Summary: When Cody stumbles across an assassination attempt on a camping trip, the hitmen shoot him and leave him for dead. His brother, Jack, finds and rescues him with the help of other campers.
At the hospital, one of the evil Lehman brothers shows up again. Dressed as an orderly, he injects toxin into Cody's IV. Jack and the FBI agent assigned to the Lehman case burst into the room. Cody is placed into a medically-induced coma for weeks to allow the poison to clear his body.
Home after almost six weeks in the hospital, his first night is spent with Jack and his family and the ER trauma doctor who originally treated him.
As night falls, he fears the worst. He is awakened in the middle of the night by noise in the house. HIs mother (who also lives there) is roused from sleep, as well. When they try to call 911, they realize the killer has blocked the cell phones and has the downstairs receiver. He orders Cody downstairs. In order to keep Lehman from coming upstairs to 'fetch him', he agrees to go down.
End of the previous segment:
Cody clutched the phone, squeezing it to keep from dropping it. He felt like throwing up, or passing out. God, he thought, you've got to help us.
"Get down here, McClellan, or I'll come up and get intimately acquainted with the kiddos and your pretty little momma."
"I'm coming," Cody replied, and hung up the phone. He sat, feeling fear and sorrow at the thought of all he would miss. His indecision disappeared and grim resolve settled across his face. He would do whatever he had to do to save his family. He would sacrifice anything –everything – to keep them alive.
Even in the dim lamplight, Rachel paled noticeably at the expression in his eyes. Her breath became strained, breathing itself becoming difficult. She raised a shaking hand to her youngest, stopping just short of his shoulder to put a balled fist against her mouth. She took a deep breath and moved her hand to her throat. "Cody you can't! You can't go down there! You know what he'll do to you!"
"I know what he'll do if I don't, Mom."
Michael suddenly realized exactly what was happening. "One of them is here?" Horror elevated his voice, making him sound younger than his 12 years. "In our house?"
"I'm going to take care of it, Michael. And I need your help." Cody touched his son on the face, feeling the softness of his cheek, staring into his eyes. For the last time. "I want you to help Grandma take care of Katie. I need you to help make them safe and keep your sister quiet. So I can deal with the creep downstairs. Understand?"
Michael’s eyes shone in the muted light of the lamp. "I want to come with you, Dad. I can help you. You need me."
Cody shook his head, almost involuntarily. "No. No. I know you could, Michael, but I need you here. To help Grandma take care of Katie. That's really important. The only important thing. And how much I love you, and that I'm proud of you." He wanted to say more, to say enough to hold Michael through this night and through all the nights in the years to come, but there was no time. The killer could be starting up the stairs at any minute.
"I love you, too, Dad." Michael's voice was thick with tears. He leaned forward, wrapped his arms around his father's waist and then sat back. He squared his shoulders, obviously trying to look braver than he felt. "Don't worry about me and Katie."
Cody kissed his little girl on the cheek and she stirred, frowning and muttering softly in her sleep. He looked at his mother. "Go into the attic, Mom." Cody rose, tucking his revolver into the elastic waistband of his sweats. "The entrance is pretty hard to find unless you know where to look. I think you’ll be safe there."
"Do you want us to stay there or leave through the attic window?" Tears started to streak Rachel's face but she didn't try to swipe them away .
"Stay." Cody looked away from her, to Katie. Her blond hair lay spread across the pillow, framing her face with a spray of gold. Her lower lip pouted out slightly and she stirred again, her sleep disturbed by the sounds of their voices and the presence of the dim light. He wondered if she’d remember him, or if he’d join Pam in the far reaches of her subconscious. He thought again about the attic, about the window half obscured by the big oak in the side yard. "No," he decided. "I don't know where the other guy is. He might be outside." He fought the impulse to walk to the window and look. "Don't leave the house unless you absolutely have to." Rachel started to talk, but Cody didn't let her interrupt. "And don't come down, Mom. No matter what he says, what he tells you. No matter what I say. Don't come down unless you hear Jack or Rudy. Or Lt. Henry or Aulers. No matter what, Mom. You understand, right? No matter what." He kissed her lightly on top of the head and wiped the tear with his thumb. "Take care of my babies, Mom." He kissed her again. "I love you."
He turned and left without another word, not giving Rachel a chance to try to talk him into another course of action. He tried not to think about what waited for him downstairs, tried not to hear the thoughts that there may still be a better way, a safer way, than to face the monster like the sheriff in an old black-and-white western.
He cleared his mind and crouched at the top of the stairs, listening. Holding his breath, he strained to hear the slightest sound. The grandfather clock ticked loudly, its familiar sound seeming to have gained volume in the quiet house. His heart pounded and Cody realized he couldn't hear anything else. He focused on any noises behind him. If Rachel and the kids had started into the attic, they were doing it in total silence. There was nothing to cue Lehman in to where his family might be hiding, which was good. Maybe they'd be safe.
But there was nothing to let Cody know the man’s whereabouts downstairs, either. He hesitated a minute longer.
"Oh, come on, McClellan," a voice boomed suddenly. "If I'd a' wanted to do something as boring as just kill you I could've done that while you slept. Get down here or, I promise you, you won't like what I do next."
Cody started at the sudden burst of Lehman’s voice, breathed a prayer of protection for his family and cautiously started down the stairs. He could see nothing in the area below except a single shaft of moonlight sweeping from the back door to halfway across the living room. It shifted slightly and Cody froze, watching for more movement. After only a second, he realized the shadow intersecting the light beam was a branch from the tree outside and began to move again.
Almost immediately, he heard the 'pop' of a silenced gun, felt fire-brand heat slam into his left leg and fell, crashing to the floor. He lay still, stunned, unable to even think or move.
Lehman laughed again, and Cody rolled to the couch, seeking cover behind it, grateful for Pam’s insistence that it not sit flush against a wall.
"Imagine that." Lehman's disembodied laugh filled the large room. "A killer and a liar, too. Think I'll go to Hell for that, McClellan? Good Christian man like yourself ought to warn a rotten ol’ sinner like me ‘bout the error of my ways."
Cody pulled the Glock from his waistband. Lehman was back by the dining room. Cody pictured the room, certain there was nothing big between them. If he got lucky he may be able to target the man by his voice and get him before Lehman realized what was happening. He had to keep Lehman talking, which seemed to be part of the man’s plan anyway. "You believe in Hell?" he called.
"Sent enough men there. I reckon I'm Hell's head realtor." A harsh bass laugh cut the darkness of the room like steel through flesh. "All those men. I've watched their faces as they die – their eyes. And they just glaze over. No burning inferno waiting there, McClellan. No golden streets. No angels or harps or mansion for you, boy. That time you spent serving an all-knowing, all-caring god was just a waste of what little time you had. That pretty blond woman of yours is just rotting in the dirt, turning into somethin’ foul, then into dust herself. God ain’t there, McClellan. Just a bullet and a dark hole in the ground. Your god ain't going to save you. No more than Mickey Mouse, bustin’ through that door like the calvery." Lehman sounded somber, but laughed dryly.
Cody briefly considered Lehman's last comment. God had chosen not to save Pam from the junkie by the ATM. It was possible that no help would come – that God would choose not to save him from Lehman. Many good men died, praying and counting on salvation that never arrived. 'Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus', he remembered, and then as if shouted into his brain, 'The Lord is my helper; I shall not fear what man shall do unto me'.
Words he'd heard somewhere, in a movie or a book or maybe just God whispering at him now, came to him gently. "He already has saved me," he responded to the assassin. "You can't see Him any more than you can see the air you breathe, but He's there, just as real and just as vital. And if He chooses not to save me from you then I go to be with my wife, and with my God."
"Oh, yeah, sure thing. You just keep on tellin' yourself that." Lehman snorted sarcastically.
He was moving, Cody heard. He moved from the distance of the dining room toward the front door. Cody raised up from his protection, aimed at where he supposed the killer to be, fired, and dove to the floor.
Bullets passed immediately through the back over the couch just above Cody's head as Lehman returned fire. The big man cursed.
"This is my game, McClellan," he said after a pause. "My rules. And my rules say only one gun in the game. Mine."
Anguish washed over him at the sound of the murderer’s voice. He'd missed. He'd probably cost his family their only chance.
"You still there, McClellan? Hope I didn't end the game too soon." Lehman paused. “McClellan? You there?”
Cody wondered if his neighbors had heard the shots. Lehman's gun was silenced, but his was not. With the increased police presence in the area, a call for help could bring someone in time to save his mom and children. He needed to attract some attention. Even at
3:30 in the morning someone should hear the gunfire. He briefly wondered about his dogs, about the silence ominously filling the backyard. Lehman hadn't taken any chances. Cody sat up, feeling the floor around him sticky and warm with blood from the hole in his leg. He pulled the trigger, sending two more bullets in the direction of the assassin. Lehman yelped. He'd either hit the man or scared him. Cody took grim pleasure in either. He dropped to the floor again, but Lehman didn't return fire.
He was moving, Cody realized. Away from the door. Toward the stairs. Oh, God, hide my family from him. Blind him to their hiding place.'
"I love this game," Lehman said from off to Cody’s left. "I love the plannin' and the stalkin'. I love the look on peoples’ faces when they realize that they've lost. The money is great, a' course. And a man should get paid for what he does well. But I love the game. My brother … the one I got left … he don't think the way I do. For him it's just another job. Like the military or politics or any other job where you kill people." He laughed. "He just does the job and is done and gone. He's prob'bly already finished with your brother and his family. He's prob'bly done with the doctor, too, and is on his way –"
Anger and unbearable grief overwhelmed Cody, crushing the breath out of him, sending waves of pain through his chest. They'd killed Jack. "No!" he screamed. He stood, planning to shoot into the muzzle flash as Lehman shot him down. As he did so, he realized that the killer had moved again, either with incredible speed, or knowing that his words would distract his victim. He stood directly in front of the couch now, and grabbed Cody's tee-shirt as he rose, hitting the revolver out of his hand and swinging back to hit Cody in the face with the butt of his revolver.
Cody sagged. "Stupid, McClellan. Very stupid." Lehman put the muzzle of the revolver under Cody's jaw, shoving upward and inward. "I'd expected more of you, considerin' what all I read about you. Your credentials led me to believe the night would go much better." He pushed harder into Cody's throat, making him gag. "It's okay, though. I think I can still save the evenin'."
Author Notes
This is a bit longer than usual, folks. Hope it wasn't a problem but there just wasn't really a good place to stop the action!
Characters in this Chapter:
Cody McClellan - early 30s, widowed and father of two children. Private investigator who interrupted the assassination of a state senator.
Rachel McClellan - Cody's mother
MIchael and Katie - Cody's children, 12 and 6, respectively
Lehman - one of four killers Cody stumbled across on a camping trip. Wanted by the FBI for murdering mostly minority civil rights leaders and politicians
Pam - Cody's wife, deceased
Jack - mid 30s, police detective.
|
|
