by Ethan Cross
“Maggie!” Andrew called from downstairs.
She refocused on the task at hand. A small bathroom connected their bedroom and the one that Claire was using. Maggie rushed inside and fumbled through the travel bag containing her make-up, haircare items, and feminine hygiene products. She pulled out a large plastic container which held a multitude of small pull-out compartments. She had organized the compartments alphabetically by their contents. Her finger traced a line down the Ts and pulled open the tiny drawer containing her tampons. She grabbed three of them, just in case. Then she rushed back down the stairs.
Handing one of the tampons to Andrew, she said, “What now?”
Andrew didn’t reply. He just ripped the tampon out of its packaging and jammed it into the Director’s shoulder. The Director cried out. His feet and head banged against the hardwood floor as he fought the pain. Andrew ripped off a strip of his shirt and wrapped it around the Director’s shoulder.
He looked up at Maggie and said, “That should help with the bleeding, but we need to get him to a hospital soon. The wound’s pretty clean, but he needs surgery to repair the artery.”
Maggie turned to Fagan who was still crouching in a corner behind the large brown recliner. “Fagan! Where’s your car?”
The bureaucrat replied, “It’s a Lexus. I parked it in the barn so it would be out of the weather.”
Craig said, “That’s a hundred yards. Our van’s over there too.”
“And the Director’s Buick,” Andrew added.
“We could make a run for it,” Maggie said.
Craig shook his head. “Even if you made it—which isn’t likely—that sniper will be all over you while you’re loading your friend into the car. You need to take the sniper out first.”
“What about you guys? Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of black-ops badasses?”
“No, we’re hired mercenaries who are getting paid to capture and contain Ackerman. There’s nothing in our contract about getting shot by snipers.”
Maggie gritted her teeth and bit back a comment. “Fine. We’ll just call in the locals and have them come at the sniper from behind.”
Fagan stood up from his hiding spot and said, “Oh no, you won’t. We can’t get any local police involved in this.”
“Why not?”
“Think about what you’re saying. They might want to know why we’re being attacked by some sniper, and then they may wonder why we’re holding one of the country’s most wanted fugitives in an old farmhouse. I won’t allow this organization to be compromised. Not on my watch. Not for you, the Director, or anyone. That’s a direct order.”
Maggie’s eyes narrowed as she stared at the little man. “And I don’t intend to let anyone die on my watch,” she said. “We have to get him to the hospital as quickly as possible. We’re calling in backup.” She pulled a cell phone from her pocket and started to dial.
Fagan said, “Mr. Craig, stop her. Shoot her if you have to.”
Craig aimed his weapon at Maggie’s chest and shrugged his shoulders. “You heard the man.”
Maggie gripped the phone so tightly that she thought it would snap in half at any second. Her gaze lingered on Craig for a moment and then moved to Fagan. Reluctantly, she jammed the phone back in her pocket and stepped toward the window.
There had to be another way to get to the sniper.
If they had more time, they could wait for the cover of darkness to provide more options, but the Director didn’t have that long.
The patch of trees was between a quarter of a mile and half a mile away. It rested on a hill not far from the field lane. A wide ditch, maybe three feet deep, ran the length of the lane.
But fifty yards of open ground lay between the ditch and the front of the house.
Maggie moved to the side window. A small brown and white shed covered with rotting wood siding sat to the south of the main house. The split-rail fence ran a few feet behind the shed, separating the yard from the empty field. The fence ran down to the lane.
If she could reach the shed, then she could reach the fence. If she reached the fence, she could use it as partial cover to crawl up to the ditch. If she could reach the ditch, she could crawl out to the sniper’s nest and come at him from behind. If he didn’t see her. If he stayed in one spot. If she didn’t get shot between the house and the shed or between the ditch and the patch of trees.
She closed her eyes and shook her head. That was a hell of a lot of ifs.
But it was also the best shot they had.
She walked back to Andrew and said, “I think I can get to the sniper by crawling through the ditch that runs along the lane. But I need a distraction so that I can reach that old shed.”
Andrew shook his head. “I should be the one going.”
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Now’s not the time for chivalry. I’m not a doctor. You need to stay with your patient.”
“I’ve done everything I can for him right now.”
“And what if his condition changes?”
Andrew said nothing. Maggie asked, “So what about that distraction?”
A voice called out from the next room. It was strong and confident despite being muffled by the layers of old wood and plaster. Maggie opened the solid oak door leading into the dining room. The two guards raised their shotguns in her direction, but she ignored them. Her feet creaked against the hardwood as she walked over to the killer. Pulling off his hood, she said, “What do you want?”
Ackerman replied, “I said send me. I’ll be your distraction.”
40
BRAD DUNHAM STARED AT HIS HANDS AND ROCKED BACK AND FORTH. Four walls of gray concrete surrounded him, but his real prison was in his own mind. He had taken a man’s life. The life of a good man. A cop who had been trying to help him find his family. He had bashed his face in and then shot him with his own gun.
How could he live with that? How could he ever explain the situation to his son?
Brad knew that, despite the extenuating circumstances, he would spend the rest of his life in a prison cell. He intended to plead guilty and throw himself on the mercy of the court. If the judge gave him life, then so be it. If the judgment was death, then that was fine too.
He thought of his son visiting him through the years. His hair going gray and falling out. An old man in an orange jumpsuit only having visitor’s day to look forward to.
He supposed that was more of a life than he deserved. It was much more of a life than Detective Duran would ever have.
The solid metal door of his cell slid open, and an attractive yet stern-looking woman walked in. Her clothes looked expensive, but her hair was tousled and her eyes were blood-red and puffy. Brad didn’t stand. He stayed on the floor, leaned back against the concrete.
“I’m Captain Maria Duran,” she said. “I wanted to let you know that your son has been released. We received a 911 call from a pay-phone telling us his location. A pair of black and whites just picked him up. He’s fine. A little disoriented, but he doesn’t seem to remember much of what happened.”
Brad closed his eyes as tears of joy started down his cheeks. “Thank God. Thank you for telling me.”
“Don’t thank me. Did you hear my name? It’s Duran. As in the mother of the man you sacrificed for your son.”
Brad raised his eyes to the woman. She held a black pistol in her right fist.
“I’m sorry,” was all Brad could think to say. There wasn’t much else he could say.
She stepped forward and placed the muzzle of the gun against his forehead. “I’ll tell them you attacked me. It was self-defense.”
Brad’s gaze travelled along the black metal of the gun up to her face. “That would probably work. You should pull the trigger.”
“He was just coming into his own. He had so much life left to live, and I had so much left to say. He was my baby boy. And I never ...”
The gun’s barrel shook against Brad’s forehead. He closed his eyes and said, “Do it. It’s okay.”
Maria Duran slapped the gun across his face, knocking him over on his side. As she walked out, she said, “No. You live with it.”
41
ACKERMAN STOOD AGAINST THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE, JUST OUT OF THE SNIPER’S LINE OF SIGHT. Craig stood five feet behind him, hugging the wooden siding, a shotgun at his shoulder. Another of the contractors held an additional shotgun, aimed at him from a raised vantage point through a side window.
Still, he suspected that he could be on Craig before the man could fire.
Ackerman pictured the events in his mind. Rush Craig, swiping the shotgun to the side. Simultaneously place a kick to the merc’s knee, dropping him. Flip the shotgun over. Squeeze the trigger. A satisfying explosion of gunpowder, metal, and brain matter. Drop down. Fire at the window. The shooter there wouldn’t have the angle to be much of a threat. His job was to ensure that Ackerman didn’t run, not to guard against an attack. From there, Ackerman could deal with the others in the house or make a break for one of the cars.
“It’s time,” Craig said. “She should be in position. Now take a walk.”
Ackerman was tempted to follow through on his internal musings or simply grab Craig and throw him out into the line of fire, but he resisted the urge. Instead, he walked calmly away from the wall and into the yard.
Each step was slow and leisurely. He felt no fear. He knew this wasn’t the way he would die.
He counted as he walked.
Six, seven, eight.
A gunshot rang out, and the ground a few feet in front of him exploded into the air as a bullet struck the dirt.
He didn’t flinch. He continued to move forward. He raised his arms out from his sides and enjoyed the cool breeze on his skin. He looked up at the azure sky and watched the clouds float lazily by.
Eleven, twelve, thirteen.
Another gunshot. Another bullet in the ground. This one closer.
He bent down, pulled a few blades of grass from the yard, and then released them to be carried on the breeze.
Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.
He felt another bullet zip past his leg. A warm draft. Another small eruption of soil just behind him.
Twenty. He had reached the agreed limit. His job was done. At the same leisurely pace, he walked back to the side of the house.
Craig had lowered the shotgun and was staring at Ackerman as if he’d sprouted an extra limb. Ackerman knew he could use that shock to his advantage, but he decided against it.
He gave the mercenary a little bow and said, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
“You’re insane.”
Ackerman laughed. “Sanity is a matter of perspective.”
42
MAGGIE WAITED AT THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE OPPOSITE ACKERMAN. She checked her watch. It was almost time. They had agreed on a moment for Ackerman to step into the line of fire, and then she would wait five seconds to make sure that they had the sniper’s attention before making a break for the shed. That should leave her fifteen seconds to cross the yard.
As she stood with knees bent and one hand on the farmhouse’s siding, like a sprinter waiting for the baton, she realized that their plan relied on the fact that there was only one shooter. But, for all they knew, there could have been multiple assailants or one shooter and one spotter, like the way snipers worked in the military.
She checked her watch again. Too late to worry about it now.
She counted down the remaining seconds. Ackerman should have been drawing the sniper’s attention away from her at that moment.
Five, four, three.
A part of her hoped that the sniper would put a bullet through Ackerman’s skull, but she knew that probably wouldn’t happen. Men like Ackerman were charmed in such ways.
Two, one.
Maggie dashed across the yard. The distance seemed to grow the moment she left cover. Funny how perception altered every experience. She tried not to think of the crosshairs that could have been focused on her head at that moment.
Marcus had taught her that—concentrate on the task at hand. But where was he now?
A gunshot rang out, and she thought for a moment that she had been shot. She stumbled from the sudden shock but kept moving. The bullet must not have been meant for her.
Another gunshot. Another instinctual reaction against which there was no defense.
But then she was there. She slid to the ground behind the old shed and leaned back against the cracked barn siding, trying to calm her pounding heart. She checked her body for bullet holes, just to be sure. All clear. She felt a strange stab of guilt for wishing that Ackerman would be shot. It seemed wrong somehow now that her wish might have come true. But she pushed that feeling away; he deserved whatever he got.
After a few seconds’ rest, she moved to the end of the shed and army-crawled her way over to the fence. She tried to stay low, keeping the fence between her and the shooter. Her movements were slow and cautious. She didn’t want to draw the sniper’s attention through her own movements or those of any birds or other creatures that she might disturb along the way.
The going was slow and painful. The weeds were tall, which was good from a certain perspective. The overgrowth provided extra cover. But the briars also ripped against her skin in several places, and twice she saw the slithering tales of snakes moving out of her way.
Maggie forced herself to move carefully, even though she felt the pressing weight of time. The Director needed a hospital, and the longer they waited the lower his chances of survival. She was no doctor, but she knew that, when it came to gunshot wounds, the rapidity of treatment made all the difference.
Finally, she made it to a spot where she was close enough to move to the ditch. Once inside the muddy depression, she would be able to move faster, since she doubted that the sniper would be able to see her or get a shot at her from his position.
She waited, took several deep breaths, and then rolled three times to the side through the tall weeds. At the halfway point of the third roll, she dropped into the ditch with a wet slap, the mud splashing up into her face.
Keeping her butt down, Maggie crawled forward on elbows and knees, her fingers and the toes of her shoes squishing down into the muck. She felt like a soldier in basic training. A few times, the suction of the mud pulled her hands in like quicksand, and she had to be careful not to reveal herself as she pulled them free.
It was slow going. Every few moments, she would pop her head up and check her position. She focused on her goal: the patch of trees in the distance that kept growing closer with every furtive glance.
And then she was there. She had moved far enough so that she was past the trees and could swing around behind the shooter.
The next part of her journey would be the hardest. An open expanse of empty field lay between her and the sniper’s nest. It was rutted, uneven ground littered with the brittle remnants of corn stalks. She couldn’t move across the expanse as fast as she had traversed the space between the house and the shed. She would have to move more slowly, being careful of her footing. And if she had been spotted by the sniper at any point during her crawl, the hidden assailant could be waiting and could easily pick her off before she’d gone ten feet. If she stood now and started to run, she would have no cover. If she were caught in the open, it would be all or nothing. Either she pushed forward and reached the trees or scurried back to the cover of the ditch. There was nothing in between.
But there was really no choice. She had come this far, and she had been careful. She had done everything right, and this was the moment of truth.
Maggie took a calming breath and then leaped from the ditch. She pulled her gun and held it low and ready. The split-rail fence lay between her and the field. She placed her palm on the top rail and bounded over.
So far, so good.
And then a gunshot exploded from the patch of trees.
43
A CHUNK OF WOOD FLEW FROM THE TOP OF THE FENCE WHERE
THE BULLET STRUCK. Maggie screamed involuntarily and ran back for the cover of the ditch. She vaulted over the fence. This time her foot caught on the rail, and she stumbled forward. She let her momentum carry her onward and rolled back into the ditch.
She had come all this way for nothing. She was pinned down, just as she had been at the house. Only this time she was all alone.
Of course, the sniper couldn’t watch the house and her at the same time. Unless there were two of them, which seemed unlikely, but she supposed that it was still possible.
Pulling out her cell phone, she dialed Andrew. He answered on the second ring and said, “We heard another shot. Are you okay?”
“I’m pinned down in the mud. But maybe you can make it to the car while his attention is on me.”
“Unless there’s two of them,” Andrew replied.
“When did you think of that?”
“From the beginning.”
“When were you going to tell me?”
“I didn’t think it would help. Just freak you out more.”
“So what are we going to do?”
She heard something happening in the background, and Andrew said, “Hold on. Someone wants to speak with you.”
There was a pause and then another voice came on the line. “Hello, Maggie.”
“What do you want?” she said to Ackerman.
“I want you to trust me for a moment.”
“There’s a better chance of you getting hit by a meteor than there is of you gaining my trust.”
“He won’t shoot you.”
“What are you saying? He shot the Director.”
“Yes, but that was just to get our attention. He shot him in the shoulder on purpose. Every other shot he’s taken, he’s missed on purpose. Think about it. He hit your Director from probably a third of a mile, but then he starts taking potshots at the side of the house. And then he knows that you’re there, but he can’t even hit you coming at him from a few hundred feet. It doesn’t make any sense. Unless he’s following orders. He’s just supposed to keep us pinned down and occupied for as long as possible. If you stand up and rush him, you’ll be fine.”
