by Dale Mayer
Rory walked out to meet Levi and Ice. He stood in the middle of the reception area, where he could see the hall that led to Louise’s office. The two walked toward him.
“She’s crashed in her office,” he explained. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving her alone.”
Ice nodded.
“How about I stay here?” Rory said. “I’ll deal with the authorities and make sure the clinic gets cleaned up—hopefully without waking Louise.”
“Several of the crew are coming from the compound,” Levi said. “However, someone needs to go to the sheriff’s office to get as much information as possible. They should have tracked down the vehicle by now.”
Ice added, “I texted Stone. He’s running facial recognition. Once we ID the men, we need to find out who their associates are, and we need to know fast. So I’ll run command center from here for the next hour or two.” Ice glanced at her watch. “At that time, if you guys have done all you can, then you can come back and keep watch. She’ll be up by six, I’m sure. In the meantime, we need to get this air circulating as fast as possible.”
Just as she stopped speaking, they heard vehicles starting up in the parking lot. The deputies were getting ready to return to the sheriff’s office.
“It’s a good thing this is all fields and pastures here. If Louise had neighbors watching, they’d wonder what the hell was going on,” Rory said.
“The neighbors will notice even if not close by,” Levi said. “It’s always a mistake to think no one witnessed last night’s events. Not to mention there is likely to be some news coverage. But Louise just needs to keep putting one foot in front of the other and not get sidetracked. Ice, make sure to tell her to act like nothing has happened.” Levi stepped away, motioning for Rory to follow him.
As much as Rory hated to leave Louise, he knew there was a lot to do. As long as somebody was watching over Louise, that was all that mattered. He walked outside to find the deputies loading up the two prisoners. Rory stepped forward and said, “Do we have any identification on them yet?”
One of the deputies looked at him. “They don’t have any ID on them, and they’re not volunteering any names.”
The other deputy asked, “Why do you want to know right now?”
“So I have names for the gravestones in a couple days,” Rory said with a smirk.
The handcuffed guy closest to him looked at him hard. “You can’t scare us.”
Rory shook his head. “I don’t give a damn about scaring you. You’re nothing to me. It’s your boss I want.”
“You won’t get him.”
“We will. We haven’t missed any target we’ve been after yet.” Rory’s voice was hard but even. He didn’t boast casually. He’d been in the military for a long time. They had done an awful lot of crazy-ass missions where he wondered at the possibility of success, but the stuff they’d pulled off … Well, he’d learned a lot about going beyond what he’d thought was possible. It also told him so much about what the enemy was capable of doing. The enemy he was used to facing versus the enemy he faced now might have different appearances, use different names, but they were still the same assholes inside, and they made mistakes like everybody else. “Not to worry,” Rory said. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
He smacked the hood of the county car and walked away. The two deputies got in and pulled out of the parking lot. Just after they turned onto the main road, shots filled the air, and the front windshield of the cruiser exploded.
“Shit!” Rory was already running. When the second shot was fired, he knew he wouldn’t be in time. The shots came from the other end of the field, against a thin wooded area. He would just be a target himself. Levi grabbed his arm, and both of them hit the dirt as gunfire peppered the ground in front of them. Rory, his head against the gravel, said, “All four do you think?”
Levi nodded. “Guaranteed.” His tone was bitter, angry. He peered over the rocks, trying to pinpoint where the shooters were. With his phone in his hand, he dialed and said, “One possibly two shooters as I spotted two muzzle flashes at the tree line. Eleven o’clock from the nose of the deputies’ vehicle. Chances are all four inside the cruiser will be dead. High-powered rifles. Good distance and a wind. Plus shots taken in the dark with the headlights of the deputies’ car causing a glare at least or a blind spot at worst. We’ve got some experienced shooters up there. Rory and I are going after them. You check the vehicle.”
He put away his phone. They both raced back to Levi’s car, Levi screaming at Rory, “Get in.”
Once both of them were inside the vehicle, Levi peeled out onto the road and turned in the opposite direction. Still, as they went forward, Rory ducked down just in case the shooters were looking for more targets. Levi quickly made several turns, coming up behind where the shooters had been. In the distance, they heard more sirens. If they couldn’t get ahead of the shooters, there was no way to stop them. Their phones were going nuts. Rory grabbed Levi’s as he drove and answered it to find Merk on the other end, yelling, “What the hell is going on?”
Rory filled him in.
“I’ll get Stone on the satellite right now.”
The phone went dead only to ring again seconds later. Rory answered Ice’s call. “Ice, we’re both fine. I don’t know about anybody in the deputies’ vehicle.”
“I’m not leaving Louise’s side. Flynn is outside. He’ll report in as soon as I get off the phone.”
Levi yelled, “With your medical training, you might need to go to the crime scene. Can you pull in someone else to stand guard on Louise?”
“I see Flynn racing through the tree line toward the pullout up ahead,” Rory told her. He could hear Ice walking in the clinic.
“Logan has pulled up to the cruiser,” she said. “He’s a damn good medic. And he’s not alone.” Her voice turned brisk. “I need this line open.”
“We’ll all be too late to catch the shooters anyway. No way they would have set this up beforehand and not had a place to run to. Exits are always the first thing they map out.” And Rory ended the call.
With Levi taking every corner as fast as he could, gravel sprayed behind them. It was a wild chase in the night. But they were chasing two ghosts. Levi had no idea where the shooters’ vehicle came from or where it could be going, if they were even in the same vehicle. It would be smarter for the two shooters to have their own cars. Levi was waiting on Stone. When the call finally came through, Stone’s terse voice filled the car.
“Take a right one hundred meters ahead.”
Levi took the corner at top speed. Following Stone’s directions, they continued two miles and took a left. Then they turned off onto what appeared to be a hayfield of some kind. “Keep your eye on them,” Levi said to Stone. “And conference with Rory.”
Within seconds they pulled up behind the shooters’ getaway vehicle. Both doors were open, and the men appeared to have bolted.
Rory’s phone rang, and he yelled, “I’m taking the right,” and hopped out of Levi’s truck, plugging in his earpiece to his cell. He didn’t wait for an answer but bolted after his target. Both of these men were armed with rifles. Rory needed to keep out of sight or else he’d be targeted himself. He needed Stone to track these men. It was only because of Stone and the satellite that they could even do that much. Up ahead, Rory caught a movement. He picked up his pace. Trying to control his breathing, he asked, “Stone, is this guy turning left?”
“Yes, in about ten feet, turn left hard.”
“How far ahead is he?” he gasped out. His feet hit the ground hard as he pelted forward at top speed.
“One hundred feet and closing. He’s failing.”
“Good. The asshole is about to meet up with a very pissed-off fist.”
“Fifty feet,” Stone warned.
“Give me a warning at ten and make sure he’s going in the same direction I am.”
It was barely seconds later when Stone said, “Ten coming up on the right.”
Rory cou
ld hear the man to the right beside him. He heard his ragged breathing just as Rory plowed into him, knocked him to the ground and, with all his might, pulled his right fist back and drove it into the man’s jaw. He stopped moving after that. Rory sat on the man’s chest, gasping for air. A rifle was in the man’s hand. Rory kicked it away and held him down, but this asshole wasn’t going anywhere. He was knocked out cold.
“Stone, I got him.”
“I see that. Sit tight.”
That he could do. He rubbed sweat off his forehead. Inside was a roar of triumph. They may not have everyone, but they’d caught this asshole. If nothing else, these two gunmen would face the death penalty for shooting the deputies. What Rory and Levi had to do was make sure this one, and possibly the one Levi had, didn’t die before Rory and Levi found out who’d given the orders. Rory was getting damn tired of catching these assholes and watching them be murdered before giving them more information.
“How’s Levi doing?”
“About to connect with his target,” Stone said. “And he got him. Bit more of a struggle and … he’s down. Hold on.”
Stone disconnected, presumably to talk to Levi. They would need help getting these assholes back to Levi’s vehicle, or Rory would have to carry his guy. As he thought about the distance and the path he’d taken, he winced. But the small guy beneath him was lightweight. Probably didn’t weigh more than a hundred and forty. Rory had packed heavier guys. Plus, it would be a whole lot easier to deal with this guy if he was out cold and not struggling against Rory. Awake, the gunman would do his damnedest to get free again.
He picked up the man and tossed him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, grabbing the rifle and starting back the way he had come. He shuffled the rifle and hooked it over the man’s feet. He reinserted his earpiece that got knocked out in the struggle and waited for Stone to call him back.
“You’re walking?” Stone asked.
“I figured it was probably easier to deal with the asshole while he was out cold than to argue with him when he was a little more spirited.”
“Okay. Keep going back all the way to where you took the right-hand turn. You’ve got a bit of a way to go yet.”
Rory shifted the dead weight on his shoulder and kept the phone line open as he walked. Outside of being full of gunfire and hatred, the evening sky was beautiful. Not to mention the sense of satisfaction he had in knowing he’d actually succeeded in capturing this asshole. Tonight ended up on a good note.
“Are Ice and Louise okay?”
“No word on Louise. Presume she’s still sleeping. Ice is pissed. She’s taking this as a personal affront. She also has more uniforms coming. Nothing like cop shooters to bring out the entire force.”
“Great. So much for keeping this quiet.”
“Not happening. Logan will get the clinic cleaned up and back up in operation as fast as we can. This doesn’t need to interfere with the building being open for business. The shooting was on the main road, so we should be able to keep the far entrance to the clinic’s parking lot open.”
“Once we have these two shooters in jail, we might get some answers. If we can keep them alive long enough. And if we can convince them to talk …”
“Don’t worry. Now that two of their own deputies have been shot and are possibly dead—I don’t have an update on that yet—the sheriff’s office will make sure these shooters face their reckoning.”
Rory hoped so. So far the gunmen were doing a better job at cleaning up their mistakes than anyone else Rory had seen. And Rory had seen a lot.
Chapter 9
Louise woke up with a start. She lay still, figuring out what noise she had heard. It sounded like an air-conditioning system on steroids. She sat up and groaned. Her body ached in places she hadn’t felt in a long time, and she realized she was sleeping in her office.
Almost immediately all the memories of the previous night came flooding back. She stood up and slowly walked to the bathroom to wash her face. With that done, she stepped out to face whatever nightmare was going on in the remains of her clinic. She was pleasantly surprised to find Ice standing not very far away from her door and issuing orders. She was yelling over the blowers of some kind of an air-recirculating system. Louise stared at the large machines and shook her head, then sidled up to Ice and said, “What the heck is that?”
Ice gave a start, not realizing Louise had come out of her office. Then Ice smiled and said, “To clean out the air.”
“Oh, good. What time is it?” Louise asked, brushing her hair off her forehead. “I must have slept hard. I still feel groggy.” Avoiding the big machines, she stepped out to the front of the clinic with Ice at her side.
“At least out here we can talk,” Ice said with a laugh.
Louise looked around, delighted to see the deputies were gone and no crime scene tape or anything else filled the early morning light. “So once these machines are gone, the clinic can operate again?”
Ice nodded. “There wasn’t much left in the way of gas particles. They do dissipate fairly quickly, but this is just to make sure everybody’s good. We don’t want anything to hurt the animals.”
Louise smiled. “It’s nice to know you guys are animal lovers too.”
“All of us are,” Ice admitted. “Bringing in those puppies was a bad idea.”
Louise chuckled. “Right. I’m sure you guys are keeping two at least.”
Ice shook her head. “Levi’s pretty resistant to the idea,” she admitted. “Not because he doesn’t love puppies, but he figures it’ll be nothing but trouble with everybody there. We don’t want the dogs playing favorites.”
“They will play favorites, and they will bond with whoever loves them. … They’ll probably end up being closest to Alfred. He’ll be the one in charge of food.”
“Which also means Bailey,” Ice said. “And she’s already a big softie.”
“I think you all are, in your own way,” Louise said, following Ice outside to the parking lot. “Any update on the rest of this mess?”
Then she realized Levi’s men and more deputies plus policemen swarmed the main road. She stopped and stared. “What happened here?”
In a sober voice Ice quickly brought Louise up to speed.
Louise shook her head. “Oh, my God, both the prisoners and the deputies?”
“The two deputies are alive, but one’s in bad shape. We are not sure if he’ll pull through. He’s in surgery right now. The other one is in the emergency room. He took a hit high on his shoulder and one to the chest that missed his vitals. Another one grazed his ribs and did some damage, but he’ll live.”
“And the two intruders?” Louise asked. But inside she knew. They’d been the targets in the first place.
Ice shook her head. “They’re both dead. On the other hand, Levi and Rory caught the two shooters.”
Louise stared at her in shock. “How did I sleep through all this?”
“It’s a good thing you did,” Ice said with a laugh. “We had quite some chaos for a while. We’ve got the two shooters. Our guys are taking them straight to lockup. They have an armed police escort. Once you start shooting cops, everybody gets in on the act.”
Louise shook her head. “I tried to warn the intruders, and they just glared at me.”
“These types know what they are doing when they get into the drug business,” Ice said quietly. “That’s small comfort for their families, I know. But how do you put the fear of God into a criminal by telling him that his life will end in disaster when he already knows it? They almost become fatalistic about it. It’s as if they don’t see any other way.”
That made some sense to Louise under those circumstances, but it was still very sad. She deliberately turned her back on all the chaos. “I suppose now the authorities will be working there all day?”
“Possibly. It doesn’t necessarily stop access to the clinic. Your customers will know there was a shooting, but nobody will understand what it was about.”
; “Well, they will eventually. But hopefully by then, everything here will be back to normal.” She walked around to see the broken window was boarded up. The curtains could be closed inside to hide that. The rest of the building looked to be normal. Some of the ground was churned up a bit, but it looked fairly decent.
As they stood outside talking, the men with the big equipment inside started to pull out. As they loaded up the industrial fans, they came over to Ice and said, “It looks good in there. Readings are within normal range now.”
The two women walked back inside with Louise smelling the air and smiling. “It smells fresh now.”
“Not bad, huh?”
Louise checked her watch. It was almost seven. “My staff will be here in half an hour.” She shook her head. “On top of that, I didn’t check on the animals. So much chaos and then I just crashed. I have to go deal with them now.” She stopped and looked at the coffeepot and then turned back to Ice and said, “I don’t suppose you know how to make a pot of coffee?”
Ice shooed her away and said, “I’ve got it covered.”
Just then the cleaners arrived. Louise told them what to focus on; then she walked to where the animals were. The air in there smelled fine. She was grateful. The last thing she wanted was any of the animals to have any lingering symptoms from the tear gas. She did have eye drops if needed. As she checked each of the animals over, she took care to inspect their eyes. For a couple of them, she added drops just because they looked dry and sore. By the time she was done, it was almost eight o’clock.
She was no longer alone in the back. Nancy showed up and so did Alice, one of the girls who came in on Fridays to clean the cages. After giving Alice instructions for the day, Louise headed to the front with Nancy.
“How busy a day is it?”
“Full,” Nancy replied. “You’ll be here until three, then house calls.”
It couldn’t be helped. She picked up a stack of files. Before going into her office, she walked to the front door and stepped out. Ice sat in her car, talking on the phone with a laptop on her knees. Shifting the files into her other hand, Louise rapped on the window. Ice closed off the phone call, opened the window and said, “I’m not leaving. I’m just here for a while until we can get somebody else in.”
