CHAPTER 39

 

Vernon Slocum waited.

He wasn’t going to walk into the same ambush twice. Buddy was killed in action because he had made tactical errors. He didn’t reconnoiter, or pay attention to his flanks and rear. He failed to prepare. But that wouldn’t happen twice.

This time he was ready.

Vernon examined Cole’s house with the trained eye of an infantry scout. The house sat on a corner with a view overlooking an expanse of lawn called Shoreline Park. Beyond that was the San Francisco Bay. The house’s front door faced the street and had a nicely landscaped rear yard, complete with a redwood deck and barbecue pit. He saw no indication of security lighting or an alarm. There were no dogs in the backyard, or in the yards adjoining Cole’s house.

There was very little vehicle or pedestrian traffic in the area. There was also no sign of the men who hunted him, and who almost got him in Omaha. So far things looked good. This time, Vernon was careful. And patient.

He waited.

He’d arrived yesterday, and spent the better part of a day and a half driving past the house at irregular intervals, watching. This morning he saw Cole get into a Jeep with a little girl. She had long, auburn hair tied in a bow. Vernon wondered if Cole was a good father. A father like theirs was; one who knew how to discipline children.

Vernon acquired a red Camaro. It was a newer model, with a plush interior and fancy stereo cassette player. He found it near the bus terminal in Oakland, in a convenience store parking lot. He shattered the driver’s window with his elbow and was getting in when a thin African-American man ran from the convenience store, yelling at him. Vernon only smiled and pointed the sawed-off shotgun at him. The man backed away.

When Vernon went to punch the Camaro’s ignition, he found it punched. The red Camaro was already stolen.

He drove directly to another convenience store several blocks away and bought a map of the Oakland/Alameda area. The clerk at the convenience store frowned when he walked in but said nothing. Vernon knew his leg was rank, but ignored the odor and concentrated on walking. Even with the cane, walking was difficult, and the swelling was beginning to burst the seams of his trousers. Spots of clear, infected fluid soaked through the fabric.

The pain in his leg was fierce but under control. He used a line or two of methamphetamine every few hours. This made his head hurt, and he ground his teeth, but kept the throb in his leg to a distant roar. He knew the drug couldn’t sustain him indefinitely, but the mission was approaching a critical phase. He needed to be alert and ready to act.

Vernon scanned for the enemy. Thus far there was no sign of them. He watched when Cole left with the little girl in the morning, presumably to school. Now he watched from inside Cole’s house.

Vernon waited for an hour after Cole left before he entered. He’d legally parked the Camaro then hobbled with his cane to the front door. He rang the doorbell several times with his hand on the leather-wrapped hilt of his Ka-Bar knife.

No one answered the doorbell, and Vernon limped around to the rear of the house. He jimmied the patio door open with his knife. He went in with his .45 drawn and made a thorough interior search. He saw the large Christmas tree and a picture on the coffee table of Cole, a pretty woman, and the auburn-haired little girl he’d seen earlier. He found a note in a feminine script taped to the door of the refrigerator; instructions on preparing meals. The bottom of the note proclaimed love, and stated the author wouldn’t be home for two more days. The note was signed, “Marcia”.

Vernon smirked. When Marcia came home she would find things she hadn’t dreamed of in her worst nightmares.

He drew all the shades in the house and sat down on a thick couch. Though he’d contained the pain, the swelling in his leg was severe, and he could only stand for brief periods of time. He knew he had to conserve his strength. Soon Cole would return, and he needed to be ready to greet his brother.

He had his .45, and several loaded magazines for it. He had the sawed-off twelve gauge and more than ten shells. He had his Ka-Bar knife, sharpened as always to a razor’s edge. He lit a cigarette and tried to relax.

Vernon felt in control of his faculties, but the visions and dreams which began on the bus from Omaha hadn’t stopped. He knew he was in suburban California, yet he could see the dense jungle all around him. Night was falling. Soon the patrols would go out. With nightfall the enemy came. The weak and frightened would whimper; calling for their mothers, saying prayers, and babbling of home.

But not Vernon. He would make Daddy proud. He wasn’t afraid. He could take it. He was a Marine.

Daddy’s little soldier. Not like Cole, and Wade, who always cried in their sleep. It didn’t matter about Elizabeth, because she was a girl. Daddy said she was a bitch, and a whore like Mommy, and would never measure up. But Vernon would make Daddy proud. Vernon was a good little soldier.

He dozed, unsure how long he slept. He chain-smoked Pall Mall cigarettes, waking only when the glowing red tips burned down to his knuckles. He kept his weapons handy.

Before long a car’s headlights illuminated the driveway. Vernon ground out his cigarette and stood up to restore circulation to his damaged leg. He willed the pain to a recess of his mind and focused on his mission.

Keys turned in the lock of the front door. Just inside, Vernon Emil Slocum waited in the dark for his brother.