Authors: Maya James
Justin
smiles at him.
The air
in here is dirty and wet; you can smell the mold long before you see it. Every
metal beam is covered in rust, every window covered over with rotting wood.
We're
huddled in our truck for warmth. Justin had drove it straight into this old
warehouse a couple hours ago and they set up our mark tied to a chair about
thirty yards on front of us right in our headlights. They stripped him down to
his underwear and the cold is eating at him horribly, as he sits dampened in
his own blood.
"He
knows," Justin repeats.
Garrett
saunters back looking deflated and he begins to punch our mark in the stomach,
making him throw up again, though there's nothing left to come out.
"You
could have gotten what you needed from him ten minutes after we arrived,"
Malcolm offers.
"Yes,"
Justin replies, "but then none of them would have learned a damn thing.
They'd only have my word, and sometimes that's just not enough."
Malcolm
nods that he understands. "If you did it your way, they'd probably doubt
you had to. This way they understand."
"They
don't have the experience we do, and they need to learn, especially
Garrett," Justin says. "You and Lena—you need to teach him."
I
realize now that they keep saying "they" because they mean me as
well.
Garrett
comes back a short time later, now even more exhausted. "Justin, you're
wrong. This guy doesn't know where Jesse is—he just doesn't fucking know!"
Justin
passes him a bottle of water and asks him to get in. He climbs into the
passenger seat beside Justin and takes several huge swigs, catching his breath.
"I
don't like this," Justin says. "Believe me, I don't get a damn thing
out of what we're doing. But you both had to see this with your own eyes, or
you may never have trusted what we do and how we do it. I don't want either of
you to have doubts, for different reasons obviously. Garrett, you're just
getting started and you need to believe every word I tell you—it will save your
life." His eyes grow soft and fall on me. "Charity, I wanted you to
know I've never done anything that I didn't have to."
We're
all silent, even Malcolm.
Justin
starts again. "You're sure he doesn't know where Jesse is?"
Garrett
nods. "I'm positive. He's freezing to death. I've beat the shit out of
him. If he knew, he would have cracked by now, probably hours ago."
"Cellmates,
ones you can get along with, that's not always easy. Most of the time you're
just putting up with the guy and hoping you don't have to kill him for trying
to kill you. When you get someone you like, you hold on to that. You share
things you don't with anyone else. It probably sounds sick to you, but it's not
that different than a marriage."
Justin
looks out the window at our mark slumped in his chair shivering. "Three
years he lived with Jesse. They were dangerous together; raping other inmates,
beatings. You think they're friends, and that isn't worth a beating like this.
You also think criminals don't have much loyalty to anyone but themselves. You're
wrong. Their loyal to a fault when they want to be and him and Jesse—they might
as well be brothers."
"You
want me to keep going?" Garrett asks, sounding upset by the thought.
"No!"
Justin snaps quickly. "No I don't. I think you see now it isn't working
that way and it hasn't been so humane. He's suffering, and even though he's a
dangerous sociopath, none of us are, so it's hard to swallow even though he
deserves it."
Justin
suddenly rolls down the windows and turns to see my face. "You don't have
to watch this. Hearing it will be enough."
My
pulse jumps to life, scared for him. This is exactly why he doesn't want to do
this work anymore; I see this in his eyes. Justin steps out of the truck and
heads for the chair. As he walks, we see him take a knife out from his belt.
It
takes him forever to get there. I can hear our mark moaning in pain. I'm sure
he's already dying from internal injuries, he just doesn't know it yet.
Justin's shoes grind on the dirty floor and the sound echoes through the huge space.
I hate
this for him. I hate it enough for both of us.
He
reaches the mark and there's no hesitation. Justin grabs the side of his head
and slices the knife downward in a quick jerk. He steps back one short stride
and tosses the man's own ear into his lap. "Where's Jesse?"
Our
mark doesn't even scream. The cut is so clean there probably isn't much pain at
all yet, but the shock is insane. His wide eyes fixate on his ear. "My
cousin, Miguel Warez, he put him up, gave him a job."
I hear
Garrett mumble, "Holy shit!" in amazement.
"Doing
what?" Justin demands.
"A
lot of guys on the inside owe us. Their girls have to keep the payments coming,
no excuses. When they don't, we send Jesse to them. People are taking their
payments much more serious now."
Justin
puts the knife down on ground and takes out his gun, but I don't want to watch
anymore. I close my eyes and listen.
"Where?"
Justin demands.
He
gives Justin an address, then I hear a familiar muffled
pop
.
Justin
was right to do what he did and I understand that now. When we got here, if he
jumped out and cut the man's ear off before shooting him, both Garrett and I
would have thought he was cold and ruthless, that it wasn't necessary. Now we
know differently; it was the only way to get what was needed, and there was so
much less suffering his way.
My eyes
seek out and find his when he gets back in the truck and I see that they're
full of hurt. He doesn't want to do this anymore, not now that his life has
changed so much. The transformation began when we met and had taken a huge leap
toward its end with the truth about his mother. I don't believe that he ever
enjoyed this part of things, but he knew how to tolerate it. With me in his
life, he never has to
tolerate
anything again. We can be happy without
any of this
THERE WAS NO WAY
in hell Justin was letting me go with him this time. Jesse Simpson was to never
see my face, never know I exist. Jesse is hiding inside the drug-house of a well-organized
and well-armed gang. Justin still has his limits of the amount of danger he
will let me face and this is way past it.
More of
the team is involved this time; eight men and three untraceable trucks parked
at separate points of escape. Lena is on surveillance and I'm with her. Justin
feels that's where my eyes are needed. They are in full gear this time, which
means Kevlar, masks, earpieces for constant communication and video so we can
see what they see.
Connections
have been called in for this one as well. Any calls to 911 will have a delayed
response until we call an all clear. Justin knows that if anything goes wrong,
this becomes a small war.
The
clock shows four-twenty one, less than ten minutes to go.
"Let's
do a final AV check," Lena suggests.
"Go,"
Justin agrees.
She
runs through all their names and each responds with their voices muffled behind
their masks. Everyone can hear the audio check. "Video is good too,"
she announces.
There's
nothing else to do after that. It takes everything I have not to just start
begging Justin not to do this, to let his men handle it. I want to grab a mic
and tell him how much I love him and what he means to me. Earlier I told him
all of this, so it's not that I haven’t had the chance. I just want to tell him
that I love him one more time, just in case, and I can't in front of the team.
"Warrior?"
I hear him call over the line.
"I'm
here?"
There's
a slight pause. Everyone is listening.
"Keep
your beautiful eyes on us, Warrior. I love you."
My
knees buckle. "I love you, Baby. Be safe."
Only
silence follows, everyone steadying their nerves and envisioning a successful
outcome.
"Go
on one," Justin says. "Three, two, one."
There
are two guards sitting on the front porch, neither expecting anything at this
time of the morning. Several of the team are looking right at them as they both
lay back and go to sleep. That's not what happened, of course, but that's
exactly what it looks like on screen.
All
screens are suddenly jumping and bouncing as the men quietly run on the house.
The first two men at the door kneel and spray aerosol cans under the bottom.
Malcolm
is the third to reach the door, picking the lock while the other two are still
emptying their cans.
We
watch from another angle as he pulls the door open wide, stepping out of the
way for the next line of men with their M16's aimed for their approach. There's
a body just inside the door, an inner guard just as Justin had anticipated. One
of the men still on his knees uses a silenced weapon to tap a hole into the
unconscious guard's forehead.
Three
gone, and no one else even knows they're coming yet.
My eye
catches a red blinking light on one of our screens as the team begins filing
through the front door. I let it draw my attention and it turns out to be a
number on a long list. "What the hell is this?" I ask, pointing. Its
way more familiar than I want it to be.
Lena
gives me only the tiniest bit of her attention, until she sees what I'm
pointing at, then it's quickly the only thing that matters. "Ho-ly
shit!"
My
heart drops into my stomach. "What? What the hell is it?" I feel my
panic rising at the look on her face.
"Miguel
Warez's current cell phone. And that," she points, "is the same
burner phone that we've been tracking since it almost got Justin killed when it
tipped Trisha's boyfriend off."
I'm
about to scream for her to warn them, but she's already on it. "Justin!
They know!"
"How?"
Justin whispers urgently.
"The
burner phone just called Warez!"
There
is no hesitation from Justin. He orders everyone into evasive positions and
they react instantly. On screen, from every view we see soldiers quickly
separating into different rooms on the first floor, not something they would
ever normally do. They vanish into the shadows and dark corners, dragging the
dead guard out of the way, and in seconds it's as if they're not even there,
maybe they never were.
"They're
coming!" one of them whispers.
"Let
them get as far as possible," someone replies. "Keep the bodies away
from the hall." I believe that’s Garrett, already making decisions and
passing orders calmly under stress.
I need
to scream. I want Justin out of there—now!
The
first piece of shit hits the bottom of the stairs with a shaky gun out in front
of him. He doesn’t look like a professional at all as he passes by two soldiers
without even detecting them and cuts into the living room where he's instantly,
soundlessly, shot in the head.
They
drag his body deeper into the room out of the way.
A
second man stops halfway down the stairs, calling for his partner and not
getting a reply. He yells up the stairs in Spanish and someone yells back at
him.
"He
wants to go back up," Lena tells me. "But he's been ordered to keep
going."
He
descends the remaining steps and turns in the opposite direction that his
partner had gone, hoping it's safer the other way. It isn't. He's in a room
with Justin and Garrett now. It terrifies him that he can't see anyone and his
hands are shaking so violently that it's amazing he hasn't popped off an
accidental shot. Without knowing it, he's moving closer and closer to Garrett,
who shows incredible restraint waiting for the clear shot. When he's close
enough, Garrett grabs the guy’s gun and pulls it straight out of his hands. His
bewildered jaw drops toward the floor and Garrett shoots him through his open
mouth up into his brain.
No one
else follows.
"They
won't send anyone else down now," Justin whispers. "They know we own
the first floor. They'll dig a few guys in on the second floor and move
everyone else up to the third."
Malcolm
confirms, "I hear them moving now."
"Let's
put gas and smoke on the second," Justin orders.
I know
this is about to get crazy, you can sense it—as if it isn’t already well into
the land of the bizarre. But it is going to get worse.
Should
it be this quiet right now?
Malcolm
and another of the men quietly move half way up the stairs. Everyone else is
waiting in the hall. They pull the pins on the cans each of them holds in their
hand and then toss their cans up into the second floor as the cans begin to
spew two different shades of fog.
Gunfire
erupts, the first of the night without any silencers. It won't be long now
before 911 calls start going out from the neighbors. Bullets hit the back wall
behind the base of the stairs and pieces of sheetrock and dust explode in the
air on the first floor, mixing with the chemical fog now blowing down from
above.