by Tal Bauer
“Come with me,” Pasha growled. “Tom, come with me. We can go to Moscow. Tonight. We can start again. Pick up where we left off. You do not have to be a slave anymore. We can be together. Live in the shadows. Have our freedom, what little we can have. At least we can be together again.” He smiled, and his eyes traced Tom’s features. “It can be like the past. You can love me again. As for me… I have never stopped loving you.”
Mike. Where was Mike? What had they done to him? He tried to pull away, but Pasha wouldn’t let go. His hands tightened, gripping his skull. The pretense of tenderness had fled. “You’re hurting me.”
“Come with me,” Pasha growled again. “Barnes wants to kill you. I’m the only one who can save your life.”
He struggled, thrashing, but Pasha held on like a vise. “What did you do to Mike? Where is he?” He shouted, roaring at the top of his lungs. No, God, no, please. Mike couldn’t be—
“He’s gone.”
Tom’s knees buckled, and he collapsed against Pasha, sliding to the floor, screaming. “No!” Tears blurred his eyes, searing hot.
Behind the closed bedroom door, Etta Mae started whimpering and scratching at the frame, frantically trying to get free and get to Tom.
“Shhh, shhh.” Pasha followed Tom down to the floor, still holding his face. He hovered over Tom, gazing at him like he was seeing a shooting star for the very first time. “I couldn’t believe it when they said you’d been given this trial. I had thought I’d lost you forever. But this is our second chance.”
“You’re insane. You think I want anything to do with you?”
“We loved each other—”
“You’re a monster!” Tom roared. “What you’ve done. And Mike—” He gasped, his heart seizing, and fresh tears rolled down his cheeks.
Pasha’s eyes turned ice cold, Siberian cold. “Come with me, or you will die.”
Snarling, Tom reached for Pasha, clawing at his face, trying to gouge out his eyes. Pasha twisted, and Tom jerked back, ripping himself from Pasha’s hold. He crawled across the kitchen floor, heading around the island, and tried to hide.
Damn it, he wasn’t brave. He wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t like Mike, who could probably karate chop Pasha with his eyes closed. He was a lawyer, he was pathetic and weak and he wasn’t a fighter.
Pasha chuckled, and Tom heard him stand by the kitchen table. “Tom… you don’t want to do this.”
“Fuck you, Pasha!”
“Do you really want to die? Is this how you want to end your life?”
Footsteps, slowly coming closer, creeping over the wooden floor. Etta Mae scratched and scratched at the door, her whimpers turning to mournful howls.
Tom thunked his head against the oak cabinet and closed his eyes. What do I do? What do I do? When he opened his eyes, his gaze landed on the sink.
He’d chopped a tomato last night for the burgers.
Pasha’s measured steps came closer, and he stepped on the creaky board, the one four feet from the kitchen island that he’d always had to avoid as a child whenever he sneaked in for a midnight snack after his parents went to bed. “I’m going to fuck you again before I kill you.”
Tom scrambled around the side of the kitchen island. He breathed in. Counted to three. And lunged.
The knife he’d used the night before was still in the sink, an oversized chopping knife he’d had to sharpen before using. They’d left the dishes, not caring about the mess, more interested in getting into bed. Thank God.
He heard Pasha rushing for him. He had his back to his former lover. Former lover, and now Russian spy, co-conspirator of a mass murder. How had it all come to this?
Spinning, Tom gripped the knife handle in a fist, raising it high over his head. Pasha was only a foot away, lunging for him, his face twisted in a lecherous sneer, hands outstretched—
Tom plunged the knife into Pasha’s chest, just to the right of his sternum. He felt bones crunch and crack as the thick blade slammed through his ribs, plowed through cartilage, and entered Pasha’s lung. In his long career as a prosecutor, Tom had seen his share of stabbings. And stabbings to the chest, he knew, were most often fatal.
His first love. His first murder.
Pasha’s eyes went wide. He stared at Tom, and then down at the knife. He reached for Tom again.
Tom heaved the knife from his chest and stabbed him again, lower. Again, the crunch of bones, the slice of soft tissue. Pasha coughed. He stumbled back, clutching at the knife, falling to his knees as he reached for Tom.
Etta Mae howled, wailing inside the bedroom, scratching frantically at the casing.
The front door burst open, banging off the wall. “Pasha!” Barnes shouted. “What the fuck is going on?”
Pasha’s gaze landed on Tom. His eyes watered, and he stared at Tom wistfully. He opened his mouth, croaking out a pained grunt.
Tom heard Barnes curse, heard him start to run.
Jesus, he had to move. He had to escape. He had to get out of there, now.
Tom stepped over Pasha, racing for the backdoor, fleeing to the porch and then over the railing, into the tangled brush around the creek. Behind him, he heard the backdoor swing open again, and then Barnes shout his name. He kept running, heading for the cover of the forest.
A gunshot cracked the air, splitting through the forest, and a tree trunk just to his right spat bark and debris as a bullet slammed into the side. Another shot. Tree bark and wood splinters sprayed him from the left.
Tom turned deeper into the thickening woods.
Villegas peered through his binoculars as he lay in his blind on the mountainside, watching Brewer’s family cabin below the bend. He was wearing camouflage and had set up a small blind in the trees and boulders, obscuring himself from the road below.
He didn’t have a perfect line of sight on the entire place, though. There was a giant boulder by his right shoulder, digging into his side, and beyond the boulder, a drop-off into a ravine that gouged into the mountain. He was as close as he could get without being seen, and as far over as he could get without plunging into the ravine, but he still couldn’t see the far side of the cabin, with the rattlesnake ditch.
Who in their right mind would keep a ditch full of rattlesnakes?
And, what in the hell was that black SUV doing in Brewer’s drive?
He watched and waited as Lucciano and Brewer came strolling up the bend, hand in hand, with Brewer’s dog. Damn it, Mike. He knew, he already knew about him and Brewer, but damn it. It would be easier if he didn’t.
At least Brewer’s dog was cute.
Brewer went inside with the dog, after giving Lucciano a kiss. Villegas rolled his eyes.
And then Lucciano went to the black SUV, and Barnes stepped out.
Barnes and Mike strolled out of sight, beyond his obscured view, thanks to the giant boulder. Damn it. He couldn’t see a thing.
Cursing again, he shuffled up and debated sliding down the hillside, just a bit. He’d be exposed, and if they saw him, it’d be game over.
Damn it. He had to see.
He slid on his side, landing behind a tree trunk at the same time a wild animal shrieked. Every hair on his neck stood straight up. He whipped around, staring down at the cabin where the shriek had come from. It had been crazy, fear-filled, desperate-sounding.
All he saw was Barnes, striding up the drive to Brewer’s front door and walking inside.
Moments later, another man got out of the SUV and headed for the cabin.
When Etta Mae started howling like her world was ending, Villegas pulled out his gun. And when he heard two gunshots behind the cabin, his decision was made.
He jumped up and slid down the mountainside in a tumble of dried leaves and twigs. Crouching low, he ran for the cabin’s front door.
Chapter 39
“Willy!” Mike clawed his way through Willy’s front yard, a scrap heap of car debris and overgrown weeds. He’d staggered from the gulch to the yard, weaving from tree to tree as his vis
ion faded in and out. He spat blood as it filled his mouth. Finally, he’d fallen, right after two gunshots split the forest, coming from the cabin. He’d screamed, and tried to crawl faster. “Willy!”
Willy’s shadow appeared on his porch, shotgun in hand. “Jesus H, marshal. What in the hell is going on? What happened to you?” Shouldering his rifle, Willy ran to him and helped him up, guiding him up the porch and into his ramshackle house.
“Was attacked.” Mike coughed, collapsing onto a couch, more blood filling his mouth. Internal bleeding, from the venom. Or the triple stab wounds. Somewhere, deep in his body, he was bleeding. “Kicked into your snake pit.”
Willy paled beneath his beard, and Mike saw the yellowed whites around his eyes. “How many times you get bit?”
Mike shook his head, and a wave of dizziness rolled over him. He put his head between his knees, lost his balance, slumped off the edge of the couch and onto the rough wooden floor.
“Shit, marshal. You need a hospital. Now.”
“No! I need to get Tom!”
“What’s happenin’ with the Brewer boy? And who attacked you?” Willy stomped across his den to a toolbox he had on his brick fireplace mantel. Inside, he rifled through antique glass bottles and pulled out a syringe, filling it from one of the bottles.
“Barnes. FBI agent on the case that Tom is overseeing. Tom… He’s a judge.”
“A federal judge?” Willy turned and stared.
Mike nodded. Federal judges, like federal agents, were enemy number one to the sovereign rights groups that Willy was suspected of being friendly to. Or at least, he knew members of the groups. He’d been a contact for Mike during the Whitmore hunt, passing on gossip from the grapevine of sovereign rights terrorists and rabble-rousers. “Barnes must be dirty. He stabbed me, and then kicked me into the gulch.” His breath rasped, and he coughed, trying to drag in deeper breaths.
Willy grabbed his shirt and lifted it, scouring Mike’s back, his sides, and then rolling him roughly over. He cursed. “You been bit at least eight times on your trunk alone, marshal.”
“Got my arms and legs, too.”
“And your ugly face.” Willy stabbed Mike’s arm with his syringe and emptied the liquid into Mike’s vein. “This is antivenom. I just gave you a double dose, but you need at least another four. If you don’t get to the hospital soon, you’ll die.”
“I can’t leave Tom.” Was he already dead? Were those shots Tom being executed? He couldn’t think that, damn it. It couldn’t have happened.
“Some fed is trying to kill a fed judge, huh? That why there all that shooting and running going on?”
“Running?”
“Someone ran down the creek a bit ago. Heard them like they was a herd of elephants. Then the shots, and then you crawled over here and tried to die.”
Running. Tom had to be alive. He was trying to escape, trying to survive. Mike grabbed Willy’s arms and tugged him close, pushing their faces together. Already, he was starting to feel the venom ebb from his system. His vision was still blurry, and he still felt blood rising in his mouth, but the fire spreading through his body had cooled. “Willy, we have to help Tom. We have to save him.”
Willy arched one eyebrow at him. “You want me to save a federal judge?”
“Damn it, he’s Tom Brewer! You knew him as a kid!”
“Kids grow up. Become feds.”
“Willy! I’m a fed! Aren’t we friends?”
“You were useful to me, marshal. To us. I fed you lies to keep you away from Whitmore.”
“What? Jesus, you are one of them. You helped hide Whitmore!”
Willy smirked. “Guilty as sin, marshal. And you helped us hide him, since you was so easy to mislead.”
Damn it! Mike gritted his teeth, choked back a scream. Damn it all! He was too trusting, far, far too trusting, in every way. With his heart, with his mind. “Willy… please. I can’t let him die. I can’t. If you won’t help me, I’ll go alone.”
Willy peered at him. His look seemed to ask Mike why he should care at all about such a threat.
“If I die, and if Tom dies, there will be feds all over this Goddamn mountain. This Goddamn state. You thought the Whitmore hunt was bad? Try letting a federal judge be murdered! The entire fucking government will rain fire and brimstone on this patch of your sovereign fucking land,” he spat. “Are you ready for your end times? Are you ready for your apocalyptic war against the government? This is how it will start!”
Willy snorted. He pulled away from Mike and strode to his kitchen, stabbing the syringe into his cutting board. “You did better when you were reminding me of the boy Brewer was. I ain’t afraid of your feds, marshal.”
“Please…” Hot tears, boiling with frustration, leaked from the corners of Mike’s eyes. “Please. Help me. Just shove me out the door. Give me a gun.”
“This man hunting Brewer. You say he’s a fed? A dirty FBI agent?”
“Yes.”
He hummed, stroking his beard, and then reached for a CB radio tucked into a shelf above his kitchen sink. “Hammer, Hammer, this is Fox Den, over.”
“Fox Den, go ahead.”
“We got a lion in the blind, heading southwest through the gap.”
Mike heaved a shaking breath, making fists as he tried to slow his heart. A lion was the radio code for a federal agent, used by the hardest of the sovereign rights terrorists. Used when they were targeting feds, tracking them. Planning an attack.
“Time to form a hunting party.”
“Affirm. Meet at the old Shawnee cave in fifteen. Out.”
Willy hung up the radio. “Let’s get moving, marshal. We got ground to cover.”
Tom crashed through the branches and brush, pumping his legs as hard as he could. Behind him, Barnes was shouting, calling his name. Hollering at him to stop.
He’d never stop. He’d burn his lungs out first.
“Brewer! Damn it! Let’s just talk about this!”
Ahead was the edge of the meadow he and Mike had spent the day in, the sun-drenched, wildflower-strewn meadow. Poplars and sugar maples ringed the edges, and sprawling oaks stretched their branches across the wide, open, treeless space.
If he ran into the meadow, he’d lose the cover of the trees, of the forest. But he was rapidly running out of options. Behind him was Barnes. To his left was the mountain, and if he scrambled up that, he’d be exposed. The meadow was his only option, other than turning around and running right at Barnes. That would be suicide. But so would be running into the open meadow.
He had to live. It wasn’t just the panicked firings of his primitive brain, pushing him to keep escaping, keep evading. He had to live so he could bring these killers to justice. Bring Mike’s killers to justice. Had Barnes killed Mike while he was in the kitchen? Had he been fidgeting while Mike was dying?
He had to live.
Breathing hard, Tom veered into the meadow, sprinting as hard as he could, as fast as he could propel his body.
Behind him, the sounds of Barnes’s pursuit faded. Was he pulling away?
A gunshot exploded.
Fire burned across his right shoulder, slammed into his shoulder blade, his armpit. He screamed and went down, thrown to the ground by the shot tearing into him. He got a face full of dirt as he rolled, arms and legs akimbo as he tore through the golden meadow grass.
Screaming again, he reached for his shoulder. Blood soaked his hand. He felt warm drops slide down his chest, his back. Soak his shirt. Sounds swam, and the meadow grass went triple, fading in and out of sight. He’d been shot in the back. Barnes had shot him. Barnes was going to kill him, right here, in the meadow.
He staggered to his feet and tried to run. A second gunshot cracked, and he dropped reflexively, trying to become one with the dirt. He shouted as he fell, his wounded shoulder slamming into the ground.
“Judge Brewer!” Breathless, Barnes jogged up behind him. “Damn it, Judge. Why’d you have to run?”
Tom rolled over. Barnes
was moving in close, his gun at the low and ready. “What did you do, Lucas? You’re working with the Russians?”
Barnes sighed, long and low. “You shouldn’t know that, Judge. I told Pasha he couldn’t talk to you.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. You weren’t supposed to get hurt in all this. But when you identified Pasha…” Barnes shrugged. “It’s really just dumb luck that you got this trial. You’re the only one who could have identified Pasha Baryshnikov based off Kryukov’s description.”
He squeezed his eyes closed. Of course. All the people who’d told him to let this trial go, get rid of it. Were they all in on it? Had the whole world gone bad?
“What about Kryukov? Why did he even give that description? Isn’t he in on it, too?”
Barnes shook his head. He kept his gun trained on Tom, but fished out his cell phone from his pocket. A few swipes, and then he pressed the screen.
Tom’s own voice blared from his phone’s speaker. “No… Mike… please. Don’t do this. Don’t do this! No!” Muffled scuffling followed, and then a crash, and a scream. The audio ended.
“That’s not me. I never said that. I never said anything like that.”
“Voice hacking. It’s the new thing. We can clone any voice these days. As long as there’s enough audio of the target’s voice, a computer can analyze your pitch and inflection. Recreate your voice, and synthesize a perfect copy. We can make you say anything.” He waggled the phone again, and then shoved it back in his pocket. “There were enough videos of Kryukov giving his speeches against the Russian government to clone his voice. Then we hired Desheriyev.” He smiled. “Got rid of two problems at once. Kryukov and Desheriyev will go down for this. They’re the perfect cutout. They don’t know a damn thing about what’s really going on.”
“You won’t get away with this.” How many hopeless victims had spouted those words before? Were they the universal last words of the desperate who knew their demise was imminent? Who were staring at death, straight down the literal barrel of the gun?
