Light flooded the trunk, and Marcus felt himself torn violently from the small space. His captors tossed him to the ground. His face smashed into the dirt. A puff of dry earth billowed into the air as he exhaled. Then, he felt hands slide under his arms as his adversaries jerked him to his feet.
“Sorry, Marcus,” Andrew said. “Nothin’ personal.”
“You pretended to be my friend and then stabbed me in the back. Don’t think it gets any more personal than that. If it helps to ease your conscience, I never trusted you anyway. I just didn’t know for sure. Didn’t have any other choice but to go along for the ride.”
“I never meant for things to turn out like this, but you and I both know that there are just some battles you can’t win. And if you can’t beat them …”
“Yeah, I get the concept. You’re a traitor. Can we just get this over with?”
“Fine by me.”
Andrew and another man led them at gunpoint across a flat, desolate piece of land dotted sporadically with short, gnarled bushes. The Sheriff stood a couple hundred yards from the vehicles. His back turned to them, he stared out across the plain. He held a silenced 9mm in his right hand. A bird with dark brown plumage and auburn shoulders circled in the distance. An open grave sat to the Sheriff’s right.
As they approached, the Sheriff turned to them. His face was somber and mournful. “You know, kid, you never cease to amaze me. Most men would have given up by now, but not you. You’ve gone up against forces well beyond your control and have walked through the fire and come out the other side. You’ve fought an admirable battle, son, and it pains me for you to have come so far and ultimately fail.”
Marcus fixed the Sheriff with a withering gaze. “I can’t change the past and bring back all the innocent people that have gotten in your way, but I am going to make sure that you never hurt anyone again.”
The Sheriff shook his head. “Confident to the end. I’m truly sorry for everything that’s happened. But I’m a good soldier, and I have my orders. Sometimes, tough choices have to be made, and the few must be sacrificed for the good of the many. Like I told you, kid, I have someone that I need to kill. But I also need someone to go down for it. When Ackerman escaped, your neck went into that noose. So you and I are taking a trip to San Antonio.”
As the Sheriff’s words sunk in, a disturbing thought floated to the forefront of Marcus’s mind. If I’m going to San Antonio, then who’s going in the grave? His thoughts turned to Maggie.
Apparently coming to the same realization, Andrew spoke up. “San Antonio? Then why would you have me drive them out here?” Andrew looked toward the open grave and then back at the Sheriff. “And who are you putting in the ground?”
He tensed and readied himself to dive in front of Maggie, but then he realized that his concern for her safety had made him overlook another possibility.
Andrew swung the aim of his weapon away from Marcus and toward the Sheriff.
The Sheriff raised the silenced pistol and fired three shots into Andrew’s abdomen.
Andrew staggered back and let out a sickening wheeze. He tried to speak, but the words were unintelligible. The Sheriff pumped three more rounds into his chest, and Andrew toppled backward.
Marcus closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. Fury. Pain. Sorrow. His stomach churned in knots. So much death.
The Sheriff looked down and spoke to the dead man. “Traitors never prosper.”
The vigilante rolled Andrew’s body into the open grave and said, “What am I going to do with you, Maggie? I knew that you didn’t agree with what I was doing, but I never thought you’d betray me.”
“You’re a murderer,” she said in a whisper.
The Sheriff’s face remained stoic. “No, I’m a soldier. And believe me, we are at war. I hate that my life has come to this, but sometimes good men have to commit necessary evils. We all have to make sacrifices, myself included. I’m sorry that the two of you got involved.”
The Sheriff turned from them and stared into the distance.
Marcus knew that the older man was weighing his options one last time. He also knew what conclusion the Sheriff would reach. Once Paul Phillips was dead, an investigation would be launched. Not only by agencies within the government that could be controlled, but also by outside forces. The Phillips family may hire investigators. An Independent Counsel may be assigned. They would backtrack the assassin’s activities. Maggie would be questioned. Could she be trusted to remain silent? If the Sheriff hid her away, it may raise unwanted questions. It would be cleanest if she were one of the victims. Leaving her alive could be a costly mistake, but would the Sheriff really kill his own daughter?
Marcus realized that—as with the Brubakers—her association to him meant she had to die. More blood on my hands.
He knew what had to be done.
He had vowed to never kill again, but he had no other choice. Am I just rationalizing? He wondered if this was the way the Sheriff had begun his descent. It was a slippery slope. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Then, he thought of Ackerman and the killer’s ramblings of destiny and purpose. Maybe God sometimes called the righteous to do the unspeakable? Maybe he was meant to kill in order to save?
He had no way of knowing for sure. The only certainty was that if he didn’t act, more innocent people would die.
The deputy behind him repositioned the gun. He felt the cold kiss of the silenced barrel on his neck like the icy breath of the grim reaper.
It’s time.
Placing the barrel against his skin was a mistake. His captor had just informed him of the exact position of the weapon.
Under most circumstances, that fact wouldn’t have been a concern when the captive had his hands cuffed behind his back. In this situation, however, the captive had released himself by using the tongue of a belt buckle as a shim to slide between the pawl and ratchet of his cuffs. He had then re-cuffed his right hand on the loosest notch, so that he could slide it free at will.
The Sheriff looked down for a moment longer, as if contemplating his next words and actions carefully. Then, he said, “You know what your problem is, Marcus … you always hesitate. You know what must be done. You know in your heart which is the right path, but you always hesitate to walk down it.”
Looking deep into the Sheriff’s eyes, Marcus said, “I won’t let it happen again.”
He whirled on the deputy. In one fluid motion, he slammed an elbow into the man’s temple and ripped his gun away. As the deputy fell, he took aim.
This time, he didn’t hesitate.
He fired six silenced shots into the Sheriff’s chest. Flowers of red blossomed outward.
The Sheriff’s eyes went wide with shock, but then it seemed as if the eyes softened and the emotion changed. The Sheriff’s eyes seemed to say, I’m proud of you.
The vigilante then stumbled backward and fell into the open grave.