The Warrior Code (24 page)

The officer asked again. Beth mumbled; he reached out a hand.

The video righted, moving swiftly away from the bodies.

‘Are they dead?’ Beth’s voice trembled.

The officers didn’t answer; one of them shook his head at the other.

The one who had shaken his head stood up and removed his helmet, goggles. His face, lined with sweat, looked full at the phone.

‘Dad,’ Beth screamed. The video went blank. Unintelligible sounds came for minutes.

The black cleared, and Bud Petersen appeared.

‘Turn that off, honey.’ His voice was gentle, calm, reassuring.

Beth didn’t hear him. She babbled. Thanked her dad. Thanked God. Wept. Prayed.

The other SWAT officer removed his helmet.

‘Ryan,’ Beth screamed. The video went black again.

It cleared. Words rushed out of her.

‘It was you bending over me. Thank God. I didn’t recognize you. I mean, I couldn’t. That helmet and all that gear. I saw you just yesterday. You were in a fancy limo with some guy. I took a photo. Wanted to show Dad that you’re digging the high life. But didn’t get around to it. I didn’t think I would see you so soon.’

‘Honey,’ Bud Petersen’s voice called out.

‘Beth,’ he repeated when the flow didn’t stop.

His face grew bigger in the video. It shook.

‘Calm down. Breathe deeply. Deeply. Once. Twice. Again. That’s my girl.’

His voice was gentle. Beth’s breathing slowed, smoothened out.

A full minute passed. He moved away and joined Taggart.

‘Your comms working?’ he asked Taggart.

Taggart ignored him. He looked at Beth, his face expressionless. ‘You took a picture of me yesterday? In a limo?’

No reply. The video shook slightly.

‘That’s too bad,’ he said conversationally. He picked up one of the students’ assault rifles, turned casually toward Bud, and ignored his urgent, ‘What’re you doing?’

He shot Bud Petersen in a long burst at his body armor. Petersen fell back. Taggart swiftly bent, retrieved his helmet and goggles, jammed them over Bud’s head, and shot him through them.

Beth’s breath hitched. Deep silence. The phone swung to the ceiling crazily as another burst sounded.

Footsteps crunched. Taggart’s face appeared.

‘This needs to stop,’ he murmured. His rifle came over the camera.

The video went blank.

Zeb risked a quick glance at the Petersens. Both of them were pale, in shock. Meghan hugged Beth tightly as deep sobs wracked her. She kept saying something he couldn’t catch.

He’ll make his move any moment.

‘You overheard something at the café. That started all this, didn’t it?’ he asked Taggart.

Taggart stood negligently; his hand by his side held his Glock pointed down. His gaze was still on the laptop as if he was seeing the video.

‘Yeah. They were sitting just outside our booth. I didn’t recognize their voices, but once they started talking, I knew who they were.’

‘Beth said she wished she had all the stuff on her phone. Her sister said it was in her laptop. Some online backup shit she’d set up that automatically saved everything.’

‘I had her iTunes account hacked, everything deleted. Who knew about this backup?’

‘You bastard.’ Meghan’s voice was low and filled with venom and fury.

‘All these years… You killed Dad, painted yourself out to be the hero, all along it’s been you. You destroyed my sister’s life.’ She was screaming by the time she’d finished.

‘Why?’ Her control snapped, and she lunged at him.

One of Taggart’s men moved swiftly and slapped her; she attacked him, but he held her off easily.

Beth joined her, and the two women wrestled with the man, but they were soon subdued as the second man joined and restrained the sisters.

Their harsh angry breathing filled the room, and if hate could light a fire, Taggart would’ve been ash.

He watched them idly for a second.

His gun arm rose.

Half a second to eye level, another half second to sight.

Zeb blurred into a dive off his right foot, lost a fraction as his foot caught in the stool, dragged it with him, grabbed the gun arm and held it down.

The first bullet nicked his left thigh; he grunted. The second bullet went into the floor, and then they were down.

Zeb went on top of him, clamped his left hand on Taggart’s gun arm, and rained hammer blows on him.

Forget the two flunkies. Forget your thigh.

Taggart blocked Zeb’s strikes and counterattacked so swiftly Zeb couldn’t block. The blow caught him in his throat; he gasped but held on to the gun hand, and his right reached out to block further strikes.

A vise gripped his waist and squeezed.

Taggart’s eyes bored into him as the legs around him tightened and began an inexorable squeeze.

‘Major, this is it for you. I have cracked green coconuts with my thighs. Crushing you will be a pleasure.’

Zeb’s legs flailed around, his left useless as it bled. His right couldn’t get purchase.

Taggart’s left arm slipped out from Zeb’s seeking right hand and aimed a punch at Zeb’s throat again.

Zeb turned his head just in time. The attacker’s hand, hard as concrete, hit Zeb’s neck.

Not like this. Not against him.

Zeb head-butted him. His movement was constrained; the blow was weak.

He aimed a strike at the man’s shoulder, felt a searing pain as Taggart found the soft spot behind his right collarbone.

He grappled with Taggart’s free hand, locked it, slipped as the man’s hand, slick with sweat, dislodged his.

He chopped Taggart’s throat, the man grunted, but his thighs didn’t ease.

The grip tightened. Zeb felt it deep in his chest as he struggled to breathe.

He dug his thumb in the man’s eye; his hand missed.

Beads of sweat popped on Taggart’s forehead, his entire being focused on crushing Zeb.

Zeb took huge labored gulps, felt his ribs tighten, felt everything slow. His left leg leaked steadily. He made a tremendous effort and rained blows on the man’s neck.

Some of them connected, but the vise didn’t ease.

A block of concrete struck him, Taggart’s knuckled hand in his ribs. Zeb’s vision went dim.

His hand curled in a fist, landed on the man’s neck. He felt the jolt through the man, felt his breath whoosh; the legs were inexorable.

Another blow in Zeb’s ribs shot white pain through him; he groaned deep.

Strikes drained energy. He had to conserve it. He didn’t have much leeway on top, bent sideways, and he ground his right elbow in Taggart’s sternum.

Not against him.

His body shuddered as another block of concrete struck him in the back. He kept his left arm locked on the man’s gun hand, ground deeper in his sternum.

The inexorable pressure around him told on him; his vision dimmed. Another hammer blow brought fire deep inside as a rib cracked.

Not. Against. Him.

Existence became his elbow grinding down.

Another blow against his cracked rib, and the thighs squeezed even more.

He gritted his teeth but couldn’t control the sound – a half sob, half groan – that came out of his body.

He thrust his whole weight against the prone man’s abdomen, breathing hoarsely through his mouth.

Grind.

Another rib cracked.

Ignore. Grind.

His legs thrashed uselessly against the remorseless grip.

Grind.

A single point of black light filled his mind.

Grind.

Taggart groaned for the first time, his breath stuttered, his gun hand drooped, and the gun slipped out of his hand.

Taggart used all his energy, struck Zeb in the small of his back, gripped Zeb’s hair and pushed him away.

The black light became larger in Zeb’s mind. Dimly he felt the thighs loosen. His left arm fell, he pushed against the floor and fell away from Taggart’s body.

He took deep rasping breaths, filling his body with air. Above the sound of his body, he heard Taggart doing the same.

He heard a hoarse sound, lifted his head, a heavy weight, and looked at Taggart.

The man inched to the fallen gun. ‘You’re done, Major.’ The words came out slow and tortured.

Something. Something beside him.

It swam in the darkness of Zeb’s vision, blurred and then focused.

Stool.

Taggart’s hand scrabbled for the gun. Got a grip. His eyes watched Zeb unblinkingly.

The gun hand lifted, paused as another explosion, closer than any of the previous ones, rocked the house. A few books fell out of shelves from the reverberation.

Zeb’s mind jumped around drunkenly. There had to be some way.

Beth praying came to him. His mind stopped. The praying became louder.

The thing in him reared, slithered, sped.

His hand reached out and made contact with the stool.

The barrel started its arc toward him.

Beth sobbing.

Crash.

The swing hurt his ribs; he couldn’t breathe.

Bud Petersen’s gentle voice filled his mind. The thing moved
.

Crash.

His grip loosened. One last time.

Crash.

Chapter 27

One month later.

They were still in Jackson.

The moment Zeb had gone at Taggart, Roger had turned on the remaining couple of shooters. They had their hands full as the sisters attacked them simultaneously.

‘They were too close to the two ladies, too close to use their guns,’ Roger said grimly. He had put the two men out of business and had then dashed out to help Broker.

Broker scoffed. ‘You probably dashed out to see if any more of that Balcones was about. I didn’t need any help.’

Broker had blown up all the cabins and was heading toward the central lodge when the two gunmen outside rounded a corner and pointed at him.

He flung a brick of C4 plastic explosive at them. They dived, not recognizing it. He picked them off with a dead shooter’s rifle.

Bringing down the living room was a ‘piece of C4 cake.’ He grinned broadly.

He saw the thanks in Zeb’s eyes – that explosion had made Taggart hesitate for a split second – and waved it away. Zeb had saved his life more times than he could count. In their world, they didn't keep tabs.

‘Next time don’t take a stool to a gunfight.’

‘Taggart was the Mexican drug cartels’ mole.’

There were ten men in the room and one woman.

Broker, Zeb, Roger, Kelly and Dwight Garrett, Jackson’s Chief of Police, were lined up on one side of a conference room, and the other end was occupied by Peregrine, a representative from the governor’s office, and Paul Liggett, Executive Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Two other people occupied the room a couple of chairs away, FBI Director Murphy and a tall, dark-haired, gray-eyed woman who gave off an ice-cool vibe.

Clare. Zeb’s boss.

No notes of the meeting were taken; no one was to know that it happened.

‘He would’ve been.’ Broker modified his words slightly when he saw the panic flash across Liggett’s face.

 ‘Jack Foley’s rise was well covered in the media, but Ryan Taggart had an equally stellar career. He was widely tipped to take on the role of Deputy Under Secretary in the DHS’s Intelligence and Analysis division. This would have given the drug lords an insider in the DHS.’

He paused. He didn’t need to elaborate on the implications of that.

He had let loose his computers and his analysts on Taggart the moment they had returned to the town the day of the showdown.

Garrett had controlled the incident so tightly that no media got scent of the shoot-out. The next day the three of them had taken Broker’s findings to Garrett, who had made several calls; in parallel Clare and Director Murphy had conferred, and in a rare instance of cooperation, multiple agencies had pooled their resources and ripped apart Taggart’s life.

Peregrine had resigned immediately once he knew of Taggart’s involvement, pending an internal investigation. Broker commanded his machines and men to look into the entire SWAT team, in fact, the entire Jackson PD, though he was pretty sure Taggart was a lone wolf.

 The mole that Broker suspected in the Jackson P.D. turned out to be Peregrine.

Foley, Taggart and Suiter all kept in touch with Peregrine, but it was Taggart who asked more probing questions about the sisters' whereabouts during one of their regular calls. Peregrine, unsuspectingly, told him.

They had sweated George, the bellboy, but he too was an unwitting pawn. A well-dressed man had approached him and had introduced himself as a friend of the Petersens. He had pointed in the direction of the park and said Meghan had asked him to relay the ‘I’ll be waiting here’ message to Beth.

Kelly’s stock had soared sky high, and he became the go-man for the various agencies.

Two weeks later Kelly organized the interagency meeting.

‘Twelve years back a SWAT raid led by Taggart on a residence in Cheyenne resulted in a significant amount of drugs recovered, and seven men from Zubia’s gang were captured. That’s the first known instance I could find of Taggart coming in contact with Zubia indirectly. Six months later Taggart flew, commercial, to Mexico. I presume that was to discuss an arrangement with the drug lord.’

Broker laid out his findings succinctly; Taggart’s visit to Mexico following the raid, correlations of Zubia’s visits to the U.S. with the cop’s movements, a labyrinth maze of offshore accounts in Taggart’s name, and then the final clinchers. Beth’s snap of the two of them in a limo outside Jackson, and the security camera video from Pete’s café.