The police headquarters were housed in the town’s municipal building. It was a single-story brick building built in the 1970s—ugly, squat, and utilitarian. It came into view, but more importantly, a black SUV was parked in front of it.
He froze, then backed away slowly. Fading into the nearest shadow, he continued easing backward, his heart choking him, literally in his throat.
Who was in that vehicle, and what did they want?
Abruptly a cop burst out of the front door of the city building onto the sidewalk. He had his pistol drawn and was pointing it backward into the station itself. A man dressed all in black, his face covered in a black ski mask, came out behind him, brandishing some sort of assault-rifle-type weapon. There was a burst of light from its muzzle with a sharp rat-a-tat of noise, and the cop toppled over on his back and lay still.
The gunman calmly walked over to the passenger side of the SUV and climbed in. The vehicle pulled away from the curb.
Chas tried desperately to read the license plate, but the SUV was too far away. All he saw was a blur of black. The vehicle turned a corner, and silence fell in the town square.
Lights were coming on in apartments over the stores, and he suspected people were dialing 911 without realizing there was a good chance that everyone who might answer their call was dead. Why else would that gunman have been so casual about leaving the department unless he knew there would be no pursuit from within?
Holy what the heck, Batman?
Now what was he supposed to do?
Someone came out of a building a few doors down from the cop and raced over to check the downed officer. Whatever the guy saw caused him to reel back, turn, and vomit. The man did pull out a phone, however, and appeared to be talking to whomever answered it.
Chas assumed the bystander was calling in help, perhaps police from the next town over.
Logic told him to return to his house and wait for law enforcement to arrive. To make a witness statement and hand over this kid, who was starting to feel more than a little heavy in his tired arms.
But something in his gut stopped him. His home was no longer safe. His porch was the scene of a murder, and he had no way of knowing if the bad guys would be lurking nearby, waiting for cops—or him—to show up.
Had they seen him leap off his porch? Had they entered his house in search of him? If so, they’d found his cold beer. They would know he’d fled on foot and was somewhere nearby.
He looked around frantically. He had to hide. Get to cover. Call someone, anyone, for help. But who? It wasn’t like he had a contact list full of commandos—
Whoa. Rewind. He did know one commando.
And he even had Gunner’s phone number. He’d had it for years but never had the guts to call it. His mother had gotten it from Gunner’s mom and passed it to him. He couldn’t count how many times he’d looked at that name in his contact list. Pulled up the number, hovered his finger over the Dial button, and then chickened out.
There had to be somebody else. Anybody. But it wasn’t like he could call up any of his one-night stands and open with, “Hey, it’s Chas from spring break last year. You know, Miami. So, my house just got shot up and a woman died on my porch, and I’ve got this bloodied kid with me, and I don’t know where to go. Mind if I hop on over and shack up at your place? Don’t mind the armed killers who may be hunting me and this kid. Oh, and they just took out an entire police force, but that’s no big deal, is it?”
Cripes.
With his forearm under her diapered behind, he propped the child against his shoulder, where she huddled shivering, her face buried against his neck. Poor kid was scared out of her mind.
He fished out his phone with one hand and, shielding its light against his chest as much as possible, opened his contact list.
Vance, Gunner.
He pressed the Call button.
GUNNER WOKE up slowly, groggy. Disoriented. What was that beeping noise? The vague thought crossed his mind that somebody should make it stop.
He cracked one eye open. Weird. It wouldn’t open all the way. He tried the other eye. Better, but he was in a darkened room. In a bed. How in the hell did he get here?
As he regained more awareness of his surroundings, pain began to flood his consciousness. Layer upon layer of it. Sharp surface pain of lacerations. It felt like a few of his cuts had been stitched. The deeper throb of bruises. Damn. He felt that all over his body. Top to bottom, front to back… he felt like one giant bruise. And beneath that, the intense ache of cracked bones. Felt like several ribs had been busted, if the pain whenever he inhaled was any indication. What the hell had happened to him?
Accident of some kind? He didn’t remember one. Car? Motorcycle?
He sat up—or at least he tried to—but was swamped by a whole new layer of pain so bad, he fell back to the mattress, groaning at the pounding waves of agony rolling through his skull.
A door opened into the room, throwing a wedge of light on the floor. A big, thick shadow entered, and he braced himself for more pain. Was he a prisoner? Was this some kind of mind-bending interrogation? Had he been drugged? Alarm that he couldn’t remember ripped through him.
A gray-haired man stepped up to his bed and turned on the light beside it. Gunner squinted and registered that his bed was elevated well above the floor, kind of like a hospital bed. No, wait. His body was inclined gently upward from the hips, and the sheets were white. He wore some sort of thin cotton gown thing.
Jesus H. Christ. He was in a hospital.
“How’d I get here?” he rasped.
He squinted through his good eye and made out a black uniform. A shitload of colorful medals splashed all over the burly chest. A whole lot of gold braid on the lower sleeves. The bright gold of a Budweiser pin—
The symbol, an eagle holding a three-pronged trident and a rifle, slammed into his memory gap, shaking a big chunk of it loose all at once. His name was Gunner Vance, Navy Master Chief, SEAL Team Ten. And the man standing beside him was Rear Admiral Jonathan McCarthy, commander of all the SEAL teams on the East Coast of the United States.
Well, go fuck a duck.
What had he done to rate the big kahuna coming out to see him like this? No doubt it was either stupidly heroic, or just stupid.
“How’re you feeling, son?” the admiral asked.
“Like I got into a fight with a locomotive and the train won.”
“I’m told you’ll make a full recovery.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, sir, a full recovery from what?”
“Well, you sustained quite a few superficial injuries this morning. Although from the look of you, I imagine they don’t feel so superficial.”
No lie.
“What… happened?”
“You don’t remember?” the admiral asked with a sharp edge in his voice.
Well, duh. If I remembered, why would I ask?
“Winds changed direction and went out of limits while you were on a training jump. The jumpmaster threw you men out at low altitude, and you were blown way off course into a wooded area. Came down through some trees. Could’ve been real bad.”
No shit, Sherlock. He could’ve died. Two things that did not mix at all were trees and parachutes. Horror unfolded in his gut, a slow burn that ate through his innards with the indecent agony of acid eating through steel. It bubbled and hissed, chewing through sinew and muscle and soft organs until all that was left was a goo of pain.