Т Паркер - Swift Vengeance

Now.

Kalima triggered the motion lights.

I drew my weapon, pulled open the mudroom door, and followed Salvano and Taucher into the cold morning.

“ FBI! Facedown on the ground!” boomed Salvano.

Salvano broke right and Taucher left. Beyond them stood Caliphornia and Kalima, frozen in the light. I dropped to a shooter’s stance, both hands on the gun and the bright red dot of my laser sight dancing center-left on Caliphornia’s chest.

Salvano again: “On the ground now!”

Kalima looked at Ben. I couldn’t read her expression — an agreement or a confirmation, maybe — and at the same time she hugged the baby closer. It cooed softly.

Caliphornia had frozen. Kalima gave us a defiant glare.

“Put the infant on the ground and step away!” yelled Taucher.

Kalima seemed to consider, her expression changing from obstinate to hopeful. She nodded and knelt and snugged the bundled blue blanket. Again the infant cooed and warbled. Kalima then set it on the ground and arranged the blanket once more, raised a pistol at Taucher and fired.

The return volley was immediate and deafening, exploding from the guns of Taucher and Salvano on either side of me, and from Reggie above me in the house, sending a cloud of gun smoke into the damp cold air. I fired once and didn’t miss. Kalima staggered back into the barbecue, but, apparently well armored, she scrambled over the blue-tiled counter and fell out-of-sight into the horseshoe-shaped island. Bullets smacked after her, tossing blue tile and brick dust into the smoking air.

Ben grabbed the baby and threw himself over the barbecue, too, back first, like a high jumper. In the sudden silence I heard the infant cooing affectionately, oblivious. Caliphornia rose and fired and ducked down again. Daniel on the barn had a bad angle and couldn’t risk big-bore fire in our direction. Then a frustrated cease-fire. In the eerie silence Caliphornia slammed home a fresh magazine and asked frantic questions in Arabic of Kalima.

“Enti kowais? Enti kowais?”

No answer.

Salvano ordered them to throw out their weapons and come out. The baby cried. Then, holding fire but brandishing the newborn at us, Caliphornia rose gracefully from behind the counter and began backing his way up the driveway toward the Taurus.

Taucher and Salvano sidled after him. I covered them from behind a palapa stanchion — a palm trunk as thick as my body. Good protection and a steady brace for shooting.

Caliphornia backpedaled hard and fast, but straight into Lindsey, charging him from the barnyard dark. She hit him at the knees and he went down, a janbiya clanging to the concrete. He rolled quickly upright, tucked the baby tight, and turned for his truck. Sniper Daniel took one shot, muzzle flashing orange from the dark.

Caliphornia’s hips shuddered and he crashed to his back, another janbiya and his phone clattering to the concrete. Still he clutched his infant close. His gun spun to a stop inches from his outstretched right hand. The baby cooed.

Lindsey rose to one knee, steadying her handgun on Caliphornia, as Taucher and Salvano took aim from behind her.

Taucher: “Hold your fire!”

Glass shattered violently behind us, from the direction of the casitas, and I understood what was happening.

In the smoke and strange eardrum-pounding silence Caliphornia’s blood snaked down the drive.

Then, as if charged by new life — or by Hector’s Captagon fighting pills — he struggled to his feet. He swayed, a torn and bloody being, the infant still in his grip. He looked at the gun on the ground, then at us. I felt mass and energy behind me, as armored Zeno flew through the air, knocked down Caliphornia as if he were made of paper, then straddled him and took the man’s head into his cavernous jaws. Held it still as the baby finally rolled free.

Lindsey screamed, “Lasialo! Lasialo!”

With a splat, Zeno dropped Caliphornia’s head to the concrete. Then gazed at Lindsey expectantly, a red pendulum of drool swinging from one side of his mouth.

“Vieni, Zeno!” ordered Lindsey, backing away from the baby but her gun still trained on Caliphornia.

Zeno obeyed.

Caliphornia lifted his head, eyes wide open and his chest rising and falling rapidly, his gun in a pool of blood beside him, his child and phone just out of reach.

Zeno had almost made it to Lindsey when he suddenly stopped and hooked back to the baby, as if he’d caught a whiff of something new and important. Stopped and sniffed at the bundled infant, pawed it once like it was an uninteresting toy, then loped back toward his master.

“Bravo regazzo! Vieni!”

The good boy came.

I watched the infant roll free of the blanket, a rosy-cheeked, big-eyed plastic doll dressed in blue PJs.

“Get away from that thing!” Taucher ordered, wrenching Lindsey away from the doll.

Three rapid shots rang from within the barbecue. Taucher buckled and collapsed. Lindsey clambered toward me in seeming slow motion, Zeno at her side. Within the stout bunker of the barbecue, Kalima was swaying unsteadily when I shot her once in the forehead and put her down forever.

I was just starting my turn toward Joan when Ben weakly raised his head again, found Lindsey in retreat, then lifted something small and dark in a bloody hand. The doll exploded and the world shut down.

Heartbeat.

Eyes

burning: smoke

palapa fronds

dark and starless sky

breath in breath out

on my back

alive.

Then: Salvano standing over the bloody rag of Caliphornia, gun still drawn and the bomb squad swarming in as bloodied Lindsey and Zeno shuffled toward me, Burt and sniper Daniel emerging from the barnyard dark, Clevenger entering the patio light with the drone control pad still in his hand and his mouth agape.

I crawled to Taucher. The bullet had caught her throat just over the top of her armor. Her blood gushed and her hawk’s eyes stared up at me and there was a trembling hush upon her, the hush of life in flight. I put my hands on either side of the gaping wound and tried carefully and scientifically to keep her blood inside her though it was not possible but I kept my fingers and thumbs pressuring purposefully and I talked to her as I had talked to Avalos in that Fallujah doorway where he had lain. I don’t remember what I said to my bleeding brother Avalos — probably something about hanging on and hanging in — and I don’t now remember what I said to Joan, though it couldn’t have been any more helpful, but I didn’t have anything more to offer than pitiful, exhausted words.

I was aware of two bomb-squad personnel in their protective suits wheeling some kind of container toward Caliphornia’s body while a third with a portable X-ray machine headed for Kalima.

Aware of Salvano on his feet.

Of casita six’s open door, two faces staring out.

Of Lindsey kneeling beside me, Zeno down beside her.

I talked to Joan earnestly. More words, a battalion of them. Her eyes shifted and her pupils constricted and I believed she could see me. Then a jolt of strength that allowed her to lift her head. Followed by a sigh and a great shuddering release. I settled her head carefully to the concrete.

Lindsey wavered over to Burt, the backs of her arms riddled by shrapnel. Zeno shook his head once like his ears were full of water but followed her, otherwise unfazed. Lindsey tilted into Burt’s outstretched arms, she a head taller than Burt but Burt bull-like and strong, his arms closing around her.

I stood. Leaned against the palapa palm trunk for balance.

Saw Salvano limping toward Kalima and the bomb-squad tech, phone to his ear.

Liz pulling gently on Lindsey’s sleeve.