Blood Appeal

by Lyle O'Connor

  The timing was critical. Anna crossed the road with the rifle in hand and climbed the barren hillside until her progress was hidden by the dense spruce.

  Kuhl and I would lay low until Anna contacted us that she had an advantage point where the rangefinder provided a view over the training camp.

  We drove to the same location we’d initially used to eavesdrop. My plan was to travel on foot along the access road to the compound. Kuhl slipped his ears on, and we waited. My heart jumped when the two-way radio crackled alive. “Line of sight acquired, one-hundred-twenty-seven yards to the compound—negative tangos.”

  Kuhl handled the communications, “Comm copy. Clear path.” With Anna in place and no one in sight, I grew antsy. Kuhl turned to me, “Relax, let’s listen and see if we pick anything up. You watch the road.”

  The next thirty minutes ticked off slowly. Anna had checked in twice and her reports were the same, “Negative tangos.” Kuhl responded after Anna’s second transmission, “Boots on the ground,” and flashed a thumbs-up in my direction. I popped the rear door of the van. No bag of tricks this time. The clothes on my back, handgun, and a knife would be the total of what I carried. I slipped on a black tactical vest with pockets that held my leather police gloves, face mask, the .40’s silencer and the pouch for the P99. I attached my Kabar, pummel end down, under the vest. It was my turn to jog. My trek was downhill until I reached the ravine. Then a slight incline to the compound.

  When I reached the dirt road, I radioed my position. Anna responded, “Negative tangos.”

  “Copy. I’m moving up.”

  I moved quickly along the edge of the driveway past four distinct signs. The first, a simple red and white “Private Property” sign. On the opposite side of the access road was another sign that read “No Trespassing.” No more than ten feet farther toward the compound hung two more signs. Each approximately the same size and had “Warning” at the top. “Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again,” read the sign directly in front of me. On the opposite side of the road and written above the silhouette of a handgun read, “We don’t call 911.” I don’t know how effective the signage was, but it made me laugh.

  Recent rains had left soft spots on the road surface that would have showed footprints exceptionally well and had to be avoided. “Any noise inside,” I radioed.

  “Negative.”

  When the compound was visible through the thickets, I slowed my approach, working through the brush toward the back door. The dog pens were set adjacent to the back of the building and none of the animals had alerted at my presence.

  I reached the small porch at the top of three stairs. I pressed my left ear to the door, hearing nothing more than the sound of my heartbeat. I had the feeling of being watched by something other than penned up dogs. Hayden Leigh’s motorhome remained parked where Kuhl had drawn it in on his map and not farther than twenty yards from the back door.

  The dogs were unsettling in one sense. Their eyes followed my every move. A yellow dog wagged its tail and appeared to have a gentle spirit while a second dog, covered with a rich black coat of fur, trembled. Two animals remained motionless but watched intently.

  The cages that held them captive were small and filled with feces. The rain had filled their water bowls, and the small barrel-like containers of dry food had turned to mush. The animals needed to be removed but until I was able to report the compound was clear it would be foolish and dangerous to attempt to extract them. I turned my attention back to the porch.

  We’d gone into planned radio silence as a precautionary measure. The last thing I needed was an inopportune radio transmission that inadvertently gave away my position. I turned the door handle and to my surprise it was unlocked. Kuhl said he’d left it locked. He wouldn’t have made the mistake of leaving a door other than how he’d found it. Likely it was Pug who’d left it unsecured when he drove to Tangle Lakes.

  “Entry,” I radioed then pushed the door open slowly. A high pitched squeak emanated from the hinges. With the silencer attached, my Walther P99 took the lead. Kuhl wasn’t kidding when he said it was a plain Jane building. One glance at the lengthy hallway and I didn’t like it a bit. I was without cover or concealment for movement through the corridor. My weapon responded to high guard. My only cover would be suppressive fire. I moved forward. Kuhl had described the room doors having been locked, yet each room was wide open to view. It took less than five-minutes to clear the rooms. I stepped into the main meeting hall. I was alone.

  I transmitted, “All clear.”

  Kuhl repeated the transmission, “All clear,” and added, “Negative activity.” An indicator from his advantage point the status had not changed. Anna likewise responded, “No change—all clear.”

  One of the dogs let out a howl that resonated as if it were a painful moan. It had a chilling effect. The main building was clear, but it wasn’t time to relax. The motorhome and other outbuildings still had to be cleared.

  “I’m checking out the RV,” I reported.

  “Comm copy.”

  I walked past the kennels and alongside the motorhome listening for noise. I tried the door handle; it too was unlocked. I kept my gun aimed at the door and opened it quickly. Not a sound. I stepped in ready to shoot. I walked the length of the motorhome and back to the front, stepped out and transmitted, “RV—clear.”

  “RV, kennels and back side of the building are not visible,” Anna radioed.

  “No worries,” I said.

  Two German Shepard crosses lay in their pens while I dumped the bowl of mush out and replenished their bowls with fresh, dry food from a covered food barrel. I had a soft spot after all. Next, the large yellow mutt, who appeared genuinely friendly, licked my forearm just above my gloved hand. I chocked it up as a sign of gratitude for feeding him as I poured food into his bowl. I was leery of entering the last pen. The animal’s behavior bothered me. The large black wolf or wolf hybrid nervously paced in its cage. Finally, gathering my courage together I slipped into the cage, poured the food and stretched out my hand toward the animal that quickly withdrew and returned to pacing. I didn’t blame him, from the looks of what he’d been through at the hands of men, he had every reason to not trust my actions. The scars he bore on his face were testimonies. He had been abused, and his trust of mankind fractured. Abused children reacted much the same way—often they were irreparable.

  I took off my gloves and returned to the cage of the big yellow dog. He smelled me, looked me in the eye with his chocolate colored eyes. Big Yeller understood why I’d paid the compound a visit. He didn’t know me from Adam, but he looked past the fact I was a human and gave man another chance to gain his trust. I wasn’t going to let him down. I slipped my gloves back on.

  Back inside the clubhouse I dug through one of the survival stock-rooms. I’d taken the silencer off my P99, put it back in the vest pocket and stuffed my .40-caliber in the vest as well. We maintained radio silence until one of us picked up movement.

  The Wolf let go with a low, throaty howl mimicked to a lesser degree by one of the other dogs. I walked the hallway toward the back exit to check on the commotion and try and quiet the animals. Perhaps a second round of food was all they needed. I opened the back door directly into a panicky shout and a gun waving in my face. “Stay right there!”

  Slowly, I stepped backward in the hallway and away from the door. Ponytail followed. He’d been presented with an option as I’d defied his order. He chose not to shoot. How many more mistakes would he make?

  The look on Ponytail’s face was priceless as he realized who he had at gun point. Tremulously he uttered, “You.” I kept stepping backward luring him further inside and under the microphone Kuhl had planted. Any time that I bought was good for me and bad for Hayden Leigh.

  Looking disheveled, Ponytail pointed his small bore subcompact handgun with his arm extended all the way out. Frightened people tend to scare me. They might pull the trigger accidently at any moment.

 
“What do you have there?” He quickly gestured to my vest that hung loosely open exposing my new Walther.

  Cornered, there was less reason to respond verbally and more reason to act instinctively. My inner beast awakened and was hungry to feast on his blood.

  “Take it out slowly with two fingers and place it on the floor. Then kick it over to me, do it now. Two fingers. Dump everything out of your pockets onto the floor.”

  Kick my new Walther across the floor? Unthinkable! That was no way to treat a new weapon. From where we stood in the hallway, Kuhl would overhear our conversation. All I had to do was keep him talking long enough for the others to engage. I removed my P99, laid it on the floor and kicked it down the hall toward him. I took the two spare magazines and kicked them hard enough to bounce off the walls past him. I took my radio, turned the volume down low and sent it sailing past him too. “Is that it?”

  “One more thing.”

  “Slowly,” he shouted, as sweat beaded on his eyebrows and started to run down his neck. He wasn’t handling the adrenaline well.

  I took the silencer and rolled it down the hall toward Ponytail. It caught his attention. Ponytail stepped back further maintaining a lengthy distance between us. I suspected his next move would be to search, but he’d have to close the distance. I’d take him if he moved within arm’s reach, but he didn’t seem inclined.

  Silence hung in the air. Ponytail blew out a chest full of air, “Why are you here?”

  “I didn’t get enough of you the first time.”

  Ponytail took his fingertips and rubbed them across the remaining piece of ear. “Why are you in Alaska?”

  I let him see my smile. “Tell you the truth buddy, I needed a vacation. That last job nearly killed me.”

  He glowered at my response. Ponytail thought I was his problem, but he was shortsighted and mistaken. His problem—he was an open book and easy to read. “What’s your name?”

  “Rude of me, I apologize. I have many names. For your purposes, Walter will do.”

  “You still have a smart mouth. I remember, Duke saying you were a reporter.”

  “Reporter? Yeah, currently I’m not gainfully employed in the journalism racket. I’ve done a few jobs around, but they’ve led to dead ends. Didn’t Duke or Jake tell you I was in town?”

  “Never mentioned it.”

  “Evidently you’re not significant enough to be kept in the loop.”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I heard y’all fixed up a clubhouse for Mickey and his pals. I wanted to see it for myself. By the way, do you have a cute pair of those little Mickey Mouse ears hanging on the wall?”

  “You’re real funny. Maybe you should write comedy.”

  “The only joke around here is you, my effeminate friend.”

  Ponytail was slow on the uptake. However, I appreciated the honesty of his facial expressions. After a short tirade he grumbled something unintelligible under his breath, cussed and said, “Duke’s wife snitched, didn’t she?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “She didn’t like that girl.” Ponytail measured me with his eyes, “I smell cop all over you. You’re outfitted with a handgun and a radio; you’re not a reporter. I don’t know what you are, but we’re going to find out this time. No mistakes.”

  Ponytail didn’t handle the confrontation tension well. Anxiety had internalized and built to a crescendo. His gun hand quivered uncontrollably, and he became breathless as he spoke. I surmised he was confused as to what course of action to pursue. The rational thinker would have questioned who was on the other end of my radio.

  “The guys are going to be excited to see you.”

  “I don’t know why. Your pal Woolf wasn’t excited about seeing me.”

  “You’re lying.” Ponytail stepped into a supply room and motioned for me to walk past and toward the back door. “Keep walking,” he said as he stepped into the hall behind me.

  I took a couple steps toward the exit and stopped. “So what are you going to do to me when I step out the back door?” I wanted Kuhl to overhear which door we were exiting.

  Ponytail was fed up with my slow compliance and from behind he pushed me forward with the muzzle pressed against the back of my neck. He had closed the distance. “You may want to think this through before you step out that door.”

  Ponytail was easily distracted and prone to error. The mere mention of considering another course of action required his IQ to process the information. It was not the time to be inattentive. He should’ve watched more carefully what I was doing with my hands in front of me.

  He pressed the muzzle against the base of my skull. When it touched, I spun with a cross block causing the weapon to fire against the wall and dislodge from his hand. He started to yell something, but my Kabar pierced the soft tissue under the bottom jaw and drove straight up through the tongue and into the roof of his mouth. It was only a matter of time until he died.

  Ponytail collapsed to the floor, gurgled blood and shook. He reached for the handle of the Kabar, and I gave it a swift kick driving it up into his brain. I opened the back door and booted his gun down the stairs. There was no need to touch it. I walked back to where my items lay scattered in the hall. Picked up my radio and transmitted, “Tango down, repeat, tango down.” Then picked up the remainder of my personal effects to include my KaBar.

  “Comm copy. Threat eliminated.”

  I walked out the back door, leaving it ajar. The light breeze against my face smelled fresh compared to the hallway. I smiled at the dogs; they seemed to smile back. Anna blasted out over the airwaves, “Inbound.” She had taken a position in the window of a mock building to snipe Leigh, if necessary.

  “It’s unfortunate I didn’t have a chance to pick his brain.”

  Anna nodded, “Maybe next time. He was pretty low on the food chain.”

  “He did say something about Minnie not liking that girl. I believe she was Landers caller. Poor thing was caught up in that sordid mess Duke made. She was probably scared to death they’d kill her too.”

  We walked on the grass covered edge of the dirt road to the end of the access road for our extraction.

  Chapter 16

  “Hunting and playing is all the same game to a cat.”

  —Odin Wilde

  Although the highway was only a hundred-yard jaunt from the compound, the sweeping S-curve coupled with dense brush hid our rendezvous point from view. When Anna and I made the last bend on the road, we spotted Kuhl’s van. He’d hastily pulled to a stop at the edge of the driveway minutes earlier with an expectation for action. Kuhl had been itching to try out his new Saiga-12 street sweeper that he’d recently modified with a hellfire trigger. Ponytail failed to provide the live fire opportunity he’d hoped would happen.

  “It’s over. Put the gun up and let’s move out,” I said.

  Kuhl rendered a hand gesture resembling a salute. I climbed into the front passenger seat of the van while Kuhl cleared the shotgun. I grew concerned after a few minutes had passed, and the back of the van hadn’t opened. I bounded out and walked to the back of the van. Anna was nowhere in sight, only Kuhl stood there gripping his shotgun.

  “What’s the holdup?”

  “Anna wants to evacuate the animals,” Kuhl said.

  I shook my head. “You know better than that. We’re knee deep in an operation.” In the pit of my stomach, I wrestled with my discontent and the promise I’d made to work with my associates without copping an attitude. When I did open my mouth, I wasn’t happy. “Great—that’s just great.”

  Kuhl’s lips drew tight. A slight smirk crept up the side of his face. Finally, he let loose with a shrug. “We might as well give her a hand, brother.”

  “I’ll go,” I said.

  Kuhl drove to the crest of the hill to await my radio transmission for pickup while I hoofed it back up the slight incline to the compound to join with Anna. Together we’d bring the dogs out to the main road. I would’ve
preferred Kuhl to have driven to the compound, but we’d leave well-preserved tire imprints and now wasn’t the time to leave the forensic evidence with a dead body in the building.

  I radioed Anna as I approached the building. We hooked up at the rear corner nearest the fighting arena. “What are you thinking?”

  Anna didn’t answer.

  “You took off on your own, and the timing sucks on this.”

  She nodded. I’d hoped for more of an answer. Anna was a smart cookie. Few persons exercise good judgment and common sense. Anna had them both. “This is going to strap us down. Seriously, we need to be able to move fast on our targets.”

  “I agree.”

  Her response was quick. Too quick. We were doing it her way. She flashed me a smile and followed it with a wink. She picked up two leashes that lay draped over the arena fence, handed one to me and pointed to the yellow mutt without uttering a word. There was no sense arguing the point. She agreed the timing stunk, but it wasn’t the deciding factor to action.

  “I did what you asked. I made calls to an animal rescue center that agreed to take them—no questions asked. I can drop them off, and they’ll receive veterinary care.”

  I looked at Yeller and had to do a double-take. I’d never seen a dog grin. Evidently, he’d picked up on Anna’s cues and was ready to make tracks. This dog was by far the easier of the two animals to handle. However, he had a peculiar drawback that slowed his progression to freedom. Being male, he’d found a need to claim as his, every tree and twig along the way. I hadn’t noticed how densely forested the roadway was before leading Yeller to the highway. Thankfully Yeller ran out of making fluid, and we picked up the pace.

  Anna hooked the leash to one of the German Shepherds and off they trotted, zigzagging down the road. I had radioed Kuhl for the pickup before Anna made it to the asphalt. As it turned out, his timing couldn’t have been better. He’d swung the van in, threw it into park and helped Anna load the first animal. When I emerged with Yeller at my side, we bedded him down in the van and shut the doors. I patted Kuhl on the back as he climbed in behind the steering wheel. Kuhl waved as he headed back to his roadside turnoff to wait for the next transmission.