Exit Fee

by Brad Taylor

  I started pacing, and Jennifer said, “What about a SWAT team? We tell them what’s going on, and they hit it with a SWAT team?”

  “Jennifer, there is no Folly Beach SWAT team. The biggest thing they deal with is drunk assholes on the beach. If they have a SWAT team it’s a bunch of part-timers that shoot just a little more than the average cop. They aren’t up for this.”

  “So what do we do?”

  I turned to her and said, “You know what we do. There aren’t many people with the talent to help in this situation, but fortunately for Tess, it’s in this room.”

  She nodded, getting her head around what I was asking, but not shying away. She said, “So?”

  “So you go conduct a recce of the house. Figure out the breach points and give me an assault plan. You get back here, and we go in.”

  There was no pushback, because she knew I was right, and I trusted her ability to conduct a close target reconnaissance. Despite her surfer-model looks and her continual smacking of my moral compass, she was a predator of the first order.

  She left the room and I turned back to Beth, saying, “This will all be over soon.”

  “What happens if you lose?”

  “We won’t lose.”

  She hesitated, then said, “Okay, but just say that happens. What then?”

  I said, “You’re free.”

  I took the keys to my Jeep out of my pocket and placed them in her hands, saying, “If we’re not back by morning, you take the Jeep and go wherever you want to.”

  She stared at the keys and said, “I wish my father was like you. He never came.”

  Honestly, I was unsure of her situation. For all I knew, her father had abused her from the time she was six. He might have been as bad as Slaven.

  I said, “Do you love him?”

  And she started crying, saying, “Yes, yes, yes.”

  I put my arm around her and said, “Then don’t worry about having to use those keys. Trust me, he’s trying to find you. I was just lucky. I’ll be back, and you’ll see him soon. All I ask is you keep an eye on my daughter until I return.”

  Chapter 14

  An hour later, I was crouched in the shadows next door to the target house, the darkness cloaking my body, my finger on the safety of an integrally suppressed AR platform chambered in 300 Blackout, the barrel loosely aimed at Slaven’s head to my right. I heard, “This is Koko. Climbing now.”

  I said, “Roger. Copy.” I nodded at Slaven and said, “It’s almost game time. Remember what we talked about. If you want to live, you’ll follow instructions.”

  Jennifer’s reconnaissance had taken less than thirty minutes, as the target was literally under a mile away. She’d come back and given me a complete dump on the house. A two-story structure built on stilts to protect from storm surges, with the bottom an open-air facility to park cars, it had a stairwell that went straight up to the front door and a balcony that circled the entire building, letting the renters sit out and watch the sun set over the ocean.

  Apparently built sometime in the eighties, the house was older than others on Folly Beach, and as such didn’t have any landscaping like most of the McMansion beach houses to the left and right, making sneaking up problematic. The good news was that because of the lack of foliage, it also didn’t have the requisite landscaped lighting, either, leaving the house shrouded in darkness.

  Amena and Beth told us that there were four men in the house, three who’d recently arrived from Myrtle Beach and looked like killers, and the fourth the one they called the doctor. The asshole that did the makeshift surgery for the exit fee. I was really hoping that guy cowered when we hit the place, because I wanted to give him some pain besides a bullet to the head.

  The one edge we had was that the men had no idea we were coming and were probably comfortable in their security. I didn’t think they’d have a guard force armed and ready. If we hit the house from two opposite breach points at the same time, we might be able to dominate them. The beachfront balcony at the back I gave to Jennifer. It had no stairwell, but she could climb like a monkey, getting eyes on the interior of the house so I didn’t have to worry about that side of the building. I would take the front door.

  Even given that they probably weren’t pulling active security, I had to project what I would do in their shoes, and I had to assume they were all armed and had a camera out, looking at anyone who approached from the street. We needed a shield to lull them. Someone who would project a sense of belonging.

  Fortunately, we had such a thing, and his name was Slaven.

  After we’d built our assault plan, I’d smacked him around a little bit and then told him his role: Get to the front door, get it open, and then just curl into a ball, giving me a shot at whoever answered. I had no illusions about his loyalty, which meant I knew he cared about his own skin more than anything else. I knew I’d enter the house with him to my rear, but he had no weapons, and I figured he’d just begin sprinting down the street. Honestly, I didn’t care. If he got away, so be it. My focus was on the women in the house.

  We’d dropped Jennifer off a block away so she could infiltrate along the beach, then had parked on a side street, going on foot to the edge of the target house’s lawn. I used the neighbor’s bushes for concealment and waited on Jennifer’s call that the back was secure.

  Two minutes after her initial climbing call I heard, “I’m up. On the balcony. I can see inside. Light’s on, three men. No females.”

  I said, “Understand. Koko, you ready to get bloody?”

  I heard nothing for a moment, and I waited. My words weren’t bravado. I meant it, because we were about to start splitting skulls, and I needed to make sure that Jennifer was in. If she hesitated on the trigger—if she had a doubt—someone would die. And I didn’t want that someone to be me.

  She came back on, and I heard the steel in her voice. She said, “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  Slaven looked at me, and I nodded, seating my weapon to my shoulder, centering the holosight on his head. I said, “I can hit a dime from this distance. Just follow the plan.”

  He threaded through the bushes, then walked across the lawn and went up the steps. He reached the top, and like it was slow motion, I saw his hand stretch out to the doorbell. He punched it, and a moment later the door swung wide.

  I’d told him to do nothing but get the door open and then step aside, giving me a shot at the man who answered. I’d impressed on him that anything otherwise would constitute his death. It appeared he was doing as I asked, and then he began speaking in a language I didn’t understand, a staccato blurt to the man inside the house.

  And I knew I had fallen for the easiest trap of warfare. Any time you initiate contact, the enemy gets a vote. Slaven was voting right in front of my eyes.

  The man in the house pulled out a revolver and began waving his hands for Slaven to get inside. Slaven pointed out my position in the darkness, then tried to dodge away, getting out of the line of fire, but he made his choice.

  Motherfucker.

  The man in the doorway began shooting, but I ignored him, tracking Slaven. I broke the trigger twice, saw his head explode and his body slam to the ground, then focused on the door, putting an enormous amount of fire against it from twenty meters away, chipping wood and causing the man to fall back.

  I pushed out of the bushes and rushed forward, knowing I needed the momentum, but realizing there was a slim chance I could get up the stairwell and breach without getting killed. Doorways were known as the funnel of death for a reason, because anyone entering was silhouetted. A perfect target, especially when surprise was lost.

  I crouched at the base of the stairs and shouted into the radio, “Koko, Koko, I can’t make breach, I can’t make breach.”

  I heard nothing.

  I trained my weapon on the open door. The man from inside made the mistake of jumping out, looking for a shot at my old position. I gave him a double tap, flinging him back into the door frame. Before his body had eve
n hit the ground I heard more rounds coming out the breach point, bullets snapping by my head. Someone else was shooting, and this time they knew where I was located.

  I dove underneath the stairs, then heard the distinct crack of a suppressed rifle, followed by a rapid string of rounds inside the house.

  Jennifer.

  I rolled out and started sprinting up the stairs, my weapon leading the way, wanting to make breach and join the battle, my terror of leaving Jennifer alone in a gunfight overcoming any fear of a funnel of death.

  My radio came to life, “Front breach clear. I say again, front breach clear. I’m moving.”

  I entered, leaping over a body and seeing Jennifer scanning the room, a dead man at her feet.

  Holy shit. She killed both of them.

  I tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Three down. One to go. Let me lead.”

  She said, “Slaven?”

  “He’s dead too. So it’s four now. Let’s go.”

  She nodded, ducked her barrel to let me get in front, and we started clearing one room at a time. The ground floor was empty. I raced up the stairs, Jennifer right behind me, and reached a door. I waited, felt Jennifer’s hand on my shoulder, and shattered the doorknob with my foot, swinging it open.

  I saw a girl on a bed, an intravenous tube snaking to her arm, her eyes wide open in fear. Behind her was a slender man holding another woman with a gun against her head. He wasn’t like the men we’d killed at the restaurant or inside the house. He was weak-looking, with a pasty face and a thin goatee. He wasn’t a predator. I trained my holosight on his skull and he shouted, “I’ll kill her! I’ll kill her!”

  I lowered my weapon and said, “Are you the doctor?”

  He didn’t reply, but I saw the surprise in his eyes at the name. I felt a flash of anger that I fought to control. I wanted to punish him like few men I’d ever met, and I’d met some serious assholes, sending them to their grave with immense pain, but I didn’t have the time for that here. I needed to free the girl, and that meant I needed to give him a reason to quit.

  I said again, “Are you the doctor? Are you the one who took the kidney?”

  He said, “Are you with Vlado?”

  I nodded, and he dropped the pistol to his side, saying, “Yes, yes, I’m the doctor. What’s wrong? You should have gotten the kidney. It was pristine. Why are you here?”

  I exhaled my breath, lowered my pulse rate, brought my weapon to my shoulder, and broke the trigger, absorbing the recoil and watching the target through the scope. I saw the bullet enter his eye orbit, severing his medulla oblongata. He dropped, folding up on the ground like he had no bones in his body, his head on the floor, the front misshapen from the bullets and the back blown out completely.

  The girl screamed and danced back, waving her hands in the air like that would make everything go away, the woman on the bed wailing in fear.

  I said, “Jennifer, on her,” and turned back to the doorway, clearing the hall and the final two rooms. Nobody else presented themselves.

  I returned to the room, seeing Jennifer on the bed next to the girl with the IV, whispering into her ear, her long gun on a sling dangling by her body like she was some insane mash-up of Dr. Laura and Lara Croft.

  She looked up at me and I said, “House is clear. We need to go.”

  “How?” She nodded to the girl on the bed and said, “We can’t leave her here.” She pointed at the woman to her left, the one I’d just saved, and said, “We can’t leave her here, and she’s in shock.”

  I dropped my weapon on its sling and said, “We’re not leaving anybody anywhere. Search that guy. Find his cell phone and call 911.”

  She nodded, went to the body, and found a smart phone. She held it up and said, “The clock will be ticking once I call.”

  I said, “Yeah, I know.” I turned to the woman next to the bed, saw her moaning and trying to get the doctor’s brain matter off of her face. I went to the bathroom, found a washcloth, and soaked it in water. I returned to her and said, “Calm down. It’s okay.”

  I handed her the washcloth, and she nodded, nearly catatonic. She began rubbing the blood off of her face.

  I said, “Your name is Misty, right?”

  She paused, the rag in her hand against her cheek, surprised. She said, “Yes. How did you know?”

  “I know a friend of yours. Beth. Are you like her? Is someone looking for you?”

  She shook her head and said, “Nobody’s looking for me. Nobody wants me.”

  And she started crying. I wasn’t sure if it was because of what she’d just gone through or because she really felt that way, but I didn’t have the time to figure it out. I did, however, have a couple of seconds to spare.

  I pulled her close, wrapped my arms around her, and said, “That’s not true. Family isn’t blood. Amena made me come for you. Amena loves you. And so does Beth.”

  She looked up at me trying to find the lie, but didn’t see one. She said, “I’m a whore. I’ve been a whore since I was fourteen.”

  I kissed her on the forehead and said, “Yesterday is yesterday. Tomorrow is tomorrow. Tomorrow you don’t have to be a whore. You can be whatever you want.”

  She nodded and said, “What am I going to do? Where do I go?”

  I said, “You don’t have to figure that out right now. But if I were to give you some advice, I’d talk to Beth. Let her help you. Let her family help you.”

  She looked at me with a gallon’s worth of wanting and said, “Do you think she will?”

  I said, “I know she will.”

  Jennifer said, “Paramedics and cops are on the way. We need to leave.”

  I stood up, went to the woman in the bed, and said, “You’ll be in a hospital soon. Don’t worry. It’s all going to work out.”

  She said, “Who are you?”

  I looked at Jennifer, and she shook her head, knowing what was about to come out of my mouth. I couldn’t resist.

  I said, “I’m Batman.”

  The girl’s eyes scrunched up, and I could see her brain trying to work through the drugs she’d been given. I winked and said, “I don’t always wear a cape.”

  Jennifer rolled her eyes and I turned to Misty, saying “Hey, look, the police will be here soon. Tell them everything. Tell them everything that’s happened. All I ask is that you not give them our physical descriptions. Don’t give them anything they can use. Make it look like an opposing gang or something. Can you do that?”

  She nodded, and I said, “Beth will call you, I promise. She’ll help both of you.”

  She looked at Jennifer and said, “Can I say a woman was here? Can I at least do that? Tell them a woman killed these assholes?”

  Jennifer smiled and said, “No, you can’t. Please don’t. It’ll just cause questions.”

  I cocked my head, thought for a second, then said, “I don’t give a shit. Tell ’em a killer came in, and she was female.”

  Jennifer’s eyes snapped open, and I knew what she was thinking. Nobody knew about her, not even in the top-secret circles of the military or the intelligence community, and she liked it that way. She was a female who was better at operating than most of men in any unit in the United States arsenal. But because of her gender we made her live in the shadows. It really wasn’t fair. A lot of people talked about women in the military and what they might be able to do, but Jennifer was doing it.

  I winked at her, then turned to Misty, saying, “I’m sort of sick of getting the glory. Tell them it was Batwoman.”

  Chapter 15

  Sitting on the floor of our house four days later, Amena said, “Okay, okay, everyone be quiet.”

  She’d finally convinced me to watch the stupid Game of Thrones show and had cornered us in the living room with a giant bowl of popcorn. I had no idea what was happening in the series, but I figured I could watch at least one episode. I mean, hell, it was sort of embarrassing that a Syrian refugee knew more about American pop culture than I did.

  The screen
went through about a five-minute intro with something like a Lego set coming to life, wasting my time. I said, “Why am I watching this? I don’t know what’s going on. I’m not going to understand it.”

  Amena hissed, “This is the one with Arya. Don’t talk.”

  Jennifer snickered, snuggled into my arms on the couch, and whispered, “Just watch it. Don’t say anything.”

  Amena was transfixed on the screen, slowly putting popcorn in her mouth, and it made me smile.

  It had been four days since the actions at Slaven’s house, and so far we were in the clear. Nobody in an official capacity had made any connection to us, so I began to believe that Misty had taken my words to heart. The only thing on the news was that some crazy-ass woman had ripped through the place slaughtering everyone, and then had vanished.

  It had been repeated breathlessly on the local stations, which gave Jennifer no small amount of smugness, but it hadn’t gone anywhere. The girl in the bed—Tess—had been transported to a hospital, where they’d found the beginnings of sepsis. One more day in that bed, and she’d have died.

  The news also talked about the two dead men in Rita’s, and speculation was ripe that it was connected to the death house, but the police simply fell back to saying the investigation was “ongoing.”

  I’d have liked to leave it all alone, but in the end, I’d had to tell Kurt Hale what I’d done. Not because I felt like confessing, but because Beth had said Slaven was using her to turn a man working at the naval nuke school. She’d told me Slaven had leveraged her to force him to provide information for later sale, and I’d searched his phone, finding that he had, in fact, sent contact information for a meeting.

  That was more than I could resolve by myself. I’d contacted Kurt Hale and told him what I had. Which is a short sentence for what ended up being a very, very long conversation. In the end, I’d convinced him that I wasn’t, in fact, a lunatic, and that there had been a penetration of the Naval Nuclear Power Training School. He’d washed my connection to the information, contacted the right people from the FBI, and I’d gone to the meet site—a Mexican restaurant called Taco Boy on Huger Street.