Kane- Tooth & Nail

by Mark Allen

  As he drove along the edge of the field, the ruts gave the Wrangler’s suspension a good workout. When he lowered the windows to let in the mountain air, he spotted a small group of whitetail deer in the far corner with their heads up, keeping wary eyes on him to make sure he posed no threat.

  The trail dead-ended in a parking area of sorts, but he spotted the metal gate off to the side. He unlocked it and left it open, knowing he would be heading back into town after he got settled in at the cabin.

  This trail was better maintained, any ruts or rough patches filled in with gravel. It was narrow, though, and tree branches frequently clawed the side of the Jeep.

  He drove slowly, not just because of the terrain, but because that was what he needed—a slowdown. Mentally and physically, he needed a break from all the running and gunning, the Go! Go! Go! pace of life with Team Reaper. He needed to slow down, look inward, absorb what he had done, and learn how to live with it.

  Some of his teammates had urged him to just keep pushing forward, get back in the saddle, and refuse to be broken. Good advice, and well-intentioned, but Kane knew that sometimes you just can’t put the past in the rearview mirror and forget it. Sometimes, in order to move forward, you have to grapple with your demons. Otherwise, they just keep dragging you back.

  And “refuse to be broken?” That might look great as an inspirational meme superimposed over a snarling wolf or something alpha-primal like that, but Kane knew what the others didn’t fully grasp—he already was broken. Gunning down the boy had done something, taken something from him. Charging hell-bent-for-leather into another firefight wasn’t the solution, not for him. He needed to slow down and figure out how to put the broken pieces back together.

  General Mary Thurston, the team leader, had been slightly less than understanding.

  “We’re a covert, rapid-response strike force, Reaper,” she had said when he’d informed her he needed a break. “We hunt the bad guys, and since the bad guys don’t take vacations, neither do we.”

  “It’s not a vacation.”

  “Call it whatever you want, but it means you’re not going to be here for…how long did you say?”

  “Not sure.”

  “How about I just deny your not-sure-how-long leave of absence? What would you say then?”

  Kane’s eyes had gone steely. “I’d say that you’re my leader, but you’re not my damn boss, and I’m standing down until I feel like I’m ready to come back. I’m no good to my team right now. They deserve someone on their six who isn’t all messed up in the head.”

  “That kid tried to kill you, Reaper. It was self-defense. Why can’t you see that?”

  “I can see it. But I still have to figure out how to live with the fact that I put a bullet in a kid’s heart.”

  Thurston had looked him dead in the eye. “You ever going to be able to pull the trigger again, Reaper?”

  He had stared right back at her. “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

  The team had seen him off with reassuring words and pats on the shoulder, telling him to take as long as he needed. Only Cara, who knew him better than anyone else, seemed to truly understand.

  “Do what you have to do, Reaper,” she had said after the others drifted away. “Don’t come back until you’re ready.”

  “And what if I’m never ready, Cara? What happens then?”

  “Then you come back here and get me, and we’ll ride off into the sunset together.”

  Thinking of it now, as the Jeep rumbled up the trail to Dribble Creek Camp, Kane smiled. God, he loved that woman. They had called it off months ago, but the emotions still simmered beneath the surface for both of them. Maybe someday, they would sort it all out.

  He had driven from Texas to Maine, taking four days to make a trip that he could have completed in two if he had elected to push it. But “pushing it” wasn’t part of his plan. He’d spent three days in Maine visiting his sister Melanie, who was still comatose following the death of their parents. He had also checked on Cara’s son Jimmy.

  During his stay in Maine, he had researched private, off-grid cabins. He had eventually settled on this place in the northern Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, not too far from the Canadian border. A call to Ernie Foxx had confirmed the cabin’s availability.

  He passed a cedar swamp on his right, and a short time later, he came to Dribble Creek, conveniently marked by a wooden sign on the side of the road just before the bridge. It was a short bridge since Dribble Creek turned out to only be about twenty feet across at this point. The Jeep navigated it easily, then started up a sharp incline.

  After a few switchbacks, Kane arrived at the cabin. He killed the engine, climbed out, and looked over the place he would call home for the next week.

  As Foxx had stated, the cabin perched on of a hillock of sorts, flattened on the top like a mesa. The cabin sat off to the right, a single-story structure built from rough-hewn logs. He saw a propane tank for the lights and stove and a generator on a cement slab. A spacious deck jutted off the west corner to offer a spectacular view of the mountains on the other side of the valley. The fall foliage was near its peak, the woods a riot of orange, purple, and yellow, creating a truly breathtaking sight.

  Off to the left was a lean-to covering neatly-stacked piles of chopped firewood. Beside it was a large stump with a double-bladed axe sticking out of it, as well as a gasoline-powered log splitter for those who preferred to let technology do the hard work.

  Directly in front of him, next to a large picnic table, was an outdoor stone fireplace, complete with a ten-foot-high chimney that looked like it had been fashioned from large, water-smoothed rocks harvested from Dribble Creek. The fireplace was big enough to roast a buffalo.

  On the farthest southwest corner of the hill’s flat crest squatted an old-fashioned outhouse. Kane couldn’t see the door from where he stood, but he would have bet dimes to dollars there was a crescent moon carved in it.

  He grabbed his gear and hauled it into the cabin. Just inside the door was a mudroom of sorts, with boot racks, shelving, gun racks, and coat hooks, along with a couple of bunks. He dumped his gear on one of the bunks and stepped into the main room of the cabin.

  More bunks, upper and lower, lined two of the walls. All told, the cabin could sleep ten comfortably. High on the vaulted ceiling, mounted deer heads gazed at him with glass eyes. A large table dominated the center of the room, ringed by eight chairs. A woodstove stood against the back wall, and off to his right was the kitchen area. A large picture window set into the western wall gave him a spectacular view out over the deck and down into the valley.

  He unpacked his clothes and rolled out his sleeping bag on the bunk closest to the window, then fired up the woodstove to chase away the chill. While the cabin warmed up, he laid out his weapons.

  He never went anywhere without his SIG-Sauer M17—he felt damn near naked without it—and as he had told Foxx, he had also brought along a Desert Eagle .44 magnum. He knew most magnum handgun connoisseurs gravitated toward revolvers, but his time in the Marines, followed by his stint with Team Reaper, had acclimated him to favor semi-autos. Some guys had trouble handling a Desert Eagle hand cannon, but Kane was a big man, with big hands more than capable of handling the heavy beast.

  His was the Mark XIX L6 model, eleven ounces lighter than most other models in the Desert Eagle lineup. It sported a hard-coat anodized black aluminum frame with a stainless steel slide and an integral muzzle brake, along with a picatinny rail beneath the barrel, to which he had attached a flashlight. All in all, it had plenty of power to tackle a bear should he be unlucky enough to cross one’s path.

  He had left his HK416 back at headquarters in El Paso—he couldn’t see where he would need a full-auto carbine up here in the mountains—but had replaced it with a Beretta 1301 tactical shotgun, which made more sense for this trip. With its integrated BLINK gas-operating system, featuring a cross-tube gas piston, the Beretta cycled faster than any other semi-auto sho
tgun on the market.

  He went outside, got a fire going, and sat on the deck as the sun sank behind the western mountains. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howled; much closer, an owl hooted as it prepared to hunt in the twilight. Kane leaned his head back and gazed up at the moon as it materialized in the darkening sky, letting the calm roll over him.

  Weariness from his road trip and the soothing warmth of the fire combined to make him drowsy. With nothing better to do, he closed his eyes, and sleep claimed him in less than two minutes.

  His dreams were not peaceful.

  He stood in the shower, letting the water pound him, rinsing away the dust and grime of the day. Steam rose around him, the vaporous heat creating a soothing fog.

  Suddenly the glass door shattered, exploding inward, filling the shower with razor shards.

  The boy he had shot stood in the bathroom, holding a sledgehammer. Blood oozed from the hole in his heart to spatter the floor, and the ghost-gray of death colored his face. When the boy opened his mouth to speak, maggots came out, falling like rain on the bloody floor.

  “I’m sorry,” Kane said over the pulsing hiss of the water that continued to flow from the showerhead. “I’m sorry I took your life away.”

  He tried to move, but his arms felt cemented in place. The hot water pouring down his body now felt like liquid chains holding him fast.

  The boy tried to speak, but nothing came out but grunts and gurgles as blood seeped from the corners of his mouth. When he opened even wider, Kane heard a buzzing sound coming from his rotting throat, like a swarm of flies trapped inside him.

  Reaper didn’t fully understand what was happening, but he knew his sins had come home to roost.

  The boy suddenly raised the sledgehammer high above his head and roared, “Die!”

  Unable to move, Kane could only wait as the hammer descended to smash his head open like an eggshell.

  Kane jerked awake, a startled “No!” trapped behind his clenched teeth. The gruesome dream images scurried back to whatever subconscious corner of his mind had spawned them while real-time situational awareness rushed in to take their place. He wasn’t sure how long he had been out of it, but full night had fallen; the moon was now master of the sky, the sun having surrendered for another day. The fire had burned down to a subdued glow, little more than a few flickering flames and red-glowing embers. Out in the forest, something screamed as it fell prey to a predator in the primal circle of life.

  Kane pushed himself out of the chair, shaking his head to get rid of the last vestiges of the nightmare as he headed toward the Jeep. He knew that from a psychological standpoint, it was a bad sign his dream had taken such a symbolic turn. Shooting that kid had messed him up more than he cared to admit.

  Washing down the guilt with some Jack Daniels seemed like just the thing.

  Time to head into town.

  Chapter Two

  Black Bog Federal Prison

  Black Bog Federal Prison was hardly the crown jewel of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which operated under the umbrella of the Department of Justice. The United States Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility—or Supermax, as it was more commonly called—out in Florence, Colorado, generally grabbed the headlines when reporters needed a story about a badass prison.

  Black Bog Federal Prison, on the other hand, usually flew well under the radar. It was old, having been built in 1980, originally designed as a campus for Winter Olympics hopefuls who came to the region to train before being retrofitted into a correctional facility. It was located in the middle of nowhere, high in the Adirondacks, where winter weather started as early as October, and snowstorms sometimes rolled through in May. Some locals claimed to have once seen snowflakes on July 4th. The inmates caught up in the meat grinder referred to the place as the Siberia of the federal prison system.

  As a medium-high facility, Black Bog Prison was just one step down from a penitentiary. Instead of solid walls, triple fences topped with razor wire prevented escape. Instead of guard towers, two perimeter patrols circled the mile-long road around the prison twenty-four/seven, armed with Smith & Wesson pistols, Remington shotguns, and M-4 carbines.

  Behind the razor wire, the prison housed nearly eight hundred inmates, ranging from white-collar embezzlers to rabid rapists to black-hearted murderers. As in any prison, various gangs thrived. Surenos, Mexican Mafia, Bloods, Texas Syndicate, D.C. Blacks, Aryan Brotherhood…all had carved out their space inside. But regardless of affiliation, all paid tribute to a single man.

  Nazareno Pedregon, a.k.a. “The Nazarene Dragon.”

  A drug lord affiliated with the Mexican cartels, Nazareno had earned his nickname by crucifying his enemies and then setting them on fire. While personally overseeing the orchestration of cocaine pipelines in Montreal, he had been arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which to this day, made him seethe with embarrassment. No DEA task force takedown with black helicopters and submachine guns and snarling dogs. Instead, he had been captured by fucking Mounties.

  In prison, he embraced a Jesus persona, wearing white robes and sandals. Instead of the long hair typically associated with artist renderings of Christ, he kept his head shaved and had tattooed a crown of thorns all the way around his scalp, complete with beads of blood. He had also tattooed disturbingly realistic nail holes on his wrists and feet.

  His message, however, was anything but peace, love, and redemption—as the man now being dragged into the cell, which was meant to house six inmates but was utilized only by Nazareno, was about to find out.

  The two enforcers, members of MS-13, the notoriously violent gang with a penchant for gruesome murders, dropped the terrified man at Nazareno’s sandaled feet. A middle-aged Caucasian with no gang affiliation, Timothy Winkerson was the orderly who cleaned the warden’s office.

  As soon as the MS-13 goons released his arms, Winkerson crawled on his hands and knees to touch the tattooed nail holes on Nazareno’s feet, just like a penitent sinner pleading for forgiveness back in the days of the incarnated Christ. “Please, Mr. Pedregon, I’m begging you.”

  Nazareno glared down at him. “Begging me for what?”

  “To spare my life. I get out in eight months. I have a son and daughter waiting for me at home.”

  “Your family means nothing to me, you worthless dog,” Nazareno growled. “In fact, when I am done with you, perhaps I will send word to have your family killed. I will have your son and daughter nailed to their bedroom walls.”

  “No! Please, I’m begging you.”

  “Yes, begging. I heard you the first time.” Nazareno drew back his foot, then slammed it forward, kicking Winkerson in the face. The top of his foot, toughened from a lifetime of martial arts training, caught the man on the chin. Winkerson snapped upright in a kneeling position, head rolling dazedly on his shoulders. Nazareno kicked him again, this time in the chest, sending him sprawling on his back with a bruised sternum. Nazareno could have kicked him hard enough to crack the bone and puncture the lungs, had he so chosen, but he wanted Winkerson alive…for now.

  Nazareno gestured to the two enforcers. They lifted the groaning Winkerson and dragged him over to the toilet, flopping him facedown over the bowl. One of them pulled out a six-inch-long hunting knife—no crude prison shanks for the Nazarene Dragon’s enforcers, not when nearly every correctional officer had been bought off—and laid the honed edge against Winkerson’s straining neck, like a butcher about to cut a hog’s throat over a blood trough.

  “Please!” Wilkerson screamed, voice muffled from having his head stuffed into the toilet. “Tell me what I’ve done! Tell me how to make it right!”

  “You know what you’ve done,” Nazareno snarled. “Warden Ghastin told me what you said to her while you were cleaning her office today.”

  “I didn’t say anything! I swear!”

  Nazareno walked over and kicked him in the ass. “Lie to me again, and I’ll have your tongue cut out.”

  After a long pause, Winkerson
said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Pedregon. It just slipped out.”

  “Tell me,” Nazareno commanded. “I want to hear it from your own lips. Tell me what you said to her.”

  “I told her she had a beautiful chest.”

  “I do not believe those were your exact words.”

  “I…I said she had nice tits.”

  “At last, we come to the truth.”

  “I meant it as a compliment!”

  “I’m sure you did. After all, they are indeed nice tits, right?”

  Knowing there was no good answer to that question, Winkerson kept his mouth shut.

  “I didn’t ask you for silence,” Nazareno warned. “I asked you a question.”

  “Yes,” Winkerson whimpered. “They’re nice.”

  “What are?”

  “Her…you know.”

  “Say it.”

  “Please…”

  “Say it!” Nazareno roared.

  “Tits,” Winkerson whispered, quivering in terror.

  “Damn right, they’re nice,” the drug lord replied. “And you know what else they are? They’re mine. Not yours, mine. Warden Ghastin is off limits to you. Consider her my personal property, and keep your filthy, fucking hands off her.”

  “I didn’t touch her!” Wilkerson protested.

  “You touched her with your eyes. You looked at her and imagined what it would be like to hold those breasts in your hands. You fucked her in your mind, and that pisses me off.”

  “I’m sorry!”

  “You will be,” Nazareno said ominously. “From now on, when you clean her office, you keep your eyes to yourself. Don’t look at her, not even a passing glance. Am I clear?”

  Winkerson, realizing that “from now on” meant he wasn’t going to be killed, started to nod fervently, but was brought up short by the blade at his jugular. Instead, he said, “Yes, Mr. Pedregon, perfectly clear.”

  “Excellent. Now, I wish we could just take your word for it, but unfortunately, I need more assurance than that. I could have your eyes gouged out. God knows that would solve your problem.”