She Is Risen (She Is Risen: The Gun Control Case Studies) (23 page)

            “Oh my God, I can’t see.  It hurts!  IT BURNS!”
Couture shouts into his headset.  “I have glass in my eyes.  I can’t see shit!”

            In disbelief he grabs at his eyes with his free
hand, feeling the fine shards glass scrape and cut the entire surface of his
pupils.  His breathing elevates as panic sets in, and he shakes his head from
side-to-side like a wild animal.  Couture hears movement to his left, turning
suddenly with his pistol.

            “Who the hell is that?” He asks in desperation.

            He listens carefully, trying to ignore his pain
as the sound of someone sprinting behind him registers.  Couture opens fire in
a vigorous melee, training his weapon aimlessly on the sound.  After firing
three shots, he hears two shots in response; one that misses and a second that
tears through his left thigh muscle.

            “Mason, I just shot Couture, he was firing
blindly into the mall and almost hit us.” Agent Sampson relays into the headset
as he approaches the blinded CIA agent.  “It looks like a flesh wound, but
he’ll live.”

            “Any sign of Devlin?”  General Mason asks.  “We
know he was in the sporting goods store a few seconds ago.    

            Two short bursts of gunfire explode
systematically from underneath the racks of clothing.  Agent Sampson and his
partner drop to the ground with wounds to the neck, head, and arms.  A single
shot pierces the air in the opposite direction, and Sergeant Couture falls
lifeless to the carpet.  Devlin moves quickly to inspect Sampson’s body, removing
a few select items and some tactical gear before bailing out of the store.  He
looks around for Gloria, but soon realizes that she fled during the barrage of
the gunfire. 

            “Agent, Sampson, is there any sign of Devlin? 
Did you see a body?” Henri inquires eagerly through the headset from the safety
of the OBDAT platform.

            “I’m here, Henri,” Devlin replies coolly,
speaking with labored breath as he moves through the mall, “mind and body still
intact.”

            “You know that you’re gonna’ die for what you
did to us the other day?” Henri evokes with rhetorical pride.

            “I know there’s a good chance that I’ll die
today…” Devlin admits. “But you’ll be exposed one way or another.  Every member
of this task force should know that you like to take the virginity of young
blind women.”

            “Disregard all comments made by the target,”
Mason chimes in quickly, “he is desperate to throw us off our mission.  Keep
searching the south corridor until you have him cornered.  Maxwell, do you have
eyes on him yet?”

            Maxwell looks at the LCD screens from his
position at the control panel of the OBDAT.  He rubs the fresh dent in his
head, running his fingers slowly over the damage in obscure, counterclockwise
circles.  His chest bears a flood of deep emotion; mostly the fresh wound after
Henri bashed him in the head for making a mistake.  He looks up at the screen,
watching Devlin in the department store with unmistakable clarity.  His eyes
dart to the left watching a team of CIA agents closing in on the space. 
Maxwell places his fingertips together and closes his eyes, knowing that he has
the power to trap Devlin and possibly end him right now.

            “Yeah, I see him,” Maxwell responds slowly as he
opens his eyes, “he’s moving between the cell phone store and the bathrooms.”

            On the LCD display, Maxwell sees a smile form on
Devlin’s face as he looks up at the camera with gratitude. 

            “That’s a choke point,” Henri says after a few
seconds of examining the schematics of the mall, “don’t send your men in there,
Mason.”

            “We have him outnumbered seven to one, bearing
down with superior firepower.  Explain to me why we should stave off our
attack?”  General Mason asks with a genuine concern for the safety of his men.

            “Mason, that’s a perfect operational choke point. 
The sonofabitch has made his career leveraging this type of scenario.”  Henri
replies with alarmed suspicion.

            “All team members move in,” Mason orders,
ignoring Henri’s theory, “seal him in, and take him down.” 

            “This is Sergeant Burke; I have eyes on the
dog.  She’s standing here alone.” The young Sergeant moves in close to the
golden Labrador, visibly terrified and sweating from the anticipation of a
gunfight with Devlin.

            “That’s an ambush. Don’t go near the dog!” Henri
warns in a motherly tone.

            Sergeant Burke feels a sudden flash of panic and
squeezes the trigger of his pistol, hitting the Labrador just below her left
ear.  The dog bolts upright at the dreaded stinging pain, yelping and trying to
escape on the slick laminated flooring.  Her body convulses twice before she
drops lifeless in front of a large display window.

            “The dog is down…” Sergeant Burke reports in a
relieved fashion, hoping to draw Devlin out with this sacrifice.

            “What the fuck are you doing!?” Henri scorns
through his microphone.  “That dog is a CIA asset; she was never a target!”

            “Congressman Edwards, please remain silent on
this channel until the operation is complete.” Mason orders with more than a
hint of frustration.  “All units move in on the hallway with teargas and flashbangs…
smoke him out.”

            A team of seven men converges on the hallway in
advance of the restrooms, each of them wearing clear, plastic gas masks.  They
file in slowly, four men on the left and three on the right.  As they open the
double doors, the large white hallway is exposed, about eight feet wide with
plain white walls and cheap eggshell tiles.  They maintain their formation,
stepping into the entrance of the hallway with the faces of proud hunters.  The
men in front kneel down to toss flashbangs and teargas canisters towards the
far end of the structure.  Meanwhile their colleagues cover them from behind with
submachine guns in a standing position.

            Amidst the array of flashbangs and billowing smoke
at the far end of the hall, a more faint sound emerges from behind the
counterinsurgency unit.  Within seconds, a small, black metal box slides across
the floor between the two teams of men, appearing deadly with red and blue wires
protruding from the ends. 

            “We have a device! Get cover!” One of the men
shouts from his standing position.

            Both teams begin to scurry forward in the
hallway to escape the blast radius of the device, moving almost over the top of
one another as they go.  From the entrance of the hallway, behind the seven
men, Devlin appears holding a pump-action shotgun.  He fires in quick
succession, taking down one team member after another as they stumble toward
the smoke with their backs to him.  The men scream in terror as they find
themselves caught between their own diversion and a volley of shotgun fire. 

            Devlin drops the shotgun after all of the rounds
are spent and maneuvers quietly to where the panicked crowd has gathered
outside the mall.  He makes an effort to conceal his perspiration and rage,
trying to blend in with the people and fade back into anonymity. 

            “This is Razor,” a young Chinese agent says to
Maxwell through a private intercom connected to the OBDAT, “I’m following
Devlin away from the building.”

            “Stay on him, Razor,” Maxwell instructs, “and
keep your distance.  Don’t communicate on the main channel, he is listening,
and so is Mason.  We’ll give you further instructions soon.”

            “Good work, Maxwell! I don’t want Mason
capturing our guy; we’ll deal with him our way.” Henri says with a serious
expression, watching Maxwell closely from his seat at the center of the OBDAT. 
“You confirmed that the dog is dead and Mason won’t be able to track her
anymore?”

            “Yes, the dog is dead; I talked to Burke before
they went out.” Maxwell replies, looking down at the servers below the OBDAT
platform.  “What if Mason figures out that we screwed his op?” He asks with a
concerned stare, rubbing his bald head nervously near the fresh wound.

            “We warned him about the choke point, didn’t
we?  …Now Devlin thinks you’re a friend, which makes him vulnerable.” Henri
says with satisfaction.  “Get Lorabell on the phone, I’d like to see her in the
OBDAT as soon as possible.”

Devlin’s Neighborhood - Chicago

            ‘The dog is down.’ This statement echoes in
Devlin’s mind, haunting him as he makes his way back to the duplex he rented a
few days ago.  No more credit cards or snooping hotel managers, just one rental
payment a month to run this vengeful operation as he pleases. 

His heart is heavy as he travels
the public transportation route, staying away from stolen vehicles, and keeping
clear of the grid.  Through his long journey on elevated trains and buses, he
has had time to think about his lovely wife Yulia.  He misses the softness of
her skin and the welcome embrace of someone who wants to be with him.  It has
been only a few days since they talked last, but seems like years. 

            Devlin gets off the bus and makes his way up the
street, moving slowly, block by block on his way back to the duplex.  His ears
are still ringing from all of the flashbangs and gunfire.  He clenches his
hands into fists, releasing them slowly, and curling them again, trying to find
his humanity after taking so many lives in just three days.  Finally he lets
the tears come forth, beckoning from deep inside his soul.  ‘I killed a lot of
good men today,’ he thinks to himself, ‘men that would have stood by my side in
the heat of battle, and taken a bullet to save my life.’ 

            Devlin starts to jog, realizing he is close to
home, enjoying the release of sweat dripping from his brow and the cool air
cleaning his lungs.  This gives him time to consider whether he is doing the
right thing by interfering with the gun control case studies.  His mind is
filled with conflict, much more than back at the hotel a few days ago, when
Gloria was still alive and nobody had died.  Devlin realizes that he has to ask
himself the hard question now: ‘what does Henri Edwards deserve for his crimes?’ 
It would be easy to blame all of the death and pain from these past few days on
Henri, but his conscience is too bold to let him escape those deeds. 

            Devlin stops running now, standing in a small
parking lot at a corner near his new home.  He knows that movement means
safety, but realizing how fast this has escalated begins to weigh him down. 
His body and mind don’t want to move anymore.  There is no rewind button or
visit to the proverbial priest that can clear this up.  He puts his hand on his
forehead, thinking about where everything started to come apart.  When he tried
to carjack the short man, and drew the attention of police; that was when his
train went off the rails.  From that moment, it has been a trail of death and
deception: Ming, the CIA agents, and the counterinsurgency team. 

            He remembers the screams of the men just a few
hours ago, cornered into his trap like cattle, some of them not going home to
their families.  Devlin looks up at the deep crescent moon, feeling ashamed and
wanting to end this as soon as possible. 

‘There are only two courses for Henri Edwards now; death or
exposure.’  He thinks to himself.  ‘What does exposure mean to a United States
Congressman?  Would anyone believe him if he told the whole story?  How could
he ever get the chance?’  A half-smile forms on Devlin’s face for the first
time in several days.  He realizes that catching Henri in the act is the only
way to prove to the nation what he has known for several days; the man is
twisted and dangerous.

            “Shut up, you little shit!” A man cries out from
a car just off to Devlin’s left.

            Devlin turns his head to see a late-model, brown
Cadillac pulled over to the side of the road.  Inside, an older black man is
yelling from the driver seat at what appears to be a young boy on the passenger
side. 

            “Where’s Mom? I want to go home. I’m hungry.”
The young boy complains to the driver, looking at him with tears in his eyes.

            “Quiet! Quiet! Quiet!” The man shouts at the
boy, raising his hand and smacking him each time he utters the word, knocking
the young man’s head back against the door with the third strike.

            “Stop hitting that boy!” Devlin orders before he
realizes that the words have left his mouth.

            “What the fuck did you say to me, white boy!?”
The older black man asks with clear disdain.  “I am his uncle, and when I tell
him to shut the fuck up… He gonna’ shut the fuck up!”

            Devlin steps over to the car, clearly not
intimidated by the man’s posturing.  He kneels down on the passenger side next
to the boy, leaning in to take a closer look at the situation.  His eyes move
to an open bottle of alcohol between the man and the young boy.  The driver is
wearing a white tank top and shorts with flip flops, indicating he probably
left the house in a hurry.  He is a balding man in his early fifties, looking
unbalanced and somewhat afraid in his cheap car.