Dark Grid (38 page)

Fifteen seconds later Mallory came running to the lot swearing, and not under her breath.  “I am so gonna draft him when he gets back,
just
so I can throw him in the brig!”

She ran into KB and Halstead on her way back to the command tent.  “Chuck just took off.  I’m not taking odds on whether or not Sheri will be back here before morning because I hate to lose.  We’re still planning the Op though.”  Mallory said.

…

Chuck used the GPS to plug in the number portion of the address in the town and it came up with a single street address.  He had an eleven minute drive if the thing could be believed.  They were just on the other side of the Park for crying out loud.  Pete, you are a real piece of work.  Twisted, rusting, scrap metal--but a piece of work, nonetheless.  A few minutes out his radio squawked at him.  He was tempted not to answer, but really didn’t want to have to ignore it for the next ten minutes.

“This is Charlie one, go ahead, over.”

“Chuck, please turn around.” Mallory paused, and then remembered to say “Over.”  It was a testament to how pissed she was that she forgot in the first place.

“Negative, I read you Lima Charlie but am unable to comply, over.”

“Explain, over.”

“Mallory, find Joel and Rachael and ask them what I said this afternoon, over.”

“You said ‘you were gonna kill that worthless piece of crap’ and I told you that you would need to stand in line.  You weren’t speaking figuratively were you Chuck, uh, over.” Rachael asked.  Mallory had already pulled them into the communications tent.

“No, I wasn’t.  I think I saw that Joel had caught it, but didn’t say anything.  Pete gave up his rights to be a member of a society, our society, a while ago, and he died this afternoon--he just hasn’t stopped breathing.”

“Mallory, he’s a rabid dog, just like KB said.  No matter how nice he acts, you don’t let him get close enough to lick your hand because he’s gonna bite.  He can’t be fixed, he’s sick.  I’m going to get Sheri back.  I’m sorry, I can’t wait until tomorrow morning, and I don’t think she can either.  I’m sure that by now he’s told her that he’s gone back to the Humvee and scrounged for food and toys.  She may be hoping for a rescue, may be planning for one.  She may not be, too, but I’d rather that she under-plan and we, I, over-deliver.

“I need to focus now though, so I’m going to turn off the radio.  I’ll talk to y’all in a few. Chuck out.”  Then he turned off the radio and set it in the middle console.

“I’m coming for you Sheri, just give me a few more minutes.”

…

Pete had been outside for about five minutes rolling a joint when he heard an unfamiliar engine coming up the road.  He’d been in this town long enough to recognize most of the cars and the few trucks they used.  This was not one of the local trucks.  For starters, none of the local trucks were Turbo Diesels, that was anathema to all things ‘groovy man’.  Secondly, this truck was moving way too fast.  Then he thought he recognized the color and the running lights, all of which were on, and dove back into the house.

…

There, up ahead, looks like someone just dove back into a house, and hey they have a Yellow Mustang parked out front.  How convenient.  This wasn’t going to take as long as he’d thought.  Then again, he just might die in the next six seconds, who knew?

Chuck put the truck in park, left it running, and got out.  He’d parked the truck so the entire front of the house was illuminated by the running lights and headlights from the truck.  As he walked to the front of the truck, he pulled out his Taurus.  No use leaving a tool where you couldn’t use it, and thumbed back the hammer.

As he reached the front driver’s-side corner of the truck the front door opened and two people came out--actually one was pushed out in front of the other.  The one in front was Sheri and she was wearing a handcuff dangling from her right wrist.  You idiot, she’s right handed.  How did you expect her to eat you fool.  Strike three, man, that’s it.  You’re just too dumb to keep around anymore.

They didn’t say anything.  Pete stood with his arm tightly around Sheri’s neck and the gun against her head.  There were three things going for Chuck at this point.  The first was that the .44 Magnum Pete was using had quite a pull on it and would require a lot more pressure to rotate the cylinder and pull the hammer back than if the hammer were already back.  The second was that Sheri actually had quite a free range of motion with her head the way he was holding her.  The third was that Pete wasn’t pointing his gun at the threat.

Chuck had grown up with guns, and had been shooting since he was six years old.  He’d probably put over 250,000 rounds of ammo through just the ones he currently owned.  Unlike Joel, his .45 was new.  Like Joel, he shot all the time.  Chuck had put over 20,000 rounds through his .45 and knew exactly how it handled.

For Chuck, time had slowed down earlier this afternoon, to what felt like a crawl.  Now it came to a screeching halt.  Everything that happened took forever but that just meant he had plenty of time to do it.  Thoughts raced through his mind at lightning speed, memories were recalled, surfaced, played out in entirety, and were re-stored in an instant.  Super-slow-motion video replay would still be too fast compared to what it felt like was happening inside his head now.

He glanced at Sheri, who was looking directly at him.  She was proud, defiant, and unafraid.  She’d known someone would come, that they wouldn’t leave her--least of all with Pete.  She didn’t look at all surprised to see that it was Chuck, either.  In fact, there might even be the trace of a smile on her lips.  She hadn’t been crying, God bless her, she hadn’t been crying.  And then she winked at him.

Chuck looked back at Pete then, and didn’t like what he saw.  Pete was literally foaming at the mouth.  He was furious, he was spitting mad.  He couldn’t make the words.  “What, Pete, did you think we would let this stand?  Kidnap a free member of society?  Someone we have all come to respect and love?  Did you think that would be OK?  Did you think that
she
would be OK with that Pete?  Because I’m pretty sure she’s not.” Chuck was very calm, very cool.

“That’s not your call to make, Chucky!” Pete spat back.

“If it’s not my call to make then it’s certainly not yours,” Chuck shook his head.  “I’m a respected member of my community Pete.  What are you?  If someone kidnaps you, who is going to come get you back?  Who has your back here?  If you die, who is going to mourn you Pete?  Anyone?  Is there even a dog here that relies on you for food?  No?  I thought not.”

“So what are you gonna do about it, huh, Chucky?  Running around with all your play army friends!  Sheri was telling me you don’t even have lights yet.  Five weeks and you don’t have lights!  Sounds like you made the right choice don’t it, big man?”

“We have lights, Pete, you probably didn’t let her finish or didn’t hear all of what she said.  We don’t have lights in every tent but I didn’t see lights in every home, either, driving in, so it looks like that point is moot.”  Chuck’s stance changed.

Sheri had been watching him ever since he’d gotten out of the truck and he looked different now.  She’d seen him in a bar fight one time and that’s what he looked like now.  The only way to describe it was ‘ready’.  Sheri didn’t know what was going to happen next but she knew she was going to be ‘ready’ too.  He’d won that fight in one hit come to think of it.

Chuck’s voice was different too, maybe just a little deeper, almost like when he was being a supervisor over something really important and getting people’s attention, but with even more depth to it.  “Pete, you have five seconds…starting now. Let Sheri go.” 

Sheri started counting to five, which is actually a long time when a gun is pointed at your head.

“One,” Chuck started walking to the front of the truck so that Pete would be looking directly at the lights.

“I have five seconds to let Sheri go?  Or what, big man?”  Chuck hadn’t said ‘You have five seconds to let Sheri go’, there’d been two separate statements, but Pete had missed the very important distinction.

“Two,” Chuck stopped and squared his stance on Pete.

“What are you gonna do, huh?  All you’ve done is talk so far,”

“Three,” Chuck relaxed his shoulders and rolled his neck.

“You’re a coward.  You were worthless,”

“Four,” Chuck began bringing up the .45.

“as a manager and a…WHAT THE FU…”

At about four and a half, Pete began relaxing his left arm out of shock because he realized that either Chuck was taking a bluff
way
too far, or he wasn’t bluffing at all.  When that happened, he completely forgot about Sheri, who turned her head away from Pete, and ducked it down and to the side.  It wouldn’t have mattered.  Pete’s hand was completely paralyzed, and Chuck was, quite literally, a dead shot.

Chuck pulled the trigger.  The bullet entered Pete’s head just below and to the left of the bridge of the nose, mostly because Pete flinched.  Pete’s head snapped back and both arms flew wide open.  Pete was killed instantly, and his body spun to the right as it fell onto the bushes to the side of the front porch.  Thankfully, the door had still been open behind Pete, and the majority of the mess went inside--Chuck didn’t want Sheri to see that.  Still, Chuck had tears in his eyes when he safe’d the weapon.

When Chuck had told Pete he had five seconds, he wasn’t giving Pete a way out, he was telling him how long he had left to live.  Some people would call it callous and cocky, but he knew good and well that he’d be waking up in a cold sweat for a long time to come because of his decision. He walked slowly over to Sheri, who had crumpled to her knees when the gun went off.  Chuck stopped a couple of feet away and whispered, “Sheri.  Sheri?”  He took another half step and then squatted down and whispered her name again, “Sheri?”  That’s when he could see she was shaking.  He couldn’t tell if she was crying or shivering from shock.  He started to reach his hand out and stopped halfway to her, not knowing how she would react, and pulled his hand back.  He stood up to look around, then heard her say, “Don’t, please don’t go.”

He knelt back down, and then in a rush scooped her up, one arm under her legs, the other arm behind her back, her arms around his neck.  “Never, I’ll never leave you, never.”  That was when she began to cry on his shoulder.

He knelt that way for a couple of minutes, until Sheri stopped crying and pulled her head back, and then cuddled her head into Chuck’s neck.  “Thank you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“All in a day’s work ma’am.” Chuck snorted.

“No, no it isn’t, you risked your life to save me, and it wasn’t in a day’s work.  You had no idea what you were coming into.  Pete was a bully, but he was also obviously a nutjob.  That was crazy, and heroic, and just a little bit stupid.  Thank you.”  She then put her hands one on each cheek, and proceeded to thank him well and proper.

“Sheri,” Chuck said, after he got his breath back, “you may feel free to thank me at any time, in any place, for any reason whatsoever going forward.”

Sheri just grinned.  “We’ll see.  Now go ahead and put me down, I need to rummage in his car and get my keys and my Gerber, and I want our Rucks before we head back.  Please come with me though.”

Her keys and knife were in the glove box, and the Rucksacks were in the back seat.  She also saw her radio on the floorboard of the front passenger seat.  “Is this how you found me so quick?”

“Yup, locking it on send was brilliant.  Sergeant Bowersock had the idea to triangulate the signal as nobody else was on the channel.  Smart move by a very smart lady.”

“Glad it worked.  Glad you came to my rescue.  C’mere, let me thank you again.”  This time it was a short thank you, more like ‘thanks’.

“Now take me home, Chuck, please take me home.”

“Your wish is my command,” Chuck shook his head.  “I’m gonna have to radio ahead though, Mallory is pissed at me.  I kinda just went off on my own.”  He helped her into his truck, and noticed the handcuff still on her right wrist.

“I figured as much, but I’m glad you did.  It was you I was hoping to thank.”  Sheri blushed in the dash lights.  Sheri followed his gaze down to her wrist and held up her arm.  “We’ll have to get this taken off back at the base.  I can see it getting in the way after a while.”

“I’ve got a pair of bolt cutters in the tool box in the back, we could get rid of it right now if you want,” Chuck offered.

“No, I think we should leave it on until we get back.  I think people need to see it on, for a couple of reasons.  It will help people see what’s out there and frankly, it’ll help your case.”  She turned to look at Chuck and then threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight.

Sheri shivered, “Chuck, I really think he was going to kill me.  I don’t know when, I don’t know at what point, but I really do think he was going to kill me.  You saved my life.  You were defending me.  More than that, you were rescuing me from what I truly believe was a life-threatening situation.”  She pulled back and looked him in the eyes.  “People will need to see this,” she pulled her arm back and let the handcuff swing back and forth, “to remember that.  I think, I hope, people will be glad to see me and be relieved that I’m ok.  In a couple of days, somebody’s going to ask ‘did you have to kill him’.  This will help.”

“Wow, do you ever stop?  Not that I want you to, don’t think that, but sheesh.  I hadn’t even thought of any of that.”  Chuck quirked a smile, “Not that it would have changed a single thing I did, not in the least.  Ok, your call, let’s get going.”  Chuck shut the door and got in on his side.  Sheri lifted up the middle console and slid across the bench seat to the middle.

“I’m sitting next to you on the way back,” Sheri grinned.

“I didn’t say anything,” Chuck grinned back, “but you are putting your seatbelt on.”

“Yessir.”

“And I’m going to need that radio, oh hell; your radio is still locked on send!”

Sheri turned pale, and then her stomach lurched, and then she giggled.  “What’s the matter, big man, afraid of getting a little good-natured ribbing when we get back?  Should we give them a little something to listen to?”