by BJ Bourg
The rattlesnake had coiled up beside Patrick and struck out again, this time burying its fangs into his elbow. The pain was excruciating and Patrick knew the fangs struck bone, but he blocked everything out, manipulating the bolt on his rifle like a machine. Asshole Three was running toward the back room and he was keeping his head low, but Patrick shot him between the shoulder blades and he collapsed immediately. There was a large blotch of blood and brain matter against the nearby wall, and Patrick knew the bullet had traveled out the top of Asshole Three’s head, killing him instantly.
As Patrick instinctively bolted another round into the chamber, the rattlesnake struck again and bit him across the forearm. Without making a sound, Patrick swiftly lifted his right hand high in the air and smashed it down on the snake’s head. The strike seemed to flatten its head, but it didn’t kill it. Its tail vibrated angrily and it quickly whipped around and slithered away.
Breathing heavy and trembling from his encounter with the snake, Patrick reached over and fumbled with the side zipper of his nearby drag bag, digging out his satellite phone. Struggling to control his heart rate in order to keep it from pumping venom throughout his bloodstream, he turned on his phone and waited for it to come on. He peered through his scope as he waited to make sure there were no other threats. He saw Dawn peek her head out from behind the hallway wall. The cuffs dangled from her left wrist and she was holding a kitchen knife in her right hand.
The phone finally came to life and Patrick began typing a message to London. His hands shook uncontrollably. He knew he had to get off the mountain and seek medical attention quick or he would die from the multiple snake bites, but he needed to get his message out to London immediately.
“Bad guys down, Dawn free,” he wrote, and then typed in his GPS coordinates. He hit the send button and watched to make sure it was delivered. Once the message had cleared, he sighed deeply and looked through his scope again. Dawn had armed herself with an AR-15 and she was approaching the front door in a low crouch. Her dad was following at a distance and he looked ill. His face was pale and he held onto the wall for support. Dawn stopped near Asshole One and bent to retrieve his phone, then continued forward.
With tired arms, Patrick pushed himself to a kneeling position. He nearly fell over, because his body was numb from lack of movement for two days. Shifting the phone to his left hand, he pulled up the sleeve of his ghillie suit and examined the bite on his forearm.
He grabbed on to the large rock and slowly dragged himself to his feet. He lifted his right hand to get Dawn’s attention, but suddenly gasped out loud when a bullet ripped into his lower left torso, traveling straight through to his back. Shards of splintered ribs peppered his internal organs. His knees went limp and he spilled forward, catching a quick glimpse of a flash of light coming from the trees south of the cabin. Before he hit the ground, a second bullet entered his left shoulder and destroyed his ball and socket joint.
Son of a bitch! Staying low behind the large rock, Patrick scrambled out of the shooter’s field of view and lay there writhing in pain, sweat immediately pouring from his forehead. There had only been three men at the cabin—never a fourth—and he had seen no human signs anywhere else on the western side of the mountain. Who in the hell’s out there?
His vision blurred as he pushed the fingers of his right hand against the hole in his torso. The front of his ghillie suit was saturated in blood. He tried to lift his left arm, but it hung there like a dead snake. He needed to let London know there was another player and Dawn was still in jeopardy, so he glanced around for his satellite phone. It had flown from his hand when he was shot and he couldn’t see it anywhere.
Knowing he was Dawn’s only chance at survival, Patrick scrambled forward on his belly—kicking his feet and dragging himself with his right hand—until he reached his rifle and attained eye relief. He quickly checked on Dawn and saw that she was crouched in the doorway of the cabin. She was staring way up on the mountainside south of the cabin, peering through a set of binoculars. He sighed in relief. At least she knew there was another threat out there, but she had to get her ass inside before the sniper got her.
Patrick turned toward where she was looking, which was where he had seen the flash of light, but there was no sign of a human. Whoever it was, they were damn good and had built a sniper hide that was virtually undetectable.
Suddenly, Patrick caught sight of another flash of light in the distant shadows of the trees. Almost instantly, dirt exploded in his face as a bullet struck the ground in front of him. He shifted his crosshairs toward where he’d seen the flash of light. It was high up on the mountain, at an elevation approximately thirty-degrees above his position. Any sniper worth his salt knew to aim low when shooting from or to elevated positions, but from that distance—five yards shy of 1,000 yards—things could get rather tricky.
Struggling to hold his rifle steady with his one good hand, while blocking out the pain from his destroyed shoulder and multiple rattlesnake bites, Patrick quickly calculated the bullet drop from his 400-yard zero to his target, and then compensated for the thirty-degree angle and the amount of low hold. He didn’t have time to make scope adjustments, so he used the hold-over method and Kentucky windage and pulled the trigger.
He couldn’t see where his bullet impacted and he wasn’t sure if he’d taken out the bad guy, so he quickly worked the bolt action and chambered another round, wincing in pain as the slight movement put pressure on the bullet wound in his lower abdomen. He immediately fired a second shot into the same area, knowing he had to kill this final threat or the mission wouldn’t be complete and Dawn would be in grave danger.
He was bolting a third round into the chamber when the mystery sniper fired again. The flash of light from the distant mountainside was the last thing Patrick saw as the bullet impacted the left side of his forehead, just above his scope, killing him instantly.
CHAPTER 47
Bailey Oil Headquarters, Beacher, Louisiana
I had been on the roof of the large above-ground oil tank for about two hours when my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. Spider was kneeling beside me and we were scoping the crowd that surrounded the platform where Vice President Browning was about to come forward and make her speech. I felt a strong feeling of déjà vu as I stared out over the square-shaped plot of land that served as Bailey Oil’s headquarters.
We had set up our snipers in the same positions and with the same partners as last week—with the exception of Lizard, who was now dead—and it no doubt contributed to the feeling of familiarity. Jerry Allemand was set up on the oil tank directly to the west of our location and he was partnered with Snail. Rachael Bowler and Python were atop the oil tank to the northwest, which was at the opposite corner of the stage from where we were. Ray Sevin and Andrew Hacker were directly to our left, which was west of us. Between the four teams, we had the place completely sealed off.
As the moment of truth drew closer, my heart began to beat in perfect harmony with the chopping of the helicopter blades overhead. The sheriff had instructed our helicopter pilot, Ben Baxter, to fly over the event. With him were two SWAT members who were standing on the skids—kept safe only by the harnesses that locked them in place—and staring down at the crowd, searching for the slightest hint that something was amiss.
My cell phone vibrated in my pocket again and I sensed Spider shifting beside me. He must’ve heard it and was probably wondering if I was going to check it. Under any normal circumstance, it would be off, but I’d been waiting to hear from Patrick or Shannon. I’d received proof of life from Bruce earlier this morning—a video of Dawn holding a note that contained today’s date and the name of her favorite meal, which was fried chicken—but I couldn’t be certain he hadn’t killed her immediately after ending the call. That seemed to be their modus operandi, after all.
Keeping my right hand on my rifle and my eye glued to my scope, I dug out my cell phone with my left hand and stole a quick glance at the screen. There were GPS co
ordinates along with a simple message: “Bad guys down, Dawn free.”
I hadn’t realized exactly how stressed I’d been until that very moment. I exhaled sharply and nearly dropped my rifle as my muscles relaxed for the first time since this whole ordeal had begun.
“What’s going on?” Spider asked in a suspicious tone.
I didn’t answer for a full minute, as I knelt there basking in the moment. It was finally over and Dawn was safe. While I didn’t think I could kill the vice president, I wasn’t really sure what would happen once she walked out onto the stage in that moment of truth.
Suddenly, the crowd roared below us and I quickly pulled my rifle back to my shoulder and peered through my scope. VP Browning was ascending the metal stairs and waving her arms high into the air as she did so. The crowd—nearly ten times what it was last week—was electric. Not only did they love her politics, but they loved her tenacity and fighting spirit, and they let her know it.
As I scanned the crowd, a thought crept into my mind. I’d been so distracted by my own predicament that I’d overlooked a fundamental fact about the group of terrorists who wanted Browning dead—they believed in redundancy!
“Spider, I need you to stay focused,” I said slowly. “I’m going to tell you something that’ll blow your mind, but you’ve got to remain calm and work with me.”
“What’s that?” he asked idly, not moving. “Are you an alien?”
“I didn’t pass the polygraph.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his head spin around. “What?”
“You heard me.” I scanned the faces of all the agents around the vice president. “There’s no way I passed that polygraph.”
“What in hell’s name are you talking about? The examiners cleared everyone.”
Not taking my eye off my scope, I told him that I’d been contacted by the group who’d kidnapped Trace Mullins’ family and ordered to assassinate the VP or they’d kill Dawn. Before I could finish getting all the words out, Spider snatched his rifle from its perch and spun it toward me. Realizing he might shoot instantly, I threw my hands up and fell back from my rifle, landing in a seated position on the warm metal surface.
“Don’t you move or I’ll shoot!” Spider’s eyes were wild. “From this distance, I’ll blow your head clean off.”
“I never intended on killing the vice president,” I said calmly. “But I needed them to believe I’d go through with their plan to give my buddy enough time to rescue Dawn.”
“What buddy?”
“An ex-police sniper named Patrick Stanger.” I glanced back toward the crowd as I spoke. “The message I just received…it was from Patrick. He’s rescued Dawn and killed the crew that took Trace’s family hostage.”
“What…how in the hell do you know all of this?” Spider’s face was twisted in confusion.
“Look, I can explain all of it later, but the mastermind behind this group believes in redundancy measures, which means there’s someone else out here wanting to kill Mrs. Browning.” I slowly pointed over the edge of the tank. “I believe the polygraph examiner is in on the plot. He let me pass the test so I could get in position to take the shot—he let me through the front gate.”
“How do you know that?”
“They switched polygraph examiners on me.” As I said it out loud, it suddenly began to make sense. I’d been too distracted to pick up on the small details. “When I approached the interview room, there was an examiner in there with salt-and-pepper hair, but my sheriff called me away before I could enter the room. When I returned, there was a different examiner in the room.”
“Are you saying your sheriff is in on the plot?”
I hesitated, considering the possibilities. I recalled the photograph of the man with the sliced thumb and tried to superimpose his face on the sheriff’s face. It didn’t fit. “No, it’s not my sheriff, but I know who it is.”
When I told Spider who I suspected, he shook his head violently. “There’s no way you’re right about this.”
“Does he have a scar down his left thumb?” I saw the color drain from Spider’s eyes and knew I was right. “He’s funding the operation. I found a receipt containing his thumb print outside of Detective Luke’s residence. How in the hell did it get there if he’s not involved?”
“But he never left the D.C. area.”
“No, but his men did. That receipt was supposed to burn up in the SUV they stole, but it blew out of the vehicle when they broke into Dawn’s house to look for her.”
There was doubt in Spider’s eyes, but he seemed to be warming to the idea. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“Because I didn’t take the shot—”
“Sierra One,” came Rachael’s voice over the radio. “What in the hell’s going on over there? I’ve got this bastard’s right eye quartered in my crosshairs. Say the word and he’s dust.”
“Negative, Sierra Four,” I said calmly, speaking into my throat mic. “It’s a minor misunderstanding. Keep your eyes on the crowd. We’re looking for an agent acting suspicious. He’s five-eight, pale complexion, about a hundred forty pounds, wearing round-rimmed glasses and he’s got dark hair that’s combed to the left side—it’s so stiff the wind won’t budge it.”
Pursing his lips, Spider spun around and trained his rifle back on the crowd. Speaking into the sniper channel only, he barked, “All units, locate and track Agent Byron Myers.” He then pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number with one hand while continuing to peer through his scope. “Dexter, I need you to put a team together and take Agent Byron Myers into custody immediately.” He put the phone down and glanced at me. “You’d better damn well be right about this.”
I nodded firmly. “I am.”
CHAPTER 48
I scanned the faces of every agent near the vice president, but didn’t see Myers.
“Do you see Myers?” I asked Spider.
“Negative.”
I activated the sniper channel on my radio and asked if any of the snipers spotted him, but no one had.
Spider and I spent the next ten minutes in silence, searching every individual in the crowd. I had begun on the southern side of the stage and was working my way east across the faces when I saw someone slipping though the crowd with a purpose. When I zeroed in on the face, I saw it was Deputy Abraham Wilson. We had set him up in plain clothes to work the crowd and it seemed something had caught his attention.
I followed Abraham’s gaze and saw a man standing at the edge of the stage, about two rows back, staring intently at the lectern where the VP was standing. In between the people who were shifting around him, I was able to see that the man wore an old olive drab jacket with the sleeves ripped off and there was military insignia on the back. While it appeared to be the clothing of an old military veteran, the hair was not that of a fighting man. I immediately recognized it to be the stiff headdress of Myers, the rogue polygraph examiner and agent. A robust lady who was standing in my way began clapping and shaking her head in response to something the VP had said, and I was able to catch a glimpse of an earpiece in his right ear. It was the same kind Spider was wearing.
“Abraham’s on to him,” I called over the sniper channel, giving everyone his location and telling them to stand fast. I could only see a small fraction of Myers’ head at any one time—thanks to the droves of people surrounding him—and that small fraction was constantly moving. Even if I could get a bead on his head, my backstop was far from clear, and any shot I fired would invariably exit his head and hit an innocent bystander.
“Anyone have a clear shot?” I asked over the sniper channel.
I received a chorus of “negatives” in response. Myers had immersed himself so well into the crowd that we couldn’t get off a shot without killing innocent people. He served as the failsafe in case I didn’t do my job, and he was good at his.
My phone suddenly buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it and checked on Abraham instead. There were about twenty people between him and
Myers, but he was pushing easily through the crowd and not causing a fuss while he did it. If we were going to take Myers out without getting someone else shot, it would have to be through hand-to-hand combat—and right now, our best chance was Abraham.
Spider said he was going to get some agents to move in on their position to help Abraham, but I stopped him.
“Myers is one of y’all and he’s wired,” I said. “The second he senses your people moving in on him, he’ll open fire. He’s got a straight line to the VP from where he is, and any return fire would kill a lot of innocent people.”
Spider cursed silently. “How good is this Deputy Wilson?”
“I’ve never seen him in action,” I admitted, watching for an opportunity to get a safe shot on Myers, “but I’ve heard great things about him.”
“We’re about to find out,” Spider said just as Abraham sidled up beside Myers and lifted his hand in the air, apparently cheering on the vice president.
Through slim breaks in the crowd, I saw Myers slide his left hand into his back pocket as he scanned the above-ground oil tanks, using his right hand to shield his eyes from the sun. No doubt, he was looking for me and wondering why Vice President Browning was still breathing. Someone moved and I lost sight of Myers for a brief second. He had pulled out a phone. It appeared he was dialing a number and my guess was confirmed when he put the phone to his ear. I didn’t know who answered, but he recoiled in shock and dropped the phone.
Abraham noticed the move by Myers and I saw him drop his right foot back a step, which opened up a small alley through which I could see the right side of Myers’ body. His hand dipped under his vest and when it reappeared, he was clutching a pistol in his fist. He immediately began raising it toward Vice President Browning. Before I could even say anything over the radio, Abraham sprang into action.
