Fatally Bound

by Roger Stelljes

  Looking down, he saw Dara Wire, and looking back, he recognized McRyan lying on the floor. The agents were involving themselves in something that wasn’t their business. In fact, the FBI was intruding on something that wasn’t their business.

  It was time to send a message.

  He unsheathed the knife, the blade glinting in the light when he heard the grunt and rustling behind him.

  He pivoted to his left.

  The first shot whistled by his head.

  • • • •

  The effort to pull the gun from his ankle holster made things blurry again.

  Mac fired at the fuzzy large shape.

  The Reaper jumped left towards the front door.

  Mac moved his arm left with the movement and fired again.

  The monster was out the front door.

  Mac pushed himself up with his right arm. He scrambled towards the front door, nearly tripping over Wire. He looked outside and caught a glimpse of the Reaper running to the left two houses away.

  He pushed the screen door open, stumbled out onto the front stoop and fired again, missing. The Reaper kept running, turning left after the second house.

  A neighbor stepped out onto his front stoop, “What the hell?”

  “Federal agent,” Mac grunted as he ran past, “call 911, this address,” he ordered as he gave chase, running as fast as he could, the pain searing through his left wrist and hand as he pumped his arms.

  • • • •

  The Reaper sprinted across the street to the sidewalk, slowed briefly and looked back to his left.

  McRyan came around the corner and caught sight of him. Seeing his prey, he stopped, set his feet and raised his right hand.

  The Reaper turned away and ran full speed.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  One shot hit the fence to his right. Another hit a large tree to the left as he ran by and the third hit the pavement just in front of him as he ran.

  He turned right down an alley and sprinted full out, not looking back.

  His truck was a block and a half away.

  • • • •

  The jostling from running exponentially intensified the aching pain in his left wrist. Mac careened around the corner of the fence and peered down the alley. He could see the Reaper running, nearing the far end of the alley. The big man was way out in front now.

  Mac set his left foot to the front, his right behind him. He needed both hands and gauntleted the Glock in his left palm. “This is gonna hurt.”

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

  He fired until the man disappeared around the corner.

  The pain overtook him and Mac collapsed and fell against the fence.

  The last thing he heard before blacking out was the sirens.

  • • • •

  His job was to deliver a message.

  He pulled up just short of the street leading to Kelly Drew’s house. The area was swarming with squad cars for the Frederick Police Department. Wanting a closer look, he took his cell phone out of its holder and slipped it into his suit coat pocket and then hit the three number combination on the radio touch screen that opened the hidden compartment in the dashboard. He placed his Walther in its holder and closed the compartment and then exited the SUV.

  The crime scene tape was up at the end of the street, holding back the gathering crowd of onlookers. He reached the crime scene tape and sidled up to an elderly woman. “What happened?”

  “Not sure exactly,” the woman replied from under her gardening cap. “There are two ambulances in front of that house and there’s another one a block over to the west. One person said she talked to Drew’s neighbor and he said as he came out on the front steps there was a man firing a gun at someone from the front steps of Drew’s and then gave chase. He said he was a police officer and he was chasing some suspect.” Then her hand went to her mouth, “Look,” she said and pointed.

  He saw the paramedics urgently exiting out of the house. On the stretcher was a woman, bloodied about the head, with an oxygen mask over her mouth and two tubes in her arms. The paramedics quickly got her into the ambulance and he heard someone yell, “Go, Go.” The ambulance immediately pulled away and accelerated quickly with lights and sirens on full.

  He looked back to the house and a minute later a second set of paramedics exited the house with a woman on a stretcher, no oxygen or tubes. The paramedics didn’t move as urgently and from what he could tell, she may have been injured but was nowhere as critical. He recognized her.

  Farther to the west he noticed another ambulance. He casually but quickly strolled in that direction, up to the police tape a half block short of the ambulance. He engaged in some idle chitchat with some of the people standing by the tape.

  The paramedics pushed a stretcher out of the alley with a man on the stretcher with an oxygen mask on his face. There was no rush to the ambulance. The man on the stretcher’s left arm was immobilized and he had a tube in his other arm. He recognized the man on the stretcher.

  “So I’ve seen three ambulances,” he stated to a man standing along the tape line. “Are there any more?”

  The man shook his head, “Isn’t three enough?”

  “I’d say so. I was just curious is all, quite the night, especially for around here.”

  “Unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I thought I was hearing fireworks but turns out shots were fired. I’ve seen the cops marking shell casings on the ground.”

  A minute later he slowly backed away from the scene and walked to the Tahoe and jumped inside. He pulled his cell phone out, pulled up the directory for the letter W, found the name and pressed the screen. The man answered on the second ring.

  “We were too late. It looks like he got to Drew before I was able to get here.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “No, but from what I can tell, she’s very badly injured, but he wasn’t the only one here to see her. McRyan and Wire were here as well.”

  “Did they catch the Reaper?”

  “No.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “We can’t find the eleventh?”

  He licked his lips and immediately felt the weight on his left arm. He’d felt weight like this once before on his arm, when he was in high school. A hard hockey stick slash between the top of his hockey glove and the bottom of his elbow pad broke his right wrist, putting him in a cast for six weeks. He was awake, wanted to open his eyes, but when he tried, the pain shot through him and he moaned.

  “Mac?” a relieved voice asked. “Mac, are you awake? Are you there?” It was Sally, her hand on his left shoulder.

  He exhaled and squinted, straining to see. “I can barely open my eyes.”

  “That’s because you have two of the worst black eyes I’ve ever seen, son,” replied the deep voice of Judge Dixon.

  Mac’s head pounded and he winced.

  “And a concussion,” Sally whispered, kissing him softly below his ear.

  “And a broken left wrist, I assume,” Mac replied, trying to push himself up, a searing pain shooting through his upper back which caused him to groan.

  “No, no, no,” Sally cautioned, stopping him and laying him softly back down. “I’ll raise you up.”

  Sally slowly adjusted his hospital bed up.

  “That’s good,” Mac said and Sally stopped the bed. He exhaled and struggled to push his lids open, at least enough to see. “Hey?” he said to Sally. She never looked so good.

  “Hey,” she said, smiling, but worriedly.

  “Where am I?”

  “Frederick Memorial Hospital,” Sally replied. “Frederick, Maryland.”

  Mac looked towards the window to his hospital room and the sun was starting to come up. “How long have I been down?”

  “Seven, maybe eight hours.”

  “Wire?” Mac suddenly asked, panicked. “Where is she?”

  “Right here,” a hoarse voice answered from the hallway. Dara walked into the room gingerly, followed by Delmonico. “How are
you feeling?”

  “Like I had a really really bad day,” Mac answered, closing his eyes. His head, face, eyes, back and neck all ached. “This case is so kicking my ass.”

  “It could have been worse,” the Judge answered.

  “How?” Mac groaned, his eyes closed, “How could it have possibly been worse?”

  “I wasn’t killed, I lived,” Wire added, grabbing his right hand. “Thanks, partner.”

  “Well there is that I suppose,” Mac grumbled, a slight smile on his face.

  Wire slapped his right foot lightly.

  “What about Kelly Drew?”

  The room went quiet. “Well, she’s alive,” Wire said quietly.

  Mac recognized the tone and suddenly remembered the gash to her forehead. “How bad is she?”

  “She’s in a coma. Closed head injury.”

  “Brain activity?”

  “None, at least not right now,” Gesch stated, coming into the room. He took one look at Mac and then got down to business. “Can you tell me what happened? Dara told me what she remembered.”

  “Which isn’t much after I blacked out,” Wire answered.

  “Chloroform?” Mac asked.

  “And sodium pentothal, I’m a bit unbalanced chemically at the moment,” Wire quipped.

  “Have you been to the scene?” Mac asked Gesch.

  “Yes.”

  Mac nodded, breathing deeply, and collected his thoughts with his eyes closed. “We go in the front door. Wire goes to my right into the kitchen while I remember leaning over Drew. I saw the gash in her forehead. I checked for a pulse and was reaching for my phone when there was this …” he struggled for the word, “flash … of movement to my left. It was literally like he came out of nowhere, super quick, super quiet, stealthy. I glanced up, put my arm up and I was knocked down hard, dazed.”

  “That’s what I must have heard,” Wire added. “He hit you with that softball bat. That’s what made me come running.”

  “Mac, do you remember what happened next?”

  “I remember trying to push myself up and then I was kicked in the head, twice, really fast, I think, and then things went black …” Mac exhaled. “I was out of it.”

  “For how long?” Gesch asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mac answered and then closed his eyes for a minute, trying to remember. “I was out and then I remember hearing some noise and when I opened my eyes, he was hovering around near the front of the house, I think over Wire. Then I saw the knife in his hands and I reached down for my backup piece on my left ankle, pulled it and started firing.”

  “And you gave chase?” Gesch asked.

  “Yeah,” Mac answered, nodding. “It’s a little foggy but I think I shot twice in the house. Then once from the front steps and then I ran after him, popped off a couple of more and then I couldn’t keep running anymore. So I took my last crack in that alley and fired until I couldn’t see him and then everything went …”

  “Blank?” Gesch finished.

  “I must have blacked out or something.”

  “Frederick police found you unconscious lying against a fence,” Gesch stated. “They found your identification and recognized the name, mostly because of what happened …”

  “… earlier in the day at the Fallway Clinic?” the Judge asked.

  “Yup,” Gesch answered and then looked back to McRyan. “Mac, was the clip in your backup Glock full? Were there fifteen rounds in it?”

  Mac nodded lightly, lying back against his pillow, “Yeah. I checked it the other day. Why?”

  “There were four left in the clip so it looks like you fired eleven times.”

  Mac closed his eyes and thought back, “If you say so, I honestly can’t remember, Aubry,” he answered. “I don’t know … I probably shouldn’t have even been shooting in the first place, but …”

  Gesch nodded, “Risk was worth the reward. We’ve found ten slugs so far, so that’s why I’m asking. We can’t find the eleventh. Do you think you hit him?”

  Mac lightly shook his head, “I don’t know. If I did, it wasn’t enough to get him to stop apparently.”

  Gesch’s phone rang which he answered and walked out of the room.

  “So can I get out of here?” Mac asked. He hated hospitals.

  “I don’t think you should go home,” the Judge answered, “you or Wire.”

  “Why?”

  “The incident here is all over the news. The media is all over the hospital and I just heard from a friend of mine checking on some things that the media has both of your homes staked out. I don’t think you two want to go there right now. You need rest and to be left alone.”

  “So I assume you have something in mind?” Mac asked.

  “In fact, I do.”

  • • • •

  The Reaper grimaced as he inspected the stitches, ten in all, in his upper right arm, on the outside of his massive bicep. The stitches were crude, with dental floss, and the scar he would end up with would likely be cruder, but going to the Emergency Room was not a viable option. His prior training and the Internet helped. A YouTube video on how to suture a wound was enough, as were the supplies from his First Aid kit.

  The wound wasn’t deep, more or less just a flesh wound. He would have full function of the arm in a day or two, once the throbbing pain relented. Unfortunately, the Ibuprofen was doing little to alleviate the constant pulse of pain but he didn’t dare venture out for something stronger.

  He cleaned up the mess, the blood, the bandage wrappers, his blood-soaked black jean jacket and other detritus and dropped it in a black garbage bag. With the sun peeking over the horizon, he went outside and pulled his pickup truck into the garage. Inside, he cleaned the interior of the truck. The blood was smeared on the upper right side of the leather driver’s seat and then trickled down lower, pooling in the break between the seat and seat rest. Not a huge amount, but in the two-hour drive, he bled enough. Next, he cleaned the exterior of the truck and the light smear of blood on the frame outside the driver’s side door and the vertical panel between the front and back side doors. He put the garbage bag in the rear bed of the truck and closed the topper and went back inside the cabin and turned on the television.

  Kelly Drew was alive, albeit barely, on life support.

  After the first frantic minutes and escaping the immediate vicinity of Drew’s house, as he drove to the cabin, all he could wonder was, how did they find him? Was it luck or were they on to what he was doing? He was betting the latter. McRyan and Wire made some connection between the women.

  He was sitting in front of the television now, twirling the SIM card for Dara Wire’s phone in the fingers of his left hand, thinking about how he might use it. He put it down on the coffee table and sipped at his Coke. The television media coverage was fascinating to him, watching all of it unfold now for the first time, particularly McRyan’s confrontation at the clinic from yesterday.

  The local television reporter went after McRyan viciously. The offense McRyan took, the way the look on his face went dark, the way he charged the reporter and threatened her, lost his cool, was captivating to him. “Perhaps you have a temper,” the Reaper mumbled, something that could be used down the road.

  The task force, probably McRyan and his pretty partner Wire, must have made the connection on his targets. How he didn’t yet know, although he suspected it probably had something to do with the camp. He’d wondered about leaving one of those three women to the end, making that connection harder. Of all of the women involved, they were the three who really had a clear identifiable connection, although he’d learned the three of them had not stayed in touch. He often wondered if they even all knew each other’s names. Only victim number one was able to make all of those connections and he’d dealt with her long ago.

  The FBI, Gesch, Delmonico, McRyan and Wire, they had an idea of what this was all about and an idea of what he looked like, but they didn’t have all of the puzzle pieces yet, but they were on the hunt and lo
oking in the right direction now. Add to that, Kelly Drew survived. She was severely injured, of that he was certain. The head wound and blood, coupled with how her body went immediately limp when they collapsed the table, told him she suffered a serious closed head injury. The kind people don’t come out of; the kind that if they do, they don’t have regular brain function. If that were the case, well she was as good as dead then, getting her deserved punishment. However, if she came out of it, and retained her memory, she could possibly alert the others, especially with McRyan and Company at her bedside knowing some of the puzzle pieces.

  He couldn’t take that chance.

  He was almost to the end.

  If he was going to get there he needed to heal and then move fast.

  The results of last night’s events were going to force him to significantly move up his timeline.

  He would need to move quicker and he needed to get McRyan and Wire off his trail.

  The Reaper pushed himself off the couch, picked up the SIM card and walked to the window and opened the curtains slightly with his right hand. He looked to the side of the garage and what would be his new home. He looked down in his left hand. In his fingers he again twirled the SIM card for Dara Wire’s phone over and over.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Are you butt dialing me?”

  Mac woke up, the bright sunlight pushing through the curtains of the bedroom. He looked to the clock on the nightstand, 10:44 A.M.

  The Judge’s idea was to sneak them out of the hospital and drive out to a private farm estate an hour outside of Washington, DC. The estate, named Pleasant Springs, was owned by a close political and extremely wealthy friend of the Judge, who provided free use for as long as was needed.

  Pleasant Springs was an expansive two-story red brick with white pillar colonial set high upon a hill so as to overlook the sprawling river valley resting well below the estate grounds. There was a stable with horses set back a hundred yards behind the house. A large swimming pool area sat comfortably in between the stable and mansion. The entirety of the estate was surrounded and shaped by bright white horse fencing. After arriving, Mac was too sore and tired to tour or enjoy the plush accommodations. He went straight to bed, leaving Sally, the Judge and a less injured Wire to take in the luxury accommodations.