Chapter 25

They waited a good thirty seconds, but no one came. Then Connor heard a staccato volley of gunfire coming from the Joey Barber’s pocket, sounding almost like the finale from Scarface. He fished out the dead man’s phone and answered the call, cutting off the ringtone.

“Yo,” he said.

“What the hell was that, Scissors?”

Confirmation of what he already knew. “Misfire,” he answered, holding his hand over the pinhole microphone to muffle his voice. “Dropped my damned gun.”

“Jesus fuck,” was the response. “You okay?”

“Just pissed that I wasted a round.”

“Yeah, well, be careful. You checking on Earl?”

“Heading in now.” Trying to keep his words short and sweet. The fewer he uttered, the better.

“Okay. Just watch the trigger.”

“You got it,” Connor said, ending the call.

“What now?” Morgan/Buckner wanted to know. Still shivering as if in a deep freeze. “Maybe we can call nine-one-one?”

Not a bad thought, and he tapped in the digits before the screen went dark. Waited a couple seconds, then heard a three-toned signal, followed by a computer that said, “Your call cannot be completed as dialed.”

“Shit,” he said, trying it again. Same response.

“What?”

“Damned call won’t go through.”

Morgan/Buckner said nothing, just stole a quick glance at Joey Barber. Blood was pooling under his head, which caused her to quickly turn away.

The rising temperature inside the metal box indicated it was early afternoon. Sooner or later there the day’s losers would be returning to the brig, and Connor wanted to be miles away before that happened.

“All right,” he finally said. “Time to make our move.”

“What’s our plan?”

“How do you feel about running?”

“Better than dying.”

Connor hadn’t thought to take the camo jeans and T-shirt off Earl down below, only his gun and phone. But Scissors, who was lying just inside the closed door, was a different story. Even though half of Barber’s face was gone, he quickly stripped him of his 2AM clothing and insisted the ATF agent change into it.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.

“I’ll turn my back until you’re done,” he assured her.

“But—”

“Trust me,” he assured her.

Morgan/Buckner realized any objection would be fruitless, so she worked quickly, then stuffed her hair up under the baseball cap that was gooey from all that blood. She shuddered as she tugged it on, but didn’t say a word. Too much was at stake to complain.

“You’re sure you can do this?” Connor asked her as he pulled the bill a little further over her eyes, in case someone might have a rifle scope trained on the front door as they exited.

“Not if we keep talking about it,” she said. “Let’s go.”

They went.

He opened the door and they both slipped out into the steaming Carolina sun. The ATF agent had been cooped up underground for so long she was momentarily blinded and disoriented by the glare. She had no sense of where she’d been held, or what the terrain outside looked like. Connor had briefed her about the large clearing with the earthen mounds, the razor wire, and the approximate location of the gate, but she needed time to adjust herself to her surroundings.

“This way,” he urged her, nodding in the direction where he hoped the narrow road led from the clearing through the woods toward the gate. “Fast, but not too fast.”

She did a good job pretending to lead him away from the compound and across the field, as a guard might do. They managed about thirty yards before a voice on a bullhorn called out, “Barber? That you?”

Morgan raised her hand in recognition as they continued their steady march toward the tree line, which was about fifty yards ahead.

“Stop right there,” the voice called out.

“Get ready to move,” Connor whispered to her.

“Just say the word,” she said.

It wasn’t a word that it did; it was the crack of a gun that kicked them into gear. They both lurched forward, then to the left, then right, just as they’d planned before leaving the underground container. Harder to track them and target center mass if they were moving in a zig-zag pattern. Another shot rang out, and Connor spotted a sentry about a hundred yards to their left sighting down a rifle barrel at them. They kept charging through the tall grass, Brenda staggering more than running as they neared the woods. Thirty yards, twenty-five, twenty.

They had the weapons Connor had lifted off Earl and Barber, but there was no point in wasting ammo. Their assailants were well out of range of a handgun, and it was best to save their fire for when it was most needed. Which turned out to be a lot sooner than Connor had figured on.

When they got within fifteen yards of the woods a man stepped out from behind a large oak and shouted, “Hands up. Now.”

They both froze as if they’d entered a mine field. Morgan had been leaning against Connor for support, and he felt her body tense from fear. She’d already confided that she could not go back down in that hole again, not under any circumstances. Now they were facing that very real prospect, which meant the next few seconds were critical.

“I said, hands in the air.”

Not happening.

“Down,” Connor whispered as he yanked her arm and tugged her to the ground.

She made an oomph sound as she dropped alongside him. An instant later there was another shot, this one coming from the man dead ahead of them.

“Don’t move,” he yelled.

“Stay down,” Connor said as he sighted down the barrel of Earl’s Ruger. The guard was too far away for him to aim with any accuracy, but he pulled the trigger anyway.

Twice.

The guard wasn’t expecting return fire, and the blast forced him back into the trees. At the same time, another rifle crack came from behind them, and a puff of dirt kicked up through the grass a few feet away.

Rapid-fire gunfire after that, shots coming from the front, the rear, and both flanks. Connor felt something whiz over his head, hoped it was only a bumblebee or a dragonfly. Because they were lying prone in the grass, they were difficult marks to hit, but the bastards kept trying. And kept closing.

“Give it up,” came the same voice over the bullhorn, which Connor sensed was coming closer across the field. “Hands in the air.”

Neither of them was about to do that, but they’d run out of options. Connor wasn’t sure if his life was starting to flash before his eyes, but his brain turned to Danielle, how he’d royally fucked things up by getting into situations just like this one. Death was coming at him from all sides, and all the mindless bravado and courage that had brought him to this point was nothing but horseshit. All that mattered now was a chance to say goodbye to the people he’d loved, but he’d gambled away every chip he’d ever had.

To prove what?

His thoughts went full circle back to Danielle again, and then another round of gunfire opened up. More bullets flew over their heads, keeping them pinned down. They couldn’t move, dared not speak. Barely breathed.

“You have ten seconds to give yourselves up,” came the bullhorn again, and the shooting ceased. Temporarily.

Bonnie and Clyde joined Butch and Sundance in Connor’s mind.

Then another voice boomed across the field, this one through a much more powerful bullhorn. “Weapons down. Everyone on the ground. Now!”

Authority and power, no bullshit. No fucking around.

No one moved or spoke for a good ten seconds. Then a barrage of gunshots erupted from all directions, rapid bursts coming from the clearing on either side, some from the compound behind them, even more from the woods in front of them.

“Federal agents,” boomed the amplifier. “Put your weapons down and place your hands on your heads. Immediately.”

Federal agents? What the fuck?

A few more scattered shots were fired, followed by a period of confusion. Neither Connor nor Morgan could see what was happening, but a wild card had just been tossed on the table.

“Do. It. Now.”

But the 2AM dumb-fucks didn’t do it, instead deciding to engage in a full-on attack. Automatic rifles fired, magazines emptied, and a couple grenades were lobbed at nothing in particular.

Connor was convinced they were going to die. Liz/Brenda murmured words that sounded Biblical, something about the valley of the shadow of death. Then he realized the shooting from their left flank had stopped, and a few seconds later the right side fell eerily silent. The entire field did, except for the megaphone that said, “If you’re anywhere out there, Jack Connor, get up on your Goddamned feet up and reach for the sky.”

Nelson Burdette was beyond furious. Beyond apoplectic. Connor had crawled around behind his back, stepped all over his murder case. He’d caused the SLED investigator to put himself in harm’s away, along with an untold number of federal law enforcement agents who could have lost their lives.

He demonstrated just how damned pissed he was by slapping cuffs on Connor’s wrists and locking them as tight as he could. Then he sat him down hard in the field and began reading from a card, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—”

Meanwhile a team of EMTs scrambled out of the woods and tended to Morgan/Buckner, who appeared to have passed out. They loaded her onto a stretcher and rushed her to an ambulance that had pulled in through the gate, waiting behind a line of black SUVs.

“You are in so much fucking trouble, Connor,” Burdette snarled when he’d finished reading the Miranda card. “I’m going to throw so many books at you, it’s going to feel like the entire Library of Congress fell on you.”

“I guess saying I’m sorry won’t cut it,” Connor replied.

“It’s your Goddamned guessing that almost got you killed. And a lot of good men.”

“I know. The stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Stupid doesn’t even come close. You’re a goddamned moron.”

“At least Liz Morgan is alive,” he pointed out.

And there it was. Burdette couldn’t deny that Connor had probably saved her life, even while he’d endangered many others. In fact, the ATF team probably had given her up for dead.

“Don’t count on it being your ‘get out of jail free’ card.”

“I’m not counting on anything,” Connor said. “How’d you know where I was, anyway?”

“Because I knew you wouldn’t stay out of this.”

“What does that mean?”

Burdette glanced around, as if trying to make sure no one was within earshot. Then he leaned in close and said, “It means I put a GPS tracker on your vehicle.”

“When?”

“After you went back to the motel. And it was legal. I just knew that sooner or later you’d do something totally dumbass, and I wanted to know where you were when you were doing it.”

Connor had nothing of substance to say. He’d violated Burdette’s trust, probably obstructed justice, and lied to him outright. Like a teenager caught in a grand deception, he deserved no leniency. No mercy. But he was curious about something, so he said, “Took you long enough to find us.”

“You’re damned lucky we’re here at all,” Burdette bristled. “Someone else got to your car first.”

“Meaning?”

“Your friends here torched it.”

Shit. Connor thought he’d been clever, backing it far off the highway so no one would find it. But that was last night—this morning—in the depths of darkness, in the middle of the woods. At that point he hadn’t intended to be here in the heat of day. Hadn’t planned anything.

“How bad?” he wanted to know.

“Do the words ‘totally incinerated’ mean anything?”

The car ultimately belonged to Jordan James, but Connor would have to pay the deductible, as well as anything his own insurance wouldn’t cover.

“I need to tell you something else,” he said. “It’s important.”

“Save it.”

“I’m serious,” Connor insisted. “There’s a bus. A big one, the kind that drives tourists up and down the coast. I saw them load a bunch of barrels into it.”

“So the fuck what?”

“I think it was ammonium nitrate.”

“How would you know?”

“Big blue containers, maybe a hundred pounds each.”

“Shit,” Burdette said, glancing up at a turkey vulture circling high overhead. “When the hell was this?”

“What day is it?”

“Wednesday.”

Good; Connor had only been unconscious for a few hours. “Just before dawn. I know I fucked up big time, but I think these shitheads are planning something epic.”

“Why should I believe anything you have to say?”

“You have good reason not to. But these 2AM assholes are experienced in explosives—”

“Wait. Two AM?”

“Second Amendment Militia,” Connor explained. “And if that bus is a rolling bomb… well, you’ve got to find it.”

Burdette stared at him for a good ten seconds, then retreated back across the field to consult with a couple of dark suits with the letters FBI on their vests. They spoke for maybe a minute, then Burdette marched back to where Connor was sitting in the grass.

“You and I are going for a ride,” he said. Matter of fact, no emotion or affect.

“Where to?”

“You’ll find out when we get there.”