End Game

by John Gilstrap

  “Remember,” Teddy said, “this is all your choosing.”

  The goon on the other end of the rope led/dragged Graham to the center of the room, and positioned him in a precise spot. Graham didn’t know what the spot meant, but apparently, it was important to whatever lay ahead. Only a few feet in, the frigid air enveloped him like a blanket of razor blades.

  Equipment of some sort moved behind him, but his efforts to turn and see earned him a slap in the gut, so he resigned himself to being surprised.

  Time and opportunity.

  Graham felt a slight tug on his neck—nothing like the first ones—and then people moved away from him. When he looked up, he saw that the far end of his noose had been tied around the J of a meat hook.

  “Be careful,” Teddy said as Graham’s minder pulled away. “That noose is a one-way knot. Once it tightens, you need hands to loosen it. And, well, you don’t have functioning hands anymore. Remember what happened last time you grew so cold?”

  The asshole actually waited for an answer. Graham refused to give him one.

  “Do you really want me to pre-tighten the knot?” Teddy asked. “When I’m in control, questions get answers. Now, again. Do you want me to pre-tighten the knot?”

  Graham shook his head.

  “Motion is not an answer,” Teddy said. His voice was getting reedy. Graham didn’t know what that meant for him, but he knew that it couldn’t be good.

  “No,” Graham said. “I don’t want you to tighten the knot.”

  “Very well, then. The question I asked is, do you remember what happened the last time you got very cold?”

  Graham scowled. The God’s-honest truthful answer was no, he didn’t remember. He remembered being cold and frightened, and then he remembered being in the warm bath. Everything else was either nonexistent or a blur in his memory. But he sensed that Teddy wouldn’t want to hear that.

  “You’re confused,” Teddy said. “That’s because you fell unconscious. And that, my young friend, is the point. If you fall unconscious now, I will not rescue you. What you know is important, but not so important that we cannot live without it.”

  “What is it?” Graham asked. He stood taller than was necessary, keenly aware of the nonloosening knot and the lack of slack in the rope. “What do the numbers mean?”

  Teddy smiled. “So, you do remember,” he said.

  “I remember that there were numbers and letters,” Graham said, “but I don’t remember what they were.”

  Teddy made a clicking sound with his tongue and shook his head. “Such a shameful way for a good-looking young man to perish. I’m told that at first you feel a great pressure in your head and your face as the blood gets trapped above the level of the rope. As your windpipe crushes, it obviously gets harder to breathe, and as the pressure builds more, your gag reflex is triggered. If you have enough strength—enough wind—to vomit, then you make a mess down the front of yourself. If you do not, then the vomit will drown you. Either way, when people discover your body, your face will be bloated to two or three times its normal size—as will your legs and your scrotum—and you will be a deep purple in color. More times than not, hanging victims who have been unattended for too long have their tongues sticking out of their bloated faces.”

  It was a horrifying image, and Graham knew that it was 100 percent true. He knew it because he’d seen movies where that was nearly the exact image portrayed. The tongue was the most disgusting part. And the scrotum. Jesus, the thought of a swollen, purple ball sack was enough to ruin anyone’s stomach. Terror welled from his gut. Was that whole vomiting thing about to happen now?

  “I’ll leave you to your shivering,” Teddy said. “But first, I have a surprise for you.”

  On cue, the freezer door opened again, and Graham heard movement behind him.

  “You may pivot,” Teddy said. “Just be careful not to trip and break your neck. I don’t want you to miss your surprise.”

  Graham quick-stepped a tight circle to his left, toward the sound he’d heard.

  When he saw his surprise, there was no way to contain his horror.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Jonathan launched the Raven with more or less the same motion he would have launched a Hail Mary pass with in a football game—a wide overhead pitch counterbalanced by an extended left arm. The electric motor was already up to speed, so once free of his hand, it was airborne and in controlled flight. LeBron and Georgie stood so close to him that it was difficult not to hit them in the head with his follow-through.

  “So, what’s that going to do?” LeBron asked.

  “It’s going to send us some awesome pictures,” Jonathan said. He led the tiny parade back into the house, where Boxers was engrossed in the business of piloting the aircraft via a mini control panel and a computer screen, to which Dawn seemed 100 percent glued.

  “Nice launch, Boss,” Boxers said. “You didn’t do that girlie throw-into-the-ground move. That would’ve been embarrassing for all of us.” As he spoke, his eyes never left the screen, which showed very little of interest. If you used your imagination, you could see the ground passing underneath the drone’s camera, but it required a suspension of disbelief.

  Boxers was the pilot of the team, but Jonathan understood most of the rudimentary elements of navigation and aerodynamics, so he knew that Big Guy was guiding the Raven by instruments, coordinating the nonvisual elements of compass direction, altitude, airspeed, and even wind speed to bring the UAV on target. The camera was working, thus the near-images of the ground, but there was no definitive image to observe.

  Twenty or thirty seconds later, the screen filled with an overhead view of the building they’d seen as a blueprint. Next to Boxers’ navigation screen, Jonathan pulled up the plan view that Venice had uploaded for him. He also re-upped the blueprint package, just in case they needed it.

  “That’s amazing,” LeBron said. “You can see everything.”

  It was a true statement, emphasis on everything. The days of grainy black-and-white or silver-and-white IR technology as the only way to see in the dark were gone. If you had the bucks to spend and the access to the developers of top-secret technology, modern optics had the power to transform night into day.

  Boxers’ eyes narrowed as his concentration increased. As the pilot, his eyes stayed on the computer images of a control panel, and he could afford only brief glances at the images that were beamed back. Jonathan recorded the images for later examination. Because everything was digital, they would be able to freeze any frame they wanted and zoom in on it as if it were a high-definition still photograph. Very cool technology.

  Boxers flew the aircraft first in a wide circle around the building, and then in a zigzag pattern over the top. Even before careful analysis, Jonathan took in the obvious—people stood at each of the doorways. The prudent assumption would be that they were armed guards. Each was positioned in such a way that they would be difficult to see from the street.

  “What’s your altitude?” Jonathan asked.

  “About four hundred feet. Even if they looked straight up, they wouldn’t be able to see or hear a thing.”

  After five, maybe seven minutes of cruising over the building, Boxers said, “I’ve seen everything I need. Ready to call it a night for the Raven.”

  “Affirm. Before we get hooked.” Even in a tense situation, cool technology could become mesmerizing in itself, the coolness factor converting the equipment into a toy, and the recon mission into playtime.

  “This is like Jack Bauer shit,” Georgie said.

  “Big Guy could kick Jack Bauer’s ass,” Jonathan said through a grin.

  “And not even break a sweat,” Boxers said. His eyes never left his controls.

  “Can anybody buy one of these?” LeBron asked.

  “If you’ve got enough money and you know the right people, I suppose you can buy anything,” Jonathan said. He didn’t add that he’d built an entire career around doing just that. “But you won’t find it in R
adioShack.”

  “Who are you people really?” Dawn asked. It was the question that she couldn’t get past. “All these guns and electronics, throwing cash around like it’s water. Who are you?”

  Jonathan turned away from the screen and addressed her. She stood behind her husband and his brother, hugging herself. Tears balanced on her eyelids. She was scared.

  Jonathan stood from his chair and gently nudged the young men to step out of his way. “Don’t touch anything,” he said. He approached Dawn slowly, easily. He set his face on what he hoped was a look of compassion.

  As he closed the distance, Dawn took a step back and he stopped. He didn’t want to invade her space. “Dawn, all I can tell you is that we’re the good guys. I have no way to prove that to you, and I understand what a leap of faith it must be for you to believe that, but I swear to God it’s the truth. We’re here to help a young man and a young woman live to see tomorrow. Really, that’s all we’re about.”

  Dawn looked at him, assessed him, for a long time. Maybe thirty seconds. “This young man and young woman. How old are they?”

  “Fourteen and twenty-seven.” As the words passed his lips, he heard Boxers growl. More of the sharing that he detested.

  “Which is which?” Dawn asked.

  “The male is the younger.”

  “So he’s a baby.”

  “Hey!” Georgie said. “I’m fifteen. I’m no baby.”

  Dawn smirked, and Jonathan got it.

  “What did they do?”

  “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They have some very dangerous information.”

  “Yo, Boss,” Boxers said. “How about a little discretion here?”

  “We’re in their home, Big Guy. It’s only right that we share as much as we can.” To Dawn, he said, “Don’t ask what that information is. That would be a step too far.”

  Dawn stewed a little longer. “So, if I called the Detroit PD right now . . .”

  She let the sentence hang in the air.

  “I would prefer you didn’t do that,” Jonathan said.

  “But if I did?”

  “We’d be lucky if they got here in an hour,” LeBron said.

  Jonathan smiled, but otherwise ignored him. “I think you’re asking me if the police would know if we were here,” he said. “The answer to that would be no. And if you called the FBI, that answer would be no, as well. You may take from that whatever you wish.”

  “What are the chances that LeBron or Georgie or me will get in trouble with the law for any of this?”

  Jonathan was impressed with the way this young woman thought. She was a wife, a mother, and a caring sister-in-law. Her first priority was to make sure that no harm would come to the people she loved. Jonathan had nothing but admiration for people who put family first.

  “Let me put it to you this way,” Jonathan said. “If you don’t call them, the Detroit Police—and the FBI and the CIA and every other three-letter agency you can think of—will never know that we set foot in your lovely home. The only way that word could possibly leak out is if you or LeBron or Georgie leak it.”

  “So it’s your plan to rescue the boy and the girl?” Dawn asked.

  “It is,” Jonathan said.

  “Oh, come on, Scorpion,” Boxers complained. “Just a little secret-keeping? You know, for old time’s sake?”

  Boxers had always been the OpSec purist, but Jonathan sensed that he was laying it on extra thick tonight to enhance Jonathan’s aura as a good cop in his negotiation with Dawn. Jonathan looked at her and shrugged. “There’s no way I can make you comfortable with all that is happening, but I hope this convinces you that you and yours getting hurt is nowhere in the plan.” He waited till he had eye contact. “In fact, I promise that I will kill and I will die to protect you.”

  He knew that Boxers was going to bust his balls later for the melodrama. He saw Big Guy swivel his head to make eye contact, but he ignored him. This encounter was about selling Dawn on the mission.

  “So, what are we supposed to do tomorrow?” she asked.

  Jonathan cocked his head.

  “Just looking at all the equipment you brought, I’m guessing that tomorrow morning the factory across the road is going to look a lot different,” she said. “It’s gonna have holes in it, and it’s gonna have dead bodies in it. Am I right?”

  Jonathan sensed all the heads turning to await his answer, so he turned to stone. There was simply nothing for him to say in response.

  Dawn seemed to get that. “Okay,” she pressed. “Let’s just say I’m right. For all I know, you might be one of the bodies in there. But whatever happens, people are going to find out, and people are going to start asking questions. What do I tell them?”

  “Whatever you think is appropriate,” Jonathan said. “You can repeat every word of this conversation, if that’s what you think is necessary. But by way of full disclosure, I have to warn you that that particular route will prove very frustrating for all concerned.” He wiggled his gloved fingers, as if to wave to a child. “We’ve left no fingerprints, and even if we did, they would be untraceable. You know us as Scorpion and Big Guy, and you know we communicate with someone named Mother Hen. Pretend you’re a cop and run that story through your head. How do you think that will go?”

  Dawn looked at the floor. She got it.

  Everyone always got it. The money he threw around didn’t hurt, but that wasn’t the deciding factor 99 percent of the time. Jonathan believed—and Boxers would fight him on this one—that people were inherently good. Many were assholes, and all of them lived every day primarily to advance their own agenda. But when the chips were down, the vast majority would endure significant risk for the benefit of a stranger. And if the stranger were a baby, as Dawn had referred to Graham, the willingness to take risks spiked dramatically.

  “Hey, Boss,” Boxers said. “We need to do some planning.”

  Jonathan kept his gaze on Dawn. “You know you’re the linchpin on all this, right?” he said. “I don’t mean to presume, but I sense that I’ve got LeBron and Georgie one hundred percent with me. I’ve got you pegged as about thirty-five percent. In relatively few minutes, Big Guy and I are going to step into the furnace. Can I count on you not to start another battle to our rear?”

  Dawn started to answer, then stopped. “I’m not sure I know what that means, ‘start another battle.’ ”

  Boxers snapped, “It means he doesn’t want you ratting us out to the cops who are run so ragged in this town that they’d shoot their Aunt Millie if she scratched her armpit, thinking she was going to draw down on them from a shoulder rig.”

  LeBron laughed. “We actually have an Aunt Millie.”

  “And if she reaches for her armpit, the smart move would be to shoot her.” The two brothers laughed together.

  Dawn remained unamused. “Here’s what I promise you,” she said. “I pray that you save those people, and I don’t care what you have to do to make that happen.”

  Jonathan smiled.

  “Don’t be happy yet,” she said. “If anything happens to my family—if there’s so much as a scratch on my house—I will do everything I can to hunt you down and make you pay.”

  Jonathan looked to LeBron. He’d married himself one hell of a woman. Jonathan admired the passion. “It’s a deal,” he said.

  They shook on it, but he never took his glove off. He had no idea if that made the deal less binding.

  Jolaine looked terrible. They arranged her so that she was straddling a tall sawhorse, still fully clothed. Her hands were tightly bound and the goons strung them to one of the meat hooks overhead. She’d clearly been beaten. Blood glistened from her nose to her chin, and her face was bruised purple. Her left eye was swollen shut.

  Graham didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t even sure that she was conscious, or if she was, that she knew that he was present. How could anyone do such a thing to her? A gorge of anger blossomed in his gut. Who the hell did these people think—
>
  “I believe you two know each other,” Teddy said.

  At the sound of the voice, Jolaine’s head rocked up. At first, she looked confused, but then she saw Graham and she smiled. One of her front teeth had been knocked out. “I’m sorry, Graham,” she said. With her mouth trauma, “sorry” sounded like “thorry.”

  Graham’s vision blurred. Nothing was worth this level of suffering.

  “Look at me, Graham,” Jolaine said.

  They made eye contact.

  “Give up nothing,” she said. One of the silent goons lifted her T-shirt to reveal bare flesh and touched it with a stick that made a snapping sound. Jolaine’s back arched and she screamed as she became rigid.

  “That’s an electrical torture stick,” Teddy explained in his ear. “Some people call it a cattle prod in your country. It is certainly an attention-getter. Allow me to demonstrate.” Teddy lifted the front of Graham’s T-shirt and tucked the tail behind his head, effectively blinding him while exposing his entire torso. He felt contact high on his belly, just below his breastbone, and the world went purple.

  A jolt of hot agony erupted from his core and shot from his teeth to his toes. The electric jolt seemed to pass through every cell in his body. He smelled blood in his sinuses, and as his knees sagged, a strong pair of arms grabbed him from behind and propped him up, but not before the noose tightened. He could still breathe, but he could feel pressure building in his head from the blood backing up.

  “Impressive, don’t you think?” Teddy said. He pulled Graham’s T-shirt back down so that he could see. When he saw Graham’s face, he smiled. “Ah, so you learned two lessons,” he said, “not least of which was the wonder of the self-tightening knot.” He displayed the cattle prod so that Graham could see it better. “That was but one brief contact to a relatively insensitive part of your body. Imagine that against a very sensitive part of your body. Is this really the life you want to live? Do you really want to inflict this kind of pain against someone who is close to you?”