Threat warning

by John Gilstrap

  Five times in the first hour, Boxers signaled for the tiny column to stop and take a knee as movement in the trees raised an alarm. Twice it was a woodland creature of some sort, and once it was just nothing at all, but twice, Jonathan was pretty sure that it was Army of God Klansmen continuing their flight.

  Without ever actually discussing it, Jonathan’s team had tacitly agreed not to engage anyone who didn’t engage them first. Jonathan found it counterinstinctive and a wide departure from any reasonable order of battle; but this opfor was so disorganized and traumatized that to do further damage just seemed cruel.

  Jonathan considered walking back to Michael Copley’s mansion and stealing a car to drive back to their command post, but the net gain didn’t seem worth the net risk. All of those people who scattered into the night would be looking to regroup somewhere, and the leader’s mansion would be as good a rallying point as any. It made no sense to unnecessarily engage anyone at this point.

  So, they kept walking.

  By five-thirty in the morning, they were on the edge of a familiar clearing. The sun was just turning the eastern sky orange when Sam Shockley’s farm came into view.

  Boxers stopped at the edge of the clearing and motioned for the others to join him. “I think we should move around this,” Big Guy said. “I don’t like wide open spaces.”

  “What, you think they’ve set up an ambush?” Jonathan asked. Hearing the words stated aloud made them sound ridiculous.

  “Can you think of a better place?”

  “That assumes a lot of advance notice,” Jonathan said. “Even we didn’t know we were coming here until forty minutes ago.”

  “It’s on the straight line between where we were and where we’re going.”

  Gail asked, “How would they know where we’re going?”

  Boxers made that growling sound that signified frustration. “I’m just sayin’,” he said. “It’s not a big leap if they track the truck we left back there.”

  Jonathan thought it through. He was as much about managing risk as the next guy, but it would add an hour to their trek if they skirted this huge plot of land, and there’d still be a lot of day left to be managed.

  “She’s good people,” Jonathan said. “Her husband’s on deployment, she lives there all by herself with her daughter. If there are bad guys in there, it’ll be against her wishes. So I figure we owe her a security check.”

  Boxers gave him an impatient glare. “You know, Dig, sometimes I think you spend nights awake just thinkin’ up more creative ways to get me killed.” That was Boxers-speak for Whatever you say. He rose.

  Jonathan rose with him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “But just in case I’m wrong, I’ll go first. You and Gunslinger stay here.”

  “I want a new name,” Gail said again. “And we’re not staying anywhere. What is that, a hundred yards out in the open?”

  Jonathan eyeballed the distance. “Maybe a hundred fifty. But she knows me. I think she trusts me. They don’t know anything about you two.”

  “How do you want to handle it?” Boxers asked.

  “I’m going to go to the front door and knock,” he said. “I’m going to check to see if Sam’s okay, and I’m going to give her a heads-up about her truck. When I get to the door, I’ll give you the word to advance.”

  “Unless there are Army of God crazies in there and they cut you down before you get halfway,” Gail said.

  Jonathan considered it a good sign that she was still worried about him. He said, “If there are bad guys in the house waiting-which is a huge, steaming pile of if -then they’ll know that I’m with others. If they see me approaching alone, they’ll hold their fire so as not to draw more from you two.”

  Boxers put his hands on his hips. “You know that’s utter bullshit, right?”

  Jonathan beamed. “I thought it sounded good, though.” He started toward the clearing. “Wait for my command.”

  He closed the distance casually, as before, not wanting to draw unnecessary suspicion. Of course, unlike the last time he approached the farmhouse, he looked far less like a lost hunter than a trained gunman.

  He allowed the muzzle of his M4 to point harmlessly toward the ground, while his gloved hand remained on the grip, his finger close to the trigger guard. He kept his eyes planted on the windows of the little house, and on the corners, where snipers might lie in wait. He took comfort in the knowledge that Boxers and Gail would both be watching with digital magnification. If something looked bad, they would tell him. In fact, there was a better than average chance that they would shoot whatever looked bad.

  A hundred fifty yards goes by fast at twenty-two hundred feet per second.

  When Jonathan closed to within the last twenty yards, he became concerned that no one had yet appeared in the windows or on the porch. His only experience with the Shockley family to date was that they were early risers, and very attentive to their surroundings.

  So, where were they?

  He pressed his transmit button. “I can’t tell you why, but I’m not liking this,” he said. “Advise the instant you see any movement anywhere.”

  Jonathan climbed the three stairs to the front porch and walked to the door. He knocked.

  No one answered, but scuffling sounds from the inside indicated that people were definitely at home. He radioed, “I hear people inside, but there’s no answer.”

  He knocked again.

  Jilly’s voice shouted, “Mama, can we be home yet?”

  Jonathan smiled. The stealthy, secret-keeping child had yet to be invented. He heard footsteps, and then the sound of a chain being stripped from its track on the door. It opened a few inches, and there was a very nervous Sam Shockley. She tried to smile, but she wasn’t good enough at deception to get her eyes involved.

  “Mr. Harris,” she said. “What a pleasure to see you.”

  Bullshit. There was no reason for her to be anything but bothered to see him. She should be ragging his ass for coming by again at all after trying to steal her truck.

  “Mrs. Shockley,” he said. “I came by to make sure-”

  “We’ve got a runner out the back door!” Boxers shouted in his hear.

  “Shit!” He spun and headed for the stairs. He pressed the transmit button. “Gunslinger, clear the house.”

  “Don’t hurt her!” Sam yelled. “She doesn’t mean any harm!” She took off after him.

  Jonathan cut to his left at the bottom of the steps and dashed around toward the back of the house. There he saw a woman in a plain woolen coat in a dead run across the scrubby harvested corn field.

  “Target acquired,” Boxers said in his ear.

  “You!” Jonathan yelled. “Stop or we will shoot!”

  She started running faster.

  Jonathan took off after her, and he knew without looking that Sam Shockley was close behind. In his peripheral vision, he saw Gail sprinting across the field toward the house to clear it of any lingering bad guys. He pressed his mike button. “Give the runner a wide lead, Big Guy. I want to stop her, not hurt her.”

  Two, three-round bursts split the peace of the morning before Jonathan could even let up on his transmit button. Dirt kicked up in front of the fleeing girl, directly in her path. She slid to a stop, hesitated and started running again, prompting two more bursts from Boxers’ weapon.

  “Next time we hit you!” Jonathan yelled.

  The woman stopped again. As Jonathan closed the distance that separated them, his weapon at the ready, she made to run again.

  This time, Jonathan fired the warning shots. From this distance, the muzzle blasts would be near-deafening, and as he’d hoped, that was all the convincing she needed. From the back, he wouldn’t have even known she was a she. Her hair had been cropped short, and she wore a stocking cap pulled low.

  “Hands straight out to your sides,” Jonathan commanded. “Fingers splayed wide.”

  Sam Shockley caught up with him and pulled on his vest. “Don’t hurt her,” she begged.
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  Jonathan pulled free and pointed his weapon inches from her nose. “Step back, Mrs. Shockley. Do not interfere.”

  She blanched and took two steps back. Behind her, Boxers was lumbering across the field to join them.

  Jonathan returned his aim to the woman who’d fled. She stood as if crucified, her hands perpendicular to her body, elbows locked. “Our intent is not to hurt anyone,” Jonathan said. “But if you make me, I will.” He paused while Boxers arrived. “Now turn around.”

  His jaw dropped. It was her again: the one from the bridge and from the basement. All the toughness was gone now, entirely replaced by fear.

  “Please don’t hurt me,” she said.

  “Are you armed?”

  “Please, I just want all of this to stop.”

  “Listen to me,” Jonathan said. “Are you armed?”

  She shook her head as her eyes brimmed with tears. “No, sir.”

  “Big Guy?”

  “I’ve got her covered,” he said.

  Gail said, “House is clear.”

  “Copy, the house is clear,” Jonathan said into the radio. He approached his captive. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Sis-” She stopped herself, and let out a little puff of breath as her head sagged. It was a look of resignation that could mean surrender or suicide bomb. He froze and watched her hands very carefully.

  “Colleen,” she said. “Colleen Devlin.”

  “Look at me, Colleen Devlin.”

  Her eyes came up to meet his.

  “This is your come-clean moment, understand? For all I know, you could be loaded with explosives. If you twitch, my friends will kill you. If you have weapons on you, this is absolutely your only chance to tell me without harm coming to you.”

  “She wouldn’t do that,” Sam said.

  Jonathan’s hand shot up for silence.

  “No bombs,” Colleen said. “No weapons.” She started to cry.

  Looking back to make sure that both Sam and Colleen were covered by Boxers, Jonathan let his M4 fall against its sling and he frisked the young lady thoroughly. She in fact was unarmed. He zip-tied her hands behind her back.

  He looked to Boxers and Big Guy broke his aim. “I think we need to go inside,” Jonathan said. “There’s a lot of explaining to be done.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY – FOUR

  It felt good to be warm. Once inside the house, Jonathan asked for and was given the shotgun he’d encountered the previous day, and when he asked if there were any other weapons in the house, Sam willingly showed him the S amp;W. 357 magnum revolver and Winchester. 30-30, both of them unloaded with trigger locks installed. He allowed himself to relax. A little.

  Jonathan sat at the kitchen table with Gail and Sam and Colleen, while Boxers stood in the archway, blocking any means of escape. Colleen sat awkwardly to keep the pressure off her wrists.

  “Did the repo man ever show up?” Jonathan asked Sam. It was a friendly place to start the conversation.

  Sam gave a wan smile. “No, not yet.”

  Colleen looked shocked. “You know these people?” Her tone was one of utter betrayal.

  “It’s not like that,” Sam said. “I had no idea-”

  “There’s nothing to apologize for,” Jonathan said, moving quickly to control the conversation. “Sam and I don’t know each other any better than you and I do, Colleen.” He let those words hang. “Do you remember me?”

  “You killed my friends.”

  Sam recoiled at the words.

  Jonathan placed a calming hand on her arm. “Not before you killed a lot of people yourself,” he said. He tempered his words so they wouldn’t sound accusatory.

  More shock from Sam.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Colleen said, but the truth was written all over her denial.

  “Don’t you remember me shooting at you on the bridge that night?” he asked.

  Her eyes grew huge.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That was me. And I was about half a trigger pull away from killing you when I got interrupted by that overzealous cop.”

  “Are you talking about the shootings in Washington the other night?” Sam said. From the look on her face, it was all bigger than she could process.

  “Those are the ones,” Jonathan said. He shifted his gaze and softened his voice. “Tell me why, Colleen.”

  “I was supposed to kill myself,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I shouldn’t have run.”

  Sam leaned in closer. “Your job was to kill yourself?”

  Colleen nodded. “Yes.” Then she shook her head. “No. Only if I was about to get caught.”

  Jonathan thought he understood. “I think she’s saying she should have killed herself here. This morning. Is that right, Colleen?”

  She bobbed her head yes but looked away again.

  “But why?” Sam asked. “Why would you kill yourself?”

  “Because it’s the honorable way. It’s the holy way.”

  Sam brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God, what have they been teaching you?”

  Jonathan looked to Sam. “Tell me about y’all’s relationship,” he said. “Why is she here tonight?”

  “She came here terrified,” Sam explained. “I never found out why. It was still dark. She was only here for less than an hour when you showed up and she took off running.”

  “But why here?” Gail asked. “You seem to know each other.”

  “We do,” Sam said. “At least I thought we did. She came to visit me every week or so.”

  Jonathan sat a little taller and adjusted his rifle so the magazine quit poking him in the thigh. “What does visit mean?”

  Gail shot him an annoyed look, but he ignored it.

  “She would just come by. You know, to talk. And to play with Jilly. We’d have coffee or hot chocolate in the winter, Cokes or iced tea in the summer.”

  So this had been going on for a long time, Jonathan realized. “Colleen?”

  She looked at her lap. “Why did you have to ruin everything?”

  “Because you kidnapped my friend’s family,” he said.

  Sam gasped again. “Oh, my God!”

  “You forced my hand, Colleen. Why did you do it?”

  She sighed and moaned. “What have I done?” she whispered.

  “You killed a lot of people,” Jonathan said. “What’s done is done. Now tell me why you shot those people on the bridge.”

  “They’re Users.” She said it as if it were really an explanation. “We’re at war with them.”

  “And the mall shootings in Kansas City?”

  She nodded.

  “The school bombing in Detroit?”

  “It’s war!” she yelled. “People die in war.”

  “And more are coming, aren’t they?”

  Colleen shut down and looked at the table.

  “How many more, Colleen?”

  “A lot,” she said. “Brother Michael didn’t trust me with all the details, but I know that there are many teams out there.”

  “I don’t believe this!” Sam exclaimed.

  Jonathan put his hand on her arm again. “Please,” he said. “Just let us talk.”

  “I don’t want to say any more,” Colleen said.

  “Why did you kidnap Ryan and Christyne Nasbe?” Jonathan pressed. “How did they figure in to your war?”

  Colleen looked tired. “We needed symbols. We needed faces for the cameras.”

  “But why them?”

  “Because they were Users and they were there.” She clearly didn’t understand why people didn’t understand something so obvious. “I had orders to take prisoners and I followed them.”

  Gail looked shocked. “Just anybody?” she asked. “Random selection?”

  “Users are Users,” Colleen said. “This one or that one, it doesn’t matter.”

  Sam stood, abruptly enough that Boxers moved to intervene. “I’m calling the police,” she said.

  “They’re part of
it,” Jonathan said. “Kendig Neen is a leader, isn’t he, Colleen?”

  “ Sheriff Kendig Neen? Is a terrorist?”

  “A soldier,” Colleen corrected reflexively.

  Sam sat back down heavily. “Oh, my God. He comes by all the time, too. He’s a nice man.”

  Jonathan turned his attention back to Colleen. “Where are the other attacks going to be?”

  “I swear I don’t know. What’s going to happen to me?”

  “This isn’t about you anymore, sweetheart,” Gail said. If anyone could pull off a nice tone under the circumstances, it was she. “This is about a lot of innocent people who are in danger.”

  “They’re not innocent,” Colleen said, kicking the table. “They’re Users!”

  Sam exploded, “That bomb at the school killed children, Colleen! Small, innocent children!”

  “Children die in war all the time,” Colleen said.

  Jonathan’s patience was thinning. “Tell me the end game, then,” he said. “What does all of this killing accomplish?”

  She snorted a laugh. “Same as in any war. We win.”

  “You win,” Jonathan repeated. “And then what? What happens in victory?”

  “The Users stop using,” she said. “When people are afraid to leave their houses, when they can’t shop or go to school, the economy will collapse.”

  “How?” Gail asked. “Tell me how one leads to the other.”

  “Users are weak,” she said. “They frighten easily, and they’re anxious to blame whoever they want to be guilty. When they get angry, they go to war, and their precious stock market falls. The Users lose their precious money, and when that happens, the poor will rise and get an even chance.”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” Jonathan said, but then he stopped himself. This wasn’t the time for a civics lesson.

  “You wait,” Colleen said. “You wait until the head is cut off of the snake. You wait to see what happens then.”

  Gail scowled deeply. “Snake? What snake?”

  A deep baritone voice rumbled from the living room, “Good morning everyone.”