Trigger Warning

by Allan Leverone

  “It’s okay, Janie,” he said softly. He removed his left hand from the gun and made a calm down motion. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  Hargus snickered. “Not a big believer in the power of honesty, are you, Sheridan?”

  Jack said nothing but shifted his attention to Hargus. Gauged the odds of shooting the man as he stood behind Janie using her small form as a human shield.

  Hargus was much bigger than the frightened seven-year-old and Jack was an excellent marksman. He guessed if he took the shot one hundred times from this distance and under these circumstances he would bury a slug in Hargus’s forehead at least ninety-five of them.

  But a ninety-five percent chance of success wasn’t good enough.

  And even if he were to shoot Hargus dead, there was always the possibility—the likelihood, really—that the man would squeeze the trigger of his own gun reflexively as he fell. Given the fact it was pressed against Janie’s skull, she would be dead before he hit the ground.

  Hargus watched Jack go through his calculations, a grim half-smile on his face. Then he shook his head. “Bad plan,” he said. “It won’t work.”

  Jack realized the man was following his train of thought exactly. He cursed to himself. He might as well be thinking out loud, announcing his intentions to the ex-operator.

  If he didn’t begin thinking outside the box—right now, at this exact moment—the standoff would turn into a bloodbath and Janie would die.

  “Lower your gun. Do it now,” Hargus said. His voice had become raspy and aggressive as he sought to gain control of the situation.

  Jack shook his head without speaking.

  “Transfer your gun to your left hand,” Hargus continued. “Then place it on the kitchen table and step away from it.”

  “Not going to happen,” Jack said.

  “It is gonna happen. Because if you don’t do as I say, and right this fucking minute, this little brat catches a bullet in the brain pan.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you out of your fucking mind? You don’t think I can shoot a kid? You’re playing with fire, asshole, and you’re about to get burned.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt you could shoot a child. You’ve already proven you’re capable of anything. But you’re not going to do it, because the moment you pull that trigger you have nothing left to hide your worthless ass behind. Shoot her and half a second later you’ll be the recipient of two 9mm slugs to your own skull. You might be a murderous, amoral, opportunistic thug, but you’re not about to sacrifice your life for the likes of Bradley Chilcott.”

  Hargus grinned. “You’re right about that one. But we’ve got a bit of a problem, then, don’t we? If I shoot the girl, I die. If you shoot me, the girl dies. Perfect standoff.”

  Hargus continued to show no sign of nerves or fear. The man’s ability to maintain his cool under tremendous pressure was the unmistakable sign of a professional operator who’d been well trained and who had honed his skills over years of dangerous missions.

  Think outside the box.

  Hargus was an operator.

  He’d received training similar to Jack’s.

  He would react in certain predictable ways to threat situations.

  Use that knowledge to your advantage.

  An operator was taught always to deal with the source of an immediate threat first, before all else. Eliminate the threat and then move on.

  And just like that, Jack knew what he had to do. The plan of attack arrived fully formed and ready for implementation, the product of a lifetime’s experience.

  If he executed it properly, he might yet save Janie’s life, not to mention his own.

  If he didn’t, they would both almost certainly die.

  Hargus was still speaking. He was trying to distract Jack, waiting for an opening in which to make his own move.

  Jack ignored him, desperately considering any possible options beyond the one he already knew he would have to use.

  There were none.

  Hargus was saying something about it not being too late for Jack to walk back out the door and go kill Jim Studds, that they could forget any of this had ever happened. It was a lie he had to know Jack would recognize immediately. But he continued to push the point.

  Jack held his eyes for a moment. Then he shifted the barrel of his Sig slightly and fired one slug into the lamp on the kitchen table.

  Instantly the room was plunged into darkness.

  29

  Jack was risking everything on Hargus operating instinctively and falling back on his training. He would deal with the source of the immediate threat first, lifting his gun and firing at Jack rather than pumping a bullet into Janie Tolliver’s brain.

  Jack was moving even before his silenced weapon spit out the slug and shattered the lamp. The light vanished and a split-second’s shocked silence dropped over the room, and then everything happened at once.

  Janie screamed and Hargus cursed and Jack dived to the right. He was counting on Hargus firing instinctively at the spot where Jack had been standing when he shot out the table lamp.

  But by then he would be somewhere else.

  Jack hit the floor and smashed into the wall with a bone-jarring crash. His shoulder struck first, followed instantly by the side of his head. The force of the impact jarred his gun loose and he heard it skitter away and bounce off the wall.

  Hargus’s weapon boomed, the percussive sound almost unbearably loud inside the small, enclosed space of the cottage. Instantly Janie’s screams took on a muffled, underwater tone.

  The location of the muzzle flash told Jack his gamble had paid off. Hargus was dealing with the source of the immediate threat, firing at Jack rather than Janie. But he would recover quickly, and Jack’s desperate gamble could still turn tragic in a heartbeat.

  Pain ripped through his shoulder and head, dual lightning bolts that he ignored. His arms and legs scrabbled for purchase and he pushed himself to a half-standing position even as he registered the fact that he no longer held his gun.

  Then he launched himself at Mike Hargus. The muzzle flash had shown him exactly where to aim his tackle, even with his vision still blurry and his skull pounding from the collision with the wall.

  Hargus squeezed the trigger a second time, adjusting to the changing situation quickly, shifting his aim to the left and firing at Jack. A second ear-splitting BOOM shook the house and a second muzzle flash verified that Janie Tolliver was still standing, still very much alive.

  The slug whizzed past Jack’s ear just as he crashed into the kidnapper and his little victim. Janie’s voice broke off in mid-scream and the force of the impact sent her flying backward. She tumbled into the same wall Jack had just bounced off and then crumpled to the floor.

  In the back of his mind Jack hoped he hadn’t hurt her too badly but there was nothing he could do about it now.

  He continued to drive with his legs, his injured shoulder buried in Mike Hargus’s midsection, and a half-second later they smashed into the cookstove. It was where the sentry had dragged himself after being shot and he screamed in pain as Jack and Hargus fell on top of him in a tangle of arms and legs.

  The impact with the stove twisted them sideways and Hargus landed on top. Jack reached for the sentry’s gun, the one he’d jammed into the waistband of his pants, but it was gone. Apparently it too had been shaken loose by the same violent encounter with the wall that had caused him to drop his own weapon.

  Dammit.

  He cringed as he adjusted on the fly, moving to Plan C, waiting to feel Mike Hargus’s bullets ripping into his body and dropping the curtain on this shit show for good.

  But there was no more gunfire. Hargus must have lost his grip on his own weapon when Jack tackled him. Instead of shooting, the kidnapper pounded a fist into the side of Jack’s skull, rocking him and causing a flash of light that he dimly realized was exploding inside his own head.

  He shook off the blow and returned a punch, a jab launched somew
here in the direction of Hargus’s face with his left hand as he fumbled in his jacket pocket with his right.

  Hargus struck again, another blow to nearly the same spot, and Jack’s head bounced off the corner of the cookstove and the same light he’d seen before flashed again and he was bleeding, he could feel the blood rolling down the side of his head and he knew he was about to be overwhelmed by the much bigger Hargus. A couple more punches would short-circuit his brain and by the time he could recover it would be too late.

  The fingers of his right hand closed around the item he was looking for in his pocket as Hargus hit him again, and he thumbed the utility knife open as he yanked it from his pocket, and Hargus hit him a fourth time just as Jack slashed upward with the blade, aiming for where he guessed Hargus’s throat to be.

  He struck hard and hit resistance, the knife digging into soft skin before scraping sideways along bone. Hargus gasped, a quick intake of breath as he reacted to being slashed, and then grunted in pain and shock as blood soaked Jack’s hand, a tidal wave that was warm and wet and told Jack he’d struck paydirt: the kidnapper’s jugular.

  The punches stopped coming. Hargus slapped both hands to his neck in an attempt to stanch the heavy bleeding. He coughed and gurgled and blood sprayed. He thrashed his legs violently, exactly as the sentry had done when Jack shot him.

  Hargus was trying to speak as Jack shoved the bigger man off him and staggered to his feet. Blood continued to flow sluggishly down the side of his own head, starting somewhere under his hairline, running down his jaw and dripping to the floor. He could already feel his face beginning to swell from Mike Hargus’s heavy fists.

  Hargus continued to try to speak and he continued to be unsuccessful.

  Jack continued to ignore him in any event. Even with his ears ringing from the punches he’d taken in the head and the pair of close-quarters gunshots Hargus had fired, Jack knew he should be able to hear Janie screaming or crying.

  And he couldn’t.

  He couldn’t hear anything besides Mike Hargus’s steadily weakening attempts to speak with his throat sliced open, to make Jack aware how badly he’d been hurt and that he needed help, as if maybe Jack didn’t know.

  Jack still ignored him. He ignored everything but the cold, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, the one that told him the bullet he’d felt whiz past his ear had ricocheted, had bounced off something inside the cottage and struck Janie, and that even now she lay dead or dying.

  He fumbled for his phone, praying it hadn’t been broken or damaged in the fight with Hargus. Lifted it out of his pocket and activated the flashlight app. Shined it with shaking hands around the inside of the cottage until his eyes fell on Janie’s small body.

  She was crumpled on the floor at the base of the wall, next to the door Hargus had stepped through while using her as a human shield. Her legs were drawn up to her chest and she lay on her side in the fetal position.

  Her eyes were closed.

  She wasn’t moving.

  Jack pivoted quickly, illuminating the prone bodies of Hargus and his co-conspirator. As desperate as he was to check on Janie, he had to ensure neither man was a threat. He would be useless to Janie if one of the kidnappers were to clock him over the head while he was tending to her.

  The sentry Jack had shot was struggling to extricate himself from beneath Hargus, whose injury looked even more severe in the light than Jack had guessed. Bradley Chilcott’s Chief of Security was bleeding all over the man pinned beneath him, a crimson arterial flow that poured out around and through the fingers of both hands, which were pressed tightly to his neck.

  Hargus’s legs continued to piston, but he was losing strength rapidly and his eyes were beginning to glaze over.

  It was clear that without prompt and professional medical attention Hargus would not survive. His injuries were too severe, the blood loss too complete. Even had a fully stocked ambulance been standing by, Jack doubted it would make any difference.

  He couldn’t bring himself to muster any sympathy for the dying man.

  The second man looked as though he would probably survive, although he would clearly not present a threat. His hands were pressed tightly against the bullet wound in his shoulder and he was in obvious pain. And he was still trapped under Mike Hargus.

  Jack turned back toward Janie.

  She still hadn’t moved.

  He hurried to her and knelt, fearing the worst.

  30

  Janie didn’t seem to be bleeding. It was impossible to be sure given the poor lighting, but Jack examined her as closely as he could without moving her and he couldn’t find any indication she’d been shot.

  The cold ball of fear in the pit of his stomach dissipated slightly.

  He ran his fingers over her skull, starting at her forehead and moving into her hairline on each side until his fingers met in back. If she hadn’t been shot, she was likely unconscious because she’d struck her head against the wall when Jack tackled Hargus. The collision had been violent and Janie was small for her age.

  A growing goose egg on the back of Janie’s head confirmed Jack’s suspicions and he began to breathe a little easier. Losing consciousness was never a good thing, and a concussion was a very real possibility, but she would survive.

  Jack eased Janie’s head to the floor and stood. He hated to leave her where she was, but it would only be for a little longer. Then he could get her the hell out of this house of horrors and back to her mother where she belonged.

  The moment he returned his attention to Hargus he knew the man was gone. The blood that had been gushing from his neck just moments ago had now almost completely stopped. His eyes were open but they stared lifelessly forward.

  The other man had somehow succeeded in wriggling the upper portion of his body out from under his dead partner, but without assistance he would never manage the rest. He looked up at Jack, his eyes pleading.

  “Help me,” he whispered. “I don’t want to die trapped under a corpse.”

  “Maybe you should have considered that possibility before you threw in with a scumbag like Mike Hargus.”

  “Listen,” the man said. “I didn’t have a fucking clue what Hargus was up to. None of this has a damned thing to do with me. He called me and asked if I was interested in making a quick five grand babysitting a little kid for a week. Of course I said yes.”

  “Of course you did. Don’t even try to convince me you didn’t know this poor little girl had been kidnapped.”

  “Listen, man, I’m not in any position to try to bullshit you, I realize that. You hold all the cards and I understand I’m at your mercy. So I’m laying it all on the line. Sure, I knew the kid had been taken. But Hargus swore nobody was gonna get hurt. He told me he was in position to make a big-time score but that the kid would be released after a week unharmed no matter what happened.”

  Jack gazed down at the injured man appraisingly. Probably most of what he said was true, although Jack doubted it had made the slightest bit of difference to this guy whether the kidnapping victim was ultimately released unharmed or not. Since they’d not taken any measures to prevent Janie from seeing their faces, it had to have occurred to him that Hargus was lying.

  But Jack did believe the man’s claim the he’d been involved in the kidnapping in only the most peripheral way. He already knew Bradley Chilcott and Mike Hargus had orchestrated the scheme and he knew why, and this man didn’t strike Jack as the type who could be useful to a political campaign in any way, not even in the arena of security/dirty tricks like Hargus.

  He’d obviously been added to the team by Hargus at the last minute. Chilcott might not even know.

  “Please,” the man whispered.

  Jack leaned down and rifled through Hargus’s pockets, ignoring the other man for the time being. He removed cash and car keys from one pocket—nothing he cared about there—but nestled at the bottom of the other pocket was a pair of micro cassette tapes.

  Interesting.

  Ja
ck stuffed the cash and keys back inside Hargus’s pocket. The tapes he slipped into a zippable breast pocket in his survival gear.

  Next he lifted Hargus’s wallet out of his back pocket and rifled through it. He was unsurprised to find it mostly empty. No credit cards. No driver’s license. Nothing that could be used as a form of identification.

  Then he noticed a small slip of paper inside the section of the wallet where paper money would have gone had Hargus bothered to use it. He lifted the paper clear and examined it. Jotted on one side in ink was the following: Chil res, followed by a series of five random-looking numbers. The other side was blank.

  Jack studied the slip of paper. Smiled slightly. Your boss would be very angry if he knew about this, Jack thought, and then unzipped the pocket into which he’d placed the microcassette tapes. He added the piece of paper and then zipped the pocket securely closed again.

  He returned the wallet to Hargus’s trousers and then stepped behind Hargus’s accomplice. He placed a hand under each armpit and dragged the man clear of the dead body.

  He wasn’t gentle.

  The man gasped in pain but offered no complaint. Smart move on his part.

  Jack leaned the shooting victim against the base of the counter next to the cookstove. Then he searched the man’s front pockets, exactly as he had done with Hargus.

  It didn’t take long and he found nothing of interest.

  He crossed his arms and met the man’s gaze for a moment, then said, “Lean forward.”

  “What?”

  Jack bent and yanked him by the shoulders. He yelped in pain and as he did, Jack reached behind him and deftly removed a wallet from his rear pocket. What he found confirmed the man’s insistence that he was nothing more than a hired thug. He found a driver’s license.

  There was no way Hargus, or any experienced operator, would have been foolish enough to carry an ID to this cottage. Jack knew he could search the rest of the night and he would find nothing implicating a “Michael Hargus” in any way.