by Scott Blade
“So you were like a cop?”
“I wasn’t like a cop. I was a cop. I worked undercover with the SEALs.”
“Like the Navy SEALs?”
Widow nodded.
“You guys do all that black op stuff?”
Widow shrugged and said, “Sometimes.”
“So you were undercover. Does that mean you investigated other soldiers?”
“Unfortunately, that was one aspect of the job. But many times when I was sent in to investigate crimes, the bad guys were just as likely to be foreign.”
“That means you’re some kind of top rank cop?”
Widow said, “I’m just a normal guy who did a job. That’s all.”
“What was your rank?”
“James. Focus. I know these type of people, and they’re dangerous. If they said they’ll kill your family, then that’s what they’ll do.”
Hood’s face flashed a deep sense of horror. Maybe he realized that not only was he responsible, in a way, for his mother’s death, but he had left his wife behind. Widow knew they would kill her whether she was on her deathbed or not. They would execute her just because that was the kind of business they were in.
He said, “These kinds of people aren’t joking around. I saw two of them. They’re the real deal. And if you say this corporation is somehow connected to them, that means they’ve probably had ties to criminals all over the state. If they’re trying to strong-arm city politicians, that also means they’re the worst kind of enemies to have.”
Hood stared at Widow’s face and said nothing.
Widow asked, “Do you know who the top guy is?”
Hood shook his head and said, “I don’t know. All I know is Glock.”
Nothing was said between them for a long while. Hood petted Jemma’s head, and Widow saw real love there. Hood wasn’t a bad guy, mixed-up maybe, but good. He was like his mom had said—a father trying to do right by his family, only not the best at making decisions.
Finally, Hood said, “What now? We got to get to Lucy. If what you say is right, we have to warn her. Maybe call the hospital security.”
“What about the FBI? They let you out, right?”
Hood shook his head and said, “No. No. Not possible. I can’t trust them. They let me out, but under supervision. I escaped them. They can’t protect us.”
Widow believed that involving the FBI was the right thing to do, but he wasn’t going to argue. If Hood said they couldn’t be trusted, then they couldn’t be trusted. Besides, if the guys behind the kill team were a part of the criminal arm of a corporation, who was to say that they couldn’t infiltrate law enforcement? Easy as anything. Widow had seen it before.
Widow said, “I say we circle the wagons.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t run. They’ll find you. If what you say is true, they’ll catch up to you one day.”
Hood said, “I can hide. We can go to Mexico. The border is right there.” And he pointed out over the horizon to the south.
Widow said, “Mexico is more corrupt than here. How long do you think it would take them to find you?”
“But Lucy has family there. Jemma has family there. They can protect her. I can bring her to them and come back for Lucy. I can come back and then call the FBI.”
Widow shook his head and said, “No way. They’ll kill you. Somehow. I’ve seen it before. She’s already lost her grandmother. Her mom’s about to die. I can’t let her lose her father too.”
“So what do we do?” he asked. And right then, his question was answered for him—nothing. Nothing, because they heard rustling in the bushes from all sides. First it came from the west and then from the north and the east. In less than five seconds, they were engulfed in bright flashlight beams and loud military voices.
The first things Widow saw weren’t the flashlight beams. The first things he saw were the muzzles of the AR15s and the two riot guns. His first impression was that this was a military force because they had swept in hard and fast and snuck right up on him. He didn’t even hear them until it was too late, which told him either he was getting very, very rusty or these guys had competent training. But then he saw some of them.
Hood jumped up from his seat and stuck his hands straight up in the air like he probably had many times before. And Widow imagined his first instinct was that these guys were police or FBI. He must’ve assumed they were SWAT coming for him—a fugitive from the law.
Widow knew better. He knew better because several of the guys were fat—not slightly overweight, not husky, but fat. They wouldn’t have passed even the smallest town’s most modest fitness requirements to be a member of a SWAT team. Therefore, these guys were either civilians with military pasts or civilians with far too much time on their hands. The one thing Widow was absolutely certain about was that they were private citizens. Other than a few of them being overweight, they had no consistent uniform. Two of them wore black Kevlar vests that looked expensive, like what police officers are provided with. Another two had cheap, secondhand vests in desert colors. Some of the guys wore all black, and others wore desert camo or casual clothes.
Law enforcement and military and other agencies all have similar dress attire. Some don’t require uniforms, but they require certain professional standards in their agents’ appearances. These guys had no style, no code, and nothing else that might indicate they were law enforcement.
Only one of them, obviously the leader, had a professionalism about him.
The reason Widow knew he was the leader was because the guy said, “Well. Here we are.”
The guy’s voice was disturbing, to say the least. It was harsher than an explosion over the speakers of a car stereo. He sounded like a creature from another planet, like he spoke with one of those synthesizers popular with DJs.
When he spoke, he stepped out in front of the flashlight beams and looked directly at Widow, not Hood, and not Jemma, just Widow.
CHAPTER 19
JEMMA WOKE UP screaming. She saw the guns and the flashlight beams and the guy with the creature’s voice.
Glock said, “Shut her up, James!”
Hood said, “Calm down, Pip. It’s going to be okay.”
Jemma grabbed at his leg and shivered. She wanted to be picked up. She was afraid, which Widow understood.
“You must be Glock,” said Widow.
“And you must be the stranger,” Glock answered.
“You found us.”
“Yeah, imagine that.”
Widow thought for a moment. How did he find them? Then he closed his eyes and cursed himself. The phone. They tracked the phone he stole from the woman. Widow knew about phones. He had had plenty of training in modern technology. And of course in the field, he had to use computers and phones and so forth, but even he made dumb mistakes. They must’ve traced the phone.
Stupid!
Glock seemed to know what he was thinking because he said, “Yeah, the iPhone. Did you not know that anyone can track it? As long as you leave it on and it has cell service, we can see where it is online.”
Widow said, “Sorry, James.”
Hood had put his hands up, but Widow had not. He still had the Sig Sauer in his jeans, but he only had five rounds, and there were eight of them. There were three at his six o’clock, plus the other four circled around them. Every sector of the clock face was spoken for. No way would he have been able to draw, aim, and fire at them. His mind had already clocked the three without vests on, including Glock, but even if he could outgun them all and kill three, there would still be four remaining, and they had AR15s.
Widow wasn’t going to shoot his way out of this. That left his first best weapon, his mouth. He said, “I don’t suppose you’re upset about me killing your girlfriend?”
Glock said, “That’s not going to work. I don’t care anymore about them than I do you. And I want to kill you.”
So much for that, Widow thought.
In his next breath, Glock said, “To
ss the gun. Slow.”
Widow nodded, slow and defeated. Glock wasn’t stupid. He didn’t even ask Hood for a weapon. Maybe he knew Hood wouldn’t have one or that he wouldn’t have the guts to use it. But he knew Widow would.
Widow reached back, slowly as he was instructed, and pulled at the Sig with his thumb and his index finger. He pinched the butt and dropped it on the ground near the dying fire. And he knew that he was done.
JEMMA STARTED CRYING. Hood lowered his hands, slowly, staring at the guy with the closest gun. He said nothing, but he kept his eye contact with the guy as he picked up Jemma and held her close to his chest.
Widow’s primal brain scanned the faces, the guns, the exits, but the only way they were getting out of this alive was by talking their way out. He said, “You won’t kill us here. There are other campers. They’ll hear the gunfire.”
Glock laughed, but his laugh sounded more inhuman than his voice. It reminded Widow of the sound a woodchopper makes when a bunch of rocks are thrown into it. Which was something he had done once at his friend’s uncle’s farm in Nebraska.
Glock said, “This is Texas. No one here is going to come running because of gunshots.”
Widow shrugged at this point. He was only trying to stall until he thought of a plan, but Glock wasn’t going to give him much more time.
He looked at John Glock. He was around six feet tall and lean, like a lot of guys Widow had known in the Navy. And Glock had arm tattoos as well. One of them was a frog skeleton holding a trident.
Widow asked, “You a SEAL?”
“What of it?”
“I know something about it.”
“Yeah, what you know?”
“I know you must’ve gotten kicked out. No way would they keep a piece of shit like you.”
Glock smirked and said nothing.
“Couldn’t hack it, I’d bet,” Widow said.
Glock said, “You don’t know the first thing about me.”
Widow was about to say more, but then Glock glanced at one of the other guys, the one who was holding a riot gun and had no flashlight, and said, “Enough talking. Do it.” He motioned his head to the guy to step up.
They say your life flashes before your eyes before the moment you die, like a movie of all of your greatest hits. And for most people, this might’ve been true, but Widow had been near death many, many times before.
His life didn’t flash, but the riot gun’s muzzle did.
The guy had aimed it from less than fifteen feet and straight at Widow’s center mass. He smirked and squeezed the trigger. The muzzle climbed, but the short distance provided the bullet with a chest target.
The sound cracked through the air and echoed off the trees and the rocks. The bullet flew true and nailed Widow in his right pectoral muscle and upper chest.
CHAPTER 20
THE BULLET HIT Widow’s chest and the air was knocked out of him and he fell back on the ground. And he might’ve had a broken rib. He wasn’t sure, but his chest hurt.
The bullet that hit him wasn’t a lethal round. It was a rubber shell. It hurt like nothing he could remember, and he was sure he’d have a huge bruise. Otherwise, he was alive.
He sank down into the grass and rolled back and forth, holding his chest, trying to breathe.
Glock stood over him and looked at one of the other guys. He said, “Hit him.”
Widow’s head filled with rage. He didn’t want to get hit again by one of those bullets, and not at close range. But the guy who stepped up from behind Glock wasn’t the one holding the riot gun. It was a thin guy, kind of squirrely and nervous. He had an AR15 slung back over his shoulder on a strap.
He came out with a strange handgun with a bolt action on it. Widow had never seen one like it before.
The guy pulled back the bolt and loaded it with what looked like a tranquilizer round—and it was.
The guy aimed at Widow’s thigh, but Glock said, “Wait!”
He walked between them and stared down at Widow, who was coughing violently, still trying to catch his breath.
Glock knelt down and said, “We are going to shoot you with a tranquilizer. We’re not going to kill you, not yet.” Glock’s lizard voice sounded terrifying up close. He said, “But we will enjoy killing them. Maybe I’ll take the girl with me. You know they pay top dollar in some parts of the world for a girl that age?”
Widow continued to cough and gag.
The guy loaded the tranquilizer gun and shot Widow in the thigh. The pain was immediate, but the effect from the round took another few minutes. Several minutes later, Widow was out cold.
CHAPTER 21
JACK WIDOW woke up with what felt like a head full of rattling bullet casings.
His head hurt.
He shook it and stared ahead. His vision was blurry, and trickles of light prismed around in his sight. His equilibrium was compromised. He couldn’t tell where he was. At first, he wasn’t even sure whether he was seated or standing. He waited a few moments and just concentrated on breathing. He started to lean forward, only to have the pain in his head and chest push him back like a gut shot. His chest throbbed, and his head pounded, even his knuckles hurt, like he’d been pounding on a punching bag all night, or rather the punching bag had been pounding on him. He could hardly move his fingers. He moved the ones on his right hand first and heard the joints crack. His vision was still blurry, but he stared at his hand. It reminded him of that scene in The Terminator where Arnold flexes his metal robot fingers in front of people.
He remembered being shot with a rubber bullet and a tranquilizer dart and wondered what the hell had been in that dart. Whatever it was had some serious side effects. He wasn’t a doctor or a pharmacist, but he knew a couple of them were disorientation, blurred vision, and grogginess. No doubt about it.
He heard muffled voices. He couldn’t tell what they were saying, not because they were whispering, but because they weren’t close enough. They were off in the distance somewhere.
He waited a few more long, long moments for his brain to reset. Then he shook his head and squinted his eyes and could see images. The images began to manifest into tangible objects. First, he saw a steering wheel and gauges and a windshield with a crack in it that had spider-webbed over time to become a serious problem for the vehicle’s owner.
He blinked his eyes—a lot—and tried to focus on the rest of the vehicle’s interior. He saw a long stick shifter and saw the floor was metal with small holes in it. He looked up at the sky and realized he was in the Jeep.
He turned his eyes to the rearview mirror and saw his reflection. His face was okay. His eyes were still blue and his features still rough like an old barn door. He opened his mouth and heard his jawbones crack like his fingers had, and he added dry mouth to the list of side effects.
Nothing was wrong with his face, other than the things he had always thought were wrong. But looks aren’t negotiable. He wasn’t born a pretty boy, but he wasn’t cursed with ugliness, either. In his mind, he was closer to the latter side of the spectrum than the former.
His face being absolutely untouched made him wonder what the hell Glock had done to him. Surely, they wouldn’t have shot him with a tranquilizer and left him alive and unharmed? He inspected the rest of his body. No broken bones. No blood. No wounds anywhere. Not at first. Then he noticed the back of his hands, precisely his knuckles and his jeans.
There was blood—a lot of blood. It was on his T-shirt as well, but the black hid it better than his blue jeans. There was none on the palms of his hands. They were clean, except for the usual wear and tear and grime from him being outside all day.
Then he adjusted the rearview mirror and scanned behind him. He saw the source of the voices. It was two couples—an older one and one barely out of high school. They stayed a long distance from the Jeep, but they were talking about him. No doubt. They were nervous and anxious and jittery like they were afraid of him. Which made him wonder why they just didn’t get into their vehicles and
leave. He looked ahead and saw that their trucks were close to the Jeep, and he realized they were afraid to pass by him.
He didn’t have his seatbelt on, which was no surprise because he had been put in his Jeep by Glock and his men. Why? He still didn’t understand.
Why not just shoot him? They could’ve shot him easy as anything.
Widow sat up straight and grabbed the steering wheel, turned and jacked the door open. He shuffled out and onto his feet.
Dizziness hit him square in the face as soon as his shoes touched the ground.
The sun had been bright when he was in the Jeep, and it had no roof. But as soon as he got out of the Jeep and was standing beside it, the sun’s brightness went up several notches. At first, he thought it was rising faster than he believed possible, but then he realized it wasn’t rising. It was already out. He had been in the shadow of a low, flat peak and some trees. The sun was still low in the sky, so the morning hours were still young.
Widow took two steps away from the Jeep and yawned, which was unexpected—another side effect from the dart.
He looked back at the people. They were standing behind some trees, like that was going to hide them from him.
He looked at them and yelled, “What?”
They didn’t respond. He looked back at the Jeep and then over at the vehicles. Hood’s truck was still there. It hadn’t moved.
He started to head back to the path and up to where their campfire had been. But he didn’t make it past the Wrangler because that was when he saw the body.
He circled around the front of the Jeep and stopped dead in his tracks in front of the big chrome grill. He saw a pair of legs, sprawled out like broken scissor blades near the passenger side front tire. He walked slowly around to see whose they were.
It was James Hood, and the only reason he knew that was because it was a man. Other than that, there was no way to identify him because his face had been beaten to a pulp. He looked like a tomato that had been pulverized by a sledgehammer.
Widow saw jagged, white bone jammed through bloody skin. The eyeballs were jostled back into their sockets. The skull had been completely caved. There was a huge sinkhole on the top of Hood’s head. Parts of brain matter had burst through the cracks, and patches of scalp ran down Hood’s face like a cracked egg.
