Firestorm: Book III of the Wildfire Saga (41 page)

Derek nodded.
 
"What I'm trying to say is that I think you were good for her.
 
From what everyone tells me, after she met you she became a different person, maybe healed a little—I don't know.
 
She laughed more, she smiled more.
 
The nurses saw the change, they told me."

Cooper looked down.
 
There was nothing he could say.

Derek continued.
 
"Anyway,
thanks
.
 
I appreciate you looking after my little sister, even though you are just a Squid."

Cooper snapped his head up.
 
"Yeah well, somebody had to teach you Army brats how to have a good time."
 
Cooper regretted the words instantly.
 
Why the hell did I say that?
 
"Shit—I mean…"

Derek laughed.
 
"Hey, it's okay!
 
She was my little sister, but she was a grown woman."
 
Derek laughed again.
 
"I got over the whole 'my sister is having sex' thing back when she was a teenager!"
 
Derek laughed harder at Cooper's expression.
 
"Ha!
 
Got you.
 
No, seriously," he said, still chuckling, "it's cool.
 
I have a feeling if things had worked out differently, you and I might've been family."

Cooper felt relief and a sense calm he hadn't known since Brenda was alive.
 
A weight departed his soul—he finally understood what closure meant.
 

"So how long they gotta keep you in there?" he asked with a nod toward Derek's quarantine cell.

Derek rolled his eyes.
 
"Damn if I know..."
 
He glanced over his shoulder at one of the nurses who was glancing up at Derek more frequently now.
 
"They're probably gonna pull me away from here and say I need 'my rest' any minute," he said with air quotes.
 
"I'm ready to get up and go for a run, but they say I'm not allowed out of bed for another week.
 
Brenda's treatment worked, so I'm clear of the flu, but I got a lot of work before I'm useful again."

Cooper nodded.
 
"You'll get there."

The nurse now stepped up to Derek's shoulder and whispered something in his ear.
 
He frowned and nodded.
 
"Looks like my times up.
 
Hey, it was good to meet you, Lieutenant Braaten."

Cooper smiled.
 
"Likewise, Captain Alston.
 
I'll be in touch.
 
But…" Cooper looked around, unsure of how to proceed.

Derek waved the nurse away and focused on the screen "What's up?"

Charlie rushed into the room and leaned down.
 
"We got a signal from 13: 'Target identified'.
 
Bennet's sending over the mission details."
 
Charlie stepped back and met Cooper's eyes.
 
"We're gonna get this fucker."
 
He clapped him on the shoulder and left the room.

Cooper looked back at the screen.
 
He felt the weight of responsibility settle onto his shoulders once more.
 
"I can't give you any details, but I want you to know something in case I don't come back."

Derek's face grew somber.
 
"You're going after him, aren't you?
 
The one that started all this?
 
I've heard the rumors."

"
Reginald
," Cooper said.
 
He gave the barest of nods.
 
"I will find him."

Derek stared at Cooper for a long moment.
 
"The brother in me wants to tell you to put a bullet in his head.
 
The Ranger in me wants to tell you to bring him back alive to face justice.
 
This son of a bitch has killed hundreds of thousands of people by now.
 
It'll be in the millions before it's all said and done."

Cooper nodded.
 
"He'll pay for every one of them."

Derek swallowed.
 
"Hooah."
 
The nurse reappeared behind him.
 
Derek flicked his eyes away from the screen, then focused back on Cooper.
 
"I know you'll do the right thing."

The transmission ended.
 
Cooper stood from the desk and stared at the black screen for a moment.
 
He looked up at the wall—at the global map showing infection and death rates.
 

Reginald.
 
The Council.
 
They're the ones that started this sick, freak-show train ride.
 
They're the ones that caused all this death and destruction around the world.
 

Cooper looked down at the handwritten note Charlie left on the table:
 
Definitely Scotland—Skye.
 
He glanced back to the map and looked at the relatively little island labeled off Scotland's western shores.

I know where you're hiding now, you son of a bitch.
 
Cooper picked up Brenda's picture and smiled.
 
He traced the outline of her face with his thumb and closed his eyes, burning the image into his memory.

I'm going into harm's way again, Brenda—I'm doing it for you this time.
 
The man who…the man who's responsible is going to pay.
 
I swear I'm not going to fail this time.
 
I'm coming back with my shield or on it.
 

Cooper opened his eyes, picked up a pencil from the desk, and put the picture of Brenda on the map over the British Isles.
 
He stabbed the pencil into the corner of the picture above Brenda's head with a vicious thrust, pinning it to the map.
 
He grabbed Charlie's note and slipped it into his pocket as he got up, then very quietly and deliberately closed the door behind him.
 
and stopped out of the room, black fury on his face.

With my shield or on it.

C
HAPTER
33

Salmon Falls, Idaho.

F
URY
ERUPTED
INSIDE
D
ENNY
'
S
chest.
 
He'd been so close.
 
Townsen just couldn't leave well enough alone.
 
He had to make himself King.

Anse took over leadership of the group in the cabin.
 
"Listen up!" he said in an urgent whisper.
 
The room fell silent as all faces turned to him.
 
"I built this cabin with my own hands out of the timber I cut from these mountains.
 
The logs on these walls are 10 inches thick.
 
It might not stop a .50, but we'll have decent protection if we stay inside."
 
He pointed to the wall on the far side.
 
"You got one window on two walls, make 'em count.
 
Stay in the corners, don't present a target to those assholes out there," he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.
 
"We stay near the walls, we stay below the windows, and we take good shots–"

"Better shots than Tommy with that eight-pointer last year," someone said to a few nervous chuckles.

"Those guys out there are just wannabes.
 
The real hunters in Salmon Falls are right here in this room."

Denny felt his chest tighten.
 
Anse was more right than he knew.
 
He ran his hand along the smooth surface of the rough-hewn log next to him.
 
"Anse, we should find a peaceful way out of this–"

"The time for talk is over, Denny."

"Yeah!" three or four men shouted at once.

"Hey," Mary Winselm said from the far window.
 
"I see a torch!"

"That son of a bitch aims to kill us!"

"All he has to do is set this place on fire with one of their torches—we're inside a matchbox!" snapped Denny.
 
"If you're serious about this, then you need to make sure every single person out there who might be prepared to light up this cabin is taken down.
 
I'm not talking about shooting people in the knees, folks," Denny roared.
 
"If you're going to do this—you aim for the chest!
 
You've got to put them down before they set this building on fire or we will all be burned alive."

Anse looked at Denny and smiled.
 
"That's the Denny I was hopin' would be here tonight."

Denny pulled the pistol from his belt.
 
"You—"

"
If you won't listen to me, listen to your friend!"
bellowed a voice from outside.

"Guys, they're serious!
 
Gris, it's a 213!
 
Stay low–"
the bullhorn went silent with a squeal of feedback.
 

One of the men near a window pulled back the curtain just enough to peek around the corner.
 
"Holy shit…they're beatin' the hell out of that deputy out there…"

Griswold looked at Denny.
 
"I knew he didn't give us away.
 
I knew it."

"He didn't," said Anse.
 

Denny turned to look at him.
 
"Why did you betray us?" he asked.
 
The fight had gone out of him.
 
It was as if all the air in the room and been sucked out.

Anse smiled sadly.
 
"Somebody had to do something," he whispered.
 
"I didn't turn us in, I just tipped them off."

"Why the fuck did you do that?" more than a few men growled.
 
A couple moved forward to surround Anse.

"I knew if we didn't do something against Townsen right now—
at this moment
—he'd become too strong for us to stop.
 
And if that happened," Anse said, talking quickly with both hands in the air, "all of us were as good as dead anyway.
 
I figured the best shot this town has is to start something right here, right now and finish it.
 
Tonight.
 
We do this rough, bloody, hard and fast, and we get it over with."

"You set us up…" said Denny, "to start a fight we hadn't even decided we needed yet…"

Anse rested his rifle on the floor defiantly.
 
"I did what had to be done.
 
Somebody had to touch this powder keg off before it got big enough to destroy the whole town when it blew."

"Jesus Christ," said Deputy Griswold.
 
"We don't have time for this right now—Evans said this is a 213."

"What's a 213?" asked Denny.

"An inside joke.
 
Sheriff Bridger had us go through tactical training last year.
 
Counter-terrorism shit.
 
A '213' is some Federal code they made up for when terrorists have taken hostages and they're prepared to kill everyone."

"They have our families?" a voice called out.

Deputy Griswold raised his hands before the murmuring could turn to shouting.
 
"I didn't say that—I'm pretty certain Evans is talking about us as the hostages and that the terrorists," he jerked his head towards the window, "out there are willing to execute
us
."

"Hey!
 
Hey…hey I got another guy with a torch out there…he's moving closer," muttered a man from the other side of the cabin.

Denny locked eyes with Anse.
 

"
Come on guys!
 
Give it up
," said a new voice over the bullhorn.
 
"
Y'all may not like me, but I don't have anything personal against you.
 
Just give up and come on out, we can talk this over like friends and neighbors.
 
There ain't nothing in town worth dying for.
"

"Townsen."
 
Anse said, his face hardening into a block of granite.
 
He turned to the men stationed at the windows.
 
"Anybody got a bead on 'im?"

The answers all came back negative.
 
Townsen stayed in the treeline and it was too dark to see him.
 

"Anse, there's a few trucks out there, but it's so dark, I can't hardly see anything, just shadows moving behind trees."

"Got another torch on this side!" somebody warned from the south wall.

"Tell you what—I'll give you 30 seconds to come out that front door.
 
If you don't, we'll burn you to the ground."

In the silence that followed Townsen's ultimatum, Denny heard maniacal laughter coming from the east.
 
"That's Jeb," he said.
 
"Jesus, Townsen brought his
kid?
"