Bloodstained from his rescue of the woman, Larson had reached the far end of a darkened fairway with a partial view of the double-wide below. The more he thought about it, the numerous guards, the isolation, the more it made sense. Somehow he’d missed where they held Markowitz’s grandson, and if he’d missed him, then maybe he’d missed Penny, too.
He reentered the bunkhouse, his gun at the ready. He had no time. A woman being badly wounded on the property would sound the alarm, no matter what she might tell others. Within minutes this bunkhouse would be swarming with guards.
As he passed the bound guards, one looked conscious, but he made no appeal. Why so complacent? Larson raised his weapon. Someone was here with him.
He moved stealthily and cleared two small bedrooms and a bath in a matter of a half minute or less. Arriving at the closed door to a room he recalled as a bunk room, he tensed. He counted down in his head and kicked the door open. It rebounded off the thin, hollow wall and he blocked it with his wet shoe. He sighted down the gun, finding every pattern in the room that worked against his expectation, nearly squeezing off a round into what turned out to be a pillow angled awkwardly.
Clear.
He moved toward the closet. Looked down, and there it was: a loop of fabric. A crawl space.
A single guard sleeping in the bunk room could easily defend such a crawl space. Simple. Efficient. Practical.
Larson bent and reached down for the fabric loop. He could not only feel guards hurrying toward this bunkhouse, but he also sensed at least one down this hole, a man charged with defending the space until help arrived.
Larson would be a target from the moment he entered.
Ten, fifteen seconds of precious time ticked off, Larson longing for a stun grenade. He retreated and switched off the hallway light behind him, evening the playing field by ushering the bunk room to pitch black. He let his eyes adjust, then he slipped his key-chain penlight from his pocket, hoping to use it as a diversion or decoy. He held the penlight in his right hand, along with his gun, the Glock.
He knew he’d be fired upon the moment he jumped down in there. He had no doubt of this, and the stupidity of such an act briefly froze him. But with no time, and no options, Penny’s survival on the line-Larson dropped into darkness.
He landed awkwardly, his gun smacking a metal pipe. He tossed the penlight to his left as a distraction while rolling right.
No shots fired.
As he rolled, his gun released its magazine into the gravel floor. His thumb touched the gun’s metal: the contact with the pipe had sprung and bent the magazine’s release switch. He fumbled to locate the magazine-wondering if the gun would accept it with the broken lever. He had one round in the chamber-one round he could count on.
The weak light showed a pair of collapsible cots, and on them, the blond head of… a little girl.
“Penny!”
A head of red hair popped up. A boy.
Sight of the two kids stole his attention as a figure sprang toward him from behind. Larson took the blow to his right wrist and the Glock tumbled free. Fire sprang from that wrist, and he realized he’d been cut. He recoiled, cowered, a flinching reflex to ward off the inevitable. He kicked out with his bent right leg, moving awkwardly because of the limited space. Blind luck connected that blow to the man coming after him. Both men fell away from each other. Larson smacked his head against the short stud wall.
The four-foot limitation of the crawl space restricted movement to a squatting, crouched shuffle for both men, like crabs attacking each other.
As his opponent sat up, recovering from the kick, the penlight’s dim beam moved across his face, revealing chemical welts that occluded his right eye.
Larson knew the razor came next.
With his gun and its ejected magazine somewhere to his right, Larson started in that direction, but his opponent skillfully anticipated the move and blocked it, placing himself between Larson and the cots. He then lunged at Larson with incomprehensible speed and sprang back out of reach just as quickly.
Larson’s left forearm went warm and stung. In that split second, he’d been cut again.
Another darting move, like the flick of a frog’s tongue. Larson’s left leg was bleeding.
If he stood here any longer, the cutter would pick him apart, one quick cut after another. Larson would go down, not from a single wound but the combination. He’d have his throat slit, and he’d bleed out in a crawl space, where they’d bury him a few hours later. Perhaps Penny and Hope at his side.
A thought flickered through him: the bad eye.
Larson feinted to the man’s right-his blind side-freezing him, and then dived toward the cots, somersaulted, and came up with the penlight. He twisted it off.
Darkness.
He felt around, hoping for his gun, and came up with a scrap of a two-by-four, nearly puncturing the palm of his left hand with a bent nail. Held from the other end like a baseball bat, the nail then served as a weapon. He lunged and rolled, guessing at a location, hoping to turn the man toward his blind side. Larson swung the board blindly. He missed on the first swing but connected with the second, landing the nail into flesh. His opponent cried out.
Larson delivered it again, and again felt the nail connect with flesh.
The razor drew a line down Larson’s left shoulder. All at once, Larson picked up a vague orb of black movement. Light from a front room seeped through the poorly laid plywood flooring.
Larson kept moving, working toward his opponent’s right. He bumped against the cots. He heard the ruffle of sleeping bags.
“Stay back!” he hollered, having no idea where back was. “U.S. Marshal!” he called into the dark as he once again swiped the two-by-four in the general direction of the dark shape.
No contact.
He rotated to his own left again, his thighs cramping and burning from the awkward stance. He worked toward where he believed the gun had fallen, simultaneously trying to keep Rodriguez from it. But suddenly a sound came from behind him-feet moving impossibly fast. The weight of a man crashed into him. Larson fell forward onto his face. The razor tried to flay his back but hung up in the black windbreaker’s ripstop fabric.
Larson rolled and swung again. Roll and swing. Roll and swing. The board and nail bounced off either bone or lumber as Larson felt another burn, this time along the side of his right calf, the cut deep and painful. Larson miraculously blocked the next attempt with his left forearm.
Five or six hot spots on him, all glowing, all bleeding. Crab-walking, he scooted away. He couldn’t afford more cuts-he was light-headed already.
The cutter sensed an opportunity and attacked. Larson raised the board with both hands and swung. It lodged in the man’s head-his cheek? Neck? He wasn’t sure. The cutter jerked backward and cried out. Slippery with blood, the board came loose in his hands, and Larson lost it.
Frantic now, without a weapon, Larson furiously patted the ground around him-the Glock had to be here somewhere! He touched rocks and small chunks of lumber.
The magazine! He pocketed it. Still, no gun.
Movement. This time to his left. The kids?
Larson scrambled back, cramping and dizzy. He smacked into the pony wall and tried to collect his bearings. He’d lost all track of his gun.
Every ounce of him resisted returning toward that razor.
He paused, the silence suddenly alarming. Larson held his breath and listened in the dark. A girl’s whimpering. The kids had been cowering over by the cots.
The cutter now had Penny.
A night-light came on unexpectedly. Blinding him. Markowitz’s grandson, dressed in cowboy pajamas, cowered. But it was he who’d turned it on.
The cutter was crouched behind an upended cot. He had his left forearm hooked around Penny’s throat. The two-by-four and its bloody nail lay on the dirt floor to his left. The man’s right hand clutched his neck just below his left ear, attempting to plug the wound where he’d taken the nail. It looked arterial. A bleeder.
The boy continued to cower. Penny trembled in the man’s grasp.
No one said a word. No one moved. The gun lay a full body-length away, to Larson’s left, over by the boy, not at all where Larson had expected to find it.
The razor glinted, held to Penny’s neck. One pull across that soft flesh and she was gone.
But in that dim light, in that instant as they connected, he saw her mother’s eyes in the child, and he ached at their similarity. She was scared out of her mind.
“Cairo,” Larson said to the child. “You hang tough and I’m going to get you that dog.”
Those frightened eyes briefly filled with surprise. Relief replaced terror as she looked down to take in the wrist of the man holding her, and Larson knew what that child’s mind had planned as her lips parted and her teeth bared.
The boy courageously, but stupidly, moved toward the gun.
“Don’t!” Larson called out sharply to the boy.
But the kid’s move was to the cutter’s blind side, forcing him to pivot to track the boy. His one good eye flicked back and forth between Larson and the boy. Whether he understood what he was doing or not, the boy had stretched the cutter’s resources thin.
Occupying no more than a couple of seconds, the boy moved and Penny lowered her chin and bit through to the bone.
Larson threw a handful of dirt at the one remaining eye as he dived straight forward, never losing sight of Penny, while his right hand clutched onto the nail board. The cutter, reeling from the bite, misjudged Larson, expecting him to go for the gun.
Larson swung the two-by-four for the cheap seats, driving the nail squarely into the side of his opponent’s head.
Penny broke free.
A gunshot rang out. The boy.
“STOP!” Larson cried out.
Click, click, went the empty weapon.
He was atop the cutter now, who lay on his back, the nail board stuck to his head. He pounded his fist down into the man’s disfigured face.
The razor glinted, but Larson had the man’s wrist pinned. He dared not let go, but the hand moved like a claw, his fingers extended like pincers and, both of their arms shaking from waning strength, the razor twitched and cut into Larson’s wrist. It dug deeper and more painfully.
Shifting his weight, Larson swung his elbow and connected with the nail board, hammering it more deeply into the man’s temple. The white of the one good eye rolled into the back of the man’s head with each blow of Larson’s elbow against the board.
He went still, but Larson didn’t trust it. An animal like this could feign unconsciousness. Larson pinned the two wrists, both limp and lifeless. He came higher and dropped a knee into the man’s chest, but saw nothing on his face.
The razor came loose and fell.
Larson wanted the gun-the useless gun-wanted to kill the guy once and for all. But then he saw two terrified kids staring at him, one his own daughter, and he knew he couldn’t do this in front of them. His vision darkened momentarily, no doubt owing to blood loss. He saw the boy’s terry-cloth robe and belt on the dirt floor.
“Your belt,” Larson said.
He heard footsteps above them.
One, or two?
Larson tied up the unconscious man’s hands behind his back. The knot wasn’t much, due to the thickness of the cloth tie. He doubled it, then crawled over to the boy and retrieved the gun from where he had dropped it. He quickly tried inserting the magazine, but it wouldn’t stay. The gun’s slide was jammed open as well.
“Cairo?” Penny whispered. “Mommy?”
“She’s waiting,” he said. Then he held his finger to his lips and shushed them.
He moved to screen them from the rectangular hole in the crawl space’s ceiling-the closet floor. Each of his multiple wounds rang out in sharp, hot pain.
The overhead footsteps hurried toward them.
Larson raised his open palm, indicating the kids should stay put. He moved to just below the opening, reversing the gun in his hand, its butt held like a blunt, metal club.
The footsteps stopped, immediately above.
Larson motioned for the kids to crouch down, and they did.
He waited.
And waited…
Movement from the other side of the hole. Larson imagined a man going down onto his knees, preparing to either jump or peer down inside. He drew the gun back over his shoulder.
As the man’s head lowered through, and he took a look, Larson waited for him to turn to face him. The head slowly pivoted, and as it did, Larson delivered the butt of the handgun squarely into the bridge of the man’s nose, centered between his eyes. The body slipped through the hole like a sea lion into water. Larson reached for the limp arm and took hold of the man’s fallen weapon as the first of two shots came through the floor from above.
Both shots sprayed into the dirt.
More footfalls above, as the man up there took off for reinforcements.
Larson beaded down the barrel. He picked up the parallel rows of nails sticking down through the overhead chipboard. The hallway. His aim tracked the footfalls fluidly, first catching those sounds, then leading them slightly.
He popped off two quick rounds. They sounded like loud handclaps. The third round caused a sharp yelp of pain, a collision, and then silence. Neither the kids nor Larson made a sound. No one was breathing.
From above, a groan.
Larson led with the weapon and poked his head out the trapdoor. His first chance at standing, his legs throbbed with cramps.
“Come on,” he ordered the kids.
“You stay in the closet,” he told the boy as he pushed him up through.
And then he bent to pick up Penny. His hands touched her little waist. He felt it like an electrical charge. She placed hers on his shoulders.
“You’re bleeding,” she said as Larson clutched her and lifted her through.
“Never better,” he said, following her up through a moment later.
He checked the hallway. The man he shot writhed in pain. He’d taken one in the leg and one in the lower back. Larson tied him up with a lamp cord and left him.
The boy had peed his pajama bottoms.
“Shoes?”
Neither child answered, looking up at him with blank faces. It was mostly fairway. They’d go it barefoot.
He led them past the two downed guards in the front room, peered outside, and they made a run for it. With shots fired, although far from the manor house, he expected others.
The three of them running now across the dark fairway, the kids keeping pace, Larson felt sweat reach his wounds. He steered them for the unseen barn.
He pulled out his phone as they ran. He slowed, allowing the kids to run a ways in front of him. But at that instant the phone’s face lit up-neon blue-and announced the arrival of a text message.
Hope!
The sound of a stream grew close. They were nearing the barn.
Desperate for word from her, he read only a number on the small screen:
911