She considered their next moves as she watched the very occasional vehicle pass on the road a quarter mile in the distance. Two days, she figured. That was when they would set out, heading east and then north, until they reached the pre-arranged rendezvous where she would receive directions to their final destination. Kirby Gant would already be there, she knew, waiting for her contact--if all had gone well on his end. If not, she would be on her own with Simon, and would have to make some drastic decisions.
Don’t go there, Em…
Gant’s plan was solid, she knew. Still, she was placing a great deal of trust in the ex-felon. But so had Jefferson. And his motives had been pure. His determination solid. She simply had to follow through on what had been set in motion.
After that, she didn’t know. Success would bring its own new set of problems. Even now, when she was in the midst of an action she could not have fathomed taking part in, the consequences of everything working as planned did not give her pause. She was doing what was right, just as she had as her undercover assignment ended, and she didn’t give a damn anymore if they hung her for either.
“To hell with them all,” Emily said to herself.
Behind her, through the barely cracked front door, she heard soft footsteps. Simon had awakened from his nap. She stood and entered the house, her house, and closed the door behind, tracking the sound to the kitchen. He was probably making himself a late lunch. Possibly taking a few sticks of jerky from the jar on the counter.
“Simon, if you—”
As she stepped around the corner and into the kitchen, the gloved hand swung hard across her throat. Only an instantaneous reaction, tucking her chin down, prevented her trachea from being crushed. The blow, instead, was deflected against her sternum and threw her back against the kitchen wall next to the cellar door.
A series of realizations hit her in the fraction of a second after the stunning impact which jammed the Glock in her waistband hard against her spine. Paramount above all was the impossible fact that they had been found. Somehow. Random attacks just did not happen on farms surrounded by Kansas prairie. Beyond that, a collection of facts pointed to realities and explanations of what had happened, and what was happening.
The door to the cellar was slightly ajar. It hadn’t been. To Emily that meant her attacker had come through one of the windows that let into the basement. Breaking one quietly would not be impossible, nor would forcing one open. Also, as her gaze swept the space before her, the look of the man who’d struck her told her much. He was bearded and wide at the shoulder, but lean elsewhere, his physique apparent even beneath the cold weather clothing he wore. He was an operator. A mercenary type. Hired to kill.
Hired to take.
He reached toward her, hand open like a clamp ready to bear down on her throat. But she wasn’t going easy. Summoning her strength and pushing through the effects of the initial hit she’d taken, she brought a foot up and jammed it sideways against the bearded man’s knee. He crumbled sideways, grimacing in pain, close enough, though, to attempt a second strike.
Emily blocked that blow and shifted to the side, reaching behind to draw her weapon. She brought it up, leveling the Glock at the operator, finger ready to come down on the trigger.
That was when a second operator emerged from the cellar and whipped the gun upward with one hand, striking her hard across the face with the other. The pistol slipped from her grip and into his as she spun sideways, collapsing against the kitchen cabinets, just enough awareness left after the vicious hit to let her see this second man looming above. He was clean shaven, but longish red hair trickled from beneath a ski cap like wisps of flame.
“Shoot her,” the bearded operator said as he struggled to his feet, favoring one leg now.
The red-haired operator shook his head and launched the Glock through the kitchen window, shattering the glass as the weapon sailed out into the back yard.
“No guns,” the red-haired operator told his partner.
Despite the pain and fog caused by the stunning hit, Emily was able to process their exchange. They’d been instructed that, if anything should happen to the prize they’d come for, they would pay for such a failure. She, though, required no such care.
“Finish her and go get the truck,” the red-haired operator said. “I’ll get Lynch.”
“No!” Emily screamed.
She tried to get up, but the bearded operator landed another blow, this one a sharp punch to her jaw that spun her to the floor where she could just glimpse the feet of the red-haired operator as he walked toward the stairs.
* * *
Simon woke at the sound of glass breaking and climbed quickly out of bed when he heard Emily scream from almost directly below.
Someone is hurting her…
He flashed back to his house. The house where he’d lived with his parents. A man had hurt his mother and father there when he was younger. A man had killed them. Even as the person he used to be, those memories had…troubled him. He couldn’t say ‘hurt’, because hurt was a physical reaction. Or had been. But those recollections hurt now.
As did what he was hearing from below. Someone being punched. Things breaking.
They’re hurting Emily…
Simon knew he couldn’t let that happen. He hadn’t done anything to help his parents. That had been beyond his ability at that point in his life. But this life was different. He was different.
He moved quickly around the bed and toward the door.
* * *
The bearded operator grabbed Emily, jerked her up from the floor, and spun her around, planting her face against the refrigerator a second after whipping a thin cord around her neck.
“Goodbye, bitch,” the man said, then he pulled on each end of the garrote, tightening it and choking off her breath.
Emily felt the burn instantly. The fire that accompanied a breath that could not be taken. Her body fought to gasp, but no air could find a way past the compression applied to her throat. She planted both hands on the refrigerator, trying to push herself free of the larger assailant, but she couldn’t.
You’re dying, Em…
She knew that. It wasn’t a fusillade of bullets that would take her out, like those she’d faced at The Ranch. It was the brute strength of a trained killer.
Fight…
A low life.
Fight, Em…
A worthless mercenary scum.
FIGHT!
Inside she was screaming as she planted both of her feet on the refrigerator and pushed off. The old appliance rocked against the wall behind it and set itself solidly in place, the force of her thrust launch both her and the bearded operator backward, the man slipping and tipping, his body with hers atop it crashing toward the soapstone sink. With a wet THWEP his head smashed against the sink edge, his grip on the garrote loosening.
Emily reacted fast, one hand pulling the cord free from her neck as she spun atop the bearded operator. A chunk of soapstone had been broken free by the impact, the jagged shard lying next to the man’s bleeding head on the floor. He writhed sluggishly, hands pawing weakly at her. She wasted no time and grabbed the wedge of stone and raised it up, driving down with force and fury against the man’s forehead.
His body jerked now. Once. Twice. Then a third time as Emily raised the makeshift weapon high above him, revealing a bloody crater just above his eyes. She was ready to slam it once more against his head, but didn’t, his body stilling beneath her, a steady mix of bloody fluid pouring from his right ear.
For just a second she stared into his slack eyes, some endless drowsiness seeming to inhabit his gaze. She gulped air, and through those heavy breaths she heard it.
Footsteps. On the stairs just above. The other one was almost to Simon.
No!
She dropped the piece of soapstone and bolted from the kitchen.
* * *
Simon reached the hallway outside the bedroom and stopped, something stalling him. More than something, actually.
Facts.
What could he do? What could he bring to bear against the situation? If someone was hurting Emily, would he be able to stop them any more than he would have been able to stop the man who’d killed his parents? He was no fighter. He was weak. There were mental calculations happening as he considered what lay before him, factors of speed and weight and muscle mass to arrive at some calculated percentage of success against an adversary. Men like those who’d attacked The Ranch.
Men like the one who appeared suddenly at the top of the stairs.
“You need to come with us, Mr. Lynch.”
That was what the man told him. That was what the man with red hair told him. Red hair like the man who’d shot his mother and father.
“This can be very easy,” the red-haired man told him.
Red hair…
The man, back then, after he’d shot his parents, had slapped him. Simon remembered that. It had hurt.
“Or you can make it not so easy.”
The red-haired man was threatening him. In no time at all he might hit him.
Go away…
Simon Lynch couldn’t make the man leave. Not through wish, nor through action. He was helpless.
“Let’s go,” the red-haired man said.
He took a step toward Simon and screamed out in pain as the fireplace poker slammed across his back. He fell to his knees, revealing Emily at the top of the stairs, drawing the length of solid iron back for another blow. The red-haired operator rolled and the next strike missed, the head of the implement smashing against the hardwood boards and ricocheting up. His gloved hand reached out and grabbed it, jerking it and Emily to the floor.
“Simon—”
He didn’t know what Emily was going to say after his name. Some warning, or a directive to run, possibly. Whatever it was never passed her lips, the red-haired operator seizing her as she tumbled toward him. Simon watched helplessly as the man bolted upright, wrenching the poker from her and drawing it across her throat as he pulled her up.
Once again, the life was being choked out of her.
Do something…
Simon wanted to. Wanted desperately to. But all he could do at that moment was watch as Emily kicked and flailed at her attacker, her back pinned against his chest, their melded bodies bashing back and forth against the narrow hallway’s walls, pictures on both side of the corridor shifting from the solid impacts.
Simon looked away from the struggle just down the hall, his gaze finding a painting on the wall. Dangling awkwardly now at a severe angle as the walls shook, a bright patch of wallpaper showing behind it, protected from the sunlight which had faded the pattern around—
Faded…
His gaze snapped from that image of a man riding a tractor to the crooked one he’d straightened the night Emily had brought him here. An old farm lady worked her rough hands into a lump of dough in the old painting, kneading and concentrating on her task at hand. Like the others, it was crooked again.
But it’s not like the others…
Simon reached to the small framed painting and lifted it from the hook from which it hung, the small square of bare plaster revealed behind it. The rough, bubbled patch stood out like a scar against the muted floral wallpaper that covered both sides of the hallway.
So I can always be ready…
The woman in the painting looked tired, but not beaten.
“Si…mo…n…run…”
Emily managed to slip the warning past the pressure of the steel poker against her throat. He couldn’t get past them, but he could slip through the window at the end of the hall behind him and scurry out onto the porch roof. From there he could climb down and run. Just run.
But as she watched him while in the fight for her life, he didn’t do that. He did something else. Something she could not imagine, but that he could.
Simon set the painting on a narrow side table that rested against the wall beneath it and put his hand against the bare plaster. It was bubbled and rough and flimsy, as if a skim of the coating had dried over nothing more than a stiff sheet of paper. With little force he pushed through the covering, plaster cracking and falling away in large, uneven pieces, until he could see what lay behind in the hidden space.
A pistol.
He’d held a gun before. He’d shot a gun before. He’d killed a person before. Keiko Kimura, who’d been about to take him and kill Art. His friend Art. That act he’d carried out only because that man had scripted it out for him in a precise series of instructions on his cards.
Simon hadn’t truly understood then what he was doing. He’d simply been doing what a friend had told him to do. Now, as the fight ten feet from him continued, as Emily found herself closer to death at the hands of the red-haired man, there was no one to tell him what to do.
No one but the man he’d become.
Simon Lynch reached into the secret space carved out between the wall studs and took the pistol in hand. It was smaller than the one Emily had set upon the kitchen table earlier that morning, but similar in appearance. He looked at it, then he looked to Emily and the man trying to kill her, then he took two steps toward the violent confrontation and brought the weapon up, leveling it at the red-haired man just as he realized what was happening.
BANG!
Simon pulled the trigger a single time, the bullet traveling the three feet from the weapon’s muzzle to the red-haired man’s forehead in an imperceptibly small amount of time. A small hole instantly appeared in the knit material of the beanie that was drawn low on his forehead, and the man jerked backward, stumbling a few feet, the poker dropping from his grip as he released Emily. He slammed against the wall next to the top of the stairs, shuddering, blood bubbling from both nostrils as he reached to his face and collapsed.
Emily reacted, taking the .380 caliber Glock from Simon and covering the attacker as she drew deep breaths, making up for what had been kept from her. After a few seconds it was clear that the man was dead, the small bullet, having never exited his skull, likely ricocheting around within, scrambling vital parts of his brain. Satisfied that this threat was over, she looked to Simon.
“It’s all right,” she said, offering the only comfort she could right then.
She knew by reading the file that he’d done this very thing before, directed to do so by Art Jefferson. His friend. That defensive act had come when he was younger, in the full grip of his autistic state. How he’d comprehended that event she didn’t know. Now, though, mostly free of the chains his damaged mind had shackled him with, he was experiencing without any filter the truth of killing another human being. He deserved more attention from her right then. More than just a few words. But there was no time to do more.
“Stay here,” Emily said.
She moved down the hallway, past Simon to the side table, kicking the piece of furniture away before slamming her foot through a larger square of bare plaster concealed behind it. A puff of powder erupted as the patch shattered. She reached in and retrieved a pump action shotgun, six spare rounds fixed to an ammunition holder slipped over its stock.
“Get your shoes on,” Emily said as she checked the weapon, eyeing his bare feet.
Simon, though, didn’t move. He just stared at the dead man at the top of the stairs. Presumably there was another man downstairs, one whom Emily had dispatched herself. Two men who had found them.
How…
What data did he have to process such a question? What variables needed to be considered? His brain began automatically running down possible answers to that question of improbability.
“Simon!”
Emily’s stern voice snapped him from his focus.
“Get your shoes on,” she repeated. “We have to go. Right now.”
* * *
Two minutes later they were out the back door and crossing the open space toward the barn. There were no strange vehicles on her property, but, in the distance, Emily could just make out a newish pickup truck nosed close to her neighbor’s
house.
‘Finish her and go get the truck…’
With that recollection of the red-haired operator’s words, Emily knew that her neighbor, the kind man who’d watched over her property, was dead. The operators had gone to his house and made their way through the back fields, using the natural gulley that ran across the landscape for cover as they approached her house.
How the hell did—
She never finished the question in her head as Simon asked it himself.
“How did they find us?” Simon asked aloud as he followed Emily into the barn.
“I don’t know,” she said as she moved past the Taurus with haste, laying the shotgun on the Ford’s hood and aiming herself at the tarped minivan. She’d recovered her Glock from a cluster of bushes near the broken kitchen window it had sailed through and had retrieved the two spare magazines from the mantle. The pistol was again tucked in the back of her waistband, both mags nearby in her back pocket. “Some sort of tracking device on that damn junkyard car, I guess. I’m not sure.”
He absorbed her answer, the old part of his being taking that and treating it as just another data point, picking up where he’d left off inside the house. Creating a hierarchy of the possible with the improbable, processing it all to arrive at a solution. An answer which would explain how, in the middle of the Kansas prairie, the same people who’d attacked The Ranch to take him had located them.
Unless they simply located her.
“Stop!” Simon shouted as Emily gripped the edge of the tarp, ready to yank it off.
“We don’t have time, Simon,” she told him.
He stepped toward her. “Did you know where The Ranch was?”
“What?”
“Did you know?” he repeated. “When you came, did you know?”
“No,” she said. “Simon, we have—”
“It was you,” he said, eyeing her up and down. “You led them there. And you led them here.”
She let go of the tarp as his accusatory words hit. “Simon…”
“Not on purpose,” he said, backing away from her. “You didn’t know.”
Art had said they brought him to The Ranch by helicopter, Simon recalled. They would have done the same with Emily. They’d made Art wear a hood. The same would have applied to Emily.
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