She heard that. Her ears were getting better.
“I’m dead, anyway!” the man yelled. “Might as well take you with me!”
“He’s got to come through that door, Derek,” she whispered. “You can shoot him then.”
“Okay,” he said. “But I’m going to need your help.”
He sounded strained, frightened, maybe. “Anything you need,” she said.
When she saw blood on the floor, she turned to look at him. She spun around. “Derek!” she yelled. He was covered in blood, leaking it, but she couldn’t tell where it was coming from. “Oh, no, no, no. Derek. Help me!” she cried.
* * *
Jonathan had to get inside.
The intensity of the shooting told him that somebody was putting up a fight, and he was stuck outside. Screw that.
As he advanced on the front door, he kept his muzzle focused on the trees where the overzealous shooter had set up shop.
“Slinger and I are advancing with you, Boss,” Boxers said.
The shooter peeked out from his tree just enough to expose his elbow. Jonathan planted his feet, settled his red dot, and pressed the trigger. The shooter’s arm spun away at a horrifying angle, and as its owner fell, he exposed his whole body. Jonathan shot him two more times.
A second explosion rocked the mansion.
He dropped his half-spent mag and slapped in another as he ran up the steps and through the front door of his old home. As he lifted his NVGs out of the way, the devastation stunned him. The parlor was a splintered wreck, and the walls were smeared and spattered with blood. The double security doors that led to the classrooms had been blown apart, and he could barely see through the dense veil of dust.
“Help me!”
It was Venice’s voice, from somewhere beyond the dust. He charged that way. It was madness to enter alone, but sometimes you had to just bet it all.
“Help me! Please, God, help me!”
Five more steps, and there he was. A man dressed in battle gear was raising a rifle to shoot.
Jonathan snapped his M27 to his shoulder, put his finger on the trigger—
JoeDog lunged from a classroom on the left-hand side of the hallway and took the shooter from behind. Her teeth caught him high in the thigh, under his butt cheek, and she brought him down. The sounds that came from her throat were unlike anything Jonathan had heard before. Once down, she jerked her head from side to side, as if to rip the intruder’s leg from his body.
Jonathan ran toward the fight.
The attacker howled as he thrashed on the floor. He swung punches at the dog, but the angles were wrong, and nothing landed solidly. It was Vitale, the dickhead who’d threatened him. Jonathan was four feet away from the scrum when Vitale produced a knife. “I’ll kill—”
Jonathan shot him in the face.
JoeDog jumped at the noise, then wagged her tail.
“Good girl,” Jonathan said.
When he pivoted to look into the classroom on his immediate right, what he saw weakened his knees. He was too late. Venice faced the back wall, hunched over, and the floor around her was wet with blood. “Oh, Jesus,” he said. He hurried to her. “Where?” he said. “Where are you hit, Ven?”
She didn’t answer.
Then, when he arrived at her side, he saw. She cradled Derek’s head in her lap, stroking his face. “You’ll be okay,” she said. “We just need to get you to a doctor. Just hold on.”
Derek’s eyes were fixed and dilated. He was gone.
Jonathan kneeled down next to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Ven,” he said. “Oh, Ven, I’m so sorry.”
“No,” she sobbed. “Don’t be sorry. He’ll be fine. He has to be fine.”
“Please, Ven.”
“Get your hands off me!” she shouted. “He’ll be fine. Just leave me alone.” Her shoulders heaved.
Jonathan jumped when he felt a hand on his own shoulder. He looked up to see Gail looking down on them. “Let me,” she said. “Let me.”
Outside, the sound of sirens peaked and then wound down. The uniformed cavalry was arriving. “About goddamn time,” Jonathan muttered.
He looked back to Venice and Derek and Gail. His heart broke for her, but comforting was not his strong suit. Gail could manage all that better without him.
As he stepped back out into the hall, cops and state troopers were beginning to fill the place in. One of the troopers said to him, “I’m going to need a statement from you.”
“Eat shit,” Jonathan said.
Another one said, “Put that weapon down, sir. We’ve got this.”
Jonathan didn’t hit the son of a bitch.
In the reception office, Doug Kramer, Charlie Keeling and Rick Hare were all tending to the wounded. Doug made eye contact, but Jonathan looked away.
As he stepped back out into the night to survey the rest of the damage, Jonathan was stunned by the amount of help that had finally arrived. Once the scene was secured, everybody wanted a piece of it. Lights of every color, it seemed, painted their patterns on the homes and businesses of Church Street. Residents packed the far side of the fence, three and four deep. More than a few of them held their cell phones aloft, snapping pictures of the scene, taking videos. Such excitement.
Boxers stood over the shooter that Jonathan had taken down out here in the yard. He was watching the man with a strange intensity. “Are you okay?” Jonathan asked.
“Fine,” Boxers said, but he didn’t turn away. “It’s Kellner.”
Jonathan joined them. The man lay on his back, eyes open and blinking frantically. The skin around his nose and lips had turned blue, and his tongue lolled in his mouth.
“You must have clipped his spine or something,” Boxers said. “Sonofabitch can’t breathe. Just wonderin’ how long it’ll take him to die.”
“Huh,” Jonathan said. He moved to Kellner’s head and took a knee, so they could see each other more clearly. The guy’s chest was moving funny, as if trying to pull in air but it wouldn’t work.
Jonathan leaned in close and lowered his voice to just over a whisper. “I did this to you,” he said. “I can’t imagine dying like this. Slowly suffocating. Must be terrifying. I bet it hurts.”
“Hey, Dig?” a new voice said. He looked up to see Dom D’Angelo standing with Boxers. “Don’t do something you won’t be able to live with.”
Jonathan studied Dom’s face. The priest was doing him a favor here, and Jonathan knew it. There were lines that should never be crossed.
“Okay,” Jonathan said. Then he leaned in very close to the shooter—so close that he could smell the death on him. “I got one word for you, asshole. Retribution.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So, here we are, another book in the can, as they say. My eighteenth, if I count correctly. People ask me all the time if this writing thing gets easier over time, and I never have a clear answer because while it’s never easy, there does come a point when you know there’s a dependable team behind you that will keep you from screwing up too badly.
For me, the star of my team is my lovely bride, Joy, without whom the sun could neither rise nor set. This will be our 35th year married, and 37th year together. Wow. The love story continues . . .
Another question that pops up a lot goes something like, “How do you do all of your research on weapons and tactics?” I’m blessed to be able to say that I pretty much make phone calls to people who truly know what they’re talking about. Rick McMahan, who recently retired from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (officially BATFE, though the E has never looked right to me) has long been a valuable resource and good friend, and this year he doubled down and introduced me to MSGT Roby Lunsford, U.S. Army (Ret.) who’s my new sensei for rifle optics. Thanks to both.
U.S. Navy SEAL Jeff Gonzales, president of Trident Concepts, LLC (www.tridentconcepts.com) and director of training for The Range Austin is my go-to resource on tactics and weapons selection. And when it comes to weapons to be
selected, there’s no better, more reliable brand than Heckler & Koch, where Robbie Reidsma is not only an expert, but is very tolerant of questions from authors. Thanks, guys.
I can’t move past the gun-related stuff without thanking C. R. Newlin, owner of Echo Valley Training Center in West Virginia. Sometimes the choreography of a gunfight needs to be tried in person, and C.R. allows me to try things that other ranges simply don’t have the resources to do. (And no, Jeff Gonzales, safety is never jeopardized.)
You never know when ancient connections rise to the top to provide important assistance. I went to school with Martin Lovett about a thousand years ago, yet there he was when I need guidance on how electricity moves from the pole to my light socket. The scene he helped me with didn’t make it to the final draft, but that doesn’t diminish his graciousness and patience in helping me pretend to understand stuff that I don’t think I’ll ever truly understand.
Jonathan bought Boxers a new fleet of planes in Total Mayhem, and when they went shopping, they took my old firehouse buddy and now airline pilot Chris Thomas shopping with them. Not only did they buy the planes he suggested, but they parked them where Chris thought they should be. Boxers is happy now, and when he’s happy, we’re all thankful.
If you’ve finished the book, then you know that life gets pretty hard for Frederick Kellner. What you might not know is that there’s a real Fred Kellner, and he contributed generously to RiteCare Scottish Rite Childhood Language Program to have a character named after him. Fred is a Masonic brother of mine and a terrific guy, so take my word when I tell you there’s not an assassin’s bone in his body.
Every month, I have the honor of meeting with four of the most talented and insightful writers I know to critique each other’s works. In over eight years, we’ve never missed a meeting. Thanks to Art Taylor, Donna Andrews, Ellen Crosby and Alan Orloff for being great friends, and for being so good at what you do.
My team at Kensington keeps working overtime to make me look better than I am. My editor, Michaela Hamilton, continues to be a terrific mentor and friend. A thousand thanks to my publisher, Lynn Cully, and to Steve Zacharius, the man in the corner office. Thanks, too, to Vida Engstrand in the marketing department, who, together with Lauren Jernigan, Ann Pryor, and the rest of team, make it possible for my work to somehow rise above the noise of the book industry. And, of course, there’s Alexandra Nicolajsen, my real-life Venice, who helps me tame the ones and zeroes of cyberspace.
Finally, thanks to my friend and agent, Anne Hawkins of John Hawkins & Associates in New York, for making this ride a really fun one.
Don’t miss the next gripping Jonathan Grave thriller
by JOHN GILSTRAP
HELLFIRE
Coming soon from Kensington Publishing Corp. Keep reading to enjoy a sample excerpt . . .
Chapter One
Ryder Sims had heard every word spoken from the front seat. They thought he was asleep, and like every other adult, they believed that just because a kid’s eyes were closed, he’d been struck deaf. He should be so lucky. He hadn’t slept more than a few minutes in the past three days. Since the FBI crashed their house and tore his world apart.
Now, everything was ruined. He and his brother Jeff were being driven to some kind of orphanage by a lady driver, who he figured had to be a cop, and a priest named Father Dom. Both were nice enough to their faces, but it was the quiet conversations that revealed their true thoughts. They pitied him and his brother. They felt sorry for him.
When the lady driver wondered how the boys would ever get past this kind of trauma, Father Dom shushed her, said that such things ought not be discussed within ear shot. As if Ryder hadn’t already wondered a thousand times how much his life was going to suck from now on. He’d never let it show to these people, but he was freaking terrified of all that had gone down.
Mom and Dad had warned him that that trouble was coming. Ryder didn’t understand all the details but he wasn’t completely surprised when the cops kicked in their door. Okay, he was terrified when the SWAT team pulled him out of bed and onto the floor at three in the morning. And the handcuffs hurt. But only for ten or fifteen minutes, until they figured that a thirteen-year-old and his eleven-year-old brother didn’t pose any real hazard. After that, the cops were pretty nice. They let him get dressed, but not without a cop with a rifle watching the whole time. He felt better that the lady who watched him seemed as uncomfortable with it all as he did. After that, they walked him and Jeff straight out to a car where they whisked off to a stranger’s house.
He never got a chance to say good-bye to his parents. Hell, he didn’t even get a chance to see them.
Dad wasn’t specific about why they’d done the things that got them sideways with the FBI—those were the words he used, got sideways—but Ryder was smart enough to know that pissing off the FBI was a big deal. That meant that Mom and Dad had committed a federal crime, not a state crime. Ryder wasn’t sure why one was worse than the other, but everybody knew that federal crimes were the worst.
And man, oh man were there a lot of FBI windbreakers among the cops that invaded his house.
“You’re going to hear a lot of bad things about me and your mom,” Dad told him just hours before the invasion. “I wish I could tell you that they’ll be false, but they’re not.”
“We’ve done bad things,” Mom added. “We’ve killed people, but you have to know that it was never because we were angry. It was never an emotional thing.”
“Sometimes business requires difficult decisions,” Dad said, as if that made anything less head-spinning. “You don’t need to know the details.”
“You don’t want to know the details,” Mom said.
Ryder remained silent during that talk. It was a time to listen and pay attention. Questions never changed bad news, they only slowed it down.
Dad continued, “Of course, when this happens, it will have a huge effect on you and your brother.” He said it as if they were planning a family trip. “We’ve taken steps for you to avoid foster homes. There’s a very good school for people like you—”
“Children of people like us,” Mom corrected. Again, as if making an important point.
“Yes, exactly,” Dad said. “You’ve done nothing wrong. This is all on us. But there’s a school—it’s called Resurrection House and it’s in Virginia—and it has a wonderful reputation.”
“It’s an orphanage,” Ryder said, cutting to the chase.
“No,” his parents said together. Dad expounded, “You’re not an orphan.”
“But you are going to jail, right?”
“Maybe,” Mom said. Then her shoulders sagged. “Probably.”
“We’re still going to be alive is the point,” Dad said. “Orphans don’t have parents.”
Ryder had no idea what this Resurrection House thing was all about, but that’s where they were headed. If it wasn’t an orphanage, then maybe it was a workhouse. He’d seen Oliver! so he knew what to expect. For now, he figured that the Resurrection place had to be better than the house of douchebags they’d been staying with the last couple of days. Their whole house smelled like hot dogs and old socks, and the family stared at them all the time. It was weird. They were weird.
He was ready to take a gamble on the workhouse.
Ryder had always possessed an uncanny ability to read people. Not their minds—not like one of the Leg-imens from the Harry Potter stories—but he was great at reading their intentions, their state of ease or the lack thereof. It was like what they called stranger danger in school and what Dad called situational awareness at home, but not always. Like right now, he knew that the grown-ups in the car were upset about something. They leaned in close to each other and talked quietly. The driver lady kept glancing up into the rearview mirror.
Ryder quietly clicked his seatbelt open and rose from his captain’s chair to turn around and look out the back window. He could see only one other car on the road behind them and it was driving way too close, the
way Dad would when he was getting ready to pass.
“Please get back in your seat,” Father Dom said.
“Are they trying to pass us?” Ryder asked.
The lady driver—her name was Pam—said, “If they were, they’ve had plenty of time to do it.”
The priest repeated, “Ryder, I really want you to be in your seat.”
Ryder opened his mouth to argue, but he decided to comply instead. This didn’t feel right to him.
He’d just turned back to face front when the follow car’s high beams lit up the back window and blue strobe lights painted wild shadows all over the van’s interior.
Jeff jumped awake in the chair to his right. “What’s happening?”
“Shut up,” Ryder snapped. He didn’t want to be mean, but if little dickhead was talking, he wouldn’t be able to hear what was being said up front.
“I don’t like this,” Pam said. “I’m not doing anything wrong. There’s no legit reason for us to be pulled over.”
“Well, we can’t just ignore them,” Father Dom said.
The cop behind them popped his siren, as if to cast his vote on what they should do.
The driver pushed the button on the dash to turn on the hazard flashers. “I’m slowing down to thirty-five,” she said. “Call nine-one-one to see—”
“Tell me what’s happening!” Jeff insisted, blocking out the rest of the driver’s command.
Ryder would be happy to call 911, but the FBI had taken their phones. And their computers. Hell, they’d taken everything. He and Jeff weren’t allowed to take anything with them but underwear, clothes and a jacket.
As the van navigated a curve, another wall of blue lights erupted out front.
“I guess that decides that,” the priest said.
The driver had to lean hard on the brakes, making Ryder feel better about his decision to sit back down and belt himself in.
“I’m scared,” Jeff whined.
“Shut up,” Ryder said. “We’re all scared. Saying it doesn’t help.”
Total Mayhem Page 39
