John Gilstrap - No mercy

“Are you going to take the bridge out completely?” Stephenson asked.

Jonathan shook his head. “I think we’ll rig it, but I don’t want to blow it unless we have to. When it’s all over, it’d be nice to have a way to get out again.”

“I presume you’ll want some of us out there to help you with the ambush,” Stephenson said.

This time the head shake was vigorous. “Absolutely not. Ambushes are tricky. After the first shot, they tend to go to shit, and it’s very damn easy to kill your team members. Besides, even the best-planned ambush is a dynamic event, and with that wounded leg, you won’t be dynamic for a while. If Big Guy or I get hit, then this place becomes the Alamo. You’ll need to be here to defend it.”

“Everybody died at the Alamo,” Julie said. Ever the voice of optimism.

“So what’s next?” Thomas asked.

“Big Guy and I are going to take care of business down at the bridge and out around the house. I need you guys to practice reloading your weapons in a hurry. Over and over again. Load ’em up and then jack out the rounds and load ’em up again. You’ll be doing it for real in the dark, so make sure your hands know what to do.”

“Won’t we have tofi expose ourselves to a window to shoot?” Julie asked, another inquiry from Captain Obvious.

He didn’t bother to answer. “Steve, when you get a chance I need you to rig a lightproof space upstairs where we can monitor the satellite images without the glow providing an easy target.”

“Will do,” he said.

Jonathan stood. “Let’s get to it, then.”

“What about us?” Gail asked.

Everyone stopped; everyone turned to face them. “What about you?” Jonathan asked.

“Being quiet would be a good first step,” Boxers offered.

“We can help,” she said.

Boxers laughed. “Yeah, ‘helpful’ is exactly the vibe I’ve been getting off of you all day.”

Jesse Collier gave it a try. “We talked during your target practice. This arrangement here, with us all trussed up, makes no sense at all. Y’all are in a box. You can’t call for help, and hell is coming to pay a visit. Like it or not, we’re in the box with you, and we’re going to be in the middle of all the shooting. If these Green Brigade people you’re talking about kill you, they’re sure as hell going to kill us, too. However it comes down, you’ll be wishing you had additional hands, and here we are. It only makes sense that we’d want to help.”

Boxers laughed.

Jonathan didn’t. His eyes narrowed as he considered Jesse’s words.

“You’re not thinking of saying yes, are you, Boss?”

Jesse pressed harder. “We came here to arrest you for the crimes committed in Samson. I didn’t even want to do that, to tell the truth. Seems to me, the Patrones got what was coming to them. This fight here? We got no dog in it.”

“But you’re offering to fight with us anyway?” Stephenson asked.

“It beats getting shot while tied in a chair,” Gail said.

Jonathan gave Gail a hard look. “And what about those charges in Samson? You still intend to pursue them?”

She took a long time answering. When she did, she looked a little ill. “It’s my job,” she said. “I’ll have to.”

Jonathan smiled. His question had been a test. If she’d said she would drop the charges, he would have known that they were playing an angle-telling them what they thought they wanted to hear. He nodded to Stephenson. “Cut them loose and put them to work,” he said.

Jonathan spent an hour with Boxers on the near side of the bridge, using two-foot lengths of detonating cord to drop trees across the road. Few toys were more fun than det cord. Thomas hung around as their shadow, watching the process so carefully that Jonathan let him set the detonators. Finally, with the three of them huddled a safe distance away from the current shot, Jonathan handed Thomas the wireless trigger. “You do it,” he said.

The kid looked like he’d just gotten a bike at Christmas. “Really?”

Jonathan ignored Boxers’ angry glare. “Remember what to do?”

“Just put in the battery, move the switch to Arm, and push the button, right?”

“After shouting what?”

Thomas nodded. “Oh, yeah.” He shouted, “Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole!” Then he inserted the AA battery, moved the safe to the earth, gathering momentum as it crashed through its coniferous siblings.

Thomas grinned. “That is so cool.” He handed the trigger back to Jonathan.

“The technical term is KFB,” Boxers said, rising to his feet.

“KFB?” Thomas asked, taking the bait.

“Ka-fuckin’-boom.”

They laughed, Thomas harder than the others. “Can I ask a question?”

“Do you do anything but?” Boxers grumped.

Thomas was learning Boxers’ crankiness. “We kept the bridge so we can get out, but aren’t we still cutting off our own escape with the trees?”

“We’re not here to escape,” Jonathan said without hesitation. “We’re here to prevail. If we don’t prevail, escape won’t be an option. If we win, we’ll have time to clear a path.”

Thomas’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t really think we might get killed here, do you?”

“ Might’s a pretty tough bar to clear,” Jonathan said. “They’re gonna be shooting back.”

“But we’re better than them, right?” he pressed. Anticipating Boxer’s inevitable barb, he added, “I mean you. You’re better than them.”

“It’s not about being better. Half of it’s just about being lucky. Once a bullet’s in the air, it’s on its way to where it’s going. The best you can hope for is to stay out of its way.” It wasn’t what Thomas wanted to hear.

“You still got time to skedaddle,” Boxers urged.

Thomas shook his head, but he looked peaked. “I said I’d stay. I’ll stay.”

Jonathan clapped him on the shoulder. “Big Guy and I have both seen our share of shoot-outs. We haven’t lost yet.”

Thomas tried to smile, but reality was settling in. “What’s it like?” he asked. “You know, after.”

Jonathan cocked his head. “After a battle?”

“After killing someone.”

Jonathan’s eyes narrowed as he decided not to answer. “We should head back,” he said.

“I want to know.”

“Soon enough, you will.”

“I’m serious.”

“I don’t have an answer for you. It affects different people different ways. It changes you, sure, but people all handle it differently.”

“How did you handle it?”

Jonathan sighed. Talk like this never came to good. “I guess it didn’t hurt me enough to make me unwilling to do it again.”

“But we’re ultimately talking more murder charges, aren’t we? Only these’ll be real.”

“Don’t worry about that, either,” Jonathan said.

“Why?”

Boxers guffawed, “Because they can’t charge you with nothin’ when you’re already dead.”

Father Dom smiled at the little girl on his office sofa and tried to make her feel at home. She’d arrived only an hour ago, and she was struggling to be bra of the kids, Roman Alexander among them. Mama called me just to give me a heads-up, but if Mama is disturbed enough to call the cops, then I think it’s worth looking into.”

Dom steeled himself for news he knew he wouldn’t like. “And because Mama called, I’m going to guess that the talking was more like touching?”

“Not exactly, but she seemed to think he crossed a line. The guy asked questions about Venice. About where she worked and what she did there. I don’t know if he knew that Roman is her son, but Roman didn’t know any better, so he just answered with the truth. About the time Mama saw them together and intervened, Roman was about to go with him down the hill to show him the way.”