The Bin Laden Plot

76 SILVERDALE, WASHINGTON

Mixell stood just inside the barn door, peering back toward the house as he assessed his wound. He had taken a bullet in his shoulder, but the injury wasn’t serious. He moved his arm around. It was painful, but he had full mobility.

As he tried to figure out how to get to his car without getting shot again, he spotted Christine emerging from the house, armed with a pistol, moving swiftly toward the barn. He still had his knife, but after noticing a flat-bladed shovel nearby as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he sheathed the knife, picking up the shovel instead.

Christine stopped by the corner of the barn, then worked her way toward the entrance. She hesitated near the door and questioned again the wisdom of chasing down a trained killer. Then the images of Mixell thrusting the knife into Angie’s neck and of Harrison holding his dying wife in his arms erased all doubt. Tightening her grip on the pistol, she slowly entered the barn.

There was a flash of movement, which Christine noticed too late. The flat side of a shovel slammed into her head, knocking her to the ground.

She had no idea how long she lay there as her senses gradually returned. She was lying facedown on the cold dirt. The right side of her head was throbbing, and she felt warm blood running down the side of her face. The pistol was gone, and she had the vague recollection of it tumbling from her hand, lost in the darkness somewhere.

Christine rolled onto her back, spotting Mixell standing above her, holding a shovel. He knelt beside her, pinning her to the ground with a knee.

“You stupid bitch. You thought you could hunt me down?”

Christine offered no response as she assessed her predicament. She now had no weapon, while Mixell had a knife and shovel.

“Hopefully, Jake will live,” Mixell said, his voice tinged with amusement. “At least for a while, tormented by the memory of his wife dying in his arms. Knowing that she’s dead because of him.”

He paused and surveyed Christine. “Now, what to do about you? Killing the director of the CIA is going to bring a lot of heat on me. But no more than I’ve already got, I suspect. That’s bad news for you.”

Mixell placed one foot on Christine’s chest as he stood, then placed his other foot on her right wrist, immobilizing her arm.

“There’s a nursery rhyme about five little piggies,” he said, “about one going to the market and another one staying home. But the reality is, all piggies go to the market.” He examined Christine again. “Let’s see. Two arms, two legs, and one head. That’s five little piggies. I’m going to take them off, one by one.” He grabbed the shovel with both hands, holding the blade directly over Christine’s right arm. The light from the house glistened off the shovel’s sharp blade.

“This little piggy went to the market.”

He raised the shovel, preparing for a vicious thrust downward. When the shovel reached its highest point, Christine pivoted at her waist, raising her hips and legs off the ground in a reverse handstand move. She kept her legs together, slamming both feet into Mixell’s shoulder as he drove the shovel downward.

The impact knocked the shovel off course, and it sank into the dirt a few inches from her arm. Christine’s blow also knocked Mixell forward, and he staggered two steps before regaining his balance. He no longer had a foot on her chest.

She rolled to her feet and faced Mixell. He left the shovel stuck in the ground, pulling his knife out instead. She froze for a second, scanning the ground for the pistol, but it was nowhere to be found. They were a few feet inside the barn, with Mixell between her and the exit. She was trapped.

He moved toward her and Christine bolted toward the back of the barn, searching frantically for a weapon or means of escape. She saw nothing useful along the way, realizing to her dismay that there was no rear exit to the barn.

As Mixell strode confidently toward her, Christine spotted a ladder to the loft and leaped onto the rungs, scrambling upward. Mixell sprinted toward her and grabbed one ankle, pulling her downward as he stabbed the knife into her left calf. She kicked him in the head with her other foot, jamming it down into his face.

Her ankle pulled free and she finished climbing to the loft, but Mixell was close behind. There was a railing on the far side of the loft she could jump over, and perhaps she could land without sustaining any serious injuries. Or perhaps she could go up, climbing onto the beams supporting the roof.

She ran toward the nearest vertical beam, which had several hanging hooks screwed into it. Using the hooks as footholds, she climbed upward, disappearing into the darkness. She froze as Mixell walked below, the knife in his hand.

“Christine, where are you? Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he said in a singsong voice.

Christine was shrouded in darkness atop a center beam that ran the length of the barn. It was an easy jump down onto the loft, but a thirty-foot drop to the main floor on each end of the barn. Blood trickled down her left calf onto the beam, and pain sliced through her leg with each step, but the blood loss didn’t seem severe and the pain was manageable. With Lonnie on the loft below her, the only option for escape was to make the long jump to the main floor.

As she debated the odds of landing without breaking any bones, an idea came to her. Mixell was moving slowly down the loft, scouring the area above him. Christine followed quietly, matching his pace, staying several feet behind him, hoping he’d keep moving down the entire length of the loft. Her hope rose as he approached the railing. He was almost close enough to it, and he just needed to step a few feet to either side of the center beam.

He reached the railing and turned around, moving to one side as she’d hoped. She stepped onto a side beam and leaped toward the next one, grabbing onto it as if it were a gymnastics parallel bar, and her body swung down toward Mixell.

She slammed into him with both feet, hitting him in the chest, sending him staggering back toward the railing. He weighed over two hundred pounds, and the railing splintered under his weight and momentum, and he fell backward onto the ground below.

Christine released the beam and dropped onto the loft, then peered over the damaged railing. Mixell was lying on his back, his eyes closed, motionless.

After descending the ladder, she grabbed the shovel Mixell had left behind, then slowly approached him. He hadn’t moved, but in the dim lighting, it was hard to tell if he was dead or just unconscious. She stopped above him, the shovel in both hands, debating whether she should wait for law enforcement or take the matter into her own hands as Khalila had done with Rolow.

As she contemplated the matter, Mixell opened his eyes, and she realized to her dismay that he still had the knife in one hand.

He drove it into her left thigh, then grabbed the shovel with his other hand, ripping it from her grasp.

When the knife sliced into her thigh, Christine’s knees went weak from the pain, and she collapsed onto the ground as Mixell stood. She crawled away, clambering to her feet as Mixell whacked her in the back with the shovel, knocking her to the ground again.

He stood over her and tossed the shovel aside, switching the knife between hands, then knelt with one knee on her back, pinning her down with her face turned to the side.

“You’re a tough broad to kill. But you’re going to die tonight. Slowly, just like Harrison.”

He placed the end of the knife on the back of her shoulder, in the same spot she had shot him, then drove it into her flesh.

Christine cried out in pain as he twisted the knife inside her, then pulled it out.

“How’s that feel? An eye for an eye, right?”

She was now bleeding from her calf, thigh, and shoulder.

“Now, where shall we cut next?”

“Lonnie, stop,” Christine pleaded. “You don’t have to do this. If there’s anything good left inside you, please stop.”

“If there’s anything good left inside me,” he mused. “That implies I might be pure evil.” He placed the blade on the back of her neck, directly over her spine. “You aren’t a very good negotiator.”

“Everyone can be redeemed. You just have to want it.”

“I guess that’s the problem, Chris. I don’t want redemption. I wanted Jake to pay for what he did to me and Trish, and now it’s time for you to pay, for siding with Jake against me.”

He leaned closer as he pressed the knife harder against her skin. “Goodbye, Chris. As the saying goes, it’s time for — lights out.”

Christine heard a twang as something slammed into Mixell, knocking him off her back. She rolled over, spotting Maddy with the shovel in her hands.

Mixell lumbered to his feet as he searched for the knife, which had been knocked from his hand when he’d been hit with the shovel. Maddy swung again, missing him as he backed up. She swung once more, but this time Mixell blocked the shovel with one arm and grabbed the shaft with the other, then yanked it from her.

His face lit up in rage as he swung the shovel toward Maddy, striking her on the side of her head. Christine heard a sharp crack as Maddy flew through the air, her body falling lifelessly to the barn floor, a red stain spreading out from her head.

Mixell pointed at her as he shook in anger. “I told you not to come out of your room!” He turned to Christine. “Look at what she made me do!”

Still enraged, he moved toward Christine, tightening his grip on the shovel. He swung, but Christine avoided it, backing up quickly. He swung and she avoided the blade again, but barely this time. She was running out of room as she retreated, and her back hit the wall.

There was nowhere else to go.

Mixell twisted the shovel, lining the blade up to slice through her. As he pulled back into his swing, Christine spotted the knife on the ground a few feet behind him and to the right. When the shovel started moving forward, she ducked into a roll, the blade swishing through the air above her, regaining her feet for two steps before pretending to stumble to the ground.

As she turned to face Mixell, she held the knife, now in her right hand, with the blade facing up alongside her forearm, hidden from view.

Christine waited, balanced on her haunches, as Mixell approached.

This time, when he pulled the shovel back, she launched herself toward him, driving the knife into his abdomen.

Mixell stumbled backward, the shovel still in one hand, dragging its blade along the ground. She charged him again, jamming the knife into his chest as she fell on top of him.

He grabbed Christine’s right wrist, immobilizing the knife with one hand and her throat with his other, cutting off her airway. But Mixell was now bleeding from his shoulder, abdomen, and chest, and was slowly weakening. Christine tried to pry his grip on her neck loose with her left hand, and eventually, his fingers relaxed enough for her to breathe again. Not long thereafter, his body went limp, both arms falling to the ground.

She placed both hands on Mixell’s chest as she caught her breath, staring at the man who was once her childhood friend. A man who had turned into something pure evil, slaying Jake’s wife and maybe even Harrison and his daughter as well.

Her thoughts turned to Maddy and she hurried to the girl, checking for a pulse. She was unconscious and bleeding, but alive.

As she wondered how long it would take for help to arrive, she heard the faint sound of sirens growing steadily louder. It would take a while before they searched the barn, so she carried Maddy to the house through the heavy rain as paramedics and law enforcement arrived.