John Gilstrap - No mercy

“Who was this guy?”

“Nobody’d ever seen him before. Well dressed, they said. Suit and tie.”

Dom’s stomach tightened. There are no coincidences. Dom pinched his lower lip and scowled. “Didn’t touch him, though?”

“Nope. Didn’t do anything I could arrest him for, even if I knew who he was or where he went.”

“Did he ever show up at Venice’s office?”

“Not that I know of. I asked Mama to check that out and call me if he did. I haven’t heard back from her, so I can only assume…” He didn’t bother to finish the sentence. “Frankly, Father, I’m not as concerned about Venice as I am about strange guys hanging around an orphanage talking to little boys.”

“It’s not an orphanage.” It was an important distinction in Dom’s mind.

“Still, I think you can see my point.”

“I do. What do you recommend?”

The chief shrugged. “I don’t know. I was hoping that maybe you could shed a little light on what your friends at Security Solutions are up to. Does this have something to do with that?”

Dom didn’t like the tone of the question any more than he liked being stuck in the middle. “It wouldn’t hurt to be more vigilant over the next few days,” he said.

“Claymores?” Stephenson gasped. “I haven’t seen one of these in years.” They were out in the front yard of the lodge, making the final preparations for their defense.

Jonathan couldn’t tell from the man’s tone whether he was impressed or appalled. “One of the best antipersonnel weapons ever invented,” he said. “But they’re only a last resort, understand?”

“So if we see someone in the clearing, we just blow them up?” Jesse asked.

Jonathan shook his head. “No, if you see a lot of someones, and you know they’re all OpFor-excuse me, opposition force-then you can use them, and then only if they’re close. Effective range is only about eighty yards.”

“I’ve heard of claymores,” Thomas said. “Didn’t they use them in Platoon?”

Jonathan chuckled. The modern military was looking more and more like a video game every day. “Claymores have been around forever.” He lifted the wedge-shaped plastic box and displayed it to the group. “This baby has 700 steel balls in front of about a pound and a half of plastic explosive. When they detonate, they send a wall of buckshot out in a sixty-degree pattern that makes living through violence, while others just like to fight. I imagine a good handful will disappear as soon as the first bullet passes their head. The ones who are the most frightened will become the most fearless fighters.”

Jesse cocked his head. “Do I hear admiration in your voice?”

Jonathan continued working while he talked. “Respect is a better word. I respect anyone willing to die for a cause.”

“Even terrorists?” Thomas asked.

Jonathan nodded. “Even them.”

“But they’re the enemy,” Jesse protested.

“And my goal is to help them die for their cause. But I still respect them.”

“So, what’s next?” Stephenson asked.

Shadows were getting very long now; it would be dark soon. The explosives were set, the weapons were loaded, and the satellite link was established. His troops and his camp were as prepared as they were going to get. “I guess it’s time to make your phone call,” he said.

Stephenson’s expression didn’t change as he heard the words, but color drained from his face. He turned away and hobbled up the steps into the cabin.

“What phone call?” Gail asked.

“The one that’s going to bring hell to the front porch,” he said. “We alerted Ivan and his gang to our location by using Steve’s credit card at the Wal-Mart back in town. We wanted to get them on the road in the correct general direction. When Steve turns on his cell phone and makes a call, they’ll be able to zero right in on us. We’re at the point of no return.”

Gail cocked her head. “Why are you really doing this?” she asked.

“I’d like to know that myself,” Jesse said. The facial twitch that followed from Gail announced her wish that he would wander off somewhere.

Jonathan wished that himself. “Want to take a walk?” he asked.

“To where?” Jesse protested.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Jonathan snapped. He looked to Gail for her answer.

“Sure,” she said. This time, Jesse read her glare perfectly. He was staying behind.

Jonathan led the way toward the front tree line, his hands in his pockets, his rifle hanging from its combat sling like an exclamation point down the front of his body. When he felt far enough out of earshot, he said, “You go first. Why are you really doing this?”

She chuckled. “You really have the whole story. I didn’t want to get shot tied to a chair. You wouldn’t do the sensible thing and call the authorities, so I had only one choice. I had to pick a side, and as scary and hopeless as you and your little army are, the other side seems worse.”

“I guess next time, you need to listen to Irene Rivers when she tells you to butt out.”

“Next time.”

They walked awhile in silence. “You know we have a chance of winning this thing,” Jonathan said. “A good chance.”

“Okay,” Gail said. Another silence, then, “You haven’t told me why yet.”

Jonathan looked toward the treetops as he said, “The lofty answer is duty. The tawdry one is revenge. Just like any war anywhere.”

Gail wanted more, then realized he’d said a lot. “What did Ivan do to your wife?” she asked.

“He killed her.”

“There’s got to be more than that.”

“There his head. “Nope, those details are mine. You can access the reports when we’re done.”

When they got to the tree line, they hung a left and waded together through the scrub growth on the leading edge. “When we’re done,” Gail said.

“Excuse me?”

“You said ‘when we’re done.’ Are you really going to let Jesse and me go when it’s over?”

He smirked. “The phrase, ‘turn myself over to you’ seems more appropriate.”

She didn’t get it. “You’re really just going to let me take you in?”

He shrugged. “That was the deal, right? You help us fight, and I turn myself in.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Sure it does. A deal’s a deal. You caught me outright. I made mistakes and you capitalized on them. To the victor belongs the spoils.”

Gail stopped. She looked shocked.

Jonathan gestured with his head for them to keep walking. “When there’s a lesson like this to learn, someone needs to learn it. That someone’s me. Like you said, with extenuating circumstances and all, maybe I’ll be acquitted.”

She was still befuddled. “I don’t know whether to believe you.”

“Always believe me. Especially when I make a deal. I’m really not very complicated.”

“How can you speak for your big friend?” she asked.

Jonathan laughed. “I don’t speak for my big friend,” he said. “In fact, you need to leave him alone.”

“Why?”

“Two reasons. First, he didn’t have anything to do with those shootings. All he did was lift me and the kid out of trouble. I did all the shooting.”

“What’s the second reason?”

Jonathan looked right at her. “He’d kill you if you tried.”

Night fell inside the lodge a good half hour before it fell outside. They’d carried the kitchen chairs upstairs into the master bedroom and draped blankets to create a lightproof nook in which they could operate their laptop without creating a beacon for the bad guys. The computer was set to continually monitor the SkysEye satellite images of their corner of the world. They’d configured the screen view in such a way that the cabin was in the middle of the frame, with outer margins calibrated to show a one-mile radius from the center point.