The standoff jack widow.., p.33
The Standoff (Jack Widow Book 12), page 33
Abe called out.
“Foster, everything okay?”
“Yes, Dad. Still no sign of anything coming down the drive.”
Abe called out to Abby.
“Abigail, you see anything?”
Abby went to the master bedroom door and opened it, and called back out. She left the door open behind her so she could hear better.
“I’m fine. Nothing to see from the back.”
“Okay. Everyone, just hold your positions till we hear from Widow.”
Abby stayed quiet.
Foster shouted back.
“Okay, Dad.”
Abe paced from window to window, from room to room. He checked out the front, the sides, and the back. He saw and heard nothing.
Brooks leaned against a tree, out of sight and comfortable. He had been on many, many stakeouts and recon missions. This was a cakewalk by comparison, and it was better than sitting up in the loft with Jargo, who constantly mumbled to himself.
It was only five more minutes until he heard trucks coming up behind him. He turned and walked back uphill and stepped behind some brush. He saw Walter’s truck pulling into the drive, heading toward him. Behind it was the sheriff’s truck, and behind that was Shep’s police cruiser. Adonis was at the wheel with Abel in the passenger seat; his Glock was pointed at the side of her head. The muzzle was in her ear.
Abel didn’t have a suppressor on his weapon.
Brooks backed out of the brush and stepped onto the driveway. He crept back down toward the entrance, back toward Abel and the vehicles. He crouched, staying out of sight of the house windows until he was sure he was completely over the hill and not visible to them.
Walter’s truck rolled up first, kicking up snow.
Flack drove with Walter in the next seat. He was handcuffed, using cuffs from one of the ATF agents. The same hopeless fear painted his face a ghastly white. Brooks noticed and chuckled at the thought of a white guy named White, who was white with fear. Brooks didn’t consider himself sadistic, not compared to Abel, but he enjoyed what they were doing.
The vehicles took it slowly and pulled up alongside Brooks. Flack rolled down the window.
“Everything good?” he asked.
“They’re in there. Power came back on. They must be running a generator.”
“See any weapons?”
“I can’t see anything from here, but I’d bet on rifles, at least.”
Brooks stepped back and smacked the door with the palm of his hand, twice.
He said, “Keep going. See you there.”
Flack smiled, rolled up the window, and pressed on. Walter’s Tundra bounced and drove away, up the hill following the drive to the house.
Brooks saw the packaged pipe bombs, stacked and fastened down in the truck's bed.
He called out behind Flack.
“Be careful!”
Weapons expert, my ass, he thought.
Brooks waited on the side of the long drive in the snow. Thunder clapped again in the distance, way up in the sky. Then he saw a lightning crack to the south.
It boomed! Once. Twice. Thunder rolled far above.
The sheriff’s truck came next, with Cucci at the wheel, the sheriff handcuffed with his own cuffs in the middle of the front bench. Tanis sat next to him in the passenger seat. There was no weapon pointed at the sheriff because what was he going to do? Nothing.
The truck drove past Brooks, slowly, like they were staying back from Walter’s truck in case one of the pipe bombs exploded from the bumpy drive, which was a valid concern. If one pipe bomb exploded, while stacked on top of forty other pipe bombs, there would be a huge explosion. It would probably kill several of them.
Cucci stared at Brooks as they passed. Brooks gave him a quick nod but stayed quiet.
The third car was the South Carolina Highway Patrol car. Adonis looked both terrified and angry.
The cruiser came to a complete stop. Abel barked an order that must’ve been, “Roll down the window,” because Adonis rolled the window down.
Abel leaned forward over her lap, close to her face. He kept the Glock in her ear. His cheek was in biting distance, which crossed her mind.
He said, “Anything to worry about?”
Brooks said, “They know something’s up. But I’ve seen no movement. Nothing to show they know who we are. I suspect there're guns on the premises.”
“They expecting us or the cops to come back?”
“Not sure.”
“Okay. Get in.”
Brooks sidestepped to the back of the car and opened the back door and slipped in. He adjusted his M4 to rest in his lap with the muzzle pointed to the driver's side of the car.
He sat back, no seatbelt.
“Keep going,” Abel barked.
Adonis slipped her foot off the brake and gassed, slowly. She followed behind the sheriff’s truck.
She asked, “Why’re we coming here?”
Abel said nothing.
She said, “These people know nothing. We don’t need to come here.”
Abel said, “We took their son. They probably heard your dead friend shoot his shotgun. This shotgun.”
Abel patted Shep’s Mossberg like it was a trophy. It rested against his thigh, and between his legs in the passenger side footwell.
“You don’t need them. What difference does it make if they heard anything? The whole FBI and ATF are looking for you. It makes no difference what some backwoods family saw.”
Abel smiled.
“Agent Adonis, that Quantico psychobabble, reverse psychology bullshit won’t work on me. All the book-learning you got won’t match up to me. Just save it. These people’re a liability right now. And if you don’t watch your mouth, you could end up one too. Like your friends.”
Adonis stayed quiet. She kept her head forward and drove on.
Just before reaching the house and the barn, Abel gave Adonis one more command.
“Switch on the light bar. No sirens.”
She didn’t protest. She reached up to the roof and flipped a switch. The light bar came on, flashing blue lights over the terrain. It wasn’t as pronounced as it would’ve been at night, but right then, snow started falling hard again. Within seconds, it mounded on the roof of the car. Abel thought that if they hadn’t been in a polar vortex and it was just a normal South Carolina winter, then the snow might’ve been hail.
Foster called out to her father while staring through the hunting rifle’s scope. She watched an entourage of vehicles come up the drive.
“Dad! They’re coming back! On the driveway! Walter’s truck is first!”
Abe was already at the front door. He had the Winchester ready. He tried peering through the peephole in the door but saw nothing but gray beyond the porch.
He squinted. He could make out movement coming up the drive, but saw no details. He stepped back. Suddenly, blue lights from a police light bar strobed around outside. He saw them through a set of stained-glass windows next to the door. The blue lights strobed through the front foyer casting shadows of approaching doom.
Abe’s skin crawled.
He opened the front door to take a better look. He stepped out onto the porch against his best judgment. But he needed to know if his son was alive. The force drawing him to know if Walter was dead or not was undeniable, unavoidable.
He watched the vehicles pull up the drive onto the circle in front of his house.
Headlights beamed out in cones of bright white lights like the high beams had been left on. Abe threw up a hand to block the light shining in his face. Then he put it above his eyes like a visor.
First, Walter’s Tundra pulled up and circled around the tree in Abe’s front yard. Abe saw two men in the front cabin. He couldn’t make out their faces beyond the bright headlamps. The driver turned the wheel, circled the drive, pulled the Tundra’s nose way up toward the barn, and slowed and stopped in front of the doors.
The next truck to ride up was Henry’s Spartan County Sheriff truck. Abe watched it and saw three men crammed in the front seat. Henry’s truck didn’t ride with the high beams on, but the light bar strobed on top.
Abe saw Henry stuffed in the center of the front bench just under the rearview mirror and in front of where his radio would be. His hair was disheveled. It looked like he had a bruised eye, almost like a black eye forming. But Abe only got a glimpse of Henry because the truck stopped out in front of his house. And Henry’s face fell under a dark shadow.
He saw both the other two men and their faces, but didn’t recognize them. They were both white; both had facial hair. One had a beard—the other stubble.
The last car was the same South Carolina Highway Patrol car that Shep and Adonis had arrived in. The blue lights streamed from the light bar on top, just like Henry’s truck.
Abe stepped left on the porch, leaving the front door wide open behind him. He squinted and struggled to make out who was in the patrol car. He saw nothing but figures in dark shadows. The driver was a short woman. He could see that. Her hair was wild and disheveled like Henry’s. The driver might’ve been Adonis. Only when he had seen her twenty minutes ago, her hair had been neat and pulled back out of her face. Now, it was a mess. It looked so wild he first thought she wore a wig probably titled: Jungle Woman.
There were two other figures in the patrol cruiser. Abe saw one in the backseat and one in the passenger seat. The one in the back was a big guy. The outline of his head disappeared into the ceiling. The guy in the passenger seat was also tall, but gangly and bony-looking.
All three drivers threw their vehicles into park. Abe heard emergency brakes being pushed down all the way and clicked into place. He glanced back at Walter’s truck. He saw the driver park it, kill the engine, open his door, and step out. Abe couldn’t see his face. The driver walked around the tail of the Tundra to the passenger door and stopped. He turned and faced Abe.
The driver of Henry’s truck also stepped out, leaving his door open and the engine running and the blue lights flashing. He threaded around the nose of Henry’s truck. The snow on the driveway must’ve been plowed aside from the vehicles because Abe heard footsteps on gravel.
The driver of Henry’s truck stopped on the passenger side and stayed there, facing Abe. The passenger door opened next, and the other guy he didn’t recognize stepped out.
Both truck drivers stood by, carrying military or law enforcement weapons. Abe was no gun expert, but he recognized one as an M4 Carbine, military-grade. The other was a tactical combat shotgun. He didn’t recognize the brand. He didn’t recognize the model. But he knew expensive military weapons when he saw them.
Abe stayed where he was on the porch. He lowered his hand back to the front stock of the rifle. He slipped his trigger finger into the housing, ready to squeeze it. But he didn’t point the weapon at them. He kept it up near his chest.
The patrol cruiser’s doors all opened at the same time. The driver with the wild hair got up and out in a downhearted, forlorn way. The tall guy in the backseat got out behind her. He was tall, like Widow. At first, Abe thought it might be Widow, but then he saw it was a black man.
The tall black man shut his door behind him and stepped up close behind the woman with the wild hair. It looked like he whispered something to her. Then he shoved her forward. She plummeted past the open driver’s door. The tall black man slammed the driver’s door shut and walked past it. He came up behind the woman again and kicked her in the butt—not hard, just enough to shove her forward again.
The woman with the wild hair lunged forward, rolled down the hood of the car, and slammed into the snow and gravel. She stopped on her hands and knees, her face down. She was about thirty feet from the porch steps. She sat back on her heels and looked up at Abe.
He saw her wrists were handcuffed together. The short chain rattled as she moved. Her hair was wild. Her face was dark, partially from being punched in the face and partially from tears.
He instantly knew who she was. Her head bandage was gone, ripped away, but it was her. It was Agent Adonis.
The bony guy in the passenger seat got out after the tall black man and Adonis. He casually shut his door and stepped out toward them. He came up side-by-side with the tall black man.
It was Joseph Abel. Abe recognized him from his picture on the internet.
The tall black man was the same guy who had come to their house earlier, telling the lie about a broken-down car.
The thing that was different about him now, different about all of them, Abe supposed, was that they were all dressed in stolen ATF uniforms. Except for the tall black man. He wore most of a South Carolina Highway Patrol uniform that was a little too small and a little too snug in some places.
Abe realized the South Carolina Highway Patrol uniform belonged to the patrolman he’d met earlier with Adonis. He never saw the other agents. They were up in the helicopter. But he knew none of them were legit. Only Adonis was the real agent.
Abe said, “What the hell is this?”
Abel stepped up two long paces in front of the black guy, but behind Adonis.
He said, “What’s your name, sir?”
“Abe White.”
“Abraham. What a great, Biblical name. Well, Mr. White, my name’s Joseph Abel.”
“I know who you are!”
“Oh, good. Then this can be easy. I prefer to do this the easy way and not the hard way. You know what the hard way is?”
Abe raised his rifle and pointed it at Abel.
“I don’t much care for any way that’s your way.”
Brooks quickly raised his M4, pointed it at Abe, followed by the two guys dressed as ATF agents by Henry’s truck and the one from Abe’s right, standing at Walter’s truck.
Abel said, “Mr. White, you don’t have a choice. Why not put down that peashooter, before someone gets hurt?”
Abe stayed where he was. His cheeks slowly turned red in the snow and the cold.
The snow fell rapidly, climbing in speed, showering a white, translucent curtain between all of them.
Abel said, “Brooks.”
Brooks nodded and slowly lowered the target of his M4 down to Adonis. He stepped closer to her and pointed the M4 right at the back of her head.
She looked up at Abe, made eye contact. She shook her head, slowly telling him no. Telling him to say no to whatever they demanded.
“No! Wait!” Abe shouted.
Brooks didn’t fire, but Abe saw his finger on the trigger.
Abel said, “Do you want a dead ATF agent on your front lawn? On your conscience? Because it will be your fault.”
Abe kept his rifle up.
He said, “I’m not letting you in my house.”
“Mr. White, things aren’t up to you.”
Abe stayed where he was. From behind him, he heard footsteps slowly coming down the hall. It was Abby. She walked past the mudroom and the foyer and stopped in the doorway.
He heard his wife’s voice.
“Abe, what’s going on?”
“Stay back, Abby!”
“Is this the Missus?” Abel asked.
Abe turned at the waist to look back at Abby. She stared at him. Her rifle dangled and shivered by her side in one hand.
“Go back, Abby!”
“Abby, it’s nice to meet you,” Abel said. “Why don’t you come out here and join us?”
Abe turned back to Abel, rifle still pointed at him.
“You leave her out of this!”
Abel asked, “Abe, where’s Foster?”
Abe stared at him in disbelief.
“Where’s Maggie and Dylan and Lauren?”
“What?”
Abby said, “How do you know their names?”
“Don’t be surprised,” Abel said. He raised his voice higher and shouted out at the house so the whole White family could hear him.
“I know all your names,” he shouted. “I know everyone in your family. I know everyone in your house.”
Both Abby and Abe stared at Abel in terror.
Abel shouted, “Maggie, Lauren, Foster, and little Dylan, why not come on out here?”
Abe’s eyes lingered on Abel a little longer. Then he turned his head and looked at Walter sitting in the truck, shame on his face.
“Oh, don’t be hard on your son, Abe. No one resists me. He’s no military-trained, hardened combatant. He told me everything I asked in less than a minute. It only took a punch to the gut to get him to squeal like a pig.”
The two guys at Henry’s truck snickered.
Abel said, “Even the old man there.”
He pointed at Henry.
“That old sheriff took more abuse, and he didn’t tell us nothing.”
Abel shrugged and walked forward, passing Brooks, passing Adonis. He closed in on the rifle in Abe’s hands.
He said, “No one’s ever resisted us. No one. The ones who try…”
Abel stepped up the driveway, into the snow, his hands out and up like he was giving himself over as an offering. He walked up the steps, slowly, and lowered his hands, palm out in front of Abe like he was waiting for Abe to hand over his weapon.
Abel said, “The ones who try, they die slow deaths.”
He stared into Abe’s eyes.
“You want your family to survive?”
Abe nodded, said nothing.
Abel said, “Give me the rifle. Hand over all your weapons and give us shelter through the storm. Then we’ll leave you and your family in peace.”
Abe’s eyes flicked left to right like he was searching for something or someone. He looked at the drive, past the last car. He looked at the forest of planted Christmas trees to the north. He looked for Widow.
Abel said, “No one’s coming to help you. The ATF isn’t coming. This agent here...”
Abel twisted at the waist and pointed back at Adonis.
“She lied to you. She came alone. The ATF, the FBI, the local cops, none of them know where she is. There’s no backup.”
Abe looked deflated.
Abel said, “Give over the weapons, and Walter can join us all in the house. We can be civil.”
