Chapter Twenty-Two

Brett heard everything. The awful madness. The Destroyer taunting Jacie.

He heard her pleading for the lives of the worthless, wounded men who were supposed to be protecting her. He couldn’t move. He hadn’t even felt whatever blow had landed on him. His spine seemed to be shooting out electric impulses that rendered Brett paralyzed.

He directed every ounce of his willpower into making his body obey his orders. He must have moved because Jacie stepped up her begging and cajoling, trying to get Fithian to leave without any more killing.

Brett tried to yell. He tried to distract Fithian so Jacie could make a break for it. But all he managed was a soft groan.

Then Jacie was gone. Brett remembered what was left of Chita when Fithian was done with her. He focused every bit of his strength on one hand and, with a Herculean effort, his fingers moved. The first movement seemed to make the next easier. He dragged his hand up and pushed against the floor. Inch by painful inch he levered himself onto his hands and knees, then he forced himself to stand. By the time he’d gained his feet, he’d remembered who they were dealing with, and began expecting an explosion any second. He stumbled forward, lifted Womack to his feet and threw him over his shoulder. He staggered out of the front door and tossed Womack to the ground. Brett fell himself when he dropped Womack and, for a moment, he didn’t know if he’d be able to regain his feet. Brett scanned the area but Fithian was long gone with Jacie.

Then Brett, on his hands and knees on the ground, looked back at the house and saw the little black box stuck to the side of the porch. The numbers 00:45 counted down. Urgency gave him the strength to stand. Brett reentered the house and found Kaplan pushing himself into a sitting position.

Bright red blood oozed from the bullet wound in his chest. Brett pressed his hand over it to slow the bleeding and lifted Kaplan to his feet.

“I can walk,” Kaplan groaned.

“This place is gonna blow in about ten seconds, so you’d better be able to run.” Brett slipped his arm around Kaplan and carried about half his weight. They got outside in time to snatch Womack up off the ground and hustle toward the street. The blast knocked all three of them into the gutter.

 

 

 

She came awake alone.

She lay stretched out on her back. The world seemed to shift unsteadily around her. She remembered Tracie in the bottom of the swimming pool, the calm acceptance of death at that moment because life held so little for her. She was there again, facing death. Ready.

Except this time she wasn’t ready. Fithian had killed Brett. Jacie intended to make him pay for that.

She lay in a tiny, windowless room. Her arms were extended over her head attached to one wall, her feet were bound and tied to the other. She scooted toward the wall her feet were attached to, which gave her room to bend her knees. She slammed her feet into the wall. The edge of this box seemed less than completely solid. She kicked again. Her kicking took on a rhythm. The motion transferred itself until she was swaying wildly with each kick. She hoped that whatever she was suspended from was strong enough to take this abuse.

When she had nearly forgotten why she was even kicking, the board snapped that restrained her feet. Scooting in the direction of her hands, she sat up. After trying various contortions of her body, she twisted herself around and got her feet in a position she could reach with her teeth. Finally those years of gymnastics were paying off.

She gnawed at the tough plastic, pulling as hard as her numb feet would allow. When the fetter finally gave she wasn’t expecting it, and spent precious seconds in a dazed shock at the pleasure of her freedom.

The Destroyer could be back any time. She turned to her hands and started working on them with her teeth. She couldn’t pull against the shackles as hard with her hands as she had her legs because of her lacerated wrists. Her stomach heaved as she gnawed on the blood-soaked binding, but she was relentless.

Thinking about the passing minutes lent desperation to her struggle and, with an agonizing wrench of her arms, she snapped the last fibers of her bonds. She stood up and her legs buckled. Pain ravaged the entire length of her body. She caught herself on her hands and knees, her wrists protesting so violently that she whimpered. She bit back the sound, unsure of The Destroyer’s location. From her position on the floor she studied the odd little room.

A coffin, she thought again. A swaying coffin. She couldn’t twist reality around to make sense of her cage.

There appeared to be no doors but, now that she wasn’t focused on untying herself, she could see parts of the bare wooden walls that looked like they didn’t go with the rest of the room. In fact, as she studied them, she decided they were boarded up windows and a door. The spot that looked like a door was in the center of one wall. She leaned her shoulder against that section. It bowed under the pressure of her body. Resigning herself to the pain, she braced her back against the wall and kicked. Expecting The Destroyer to come charging back at any time, she gave every blow all her strength. One board wobbled. She wheeled around, knelt beside the low window and threw her shoulder into it.

The board loosened. With a last triumphant surge of force, she flung her whole body against the vulnerable spot. The whole section of the wall gave at once. She went through the hole and pitched forward. In one split second she saw that her cage was suspended in midair with a fifty foot drop below her.

She hurled out into space.

 

 

 

Smoke billowed across the lawn. The fire crackled behind them with deafening force. Every breath burned. Choking on the smoke, Kaplan fumbled for his phone and called for an ambulance.

Brett snatched the phone away and made sure the 911 operator understood the situation, then Kaplan took the phone back and called another number. 

Brett recognized the pink-tinged blood on Kaplan’s lips, and the way the blood bubbled from his chest. Kaplan had a bullet in his lung. Brett applied pressure to the wound with one hand and flipped Womack onto his back with the other. Cinders showered down on them as Brett noted Womack’s pulse and breathing, then turned his attention back to Kaplan. The man shouldn’t be moved again.

Kaplan hung up his cell phone. “Did you see him? Fithian?”

“Don’t talk,” Brett ordered, hoarse from the black smoke he was inhaling. He ducked lower to escape the worst of it.

Taking the phone, Brett slid it into his own pocket. “Stay off this phone and lay perfectly still. No telling what damage that bullet’s done. No, I never saw him. I never knew what hit me. He’s got Jacie.” Brett fell silent for a long moment. He couldn’t force any words past his clenched jaw.

“We’ll get him,” Kaplan gasped.

“I’m gagging you if you talk again.” Brett looked up as a siren sounded in the far distance.

“We’ve got a line on Fithian.” Kaplan grabbed Brett’s arm. “I didn’t tell you everything this morning. There wasn’t time.” Kaplan reached into his breast pocket.

“Quit moving, Kaplan. You could shift that bullet against your heart or an artery or your spine.”

Kaplan produced a piece of paper. “He owns land near Long Pine. A rugged, useless little piece of land that has a resort along a rugged stretch of the river with deep canyons. He bought it when the resort went bankrupt. We’ve checked every other property he owns, this is the last one. The FBI may beat you there. The only way across the river for miles is on a tram ride suspended from a cable. It’s where I’d look next if I could.”

Brett took the paper and saw precise directions on it.

“Give it to Womack when he wakes up. Womack will get a team headed up there...”

“I’ll handle it.” Brett slipped the paper into his pocket.

On a groan of pain, Kaplan began coughing. The blood on his lips took on a brighter red hue. The siren got louder.

“How are you gonna handle it, Garrison? He took all three of us out like we were a kindergarten class.” Kaplan started coughing harder. Womack groaned and stirred beside them.

The ambulance rounded the corner, its siren screaming. Fire trucks were right behind it.

“It’ll be different this time. You’ve read my file, Kaplan. You know I can handle myself.”

“Yeah, I’ve read it. I know you used to be pretty tough. So...wh...why haven’t you beaten Fithian to the draw once since this started?” Kaplan jeered.

“Because,” Brett said, his anger burning as bright as the safe house behind him. “Believe it or not, up until now, I haven’t been mad.”

A paramedic jumped out of the ambulance while it was still rolling. Brett shouted, “Over here, gun shot in the chest. He might have a punctured lung.”

The paramedics swarmed over Kaplan. Brett said, “The other one is unconscious. He has been for several minutes. He took a blow to the head.”

Kaplan struggled against the restraining hands of the medics. “Wait for backup, Garrison. You can’t handle him alone.”
“I can if I quit being nice,” Brett said in a voice so cold even the raging fire couldn’t warm it.

An EMT strapped Kaplan’s arms down. Another slapped an oxygen mask over Kaplan’s face. A third started rigging an IV. A second ambulance arrived and started tending Womack. A fire truck started pumping water onto the inferno behind Brett.

Brett walked into the melee of emergency workers, reached in, helped himself to the 9 mm in Kaplan’s shoulder holster, and walked right out the other side of the chaos. He took a quick look at the location of Fithian’s property and climbed into the first car he found with a set of keys in it, a bright red SUV.

Possession of a stolen weapon. Grand theft auto. Not nice at all. And he was just getting started.