Gunshots,
she thought,
as she came to a stop somewhere halfway back to Walter’s house. Apollo did the same thing next to her, his floppy ears standing at attention.
The
pop-pop-pop
of a fully automatic rifle shattered the quiet. There was more than one, but the shots were overlapping and she couldn’t pick out the exact number. She only knew one thing for certain: there was a full-blown gun battle going on at the house this very moment, and Walter was in there, somewhere.
Way to pick your country getaway, Walter,
she thought with a wry smile.
Couldn’t you have at least found one with a neighbor within earshot of a gun battle?
“Come on, boy,” she said, and started forward again.
Apollo followed without hesitation.
This is so stupid. You know that, right?
There was no reason for her to keep moving toward the house. Well, that wasn’t entirely true—there was one reason: Walter. She was voluntarily walking into a gun battle because a man she had been dating for five months was being held hostage back there.
Jesus, did she like Walter that much?
The answer was no. But she liked him
enough.
Probably.
She stopped again, and let out a heavy, frustrated sigh. Apollo, who had kept walking for a few steps, finally noticed she wasn’t next to him anymore and stopped, then looked back at her before cocking his head to one side, as if to ask,
Now what?
She crouched and he walked back, immediately presenting his head. She scratched him on the scalp and under his chin.
“What am I doing? That’s automatic gunfire, Apollo. I must be crazy.”
Apollo’s answer was to lean in for more scratching.
“You’re no help at all.”
Then, almost as suddenly as they had broken out, the shooting just…stopped.
Apollo turned his head in the direction of Walter’s house.
“You’re getting a bad feeling about this too, huh?” she said, standing back up. “Yeah, we’ve definitely done smarter things in our lives, that’s for sure.”
She started walking again, with Apollo keeping pace next to her.
“I should have stayed out of the woods, Apollo. Nothing good ever comes from going into the woods.”
Apollo let out something that sounded almost like a regretful groan.
“I knew you’d understand.”
She picked up her pace, clutching and unclutching the gun in her hand.
He’d done most
of the shooting, but Monroe’s people had returned fire three times, and only when they could see him. If nothing else, they were at least disciplined enough to follow that one order Monroe had given them, even if it meant running around while he tried to pick them off from the back of the hallway.
As he settled against the wall next to the closed bedroom door, Jack took stock of his situation.
It was, in a word, shit.
He was trapped inside a house with at least four guns, all of whom wanted what
(who)
was in the room with him, but couldn’t give less than two cents about his hide. He wasn’t completely up a creek, though. He still had an ace in the hole: Walter, currently cowering behind the computer desk, staring at him. Once the shooting began, Walter had smartly taken cover. He’d also known better than to run out the open door and into the gunfire. Maybe the guy had some survival instincts about him after all.
The window behind Walter was still intact, the curtains pulled in to keep anyone out there from spying in. Bullets had no issue piercing glass, but it was hard to shoot if you couldn’t see your target. Not that he thought Monroe’s people would start pumping lead into the room anyway, at least not with Walter somewhere inside with him.
Jack turned his attention back to the door. He had reloaded the Sig556 with a fresh magazine, which left him with one extra. Fortunately, he still had two spares for the Sig Sauer P250. And then there was the Ka-Bar. You never knew when a little close-quarters action was necessary.
He stood very still and listened, trying to pick up sounds coming from outside. If Monroe’s people were coming, they were taking their time.
“You finished?” Jack asked without turning around.
“What?” Walter said.
Jack nodded at the laptop on the desk in front of Walter. “You finished?”
Walter shook his head.
“How much longer?” Jack asked.
“I was only halfway…”
“How much
longer?
”
Walter thought about it before shaking his head again. “Maybe another thirty minutes?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“It’s complicated—”
“Whatever,” Jack said. “Get back to work.”
“What?”
“Get the fuck
back to work.
”
Walter peeked around the desk and at the laptop, then at Jack, but he remained on the floor.
“I mean it,” Jack said. “Get back to work.”
“What if they start shooting again?”
“Pick up the laptop and move it behind the desk with you.”
“Oh,” Walter said.
Jack smiled to himself. For a guy charged with moving millions around on a daily basis, ol’ Walter could be a little dense.
He watched the man lean out from behind the desk, then quickly scoot forward on all fours, stretching his long body around the metal furniture as if he were some kind of caterpillar. Walter snatched the laptop by one end and pulled it around the desk until it, along with the rest of him, was safe behind cover again.
“Well?” Jack said.
Walter didn’t answer. Instead, the familiar
tap-tap-tap
filled the room, along with a strange vibration…coming from one of his pants pockets.
He thought it was the burner phone he was using to contact the client, until he realized the vibration, followed by the generic ringtone, was coming from the wrong pocket.
Monroe’s.
He didn’t even remember stowing the phone during the gunfight. Jack fished it out now and looked down at the unknown caller ID on the cracked screen. When he didn’t answer it, the phone stopped vibrating…for five seconds; then it started up again.
Jack pressed the screen to answer it. “Front desk.”
“Funny,” Monroe said. “Found the stiff in the room next door, by the way.”
“Of course you did.”
“Looks like he’s been dead for a while. I get the feeling you’ve been lying to me about having friends, Jack.”
“One good turn deserves another, I always say.”
“Fair enough.”
“What do you want?”
“Smart, going into the same room with Walter. I guess that’s so we won’t try to bum-rush you again?”
“You’ve already proven you have plenty of bums to go around. Thought I’d play it safe this time.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think that was going to work, but I had to give it a shot.”
“Seems to me you didn’t come very prepared. Gotta say, Monroe, I’m not overly impressed here.”
“You’re right,” Monroe said. “We didn’t get much of a lead time. Had to come with what we had on hand.”
He’s confirming my suspicions. Why?
“Which is why I need to end this quickly,” Monroe said. “Time is not on my side. Or yours, but I’m sure you already know that. One way or another, this thing ends by morning. With that said, how do you feel about a partnership?”
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…”
“Understandable. But you have to know you don’t have a lot of choices at the moment.”
“Don’t I?”
“No. You don’t.”
Jack didn’t answer, because Monroe was right. The only possibility was to use Walter as a shield, but all it would take was one decent sniper waiting for him outside, and it was game over. That was assuming he even made it out of the house in the first place with Monroe’s people still inside the building with him.
Shit. The fucker’s right.
“Jack, you still there?” Monroe said through the phone.
He ignored the voice, even cupped the receiver so he could listen to the hallway on the other side of the wall. Monroe had tried this tack once already—and it’d almost worked—and there was no reason he wouldn’t do it again.
His palm vibrated slightly against Monroe’s voice, until he finally brought the phone back up to his ear. “Let’s say I believe you this time. What guarantees can you give me?”
“You tell me.”
“Tell me who sent you.”
“I can’t do that. You know that, Jack. Unwritten code, and all that bullshit. Besides, does it really matter?”
Jack thought about it. “I guess not.”
“What else?” Monroe asked.
“What’s the mission?”
“You know what the mission is.”
“Walter.”
“Correct. Walter.” A beat. Then, “What say you, Jack? You ready to put all this behind you? Live to fight another day?”
“I hate going home empty-handed.”
“But you’ll be going home.”
Monroe was right. Fuck him in the eyes, Monroe was right. Jack wanted to live. Jesus Christ, he wanted to live.
He looked over at Walter. If the man had been eavesdropping on the phone conversation and was even remotely flustered by it, it hadn’t interrupted the rhythmic
tap-tap-tap
coming from behind the desk.
Jack turned back to the phone. “So how do I walk out of here?”
“Simple,” Monroe said through the phone. “You just walk out of here.”
“Just like that?”
“I don’t give two shits about you, Jack. I want Walter. He’s my meal ticket. You? You’re just another guy with a gun. I don’t have any plans for you, except maybe to put your name in my Rolodex so I can offer you a job in the future.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Good men are hard to find. I don’t know what happened to the one in the other room, but you’re obviously the last man standing. That counts for something in my book.” Another dramatic pause, then, “So are we doing this, Jack? We simpatico?”
“I got a problem.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“My momma used to tell me, when something’s too good to be true, it usually means they have a red-hot poker ready to shove up your ass when you turn around.”
Monroe chuckled. “She sounds like a hell of a woman.”
“She had her moments.”
“Why don’t you take a minute to think about my offer? Just don’t take too long. I need an answer before midnight.”
Jack glanced down at his watch. 10:14
P.M.
“Until then,” Monroe continued, “I’ll hold the boys back and give you space.”
“Awfully courteous of you.”
“Hey, we’re both professionals, right? I took my best shot and you survived. Now I just want to end this.”
“Midnight,” Jack said.
“Sure, midnight, but feel free to give me a ring if you make up your mind before then,” Monroe said, just before he terminated their connection.
Jack stared at the phone for a moment. Could he actually trust Monroe? Could he afford
not
to? He wasn’t getting out of this alive any other way that he could see. The only possible escape scenario was out the window behind Walter, and Jack didn’t for one second think Monroe didn’t already have someone watching it on the other side.
He tucked the phone into his pocket, slid down to the floor, and sat with his back against the wall, the assault rifle leaning over his bent knees.
Almost home. He was almost home. When he’d first gotten the job, he didn’t think five days was enough to plan the ambush, and that doubt had only grown in the days leading up to tonight. Then they showed up, and he got Walter working on the laptop.
So what happened?
The dog happened.
How the hell did that fucking thing get inside the house, anyway?
The question still nagged at him, even now that he couldn’t do anything about it. It was probably Jones’s fault. Or Jerry’s. They probably missed a door or lock somewhere. Again, the lack of prep time…
It was too bad Jones was dead, though. And Jerry, too, probably. Jones KIA was easier to accept because Jack knew what had happened to him. But Jerry just going dark…that was troublesome. How did the woman, the girl, and the dog get the best of him? Jerry was a professional. They all were.
And yet, and yet…
The girlfriend and her dog. It all came down to the girlfriend and her mutt. Goddammit. He should have shot them both when he had the—
Bang!
A gunshot. It was very close to him, but
not
outside the hallway.
It was followed by another one, then almost a full second later, a third shot.
Jack clutched the rifle and slid back up the length of the wall as follow-up gunfire began exploding throughout the house, and he heard the very clear distinct sound of a dog barking.
Speak of the devil…
It’s quiet.
Too
quiet.
She smiled to herself. That was something people usually say in the movies, just before something bad—and really loud—happened. Like a guy in a mask, holding a knife, jumping out from behind a tree. There were plenty of trees and a whole lot of shadows for something dramatic like that.
Except nothing happened as she peered out at the front yard of Walter’s house.
It looked the same as when she had last seen it—but now instead of just Walter’s car, there were two SUVs sitting under the bright lights. Whoever had arrived in the new vehicles was either already inside the house or they were doing a very good job of hiding among the dark woods. She had been very careful on approach, using Apollo’s keen senses as a guide, and was fully prepared to retreat back to Lucy at the first sign of trouble. Fortunately
(unfortunately?)
there was no one between the two-story house and Walter’s.
This is such a bad, bad idea.
Good idea or not, she couldn’t just abandon Walter. Five months of dating might not have caused her to fall madly in love with the man, but she couldn’t deny that she liked him, enough that she couldn’t just turn and walk away when she knew he was in trouble.
You better be worth all this, Walter.
The shooting had stopped a while ago, and now there was just her own breathing and the sound of animals around her. Apollo’s eyes darted left and right whenever a squirrel (or something equally furry) came too close to them, but the dog seemed to understand that stealth was important and never made more than a curious noise when something caught his attention.