The White Mountain (25 page)

Seconds later, instead of the
First Lady, Alice and Jesse were shoved through a side door.

She’d rushed toward them,
gotten contained by two of the three robotic henchmen, and then watched,
cringing, as Billy smacked her sister, threatening Randall as the helicopter
lifted up and away.

Now, she sat, waiting the
final twenty minutes on Randall to arrive, wondering what she had to do to
win
,
like Billy had said, wondering what that meant, wondering if the other Ares
would make an appearance or if he (or
she
) had decided to pass on this
one.

She kept trying to reassure
Alice with a comforting look, to no avail.  Her sister kept her head down,
staring at the floor.  Jesse cried with his eyes shut.

One of the goons, Hook Nose,
passed by on his never-ending march.  Mary said, “He’s only six.  You didn’t
have to get him involved.”

“Shut up.”

“Bite me.”

“Be careful what you wish
for,” he said, moving along, in no hurry.

She shot a look over to the
leader when he gave a short, “
Hup!  Hup!
” and held up two fingers, motioning
to the front door. 

Randall.  Finally.

CHAPTER 24

Randall marched up to the
front door of the storage building and flung it open.  He wasn’t worried about
dying—if they wanted him dead right away, he’d be sitting in his truck, leaking
red and white cells from fresh bullet holes.  And besides, with Alice and Jesse
as collateral, and Mary inside somewhere, Billy (
Chuck
, the two-faced
bastard) had something planned.  He didn’t know what, but he didn’t like it already.

He barreled through the
doorway, saw Mary, and then took a quick step toward her, dropping after a
sharp rap to his head.  Ears ringing, the white flash fading, he fell, rolled
onto his back, and looked up at the two men standing overhead as they cocked
their guns in unison. 
Click-click
.  Surrounded and in check.

The white-haired face of a
traitor appeared overhead, upside down, the corner of his mouth cocked in a
half-smile.  Billy said, “Good timing.  Thirty seconds more and your wife
would’ve lost a pinky.”

Randall said nothing.  He
felt his 9mm digging into his back, tried to figure out if he could get to it
fast enough.  With two barrels in his face, inches away, he didn’t stand a
chance.  He felt the toe of Billy’s shoe against his right cheek.

“Over there.  Look.”

Randall angled his head,
tried to roll when he saw Alice and Jesse tied to the support beam, but a boot
to the throat stopped him.  He choked out, “Let ‘em go,” as he grabbed the
foot, twisting, using unbalanced leverage against the gunman.  It worked.  He
landed on the floor with a grunt, cursed, and scrambled away.

Steel-toed boots, the crack
of a rib, and a cold barrel on Randall’s temple stopped his short-lived
retaliation.

“That’ll cost you,” Billy
said.  “Take a finger.”

“No!” Randall screamed.  “I’m
good, chief.  Just ease up.  Please.  Whatever you say.”

“Rhodes?”

The man overhead, the one
with the ski jump nose, the one Randall had dropped, said, “Yeah?”

“Take a finger.”

“Roger that.”

He backed away from Randall,
out of reach, and sidestepped over to Alice.

Randall laid motionless,
horrified, gun barrel digging into the soft skin of his cheek, bellowing for
them to stop.

Rhodes knelt, picked up
red-handled bolt cutters, and grabbed for Alice’s hand.  She let loose a
slobbery wail and Randall howled along with her.  Jesse kept his eyes closed,
kept crying.  Randall heard Mary, too, shouting for them to stop.

He risked a look upward. 

Billy focused on Rhodes and
Alice.  So did the other gunman, enjoying it, all but salivating.  

Randall’s hands shot up,
grabbed the barrel, pushing it away from his face and jerking at the same
time. 

Caught off guard, the man
tightened his grip but fell forward, landing on Randall as he squirmed, lifting
his right side off the floor, pulling the 9mm free.

He pressed it into the man’s
ribcage and fired three times. 
Pop-pop-pop
.

Randall pushed him away,
clambered to his feet, and aimed at Billy.

Billy’s hands went up. 
“Whoa, whoa.”

To Randall’s right, Rhodes
and a third gunman he hadn’t seen stood calmly, with Alice and Jesse both on
the business end of their weapons.  “Let ‘em go,” Randall said.  “Untie them or
he dies.”

“
Pffft
.”  Billy
chuckled.  “I go,
they
go.  You know how this works.”

Randall aimed his pistol at
Rhodes and the other one, back to Billy, back to Rhodes.

Billy said, “What’s the
motto?  One shot, one kill?  That’s all you’ll get.  Whichever one you choose,
the other one will pull the trigger.  You willing to risk it?  Alice or Jesse,
huh?  Which one will it be?  Which one is worth more to you?”

Randall said nothing. 
Inhaled.  Exhaled.  Flared his nostrils.  Waited.  Waited on somebody to make a
mistake.

Randall saw Mary over the
white-haired traitor’s shoulder.  She stood in place, weight on one leg,
looking uncertain.  Looking terrified and powerless.  Watching something move
behind him, she tried to warn him with her eyes.

Something cool pressed
against his neck.  Something cool and metal.

He froze, became a statue.

Billy dropped his hands,
straightened his tie.  “You want to hear a story?”

Randall said, “How ‘bout I
tell you one?  Two-faced asshole dies in the end.  Real tearjerker.”

The barrel pressed deeper
into his skin.

 “Give me your gun, Randall.”

With one gun behind him, and
two on his family, he didn’t have a choice.  He obeyed.

Billy took it, studied it. 
Whistled.  “Nice piece.  This all you got?”

“Yep.”

“And I’m Santa Claus.  You
didn’t come in here with nothing but a subcompact.  You’re not that stupid.”

“Knife.  Right leg.”

“That’s better.  Not by much,
but better.  Keep it.  You might need it here in a minute.”  Billy retreated a
step.  “So now, the story—well, hang on a sec, how much do you know?  I mean,
about Ares?  You’re here, trying to save Miss Mary back there, so obviously you
know something.  Otherwise, you’d be sitting at home, waiting on us to call
like a good boy.”

“Three of you.  Herb
Richmond. 
You
.  Some other guy.”

“Not bad, not bad at all. 
Herb’s dead.  Me, yeah.  And you don’t know the third?”

Randall shook his head.

“Who told you?”

“The Devil Himself.”

“No shit?  I thought that guy
might be trouble.  Resourceful little bastard, wasn’t he?  You kill him?”

“Not exactly.”

“How then?”

“Grenade.  Yankee Doodle. 
Wasn’t pretty.”

“Hmm.  Well then, you
survive, you can give me the details later.  Okay, so the story goes like this—you
ready?  It’s a good one, but stop me if you’ve heard it before.  A number of
years ago, we’ll call it…ten.  Ten years ago, a badass Marine Corps sniper and
his spotter are laying low in some South American jungle.  They’ve been there
for days without food or water because it took longer for their target to show
up than they’d expected.  Following me so far?  Now, these two are close, you
see, best friends.  Hell, practically brothers.”

Randall’s nose itched.  He
fought the urge to scratch it as he listened to Billy talk.

“They’re on a mission. 
Doesn’t matter what for.  I forget the details.  I’m bad about that these
days.  Old age.  Anyway, the spotter, he gets bitten by this snake, and as he’s
laying there dying, his best friend, this man he called a brother, he goes off
and leaves him.  Leaves the poor son of a bitch there to die like a dog.”

He’s talking about me
, Randall thought. 
What’s he getting
at?

“So then the spotter, after
he’s been left for dead—he’s close, you know, he can see the light—the enemy,
the very man they’re trying to kill comes along, and guess what? 
He saves
his damn life
.  With anti-venom.  Why?  Who knows?  But can you believe it? 
How would you feel about that, huh?  How would
you
feel if somebody left
you behind?  If your brother didn’t try to save you?  I’d say that’s enough to
piss a man off, wouldn’t you?  Enough to piss a man off for
years
.”

What?  No, it’s not true. 
I saw him die.

“Fast forward a bit—ah, good
God, I’m even boring myself.  It doesn’t matter how it happened.  You want to
know who the last third of Ares is?  Turn around.  Slowly.”

Randall turned, choked on his
own saliva, disbelieving.

In front of him stood a
ghost.

Jeff Lakeland, alive. 

Alive, and angry.

“Long time, Randall.”

“Lakeland?  But you—you were
dead.  I saw it.”

“Not dead enough.”

Over Randall’s shoulder,
Billy said, “Don’t kill him yet, Lakeland.”

“I’m cool.  I waited ten
years for this, I can wait a few more minutes.  I know she won’t win, so after,
me and The White Mountain are gonna have a little chat.”

Randall said, “I’m not much
for words.”

“You will be, when the time
comes.”

CHAPTER 25

Lakeland!
Mary thought. 
That’s where I’ve seen
him before.  The pictures in Randall’s house.

But he was dead.  Randall
saw him die.

Mary watched as Lakeland
backhanded Randall with a hurtling fist, sending him to the floor.  He stomped
Randall’s stomach, hammered a boot heel into the side of his head, and then
grabbed his collar, dragging him back to his feet.

Without looking at her, Billy
held up a hand, gave her a
come-here
wiggle of his finger and said,
“Miss Mary?  Come join us, if you would, please.”

She limped over to them,
moved up beside Billy, standing out of reach.

Randall bled from his nose,
the corner of his mouth.

“Seeing as how Lakeland and
me have lost our surprise advantage, we figured we’d change things up a bit for
this final round.  Ares, as you know him, will be retired for now, but we’d
still like to have a little fun, wouldn’t we, Lakeland?”

Lakeland nodded. 

“Ten years is a long time. 
You’ve been patient.  You earned it.”  Billy sidestepped, grabbed Mary’s
shoulder, pulling her closer.  “But we still need a winner, don’t we?  We can’t
let a hundred and fifty years of tradition just fall by the wayside.  So here’s
the deal…Randall…meet your new Ares.”  Billy held Mary’s hand high in the air
like a prizefighter. 

“No,” she whispered, the
realization setting in.  That’s why he’d kept her alive.

Randall spat blood on the
floor.  “You’re crazy.”

“Randall against Mary, Mary
against Randall.  There’s gotta be a prize, right?  Otherwise, why fight at
all?  I’d say you’re both pretty well attached to Alice and Jesse over
there—sister, wife…son, nephew—Mary, if you win, they go free.  Randall wins,
they go free.”

“Bullshit,” Randall said. 
“You won’t let us go.”

Billy shrugged.  “Does it
matter?  With their lives on the line, you gotta pay the piper to find out.  Rhodes? 
Thomas?  Give ‘em a little taste.”

Rhodes and Thomas lifted
their weapons and fired a short burst of rounds into the sheet metal roofing.

Mary thrashed her head from
side to side.  “I won’t do it.  I won’t.”

I’ll let him win.  I can’t
kill Randall.  I can’t.

Randall said nothing.  What
was he thinking?  Was he trying to think of a way out?  Was he thinking the
same thing?  Sacrifice himself so that she might live?  Would he do that?

Or…had he already made up his
mind?  He had an easier choice.  Save his wife and child instead of dying on
purpose to keep his sister-in-law alive.  They’d always been close. 
Brother-sister close, but when faced with the choice of her over the love of
his life and the blood of his offspring—she tried to imagine what she would do
if Jimmy and their child were tied up.  If Jimmy and Randall were brothers.

I wouldn’t—no, of course I
would.  Oh my God, I’d do it.  I’d kill Randall to save them.

Billy shook her arm.  “I
thought you might say that.  Nobody’s a martyr, not in this game.  You don’t
try to fight, they’re dead.  You try to eat a bullet, take the coward’s way
out, they’re dead.  Randall, same goes for you.  You each get one gun apiece
and start at opposite ends of the room here.  Lakeland and me will step aside,
line up a few more sights on your kinfolk.  I don’t care how good you think you
are, or how fast you might be, you try to shoot at
us
, they’re dead. 
Thomas?”