No mercy

by John Gilstrap

  “And to arrest you for killing the Caldwell family,” Gail replied evenly.

  “So you don’t know about the rest?” Julie asked.

  Gail and Jesse exchanged looks. “What rest?”

  Stephenson laughed heartily and paid for it with a muscle spasm. “Boy, do we have a story for you,” he grunted through the pain.

  It took every bit of a half hour to tell the story again-thirty minutes that they could ill afford. By the time they were done, the Hummer and Gail’s Kia Sorrento had both arrived in the front yard, and Thomas and Boxers had joined the confab in the main room.

  “So, Sheriff and Deputy, you’ve stepped into the middle of a war that’s about to happen,” Jonathan concluded. “And to tell you the God’s honest truth, I don’t know what I’m going to do about it. You’ve proved yourself to be just crazy enough not to be trusted if I let you go, but it doesn’t seem right to keep you trussed up like a couple of sculptures once the shooting starts. The third option-giving you a gun and asking you to help-doesn’t do much for me, either.”

  “Well you sure as hell can’t give Deputy Dawg there a weapon,” Boxers said, pointing at Jesse.

  Jonathan stood. “Enough chatting,” he said. “Let’s get to work. Once it gets dark, we’ll be on borrowed time. We’ve got to get that grass cut down out front, and we’ve got to get an ambush set.” He looked at Stephenson. “How about we start with a tour? Are you up for a little hobbling?” He held out his hand and helped the

  “What about them?” Boxers asked, indicating the captives. “We gotta do something.”

  He had a point. “Zip them to the chairs.”

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Gail said.

  Boxers froze. He shot a panicked look to Jonathan. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. For Boxers, the Achilles’ heel was excretory functions. He could wallow to his elbows in blood and brains and not even wince. Pee and poop were entirely different matters.

  Trying not to laugh at the look of horror from the big guy, Jonathan’s eyes narrowed as he assessed Gail’s angle. “Okay,” he said at length. “Tom, escort the sheriff to the outhouse.”

  “No way!”

  “You just have to walk with her,” Jonathan said. “You don’t have to wipe her.”

  Gail was blushing. “You know I’m right here, right? And, not to get too graphic, there is the matter of my pants.”

  “Yeah,” Thomas said. “Who’s gonna do that?”

  Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Julie?”

  She stood. “Sure,” she said, and she helped lift Gail to her feet with a hand on her biceps. “Come on, Sheriff, I’ll help you.”

  Before they’d had a chance to move, Jonathan said, “Tom, you go, too, to help your mom.”

  Thomas made a slashing motion with his hand-a definitive denial. “No. I am not-”

  “Tom, I want you to stay with your mom.” This time, his tone conveyed his real message, and everyone in the room caught the subtext. Jonathan didn’t trust either woman.

  Thomas conceded, even as Julie’s back stiffened.

  “Let’s not argue, okay?” Thomas said, getting ahead of his mother’s inevitable complaint. “Let’s just do this and get it over with.”

  Jonathan’s tour of the DuBois property started by heading up the stairs. The steps led directly to the master bedroom, where the ceiling was barely high enough to allow him to stand upright in the parallel troughs between the rough-hewn oak beams. A sagging double bed and a small table filled the space.

  “Cozy,” Jonathan said.

  Stephenson chuckled. “As a kid, I used to think this place was huge.”

  “I guess it helps to be four feet tall.” He knocked on the nearest beam with his fist. “Solid.”

  “Family lore has it that my grandfather built the place with his own hands. Not sure how he got the three-hundred-pound beams up.”

  “Not a man to be trifled with,” Jonathan said. “I need to know if your wife is going to be a liability.” He launched that last part like a torpedo.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do I need to watch my back when she’s around?”

  Stephenson waved off the notion as foolish. “She’s not a violent woman. That’s part of why she’s being so…difficult. You have nothing to worry about.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “I’m better than sure. She’s just terrified. Hell, so am I.”

  Fair enough, Jonathan thought. “Next I need see the GVX.”

  Boxers came along. As barns go, the one on the DuBois property was small, but built to the same standards as the house. The heavy timber pillars looked brand new even if the fifteen-foot of they supported needed considerable repair. An ancient John Deere tractor stood in the far corner, still hooked up to the enormous cutting deck that clearly hadn’t been used in a while. “There you go, Big Guy,” Jonathan said, pointing. “Fill that baby with fuel from the spares on the Hummer and mow down all that free cover out front.”

  “On it,” Boxers said, and he headed out the door to get things moving.

  The barn in general smelled of mud and old gasoline, and light leaking through spaces in the walls cut pinstripes through the dust that stirred as they entered. Stephenson explained, “It’s a place to store stuff we never use. As a kid, it was my retreat. My fort. I used to hide out in the loft.”

  Next to the tractor sat a relatively new three-quarter-ton truck. “Is that the vehicle you helped yourself to?” Jonathan asked, pointing.

  “That’s the one.”

  “And how much germ juice is in there?” Jonathan slipped a mini-Maglite out of a loop on his belt and twisted it on, launching a piercing white beam across the floor. “Show me,” he said.

  Stephenson hobbled to the back of the truck and pulled open the back door. All they could see were five wooden crates, each of them three feet square. The one closest to the rear of the vehicle had clearly been opened, and its lid hastily replaced. “That’s the one I took the cylinders out of on the night we were trying to free Thomas,” he explained, pointing.

  Jonathan hoisted himself into the truck for a closer look.

  Stephenson continued, “Tibor met me at a truck stop outside of Shepherdstown that night. I left the truck there and took the three canisters that Conger wanted and we went the rest of the way by car.”

  The canisters themselves were about the size and shape of a salami, and constructed of what appeared to be stainless steel. Jonathan hefted one and guessed the weight to be maybe six pounds.

  “Not much to them, is there?’ Stephenson said.

  “A couple of pounds is a lot of germs. Why do you think Tibor Rothman agreed to come along with you?”

  Stephenson pursed his lips and shrugged. “I really don’t know. My begging helped, I think.” He meant it as a joke, but it fell flat. “I talked myself into believing that the only way to have a chance long-term, if everything went right, was to have an eyewitness from the press to report what had happened.”

  Jonathan put the canister back in the crate and closed the top. “That wouldn’t make them all the more anxious to kill you?”

  “Maybe, but for a different reason. In that case, they’d be killing me because they were pissed. Everybody would know who did it, and for what reason, and because of that, I figured they’d be less inclined to go to the trouble.”

  Jonathan smiled. “Good old-fashioned reverse logic. Why did you and Tibor split up after you bolted from the drop-off site?”

  “Harder to catch two moving targets than one. I ended up taking a bus back to the truck stop where I left this beast.” He patted the side of the truck. “By the time I got back to it, I figured the story would have broken and it would have been over. But the story never broke. I guessed that meant Tibor was missing and I decided to go into hiding.”

  “Let me get down outta this,” Jonathan said. “Shit gives braced himself, his left leg ahead of his right. He settled himself with a deep breath and tightened his whole hand around the
pistol-grip stock as he tucked his shoulder in. When the weapon barked, the kid seemed ready for it. Even without binoculars, Jonathan could see the white gouge that the bullet carved into the bark of the tree.

  “Very nice,” he said, meaning it. “Give me another.”

  Thomas set himself and fired again. More wood flew.

  Jonathan grinned. “Excellent. Where’d you learn to shoot?”

  “A buddy of mine at school has a farm. I’ve killed hundreds of bottles in the last four years.”

  “Bottles don’t shoot back at you,” Boxers growled. “Ever shot anything that was alive?”

  Thomas had had it with Boxers’ grousing. “What the hell is your problem with me? I’m on your side.”

  “I don’t need you on my side,” Boxers said.

  “But he’s here, isn’t he?” Jonathan said. “He’s volunteered to put himself in harm’s way, and we’re going to need the extra manpower.”

  “Against these yahoos that are on their way? Bullshit.”

  “That’s enough!” Jonathan snapped.

  “It’s crazy!” the big man snapped back. “Can we talk privately?”

  “We don’t have time,” Jonathan said. What was the point? He knew where the conversation was going to go. “Just say what’s on your mind.”

  Boxers shook his head. “Not in front of the kid.”

  “Hey!” Thomas barked. “What is with-”

  “You don’t know shit, kid. You don’t even know what you’re getting into.”

  “I know enough,” Thomas said.

  “No you don’t! And the fact that you think you do is even scarier.” He turned to Jonathan. “You don’t have the right to expose them like this. It’s wrong, and you know it.”

  Jonathan stared, stunned.

  “I’m good for this, Scorpion,” Thomas said.

  Piss and vinegar, Jonathan thought.

  “What are you gonna do, Scorpion?” Boxers pressed. “You want me to speak freely, I’ll speak freely. You got the only two people who actually know how to shoot tied up on the porch, you got one who’s ready to surrender to anybody who’ll listen, you got an old guy with a bad leg, and a kid who thinks we’re gonna be attacked by bottles. What in that picture looks anything but crazy to you? If these Brigade yahoos are good enough to make us need what we’ve got, then we’re completely screwed. You’re gonna get them killed.”

  Jonathan didn’t know what to say. Andrew Hawkins’s description of Ivan Patrick’s demagoguery echoed in his head. If Boxers was right-if he was asking too much from people who had no chance to deliver-then Jonathan and Ivan had something terrible in common. He said nothing as he turned and started walking toward the tree line.

  “Where you goin’?” Boxers wanted to know.

  Jonathan kept walking. He needed to think. A knot had formed in his stomach. Say what you like, package it as you wish, this was a revenge mission-a murder mission-and he realized now that it was a poisonous one. Dom and Ven were both right. Boxers had even seen it, for God’s sake enough for me. Now let’s get ready to kill some bad guys.”

  This time as Boxers led, Jonathan followed. As he walked, he thought about Boxers’ question. The coming fight would go as it would go. Far more difficult was the next step. Irene Rivers could not have been more direct in her warning: the weapons they had in their possession were a Homeland Security issue now, meaning presumption of guilt and suspension of all civil rights. It meant disappearing. Poof. It meant never having existed at all.

  Jonathan had learned years ago that it was a mistake to second-guess the past, but under the circumstances of the last week, he found it impossible not to. The ripple effect of Thomas’s rescue was staggering in its scope, the number of ruined lives and people killed-with more to come tonight.

  All because of…what? Greed, he supposed. That was the common denominator. The Patrones and Carlyle Industries had been greedy for money, Fabian Conger had been greedy for attention, and the agencies that had funded the project in the first place were greedy for power. All the rest were soldiers, pawns, or merely collateral damage.

  There had to be a way to stop the juggernaut of destruction. There had to be an exit strategy that would allow them to win this for real. All Jonathan had to do was find the right handle to pull.

  Good old-fashioned reverse logic.

  A fully formed plan came to him just like that, out of nowhere. He jerked to a stop and Boxers turned.

  “What’s wrong now?” Big Guy asked.

  “Not a thing,” Jonathan said with a grin. “I’ve got the answer.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jonathan gathered the crowd into the dining room for another chat. With two of the chairs taken by Gail Bonneville and her deputy, Thomas sat on the sofa topping off the magazine he’d fired from. Stephenson and Julie took the remaining chairs while Jonathan and Boxers remained standing. Jonathan had a little speech prepared in his head, but before he could say anything, Stephenson preempted him. “I think you need to share your plan,” he said. “And tell us how we can help.” As he spoke that last sentence, he shot a glare at Julie, as if daring her to start up again.

  Jonathan exchanged glances with Boxers, then leaned forward with his forearms resting on the table. “I’ve looked over the latest satellite imagery of this place, and from what I can tell, access is limited to that bridge we came over yesterday. Is that right?”

  Stephenson nodded.

  “You’re sure?” Jonathan pressed. “No fire roads, deer trails, hiking trails, nothing like that? Nothing where a four-wheeler can gain access?”

  “I’m sure,” Stephenson said. And right away he backpedaled, “Well, I guess if you want to get into a place badly enough, there’s always a way.”

  Jonathan conceded the obvious. “Of course. But we want to make it as difficult for them as possible.”

  “What about the fire road on the top of the ridge?” Thomas asked.

  Stephenson scowled. “That’s hardly access to the property.”

  Jonathan pulled a USGS map of the area from a flap pocket

  Jonathan noted the closely packed contour lines. “That’s a hell of a steep slope.”

  “Have you seen the backyard?” Julie said.

  Jonathan forced a smile. God, he didn’t like that woman. There was indeed a fairly steep slope to the backyard, but apparently just beyond the tree line, it went nearly vertical.

  “Why isn’t the road on the map?” Boxers asked. “These things are usually pretty accurate.”

  “There’s really not much to it,” Thomas said. “It’s not really even a road. More like a wide trail.”

  Jonathan asked, “How do you get to it? Where does it begin and end?”

  Stephenson and Thomas looked to each other for answers, then both shook their heads. “I have no idea,” Thomas said for both of them. “I’ve never hiked it from beginning to end. I only know it’s there because that’s where you end up when you go out back and start climbing.”

  Jonathan turned to Stephenson. “You either?”

  “Nope. I’ve probably gone a mile in each direction over the years, but I’ve never found the end. It’s in pretty rough shape.”

  It was inconceivable to Jonathan that anyone could grow up here and not know. He looked to Boxers. “What do you think?”

  “It’s a weakness. Our Achilles’ heel. If we had a platoon, we’d cover it. As it is, I think we have to live with it.”

  Jonathan agreed. “Okay, that brings us to our various roles for when the war comes.” Julie recoiled from the term, but Jonathan didn’t back down. “The key to survival once the shooting starts is for you guys to spend as much time as possible here inside the lodge. These timbers in the walls will stop just about anything they can throw at us. They’re just about bulletproof.”

  “What about the windows?” Julie asked.

  “Not bulletproof,” Jonathan said. “We’re going to spend the next few hours making this as sturdy a fortress as possible. We need to
block access to that bridge out there to slow them down and hopefully even keep them out. Big Guy and I will set up an ambush at that spot, so if everything goes perfectly, you won’t even have to worry about firing a shot up here.”

  “Are you going to take the bridge out completely?” Stephenson asked.

  Jonathan shook his head. “I think we’ll rig it, but I don’t want to blow it unless we have to. When it’s all over, it’d be nice to have a way to get out again.”

  “I presume you’ll want some of us out there to help you with the ambush,” Stephenson said.

  This time the head shake was vigorous. “Absolutely not. Ambushes are tricky. After the first shot, they tend to go to shit, and it’s very damn easy to kill your team members. Besides, even the best-planned ambush is a dynamic event, and with that wounded leg, you won’t be dynamic for a while. If Big Guy or I get hit, then this place becomes the Alamo. You’ll need to be here to defend it.”

  “Everybody died at the Alamo,” Julie said. Ever the voice of optimism.

  “So what’s next?” Thomas asked.

  “Big Guy and I are going to take care of business down at the bridge and out around the house. I need you guys to practice reloading your weapons in a hurry. Over and over again. Load ’em up and then jack out the rounds and load ’em up again. You’ll be doing it for real in the dark, so make sure your hands know what to do.”

  “Won’t we have tofi expose ourselves to a window to shoot?” Julie asked, another inquiry from Captain Obvious.

  He didn’t bother to answer. “Steve, when you get a chance I need you to rig a lightproof space upstairs where we can monitor the satellite images without the glow providing an easy target.”

  “Will do,” he said.

  Jonathan stood. “Let’s get to it, then.”

  “What about us?” Gail asked.

  Everyone stopped; everyone turned to face them. “What about you?” Jonathan asked.

  “Being quiet would be a good first step,” Boxers offered.

  “We can help,” she said.