Authors: Grant McKenzie
CHAPTER
66
Gallagher screamed in surprise as a tiny particle of white phosphorous sizzled through his sleeve and became embedded in his skin.
He ran to the sink and slapped a soaking wet cloth over the smoking hole while he frantically squeezed and pinched the burning flesh until the tiny grain finally popped loose. He dropped the cloth in the sink and cursed aloud.
He knew what that stuff did to flesh. It didn’t just burn you, it burned
through
you. He had witnessed it first hand . . . hell, oftentimes it had been
by
his hand . . . and it was one of the worst ways to die he could imagine.
Maybe Bone was right to kill Ronson, he thought. Stupid fuck had obviously kept a stash of military-grade weapons at his house. And not only had he handed them over to Wallace, he had also led the driver directly to this door.
Smoke filled the room, blinding him, but it was dissipating through the house and disappearing almost as quickly as it had arrived. A phosphorous grenade only burns for sixty seconds. Plenty of time for a trained man, but the drivers were pussies. They were probably still awestruck by the pretty smoke.
Gallagher grinned and reached for his weapon. He frowned. The weight was off. Too light. Six pounds, practically on the nose. He cursed himself, cursed the rust and the drink. In the sand he was a force not to be messed with, but out here, with nothing but woods and silence and
fucking rain
, his edge had dulled.
That’s why Bone hadn’t been afraid. Black bastard was keeping track; knew his magazine had run dry.
Gallagher moved effortlessly through the smoke to the kitchen table. A blind Marine was still a deadly Marine. He didn’t need sight to do what needed to be done. He knew the workings of his weapon better than the curves of his own wife.
At the table, he rummaged in the canvas bag for a fresh magazine. There were only two left. He had already gone through four.
Gallagher dumped the spent magazine on the floor and snapped in a fresh one. He enjoyed the sound as it clicked home.
Locked and loaded, muthafucker!
You scared now? You fucking should be
.
Gallagher squatted down and scanned the room. Hot smoke rose as cool air rushed in through the broken windows to restore balance. From beneath the table, the room was dim but smoke free. Gallagher inhaled deeply. The air was sweet, fresh, a tang of salt and cedar.
Bone’s discarded sniper rifle lay on the floor surrounded by an abstract puddle of broken glass. No blood. No body. He would be in his element. In close quarters, Bone always used a knife.
Gallagher checked his M4 was still set to fire rapid three-round bursts rather than single-shot semi-auto. Naturally, it was. His ingrained soldier’s instincts and training were still moving faster than his conscious mind. The difference, as any drill instructor would tell you, between life and death.
He moved through the doorway beside the broken windows that separated the small kitchen from the larger dining room and connected living area.
The high ceiling lifted the smoke skyward, allowing him to stand. The rooms looked undisturbed. As quiet and peaceful as he had left it.
The living room was Carly’s favorite. The tall picture windows looking out over the ocean. The log fireplace for those winter nights when it was just . . . he shook his head, not wanting to remember, not wanting to admit . . . Carly always said it was never just the three of them. The Corps was always present.
Before she took their daughter and left, she told him this was her favorite room when it was just the two of them . . .
Katie and her
. . . when he was gone, away from them, fighting a war . . . fighting for—
He wanted to believe it was
for them
, but deep down he knew it was for himself. He needed war as others needed air. Carly understood that, better than anyone, she just couldn’t live with it.
But Carly was gone now. That was fact. There was nothing to stop him from embracing exactly who he was always meant to be.
Gallagher gripped his gun tighter and stepped into the open room just as a woman screamed.
Gallagher twisted around.
Carly?
NO! Carly was gone.
It was almost a relief. Bone, damn his eyes, was right. This woman no longer held any value.
Alicia stood in the doorway of the bathroom with one son clutching her leg. His eyes were closed, terrified, while his mother screamed at Bone.
Bone stood at the base of the unfinished wooden stairs. He was holding the other boy under his arm. The youngest one with the ginger hair like his mother’s. The boy was squirming, afraid, lashing out with tiny fists, but his blows were completely ineffectual.
Gallagher had watched Bone hold red hot coals in his bare hands without flinching. The impact of a young boy’s fist would be like the fluttering of an eyelash.
“We can sort this out, Bone,” Gallagher called.
“Too late,” Bone replied. “Carly and Katie had the right idea. I don’t need you, either.”
Gallagher’s face burned with fury as he brought his M4 to bear, but Bone’s little black handgun was faster.
The lone bullet smacked Gallagher in the chest, breaking two ribs and burrowing deep into meat inches from his heart.
Gallagher gasped and reflexively squeezed the trigger of his own weapon. Bullets stitched the floor and walls, forcing the woman and her remaining son back inside the bathroom. He tried to readjust his aim as he pumped the trigger again and again, but by the time his last bullets found the steps, Bone wasn’t there to meet them.
Gallagher watched the last surviving member of his unit run up the stairs to nowhere.
Bone fired his handgun again, but this time he aimed up and the bullet chewed wood and buckled the lock’s hasp. The trapdoor sprang open as Bone hit it full bore with his shoulder, then he and the boy vanished into spider webs and darkness.
More wood splintered from the direction of the kitchen as the rear door was forced open. It was followed by the arrival of heavy, clumsy feet.
Gallagher knew he had to move. Live to fight another day.
He snapped his last magazine into the M4 and heaved himself to his feet. Sucking air deep into his lungs, he heard and felt some of it hiss from the oozing hole in his chest. A fucking suck wound. Bone’s parting joke.
Gallagher fought the pain and ran, heading straight for the last place Bone had been. The place where two human shields still cowered in fright.
CHAPTER
67
Wallace kicked open the kitchen door and rushed inside with his shotgun at the ready. Crow followed close behind, his handgun in a solid two-fisted grip.
The house reeked of war, anarchy and
blood
.
Wallace scanned the kitchen, looking for any sign of Alicia and the boys.
It was empty.
He swallowed and moved on, knowing that if he stopped for even a second, fear would catch up and whisper its cold words of logic in his ear, make his muscles freeze and his courage vanish. He had faced that once before when he hung above the ocean and reached out his hand to a terrified young girl who likely imagined he was Death itself.
He had fought it then. He would fight it now.
Two doorless archways led off the kitchen. The one on the far side of the table opened near the first rise of a wooden staircase that climbed to the upper level. Anyone perched near the top of the stairs would have a perfect spot for ambush.
Wallace turned to his left and took the doorway beside the two broken windows. He moved cautiously into a formal dining room that connected to a large, open-plan living area with floor to ceiling windows.
Keeping his back to the wall, his stomach churning with terror, Wallace moved closer to the corner where a wide hallway led back to the stairs and the second kitchen archway.
He stopped at the corner and looked down at several large puddles of fresh blood on the floor.
“Fuck!” Crow swore behind him.
A sudden scream.
Alicia!
Wallace had no choice. He took the corner.
There was no one waiting on the stairs, but an unfamiliar face was vanishing into a small room further down the hallway. Behind him, Crow instantly fired off three shots from his handgun, stitching the plaster.
“Stop!” Wallace yelled. “He has Alicia in there.”
“Good call,” a man shouted through the wall. “You almost gave the boy a lobotomy.”
Wallace sucked in a deep breath and exhaled heavily.
“Alicia,” he called out. “Are you okay?”
Wallace heard a heart-wrenching sob, followed by his wife’s barely-controlled voice.
“Alex and I are okay.”
Wallace hesitated. “What about Fred?”
“The other man took him. I don’t know where he is.”
“I can tell you,” said the man. “You let me leave. I’ll tell you where.”
“He’s badly wound
—”
Alicia’s words were cut off by a howl of pain.
Reacting on pure instinct and adrenaline, Wallace rushed headlong down the hallway and kicked open the bathroom door. The shotgun was pressed hard against his shoulder, his eyes locked in on his target, but the stranger sat inside the bathtub with the barrel of his weapon sunk into the soft underside of Alicia’s chin.
Alex sat on the other side of his mother. His face was sickly pale and tears ran freely down his cheeks.
“Let them go,” said Wallace. His voice broke. “You can have anything you want. Just please let them go.”
The stranger sucked in a deep breath and his chest gurgled. The act of breathing caused him noticeable pain.
“You’re not supposed to be here.” The stranger laughed ruefully. “I had everything planned. It was perfect.” He paused and his tone lost any trace of humor. “But then you have a knack for ruining perfect, don’t you?”
Wallace blinked away a sudden arrival of tears at the sight of his wife and oldest child. So close and yet . . . The shotgun grew heavy in his hands until all he had left were words.
“You’re Gallagher, right?”
The man nodded and a defiant brightness returned to his eyes.
“I talked to your wife in the ambulance before we were taken to hospital,” Wallace continued. “She told me she had been running away. She was scared. So scared she thought she could outrun a bridge full of oncoming cars.” Wallace locked eyes with the man as though attempting to burn his way inside his brain. “If you loved her so much, why was she so scared?”
Gallagher swallowed and sneered. “I’m a bad man, I guess.” Sarcasm dripped like venom.
“You chased her,” continued Wallace. “Sent her driving in front of a bus and off a bridge. Your child was in the back seat.”
Gallagher flinched. “I didn’t chase her. I was looking for her, I wanted to talk, to fix things. I didn’t know she was in Canada until
—” He hesitated.
“
Someone
was chasing her,” said Wallace. “She was terrified and driving like a madwoman to escape him. She told me.”
Gallagher’s face fell. “Bone,” he said. “Always too eager. He was the one who located her. He told me where she was, but by the time I got to the hospital, she was gone again.” His eyes went cold. “You were in the same hospital. You helped her disappear.”
Wallace swallowed. “What do I know about running away?”
“Yeah,” Gallagher said wearily. “A real fucking hero, huh?”
Wallace shook his head. “No. Just a man.”
Gallagher shook his head. “I could have made it right. If you hadn’t interfered. Hadn’t helped her vanish, I could have convinced her to come back. You ruined that.”
“Wallace didn’t even know,” said Alicia. Her wounded voice cut through the tension like a razor across skin. “He underwent four surgeries on his leg. They kept him doped up or asleep for the better part of a week.”
Both men turned to her.
“I helped Carly and Katie,” she said. “I saw them at the hospital when I was visiting Wallace. I wanted to meet the women who were so important that my husband foolishly risked his own life. They were both so frightened that it broke my heart. I pried. I listened. And then I finished the job that my husband started when he pulled them off that bridge. I helped them begin a new life.”
Gallagher snarled and pressed the gun barrel deeper into Alicia’s chin. Her neck stretched to an extreme angle until her head seemed on the edge of ripping free. She groaned but remained defiant.
“You can’t keep someone by force,” she cried. “That’s not love. Carly and Katie were on that bridge because of you. Not us. It’s time to let them go.”
Gallagher recoiled as though slapped and seemed to deflate before Wallace’s eyes. His grip eased and his eyelids lowered to half mast. His tongue darted out from his mouth and ran circles around dry lips. It was obvious that he had lost a lot of blood.
Nervously, Wallace took a chance. He moved his gaze to his oldest son.
“Come here, Alex. Quickly.”
Gallagher flinched again, but he didn’t resist as Alex scrambled out of the tub and rushed to his father’s side. Wallace hugged him tight, but kept his eyes on Gallagher.
“Go to Uncle Crow,” Wallace said.
Alex resisted, but suddenly a pair of strong hands swooped in to pull him out of the doorway and into a massive, bone-crushing hug.
“That’s all you’re getting,” said Gallagher. His momentary daze had faded and his voice was filled with renewed strength. “Until I’m clear of here.”
Wallace lowered his shotgun and laced his own words with venom. “Need a hand?”
Gallagher grinned, showing bloody teeth. He spat on the floor. Thick and arterial red; signs of a critical wound.
“Just keep your distance,” he said. “Your wife and I can manage.”
WALLACE WATCHED
Gallagher struggle to his feet, the barrel of his gun never slipping from beneath Alicia’s chin. His wife’s stare was cold, calculating and so far away from the eyes that Wallace knew that he almost felt afraid.
When Gallagher was standing, he signaled for Wallace to move out of the way. Wallace stepped back, moving slowly down the hallway and into the living room. He raised his arms and rested his shotgun on his shoulder. Crow had moved off to the side, keeping Alex safely behind him.
Gallagher stepped into the hallway and stared at Crow.
“Loyal friends you have,” he said to Wallace. “I used to know some, too.”
Keeping his gun pressed against Alicia’s flesh, Gallagher turned and walked backwards through the doorway to the kitchen. Wallace followed, his hands still raised.
“Where’s my other son?” Wallace asked.
“Where’s my wife?” asked Gallagher. He moved around the table and edged toward the back door.
Wallace swallowed again. “Alicia told you, I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you. Either of you.”
“Don’t you think I’d tell you if I did? I’m not that good a liar.”
“I think you are,” said Gallagher. “Your wife didn’t tell me about her involvement. And I asked her quite vigorously. You’re both fucking liars.”
Wallace looked into his wife’s eyes. There was no hate or mistrust, only love. He sighed in resignation. “Tell me where my son is and I’ll tell you where your wife and daughter went.”
Gallagher smiled thinly. “I fucking knew it. You sure you’re just a bus driver?”
“No.” Wallace’s voice was scratched and raw. “That’s just a job. I’m a father and a husband who loves his family. Now where’s my son?”
Gallagher shrugged as if deciding it no longer mattered. “Bone scurried upstairs with him.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “You’ve cornered a fucking monster there. If you think I’m bad, you haven’t seen a goddamn thing.”
Wallace blinked and released a long, slow breath. They were in the middle of the kitchen. The night was dark and still. Behind Gallagher, Crow had moved silently through the dining room and now stood in the other doorway. He raised his handgun in both hands and aimed it at the back of the man’s head.
“You can let Alicia go now,” said Wallace. “Last chance.”
Gallagher’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“I think you’re forgetting—”
“Mom!”
Alex rushed past Crow and sprinted into the kitchen, obviously misreading Crow’s intent.
Gallagher released Alicia and spun around. As he pivoted, he aimed his M4 toward Crow.
“Get down!” Wallace screamed.
Alicia and Alex crumpled to the floor as Wallace’s shotgun boomed.
The gun dealer had been right about what happened when your aim was high.
Scrambling off the floor, Alicia took one glance at Gallagher’s headless corpse before running into her husband’s arms. Wallace squeezed her, but no matter how hard he tried, it just didn’t seem to be enough.
When Alicia finally released him, her eyes were dry and her voice unwavering.
“We need to get Fred,” she said.
Wallace glanced behind him at the unfinished staircase and nodded.
It wasn’t over yet.