Windigo Soul (14 page)

Hank lifted the rifle and yanked on the trigger. He screamed as the M16 bucked against his shoulder. He adjusted his aim and fired again, taking satisfaction in seeing one of his shots hit the nose of the helicopter. The pitch of the whining engine changed as the pilot pushed the craft forward, trying to get out of the line of fire. The crew chief spun the minigun in Hank’s direction and fired.

The spoon from the grenade dropped to the ground as Sanderson ran closer to the chopper. He had four, maybe five seconds, before it blew.

One.

Another soldier in the bay of the helicopter opened up with his rifle at John as the main gunner continued to focus on Hank and his M16.

Two.

A bullet snapped in front of John’s face. Another hit a tree as he passed, sending wood splinters into his face.

Three.

Sanderson skidded to a halt and heaved the grenade at the chopper before falling to the dirt. The grenade detonated just four feet away from the open bay door of the Blackhawk. The crew chief manning the minigun was killed instantly. The soldier firing at Sanderson screamed and dropped his rifle as dozens of steel fragments showered his face. The medic in the back of chopper lunged forward to help his comrade just as the helicopter pitched violently, sending him out the open door. He fell to his death on the rocky bank of the river below.

Shrapnel from the grenade blast pierced the thin hull of the helicopter’s tail boom and damaged the intermediate gear box inside. Before the pilot could gain altitude and fly to safety, the rear rotor failed, sending the chopper into a tailspin. The main rotor hit the trees and snapped, sending pieces hurtling through the woods as the Blackhawk hit the side of the gorge and tumbled to the river below.

Hank and John watched as the helicopter came to a rest in the shallow water. The engines stalled and the forest was suddenly quiet again. Hank slowly lowered his rifle. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah, we got lucky with that one. You use up all your ammo?”

Hank nodded. “Think anybody survived down there?”

“Let’s not stick around to find out.” Sanderson took the multi tool out of his pocket. “I might need your help with something. The reason they were able to find us so quickly is because I have a tracking device implanted in one of my teeth. We need to get rid of it.”

“What do you mean get rid of it?”

“I mean that tooth has to go. It’s the only way, otherwise we’re guaranteed to get caught.”

Sanderson wasn’t supposed to know which of his molars held the tracking device since he was put under when they implanted it during his training. The bug, no larger than a grain of rice, was covered with sealant to match the color of the host tooth. A few years ago during his annual dental exam, the hygienist got sloppy and left the image of his xrays on the screen when she left the room. Sanderson took a quick peek, not knowing at the time it might save his life years later.

He felt the tooth with his finger and clamped the pliers on it before doubts about not remembering correctly crept in. He took a deep breath and twisted. Intense pain shot through his jaw and he dropped the multi tool in to the dirt. “Damn it! Hank, you’re going to have to pull it for me.”

“Okay, I’ll give it a shot.” Sanderson pointed to the tooth and Hank gave it a good yank. Sanderson screamed and grabbed Hank’s arm. The sounds of another helicopter grew louder as Hank twisted harder on the tooth. It finally gave way and Hank held the molar in his hand.

John spit blood from his mouth and slowly stood up. “Son of a bitch, that hurt. You got it?”

Hank handed him the tooth and John stuck it into the soft wood of a rotted tree branch he found on the forest floor. He tossed the branch into the river below and they watched as it slowly floated down the river.

“Good thinking,” Hank said. “Sounds like another helicopter’s getting close.”

John nodded and spit more blood. “We’ll head in the opposite direction. Should buy us some time.”

Chapter 19

Hank and John stopped to rest as darkness fell over the woods. They built a simple shelter using some branches and a fallen tree. It wasn’t much, but it would help to hide their position and maybe keep them relatively dry if it rained. Sanderson knew a few layers of leaves wouldn’t conceal them from drones with their thermal optics, but he was too tired to care. For the time being, they were needles in a haystack and he hoped they’d be able to get at least a few hours sleep.

Hank tried to get comfortable on the hard ground. Despite feeling completely exhausted, his mind still raced from everything that happened that day. It was hard to believe just that morning he’d been eating breakfast with Seamus. He turned to John. “Are you sleeping?”

“Yeah. The rock sticking in the middle of my back lulled me to sleep an hour ago.”

“What day is it? Unless I lost track in there, it should be September seventeenth, right?”

“Congratulations, you didn’t lose track. Now shut up and go to sleep.”

“Peg is retiring in four days,” Hank said quietly. “There’s still time to stop it.”

Sanderson sighed and was quiet for a moment. “Look, I wasn’t going to say anything yet, but Peg already retired. It was about a week ago.”

“What?” Hank propped himself up on his elbow. “Her birthday isn’t until the twenty first!”

“Yeah, but she applied for an early appointment. They were happy to oblige.”

“But why? I don’t understand.”

Sanderson sat up. “She didn’t do so well after you were gone. They kicked her out of your place, some occupancy rule for your building, so we had her move in with us. She stayed in bed most of the time and barely talked. One day Sara came home from shopping and there was Peg, sitting in the kitchen waiting for her. She called the FDR and requested a same-day appointment over the phone.”

“Damn,” Hank muttered.

“There was nothing Sara could do. Even if she tried to talk her out of it, Peg made a verbal contract over the phone and the cops would’ve picked her up anyway. I guess she was just tired of waiting around.”

“What happened to her? Her body, I mean. Do you know?”

John sat in silence.

“You know, don’t you?”

“Almost everybody in our district ends up at the same place.” He turned to Hank. “I’m pretty sure she was assigned to one of the boiler rooms.”

“You son of a bitch!” Hank grabbed John by the shirt. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

John shook himself free from Hank’s grasp. “Take it easy! There’s nothing you can do.”

“But we were just there! We could have…”

“Could’ve what? We were lucky to get out of there alive at all. There’s nothing you or I can do for Peg. She’s gone and the sooner you accept that, the better off you’ll be.”

“I’m getting tired of people telling me how I need to accept everything that gets tossed at me. Like it’s a switch I can turn on and off. How do you expect me to just accept the fact my wife is about to get hooked up into one of those tubes or get cut up for hamburger?”

“You can’t save her,” John said softly.

“And you can’t go home to Sara ever again. Your career and entire life as you know it is over. Have you accepted that yet? Everything all better now?”

The two men sat in silence for a moment, lost in their own thoughts and staring into the dark night surrounding them. Only the steady hum of the crickets to fill the void between them.

“I didn’t thank you for getting me out of there,” Hank finally said. The anger and emotion had drained from his voice. “And I am grateful, really. But what are we going to do now? We have to try and save Peg. Maybe get in touch with Sara somehow.”

“I’m not going to get Sara involved. She’ll get over losing you and Peg and she’ll get over me too. I never should have brought her into this life to begin with.”

“And you think the State will just leave her alone, huh?” Hank asked. “That’s bullshit and you know it, Leatherback or whatever your name is. They’ll use her to try and find you. Probably torture her.”

John rubbed his face with his filthy hands. His head was pounding and the steady ache from where his tooth used to be was unrelenting. “About six months ago I had an assignment. There was this guy, just some regular schmuck working as a custodian in the federal building downtown. He worked there for years, kept his mouth shut, did his job, and never caused any trouble.

“One night he was making his rounds as usual after hours when he noticed one of the office doors was open a crack. His duties consisted of cleaning all the common areas the public has access to. The offices were handled by staff with higher security clearance, so naturally he was curious. He’d never even seen inside any of them. So he stuck his head through the door and snooped around a little.

“Wouldn’t you know it, he just happened to spot a folder with his mother-in-law’s name on it on one of the desks. What are the odds, right? It was standard paperwork for the disposition of the woman’s body after she retired. It was in a few weeks and she was getting shipped off to Manistee. That’s another power plant in Michigan.”

Hank nodded, despite the fact Sanderson wouldn’t be able to see it in the darkness.

“Naturally, the guy freaks out,” John continued. “He pulled out his cell and called his wife. If he’d taken a second to think it through, he would’ve remembered that the State had a tap on his line. All federal employees, even lowly custodians, are monitored. Building security nabbed him a few minutes later and I got the call to secure his house.

“I went in with a partner. Standard procedure when there’s no time for planning and we have virtually no intel. They teamed me up with this new kid I didn’t know very well. Call sign Viper. He rubbed me the wrong way right off the bat. Way too jacked up and never shut the hell up.

“Anyway, we got to the apartment and the wife answered the door. I could tell she’s scared as hell and already put two and two together. First her husband calls with some crazy story about her mother, and twenty minutes later she has a couple of guys in suits at her door. The mother-in-law lived with them. She was glaring at us from the couch holding onto her three year old grand daughter.

“Part of my job in moments like that are to quickly assess the situation and come up with the best way to neutralize the security breech as quickly and quietly as possible. If it were up to me, I would’ve quietly taken the whole family into custody so they could be interrogated behind closed doors. Not the paper-thin walls of the dump they were living in. Unfortunately, my hot shot partner took a different approach.

“The mother-in-law was a tough old bird and she was pissed. She got up and started pointing and yelling at us in Spanish. The little girl started crying and the janitor’s wife was trying her best to calm them both down at the same time. Viper simply walked up to the old lady, pulled his piece, and shot her point blank in the face.”

“Jesus,” Hank muttered.

“Yeah. It was a dumb move. Now the little girl is crying louder than ever, and of course, the mom lost it too. Between the gunshot and screaming, the whole apartment building would soon be peering into the hallway wondering just what was going on. Thanks to Viper, the protocol now called for only one outcome. Once the first shot is fired, all witnesses needed to be neutralized. Even the little girl. Before I knew it, my gun was in my hand out of instinct, but I froze. My ear piece was going crazy.
Take the shot, Razorback. Green light. Take the shot. Take the shot.”

“Did you shoot the girl?”

“I’d been in situations involving kids before, but never that young,” John said. “She was barely three years old. I’ll never forget the look in her eyes, standing there clutching her mom’s leg with tears rolling down her cheeks. Her grandmother’s brains painting most of the living room wall behind her. She didn’t have to die. She was young enough that with a little therapy and the right influence from State sponsored foster parents, she probably wouldn’t even remember a thing.

“I lowered my gun and Viper shot them both in the head with no hesitation. He got in my face and started yelling at me, wanting to know why I just stood there and did nothing. I punched him in the face so hard it felt like I broke every bone in my hand.”

“Sounds like he deserved it,” Hank said.

“Yeah, it felt pretty damn good, but I committed a mortal sin as an operator that day. I hesitated and didn’t make the kill. Slugging that little prick didn’t help either. I was suspended and put on probation.”

“What happened to the janitor?”

“Locked up. Who knows what happened to him after that. You know we can’t afford long term inmates, so he was probably executed right away. They made the hit on the women look like a drug deal gone bad to satisfy the local cops. All tied up in a nice little package.”

Sanderson sat quietly, looking into the darkness and absently scraping the bark off a stick in his hands. He finally let out a long sigh. “I’ve been carrying that around for a while. I’m not even sure why I told you about it, but I felt like I needed somebody outside the agency to hear it. The world I come from, shit like that is normal. Part of the job. After all these years, I’ve never been afraid on any of my missions. Not really, anyway. But the one thing that scared the hell out of me is that one day I’d get to the point where murdering a little kid was no different than swatting a fly.”

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Hank asked. “About them using Sara to get to us.”

“They’ll be watching her like a hawk for sure. After they get impatient and I don’t make contact with her, they’ll get creative.”

Hank let the words sink in, not wanting to know the details of what they were capable of. What they might do to Sara to lure them in. “There’s something else I should tell you,” Hank said. “I walked in on Hendricks and a couple of his perverted buddies raping one of the retirees in the plant. He made threats about Sara to keep me quiet.”

“What? What did he say?”

“Just that he knew all about my family from my files. He made it clear he’d hurt Sara if I caused trouble. It probably won’t take him long to realize the two of us are related and she’s your wife. After the stunt you pulled today, who knows what he’ll do? By hurting Sara he’ll be able to get revenge on the both of us.”