Deadly Expectations (24 page)

“He said you were too late.
 
He was right.
 
I wouldn’t have survived the beating.
 
Now I know what Ray meant when he said our son would get your long memory … will our daughter have that too?
 
You remembered me from that long ago … it just took me a while to figure it out.

“I was Andre too.
 
I didn’t know you then.
 
But I knew Damian,” I could feel my temper start to rise.
 
“He was that asshole Lieutenant chicken shit coward.
 
Hardly ever got his hands dirty.
 
Like now.
 
Sitting back indulging himself with my sister.
 
Sending his men after us in his place.
 
Men like him … men like you.
 
I think I can see them when they come because they remember too.

“How many of your men are like you.
 
Ray for sure, probably a lot of the others … and the man I killed.
 
I have a feeling that I broke whatever tied him to his long memory.
 
He’ll come back, but he won’t remember.”

I moved closer to him.
 
My arms had fallen to my sides.
 
I turned my wrist slowly, impatience tapping the dirty blade on my leg.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” I demanded as I moved my arms away from my body.

It was then Ray got me from behind.
 
Paul’s eyes had stayed on me the whole time never betraying his presence.
 
He held me so I couldn’t move my arms; they stuck out from my sides.
 
His leg between mine leaning me back just enough that I couldn’t leverage my own off balance weight.

“Let go of the knife Anna,” Ray said quietly into my ear.

“No,” I told him.
 
“You’re going to have to take it.”

He shifted his weight just a bit and the nerve in my arm pinched painfully.
 
I sucked air in between my teeth as my arm went numb and the knife started to slip from my fingers.
 
There was no way he was going to come between me and protecting Paul.
 
I disappeared and reappeared at his side for a fraction of a second to hold the handle of his gun then I disappeared with it and reappeared behind him holding it to his back.

I waited for the knife to hit the ground.

“Ray …” I said quietly.
 
“Don’t move until I tell you too.”

Paul’s eyes were wide.

“If you turn to grab it I’ll be on the other side of the room before you even get half way around.”
 
He didn’t know that wasn’t true.
 
Three jumps had completely drained me.

“Anna,” Ray said as he raised his arms.
 
“Please put it down.
 
You’ve been through a lot and you’re not yourself.”

“Are you sure?
 
Is my voice shaking?
 
How about my hands?”
I asked him as I held his gun steady.

“Trouble breathing?”
I pulled in a deep breath through my nose.

“No,” Ray said.

“So you’re questioning my mental state because I saved seven lives today?”

“You killed a man.”

“No.
 
I saved my husband, myself and my baby and four of the men.
 
I’m thinking very, very clearly.
 
Don’t compromise my ability to do that ever again.”

“Okay Anna,” Ray said going along with me; waiting for me to make a mistake.
 
I watched him closely.
 
Listened for sounds in the hall.
 
I’d taken things up a notch and the next person to walk in wouldn’t be so gentle with me.

“Paul,” I said not taking my eyes off Ray.
 
“You know that frozen pond a couple of hundred yards south of the compound?”

“Yes.”

“Just after twenty-one hundred tonight the last group will arrive there.
 
Two men.
 
Heavily armoured.
 
Heavily armed.
 
They’ll split up and circle the compound, setting up positions for a turkey shoot tomorrow.
 
If you ambush them there the only loss of life will be theirs.
 
You have to take them at the pond.
 
There’s not a lot of time.”

“I’m not leaving the house,” I said.
 
“Three jumps today and I can’t pull off the control I need to be of any use at all.
 
It’s not the distance that tires me so much.
 
It’s the precision and without immediate danger to myself or to Paul wouldn’t go anywhere.

“I’m starting to understand it … getting stronger,” I was having a hard time with my words.
 
I took two steps back and bent my elbow, pointing his gun at the ceiling.

“Take your gun,” I said softly, my voice fading with exhaustion.

He turned slowly and took it.
 
My knees started to go and Ray steadied me.
 
Paul pushed himself up and came to help.
 
They moved me to the bed and got my boots and coat off.
 
I looked down at the dried blood on my hands.

“I’m okay,” I told them after half a minute.
 
I took clean clothes from the dresser and went to the shower.
 
I wasn’t getting in our bed covered in another man’s blood.
 
I washed up as best I could with one arm and came out.
 
Ray was waiting and I heard Paul speaking quickly to someone as he walked away down the hall.
 
His knife was gone from the floor where it had fallen.

“How long will it take for my arm to work again Ray?”

“Not much longer,” he said.
 
“I don’t believe you feel as good as you say you do Anna.”

“
Neither better or
worse.”
 
I shrugged.
 
“I bet you were behind me for a while.
 
I’m not upset about it.
 
I wouldn’t have let me around him either.
 
I just reacted … I wouldn’t have hurt you.
 
I know you’re protecting him too.”

Ray nodded.
 
“If we thought you were going to hurt him he wouldn’t have gone upstairs alone with you.
 
We just wanted you to put the knife down.”

“He’s getting ready to go to the pond?”

“Yes,” Ray said.
 
“You’re not stopping him.”

“No, I’m not.
 
I can’t distract him now.”

 
I thought a moment.

“Ray … you need to go too,” I told him as the outcome of the confrontation to come found a place in my mind.
 
“Tell Paul that just because I said none of them will die doesn’t mean nobody will get hurt.
 
Those men … won’t stop, won’t retreat.
 
Don’t drop your guard for a second.
 
They’ll need you before it’s over.
 
Get your stuff and hurry.”

He thought about it.

“Go,” I squeezed his hand.
 
“I’ll be good.”

“I’ll know if you’re not.”

“I’m sure you will.”

I waited upstairs for a few minutes after everything went quiet downstairs.
 
It was half past eight.
 
I was close to sleep and I would do everything I could to stay awake until Paul returned.
 
I got a blanket from the laundry room and made hot chocolate.
 
Snow came down hard outside the dark kitchen window.
 
The drink kept me busy.
 
I didn’t taste it.

Shortly after nine the smudges neared the pond.
 
Pulling my blanket up and around my shoulders I let myself out the front door.
 
Paul had left two guards behind on the porch.
 
I stood for a moment watching the south.

“Mrs. Richards,” the one named Jones said.
 
“The Captain wants you to stay here until he gets back.”

“I am staying here.
 
I thought I might be able to hear something from outside,” then I took a seat next to them.
 
“It’s starting.”

I didn’t think I could hear anything given the distance and heavily falling snow, but the soft pops of gunfire made it to us.
 
One smudge faded right away, flickered a few times and disappeared.
 
The other headed quickly west into the trees then doubled back east unseen.
 
The man could see Paul’s men moving in on where he entered the forest and he kept going east to find a new position behind them.
 
Panic rose in me.

“Jones, can you talk to the Captain?”

“Private channel,” he pointed to his earpiece.

“Tell him the remaining target went east, they’re going in the wrong direction.”

Jones looked at me, yeah right.

“Tell him I said it, he’ll decide what to do with it … you need to hurry.
 
I’m not asking.”

Jones sighed and shook his head.
 
He adjusted the radio on his belt.

“November Whiskey,” a pause.
 
“Romeo reports the remaining target has moved east of your position.
 
Over.”

Romeo?
I wondered how long I’d been tagged with that.

“He copied.”

The pops stopped a few seconds later.
 
We waited.

And waited.

There was more gunfire from the south.
 
He’d hit someone … he didn’t know how they’d refocused so quickly on his position.
 
Then a small explosion as the smudge evaporated into the air like a popped balloon.

Then silence.
 
I’d become so used to their weight on me that it was a shock when it lifted.

“It’s over,” I said as Paul’s voice came from the radio.

“Jones, we need medical
evac
to the south pad and get Spanks down here with a stretcher and all the B positive he can carry.”
 
Both men burst into the house and Spanks was out the door with the stretcher under his arm and a small pack on his back in seconds, running full speed south to the pond.
 
Through the open door I heard Jones give the location for the helicopter.

Eventually I heard over the radio that Ray had the wounded man stable.
 
He’d lost a lot of blood and would need surgery.
 
I pulled my feet up beside me under my blanket, turned sideways in my chair and closed my eyes finally giving in to sleep.

Chapter 23

Paul’s weight moving the bed woke me enough to roll to my back and put my arm under his neck.
 
He put his head on my shoulder and his hand on my belly.

“There was a time today when I thought I would never get to do this again,” he said.

I gently ran my fingers across where I had wiped his blood away earlier.
 
“You saved me first, remember.
 
If you hadn’t thrown me clear things would have ended very differently.”