Fifteen hundred miles to the northwest, the large black Chevy Tahoe skidded to a stop in the driveway of Jason Rodger’s York County home. A mother pushing a three-wheeled stroller across the street stopped and looked on in wide-eyed amazement as a team of five agents all wearing blue windbreakers emblazoned with the large gold letters, FBI, on their backs rushed to the front door. One carried a large black ram.
In five seconds, the door crashed open and the men disappeared inside, fanning out through the residence, two upstairs, two downstairs, while the leader strode into the kitchen.
The first thing that caught his eye was the black smartphone, lying face down on the kitchen counter. A large white numeral one had been painted on its back. Under the phone, he spied a torn slip of paper with numbers scribbled on it.
The rock pierced the stiff ocean breeze, traversing the twenty feet toward the guard. Michael’s stomach flipped as he watched it tumble end over end in its trajectory.
Pierre’s eyes were still directed toward the ground and coming up when the projectile left Michael’s hand. It somersaulted and dropped. He watched the stone begin to tail off course.
It was going to sail by Pierre’s left ear. He was still focused on crushing out the cigar stub when the sound of Michael’s whooshing clothing alerted him. His eyes searched for the source of the sound. At the same time, Pierre removed his foot from the squashed cigar. In doing so, his weight shifted from one foot to the other, causing his head to move into the path of the hurtling rock.
It struck him above the right eye with a sharp crack. Pierre’s head snapped back and to the side. Small droplets of crimson became airborne around his head, arcing into the breeze.
Pierre staggered and reached for his face with both hands. His gun tumbled into the sand. Pierre twisted and fell face first to the ground.
Michael stood transfixed for several seconds, amazed and paralyzed while Pierre groaned and squirmed on the ground.
Move!
Hobbling over to the fallen weapon, he picked it up and shuffled toward the wounded man. Blood seeped through the fingers covering his face onto the grass and sand. His legs squirmed about as he writhed in pain.
His father and his uncle Peter had shown him how to handle a weapon. He found the safety and clicked it off. Staying out of reach of the fallen guard, he raised the handgun, holding the grip with both hands.
Fueled by adrenaline, his fear was gone, replaced by the frustration and helplessness of captivity. He leveled the gun at Pierre’s torso. He had been firing guns at his uncle’s gun shop with his father and uncle since he was nine years old. The targets were always paper. He had never fired in anger.
Manhood was upon him now. He closed one eye and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
There was no flash from the barrel. No recoil, forcing the gun back higher. The trigger clicked against the trigger guard. Michael pulled it again with the same result.
He pulled back the slide, exposing the empty chamber. He turned the gun upside down and looked at the bottom of the grip. It was hollow and dark. It held no magazine. Michael whispered expletives.
He eyed Pierre again. The Frenchman had stopped moving. His face rested in both blood-covered hands. One leg was bent out to the side. Michael studied his chest. It rose and fell. The man was alive but unconscious.
Another cry spilled forth from the wine cellar.
Michael felt time ticking away.
He skirted Pierre, staying out of reach, and shuffled toward the building. Kneeling by the small rectangular window, Michael peered in. In the dim light, what he saw horrified him.
Chrissie’s shirt and bra were off. Her jeans and panties hung from one leg. One eye was swollen and almost closed. Blood, dirt, and sweat smeared her face.
With her hands free from the wall, Chrissie planned on fighting Charlie. Months ago, after much prompting, Jason had shared a few details of his encounter with the male pharmacist in the towers the day of the christening at the shipyard. He had shown her the two-fingered attack to the eye that had ended the fight with Delilah Hussein’s assassin son.
As she’d disrobed for Charlie, Jason’s description of his attack came to her. She had planned to try the same maneuver. But the guard had foiled that plan. Once her clothes were off, Charlie had chained her wrists to the wall once more using a long length of chain, slapping her a few more times for good measure, leaving her legs unchained and free for obvious reasons.
He yanked her hard. The long length of chain allowed her body to become completely horizontal; her back on the cold, dusty floor. Her exposed breasts swayed as she struggled and squirmed. Nothing but a few short inches stretched between her loins and an exposed Charlie. He knelt between her legs with his own pants around his ankles.
The guard leaned forward, attempting to kiss her.
Chrissie turned her head, avoiding his putrid breath.
“Bitch,” he spat. “Kiss me!”
His fist came down hard again on Chrissie’s cheek.
He grabbed a handful of hair and yanked her face toward him, lowering himself once more, and put his lips on hers.
This was not going to happen without a fight!
Chrissie opened her mouth. As his filthy lips connected with hers, she grabbed his lower lip with her teeth and clamped down with all the strength in her jaw. Blood seeped into her mouth a moment before he screamed like a dying animal. Chrissie did not let go. She twisted her head, pulling him by the mouth side to side. His right fist slammed down on her face repeatedly, trying to make her let go. Chrissie pulled her face farther to the right, ripping the flesh.
She opened her good eye. Through the blood and sweat and Charlie’s stringy, wet hair, Chrissie detected movement to her right. She saw Michael coming at them.
He held a long, rusty pitchfork in his hands, poised to strike.
Jason swerved the Malibu into the left lane, zipping past a slower car, an older model sedan being driven by a hunched old lady who had to look through the steering wheel to see the road.
He guessed he was about thirty minutes from the first rendezvous point. But he couldn’t be sure. Penney’s phone was dead and he had no map. Time was of the essence. He would drive until he found the Freightliner.
As he scanned the roadway, Jason’s eye caught a flash from the rearview mirror. He studied the shaking image on the glass in the morning glow of light. His heart sank.
Three dark police cars, single file, their lights bars angrily spewing spasms of multicolored lights, rapidly closed the distance. Virginia State Troopers!
Shit! I can’t be arrested again! Need to get to Broadhurst!
Jason pressed the accelerator. The Ford’s engine hesitated then whined to a higher gear. Jason was forced back into the seat. The lead car shrank in the mirror.
The traffic around Jason began to pull off the road, leaving him isolated. The line of police cars split, creating two lines, one in each lane. Two by two, they gave chase and moved in.
The four cylinders of the Malibu were no match for the cruisers’ high-torque engines. The phalanx of police cars were upon Jason quickly. He was now in the right hand lane and the two cars to his left had pulled even. The lead car sped up and took up position in front of him while the second car stayed even with the Ford. The two cars behind him stayed stacked close to his bumper. He was boxed in.
Jason glanced at the car beside him, its light bar pulsing reflections off automotive metal and glass. The trooper behind the wheel met his gaze and motioned for him to pull over.
Jason sighed, checked the rearview mirror then slowed. The tires crunched the gravel along the side of the roadway. Each state car stayed in their positions relative to the Ford, leaving Jason without an escape.
Not wanting to be accidentally shot, Jason kept his hands on the wheel and in plain sight. Two troopers approached from the driver’s side, their guns drawn. Jason sensed movement and heard soft footfalls to his right. Two more troopers stood on the passenger side near the rear window, guns also drawn.
One cop yelled through the Ford’s glass.
“Step out of the vehicle. Keep your hands where I can see them!”
Jason swallowed hard and moved his hand to the door handle. He pulled on it and pushed open the door. It felt like a ship’s anchor.
He stepped out and raised his hands over his head.
“Turn around and put your hands behind your head!”
Jason complied. In fifteen seconds, his hands were in hand cuffs again. With a state trooper on each side, he was led to a cruiser and placed in the rear seat of the lead car.
The four cars sped off single file, heading north, with Jason in the second car, with two State Troopers up front and one beside him.
Jason explained what had happened earlier with the woman named Sheryl Penney. “Can you please make sure someone gets her to a hospital?”
The trooper in the passenger seat looked back at Jason with a confused smile.
“Please,” Jason asked.
The trooper called in and requested they check on the woman.
“How did you find me so fast?” he asked when he’d finished his transmission.
The cop in the passenger seat turned. “Got a call from Washington. Some government agencies are good at what they do. Now sit back and shut up!”
Three steps away now, Michael advanced. More slowly than Chrissie would have liked. She could see how petrified he was. The pressure in her skull increased. Her head felt like it would explode.
Two … one …
At the last moment, Chrissie released her grip on Charlie’s devastated lower lip. Blood coated both their faces.
Michael lunged, thrusting the rusty farm implement at Charlie. The guard saw Michael at the last moment. He rolled away, trying to avoid the thrust.
The corroded tines penetrated the guard’s flank above the hip. Charlie howled, spitting a curtain of blood into the air. He grabbed at the tines.
The boy did not hesitate. He pulled the pitch fork out, plunging once more with much greater force. This time it delved deep above the belly button.
Charlie opened his mouth and what was left of his lower lip dropped, a severed flap of flesh. He screamed. Both hands grasped at the tines again, trying to remove it. It did not budge.
He tried to kick at Michael, missing the first time. The second one connected with his arm, knocking him to the floor. Charlie gripped the pitch fork again, removing it as he screamed. Michael scampered away, pushing himself across the floor on his backside. Slowly … awkwardly, Charlie struggled to his feet, naked from the waist down, with blood seeping from multiple wounds. The lower half of his face was nothing but blood, exposed teeth, and torn flesh. The guard wavered from side to side but managed to inch toward Michael. A walking dead man.
Charlie lowered himself to the dirty floor. Michael breathed easier.
He’s going to die, Michael thought.
Charlie picked up the blood-stained pitchfork and struggled back to an erect position. Hunched over, he walked, dragging one leg, toward him. Michael peered into the eyes glaring at him over a curtain of mutilated, crimson flesh. Michael’s heart skipped in his chest, followed by the sensation that it might stop.
Michael’s weapon was about to be turned on him.
“We have Rodgers in custody. Where do you want him?”
“Bring him here to FBI headquarters. I want to know as soon as he arrives.”
Broadhurst sank into the chair at his workstation, his head spinning. He lowered it into his hands.
“Agent, are you okay?” Gonzalez asked.
“No, give me a minute.”
Michael scooted farther backward, sliding on his butt. He stopped against the brick wall under the window. Charlie was fifteen feet away, limping and dripping, in his direction.
“You should have run,” Charlie declared in a wet, barely comprehensible lisp. “Now … you are … going to die …”
In his peripheral vision, Michael saw Miss Christine struggling. Her face and bare torso covered in blood. Her eyes wide with fear for him.
Michael brushed up against another tool. A metal rake. He grabbed it, leveling it at the crazed human. Charlie swung the pitchfork in a quick, sideways arc. Its bloodied tines connected with Michael’s rake, knocking it from his hands, clattering to the floor.
The thirteen-year-old bent to a crouch, staying on the balls of his feet. His heart felt like it would fly from his chest. His breaths came hard and fast, but he still could not suck in enough air.
Charlie lunged, stabbing the pitchfork at him. Michael jumped to his left. The tines sparked against the bricks. Michael grabbed the distal end of the wooden shaft. Charlie tried to pull it back out of his grasp twice but Michael did not release his grip. The guard swung the tines into Michael. The boy never released his grip, remaining stiff-armed, not allowing it to connect with his body.
Charlie tugged a third time, yanking harder. Michael let go. Charlie reeled backward, stumbling onto his buttocks, nearly on top of Miss Christine. The pitchfork landed on the dusty floor. Michael careened hard against the wall.
Still on her back and with arms chained to the wall, Christine wrapped her free legs around the weakened guard, pinning his arms to his sides.
Charlie struggled, trying to slide away. She tightened her squeeze.
Slowly, Charlie wriggled one arm up between his torso and Miss Christine’s leg. He pushed against her leg, freeing himself. In an instant, he was on her. His hands went to her neck and began crushing her windpipe.