold waters below.
Then it was too late.
His stomach jumped into his throat as the ground gave way to open air and the Charger shot toward the river.
The thick fog obscured their view to the point that the water below and their ultimate fate wasn’t visible. They rocketed through the mist as if falling into nothingness. It could have been ten feet or a thousand miles, and they wouldn’t have known the difference.
Katherine screamed.
Black closed his eyes and braced for impact.
The collision with the river felt like they had hit a brick wall. Their heads jerked forward, but the seat belts that Almeida had strapped around them kept their bodies from flying out of the vehicle.
The cold water of the Potomac flowed in immediately. Black had seen a car hit the water before and knew that, unlike in the movies, it could take a few minutes for a vehicle to completely submerge and fill with water, depending on a lot of factors. He also knew that the open driver-side window would cause them to fill up faster.
Either way, he still had time.
As death grew closer, his resolve strengthened. He refused to die. Not just that he didn’t want it to happen, he rejected the possibility. He projected himself into the future with his inner language and attitude. It wasn’t if they survived, it was how they would survive. The solutions were present. He just needed to identify them.
He heard Katherine praying, but he ignored her. He would not accept death. He lived a life of war, and he had no intentions of losing the battle.
“We’re going to get out of this,” he said to Katherine. “Just stay calm.”
She didn’t respond.
The water flowed into the car and soaked through his shoes and pants. The level rose with every passing second. The cold of the river felt like death’s fingers wrapping around his ankle to drag him to the deep.
The water reached his knees.
Then he broke through some interior biological wall, and his arm moved. His movements were sluggish, and his limbs felt like dead weights, but he could move nonetheless.
Still, his current state prevented him from swimming to safety by himself, let alone carrying a grown woman with him.
He frantically scanned the car’s interior for something to help them.
The glove box wouldn’t contain anything that would float. Unlike planes, the car’s seats couldn’t be used as flotation devices. The back seat contained only trash, candy bar wrappers and old…two liter soda bottles.
One of the recycling videos that Chloe had showed him on YouTube came to mind—old soda bottles repurposed as rafts and life vests. The air trapped inside the empty bottles made them perfect flotation devices.
The chilling water passed his waist, but at least it served to shock his system and wake his sleeping muscles even further.
With great effort, he forced his heavy arms to grab the empty bottles from the backseat and floor boards. Then he shoved them beneath Katherine’s black button-down dress shirt.
“What are you doing?” she said in a trembling voice.
“Saving your ass.”
The water reached their chests, and it took all his strength to shove the air-filled bottles beneath the surface and under their shirts. He held his breath and went under. Then he quickly tucked Katherine’s shirt into her pants and repeated the procedure with himself.
He looked over to see Katherine’s face submerged just above his own. Pure terror showed in her eyes, but he also detected a measure of hope and trust within them.
Her seatbelt came off easily, and he pulled her from the Charger as it fell to the depths of the river’s bottom. The bottles popped her to the surface, but her face still rested beneath the waves.
He had placed most of the bottles beneath her shirt, and the ones under his own didn’t provide nearly as much support as he would have liked. Still, he was able to flip her over and pull her toward the shore.
But the river didn’t want to give up its prize, and the strong current and dead weight of his limbs fought against his forward progression. Unable to fight the forces pulling him down, he fell below the water’s surface.
CHAPTER FIFTY
It would have been so much easier to give up, just let the waves take him down and the river consume him. His whole life had been a battle and that showed no signs of changing. The fatigue drained his will. Did it really matter if he made
it to the shore? What did he have to look forward to?
But he also knew that Katherine would never make it out of the river without him, not in her current condition. Unlike him, someone out there loved her. A family. Parents. A brother. They would mourn her passing.
He willed his tingling, numb legs to kick and push. He focused on small movements, on the next kick, the next breath. It seemed like an eternity. Kicking, pulling Katherine along, gasping for breath, taking in huge mouthfuls of water. But then they reached sanctuary. The sand and rocks of the shore surrounded them as he pulled Katherine from the water and then fell back onto the beach.
Katherine coughed up a torrent of brown water, but she was alive.
He lied back and closed his eyes. He just wanted to sleep.
Almeida’s words floated back to him like something from a dream. Munroe. The Colombian had said that one of his associates would have Munroe soon. He had to send a warning before it was too late.
He checked his pocket but found that his cell phone was gone.
His legs trembled as he pulled himself from the sand. He gained his footing but then stumbled forward onto a patch of grass and rocks. Pain lanced through his arms and chest, but pain was good. Pain was life.
Tired, numb, dizzy, and shaking, Jonas Black tapped an extra reserve of strength hidden somewhere deep inside himself and pushed his aching body upright again. This time he made it three steps before falling back to the ground.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Deacon Munroe hung up the phone and growled at the receiver. He didn’t have time for this. When John Corrigan had gone into the hospital, Munroe had requested to be notified if his condition changed in any way. Corrigan’s doctor had called a few minutes prior and informed him that, if things went as planned, they would be ready to wake the disgraced soldier in two days. He wanted to be there when Corrigan’s eyes opened, but unfortunately, Jonas Black hadn’t answered on any of Munroe’s five phone calls.
