by Chris Culver
It wasn’t always easy, but I earned my dog’s trust and affection. Roger became my best friend. He and I walked all over the county together, we ran through the woods together, and we sat beside each other on the porch to look at the stars. When I got Roger, I had been just as broken as him. I had adopted parents and siblings, but I had never let myself be a part of their family. I had acquaintances but no real friends. I had been alone in the world, and I hadn’t even known it.
Bit by bit, I fixed up my crappy old house and turned my day-to-day existence into a life that was worth living. Roger was with me the whole time. Every good memory I had in St. Augustine involved Roger. Now that I was losing him, I wondered whether Harry was right. Maybe I should leave and start over. Without my buddy beside me, this didn’t feel like home anymore.
30
When I went to bed that night, I slept so fitfully it was almost a relief when my phone rang, waking me up from a nightmare. In my dream, somebody had been chasing me, but his face was blurry. Every time I thought I got away from him, he’d appear in front of me once more. I had been crying in my sleep, but no one heard or cared.
My phone rang again. I blinked my eyes open. It still felt like my nightmare assailant’s hands were on my breasts, arms, and back. Sweat soaked my pillowcase and sheets. I swallowed hard and stayed still, forcing my racing heart to slow down and my breath to calm. Then I swung my legs off the bed and reached to the end table for my cell.
“Yeah,” I said, rubbing sleep out of my eyes.
“Hey, Detective. This is Nicole Bryant. Sorry to wake you up, but we’ve got an issue.”
Nicole was one of the uniformed officers assigned to the night shift. I didn’t envy her hours, but the night shift came with a pay raise, and she and her husband were saving up to put their kids through college. Nicole worked hard and did her job well. If she’d had the ambition, she could have made sergeant easily, but she didn’t want to become a supervisor. I couldn’t blame her.
“That’s all right. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Sasquatch and I have been following the two men you met earlier. They’ve spent most of the afternoon at a hotel by the interstate, but a few minutes ago they broke into the train yard out on River Road.”
I pictured the area in my head.
“What are they doing at the train yard?”
“We don’t know. They cut the chain on the gate, and then they drove in. Now they’re opening a cargo car. What do you want to do?”
“Watch them for now. If they do anything, use your judgment. Remember these are bad men who will not hesitate to kill you. I’m on my way.”
“See you soon.”
I hung up and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and pulled my hair into a ponytail behind my head before heading out. The night air cooled my skin. Stars stretched from one end of the horizon to the other without even a wisp of cloud cover. On most nights, I liked looking at the stars. Tonight, though, I didn’t have time for reverie. I made sure my pistol had a full magazine and that my badge hung on my belt, and then I hopped in my truck and drove.
The train yard was about twenty minutes away. The railroad owned more property in St. Augustine County than any other business or person, but it employed so few people it didn’t have the political clout commensurate with its investment. I could burn every building it owned to the ground, and the members of the County Council would simply shrug their shoulders. That was how politics worked around here. Cash and campaign contributions were king. Little else mattered.
As I approached the yard, I called Nicole on my cell phone.
“Where are you guys?”
“Base of the billboard on the north edge of the property. It’s dark, and our lights are off so the bad guys can’t see us.”
“I’m on my way.”
From a distance, the rail yard looked like a junkyard, but as I got closer, the individual tracks and cars became clear. Nobody worked there at night, so the company hadn’t even installed overhead lights. A tall chain-link fence topped with barbed wire surrounded the property. No night watchmen patrolled that rail yard. If somebody wanted to steal a four-hundred-thousand-pound locomotive, they were welcome to try.
As Nicole had said, she and Sasquatch had parked beneath a billboard near the edge of the property. I parked beside them and joined them at the front of Sasquatch’s cruiser. The north edge of the property had a slight rise, which gave us a clear view inside the property. There must have been a thousand train cars inside the yard, creating a maze of steel and dirt. A four-door sedan had conspicuously parked on its outskirts.
“That car belong to our bad guys?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Sasquatch. “Sorry to wake you up, Joe.”
“Sorry for keeping you up,” I said. “You’ve had a long day.”
“I’m pulling a double and covering for Gary Faulk. He’s got the flu,” said Sasquatch, pointing toward the rail yard. “They’re in the red car, and they’ve got a light.”
I focused on the yard until I found a red train car with a faint glimmer of light spilling beneath its closed door.
“How long have they been in there?”
“Almost an hour,” said Nicole. “Before that, they were at their hotel. What do you think they’re doing?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head.
“Want to let them know we’re here?” said Sasquatch. “We could knock.”
Again, I shook my head. “No. Those train cars are solid steel. If they pull firearms on us, they’ll be in a hardened position with cover, and we’ll be out in the open. Once they’re done inside, they’ll come out. We’ll wait.”
Sasquatch nodded before yawning.
“If you two don’t mind, I’ll take a nap.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “If anybody moves, we’ll let you know.”
He nodded and went to the front seat of his cruiser, while Nicole and I sat on the bumper of hers. We talked for a while. I liked Nicole, but we came from different worlds. She got married when she was seventeen and had her first kid—a girl—six months later. Now that little girl was getting married to her college boyfriend. Nicole’s other kids were in high school. I didn’t have kids or a husband or loved ones to talk about, and I didn’t want to talk about Roger. So I nodded along, smiled, and asked questions until Nicole ran out of things to say.
A little over an hour after I arrived, two men emerged from the railroad car. They looked around, but they didn’t notice us. Nicole crept around Sasquatch’s car and woke him up. I joined the two beside the cruiser.
“Should we follow them or check out the car?” asked Nicole. The two men climbed into their sedan. A second later, their taillights lit up, and they drove toward the gate. They kept their headlights off, making them difficult to follow in the starlight.
“They’re up to something, so follow them,” I said. “I’ll check out the train car. If we need to, we’ll call in backup. Go now before they’re gone. And be careful.”
Sasquatch didn’t hesitate before turning on his car. I took a step back as Nicole hurried to the passenger side. Once the bad guys reached the highway, they turned on their headlights and sped up. This patch of the highway had a few curves and a few hills, so Sasquatch let them drive over a hill before turning on his own headlights. At night, nobody would see their paint job or the unlit light bar on top of their cruiser. They’d be fine.
I let them both disappear around a bend before making sure Nicole had locked her cruiser. Then I got in my truck and headed toward the rail yard. The bad guys had pulled the front gate shut, but they hadn’t locked it. Within moments of pulling into the lot, I opened the rolling door of a freight car and peered into what looked like the set of a horror movie.
Blue plastic tarps covered the car’s walls, ceiling, and floor. Duct tape joined the seams. In the center of the car, they had placed a wooden chair, the kind my teachers had kept behind their desks in elementary school. It was a good place to kill somebody. The train
car was remote, but more than that, by the time we realized we had a body, our crime scene would be thousands of miles away.
I ran out of there and ripped my phone from my pocket. Sasquatch’s phone rung three times before he answered.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“In a neighborhood off River Road,” he said. “What did you find in the car?”
“Tarps. They plan to kill somebody. I’ll call the station for backup. Stay on these guys, but don’t engage them unless you have to.”
Sasquatch hesitated.
“They split up. One guy got out of the car about half a mile away. Nicole followed him into some woods. I’m following the guy who’s in the car.”
“Leave the guy in the car. Go back and get Nicole. I’ll send backup to you as soon as I can.”
I hung up on him and threw open my door. It took a moment to find Nicole’s number in my address book, but I punched in her entry as my old truck roared to life.
“Come on, Nicole,” I said. “Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.”
I put the truck in gear and floored the accelerator. Dust flew behind me as the rear tires spun in the loose soil before gaining traction. My truck rocketed forward. Finally, I heard Nicole’s soft breath on the phone.
“Joe,” she said. “I’m following one of ’em on foot.”
“Back off,” I said. “They’ve set up a kill room in the train. You’ve got backup en route, but you’re not safe on your own. Get back to River Road. Sasquatch will pick you up.”
For a few seconds, Nicole said nothing. Then her breath caught in her throat, and she jostled the phone.
“Police officer!” she screamed. “Put your hands in the air.”
“Fuck,” I said. My entire body tingled, and I willed my car to speed up. I hit the asphalt at thirty miles an hour and floored the accelerator. Sasquatch and Nicole couldn’t have driven far.
“Hands in the air. Now.”
Nicole’s voice was strident, almost to the point of breaking. Then somebody fired a gun. It was deeper and louder than Nicole’s pistol. I held my breath and waited for return fire.
“Shoot him, Nicole,” I whispered.
No shots came, so I ended the call and dialed my station’s number with trembling fingers. The moment someone picked up, I shouted orders.
“We’ve got shots fired. Trace Preston Cain’s cruiser and send everybody we’ve got to that area. We have at least two armed suspects and two officers in the area. I am en route right now in my truck. Repeat, we have shots fired. We need EMS and backup.”
Jason Zuckerburg, our night dispatcher, pounded on his keyboard.
“The GPS says Preston is near River Road. Does that sound right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Send everybody on duty. And call the Highway Patrol. We need tactical help and a bird in the air.”
He continued to type. “I’m routing eight officers and an ambulance toward that area. The nearest officer is…” He paused. When he spoke again, his voice was crestfallen. “…seven miles away. We’re going lights and sirens. We’ll get there as soon as we can.”
“Understood.”
I hung up and tossed my phone to the seat beside me as cold anger flooded through my system. Even at this time of night, it would take our cruisers at least five minutes to cross seven miles on the county’s decrepit, narrow roads. If someone had shot Nicole, she didn’t have that kind of time, and Sasquatch was alone against two gunmen who had already taken out one officer.
I had to move.
31
I kept the accelerator floored until I found Sasquatch’s cruiser by the side of the road. Fields and patches of thick woods surrounded us. There were few homes. Sasquatch had parked in front of a rambling single-story brick home with a big front porch. I screeched to a halt near his cruiser and positioned my truck at an angle so Sasquatch’s vehicle gave me cover from the left and my truck’s engine block gave me cover from the right. Then I climbed out and pulled my firearm out of its holster.
Sasquatch wasn’t here, but the driver’s door and trunk of his cruiser were both open. I peered into the trunk. Each of our cruisers had a rack for an M4 carbine on the lid. Sasquatch’s was empty.
I didn’t care if the bad guys saw me. I needed to keep my officers safe, so I opened the passenger door of Sasquatch’s cruiser and leaned inside to turn on the light. Red, blue, and white lights lit the world around me like a fireworks show.
“Preston!” I shouted. Nobody answered, and nobody came out of the houses. “Nicole! Preston!”
I turned, hoping I’d see movement somewhere. Then the distant, staccato report of a rifle echoed against the nearby trees. A shotgun answered with a deep booming blast. Then a pistol fired.
“Shit.”
I sprinted toward the noise. My mind screamed at me that this was the stupidest thing I had ever done, but I didn’t care. I wouldn’t lose somebody else tonight.
I streaked across the lawn and plunged into a deep thicket of woods. Poplar, walnut, cherry, and other trees I didn’t recognize surrounded me. Weeds and thorny vines covered the ground, creating a tangled mess of tripping hazards. I couldn’t stop moving, though.
I sprinted and paused only long enough to duck behind trees to listen. My department had sent backup almost five minutes ago, but I couldn’t hear their sirens yet. I did, though, hear gunfire. It wasn’t far now.
I ran another hundred yards and pressed my back against an ancient silver maple tree.
“Preston, where are you?”
A pistol blasted to the west, far closer than I had expected. Bark and wood exploded around me. I yelped and ducked before returning fire in the general direction the shot had come from. Then I sprinted to another big tree to the east of my original location.
Fresh rounds thwacked into the woods around me. Sasquatch returned fire with his carbine from the north.
“Joe!” he shouted. “Stay down.”
“Where’s Nicole?”
“I don’t know,” he said. The man with the pistol fired again. It hit my tree at an angle, sending bark flying. Debris raked my face and bit into my skin. I blinked dirt and bark out of my eyes as I knelt down to get my bearings.
As best I could tell, the four of us had positioned ourselves in a boxlike shape. Sasquatch hid behind a tree to the north, while the man with the shotgun had ducked into a ravine to the northwest. The man with the pistol hid somewhere to the west. Everyone had cover, which meant we had a stalemate. Sasquatch and I only needed to survive until our backup arrived.
The bad guys shouted to one another in a language I didn’t recognize.
“You understand any of that?” I shouted.
“No. You?” asked Sasquatch.
Broadcasting our ignorance at the moment didn’t seem to matter.
“No.”
As I spoke, the man with the pistol popped off two rounds. They hit my tree. Then he popped off two more. These thwacked into the tree Sasquatch had hidden behind. As the pistol shooter gave him covering fire, the man with the shotgun took off.
So did Sasquatch.
“Preston, get to cover!” I shouted.
Sasquatch didn’t acknowledge me. He kept running after the man with the shotgun. I didn’t know what he was thinking. He was right in the open. The pistol shooter raised his weapon. I fired at his hands but missed.
The bad guy’s pistol barked once and then twice more. The world slowed. With each shot, the orange glow of his muzzle flash lit up the surrounding woods. Preston stumbled and fell as if he had tripped on a tree root.
Raw, hot rage overcame me. I screamed and squeezed the trigger on my firearm as I sprinted forward. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I didn’t have a plan. If Sasquatch was still alive, he needed help, and he wouldn’t get it if people were shooting at us still. With each step I took, I fired again, driving the shooter back. The man with the shotgun kept running. He was getting away, but I couldn’t stop him.
The pistol shooter wasn’t far—ma
ybe thirty feet from where I started. My pistol had few rounds left, but I only needed one. I stopped squeezing the trigger and darted behind the trunk of a gnarled oak tree. Thanks to all my early morning runs through the woods behind my house, I was in good shape. Already my heart was slowing down.
Nobody fired a gun for a moment. I crept forward, giving myself a better view of my target. The barrel of his firearm extended beyond the tree. His partner had left the woods.
In the distance, I heard the first sirens of my approaching team.
“Toss your weapon down and put your hands in the air!” I shouted. “I have two officers down. You’re not walking away from this. If you keep fighting, you will die.”
I didn’t expect him to give up, but I sure didn’t expect him to chuckle, either.
“You’re out of rounds, aren’t you?” said the shooter. I recognized him by his accent. It was Stephan Kushnir, the younger of the two men I had met at Rise and Grind. “I’ve been counting.”
I hadn’t been counting, but by its weight, I knew I had several rounds left in my firearm.
“Throw down your weapon and put your hands in the air,” I said. “I’m not playing here.”
“You first,” said Kushnir. I heard a twig snap and leaves crunch as he exited his position. He was walking toward me almost with his firearm held at his side. I stepped out from the tree’s cover and raised my pistol.
“I’ve got at least one round in the chamber, buddy,” I said. “Drop your weapon and put your hands in the air.”
“We’ve already killed two of your friends tonight,” he said, smirking. “You think I get a medal for taking out one more?”
“Are you this stupid?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “I don’t want to shoot you. Lie down. I’ve got a dozen or more officers inbound right now.”
He raised his weapon. It was almost a lazy movement. My finger slipped from the trigger guard to the trigger. Before I squeezed my trigger, three staccato shots rang out behind me. One round struck a tree, but the other two hit Kushnir in the back. He fell forward. I looked behind me to see Sasquatch about forty feet away. He leaned against a tree, but he gave me a thumbs-up before dropping his rifle and collapsing.
