Penance jl-1

by Dan O'Shea

  Ferguson watched the station and waited, trying to gauge the odds of somebody driving by or stopping for gas at a bad time. Traffic was sparse. One couple arrived in separate cars, left one for service and drove off together. Only one other car on the road in the fifteen minutes he’d been watching. Guy must do service business mostly, Ferguson thought. Maybe more traffic in the fall, once hunting season opened. Lots of deer signs in the woods.

  Ferguson was trying to stay focused. The terrain was perfect, but he didn’t like throwing an op together this fast. Something was eating at him. Ferguson tried to think what was missing. But, shit, the terrain was perfect. Suddenly, Ferguson keyed his mic.

  “Chen, you on line?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the next closest service station?”

  “One moment,” she answered. “It’s on the east side of town, at the end of the ramp off the Interstate. From your position, 6.1 kilometers.”

  “Son of a bitch,” said Ferguson. That’s what was wrong. Why would Fisher put himself in this bag if he didn’t have to? Just for a brake job? With another station six clicks away in a public space with good sight lines? “Tell Weaver we are bugging out. Meet us back at the trailhead. Out.”

  Ferguson thought he saw something and knew he heard something. He thought he saw lateral movement at the top of the ridge directly behind the station. Peripheral vision. When he looked directly, nothing. But he knew he heard a click, like someone activating a throat mic. Ferguson clicked his. No response. “Lawrence,” he whispered. Nothing. Movement again, turning his way this time. Ghillie. A gun in a ghillie. He could see the suppressor. Ferguson tried to swing the Barrett, but he had only cleared a field of fire for the station and the road. The Barrett hung up in the brush. Fuck this, he thought, and rolled off the ledge down the loose rock scree toward the road.

  Fisher’s sight picture settled on Ferguson just as he tried to turn the Barrett. Fisher knew Ferguson. He had worked with him, had eaten at his house, knew his children. Fisher paused. Just a fraction of a pause. As Ferguson rolled toward the edge, Fisher fired. Ferguson disappeared, his Barrett hung up in the brush at the top of the ledge, and then slid butt-first over the edge. Fisher wasn’t sure on Ferguson, but he had done what he had set out to do. He had warned the Philistines.

  Fisher pulled the green duffle holding the rifle case out from under the brush and looped it over his shoulder

  Fisher made his way east along the edge of the ridge. He stopped as he passed Lawrence’s position. Fisher took the Barrett and slipped the bandolier of spare magazines off the corpse and into the duffle. The Barrett’s barrel stuck out a long way. Half a mile east of the station, he cut across the road and south, uphill toward the ridge overlooking the church.

  In the woods along the ridge behind the church, Fisher stripped off the Ghillie and left it on the ground. He wouldn’t need it anymore. He pulled the duffle off his shoulder and set the Dragunov inside. He took the stock off the Barrett and separated the barrel assembly. Now it fit in the duffle.

  The red pickup was parked in the far corner of the parking lot close to the ridge. Confessions had started, but Fisher was not doing God’s work today. He was in the City of Man. He opened the truck cap, set the duffle in the back, and then drove across the lot, down Hill Street, down Main Street, and back to I-57. The sign at the exit read North Chicago.

  Back to the City of God.

  Ferguson rested for a minute on the shoulder of the road at the base of the rocky incline he had just tumbled down, letting the trivial pains — the cuts, scrapes, and bruises — settle out so he could focus on any major damage. Nasty cut on the back of his head. He could feel blood running down inside his collar. Right shoulder hurt like hell. Looking at it, he could see a furrow through the jacket, the shirt, and the flesh on the top of the shoulder. Fisher had come pretty close. Ferguson tested the range of motion. Not separated. Nothing felt broken. Maybe a rib. Might be a cracked rib. Right hip was stiffening up in a big hurry where his radio had been smashed into uselessness. Other than that, just garden-variety pain, a feeling like he had been put in a dryer with a laundry basket full of rocks.

  The Barrett had clattered down a few feet to his right. The objective lens in the scope was cracked. Ferguson picked the weapon up and worked the action. A shell ejected and the next shell in the clip fed into the chamber. Nothing jammed. He set the Barrett in the shallow ditch between the rock face and the road.

  The big question was this: Was Fisher coming for him? He reached inside the cammie jacket where he had a Browning Hi-Power 9mm in a shoulder holster and pulled the pistol free. He slipped off the safety and chambered a round, then switched the Browning to his left hand. He could knock out the X-ring with either hand from fifty feet, and he still wasn’t real sure about his right arm.

  The road had been cut into the rock intermittently along this stretch. Just ahead, a shoulder of rock jutted out, cutting off Ferguson’s view around the corner back to the Marathon station. He got to his feet. No light-headedness, no sudden failures in the ankles or knees. He made his way to the edge of the rock outcropping. Decision time. If Fisher was waiting, Ferguson would be dead as soon as he stuck his head around the corner. Of course, if Fisher was stalking him to confirm the kill, then he would be dead in the next few minutes anyway. He had no way to contact Chen. He needed to get back to the trailhead, but that would take twenty minutes at least, probably thirty at the rate he’d be moving now. No time for that. Better get inside the station, use the landline, see if Weaver had a plan to come back from this shit.

  No point being coy. Ferguson slipped the Browning back into its holster, walked around the corner and across the blacktop toward the station. When he was still alive after the first two steps, he knew Fisher was gone. Ferguson remembered what Winston Churchill had said, that nothing was quite so gratifying as having been shot at and missed. Thing was, this didn’t feel real special. Used to. Sad goddamn thing when living through the day didn’t float your boat anymore.

  Ferguson could see a man in a blue work shirt behind the counter. He could see the man’s eyes widen when he saw Ferguson. He could see the man pick up the phone and dial a number. Without breaking stride, Ferguson drew the Browning, brought it up, and snapped three quick shots through the window and into the blue shirt. The shots knocked the man backward into a wire rack of cigarette cartons. The man and the cartons tumbled down behind the counter.

  The door had a bell over it that jangled when Ferguson walked in. He walked around the counter and stepped over the body. The receiver to the phone was on the floor, the cord snaking up to the wall unit. Ferguson grabbed the cord and put the receiver to his ear. Dial tone. He hit the redial button. Three tones. 911. He hung up and called Weaver’s cellular.

  “Weaver.”

  “He set us up,” said Ferguson. “Had a suppressor on the Dragunov. I just caught a sense, took a header off my hide. Radio’s smashed to shit. I’m on the land line from the station. Owner got a call in to 911 before I popped him. Gotta figure we got heat on the way.”

  “What about the other three?”

  “They’re dead. Either that or you’re betting Fisher missed two shots in one day.”

  “Fisher bug out?”

  “I had to walk across thirty meters of open asphalt to get in here. He’s gone.”

  “OK. Chen’s on the way. Figure two minutes from the trailhead.”

  “OK. Sorry, Colonel. I screwed the pooch on this one. Should have seen it coming.”

  “Fuck, Fergie, we all should have. And seeing things coming is my job. You didn’t screw the pooch, just gave the old boy a hand job is all. See you at the hangar.”

  Ferguson hung up the phone and walked back out the door toward the rock face. Figured he’d better get the Barrett.

  Ninety seconds after Ferguson walked out of the station, Chen came around the rock face from the north and pulled into the lot. As Ferguson walked toward the black Suburban, a purple minivan pulled
into the station from the south and rolled up to the pumps. A plump blonde soccer mom got out and reached for the pump handle. She froze when she saw Ferguson. Chen climbed out of the Suburban.

  “Hi,” the soccer mom said.

  Chen whipped her little.25 from behind her back and shot the soccer mom through the forehead. The woman slumped back against the side of the minivan and slid to the pavement. Ferguson heard a siren coming fast from the north. A sheriff’s car came around the rock face. The cop saw the body against the van, Chen with the gun in her hand, Ferguson in his cammies, blood on him. The cop pulled a perfect bootleg skid, sliding the car around to put it between him and the Suburban. Chen was already putting rounds through the cruiser’s windshield with the.25, but the cop had his door open and went out low, getting the engine block between him and Chen.

  “Chen,” Ferguson called. He pulled the Browning from the holster and tossed it. Chen caught it with her left hand while she took the last shot in the.25 with her right. Then she started lighting up the front of the squad car with the Browning.

  Ferguson grabbed up the Barrett, swung the barrel down, pulled the butt back into his damaged right shoulder (and wasn’t that going to hurt because the Barrett kicked like a couple hundred angry Rockettes), lined up the hood of the cop car, and cut loose.

  The Barrett didn’t sound like a rifle. It sounded like the voice of God, and like God was really pissed off. Ferguson wasn’t aiming the first round. The.50 slug tore through the front quarter panel and into the engine block, rocking the cruiser on its suspension and ripping something loose that caused a jet of steam to shoot out the front of the hood. Metal scrap must have blown down into the tire, because it blew out and the cruiser settled toward Ferguson. Ferguson remembered the incendiary rounds. He swung the barrel toward the rear of the cruiser and fired.

  The back of the cruiser erupted in a yellow-orange flash, the car leaping up on its front tires like a horse trying to throw a rider and then smashing back down. The cop rolled away from the front of the car, his clothes on fire. Chen took careful aim and put two rounds through the side of his head. Ferguson was ready to climb into the Suburban when he noticed Chen walking toward the minivan. In the back in a car seat was a kid, no more than two, pink coat. The kid was screaming.

  Ferguson leveled the Barrett at Chen.

  “Chen,” he called. “Leave the kid.”

  Chen turned, saw Ferguson with the Barrett pointing at her across the hood of the truck.

  “It’s a sterile mission, Ferguson. No contagions.”

  “It’s a fucking baby, Chen. It’s not a contagion. Kid can’t even talk. Weaver wants the kid, he can come out here and do it himself. Release the clip, pull back the slide.”

  Chen paused for a second. Then the clip fell to the pavement, and she ejected the round in the Browning’s chamber. She walked to the truck and put the Browning on the hood.

  “Get in,” Ferguson said. “You drive.”

  As she climbed into the truck, Ferguson set down the Barrett, picked up the Browning, slapped in a new clip, and chambered a round. He opened the rear passenger door and tossed the Barrett over the seat into the cargo area. Ferguson climbed into the back, sitting behind Chen, still holding the Browning.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Chen drove past the burning cruiser and the purple minivan, out onto the two-lane road and east toward the Interstate. A mile later, two sheriff’s cars shot past them, headed west. Ferguson felt the adrenaline starting to wear off and the pain setting in. His shoulder was the worst of it, but it had competition. He pulled the first-aid kit from the back and took out a bottle of painkillers. The bottle said two every four hours. He took four. By the time they cleared Moriah, he was starting to feel better. Hell of a thing. Three friends dead. OK, two friends and Richter, never did much like Richter. Killed some poor fuck just trying to run a gas station. Helped kill some soccer mom and incinerate a cop, and he was starting to feel better. He hoped they didn’t run into anymore shit on the way to Effingham.

  CHAPTER 30 — ABOVE INDIANA

  As the Gulf Stream streaked east toward Washington, Weaver sat back in the leather seat and swirled his Macallan around in the leaded highball glass. Chen had patched up Ferguson. He was sleeping in the back row.

  Weaver remembered his first kill. Some Burmese agitator friend of Ho Chi Minh’s looking to expand Minh’s influence. Hot night. Alley behind the pussy bar in Bangkok littered with colored patches where neon reflected off the puddles. Smell of rain. Smell of fish. The feral look in the mark’s eyes when he’d seen Weaver, seen the knife. Slant fuck tried some of that chop-sockey shit, but the boys at the agency’s little spa out past Quantico had taught Weaver some chop-sockey shit of his own. And the mark only went about one hundred and forty pounds. It hadn’t taken long. Hadn’t really been his first, though. There were all those Chinese up and down the Korean peninsula, mostly around Chosin. But Korea was different. Korea was as stand-up fight.

  Weaver had his highball glass most of the way to his mouth when he saw Chen standing next to him.

  “Yeah, Chen?”

  “Sir, I’ve extrapolated our line on the assumption that today’s action is a continuation of Fisher’s pattern. If so, his next stop will be between Memphis, Tennessee, and Huntsville, Alabama.”

  “I know what state Memphis is in, Chen.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Huntsville, too, for that matter. Killed a man in Huntsville.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Doesn’t feel like a pattern anymore, does it? Feels like date rape. Feels like Fisher asked us out and then gave it to us up the ass. Anyway, we’re not going anywhere right now. Don’t have the horses. Christ, if Ferguson were a horse, I’d be thinking about putting him down. We’ll have to regroup in DC. We’re going to have to borrow some bodies. Who’s the least pissed at us at Langley these days?”

  “Intelligence or operations, sir?”

  Weaver turned in the chair to stare at Chen. “We need to take this rabid bastard out, Chen. What do you think?”

  “Aqulia would be your best bet in operations, sir.”

  “Isn’t he still pissed at us about Costa Rica?”

  “I assume so, sir.”

  Weaver nodded. “OK, see if you can shake a couple teams out of Aqulia, then see if you can narrow down this Memphis-Huntsville deal a little. I’ll talk to Snyder, see if she’s got a thought.”

  “Yes, sir.” Chen continued to stand in the aisle. Weaver looked up.

  “There something else?”

  “Sir, Ferguson left a civilian alive at the station. There was a child in the minivan that pulled in for gas. I was going to eliminate it, but Ferguson threatened me with his weapon and forced me to leave the child alive. We were operating under sterile mission parameters, sir, and the protocol is clear. No contagions.”

  Weaver was getting that ice-water feeling again, and not just in his rectum. “How old was this kid, Chen?”

  “Younger than two, sir.”

  Weaver nodded. “I guess that will be OK, then. Not like the kid’s going to ID us.”

  “Yes, sir. I just thought you should know.”

  Weaver nodded, and Chen returned to her seat. Shit, Weaver thought. Better talk with Ferguson.

  Ferguson shifted in his seat, and the resulting pain woke him, drove him up through the murky depths of the drugs like a swimmer struggling toward the shimmering light for breath. Opening his eyes, he could see Weaver and Chen talking in the front of the cabin.

  Ferguson hurt. He felt… well, he felt like he’d been shot and fallen off a cliff, both of which he’d done before, but never on the same day. Though last time he’d been shot he was gut shot, and this was just a little hickey, so on balance he figured he was ahead of the game — if the game was seeing how much you could fuck yourself up without getting zipped in a bag for the ride home. And wasn’t that just a stupid fucking game to be playing in the first place.

  And then he realize
d he’d been dreaming, which was a surprise because he didn’t dream. Or at least he never remembered his dreams, which was the same thing as far as he was concerned. But he had been dreaming about the kid in the van, the kid strapped in the car seat. He dreamt that she was still sitting there, probably crying because it was dark and she couldn’t see her mother. Mom wasn’t far away, of course. Mom was lying right outside, ambient temperature by now, stiffening up, probably starting to take on that blue color. In the dream the kid sat and sat and sat while the sun went up and down and up and down and the mom rotted away.

  And that’s when Ferguson decided he was through. Now he just had to decide what that meant. What it didn’t mean was walking up to the front of the cabin and asking Weaver for his pension, because that would just mean finishing the ride in a body bag. It meant no more sterile ops, though. It meant that for damn sure.

  Weaver saw Ferguson was awake and headed back, carrying his drink, taking the seat on the aisle.

  “How you doing, Fergie? Need a shot? Chen’s got the bag up front.”

  “Doing better than Lawrence,” Ferguson said. “Better than Capelli and Richter for that matter.”

  “Yeah,” said Weaver, “well, you were better than them. That’s why you’re still here.”

  Ferguson shook his head. “I wasn’t better. I was just on the opposite side of the bowl. If Fisher hadn’t put his round through Capelli’s throat mic, I’d have been staring at that Marathon station while Fisher decided what part of me to perforate.”

  “You earn your luck, Fergie, you know that. If anybody had a draw to an inside straight coming, it was you.”

  “Luckier than that cop, too. And the lady in the van. And the poor bastard in the station.”

  Weaver turned to look directly at Ferguson now, Ferguson still staring straight ahead, focusing on the seat in front of him, not wanting to look at Weaver, not in the eyes, not now.