Threat warning

CHAPTER TWENTY – SEVEN

Gail drove the Dodge pickup to the front gate with Jonathan in the shotgun seat and Boxers coiled out of sight in the flatbed. She pulled to a stop just outside the gate. The wheels had barely stopped turning when Jonathan had his door open and was stepping out.

A sentry hit them in the eyes with a supernova of a flashlight beam. “Stay in the vehicle, please,” the sentry said.

“Get that thing out of my face,” Jonathan barked. He’d learned long ago that the right tone of voice caused people to obey. It was instinctive.

The light dropped away. The guard approached him, while another walked up to Gail’s door.

“You know the protocol,” Jonathan’s sentry said. “You stay-”

“Now,” Jonathan said. In unison, he and Gail leveled their sidearms at the foreheads of their respective prey. In the same instant, Boxers rose to his full height in the flatbed and leveled his M4 at the startled guard on the far side of the fence.

“Don’t move!” Boxers yelled. The command carried the tacit promise to kill if he was not obeyed.

“Listen to the man,” Jonathan said to his guard. “You twitch, you die. Gunslinger?”

“He’s frozen,” she said.

He didn’t bother to ask Boxers. The absence of a gunshot spoke for itself.

“Thank you,” Jonathan said to the guard closest to him. Like sentries everywhere, this one was a kid, maybe twenty-three. His eyes were one-hundred-percent focused on the muzzle of Jonathan’s. 45. “What’s your name, son?” He kept his tone commanding yet understanding.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the kid said.

“Well, sometimes shit happens. I asked your name.”

“Put your hands down!” Boxers yelled to his guy on the other side of the fence. “Just let ’em dangle, and don’t move.”

Jonathan’s kid darted his eyes up to the sound.

“Look at me, son,” Jonathan said. “What’s your name?”

“I am Brother Jonah.”

“Gunslinger?”

“Mine is Brother James,” Gail said.

“Lots of brothers and sisters,” Jonathan said. “Must be a big family.” He gave a rueful smile that was intended to intimidate. The kid took a step back. “Don’t bolt on me, Brother Jonah. You have a very good chance of living tonight. That’s not so true of your colleagues. You should count your blessings.”

Brother Jonah nodded. “I do, sir. Every day.” He seemed to be stating a fact, not being flippant.

“Here’s what I want you to do,” Jonathan said. He talked him through the process of taking two giant steps back and then lying face down on the ground so that Jonathan could zip-tie his hands behind his back, and his ankles together.

They repeated the procedure for the guard on Gail’s side, and then together Jonathan and Gail approached the guard on the far side of the gate, taking care to leave a clear fire lane for Boxers’ rifle if it came to that.

“And what’s your name, son?” Jonathan asked. Taking a look at the guard’s face, he had to suppress a laugh. Standing there in the wash of the pickup’s lights, with Boxers’ muzzle light bathing his face, the kid gave a whole new meaning to the expression “deer caught in the headlights.”

“I am Brother David,” he said. “Please don’t shoot me.”

“Don’t make me and I won’t,” Jonathan said. “That’s a promise. Now, I want you to approach very slowly and unlock the gate.”

“The man out there says he’ll shoot me if I move.”

“Not now. Not that I’m here.”

“Does he know that?”

Jonathan sighed. “Big Guy!” he called, louder than a whisper, but not quite a shout. “Tell Brother David that it’s okay to move.”

“As long as he’s careful, he’ll be okay,” Boxers replied. From behind the lights, and filtered through his fear, he must have sounded like the voice of God to the kid.

“You heard him,” Jonathan said. “Move smartly, please.”

Brother David did as he was told. He produced a key from the pocket of his coat, slipped it into the massive padlock, and slipped the loop out of the hasp.

“Throw that away,” Jonathan said. “Into the woods.”

He heaved the heavy lock in an underhand arc that made it disappear into the night. After that, they zipped him up like the others, disarmed him, and dragged him to safety on the far side of the gate’s swing arc. He laid the guard face-first in the mulch, and then planted his knee between his shoulder blades.

“I haven’t hurt you yet, have I?” Jonathan asked.

Brother David shook his head. “No, sir. Well, your knee hurts some, sir.”

“I guess I’m making a point,” Jonathan said. “You need to know that I am capable of hurting you a great deal. Do believe that, son?”

His emphatic nod looked more like a spasm.

“Okay, then the way to avoid pain is to answer one question.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if you lie to me, I will come back here and cripple you.”

“They’re assembling in the parade field, sir,” Brother David said. “That’s where the executions will happen.”

They made Christyne strip naked before they gave her a white gown to wear. Gown overstated it, actually; it was more like a muumuu, with slots for her head and her arms. Sleeveless and stark white, the cover reached to her ankles. A cluster of people watched her-men, mostly, but a couple of women, as well. Christyne wondered if the women were there just to keep the men from hurting her. One of the women, herself dressed in black garb with her face covered in the manner of an Arab peasant, actually helped her don the simple garment, holding the openings wide so that it would slide easily over her body.

“She is ready,” the dresser said.

Christyne realized that the garment wasn’t a gown or a muumuu. It was a burial shroud.

Her stomach knotted, and she started to cry. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered to her dresser. Part of her believed that after nonviolent physical contact as mundane as helping another person dress, there might be a vein of kindness to be tapped.

“Very well,” said the man from the aisle. “Tie her hands. It’s time to proceed.”

Christyne felt panic boil in her core. She tried to focus on options she might have, but nothing materialized for her. All she saw was bleakness and death. This was the payback for showing kindness to a girl on a cold winter night. How could that possibly be right?

If it’s possible to tie someone’s hands gently, that’s what they did. Christyne stood unmoving. She didn’t fight and she didn’t squirm. They took her arms one at a time, brought them behind her back, and wrapped them with what felt like nylon rope, smooth against her skin.

What would Boomer do? she thought. He probably had nowhere near the superhuman capabilities that she had dreamed up for him as she imagined his exploits overseas. He’d be devastated when he heard about what happened to his family. When he did, the people responsible for this misery had better plan for short futures.

Boomer had his faults and he had his weaknesses, but his sense of loyalty was second to none. Ditto his sense of vengeance.

She just wished that she would be around to see it all unfold.

When Ryan’s face crystallized in her mind, it arrived without preamble or even active thought. She saw him climbing out the window of their terrible little cell and looking back at her, wishing that there were a way to take her along.

He’d always been a protective boy. A happy boy, but with his dark side. When she realized that she was already thinking of him in the past tense, misery washed over her and she began to cry.

Outside, a motor cranked and caught. An instant later, the night burned white.

The man in the aisle reached behind his neck and lifted a hood over his face, covering everything but his eyes. He looked like an executioner.

“Bring her to me,” he said.

In the distance, the horizon erupted in light.

“What the hell is that?” Jonathan said, pointing.

“Looks like they found themselves a generator,” Boxers said from behind the wheel. He’d relieved Gail of her driving duties for a lot of reasons, but mostly because Boxers always drove. He was extremely good at it, and he got a little whiny when someone else was behind the wheel. Throw in the lack of legroom in the crew cab’s backseat, and it only made sense.

“Scorpion, this is Mother Hen. Be advised, the Web page is up and broadcasting. At this point, all I see is an empty stage, but something clearly is about to happen. The tracer now shows that the transmission is originating in Islamabad.”

“Which means nothing,” Jonathan radioed back. This explained the blast of light in the distance. “Definitely a generator,” he said to the team.

“I think we should take that away from them,” Boxers said.

“Mother Hen, Scorpion. Is there any chance we can get support from SkysEye? A little satellite imagery would go a long way.”

“I’ve spoken to the powers that be, and I’m told they’re moving heaven and earth, but that it’s a major retasking. He is not hopeful.”

A new voice boomed on the channel, “The generator is located on the northern perimeter of the parade ground. In front but slightly to the east of the stairs leading to the main assembly hall.”

“Who the hell is that?” Boxers asked the truck, not on the radio.

Jonathan smiled. He recognized the voice of the scared kid from last night’s wake-up call. “He’s a friend from the NSA,” Jonathan said.

“A friend from the NSA,” Boxers mocked. “I believe they call that an oxymoron.”

The role of American intelligence services in special operations has always been tenuous, at best. The intel you received from State was generally skewed toward pacifism, and that from the CIA tended toward hawkishness. Jonathan had learned to depend most heavily on intel from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which had a tactical bent. DIA was all about the good guys kicking the bad guys’ asses.

The stuff from NSA was always… careful. That this kid with the rod up his ass was still hanging in there made Jonathan proud.

“Who is that on the channel?” Venice said, pouncing on the interruption.

“Let it go, Mother Hen,” Jonathan said. He turned in his seat and asked Gail, “How long do you need to take out the generator?”

“Once we find it, it’ll be the absolute distance divided by two thousand feet per second.”

Boxers asked, “Is the plan changing?”

“Nope. The plan is to get the Nasbes out alive,” Jonathan replied. “No matter what the cost.”

“That sounds like a goal, not a plan,” Gail said from the back.

“It’s the best I can do. Rescue, evade, and adapt, and not necessarily in that order.” Even as he said the words, he heard their emptiness, and he dialed back. “Once you take out the generator, we’ll have darkness on our side. We’ll also have the element of surprise.”

“Scorpion, Mother Hen. I’ve got video of Christyne Nasbe being led out of the main building-the assembly hall, or church, or whatever. It’s now designated Building Alpha. She’s in some kind of ceremonial garb, looks like nothing underneath. Barefoot. Nothing good can possibly come from this. How close are you to being in position?”

Boxers’ foot leaned more heavily on the accelerator.

The sudden noise and light startled Ryan. He wondered where it was coming from when the whole town-or whatever you call this place-had no electricity, but then he recognized the unique sound of a generator, probably like the one that Coach Jackson brought in for track practices after dark.

After they’d made him strip naked, Sister Colleen had helped him pull this piece-of-shit tunic over his head-he refused to think of it as a dress-and thread his arms through the corresponding holes.

As far as he could tell, this was all about humiliation and discomfort. The former was obvious, but the latter, the discomfort, was all about making sure that he stayed cold all the time. His bare feet felt like ice blocks against the floor, despite the heat from the wood stove, and the rest was breezy as hell.

“Why are you doing this?” When they didn’t answer- again -he promised himself never to ask the question again.

When he was finally ensconced in his ridiculous outfit, two guards took turns holding him at gunpoint while the other walked to a closet and donned black KKK robes with a weird facial twist to the hoods. They looked like Arab terrorists. The fact that their faces were covered told him that there was going to be another ceremony of some sort, maybe for another television camera, and the fact that he was wearing this… thing, told him that it was not going to go well for him.

Just as they finished dressing, the door to the house opened, and another eight of these masked nut jobs streamed into the room. Ryan felt panic swelling in his gut. They were here to kill him. All doubt that it was anything else evaporated. It’s what they promised from the very beginning, but now they had a reason because he’d killed Brother What’s-his-name.

Stephen. His name was Stephen, and you should always think well of the dead. Even when the dead guy was an asshole.

“Is the condemned prepared?” asked one of the masked guys in the front of the crowd.

“He is,” said Brother Zebediah.

The condemned? Ryan’s mind shouted. What the hell? Knowing in your gut and hearing with your ears were two entirely different things.

A hand clasped the bare flesh of his biceps on his left side-his good side-and Ryan jerked it away. “Quit touching me!” he yelled, and he started to run. He didn’t know where he was going, but he by God knew where he wasn’t going, at least not without a fight, even if it just meant an extended game of tag through the living room.

The game stopped, though, when Sister Colleen punched him in his arm, right at the spot where it was broken-the spot where she’d worked so hard to help him mend. The bones inside moved against each other at the impact, igniting a sharp, mind-splitting, electrical pain that rocketed through his arm, and up into his neck and shoulders. The spike of agony made him see stars, and his knees sagged.

When Sister Colleen grabbed him under his armpit, she said very softly in his ear, “Don’t make us tie this arm behind your back, Ryan. Die with dignity.”