Vengeance

81 ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

After ending the call with Harrison, Mixell approached the front door of the warehouse and unlocked it. Slowly, with his eye on the door and his pistol drawn, he backed up to where Christine was tied to the ceiling. He stopped behind her, then slid the pistol into the small of his back. After pulling the scoring knife from his pocket, he cut the rope around Christine’s wrists. He caught her with his left arm and held her against his body, then slid the knife back into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone.

He called Harrison, letting him know he could enter the warehouse. After ending the call, he swapped his phone for the pistol.

A moment later, the warehouse door opened and Harrison entered.

Harrison stopped after his first step inside the building. Mixell was holding Christine in front of him in a firm grip. He was a head taller than Christine, and he held her in his left arm so that her face was the same height as his, with her feet dangling in the air. The front of Christine’s body from the waist down was drenched in blood, oozing from three wounds in her abdomen, with a small red puddle collecting on the ground beneath her.

But what captured Harrison’s attention the most was the pistol in Mixell’s right hand, its barrel pressed against Christine’s head. Mixell was doing his best to recreate the scene in this warehouse a year ago, but in reverse, with him holding Christine hostage instead of Harrison holding Trish.

“How is this going to play out, Lonnie?” Harrison asked calmly, keeping his pistol down by his side, attempting to avoid any provocation that would force Mixell to pull the trigger. Mixell, however, seemed not to care that Harrison was armed.

“You have no idea?” Mixell asked. After a short pause, he said, “I’m sure you do. You were never the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but you undoubtedly know what’s going to happen tonight.”

“Just let Chris go,” Harrison said, “and we can settle this between us.”

“Not a chance,” Mixell replied calmly. “You’re going to watch Chris die, just like Trish. And up until the moment I kill you, you’ll live with the realization that Angie and Chris are dead because of you. Because of what you did to me. You betrayed me! A brother!”

“If I could take everything back, I would.”

“It’s too late for that. You ratted me out, and as the saying goes — ‘With actions come consequences.’ Besides, Chris deserves her fate. She joined you, turning against me.”

“She was just doing her job,” Harrison replied. “Surely, you see the difference between what I did and what Chris has done.”

Indecision suddenly played across Mixell’s face. But then his features hardened.

“Chris did more than just her job. She went out of her way, pulling you into the hunt. If she had just let you and me settle things, she wouldn’t be here tonight.”

Harrison focused again on the pistol pressed against Christine’s head. She was terrified, but Harrison pushed that fact from his mind, wondering instead if he could get a clear shot. Mixell kept Christine in front of him, however, exposing barely half of his face, making himself an almost impossible target. Even if Harrison could raise his pistol and aim before Mixell pulled his trigger, he could easily hit Christine instead.

The only way to save her, if that were even possible, was to let Mixell take his revenge out on him instead.

He lowered his pistol and knelt to place it on the ground.

“Oh, no-no-no!” Mixell shouted. “Do you realize where I’m standing! This is where you held Trish hostage and where a bullet took her life. Keep the gun and take the shot!”

Mixell moved his face back and forth slowly behind Christine’s head, teasing Harrison as he exposed more, then less, of his face. Harrison again considered taking a shot, but it was just too risky. He was too far away and the odds of hitting Christine were too high.

He placed his pistol on the ground, then stood. “Let Chris go,” he said.

“Pick up the gun!” Mixell yelled.

“Just let her go, you bastard! You can do whatever you want to me, but let Chris go!”

“Pick up the damn gun!” Mixell shouted again.

“I won’t,” Harrison replied.

Mixell tamped down on the fury building inside him. He wanted nothing more than to have Harrison put a bullet into Christine’s head, the same way Mixell had taken a shot at Harrison, accidentally killing Trish. However, he had planned ahead in case Harrison refused. He would watch Christine die the same way Angie had.

“Step away from the pistol,” Mixell ordered.

After Harrison took a few steps back, Mixell wedged his pistol into the small of his back and pulled the hooked blade from his pocket, pressing it against Christine’s neck.

“Does this scene look familiar?” Mixell asked.

He had always found knives irresistible, and as he considered the turn of events tonight, he realized that nothing had really changed. Harrison had simply chosen a different way for Christine to die. Besides, there was no better way to remind Harrison of what he had done to Angie. And he was about to kill the woman Harrison loved even more.

Mixell pressed his face against the nape of Christine’s neck and took a deep breath. Her scent was a combination of perspiration and fear, which he found quite pleasant.

Quietly, he said, “Chris, are you ready to die?”

She didn’t reply, but the bravado she had displayed in the White House and earlier this evening had evaporated. He could feel her body trembling in fear, and her breathing had turned rapid and shallow. With his arm wrapped tightly around her body, he could feel her heart pounding in her chest, her pulse racing. He sensed that it was taking everything Christine could muster to hold things together. At that moment, he was filled with admiration, and he remembered why he had been attracted to her years ago.

As a kid, Christine had been fearless and determined, eager to prove that she was just as smart and capable as the boys she hung out with. Reflecting on what Christine had accomplished in her life, he concluded that she was the smartest and most accomplished of them all. Christine was, without a doubt, an incredible woman.

For a fleeting moment, he regretted what he was about to do.

He tightened his grip on the knife, its tip resting against her neck, then shoved it in.

Christine must have sensed her pending demise, because just before Mixell shoved the knife into her neck, she tried to twist free, attempting to pull his arm away enough to let her slip down and out of his grasp. Mixell held onto her, but instead of slicing into her neck, the knife dug into the base of her jaw.

Harrison could hardly believe what he was seeing — the scene in his house in Silverdale repeating itself, only this time with Christine. He screamed at Mixell to stop, at the same time knowing his words were useless. Mixell would not rest until Christine lay slain at his feet.

His words had no effect, but Christine’s attempt to wrest herself from Mixell’s grasp provided an opportunity. Mixell’s face and the right side of his body were exposed as Christine tried to twist away from the knife cutting into her face. Harrison retrieved his pistol and trained it on Mixell, hoping to take a head shot. But Mixell’s face was still partially blocked by Christine’s, so Harrison went for his body instead.

Christine screamed in agony as the knife dug into her face, nicking her jawbone before sliding up her right cheek. She felt the blade cutting deep into her flesh, scraping across bone before the knife’s hooked tip caught momentarily on her cheekbone.

She had no idea of what was happening around her, unable to focus on anything but the searing pain as the knife sliced through her flesh. Mixell must still have had her in his grasp, because there was no sensation of ground beneath her feet. The only thing her mind could focus on was the warm blood streaming down her face and neck, plus the mind-bending pain as Mixell freed the knife from under her cheekbone, ripping the blade up toward her eye.

Through the haze of pain and fear, Christine heard a pistol being fired, and Mixell’s body jerking as the bullet hit its target. Thankfully, the knife stopped moving, but Mixell still held her firmly. Her feet hit the ground, then she was dragged back behind a stack of crates, where Mixell dropped her onto the concrete.

Standing behind the crates, Mixell released the knife and retrieved his pistol from behind him. He had taken a round in his upper right chest, but the wound didn’t appear serious.

Christine was crawling slowly away, leaving a trail of blood on the floor, and Mixell debated whether to finish her first or shift his attention to Harrison. He decided to focus on Harrison, who was armed. Christine could be dealt with later.

He heard Harrison’s rapid footsteps; he was repositioning, undoubtedly taking cover before Mixell got a clear shot. He peered around the stack of crates, firing a round just before Harrison slipped behind a pallet of crates about thirty feet away.

Movement to the side caught Mixell’s attention. Christine had regained her feet and was staggering toward a nearby stack of crates. He wanted to finish her off while he held her in his arms, feel her body go limp as she took her last breath. But he would have to move into the open to grab her, giving Harrison a clear shot.

Regrettably, things would not end tonight exactly as he had hoped. But he could at least let her suffer a little while longer.

He shifted his pistol and fired twice, putting two bullets into Christine’s back.

Harrison watched in dismay as shots rang out, followed by Christine’s body shuddering as two bullets hit her, then she dropped onto the concrete floor.

He screamed at Mixell, but he wasn’t sure what he was saying, the words tumbling from his mouth. He started firing at the crates Mixell was hiding behind, knowing that it wouldn’t change Christine’s fate. Anger and hatred consumed him, and he suddenly found himself racing across the warehouse toward Mixell, rapid-firing his Glock. He kept squeezing the trigger until the pistol stopped firing, then he released the magazine and reached for another one, slamming it into the pistol grip.

Mixell took advantage of the short pause, peering around the crates. He brought his pistol to bear, but Harrison swerved to the left just before Mixell fired, and the bullet missed. The shift further exposed Mixell, offering Harrison a clear shot. Both men fired almost simultaneously, and Harrison felt a bullet punch into his left shoulder.

At the same time, Mixell’s head jerked backward, accompanied by a puff of pink mist blossoming behind his head.

Mixell collapsed to the ground as Harrison raced toward him. He knew Mixell was dead, but he kept shooting him until the second magazine was empty.

Harrison stopped and stood over Mixell’s body, breathing heavily as the frenzied haze gripping him faded. Then his thoughts and eyes focused on Christine. She hadn’t moved since she hit the ground.

Quickly, he was beside her, kneeling. She was alive but unresponsive. Her skin was pale and her breathing was fast and shallow. He retrieved his cell phone from his pocket and called Khalila, requesting help.

“I’ll be there in a moment,” she said. “I called the NCTC after I dropped you off. Backup and medical are already here, only a block away.”

Harrison hung up, then removed his shirt, hoping to stem Christine’s bleeding, but there was so much blood that he wasn’t sure which wounds were the most critical — those in her back, abdomen, or face.

He folded his shirt and placed it on the ground beside her, then gently turned Christine over, placing the bullet wounds in her back atop his shirt, so the weight of her body would help curtail the bleeding. He assessed the wounds in her abdomen, which weren’t bleeding as heavily as the ones on her back, then resisted the urge to look away after examining the damage to her face. Mixell’s knife had torn through almost the entire right side of her face.

As he knelt beside her, applying pressure on the abdomen wounds with his hands, he realized that Mixell had been right — he had never stopped loving her. He had truly loved Angie, but his feelings for Christine had never subsided, they had simply been placed aside. He had often wondered what would have happened if Christine had called before he proposed to Angie. But he had always avoided answering that question. Now, as he knelt beside Christine, he knew why. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he would have said goodbye to Angie and resumed his relationship with Christine.

Khalila burst through the warehouse door, followed by law enforcement and medical personnel. A team of four paramedics rushed across the warehouse and knelt beside Christine.

“What happened here?” the lead paramedic — Ali Rosenberg, according to her name tag — asked Harrison.

After he described Christine’s wounds — the obvious ones to her face and abdomen, plus the two bullets entering her back — Ali asked Harrison to give them some space.

He backed up but hovered nearby until Khalila stopped beside him and placed her hand gently on his shoulder. “Let the EMTs take care of her. There’s nothing more you can do.”

They retreated a short distance as Harrison watched helplessly. He wasn’t a physician, but he’d seen enough battlefield injuries to understand how serious Christine’s wounds were and what the paramedics were doing as they attempted to stabilize her.

Ali performed a rapid trauma assessment, checking Christine’s ABCs: airway, breathing, and circulation. “I’ve got a weak pulse,” she announced, “and her breathing is labored.”

In addition to Christine’s fast and shallow breathing, she had also started gasping for air, even though she was unconscious. Harrison knew it was a bad sign; Mixell’s bullets had punctured one or both of her lungs.

Ali listened to Christine’s chest with a stethoscope, then reported, “No lung sound on the right. Get me a needle decompression kit!”

Her partner handed her the kit, and Ali jabbed the needle into Christine’s right side, between her second and third ribs.

“Needle’s in,” Ali announced as blood and air spurted from the open end of the needle, relieving the internal pressure on Christine’s right lung.

Another paramedic intubated Christine, connecting the thin tube to an oxygen bag placed over her mouth and nose, which was squeezed every few seconds. Now that Christine’s compromised breathing had been addressed, Ali assessed her other wounds.

“Get me chest seals and gauze.”

After Ali pressed gauze over the abdomen wounds, two other paramedics carefully rolled Christine onto her side so they could assess her back.

“Get chest seals on those bullet wounds,” Ali ordered, “and get a backboard and a C-collar now!”

One of the bullet wounds was in the center of Christine’s back, and care would be needed to ensure any spinal injury wasn’t exacerbated during transit. Harrison cursed silently to himself. In his haste to stem her bleeding, he hadn’t paid attention to how close the entry wound was to her spine before turning her onto her back.

The requested equipment quickly arrived, and Christine was carefully placed atop and secured to the backboard, and a collar was fastened around her neck to immobilize her head. As she was prepared for transport, one paramedic assessed her vitals while two other paramedics inserted IVs — one for fluid and another for medication — into her veins.

“Her blood pressure’s falling,” Ali announced. “Start a norepinephrine drip now!”

The medication was quickly injected into one of the IVs, then Christine was lifted onto a stretcher and wheeled toward the warehouse exit.

Harrison followed as she was loaded into an awaiting ambulance. He wanted nothing more than to go with her, but Ali placed a hand on his chest, stopping him from entering the vehicle.

She climbed inside with Christine, and as the rear doors closed and the ambulance sped away, Harrison watched numbly until the vehicle disappeared in a distant intersection.