John Gilstrap - Damage Control

Jonathan kept the soldier squarely in his sights every step along the way.

Jonathan tapped his transmit button once, paused, and then twice again. That meant Stand by. In his mind, he could see Boxers grinning.

The presumed commander ordered, “Search the jungle.” As he spoke, he started walking directly toward Jonathan.

Scorpion didn’t care about the approaching commander. At least not yet; he was still twenty feet away. Jonathan was way more concerned about the point man, who couldn’t be more than five feet from Tristan’s hiding place.

The soldiers scanned their sectors of the compass with a professionalism that Jonathan hadn’t anticipated. As they swept their weapons from left to right, they showed admirable muzzle discipline, never endangering the soldier next to them. That was good news for their own safety, but not good news for Jonathan’s.

“I’ve got good sight pictures on two,” Boxers whispered.

Jonathan tapped another Stand by. He wanted to see how this would play out. Chances were good that Tristan would be discovered, and when that happened, Jonathan wanted “Shit!” the point man yelled in Spanish. “You! Stand up! I found one!”

Jonathan slipped his finger into the trigger guard and prepared to fire. The soldier’s posture spoke more of fear than intent, however, so Jonathan gave him the benefit of the doubt.

“Stand up, stand up, stand up! Put your hands up!” The others cut their respective searches short-exactly the wrong thing to do-and turned to confront the threat that their colleague had discovered. That put six guns all trained on Tristan.

Jonathan knew that Boxers must be borderline apoplectic. He understood Spanish at least as well as Jonathan did-in fact the Big Guy was something of a genius with languages-so he knew exactly what was happening. All of their tactical training told them that this was the time to take the bad guys out-while they were out in the open and exposed-but Jonathan wanted to give them a little more rope. If they were truly going to shoot on sight, then Tristan would already be dead. He wanted to see what their plan really was.

He keyed his mike and dared to whisper, “Hold your fire.” He held his aim on the no-reflex zone of the lead soldier’s brain. If Jonathan pulled the trigger, his bullet would unplug his central nervous system in a microsecond. There’d be no twitch of a trigger finger.

Tristan rose from the spot where he’d been hiding, his hands held high over his head. “Please don’t shoot me,” he said, first in English, and then he said it again in Spanish.

“Jesus, Scorpion,” Boxers whispered. “Now’s the time.”

Jonathan let the comment hang in the air.

The point man leveled his rifle at Tristan’s face. “Step out here,” he said. The soldier motioned for Tristan to step out into the roadway.

The boy was only one notch away from panic. His eyes darted from left to right, looking for reinforcements as he stepped free of the undergrowth and into the clearing of the road cut.

“What’s your name?” the solider asked in Spanish.

“Tristan Wagner,” he answered. His eyes never touched his questioner. Instead, they were all about finding Jonathan and Boxers.

“Why are you hiding here?” the soldier asked.

Tristan hesitated. Clearly, he wasn’t sure how to answer or what to do. “I was kidnapped by terrorists,” he said. “My friends and I.”

“Your friends?” the soldier said. “Where are these friends now?”

“Dead,” Tristan said.

The leader stepped forward, moving away from Jonathan’s location and closer to the boy’s. “You killed them,” he said.

Jonathan shifted his aim from the point man to the leader, whose back was now turned to him. He settled the sight on the base of his skull, right where the spinal cord joined the brain.

“I didn’t kill anybody,” Tristan said. “The terrorists killed them.”

“Are you one of the Yankee missionaries?” the leader asked.

An invisible hand pulled Jonathan’s spine.

Tristan hesitated. He was close to breaking. “I–I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re American,” the leader said.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you are here from Scottsdale, Arizona.”

This time, Tristan’s hesitation was the loudest confession Jonathan had ever heard.

“I thought so,” the leader said. He raised his pistol.

Jonathan squeezed his trigger, and the MP7 roared. His first two bullets shredded the leader’s head, and his second two did the same for the point man. Ahead and to his left, Boxers’ rifle discharged what sounded to be a half-mag of 7.62-millimeter bullets. Three more dropped, and Jonathan took out a guy who just looked confused.

The gunfight lasted less than a second and a half. When it was done, Jonathan and Boxers had fired twenty-five rounds between them, and all six soldiers were dead, their bodies dropped like so many sacks of manure.

One day, Gail would learn that people’s names rarely matched the pictures those names evoked in her mind. She’d expected Harriett Burke to be a mousy sixty-something in a print dress and gray hair pulled back in a bun. She’d smile sweetly and say God-loving things.

Instead, she was a sturdy thirty-something with shoulders that were broader than most men’s. Smart money said her resume included time on a roller derby team. Where the sweet smile should have been, there was instead a set jaw and firmly pressed lips. Clearly, her buddy Volpe from downstairs had called upstairs.

As the elevator doors opened on the opulent fourteenth floor, she was right there, doing her best to block the path down the hallway. “Reverend Mitchell doesn’t have time to meet with you,” she said.

Gail stepped into the elevator lobby. “And I don’t have the inclination to put you in handcuffs,” she said, and she skirted the human roadblock.

Tried to, anyway. Harriett grabbed Gail’s sleeve. “You may not go in there.”

Gail drew her badge as if it were a gun and pointed it at Harriett’s forehead. “This is your moment to make careful choices,” she said, startling herself by the ease with which she slid back into her old role.

“Do you have a warrant?” Harriett said. The badge and the speed with which it appeared had startled her.

“I’ll get one for your arrest if you don’t let go of my sleeve.”

Harriett pulled her had away as if it had touched a hot stove. “Sorry,” she said.

“Good for you. Where will I find Reverend Mitchell?”

“I’m sorry, Officer…”

“It’s sheriff. Sheriff McLain.”

“Sheriff McLain, Dr. Mitchell left very specific orders not to be disturbed today.”

“I’m guessing she didn’t anticipate my visit when she said that.”

“I could get fired.”

Now they were squarely in territory where Gail had stopped caring. “If she fired you for this, then you probably should consider working somewhere else.”

The elevator dinged, and Volpe joined them. Harriett looked genuinely relieved until the guard rested his hand on the revolver he wore on his hip.

Gail hated rent-a-cops. She pulled back her suit jacket to reveal the grip of her Glock. “I’ve got one, too,” she said. “And I’ll bet you a million dollars that I’m better with mine than you are with yours.”

Volpe lifted his hand from his weapon and ostentatiously splayed his fingers. “I wasn’t threatening you,” he said. His voice cracked a little.

“That’s exactly what you were doing,” Gail countered. “And I guarantee that I am threatening you. Will I find Dr. Mitchell’s office down this hallway?”

Volpe looked to Harriett, who said, “Yes. I’ll take you there.”