The Combative

by Mike Ryan

  Thrower looked up at him and smiled. “It’s all good.”

  Jacobs looked at him, then walked over to him and shook hands. “Thank you so much. I owe you.”

  Thrower shook his head. “All part of the job. I’m just glad I was able to get there in time.”

  “So am I.”

  “That was a good call you had, having me roll over there just to make sure everything was good.”

  “I’m glad I did. I don’t know what I would have done if...” Jacobs ran his hand over the back of his head. He didn’t want to even finish the thought. “So what happened exactly?”

  Thrower looked over at Tiffany and raised his arm slightly, having her start it since he wasn’t there for the beginning. Tiffany then told him everything, exactly as it happened. Once she was done, Thrower chimed in with his version after he arrived.

  “Bodies are still there?” Jacobs asked.

  “Yeah, but don’t worry, man,” Franks replied. “I got someone in there already. They cleaned the place out, wiped it down, grabbed valuables and belongings and all that. So there’s nothing there to identify either of you, but you’ll have to get a new place.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “It’s a good thing my guys got there when they did, too. Police showed up about half an hour after they left.”

  Jacobs shook his head. “How’d they know? How’d they know we were there?”

  “Maybe you got followed?” Franks asked.

  “No. I’m very careful, you know that. If I even think there’s a five percent chance I’m being tailed, I’ll go in another direction until I’m sure.”

  “They didn’t just pick the house out of the blue,” Thrower said. “They got tipped off somehow.”

  “Yeah, but how?” Jacobs looked at Tiffany. “Did you go anywhere? Text anyone where you were? Post a picture on social media? Tell your parents? Anything?”

  Tiffany shook her head. “No. I swear. I haven’t done anything. You can check my phone.”

  Jacobs gave her a smile and put his hand on her arm. “I believe you. I just don’t know how they could’ve found us.”

  “Funny how they did it when you weren’t there,” Thrower said. “Almost like they knew you weren’t.”

  Jacobs looked at him and kept nodding as he thought about it. “Yeah. Almost like they knew.”

  “What about my parents?” Tiffany asked, fearing for their safety, believing they were now unprotected with Thrower being there with them.

  “It’s all good, Tiff,” Franks said. “I got someone else keeping an eye on them until he heals up again.”

  “I’m good now,” Thrower said, standing up.

  “You’re not good,” Tiffany said. “Sit down and relax. You’ve earned the time.”

  “There’s people out there to protect. I can relax sitting in a car.”

  Tiffany wasn’t going to give in. “You’ll also not be moving too well.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “She’s right there, Throw-bomb.” Franks then began laughing hysterically. “Throw-bomb! You like it?” He started slapping his knee. “I just thought of that one right now. Throw-bomb. Ha! What do you think?”

  Thrower stood there looking at him with a stoic face. He simply shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “No, huh?”

  Thrower grinned. “No.”

  “Oh. Well, uh, I’ll keep working on that for you.”

  “My parents?” Tiffany asked.

  “Oh, yeah, right. Almost forgot. Not to worry. Anyway, I got someone else watching them right now.”

  “You said that already,” Jacobs said.

  “I did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Well, I got someone there.”

  Jacobs rolled his eyes. “We know!”

  “Oh. Well then, what are you asking for?”

  “Who is it?”

  “Oh. You wanna know who it is?”

  “Yes!”

  “Oh. Well, why didn’t you just say so instead of beating around the bush?” Jacobs put his hand on his forehead. He had nothing else to say. “Well, anyways, I actually put two guys there. Not as good as Nate here, but I think they’ll be OK.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “They both did some amateur wrestling and boxing and stuff. They know how to handle themselves.”

  “But do they know how to handle themselves if someone’s shooting at them?”

  “They’ll be fine, man, believe me. This ain’t their first rodeo.”

  Jacobs sighed, but put his trust in Franks. “OK.”

  “So what do we do now?” Tiffany asked.

  “Well, I guess we gotta work on finding us a new place first.”

  “I’m already working on that,” Franks said. “Hopefully hear something before the day’s over.”

  Tiffany went over to Jacobs and put her head into his chest. “Brett, when is this gonna end?”

  He put his arms around her and his hand on the back of her head. “Soon. I promise. It’ll end soon.”

  “Well, it might end sooner if we can figure out how they found you,” Franks said.

  Jacobs took his arms off of Tiffany. “Well, if she hasn’t been out of the house other than with me, that leaves two options.”

  Franks looked down at Gunner. “Him?”

  Gunner immediately barked at him.

  “OK, OK. I don’t think it’s him either. You happy?”

  Gunner barked again.

  “No. It’s either you or me,” Jacobs said to Franks.

  “Me? What makes you think it’s me?”

  “Tiffany hasn’t been out unless I’m with her. Nathan was never at the house before, so the only way they could’ve done it is if they followed you or me.”

  “Oh. I get it. You’re saying it was me, aren’t you?”

  Jacobs shrugged. “I’m careful.”

  “And I’m not?”

  “You have been known to slip up from time to time.”

  “That don’t mean it was me this time. Where’s your proof?”

  “It’s not a court of law here.”

  “No, it’s the Court of Eddie. And my ruling is that it wasn’t me.”

  “Is that your final verdict?”

  “Yes!”

  “I dunno. Maybe it was me. Maybe I got sloppy. Wasn’t paying attention one time,” Jacobs said.

  “It’s gonna be hard to figure it out at this point,” Thrower said. “Best thing to do now is just move on and keep plugging away.”

  “Yeah.”

  Gunner let out a slight growl, then ran into another room. Jacobs looked concerned. That was usually a clue that Gunner was onto something. They then heard an even louder growl. Jacobs knew what that meant. Someone was there.

  “Why’s he acting like that?” Tiffany asked.

  “There’s something wrong,” Jacobs replied.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked over Franks and gave Tiffany a slight nudge to walk in his direction. “Eddie.”

  Franks nodded, putting his arms out and waving at Tiffany to get behind him. Jacobs then looked at Thrower, who was already putting a magazine into his pistol. Jacobs looked back at Tiffany again.

  “Is there someplace you can take her?”

  “Basement?” Franks said.

  Jacobs nodded. “Do it.”

  “Come on.” Franks took Tiffany by the hand and hurried into the hallway, opening the door that led to the basement.

  Jacobs and Thrower stood perfectly still, trying to hear any little sounds of movement. They also let their eyes roam between the windows and the door to see if they could make out shadows or a person’s outline. Gunner came back into the room, still growling, though he was looking all around.

  “How sure are we something’s there?” Thrower asked.

  “Hundred percent. He doesn’t growl like that for no reason.”

  “Could it be someone just walking past?”

  “No
. He senses something,” Jacobs said. “Trust me. Something’s out there.”

  “What are they waiting for?”

  “Probably us to stick our head out a window or something.”

  “Ames’ men.”

  “Gotta be.”

  “How’d they find us here?”

  “Another unanswered question right now,” Jacobs replied.

  They waited another minute, still not hearing anything. It was deathly quiet, outside of Gunner’s growling. He kept going from room to room.

  “Why does he keep moving?” Thrower asked.

  “He’s not sure where the danger is. Could mean that whoever’s out there is moving.”

  “Or that there’s more than one.”

  “Possible.”

  “Maybe you go out the front, and I’ll go out the back. See if we can squeeze them off?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jacobs wasn’t fond of giving them a target, especially without knowing exactly where they were. But he also knew that they couldn’t stay there indefinitely. If someone was out there, and they brought in reinforcements, Jacobs and Thrower could get outnumbered and trapped very easily. At some point, they were going to have to make a move.

  Then, they both looked up at the ceiling, hearing what sounded like the floor creaking above them. Gunner growled even louder, then raced up the stairs to the second floor. Within seconds, they heard the cries of a man screaming.

  “I’ll take up there!” Jacobs said, racing up the steps to find his partner. As soon as he got up there, he saw Gunner thrashing around, looking like he was trying to take the man’s arm off. “Gunner, off!”

  Gunner released his grip of the man’s arm, who immediately tried to reach for his gun, which had fallen on the floor when Gunner had sunk his teeth into him. Jacobs didn’t let him grab it, though, putting two rounds into him.

  The front door then broke open, two men rushing inside. Thrower went over to the hallway to greet them, but also heard the back door crash open as well. He went over to the corner of the room where there was an oversized chair and got behind it. Almost immediately, two men from the back showed their faces.

  Thrower instantly opened fire, hitting the one in the shoulder. The other retreated behind the wall. Thrower had to duck as the men from the front appeared, firing several rounds into the chair. Gunner came flying down the steps, launching himself on top of one of them, causing them both to fall to the ground with Gunner on top.

  The first man tried to help his partner, aiming his gun at Gunner’s body. Two shots were fired. The man dropped to his knees with Jacobs looking on after firing the shots. The man then slumped over dead on the floor. The man wrestling with Gunner tried punching him to get the dog off, but he wasn’t having much luck. Jacobs finally called Gunner off again so he could deal with him permanently. Once Gunner released his grip, Jacobs put two more rounds into the man.

  With his work there done, Gunner then ran through the room Thrower was in, in hopes of finding his next victim. Jacobs and Thrower could both hear that he had. The grunts and growls from Gunner indicated that he had someone’s arm in his mouth. Jacobs and Thrower ran into the next room, getting there just in time to see someone else ducking out the back door.

  Jacobs called Gunner off the man as he took off running after the man who was getting away. Gunner complied, then ran after his owner. The man still on the ground let out a sigh of relief that he didn’t have the dog still on top of him. Thrower had him dead in his sights, though. The man started crawling for his weapon.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Thrower said, though it appeared his words were falling on deaf ears. The man continued crawling for his gun. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  The man finally reached his weapon and grabbed it. He tried turning around to fire at Thrower, but it was too late. Thrower pulled the trigger one time, ending the man’s life.

  “I said you shouldn’t do that.”

  Thrower then started walking around the house, making sure no one else was there. He wasn’t ready to just accept that was it. And he wasn’t letting his guard down. But it did appear that it was over. At least there.

  Several minutes later, Jacobs and Gunner came back, walking through the front door. Thrower came over to greet them.

  “Did you get him?”

  Jacobs shook his head, looking disappointed. “No, he got away.”

  “Another close call.”

  Jacobs sighed. “Yeah. Another close call. Seems like a pattern.”

  They heard the door to the basement open up, with Franks sticking his head out. “Is the coast all clear up here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. I don’t like waiting in basements.” Franks closed the door once he and Tiffany were out. “They’re kind of freaky.”

  Tiffany went over to Jacobs and gave him a hug. “Are you OK?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  Franks stood over a couple of the dead bodies. “These guys ain’t.”

  “Definitely not.”

  “How you supposed they found us here?”

  “I dunno. I’m trying to figure that one out too. If it was your place, maybe they’d have followed you here before or something.”

  “Yeah, but it ain’t. I haven’t been here in months.”

  “And Nate and Tiffany haven’t been here, so once again, they’re either onto you or me.”

  “Is it possible they could have followed us from the house?” Tiffany asked.

  Jacobs looked at Thrower. “You didn’t leave anyone behind, right?”

  Thrower shook his head. “No. And nobody followed us either. I kept looking through the back window.”

  Jacobs threw his arms up, not having an answer. No one actually lived in the house they were in. It was more or less used as a place to bandage people up who didn’t want to go to the hospital, or as a temporary hideout if someone needed to lie low for a day or two. Jacobs had been there a few times before when he needed to get fixed up. The four of them kept thinking about how they were found, before Thrower finally spoke up.

  “The one constant in all this is you,” he said, pointing at Jacobs.

  “Me? What do you mean?”

  “They lured you out of your house when they attacked there, knowing you wouldn’t be there. Then a few minutes after you show up here, they show up too.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “Maybe… just maybe… they got you marked.”

  “Marked?” Franks said. “Whatcha mean, marked?”

  “He means they tagged me somehow,” Jacobs said.

  “But how?”

  “That’s a good question. How?” Jacobs then looked at Franks, it suddenly hitting him. “The cemetery.”

  “What? What about it?”

  Jacobs didn’t explain. He just raced out of the house until he got to his car. The others followed him outside. Jacobs crawled under the car, looking for some kind of GPS or tracking device. Once he got to the rear bumper, he finally found it.

  Jacobs got back to his feet and curled his hand into a fist. He then slammed his hand down on the trunk.

  “Stupid!”

  “What’s wrong?” Tiffany asked.

  “Because it’s me they’ve been tracking! There’s a device right there. I’m so stupid.”

  “Stop. You’re not stupid.”

  “I can’t believe I let them do that!” Jacobs was angry, shaking his head, tapping the car with his hand, and walking around.

  “That’s what the cemetery meeting was all about,” Franks said.

  Jacobs nodded. “Yeah. And I was dumb enough to walk right into it. All Ames wanted to do was keep me busy long enough so someone could plant that on my car. And he knew if I had someone there, they’d be focused on him, not the car.”

  “Pretty smart.”

  “Yeah, not by me. I let him play me. I can’t believe I let it happen.”

  “What’s done is done,” Thrower said. “No use beating yourself up over it now.
”

  Jacobs looked at him and nodded. He knew he was right. But he also wished someone would punch him in the face for being so stupid.

  “Best be taking that thing off right now,” Franks said. “Or else we’re gonna get a lot more trouble than we can handle lickety-split.”

  Jacobs knelt down and was about to take the device off his car, before Thrower stopped him.

  “Wait,” Thrower said. “Don’t do that.”

  “What?” Jacobs asked. “Why not?”

  “Eddie’s right.”

  “He is?”

  “I am?” Franks said, surprised.

  Jacobs looked just as surprised. “About what?”

  “If we don’t take that off, we’re gonna get a lot more trouble,” Thrower said.

  “I agree.”

  “So let’s not take it off.”

  Jacobs stared at Thrower for a moment, then thought he knew what he was saying. He started nodding. Franks looked at the both of them, each of them seemingly knowing what they were talking about without saying a word. He was in the dark, though. He didn’t know what was going on.

  “Uh, I can see you two are having a, uh, whatever you wanna call it, but I’m still not getting what you’re talking about. One of you wanna explain it to me?”

  “We can turn a disadvantage into our advantage,” Thrower answered.

  “How so?”

  “They think they’ve got Brett marked. Let them keep on thinking it. As far as they know, we don’t know anything about that device. As far as they’re concerned, we must be thinking they followed one of us here. And to his house.”

  The light looked like it finally came on for Franks. “Ah, I got it now. Ah huh, you sly dog you. I knew I liked you.”

  “So they’ve been playing us as fools, so let’s turn the tables. Let’s make them the fools.”

  Franks laughed and clapped his hands together. “I like it. I like it.”

  “We’ll take that car somewhere, somewhere we pick, somewhere that we’ve got a clear advantage, and then let them come.”

  Jacobs nodded, liking the plan. “And then we’ll come down on them like a ton of bricks.”

  14

  Franks took Tiffany back to his place, while Jacobs and Thrower got themselves ready for what they were sure would be an epic battle. They took separate cars to their destination with Thrower following Jacobs just in case they lost one of them in the fight. With Franks’ help in suggesting a location, it took them about twenty-five minutes to get there.