Patriot Lies (Jack Widow Book 14) Page 34

  Widow set the phone down between them into a cup holder.

  He asked, "Didn't you say that Tyler was in the Navy?"

  "Yes."

  "Any chance he would know Gaden?"

  Gray glanced over at him from behind the wheel. Then she looked forward, keeping up with the cruiser, trying not to slam into a tree.

  She said, "I'm sure he knows of him. He's stationed here. Alaska is just one big small town, isn't it?"

  "Gaden was in for twenty-five years. I think it's possible that Tyler knows him."

  "No. I don't think so. That would be an insane coincidence."

  "Not that insane."

  "Maybe."

  Widow said, "Maybe they know each other. We should proceed with caution."

  Gray said, "Daniels took your gun."

  "I know."

  They continued down long, winding roads covered with sleet, gravel, and dirt, turning right, veering left, until finally they come to a dead-end road with what looked like an abandoned shantytown on the end of it.

  They dead-ended in a circle and parked behind Daniels' police cruiser. The sirens were off, but blue and red lights from the lightbar rotated, washing the empty structures with the colors. The Charger's headlamps followed and washed over several rundown, derelict structures like ruins from an Old West town. There was one large building still standing and mostly all in one piece. Several others were only fractions of buildings: missing staircases, missing roofs, missing entire sections of wall.

  Gray said, "What the hell is this?"

  "Looks like a ghost town."

  Gray said, "I don't like this. You might be right. Something's going on."

  "We're about to find out."

  Gray and Widow waited for Tyler to step out of the cruiser. Sheriff Daniels stepped out next. Widow was a little surprised to see him. His primate brain pictured Tyler bushwhacking the sheriff and leading them all to their deaths, but there he was and all in one piece. Maybe there was nothing to worry about.

  Apparently, Gray had been thinking the same thing.

  Daniels had a Glock stuffed into a belt holster.

  She said, "The sheriff is okay."

  Widow said, "Might still be a trap. Keep your head on a swivel."

  They climbed out of the car. Gray was first and then Widow. They met the sheriff and Tyler at the back of the police cruiser.

  Daniels' belly was even bigger than Widow had thought previously. He stood at about six feet. His belly was built like an oil drum.

  Daniels popped the trunk open and waved them over to the back of the car. Widow and Gray joined Tyler and Daniels at the trunk.

  Gray said, "What the hell is going on? Why are we here?"

  Tyler said, "Sorry, Agent, but duty calls."

  "What?"

  Daniels said, "A nine-one-one call came over the wires."

  He pointed out over the structures.

  He said, "This is what we call a hornet's nest."

  Gray asked, "What does that mean?"

  Tyler said, "It's slang for a meth house."

  "Meth house?"

  "Yeah. Look around. This is the sticks, middle of nowhere. People out here, you know, the homeless kind, the kind with nothing to do, get bored and usually find employment cooking and selling meth."

  Daniels said, "They're the less fortunate, the less civilized of our state."

  "Anyway, they can be dangerous. They don't like outsiders."

  "And they hate cops," Daniels said.

  Widow asked, "So why are we here?"

  Daniels said, "I told you, nine-one-one call."

  "But why?"

  Tyler said, "Someone called nine-one-one and said their kid went missing and was seen with some of the boys who live here."

  Daniels nodded and said, "Don't worry. I deal with them at least once a month without any violence."

  Widow looked into the trunk and saw police gear: a bullhorn, bulletproof vests, ammunition, and similar gear. One item was of interest to him, a Remington 700P, a police special sniper rifle. Widow glanced at it and then at boxes of ammunition lined up in a crate. The Remington 700P was chambered for .308 Winchester cartridge, but it could also fire other rifle rounds, including the .300 Remington Ultra Magnum bullet, which was a big bullet that could do colossal damage.

  Widow saw an opened box of .300 Remington Ultra Magnum bullets right there with the others. He made a mental note of it and looked away.

  Widow asked, "What about backup? Where're your deputies?"

  "Unfortunately, this is a large, rural county. And I'm sheriff of all of it. It might take my closest deputy thirty minutes to get all the way out here. We can't wait. A kid's life is on the line."

  Tyler said, "We're the back up."

  He looked at Gray.

  He said, "It's our duty."

  She nodded and looked at Widow.

  She said, "What about Widow?"

  Tyler said, "He's got no gun."

  Daniels said, "He's not a cop."

  Gray said, "He's liaising with NCIS."

  Daniels said, "The NCIS has no jurisdiction here."

  Tyler said, "He's right. Widow is just a civilian. Best if he hangs back. With the cars."

  Widow looked at the cruiser and into the trunk. He saw shotgun shells in a box.

  He said, "What about your shotgun, Sheriff?"

  Daniels stepped back away from the trunk lid and stared into his cruiser at a shotgun locked upright in the front bench.

  He said, "Sorry, Widow. You're still a civilian. It'll be okay."

  Tyler said, "Besides, the shotgun is mine."

  Daniels looked at him, fished his keys out of his pocket, and handed them to Tyler.

  "That's fine."

  Tyler took the keys, walked back to the front of the cruiser, and got in. He unlocked the shotgun and took it, and came back out.

  He asked, "Got shells?"

  "Right here in the trunk," Daniels said.

  Feeling his primate brain screaming and pounding in the back of his head, Widow tried to stay calm, cool and collected as if he didn't suspect a thing, but the truth was, he feared the worst.

  He stood back, leaned against the hood of the Charger, and watched the others gear up, as prepared as if they were going into a warzone.

  He counted the bulletproof vests in the trunk. There were four, one left over for him if he could get to it. He watched as Daniels came out with them and divvied them out. Widow didn't get one.

  His primate brain was telling him to act now while he had the chance. He could club Tyler over the head and try explaining to Daniels that the whole thing was a trap. But Daniels was armed, and he wasn't. No way was Gray going to pull a gun on a sheriff, not even for him. Would she?

  His brain started running scenarios, calculating the best course of action. In the end, it came back with two options. Club them both over the head and leave them handcuffed in the back of Daniels' cruiser. Let the FBI sort it out tomorrow. Or he could just sit back and do nothing, hope for the best.

  But the choice was made for him because Tyler handed the keys back to Daniels, who locked the car.

  Tyler loaded the shotgun and pumped it, loading a shell into the chamber. He held it ready to go, and then he did something weird, like he was psychic. He stared at Widow, locked his eyes on him the way a Secret Service agent locks onto a suspect in a crowd. And he never took his eyes off him, not while Widow was within clubbing range.

  His opportunity was gone.

  Daniels closed the trunk and moved to the driver's side, rear tire well. He pointed at the main structure, the one that could still be identified as a house. All of its walls and stairs and concrete and roof were intact. A large wraparound porch went all the way around the front of the house before it stopped dead on the sides. Most of the windows still had glass. All of the doors were there. They still opened and closed and locked.

  There was a huge fireplace with a chimney made of thick stone. It looked strong enough to take a rocket
and still stand afterward.

  Widow stared up at it and thought, A whole man could fit in that thing.

  Daniels said, "I'll go to the front door. You two go around back, different sides. And check the windows. Be careful."

  Gray asked, "What about the other buildings?"

  "We might have to check them. Usually, they're in this one. And they're usually cooked out of their minds at night. So, I don't expect much resistance. Or even much speech from them."

  Gray asked, "Then why are we all geared up?"

  "You never know. Middle of the night like this, these folks have Second Amendment rights the same as the rest of us. They may mistake us for ghosts come back from the dead. Who knows?"

  Tyler said, "Let's clear this one first, and if we don't find the missing girl, we’ll check the others."

  Gray said, "Okay."

  Widow pulled Gray by the arm over to him and hugged her tight. He whispered into her ear.

  "Don't let them get behind you."

  She nodded and turned and joined Daniels and Tyler.

  Widow thought of the twins and Fallow and killing him for taking those two little girls. He shook off the thought and watched Gray and the others walk past the police cruiser, out into the blue and red lights. He watched her intently like it might be the last time he ever saw her again, alive at least.

  Fifty-Three

  Daniels led Gray and Tyler up the walkway toward the main house. They all had their guns out. He pointed the two of them around to the back of the house. He paused and waited for them to disappear around the outer wall and into the backyard.

  Widow watched Gray's small frame vanish around the side of the house into the darkness. He clenched his fists.

  Widow was back with the vehicles a good sixty-five feet from the front porch. He watched the sheriff climb the front steps onto the porch. The boards on the porch were old and worn. They creaked under Daniels' weight.

  At the front door, Widow heard him bang on the front door, identify himself as law enforcement, and call out for the occupants to come to the front door and open it.

  Widow watched the windows. There was no movement. No lights came on. The curtains didn't move.

  Daniels called out again, same as before. Nothing happened.

  Daniels shouted, "Open up! Or I'm coming in!"

  Nothing happened.

  "Police! I'm coming in the front door!"

  Daniels was a heavy guy, but he was limber, a lot more so than Widow would've guessed. Daniels stepped back on one foot, pulled his Glock in tight to his chest, heaved his other foot out, and kicked in the front door.

  The door busted open. The lock plate busted through the weak wood, and Daniels disappeared into the darkness in seconds.

  Widow was not the kind of guy to stand back and do nothing. He wasn't the kind of guy who stood down.

  As soon as Daniels vanished into the house through the front door, Widow tried to break into his police cruiser.

  He felt that it was better to be completely wrong about Tyler and have to apologize to Daniels for breaking a window, than being right about his gut feeling.

  Police cars are built tough, and the windows are also built tough. The windows in the back seat are double tough. They're virtually unbreakable. The last thing cops wanted was to have a criminal in the backseat able to bust out their window. But the windows in the front weren't as strong.

  If he had a certain emergency tool, also known as a window breaker, it would be easy to break out the front window or the windshield, but he didn't have one. He thought for a moment, and then he remembered a trick, not a Navy SEAL trick, but something he had learned somewhere in life, an emergency escape hack.

  He returned to the Charger and went inside and pushed the passenger seat backward. He was facing the back seat. He gripped the headrest and pulled it, extending the metal bars in it all the way up. Then he jerked it, and the whole headrest came right out, bars and all. He hopped back out of the Charger and over to the driver's side window of the police cruiser. He aimed the pointed ends of the bars at the window and rammed the headrest into the glass. The window shattered, and pieces of glass fragmented and exploded all over the seat.

  Widow tossed the headrest onto the hood of the car and reached in and unlocked the door. He wrenched the door open. Fragments of broken glass poured out onto the gravel. He reached in and did two things. He released the trunk mechanism. The he jerked open the glove box and recovered Gray's back-up Sig Sauer. He got out of the cruiser and tucked the Sig into the waistband of his jeans. Then he ran around to the back of the car and opened the trunk.

  First, he took the last bulletproof vest and slid off his Havelock with the bullet hole in it and strapped the vest on. He shivered in the cold night air. Next, he put the Havelock back on over the vest. He looked back into the trunk at the sniper rifle. He doubted that he would need a long-range weapon, but the more firepower, the better, he always said. And maybe there was a ravenous, dangerous group of meth heads living here.

  So, he scooped up the sniper rifle and checked it. The Remington 700P was a bolt-action rifle. He took the box of the .300 Remington Ultra Magnum bullets and loaded one into the weapon. The bolt action went back so far that the manufacturer had to design a groove in the top of the stock in order to fit one of the bullets inside. The .300 Remington Ultra Magnum was a large bullet.

  The rifle came with a shoulder sling. He stuffed the box of bullets into one of his pockets. It almost didn't fit. It bulked out as if he had an actual full-size gun stuffed in there.

  Widow slung the sniper rifle over his shoulder and scanned the trunk for anything else that might be useful. He saw a couple of smoke grenade canisters. Like the sniper rifle, he thought, Why the hell not? He scooped them up too. The grenades had belt clips on them, which made it much easier to carry them. He clipped them to his belt.

  Widow closed the trunk and went after Gray and Tyler. He wanted to catch up to them and keep an eye on Tyler.

  The house was long and deeper than it appeared from the front.

  He edged along the side of the house, keeping an eye on the windows. So far, he heard nothing. No sounds came from inside the house, not even Daniels. Everything was quiet.

  That changed as he neared the back edge of the house.

  Gunshots erupted and BOOMED! through the air. He saw quick bursts of muzzle flash, but couldn't pinpoint them.

  Widow picked up the pace and started running toward the back of the house.

  He heard Tyler's shotgun. He heard Gray's Sig Sauer.

  Widow ran full sprint. The Remington 700P slammed in his back over and over as he ran. One of the smoke grenades almost fell off his belt.

  He ran until he reached the back of the house. He slammed his body into a wall on the corner and peered around the edge of the wall.

  More gunshots rang out, one after the next. Then it was several at once. Then he lost count. He heard gunfire being exchanged from one hundred eighty degrees. He heard single shots, and automatic fire, and rifle shots, and shotgun blasts. It sounded like a ground battle of countries at war.

  Widow had the Sig Sauer out, ready to go. He started to peek around the house, but then he saw something in the corner of his eye. Ten meters to his right, in the woods, he saw movement. He looked, aimed the Sig at the movement. He saw swaying branches and then a muzzle flash and gunshot BOOMED! across from him.

  Wood splintered and exploded just behind him, about two feet from his head. Someone had shot at him.

  Widow dropped to a crouch and aimed and fired!

  But he was firing into the dark. He must've missed the shooter because, at the same time, he saw another muzzle flash and heard another BOOM! Then a third and a fourth. Someone was shooting at him. Rotted wood from the house shattered and exploded all around him.

  The shooter was firing and missing. Either the person was also firing blind because Widow was also consumed in darkness, or her or she was just that bad a shot.

  Widow
didn't fire multiple shots the way the shooter was doing. He aimed and waited for the first and last mistake of the shooter. The muzzle flash on its own could be misleading in a nighttime firefight, but this guy was shooting rapidly. Widow saw the figure behind the bursts of muzzle flash. It was a grown man dressed in tattered garments. He was thin and pale and dirty like he hadn't seen a shower in months.

  Widow returned fire with one, and only one, shot.

  He aimed and fired. He saw red mist puff out in the air around the guy's head, and he saw the back of the guy's head explode. The next thing he saw was darkness, but he heard the guy hit the dirt like a sack of rocks.

  Widow stayed in the crouch position and aimed at the direction of his shooter, in case there was more than one. No one else fired back at him—no sounds of rustling leaves or footsteps on gravel.

  Widow turned toward the backyard. He heard more gunfire. He took a peek around the corner. The backyard was more visible because of stars in the sky and vast stretches of emptiness and muzzle flashes. There were dozens of flashes. They were all firing at the back of the house. It was hard to get a headcount of assailants, but Widow counted at least six.

  Widow tried to peer all the way around the corner and see if he could locate Gray, but he couldn't. Then he heard her Sig Sauer fire from behind the house. She was firing back at the shooters in the backyard. She must've found cover because she was still alive.

  Widow saw several structures in the darkness out in the backyard. Then, he realized that they were ambushed. Had to be. Whether Tyler had something to with it or not, he didn't know. But the meth heads were there waiting, already armed. Had to have been. They were too fast getting into position.

  Widow saw half a tree that was more than a stump, but not a grown tree, between him and the back porch.

  In an explosion of force and speed like a sprinter, he took off for the tree and ducked down behind it. One of the meth heads saw him and shot at him. Bullets sprayed and exploded off the other side of the tree. Dead bark flew into the air.

  Widow could smell gun smoke everywhere.

  He waited and looked at the back porch. He saw Tyler and Gray huddled together behind a solid rock pillar. Then he saw there were several on the back porch, like the house was designed to have two front porches instead of one. He thought maybe the front they had come in at was actually the back. It was hard to tell in the dark.