The Standoff Read online

  “There’s a radio in the sheriff’s truck?”

  “Already checked it. Nothing. Not in this weather.”

  Adonis asked, “So what then? We go down guns blazing?”

  Widow shook his head with a big: No! That’s not a good idea!

  Adonis asked, “What? Why not?”

  “My concern is saving the White family.”

  “They killed my guys. They killed them in cold blood. Right in front of me. First, they blew up half my friends. Then they murdered Shep, Ramirez, James, and Swan.”

  “I’m sorry for that, but that’s not this family’s fault. They don’t deserve to die so you can have revenge. Our responsibility is to their safety. Not your vendetta.”

  Adonis was silent for a long moment. But then she nodded and spoke. Her voice raspy, maybe from the gag, maybe from the truth.

  “You’re right.”

  Suddenly, a deep voice called out from downstairs.

  “Tanis? What’s that racket?”

  Adonis said, “They heard the shots.”

  Of course, they did , Widow thought. An M4 on full-auto is a loud weapon; a sound suppressor just turns loud gunshots into loud rattles. It’ll still be heard all over the house.

  “There goes the element of surprise,” he said.

  “What do we do? There’s at least five more of them.”

  “There’re only three left.”

  “You killed the others?”

  “I killed a sniper in a barn. I stuffed one in the trunk of the cruiser. And I killed that one,” Widow said, pointing at the dead one on the floor.

  Adonis looked at the dead one on the floor again.

  Widow said, “We’d better keep the others on their toes.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Follow me.”

  They heard the same voice call out again.

  “Tanis? Answer!”

  Before they left the room, Widow looked over the corpse one last time, thinking there might be a radio on him, but there wasn’t. The radios were limited apparently. You had to be in the top tier to get one.

  Widow returned to the hallway.

  “Come on,” he told her.

  She followed him. They threaded the hall, hugging the wall opposite the stairs. She kept the shotgun trained on the stairwell opening, expecting to shoot one of Abel’s guys, but no one came up.

  The voice called out again, louder because they were closer to the stairs. It sounded like he was right at the foot of the stairs.

  “Tanis?”

  Widow whispered to Adonis.

  “This way.”

  They passed the stairs and went through an open bedroom door, back into Dylan’s room. Widow led her to Dylan’s sneaking out window and opened it.

  “Down the trellis.”

  She went first, climbed through the window. He held the shotgun for her. She scrambled down. She was glad not to be completely barefoot, but as soon as her socks touched the snow, she felt it. Shivers crawled up her toes, feet, and legs.

  The wind blew on her and the snow blasted her shoulders and head. It didn’t help her feel any less cold.

  Widow tossed the shotgun down to her. She caught it; then he dropped the M4 down to her. She caught it as well. He climbed out the window after her, but not till after he heard the voice again. Only this time it was on the second floor, right on their trail.

  “Tanis? What’s going on in there?”

  Widow made it down after her.

  “We’d better move,” he said.

  Chapter 51

  D YLAN SAT next to his father and his sister, but he eyeballed the sliding doors. He was only eight years old, and he was scared, as they all were. He kept thinking about the sliders. He bet that he could make a run for it. Maybe he could get away. Maybe they wouldn’t even shoot at him.

  Who would shoot a kid? he thought.

  In movies, no one ever shoots children. It just wasn’t very likely. He had seen R-rated movies before. His dad let him watch the old ones, the ones from the eighties, which his dad says, are way better than the action movies they make today.

  Dylan looked at Abel. Then he looked at the slider.

  He figured that if he ran to the slider, unlocked it, slid the door open, and then made a run for the Christmas tree fields, he could get away. He could run all the way through them to the road. He could flag down a car.

  Cars would stop for a kid. Especially one his age with no winter coat on and no winter boots. Adults are more likely to stop their cars for a kid than for adults. He knew that. He had seen R-rated movies.

  And if he didn’t run to the road, maybe he could find Mr. Widow. He looked tough. He remembered Widow and his grandpa had gone outside together. Widow never came back. He must be out there somewhere.

  Dylan could find him. Mr. Widow would help.

  But he had to get past Abel first.

  His thoughts were interrupted when the black guy, Brooks, called up the stairs to the other one.

  “Tanis? What’s the racket?” Brooks called out.

  Dylan looked at the slider doors again.

  I could run for it , he thought. I could be a hero like in the eighties movies. Mr. Widow is like one of those action guys. We could fight these guys ourselves.

  Brooks faced the stairs, looking up them to the second floor.

  He called up again.

  “Tanis? Answer!”

  Dylan looked at Abel, who stared at Brooks and the stairwell. Dylan gazed around the room. Everyone was looking at the stairs. He could slip down off the sofa and sneak over to the slider.

  How long would it take him to snap the button to unlock it? A second?

  The Charlie bar was left off already. He could see that.

  Brooks shouted, “Tanis?”

  Dylan started edging off the sofa.

  Chapter 52

  O N THE GROUND, Widow and Adonis snuck back the way he’d come, to get out of sight from the master bedroom’s window and Dylan’s window, in case the Athenians had figured out where they escaped to.

  They paused on the far side of the house between the backyard and the driveway.

  Adonis asked, “What now?”

  Widow edged on toward the driveway. He stopped at the corner and hugged the wall and peeked around to the front. He saw the same grayness, the same parked vehicles from before. No change. No one was out front, not yet.

  “Okay. Follow me.”

  He took off running, away from the house to a line of leafless oaks and brush. Adonis followed behind him. At the oaks, he paused behind the larger one, and looked back at the house. They were about a hundred feet away from the porch.

  He looked at the windows in the front and saw no one. He knew they must’ve found the dead guy called Tanis by now.

  “Come on,” he said.

  He took off running, not at a full sprint, more of a jog because Adonis was barefoot and probably couldn’t keep up running that fast in the snow. But she kept up just fine.

  He led her to the side of the barn. Then he followed the wall north to the back of the structure.

  At the back, he showed her the big hole in the wall, where Abe had told him a storm took off the year before. They climbed through it.

  They walked over to stacks of various pieces of lumber and construction equipment and the shingles he had set down with Abe.

  They propped their long guns up against a pile of lumber.

  Widow grabbed Adonis by the waist from the front, like they were going to do a slow dance, and lifted her up and set her down on a pile of the roof shingles.

  She didn’t complain.

  She gathered her breath and asked, “What now?”

  “You stay here. I’ll go try to figure something out.”

  “No way! You’re not shutting me out!”

  “But…”

  She cut him off with a hand to his face.

  “Don’t give me that loner, hero bullshit! I’m the ATF agent! We’re doing something
together or not at all.”

  Widow waited for her to stop before speaking.

  She stared at him.

  He said, “Okay. I’m just going to take a look.”

  “Oh. Okay. Sorry.”

  He left her there and went to the barn doors. He cracked one side open and peeked out at the front of the house. No one came out, but he could hear yelling from inside the house, over the wind and snow. He saw the shadow of a head pass the kitchen window. It was a man’s, but he passed too quickly for him to figure out which man.

  Widow shut the door and came back in to Adonis.

  “They’ve discovered the dead one.”

  “What now?”

  “We have to go in. We can’t wait around for them. Knowing Abel, he’ll start shooting them until we give ourselves up.”

  “You know Abel?”

  Widow shook his head.

  “I googled him earlier. After you left. I’ve never met him, but I know the type.”

  “He killed dozens of my agents. My friends.”

  “I know.”

  “He deserves to die.”

  “I know.”

  She started tearing up again. It was nothing at first, but then she just burst into tears like a levee breaking.

  She turned away from him like she was ashamed. She began sobbing. It was bad. About as bad as anyone he’d ever heard cry before. She had held it in all morning until now.

  In a sobbing, broken up voice, she said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’ve seen full-grown Navy SEALs cry. You’ve been through something traumatic and emotional. I get it.”

  “It’s all my fault.”

  “No, it’s not. They’re the ones who strapped you to a bed. They’re the ones who were going to rape you. That’s not your fault.”

  She wiped her face and stayed facing the other way.

  Widow glanced back over his shoulder to the barn doors, listening to see if they had come out front yet. He knew that once they combed the house for Adonis, they would eventually figure out she’d escaped through an upstairs window. At any moment, he expected them to come out in a hunting party of at least two.

  But there was nothing so far.

  Adonis said, “You don’t understand. It’s all my fault. They killed my guys, and that’s my fault. It was my operation.”

  “You’re talking about the compound exploding?”

  She said nothing to that.

  Widow said, “Look, Ops go bad. No plan survives first contact with the enemy.”

  She turned back and looked at him. Her face and mascara were worse than before.

  She half-smiled.

  “Is that an Army motto or something?”

  It was a SEAL proverb. His head was full of them. As all SEALs are. Couldn’t be helped. Everything he learned back then was hammered and stamped and plugged into his head like a tattoo on the brain.

  But he didn’t tell her that part.

  He said, “I saw it on a bumper sticker somewhere.”

  “You still don’t understand. This is more than false guilt. I mean my guys are dead because I took them along on my own personal vendetta.”

  He stared at her.

  She said, “Shep, Ramirez, Swan, and James. They were killed down the road from here because I took them with me to hunt Abel. I was ordered off the case this morning. After the Op went bad.”

  Widow nodded. He understood. She felt guilt for the Athenians blowing themselves up, and killing half her agents. But she was bullheaded and defied orders and took the names she mentioned with her to hunt them down. Only now they were dead too.

  Widow said, “I can’t tell you that you’re wrong. I’m not going to. That’s up to you to decide for yourself. But look, Abel’s alive. His guys are alive. And they’ve got an innocent family hostage. There’s a sheriff in there too. We can save them. We can save them all. You can do something to make it right.”

  She nodded.

  Widow said, “I need you to pull it together.”

  “Okay. You’re right. What do we do?”

  He looked around the barn.

  “We need a distraction.”

  “What do you suggest?” she asked.

  He had an idea, but it wasn’t one that Abe would like or Walter or Abby.

  Chapter 53

  B ROOKS STOOD at the foot of the Whites’ staircase, leading up to the second floor, where Adonis had been strapped to the bed, where Tanis had been patrolling. Only everyone downstairs had all heard a ruckus coming from the master bedroom. It sounded as if some kind of heavy machinery had been set off. It sounded like an industrial sewing machine had been kicked on and was working tirelessly.

  Abel said, “What the hell was that?”

  He stared at Abe with the question, like he had the answer.

  Abe, not wanting to look like he was guilty in a coup attempt, offered a possible explanation.

  “Maybe the heater’s finally giving way. That damn old thing has needed to be replaced for twenty years now.”

  Abe glanced at Walter. They locked eyes as if they were both thinking the same thing at the same time, like a psychic connection.

  Widow is still out there.

  Walter said, “That might’ve been it kicking off for the last time.”

  But Brooks wasn’t buying it.

  He said, “Sounded like automatic fire to me.”

  Abel looked at him.

  “Autofire?”

  “One of our silenced M4s, maybe.

  Abel stood up from the armchair. He put the cigar out on one of Abby’s end tables. The whole White family, minus Abby, noticed and cringed.

  Abel stormed over to the stairs, stayed behind Brooks. He called up.

  “Tanis!”

  Nothing.

  “Tanis!”

  Silence.

  Flack came in from the kitchen with Abby. He pulled her around by her collar like a pet. The White family noticed that too. Especially Abe, who stood up like he was going to protest, but Abel turned back to him.

  “Sit down!” he said. Abe sat back down.

  Abel said, “Flack, get your ass up there and see what’s going on. Brooks go with him.”

  Flack released Abby from his grip and walked into the living room, toward the stairs. Abel stopped him before he got there with a long, bony hand in his chest.

  Abel said, “Hold up. Give me the bitch.”

  Flack nodded and handed over his M4 and took a Glock out of his hip holster. It was also silenced.

  Abel took the M4 and swept the muzzle over the family once, reminding them that he was in charge.

  Flack joined Brooks at the bottom of the stairs. Brooks held up his hand.

  “I’ll go first,” he said. He aimed his M4 up the stairs and together they both ascended.

  At the second floor, they headed straight toward the master bedroom. They went right in, not checking the room with their weapons, which they both immediately knew they should’ve done. Because the first things they stared at were the empty bed and the handcuffs opened and lying on top of the covers. Then they saw the blood across the covers and the wall and the window across from the bed. They walked around the bed and found their friend dead.

  Tanis’s corpse was crammed into the wall awkwardly as if he had been catapulted into it like a ragdoll.

  Tanis’s eyes were still open. They stared at the floor, completely lifeless and hollow. He was nothing more than a husk.

  He was up against the far wall, near a window overlooking the backyard.

  Flack took a knee down beside his dead friend and reached out and checked for a pulse on Tanis’s neck. There wasn’t one.

  Brooks said, “What the hell’re you doin’?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “No shit, he’s dead! His blood is all over the carpet. Come on!”

  Flack got up and followed Brooks. They checked the rest of the room, the closet, the bathroom. Then they moved to the next bedroom on that floor and the next and th
e next, until they had checked them all.

  Brooks checked all the windows. Finally, they ended up in Dylan’s room, where they found an unlocked window.

  Brooks held the M4 in one hand and used the other hand to palm the window all the way up. He looked out it. A cold wind gusted into the room and over his face. He stuck his head out the window, fast, and scanned the back of the house. He saw nothing but grayness and tall, snow-covered Christmas trees everywhere.

  Even though there were Christmas trees, it was all rather spooky.

  Brooks looked down at the side of the house and saw the rose trellis. And then he saw the footprints. There were two sets. They ran off around the side of the house, around the corner, and vanished.

  He ducked his head back in and grabbed Flack by the collar, same as he had done to Abby, and jerked him with it, pulling him alongside for the journey. They stormed out of the room and back to the staircase.

  They went down it.

  On the stairs, Brooks stopped and stared at Abel, who looked back at him impatiently, waiting for an answer.

  He said, “Well?”

  Flack said, “Tanis is dead.”

  Brooks said, “The girl’s gone.”

  “What?”

  Brooks said, “There’s footprints behind the house. Two sets. Looks like we missed somebody.”

  Abel’s face turned red. He raised the M4 and pointed it at the two of them like he was going to shoot them both dead. If Brooks was honest with himself, he thought for a moment that Abel would squeeze the trigger.

  Abel said, “Get Cucci on the radio!”

  Brooks pulled out his radio and tried it.

  “Cucci. Come in. Over?”

  They listened and heard nothing but static.

  “Cucci? Come in?”

  “Try Jargo!”

  Brooks clicked the button and put the receiver up to his mouth.

  “Jargo? Come in. Over?”

  Nothing.

  “Cucci, Jargo, answer. Over!”

  Nothing.

  They waited for an answer, but they didn’t get one, just more silence.

  “We should follow the footprints,” Flack said.

  No one answered. There was no time because—suddenly, outside, a stone’s throw from the front of the barn, less than fifty yards from the Whites’ front door, something exploded! And then it exploded again. And again. And again.