Without Law 12

by Eric Vall

  “Sounds like he’s scared,” Tara said with a devilish grin.

  “Did you get a chance to see the children again?” I asked Lucy.

  “I brought them their dinner,” she said. “Mary is still with them, but nobody else is allowed to see them. I had to just put their food down and leave. He hasn’t let them out at all, either.”

  That sonofabitch was keeping them close. I wouldn’t put it past him to use them as human shields. He knew I was coming for him, and he knew I was going to kill him, but he also knew that I wouldn’t allow myself to harm an innocent child. It was a sick and twisted move, but one that I had expected and prepared for.

  “Were you able to tell Mary what was going on?” I asked. “Does she know that we’re here?”

  “No,” Lucy said, and she bit her lip. “I didn’t have time… the guard was watching me, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I told her softly. “We’ll handle it regardless.”

  “Okay,” she agreed with a nod. “Everyone else knows, though, and they’re going to make sure the path is clear.”

  “I truly appreciate all you’ve done,” I told Lucy. “I know that you risked a lot to help us today.”

  “I couldn’t afford not to,” the woman said. “If I could have I would have taken out Brody a long time ago. This whole thing with the children makes me sick.”

  “We’ll get them back to their grandfather,” Tara said.

  “He took them from an old man?” Lucy asked, and her eyebrows pinched together in outrage.

  “Beat him up something fierce, too,” I said.

  “Give him what he deserves,” she said, and I saw her eyes well with tears. “For all of us.”

  I was sure there were people in the world who didn’t like me, but it was nothing compared to the true hatred that so many people felt for Brody. Some of it was because of what he’d done to them personally, but it was also because of what he did in general. I guess you didn’t have a lot of fans when you were a cold hearted asshole.

  “We’ll take care of it,” I said.

  She nodded, wiped the tears from her eyes, and then she looked up at both Tara and I.

  “I should get to my room,” she said.

  “Go,” I told her. “We’ll be out of here soon.”

  The dark haired woman nodded, then turned off the light and slipped back out the door. She left the towel, though, so I pushed it back against the crack at the bottom of the door and turned the light back on.

  “Do one last check of your weapons,” I told Tara.

  “On it,” the platinum blonde agreed, and she pulled her pistols from their holsters and checked the chambers and safeties. She also double checked her spare magazines, and made sure that her knives slid out of their sheaths quickly and efficiently.

  I checked my pistols and magazines the same way, and I scraped some hair off of my arm to triple check the sharpness of my blades, though I knew they were ready to go since I had sharpened them just the night before. Still, it was satisfying to watch the small patch of hair shed off. It was just a reminder of what I was capable of.

  After we finished double checking everything it was time to get down to business. The time we had been waiting for had finally arrived. I could feel my heart rate accelerating with adrenaline as my body prepared for battle.

  “Ready?” I asked Tara with a grin.

  “Ready,” she said, and she flashed her own pearly white teeth.

  I turned off the light, then I pulled out my pistol and slowly opened the door and scanned the area. There were two men on guard duty on the wall, but nobody else was around. Lucy must have done a good job of getting the word out, and it seemed that nobody wanted to stand in our way.

  The place we were headed was across the courtyard, so we’d have to move carefully in order to get there. Even if I didn’t see any of Brody’s men, I didn’t want to risk one of them seeing us. They knew this place better than we did, and we couldn’t lose the element of surprise here, that was the main thing that the whole operation hinged upon.

  It was definitely dark outside, and the courtyard was flooded with moonlight. The gray stones shone bright, and the little plants and things up against the walls cast shadows everywhere. We’d have to be careful to stay out of the light.

  I gestured to Tara to follow me, then I slowly slid along the side of the wall toward the staircase we were headed to. The staircase would get us on the wall, but there was another part of the fort we had to go through before we got to Brody’s room, plus another section of wall, then finally Brody’s chambers.

  We were almost to the staircase when Lucy and another woman crossed the courtyard carrying what looked like laundry. The other woman saw Tara and I, but Lucy whispered something and they both looked away quickly.

  I didn’t like that we had been spotted, but better by Lucy than someone else. I was still confident in our plan, and now I knew for sure that Lucy had told everyone about our arrival. If the rest of the civilians treated us the same way, then it would be easy enough to find Brody without our presence being revealed.

  We reached the staircase, and I crouched down low before I started to climb it. Tara was right behind me the whole time, her silenced Ruger raised and ready to go. Her face was one of determination and seriousness, and I knew that she was in full on battle mode and was ready to kick some ass.

  I was eager to rid the world of Brody, but Tara was eager for revenge, and I could see the fire behind her eyes as she focused ahead.

  We got to the first of the rooms, but just like the map had shown, it wasn’t exactly a room, but more of a covered area on the wall since there weren’t any rooms inside the area. We crouched in the shadows and I scanned the area. There was one guard standing right outside the doors. He was small, with long blonde hair, and I recognized him as the man who had gone to Lebanon and Burlington with Brody named Alexander.

  He had an M16 on him, and he leaned against the wall and stared out straight ahead of him. While we watched, he pulled out a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and lit one. He might as well get a few last puffs in since he was about to die and he didn’t even know it.

  I looked over to Tara, and she nodded at me before she lifted her Ruger, took aim, and let off a quiet round. She knew that she had to be precise here since a scream could give us away, she needed a kill shot on the first try, and she delivered.

  The guy went down with a bullet wound in his temple, and the loudest sound was his body as it hit the floor with a thud. Tara moved to continue, but I held my arm out to stop her. If someone had heard that sound, then they’d come to see what it was. We needed to wait and be sure that nobody was on their way toward us before we continued on down the hallway.

  In stealth situations there would always be surprises and things you couldn’t control, but if you were diligent you could avoid at least some of those things.

  After a moment I still hadn’t heard anything, so I figured it was safe for us to continue on. I gave Tara the signal to follow me again, and we slipped past the dead man, through the doors, and into a strange covered hallway that was lined with war memorabilia.

  I had my pistol up and aimed in front of me as I led Tara down the long hallway. We moved quickly, but as we rounded a corner I saw the silhouette of a large man.

  Fuck, what was it that I was just thinking about surprises?

  Chapter 27

  There wasn’t supposed to be another guard posted until we got out of the hallway, but this guy was obviously headed somewhere. I got a quick look at the guy’s face, and he matched one of the descriptions that Renee had given us. He was a shorter guy in a red shirt, and he was also equipped with an M16.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out, I lunged at him and threw my arm around his neck. I crooked my elbow under his chin and squeezed tight as he thrashed against me. I squeezed his throat as tightly as I could and waited for his breath to get more and more ragged.

  Then it seemed as if he
wasn’t breathing at all, so I pulled my knife and placed a quick stab behind his ear for good measure.

  The last thing that we needed was this guy waking up and coming down the hallway yelling about intruders. We hadn’t come here to show mercy, we’d come to fuck these guys up. Plus, if what Renee had said was true about Brody’s personal guards, then this guy was probably a rapist as well.

  I pulled the guy over to a dark corner and gently laid his body on the ground so it made as little noise as possible, and when I looked up I saw Tara grinning at me.

  “What?” I mouthed.

  She pointed to the dead guy and gave me a thumbs up. Even in the stealthiest of situations Tara somehow found a way to bring a smile to my face, small or not.

  I put back on my game face and moved down the hallway until we reached the doors at the end. They would lead to another portion of the wall, and there was supposed to be a guard on duty there, but I couldn’t be sure if there still was or not. I also wasn’t sure where the guy I had just killed was supposed to be, so we’d have to continue on as we had been and just assume that each position was filled until we saw otherwise.

  I hated that we’d have to be exposed out on the wall, but I knew that the two men on guard by the gate were friends of Lucy’s, and they probably weren’t looking this way anyways. Still, I didn’t like being out in the open, that was the opposite of what was needed for a stealth mission.

  Plus, the moon was incredibly bright that night, and every small shadow that you cast seemed ten times larger than it had a right to be.

  I took a deep breath, looked at Tara, and I gave her the signal that I was going to open the door and she should be ready to shoot. If there was a man on the wall, then we needed to take him down quietly. We were closer to Brody’s actual chambers now, and if he heard anything suspicious there was a chance he would grab the children and use them as shields. Of course there was also the chance that he would flee like the coward he was. I didn’t like either of those options.

  I wouldn’t be able to sleep until Brody was buried six feet under.

  Tara nodded her understanding, and I counted down with my fingers, then I threw the door open.

  The platinum blonde let off a round and I quickly checked to make sure the guy was dead. There was a guard there, he was sitting in a gray, metal folding chair, and Tara had taken him out with a shot to the temple. His gun slid down his arm and clanked onto the stone floor, which made me wince, but after a moment I still didn’t see anyone, so I figured nobody else had heard it.

  The guy had mid length blonde hair just as the description had said, and he was slumped back in the chair with his M16 on the ground next to him. His eyes were open wide, and his neck had fallen back at an unnatural angle. There was also a half smoked cigarette on the ground by his hand that was still smoking.

  “Good job,” I whispered to Tara, and then we headed out to the exposed part of the wall.

  I turned toward the king’s garden and flashed a smile and thumbs up. I knew Bailey was watching us and keeping tabs on our whereabouts, and I wanted to make sure that she knew we were okay. She was our insurance if we needed it, and it gave me comfort to know that she was out there, whether we needed her or not.

  I led Tara across the exposed section with the added confidence that Bailey was ready to take out anyone in our way if we got into trouble. We’d come to the last section, though, and our beautiful deadeye would be of no use to us inside. Renee had said there weren’t any windows, so we were on our own once we went through those doors. Still, we’d taken out three of Brody’s guards on our own already. We were ready for whatever this last guy threw at us.

  I did a quick count of the men Renee had described, and I realized that the guy that remained was the largest one. ‘A big guy with tattoos all over’, the description had said. Of course Brody had put this guy right outside his room, in his mind brawn was what he needed to stay safe.

  That always had been Brody’s mentality. That was why he’d worked out so much, but only focused on building bulk instead of functional strength and flexibility. He’d always been a big guy, slightly bigger than myself even, but I never considered him stronger. He had more body mass, but that was all, and he didn’t really know how to use it to his advantage. His muscles wouldn’t help him now, they’d just make him a larger target.

  I slowly opened the door and led with my pistol, but before I pushed my way in I saw the silhouette of a woman come into view. The moonlight shone on her, and she stared at me with wide, panicked eyes.

  I quickly pressed my fingers to my lips to tell her to be quiet. She nodded her head, then stepped out toward me so she could close the door.

  “We’re not here to hurt you,” I assured her quietly. “Are you alone?”

  The woman nodded.

  “You’re Tav, right?” she whispered. She was a beautiful young lady with deep red hair and bright blue eyes that lit up in the moonlight.

  “Yes,” I assured her. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

  “I know,” she said softly. “Omar is out front on guard, though, you still have to get past him.”

  “What’s Brody doing?” I whispered.

  “Probably feeling pretty happy with himself,” she growled. I realized then why she had been in his room, this was another one of Brody’s victims on her way back to her room after she’d been used and tossed out.

  My heart began to race with anger, but I nodded at the woman and tried to focus on the task at hand.

  “Go back to your room quickly,” I told her, and I tried to keep my voice as level as possible given how livid I was. “This will be over soon.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and she headed across the exposed area of the wall and into the other section.

  She was gone just as quickly as she had appeared, but the fire in me had had gasoline poured on it. Of course Brody wouldn’t stop his escapades just because he changed rooms. It was foolish of me to not think about that. I’d been in his room at night before, I’d seen women come and go, but at that point I had no solid evidence to believe they didn’t want to be there. Now I was pissed that I hadn’t killed the sonofabitch sooner.

  I just had to remind myself that it would be over soon enough. Brody was only a few meters away at this point, he was so close I could practically feel his neck under my hands.

  We still had a bit of hallway to go down before we reached Brody’s room according to the map, but at that point I wasn’t sure what to expect. We’d already seen one of the guards out of place, there was always the possibility of another one being the same way. The girl had said that the man named Omar was out on guard duty, but there really was no guarantee that he would be in the same spot she last saw him in.

  Once we were inside and I confirmed that there was nobody there, I slowly slid the door closed and continued on with Tara right behind me. The walls were the same stone as all the other areas of the fort, but somehow this place felt colder than the others, and slightly creepier. There weren’t any lights on, and the wall was lined with historical portraits whose eyes seemed to follow you as you walked.

  I could feel my heart rate speed up as I walked, and all I could hear was my breathing. We’d reached the final stretch, and I was ready to end this whole situation. We needed to get into Brody’s room before he knew we were there. A surprise assault on him would be the best way to avoid an all out fight, and I did expect him to fight.

  Brody was a coward, and he would flee if given the chance, but if he was cornered, I knew he wouldn’t give in easily. He’d do whatever he could to stay alive, even if that meant using children as shields or sacrificing some of his own men. He was like a cornered rat, he’d chew his own arm off to get out of a trap and that made him all the more dangerous.

  At this point he had to know that there would be no reasoning with me, he was a dead man walking, so I knew he’d be desperate to stay alive. We needed to get the jump on him, and I didn’t want Brody to have the opportunity to fire off a
single round. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being able to fight back. He’d die like the coward he was. I’d make sure of that.

  We came to a corner, so we stopped and I peered around the edge to get a look at what we were working with. Sure enough, there was a big motherfucker out there. He was tattooed to the max, even on his face and neck, he had a cigarette hanging from his lips, and his M16 in his arms. He also had a knife on his hip, and a pistol. This guy was the last line of defense, which must have been why he was far more strapped than any of the other guards. Where had this guy been when we were there before? I didn’t recall seeing him at all, and I thought I would have remembered a mug like that.

  A small light on the wall behind him lit him up as he sat on a stool in front of a large set of doors. There was another set to the left, and I figured that must have been where the children were. Renee said that the two rooms were connected from the inside, like a suite of some sort, so it wouldn’t be possible for us to go in and warn the children before we went into Brody’s room. That could give away our presence and possibly cause Brody to try to go into the room as a last resort anyways. No, the best course of action was to go into his room and surprise him.

  We had to get rid of this ugly asshole first, though. I leaned my head back around the corner to confer with Tara, she raised her silenced pistol up as a question, but I shook my head. They were quiet, but they weren’t totally silent, especially not when you were this close to them. There was a chance that Brody would still hear the shot and the sound of the body hitting the ground, and it would give us away.

  We had originally planned for Tara to use her pistol, but at this point it was too risky, but the next best thing I could think of was using a knife. Still, that was risky as well. This guy was strapped, and he was big. Plus, if he made a sound and alerted Brody, then it was all over.

  That was the most important part of the mission, especially right then. We couldn’t allow Brody to know that anything was out of the ordinary. He needed to continue on with business as usual so that we could get the jump on him, otherwise our whole plan was shot and there was the possibility he’d try to get away or fight back. Neither was an option I wanted. I wanted him to know that he’d been bested, I wanted to see the fear in his eyes when he saw me in his room poised to take him out.