Allegiance: A Jackson Quick Adventure Read online

  “I feel like a trapped rat.”

  “A lab rat?” George asks snidely.

  I look at George with a glance that tells him to ease up on the sarcasm. “You can blame us all you want. You can call us idiots or whatever. The bottom line is, we’re all still alive. We need each other. What do you want to do? It’s your call, Doc.”

  Ripley looks at the floor and then at me, a hint of what I imagine is guilt in his eyes, before he glances at George and the floor again. He leans over at his waist, hands on his knees, and begins to sob. It’s an ugly cry, the kind no man wants to witness of another. I can’t blame him. He is a lab rat. He’s a nerd. He’s not equipped to deal with this.

  I’m not equipped to deal with this either.

  George looks at me and starts to reach for Ripley, to comfort him. He stops short and we stand there, the scientist crying himself dry.

  There’s a knock at the door that stops the sobbing. Still bent over, Ripley looks at the door and stands erect to look at us. He grabs the gun from the chest of drawers and uses the back of his sleeve to wipe his nose and eyes free of snot and saline.

  There’s more banging on the door, this time louder and more insistent.

  “Who is it?” he asks, trying to sound composed.

  “I need to speak with you,” says a voice through the door. It’s a woman. She sounds scared.

  ***

  Ripley inches to the right side of the room’s door. “Who is it?” he repeats, more urgently this time.

  “Nancy,” the voice says shaky. “I’m the, uh, caretaker here.”

  “What do you want?” Ripley has positioned himself with his back to the wall, his right arm up with the gun pointed toward the door. His hand is shaking.

  “I need to speak with you about your room,” she says. “Could you, uh, open the door please, Mr. Palance?”

  Ripley looks at me for an answer. I shake my head. Not a good idea.

  “I’m not feeling well,” Ripley says, his eyes still fixed on me. “Is there a problem?”

  “Well, sir,” more hesitancy, “w-we’re overbooked. I need to speak with you about your room for tonight.”

  “It’s a little early for that, isn’t it?” Ripley glances at the red numbers on clock next to the bed. 6:05AM. “I mean it’s—”

  The door explodes, knocking Ripley backward against the wall. George shrinks behind the chest of drawers at the entrance to the bathroom. I fall back onto the bed as Ripley’s gun spins in the air and lands next to my head.

  I grab the gun and slide off the bed on the far side of the door. I’m inches from the window.

  From behind the bed, another explosion. It’s clearly a gunshot. A blast, maybe, from a large caliber weapon. To my left, splintered wood flies past. Lying flat on the ground and looking underneath the bed to the doorway, I can see a body. It may be Ripley. I can’t tell.

  Another blast. I quickly look above the bed.

  The door is unhinged and shattered. At the threshold is a man with dark hair and sunglasses. His lips are pursed. A small shotgun of some kind is at his waist, aiming toward the chest of drawers.

  Without ducking, I check the safety, pull the hammer, and aim.

  One shot at his head. A dark spot spreads above the lenses of those glasses. The man with the gun stumbles for a moment and falls.

  From behind him, the flash and pop of another gun, a handgun. I drop to the floor and try to aim the Governor toward the door. There’s a body in the way. That won’t work.

  Bang! Bang!

  What’s left of the shattered door splinters into the air. I can smell the pine.

  On my stomach, I inch to the end of the bed. I can see George. He’s tucked in a ball, his hands covering his ears, his eyes closed.

  I’ve got to get us out of here.

  From my position on the floor, I push up to my knees with my left hand. My right is already aiming the pistol at the door. I pull the trigger twice, feeling it resist the second pull.

  By the time I focus on the man in the doorway, he already has a bullet hole in his right knee and in his stomach. He’s still standing.

  A third pull on the trigger and he falls on top of the first shooter. There’s sawdust dancing in the sunlight beaming through the window. For an instant there’s complete silence, apart from the slight ringing in my ears.

  Ripley screams. “We’re gonna die!” He’s still pressed against the wall, at the corner of the room next to the bed. “We’re gonna die!”

  “Shut up!” I snap at him and, using the bed, pull myself onto both feet. “Do you have more bullets?”

  “What?” He looks at me with his eyes wide.

  “Bullets,” I repeat. “Where are they? I’ve got one left. I need five. “Give me the shotshell this time.”

  “What?” He’s squinting now. Maybe he can’t hear me from the gunfire?

  “You said there was shotshell in this gun. It’s loaded with regular bullets!”

  “Uh, yeah,” Ripley blinks. “In the top dresser drawer.” He points toward the chest of drawers but doesn’t move.

  “George, get the ammo out of the drawer.”

  Shoving the desk aside, I step to the window and release the latches on either side of the double paned glass. The window slides open and I lean outside. The drop is straight down, maybe 40 feet. We’re on the edge of a sheer, rocky plateau with nowhere to go.

  “That’s not going to work,” I mumble and turn back to the room. “We’re going to get out the way we came in and we need to hope there’s nobody waiting for us.”

  “They might already be on their way,” George offers along with a handful of shotshell. “We need to go now, don’t we?”

  I take the bullets and load them into the five empty chambers of the revolver without looking at him or saying anything. I spin the weapon closed, re-shoulder my backpack, and start for the door.

  Past the bed, there’s a woman’s body on the floor. It’s Nancy or whoever was claiming to be Nancy. There’s blood soaking her back and puddling underneath her. Looking down, I notice blood and a tear in my pants along my shin. That first blast must have hurled something into me. It’s either shrapnel or wood. I don’t want to look at it.

  I’ve seen too much blood.

  Chapter 9

  George is armed with the small shotgun belonging to the dead man with sunglasses. Ripley is carrying The Governor again. I’m holding a nine millimeter semiautomatic. After shoveling the dead assassins out of the doorway, taking their weapons, their wallets, a buck knife, and a set of keys, we make our way toward the entrance of the lodge. All three of us are breathing heavily. We probably look ridiculous, a scientist, a reporter, and a political hack acting like special operations.

  “Do you think that was all of them?” Ripley manages between breaths. “Are we in the clear?”

  “No telling,” answers George. “That might have been the first wave.”

  “Great,” Ripley inhales and sighs. “I told you this plan wasn’t worth a piece of—”

  “Shut up,” I bark. “We’re alive.”

  Ripley’s right. This plan is no plan at all. We’re clueless. We’re probably walking into a trap of some kind. We’ve got no choice. This is our only way out.

  “How did you do that?” Ripley asks, his tone softer.

  “Do what?” I ask, turning around. I can see the Nike covered feet of the man with sunglasses.

  “Kill those men?”

  I spin back around to catch Ripley’s pained expression, “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it.”

  “I mean,” Ripley whispers, “you killed two men. Just like that.”

  “Like I said, I didn’t think.” I keep walking. “Survival instinct, I guess.”

  I don’t know whether it’s survival instinct or just instinct. Maybe I’m death’s minion. For years I’ve been avoiding facing it. Now it’s staring me in the face.

  The gun felt good in my hand, familiar. It belonged there. I didn’t feel a thi
ng when I saw either man die. No remorse. No guilt. No anything. I just stepped over the bodies

  “Right in the head,” Ripley says. “Right in the head!” He starts moving again.

  “Enough, okay?” George snaps. “He saved our lives right?”

  “Sorry,” Ripley says. “I just…I suppose I…”

  I lead the three of us into the kitchen, where we first checked in to the lodge, and then carefully out the door into the daylight. It’s better not to think about what I’ve done.

  We stay along the side of the building, protected somewhat from the open terrain as we move toward the cars. The air is dry and cool from the dawn. There’s a slight wind swirling around us that sends a shudder down my spine. My eyes are on the horizon, my mind somewhere else completely until Ripley voices the bad news.

  “Our tires are blown.” He’s the first to notice it. We inch closer. All four tires on both vehicles are flat. “What do we do now?”

  I scan the area. The parking lot, the sloping mountain behind us, and the winding, narrow road below us. That’s when I see it.

  “We take a new ride.” I grab my old backpack from the SUV, empty its contents into my new pack, and leave the empty bag on the ground. “There’s a car about fifty yards downhill from here. We have the keys.”

  Quickly, we edge our way down the road to a beige four-door Crown Victoria. I push the unlock button and the remote and the door click in unison.

  “We might get out of here,” Ripley says optimistically as he slides into the back seat of the Ford.

  “Maybe,” says George. “We’ve got a long way to go to get to Houston.”

  I walk around to the back of the car and pop the trunk. It’s empty aside from a spare tire and a small black leather briefcase. I drop my backpack and pull out the briefcase.

  I slam shut the trunk just as Ripley gets exactly what he’s been trying to avoid.

  ***

  The bullet hit him in the left side of the head. He must have been turned toward the driver’s side. The shot sliced through the rear windshield within an instant of me closing the trunk.

  Ripley is slumped on the rear bench seat of the sedan, eyes fixed open. He looks like a marionette cut from its strings and dropped to the ground.

  The world slows around me and I turn to my right, looking down the mountain. I catch a quick flash of something straight downhill about two hundred yards and the sound of a loud engine turning over.

  George panics next to me, his back pressed against the passenger door in terror. I jump into the driver’s seat, toss the briefcase at him, and spin the car around.

  “Seatbelt,” I tell George without looking away from the road ahead. There’s a wake of dust trailing from whoever shot Ripley.

  The same road we’d carefully driven up the mountain, we’re now traveling down at a dangerous speed. The rear tires lose their grip on the asphalt with each spin of the steering wheel. Twice I almost lose control and tumble off the road, but we’re closing in. Maybe one hundred yards to go.

  “Open the briefcase,” I tell him. It doesn’t sound like my voice. It’s too calm, too in control. “Find out what’s inside it.”

  “I can’t,” he says, fumbling with the twin locks on the front of the case. “It’s locked.”

  “Use the buck knife.”

  “Ripley had it.”

  “Get it from him!” I jerk the wheel to the right and decelerate enough to avoid colliding with thick brush on the shoulder of the road. “It’s gotta be back there.”

  George hesitates before climbing past me and between the front seats. He’s grunting and breathing heavily. “Got it!”

  He slides back into his seat. The knife is bloody, as are George’s hands. He slides the knife into the case and starts prying it back and forth, up and down.

  The dust up ahead is getting closer; one hundred yards now. I jerk the wheel to the left and brake to regain control as the tires squeal in resistance.

  “I can’t open it,” George says. “I can’t do this now.” He tosses the case and the knife onto the floorboard in front of him and finally buckles his belt.

  “Check the glove box. Maybe there’s something in there.”

  “What are you looking for?” George asks, pulling open the box. “There’s a map and an owner’s manual.”

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “Anything.” The car accelerates under the weight of my right foot on the pedal. With each swerve, Ripley’s body slides across the back seat, banging against the back of my seat. The dust is closer. Maybe fifty yards. We swing another corner.

  “What is that?” George asks, his right hand bracing him against the dash. “It’s look like we caught up with them!”

  Up ahead there’s a black sedan upside down against an embankment on the inside of a sharp turn. The wheels are still spinning. There’s an arm sticking out through the driver’s window. About ten feet from the car, toward the outer edge of the curve, is a long rifle of some kind.

  A rifle for a sniper?

  I slam on my brakes and the Ford fishtails to a stop. We’re about twenty feet from the wreck. This is the car we were chasing.

  “Stay in the car,” I tell George and grab the nine millimeter from under the driver’s seat. There’s a cloud of dust emanating from the wreck, the tires spinning and whining. The driver’s foot still must be on the accelerator. I point the gun at the car and walk toward the arm lying lifelessly on the ground.

  When I get to within a couple of feet, I kneel down and peek into the car. The airbag is blown, so I can’t see the driver. The arm definitely belongs to a man. I nudge it with the gun. Nothing.

  There’s a moan from inside the vehicle. The passenger’s side.

  Getting back on my feet, I sidestep to the other side of the car. There’s glass everywhere, the windows crushed from the weight of the car. Another moan.

  I point the gun at the window as I kneel down. It’s only when I see the passenger that my hand starts shaking. I take a deep breath and try to steady my aim. It’s not easy.

  The passenger is bruised and bloodied, white bone sticking through the right forearm from a compound fracture, but I know who it is.

  “Charlie?”

  ***

  I was eight years old when my father first let me handle a weapon. He was an expert sharpshooter and was on the college rifle team at N.C. State. There were trophies in his office. He had a framed target on the wall behind his desk, and a bowl on his desk filled with spent brass bullet casings. I remember him digging into the bowl, grabbing a handful, and letting them clang back into the bowl. It was stress relief, I guess.

  “A gun is not a toy,” he’d reminded me repeatedly. “It is a tool for sport and for self-defense. Violence is never a way to solve problems. Never.”

  The day we first went to the range, I felt like I was a member of some special club.

  The range was outside, with about twenty firing positions. It was cool outside. The air smelled like burning charcoal and the leaves on the ground were every color but green. We were the only ones there, my dad and me. Two men with a gun.

  He handed me a pair of headphones and helped me put them over my ears. He checked that they fit snugly and signaled for me to slide them off and around my neck. He pulled out a pair for himself and did the same.

  From a vinyl bag, he pulled out the rifle. It was beautiful.

  “This is a Henry lever action .22, son,” he said, holding the weapon by its smooth walnut stock. “It’s like a cowboy rifle. My dad gave it to me. Someday, I’ll give it to you. It’s light. Weighs maybe five pounds unloaded. You’ll be able to handle it.”

  My dad pulled the hammer with his thumb and fingered the trigger back. He lowered the hammer and rechecked the trigger. It was locked. “I’m gonna show you how to safely load this rifle, okay?”

  I nod. I couldn’t take my eyes off the gun.

  My gun!

  “This is what’s called the tube…” My dad spun the end of the black cylind
er underneath the barrel to the left and pulled out a gold looking tube. “Back here is the loading port.” He pointed to an oval hole on the bottom side of the long cylinder. He picked up a bullet and dropped it in to the magazine.

  “This rifle holds about fifteen bullets, give or take. Don’t overload it.” He picked up the gold colored tube and slid it back into the cylinder. “Now this has a spring in it,” he warned. “When you push this back into the rifle, don’t let go of it.” He twisted the tube back to the right and it locked in place.

  “Okay,” he said, pointing the muzzle down the range toward a target. “You’re loaded and ready to go. Remember – with a loaded weapon, you never point it at anyone. It’s always away from people.”

  I nodded eagerly and licked my lips. I couldn’t wait.

  “Now I’m going to fire off these bullets. I want you to watch what I do,” my dad said as he tucked the weapon under his arm, with it pointed down range, and put on his headphones. “Then you’re going to load it and get your turn to shoot.”

  My dad turned to the side and shouldered the rifle. He pressed the butt against his right shoulder. “You always want the weapon tight against your shoulder,” he said without taking his eyes off the target, “otherwise it’ll kick back and hurt you.”

  Holding the forestock with his left hand, he took his right hand, trigger finger extended, and pulled on the lever. It clicked when it loaded the bullet and clicked again when he pulled it back. He tilted his head to the right and fired. A brass casing popped out of the right side of the barrel.

  For the next thirty-seconds he repeated the action over and over again.

  Pull. Click. Fire. Pull. Click. Fire.

  When he’d emptied the rifle, he slipped it under his arm, locked the trigger, and pulled his headphones down around his neck.

  “Let’s go check it,” he smiled and waved me to the other end of the range, where his target hung against a large bale of hay. I tailed behind my dad, three quick strides for every one of his, excited to see how well he’d done.