Southern Cross (23 page)

“If
you do me, does that mean I get to do you?” he asked.

I
rolled my eyes. Before I could respond, Blaze took her place in a little
clearing in front of the house. I held up my hand to Diggs. “Hang on. I think
the games are about to begin.”

From
our vantage, safely out of the line of fire, I could just see Blaze take
another step forward with megaphone in hand. The second she was in the open,
someone got a shot off from inside the house, kicking up the dirt a couple of
yards from Blaze’s feet. She backed up, holding up a hand to keep anyone from
firing back.

“My
name is Special Agent Allie Blaze,” she said once she was safely under cover
again. “I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’d like to end this
before anyone gets hurt—is there someone in there I could speak with?”

On
our subterranean camera, a couple of the kids looked up anxiously at the sound
of the gunshot. Willa Clinton, Casey’s little sister, started to cry. The old
couple gathered everyone together around the table. I eyed the vial beside the
pitcher uneasily.

After
an eternity and a half, the muzzle of a shotgun appeared in the front doorway
of the cabin. The teenage girl we’d seen in the photo emerged, the gun raised
to her chest, sights trained directly on Blaze.

“We
don’t have any quarrel with you,” she said. Her voice was strained, her arms
shaking under the weight of the gun she held. “So please just get on out of
here.”

I’d
expected some backwoods Daisy Mae spouting scripture, but this girl was
anything but. She had braces and a patch of acne on her forehead, and the fear
in her eyes was palpable.

“I’m
sorry,” Blaze said, “but I can’t go yet—not until everyone in there gets out
safely and I’m able to locate Reverend Barnel. That’s my only job here. Can you
tell me your name?”

The
girl hesitated. It looked like she’d been crying. “Jessie,” she said after a
second, confirming what Diggs had said. “Jessie Barnel. Nobody’s getting out of
here, though—you may as well just forget it. My granddaddy saw to that… He’s
goin’ back to the beginning, he said. Back to where it all went wrong…
granddaddy got word from on high. He’s to start there. We’ll be goin’ home with
the Lord by sundown, Miss.”

Her
voice trembled.

“You
can call me Allie,” Blaze said. She’d made the transition from drill sergeant
to den mother seamlessly. “Jessie, no one has to go home with the Lord today,
all right? Nobody has to go anywhere but right back where they belong. We can
put today behind us. I just need you to put that gun down, sweetheart.”

On
the video screen, Willa was still crying. The old man sat down at the table
with her on his knee, bouncing her gently. Dougie Clinton looked ready to
strangle him. Then, I watched with my stomach in a sailor’s knot as the old
woman picked up the vial of cyanide and pulled the pitcher toward her. The
agent beside us had his walkie talkie in hand. He spoke into it quietly.

“Keith,
what’s your status? There’s activity below.”

Blaze
must have had an earpiece in, because her shoulders tensed at the words. She
lifted the megaphone again.

“Jessie,
I know you have children in there. Those kids’ families are looking for them;
they just want them to come home safely. Now, I know your grandfather is a good
man.”

To my
surprise, a tear rolled down Jessie’s cheek, a flicker of something in her
eyes. Anger, I thought—and not necessarily directed at us. Blaze didn’t miss
it.

“As
good a man as he is, the position he’s put you in here isn’t fair. You’re a
smart girl—I did a little checking, and it turns out you’re at the top of your
class. You don’t belong here, Jessie.”

The
old woman on the video dumped the vial into the pitcher. She stirred it, her
face chillingly impassive, and then began pouring the liquid into a dozen paper
cups.

“We
have to move,” the agent said into his walkie talkie. He said it quietly
enough, but there was no mistaking his urgency. Jessie’s head came up, like she
was listening to someone inside the house. Her hands tensed around the gun.

“Whoever’s
in the woods out back best leave here,” Jessie said. She shifted, eyes taking
on a wild quality that wasn’t reassuring. “My granny isn’t happy about this. We
can’t have you folks back there.”

“Jessie—”
Blaze began. A shot erupted from the house, this time in the back. A second
later, “Agent down!” crackled over the walkie talkie. Jessie jumped, her gun
going off in the process. Another shot came from the back of the house. Most of
the kids were crying on the video screen by now. Those who weren’t just looked
terrified. The old couple began handing out paper cups, moving with unnerving
efficiency.

Someone
fired back from the woods. This time Jessie took aim, her rifle pointed
directly at Blaze.

“Y’all
need to go!” the girl said. “You got no idea what you’re doing.”

“Jessie,
please—let us get you out of there. Set down your gun, and let us take care of
your family. You shouldn’t have to face something like this.” Blaze took a step
into the clearing, both hands in the air. The girl’s arms were shaking so much
now that I didn’t know how she held the damned gun up. Dougie Clinton and four
other kids in the cellar picked up their paper cups. I wasn’t breathing. No one
was, as far as I could see. Diggs sat rigid beside me, his hand clasped tightly
in mine. I didn’t even remember taking hold of it.

“Dammit,”
he whispered under his breath. “Why the hell isn’t anyone doing anything?”

“We
have agents right now who can move in there and take care of this, Jessie,”
Blaze said. “I have a daughter your age, honey—this isn’t the kind of thing I’d
ever want her to go through. I know your granddaddy feels the same.”

Jessie
shook her head furiously, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Then you don’t know
my granddaddy,” she half-whispered. Her eyes hardened. My hand tightened around
Diggs’, and I think everyone there knew what was coming next:

She
fired the gun.

It
hit Blaze square in the chest, knocking her backward. The girl chambered a
second bullet. Before she could take aim, a shot sounded from the woods. The
girl fell to her knees, still holding tight to the rifle, blood spreading in a
neat circle at the upper left of her dress. Her eyes went wide.

More
shots erupted from the cabin, from the deep bass of a shotgun to the steady
rat-a-tat of automatic weapons in the back. Juarez bolted from the woods,
moving fast and low. He reached Blaze and she got to her feet, still gasping
from the impact of buckshot on Kevlar, and the two retreated back to the trees.

“Hold
your fire!” Blaze shouted hoarsely to her team.

Meanwhile,
Diggs and I watched as the video picture jumped, like someone had jarred the
camera. Two boys of no more than five drank down the liquid in their paper
cups, one of them crying. Dougie looked at his but didn’t touch it. I watched
as, in the chaos, he quietly took Willa’s from her and put it back on the
table. Good boy.

The
forest was alive with gunfire now, all of it coming from inside the cabin as
agents and National Guard alike took cover. I couldn’t remember the last time
I’d taken a full breath. Another little girl drank from her cup, even as the
first two boys sank to the floor as though suddenly too tired to stand.

Jessie
sat on the front porch, her back against the door, blood soaking the front of
her dress now. She still clung to the rifle. She’d gone very, very pale.

And
then, down below, I watched on the video feed as the old woman suddenly looked
up, eyes wide. The picture jostled again. The kids’ faces turned up in the same
direction. Someone had entered the room.

The
woman clutched something by her side that I hadn’t seen before—something dark
and metallic.

“The
detonator,” Diggs whispered next to me. I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me
or himself. I could barely hear him over the rushing in my ears.

I
heard a single shot from inside the house, and a second later the old lady
dropped. The metal box fell to the floor. I waited for the world to explode.

It
didn’t.

The
old man grabbed the pitcher on the table and I watched as he drank down
whatever was left. The kids looked on, crying in stark terror as three agents
in full SWAT garb—one of them Juarez—appeared on screen. 

Juarez
went up the stairs, rifle up, while the others focused on
evacuating the kids. Time ground to a halt. There was another series of shots
fired inside the cabin, and then possibly the longest silence I’ve ever
endured. If I could have summoned enough focus to pray, I’m pretty sure I would
have in that moment. As it was, all I could do was sit there and wait, as
though in suspended animation, for someone to tell us what the hell had
happened. 

Finally,
Juarez’s voice came on over the radio. “House is secure. We need medics in
here now!”

The
front door opened and Juarez emerged. He took the rifle from Jessie’s hand
gently. She closed her eyes, tears still falling, and surrendered.

Diggs
and I dove into the fray as soon as we were cleared to do so, me joining a team
of medics who’d just swarmed in while Diggs went around to the back to help
round up whatever kids were still mobile. A broad-shouldered Hispanic woman
nodded me over to a clearing not far from the trees where the injured were
being moved.

“You’re
Solomon?” she asked.

I nodded.

“I’m
Stacy. Blaze said you’re cleared to lend a hand. You up for that?”

“Yeah,
of course,” I agreed. My hands were shaking and I was pretty sure I was about
to puke on someone’s shoes, but it didn’t look like anyone else was
volunteering for the job.

Juarez
came over carrying one of the two boys I’d seen drink the
poison. I was on the job and thoroughly focused, but I still managed to brush
my hand over Juarez’s as he lay the boy on the ground in front of us. Another
of the agents had the other boy, and another couple of EMTs went to work on him
while Stacy and I looked for signs of life in our patient.

“His
name’s Tom. The other boy’s Greg,” Juarez said. He hovered over us, forehead
furrowed.

“You
know what they gave him?” Stacy asked.

“Cyanide,”
Juarez said promptly. I fought an overwhelming urge to panic, ordering myself
back to that quiet, steady place my mother taught me to rely on as a teenager.
“What can I do?” Juarez asked.

“Go
help the other agents,” Stacy said smoothly. “We’ve got this.”

As
soon as he was gone, Stacy shook the little boy gently. “Tom, can you hear me?”
There was no response.

Close
up, he seemed impossibly small, with curly black hair and dark skin. The other
boy started to seize, and I realized at a glance that the two must be brothers.
The other team tried to stabilize him. Stacy snapped her fingers at me.

“Hey—focus.
This
is our patient.”

I
nodded. It wasn’t easy, though: our patient had a pulse. Our patient was
breathing. We gave him a dose of amyl nitrite and set up an IV of sodium
nitrite as soon as he was stable. Meanwhile, the other boy wasn’t moving. The
paramedics stopped chest compressions after what seemed an eternity.

“Greg
Hernandez, age approximately six years,” one of the EMTs said. “Time of death,
11:52 a.m. March 15, 2013.”

I sat
back on my heels and surveyed the rest of the scene, trying to get my bearings.
Diggs stood at the edge of the woods holding Willa Clinton, Doug beside them.
They were laughing, Willa’s arms so tight around Diggs’ neck I didn’t know how
he could breathe.

Jessie
Barnel was already being carried out—they’d either sedated her or she’d lost
consciousness, but she was still alive. Of the six members of Barnel’s crew
inside the house, she was the only survivor.

We
prepped Tom for air evac, and then Stacy shook my hand. “We’ve got this.
Thanks—we’ll let you know how he does.”

I
nodded.

Beside
me, the other little boy lay alone, a blanket pulled over his small body. For a
second or two I just stood there, swaying, sure I would be sick. Across the
way, Juarez knelt beside Blaze, their heads bent in conversation. She still sat
propped against a tree, but he offered her his hand and she got to her feet.

Limping
and rung out, we left the Barnel compound.

12:06:02

Danny
was asleep, dreaming of home, when the door opened and someone shined what felt
like a floodlight into the room. He blinked in the glare.

“We’re
going for a little walk,” a woman said. The same woman who’d talked to him
outside Casey’s garage—that soft, silky voice was unforgettable.

“Who
are you?” he demanded.

She
lowered the light and stalked into the room. Danny recognized her from around
town, but he didn’t know that he’d ever talked to her before that night at
Casey’s.

Jenny
Burkett knelt beside him and picked up a black hood she’d tossed in. She was
pretty—not Justice pretty, either. She was Hollywood hot, with blonde hair,
great curves, and a soft, full mouth. She brushed against him, looking like she
knew just what he was thinking. She moved in closer, ‘til her mouth was at his
ear.

“Ready
for an adventure, Danny?” she asked, her voice husky and rich. She took a black
hood and started to put it over his head. He shied away. 

“You’re
gonna kill me anyway, ain’t you?” he asked. “What does it matter if I can see
or not? At least have the guts to look me in the eye when you pull the
trigger.”

“Relax,”
she said soothingly. “Nobody’s pulling any triggers just now. The reverend just
wants to have a little chat.” He kept fighting her, scooting backward until his
back was against the wall. His daddy taught him never to fight a woman, but it
seemed like this might be an exception to that rule. He kicked out, catching
her in the shin.

She
swore, and everything soothing or soft about her just fell away. She dropped to
her knees beside him, grabbed a hunk of hair at the back of his head, and
pulled hard.

“Don’t
fight me, little boy,” Jenny hissed. She kept a good grip on his hair, forcing
his head back. Then, she pulled a gun from the back of her jeans and pointed it
just under his chin. She put her mouth to his ear. “It’s not a safe game. Trust
me.”

She
pulled the hood over his head and pulled him up.

There
were footsteps outside—heavy, loud steps, like some giant was headed into the
room. Danny tried to stay calm, but his breath wasn’t coming right and the
inside of the hood smelled like old wool and sweat.

“You
ready?” a man’s voice he didn’t recognize asked. Like Jenny, he didn’t sound
like he was from around here.

“Watch
him,” he heard Jenny say. “The little bastard’s a fighter.”

They
grabbed him by both arms and led him outside the room. Once they were past the
doorway, he could see a change in the light outside, even through the hood.
They walked along a dirt floor, then stopped and somebody opened a door.

“Step
up,” Jenny said.

Even
still, Danny tripped on the first step. They kept climbing until they reached
another door. Somewhere distant and just above them now, he could hear Dylan
playing: “Temporary Like Achilles”—one of those deep tracks Diggs introduced
him to. He’d always liked that song. 

“Where
are you taking me?” he asked. The man had a tight hold on his arm, like he was
afraid Danny might make a run for it. He might, too, if he had any idea where
in hell he was.

“The
reverend wants you to make your peace,” the man said.

“I
don’t want to make my peace,” Danny said. “All I want is to get the hell out o’
here. I don’t—”

They
walked a little longer, their feet echoing like they were on concrete in a 
closed space now, and then went down a few steps. Another door opened. A blast
of warm air hit him, and he smelled sweat and sickness and a kind of darkness
he couldn’t put a name to. For the first time since he’d been taken, Danny felt
a jolt of fear so pure it just about knocked his breath loose.

“Keep
moving,” the man said, jerking him forward.

“Where
are we?” Danny asked.

They
guided him to a chair and made him sit, then took their hands off him. The door
opened and closed again; Danny sensed they’d gone.

Someone
took the hood off his head.

He
blinked in the sudden harsh glare, lights pointed directly into his face. When
he looked past them, he spotted Reverend Barnel. The reverend wore his usual
suit, his right arm in a sling. He didn’t look right, though—like maybe he was
on something. His face was red, sweat running down his cheeks. He moved a music
stand close to Danny, a piece of paper set on it.

“I’m
sorry it has to end this way, boy,” Barnel said. “The Lord works in mysterious
ways—this isn’t the path I would’ve chosen, but it got chose for me. I tried to
turn around the evildoers that come to me. I really did.”

The
reverend’s eyes were black, and his hands were shaking. Danny realized that the
sweat and sickness he’d smelled was coming from Barnel himself.

Once
his eyes had adjusted, Danny tried to figure out where he was. A boiler room of
some kind—that much was obvious from the pipes and controls and steam all
around. He could just barely hear the music over the sound of the big old
furnace. A video camera was set up a couple feet in front of him, just to the
side of the lights. When Danny didn’t look at the paper Barnel had set out, the
reverend pushed the music stand a little closer.

“What
is this?” Danny asked, staring at the words.

“You
done what’s on that paper—don’t try and deny it. I led you to the Lord, but
that’s as far as I could get you. It ain’t my fault you turned your back. Now,
I need you to read that. Folks need to know. They got to understand.”

“Understand
what?” Danny asked. He felt sick.

“Why the
Lord’s pushin’ me to end this,” the reverend said. He mopped the sweat off his
forehead with a damp handkerchief.

“Read
it,” he said again. “Read it right to the camera.”

Danny
shook his head. His eyes filled with tears. He couldn’t stop them from falling,
no matter how hard he tried. “I won’t read this,” he whispered.

“You
will,” the reverend said. “And maybe, if I believe you’re sorry for what you
done, you won’t end up like your daddy did.”

Danny
wet his lips. Cleared his throat. A tear rolled down his cheek.

“God
is good,” he began, reading the reverend’s words.

<><><> 

Once
he’d read everything the reverend told him to, Barnel put the hood back over
Danny’s head and the others came back in. Jenny and the man Danny didn’t know
led him out like he was a damned dog, but he didn’t complain—he was too happy
to be out of that boiler room. He heard music again: something older this time.
Chuck Berry, he was pretty sure. It had a good beat, and he thought somewhere
in the back of his head that somebody out there—wherever they were—had good
taste.

“Can’t
you shut that off?” the man asked.

“Not
now we can’t,” Jenny said. “You know that. But we’ll shut ‘em down later—don’t
worry your pretty head.”

The
man grunted. Danny didn’t think it sounded like he cared much for Jenny.

They
hauled him along, not talking anymore. Finally, after they’d gone back down the
stairs and concrete gave way to dirt floor again, he heard a door open. People
were talking inside the room. He made out two voices, then three. Jenny pushed
him and he stumbled in the doorway. Somebody said his name.

Jenny
kept the hood on him while she tightened up the zip tie around his wrists. It
hurt now, the plastic cutting into his skin until he knew he was bleeding. He
just stood there. He heard another voice, then another. It should be a good
thing that he wasn’t alone anymore, but all it did was make him more nervous.
What the hell was the reverend playing at?

Once
he was secure, Jenny took off his hood just before she slipped out the door. He’d
thought there would only be two or three people in there, but instead he
counted half a dozen—all ages, everybody looking ragged and scared. They all
sat with their hands tied behind them, backs against the wall.

“Fine
mess you got us into,” a girl’s voice said. It took him a minute before his
eyes adjusted and he realized who it was. He fought the urge to break down and
cry like a baby.

Casey
sat in the far corner, almost totally out of the light. A couple of
sketchy-looking druggies Danny knew from around town were sitting on either
side of her. Danny shuffled over and plopped down beside her, almost sitting on
one of the guy’s laps to get him out of the way.

“Hey!”
the junkie said. “Back off.”

“You
back off,” Danny said. “I’m sittin’ here.” He was a little bigger than the
junkie, and even though Danny wasn’t much of a fighter, he knew he could hold
his own. He stared the guy down until he slithered out of the way a couple
feet.

Once
that was settled, he took a second to get a look at Casey. She didn’t look
good—there was a burn on her face, and some cuts and scrapes and bandages. Her
eyes had shadows the size of bruises under them. When he looked at her, he
thought for a second she was about to cry.

“You
okay?” he asked, quiet so nobody else would hear them.

She
nodded, then took a second to pull herself together before she finally managed
to get a word out.

“We’re
gonna miss our gig,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.

He
couldn’t help it—he laughed out loud. She smiled at him, that smile that always
made him feel like things might actually work out for the best in the end after
all.

“You
get your confession done for the reverend?” she asked.

“Yeah,”
Danny said. “You had to do that, too?”

“We
all did,” Casey said, nodding toward the others. Danny met eyes with the junkie
he’d just pushed out of the way. The man nodded, serious and slack and shaking.

“He’s
got somethin’ planned for us,” the man said. “And whatever it is, it ain’t
good.”

“I
kind of figured that about the time they knocked me out and tied me up,” Danny
said.

“I’m
Biggie,” the junkie said. “I’d shake hands, but I’m a little tied up right
now.” Danny smiled at the joke. “What’s your name, kid?” 

“Danny
Durham,” he said. Biggie nodded, then looked at Casey. “No offense, but you’re not
looking so good. You was one of the ones in that explosion, right?”

“Explosion?”
He looked at Casey. She wouldn’t look back at him. “What’s he talking about?”

“The
Dairy Queen—Sheriff Jennings went psycho,” Biggie said, “and blew the whole
damn place up.”

Panic
ran through Danny in a sharp, sickening wave. He looked at Casey with the
question in his eyes. “Sophie?” he asked. The word came out choked.

“I’m
sorry,” she whispered to him.

He
felt dizzy. He couldn’t get worked up about things right now, he knew, but for
a second all he could do was sit there, feeling sick and lost and hopeless. He
looked at Casey, studying all those cuts and scratches and burns with new
understanding.

He
knew he ought to be more sorry about Sophie, with her grin and her pierced
eyebrow and that way she had of saying his name when they were together... But
all he could think was,
Thank you, God
. The world wasn’t a good place
without Sophie, but he’d make it through.

He
didn’t even want to think about the world without Casey.

Danny
looked at her, and her eyes held onto his in a way he couldn’t remember them
ever doing before.

“I’m
getting us out of this, Case,” he said. He sounded a lot more confident about
that than he felt.

Casey
was the kind of girl with an answer for everything. Today, she didn’t say a
word. They’d never been too touchy-feely, but she didn’t complain when he
scooted a little closer. She just leaned against his arm, her head on his
shoulder, feeling smaller than he remembered Casey being in the real world.

He
started thinking up a plan.