Salvage: A Shadow Files Novel

by A. J. Scudiere

  28

  Walter felt the hairs raise on her arms at about the exact same moment as the buzzing started on her phone. It was GJ chiming in on the open line that she and Christina and Walter had kept between themselves as they all stood guard at night. Though they had sent the men to their beds to sleep for the first shift, the women had all sat up, talking amongst themselves whenever they felt the need to, which hadn't been all that often.

  The silence suited Walter just fine. She couldn't say she was really keen on this situation. They discussed the fact that they had no idea how many were out there, if any at all. In a private text, she and GJ discussed the fact that Christina Pines had some very unusual skills that Walter found creepy as all fuck. They discussed the fact that Eames and Heath had yet to find GJ's grandfather, despite searching left and right for him.

  Walter didn't like any of it. She was supposed to be a junior agent on her first case. Well, she was supposed to still be a NAT at Quantico, but that option was over. But what she’d been taught—were she a normal agent—was that she would graduate and be placed with a more senior partner. However, she'd known that was not going to happen. She was GJ's partner before she went into the academy, and while she wished for a more senior partner to show her the way, she could not wish away the partner that she had. She merely would have liked it better if Westerfield had not so unceremoniously dumped them here. They’d been told to solve the problem when they had little to no idea what was going on.

  She was slowly standing from her seat. She'd been in the chair between rounds, tipping it back on the hind legs to help her stay awake. She faced a window in the corner of a room, able to just turn her head and look ninety degrees; and when her alarm on her watch went off every five minutes, she made a slow and complete rotation around the house. She peeked out the windows without moving the curtains. She checked the trees, the sheds, the open hills in the distance. She stopped and let her eyes dark adapt, and simply watched. She had seen nothing.

  But sitting here now, something had raised the hair on her arms. Her phone had lit up, and she smacked her hand over it, trying to hide the light, just in case it showed through to the outside.

  Though she couldn’t exactly see anything, she didn't want anyone out there to know people in here were paying attention. Torn between GJ's message and keeping her eyes focused beyond the window, she very carefully pulled the phone off the table, covered it, and snuck a peek at the message.

  It said only what she was already confirming with her own eyes: "Someone is here. Alert everyone."

  GJ had already done that, Walter saw, as her phone buzzed again, the light beginning to glow. Again, she smothered the light, this time holding it to the front of her shirt, hoping no one outside saw. This message was not on the line between GJ, Christina, and Walter. This was the line that went to Will, to Art, to Burt—who shouldn't be up defending anyone as he was still recovering from his own bullet wound—and several others between the three houses.

  They were all sleeping with their guns. They were ready. The appearance they gave was that it didn't bother them that much, and Walter had to wonder how a family like this lived out here in the woods—if they were truly ready for these hunters. Could it be because they'd seen them before? Their calm reactions, though, didn’t fully mask their anger and fear. They were mad about Burt, about Randall, and more. They acted like fighters, not like family. Walter knew; she’d seen it before.

  She could only believe that GJ's alert would rouse the men in her own house. Given that, she made it her mission to make sure that she saw where these insurgents were coming from and to have a headcount ready when the others appeared behind her. With a slow, small motion of her hand, she created just the tiniest sliver of space at the edge of the curtain. She moved her face ever-so-slightly into the opening while keeping her body behind the wall. She knew how to do this; she'd known this for a long time. It was just part of who she was.

  Waiting for her one eye to adjust, she scanned the area, watching for movement among the trees. She knew she wasn't going to see human forms sneaking down the hillside, like in the movies. If she was lucky, she would spot anomalies, things that her brain told her weren't right. She let her eyes glaze over and waited until she saw it: a rock that moved, a tree that skipped a little bit from one heartbeat to the next, then another moment where she actually saw movement between one tree and the next. That was at least three.

  Turning the brightness dial down on her phone, which she should have done earlier if she’d had any sense at all that this would actually happen, she texted GJ and Christina. Her message was only the number three. That was when she heard the footsteps behind her. She knew those footsteps—knowing such things was a matter of survival where she came from.

  Burt de Gottardi had a hitch in his step these days. He was easy to see and hear. Art was at the house to her left close by, Will further out, at the third home. Coming up behind Burt was the woman Walter had met earlier, Alicia.

  As Walter listened, she heard the sounds of a gun in Alicia’s hands.

  "Do. Not. Cock. It.” She barely moved her lips with the order as she kept her eye out the window.

  Though she'd seen people moving about outside, and thought they were heading inward toward the house, she had no idea what kind of equipment they had. She'd not seen the glint that would indicate that they had night-vision goggles, nor had she seen any shapes indicating they had listening devices. But it was entirely plausible that one person was sitting up in the tree with the dish, unseen, waiting, while the others moved forward slowly, armed to the hilt, getting their instructions from the person in the know. If they had heat-imagers, they might know exactly where she, Burt, and Alicia were standing right now. Where to aim.

  Behind her, others slowly trickled into the room on stealthy feet. GJ’s alert had brought them and told them of the danger. Some of the men and women in the house weren’t here; they’d been told not to come, to stay back with the children. They were sleeping down in the root cellar and in some of the central rooms, trying to pull off the idea of a slumber party with the children. They’d fooled no one. The kids had been scared, soothed only by the presence of the FBI agents and the calm reassurance of their parents. But they knew. They knew Randall had been killed, they knew Uncle Burt had been shot, and they knew this was not going the right way.

  "I want to be ready," Alicia whispered back.

  "They might hear it. Wait. Cock it at the last second,” Walter advised.

  "Don't shoot until I can see the whites of their eyes?" Alicia asked, her snarky undertone lifting Walter's spirits. Alicia might be ready to fight, she might be ready to blow some motherfucker's head off, but she was keeping it together.

  "If you can see the whites of their eyes before I give the order to fire on them, then yes, go for it."

  "Thank you, ma'am," Alicia replied, and she stepped up to stand ready beside Walter. Hopefully, the woman was safe in her position behind the wall. So Walter let her stay there, back to the pretty wainscoting, shotgun lifted.

  It was Walter who scanned the dark room that they stood in, looking at the five people who'd joined her.

  "We need proper positions. We need to be ready in all directions around the house. We need to be at the windows, but stay down and out of sight. If they have thermal imagers ..." Even as she said, it she watched as they caught on and all of them dropped to the floor or moved to the spaces behind the walls, just as she had showed them. Walter nodded at them. "A good thermal imager will find us. Even here, even low. But at least in the meantime, we can make ourselves smaller targets."

  Walter looked out the window again, this time when she texted a different number.

  She sent the number eight.

  She got a number back from GJ: 14; and a number from Christina: 10.

  29

  GJ opened the phone line. They'd been communicating amongst themselves via text to stay mostly silent as the figures crept down the hillside. The numbers were adding
up, now totaling well over 30.

  They had many people inside the houses. Too many?

  Though the de Gottardi-Little family had armed everyone to the teeth and though they appeared well-trained, GJ still didn't like this situation. They were now stuck inside. Whoever was coming down the hill had control of the outside, and the outside was bigger. They were capable of surrounding. They could blockade the cars, the roads, any open path. If they decided to use firepower, they could concentrate it into the middle of the house. If they decided to use something worse than firepower, well, the family was all clustered together making three solid targets. They'd known that would be a problem when they'd set up, but they had not expected numbers like this.

  Turning the brightness down on her phone and moving back from the window, GJ stayed where she could watch the changing movement and see how close these others were getting. She whispered over the line to Walter, "Is it possible that these are not our hunters?"

  "I don't think so," Walter replied almost immediately. "Who else would be here? Who else would be casing the house? We know it's not the FBI. Could be the CIA. Could be local police force, except..."

  "Yeah," GJ cut her off. Walter was right. It was only then, in the gap as they both took a breath, that Christina stepped in. "These are the hunters."

  That was it. Four simple words. These are our guys. GJ understood. "What does that mean we should do, Christina?"

  "It means open fire when you get a chance," Christina said. "Do not be afraid of killing them. They are here to kill these people."

  "They're evil," she heard Walter say. Because GJ had seen the notes from Walter’s interview at the hotel earlier, she understood that perhaps Walter wasn't making comments about the people outside but repeating to herself what the people outside were saying about them.

  GJ, ever the student, was thinking of her training. They weren't allowed to open fire. They couldn't fire until fired upon. They weren't allowed to kill someone simply because they felt threatened. But here, what would happen if they waited until fired upon? And just what kind of fire was coming down the hillside?

  What if Christina was right? Eleri had told her to trust the senior agent. That meant firing on these people if she had the chance.

  Then there was the issue of Walter. Could her partner suffer PTSD? It was a legitimate concern. Walter had been a solider, after all. She had lost limbs to an IED. She had lost friends to the same IED. Surely, there’d been some kind of lasting effect from that. Though she'd signed up for the FBI and she passed all the tests, as Walter had often said, "You don’t know what you’ll do with live gunfire until you’re in it." And GJ wondered if you didn't know PTSD until you were in it, either. Hogan’s Alley had been solid training, but they had all known it was training. They had known they couldn’t die. GJ did not know that now, and her heart raced.

  She was wondering what Christina might be able to do about the situation outside. Her mouth opened before she thought it through and said, "Christina, can you make the house disappear? Can you make them see—”

  That was when the bull horn came on from outside. No lights accompanied it. Just the sound of rough, male voice, "Send the dogs out."

  Dogs? GJ thought. That was hardly what these people were. They didn't even look like dogs, more like wolves. Her scientific mind was taking over, and she wondered for a moment if she was actually so scared she couldn't feel it or if she was just angry because this man had first insulted the homeowners.

  The voice boomed over the bull horn again. "We don't want the people. We know some of you in there aren't afflicted. We only need the dogs. Send the dogs out, and the rest of you will be safe."

  GJ noticed where he was swaying back and forth, pointing the bullhorn alternately between the three main homes. This meant he knew where the people were, and where they weren’t. Her heart rate kicked up another notch. The homes weren't that close together, but they were close enough that all would be able to hear him. GJ wondered if maybe there weren't enough people out there to surround all three houses quite thoroughly. Shit.

  "How do we respond?" she asked softly into the open phone line.

  Walter answered right away, "I want to say with firepower, but I think it's not right."

  Christina replied, "With nothing. We wait them out. We make them ramp up their demands. We see what they're going to do. If they fire one shot on us, do not hesitate to take all of them out."

  Though Christina had come in and quietly done her part—held down the fort, helped the men and the women set up their ammunition and find safe rooms for the children, all before GJ and Walter had come back—she had not really played the part of senior partner until now. Christina Pines was an experienced agent. Perhaps she'd been in a firefight like this before. She certainly sounded like she had. So GJ waited with them, with the people in her house standing silent and armed at various points. For a few moments, there was an eerie silence. As she looked out the window, she saw that none of the figures moved this time. Where they'd been slowly creeping closer, and one by one coming in tight around the house, now they stayed still and quiet.

  She could see the occasional glint of moonlight off a rifle barrel or some other equipment. Given the shapes she could discern as her eyes adjusted more to the night, it appeared they must be wearing some kind of black or camouflage. They were very hard to find. That was going to make it very hard for her to return fire, but she was willing.

  This was so far from what she had gotten her education for. She'd thought she was a scholarly student. She'd thought she was studying the behaviors of ancient human societies and current killers. Now, she was getting a more up close and personal look at those killers than she'd ever intended. Her work was no longer academic.

  The voice cut once again through the eerie silence. "We know what you are. Send out the dogs. If you don't, we'll be forced to kill you all. It's not something we wish to do."

  This time he gave a timeline. Five minutes. All dogs.

  On the open line, Christina's voice came through, "He doesn't know how many there are. He has a good idea how many people are in here, but he doesn't know how many are what he thinks they are."

  "This is the stupidest thing!" GJ blurted out. "I think it's a recessive gene. So it doesn't even matter if he takes these guys out, he's leaving it in the population." As she said it, as her voice trailed off, she realized she had just made a case for the people outside to kill them all. She shut up. She wanted to say she was sorry, but the voice boomed. "Four minutes."

  Behind her, the members of the de Gottardi and Little families looked to each other as if to ask, Do we go out?

  "My kids aren't changers," one of the women said.

  The man next to her agreed. "Our kids don't have it. And neither of us do. If it’s recessive, it isn’t even in us."

  GJ didn’t bother to correct his bad science. Beside them, another man looked at the two who’d spoken as though they disgusted him.

  GJ understood. They'd come here to the Ozarks and brought their families to live in the compound. Were they not going to stand together? Were they going to attempt to push people out the door in an effort to save themselves? GJ did not want to be in the middle of this kind of family affair. Not while their lives depended on all of them sticking together.

  "Three minutes," the voice boomed.

  Christina's voice immediately followed over the open phone line again. "Hold. He hasn't said what they're doing at the end of the five minutes. We're not doing anything until they initiate. Don't send anyone out."

  Walter echoed the sentiments right on her heels. "We have a few here who wish to go….No! You stay put!" Walter barked into the distance, her voice coming through the phone as she issued orders to those in her house.

  "Two minutes."

  GJ pulled her weapon, checked her clip, checked the chamber to be sure she had one loaded. She did. She'd been ready five minutes ago, but she was more than ready now.

  "One minute!"

 
The voice filtered through her bones and she felt every muscle in her body tense. She raised the gun, looking to aim where the bullhorn was. It was tempting to shoot in that direction. If she could shut up the voice, maybe she could shut up the instructions the voice was giving.

  "Christina, I've got the bullhorn," she said.

  "Excellent. If they fire, take him out first." That wasn’t exactly what GJ was thinking, but it was close enough.

  Then the bullhorn voice came loud and clear through the air again. "Time's up."

  30

  Walter waited. Though her entire body was tense, and though the situation had her on the highest alert possible, she kept her heart rate low and her breathing steady. Her weapon was raised and aimed. The man with the bullhorn had told them their time was up, but so far, nothing had happened. There were no bullets coming through the windows or doors. They had not lobbed grenades or bombs, or lit anything on fire. So Walter waited. Empty threats were no good, and she knew how to be patient. She simply had to keep the people behind her waiting as well. She saw herself as the commander of a small, fairly well-trained unit, and there was no mistake that she was in charge now.

  She stood at the front of the small formation, closest to the window, ready to take the brunt of whatever came through. That's what a commander did. For the briefest second, she imagined GJ in a very similar position, in her own special corner of another house.

  She had no idea if Christina had raised a weapon or a bare palm. Perhaps she was going to work some kind of voodoo on the people outside. If she could do that to thirty or forty or fifty people at once, that would be a godsend. And Walter wished the other agent would, but she heard nothing through the open phone line and saw no evidence of it in the people outside.