Chapter 28 — The Shoot-Out (Sam)

Sam hopped down from the loading dock and ran north into the woods. When she was deep enough in the woods to be hidden from casual view she ran east, darted across a small clearing, and then started slowly working her way south. The truck was about even with her when she heard the first three shots. She scuttled out to the edge of the woods in time to see muzzle flashes from a six-shot volley that had been directed at the truck. They were coming from a location in the woods about halfway down the access road.

The truck pulled to the right and coasted to a stop. She figured Dan had been hit. Cursing to herself, she ran towards the shooter’s location as fast as she could manage through the woods. Someone else was shooting now, from a little further away, and she hoped the sound covered some of the noise she was making.

Then she saw the shooter. He was an older man wearing a camouflage poncho. He had a backpack at his feet and was bringing up an M4 carbine to point at the cab of the truck.

She was about to run in and tackle him when she was hit by one of her dizzy spells. She heard a roaring sound in her ears. Her vision began to shrink. Her head pounded in time with her heartbeat. She became nauseous and fell to her knees. She cursed herself for not drinking enough water today.

She wanted to capture this guy alive, but she also needed to protect Dan. The old guy could provide valuable intelligence, but Dan was her friend. The good of the many versus the good of the one. Or maybe it was the good of the enemy versus the good of none. Where had she heard this shit before? It was all very confusing. But, when it came down to it, there was no question about what she had to do. Sam pulled out Dan’s pistol and fired four shots. The old man went down.

She began to crawl towards the suspect. She wanted to lay down and rest, but she knew she might not get up again if she did that. Gravel and glass ground into her knees. The cold wind blew across her wet, naked skin. Her face throbbed from the broken jaw. Her nipple ached and felt like it was ready to fall off of her breast. Blood flowed down her legs, leaving a trail in the grass behind her. But she needed to keep moving. She had to survive. She had to get to the road. She crawled towards it, one body length at a time.

She was surprised at first when she saw an old man in a camouflage poncho laying in front of her. Then she began to remember when and where she was. She saw that the old man was alive but badly injured.

“Who the fuck are you, lady?” the suspect croaked.

“Oh, I was just out walking my dog and thought I’d crash the party," she replied as she slowly pulled herself into a kneeling position beside him.

Her faculties were coming back. She was a Security contractor to the FBI, working on a fake terrorist plot. Why the hell was she talking about dogs and parties?

The suspect coughed up blood. “How did you figure it out? It should have worked.”

Sam was back. “Well, you failed mostly because you are an arrogant bigoted bastard. You figured you could just use anyone from Syria, and we’d assume they were Islamic terrorists. But the guys you picked were Coptic Christians. Coptic’s have been struggling against Islamic aggression for centuries. When I was in Iraq, I got a good chunk of my counter-terrorism training from a team of Coptic Syrians.”

“Fucking geopolitics.” The suspect went unconscious.

Sam heard a noise off to her left. She pulled a phone out of her breast pocket as she turned to face the source of the noise. Agents Black and Jones were standing there, watching her.

“Oh, good. I see the cavalry is already here. I was just going to call for an ambulance.”

Black shook his head. “God, Sam. I, um, didn’t think that anyone would crack this nut, but you certainly spoiled his plans, didn’t you?”

“What nut?” she asked as she placed the phone in her breast pocket. “What do you think he was trying to do? As far as you knew this was an Islamic terrorist plot, wasn’t it?”

Black bent down and picked up the 40mm Glock from the suspect’s backpack. “It would have been great to have the ‘old’ you on my team, you know. But I think you’ve turned, um, a little too goody-two-shoes since you came out of the coma. And who the fuck cares if a raghead is a Muslim or a Coptic. We should carpet bomb the whole fucking Mid-East with, um, nukes and turn it into a glass parking lot.”

Sam looked up at him. It was now or never. “Tell me the truth, Black. Were you really working with the Chaplain?”

Black nodded his head. “Yeah, I took care of things for him. I didn’t want to tell you he was dead until you were comfortable working for me. Um, I guess I should have been more up-front about it with you.”

“So, I really was working for a government agency the whole time. I’ll be damned. I wasn’t sure if that was real or just part of my mental breakdown.”

“Yeah, you were his best talent. You were something special. And you could still be special. Come on Sam, throw away your Girl Scout merit badges. Come back and be part of my team," he said, shifting the Glock back and forth between his two hands.

Sam was done with this asshole. She wanted to pop his inflated ego and watch him explode. That was the way to get a real information dump. “Fuck you and your poser team. You were probably nothing more than the Chaplain’s cabana boy. He never wanted you around unless it was time to rub his bunions.”

Black took an aggressive step towards Sam. “You fucking bitch. I, um, was right up there. And you never saw me but, um, over the years I was behind the scenes, supporting you, um, the whole time. And, um, why do you think I was the agent sent here to bring you in last year? How do you think I, um, found you so easily? And now you think, um, it is okay to disrespect me? And, um, you think it is okay to embarrass me in front of the whole Bureau by skipping out on me at a, um, strip club?”

Sam saw from the look in his eyes that she had pushed a little bit too far. Dan was right and today was the day she would pay for her sins. Maybe her death could help set things right.

Black raised the suspect’s Glock and pointed it at Sam’s head. “Well, so much for trying to recruit you. I’m afraid, um, the suspect took you out as he was dying, bitch. And, um, we got here just a few seconds too late.”

Sam refused to close her eyes or look away. She saw the smile that crossed the bastard’s face. She saw Black's finger start to move from the trigger guard to the trigger. And she saw the rock that smashed into Agent Black’s head and knocked him to the ground.

Sam immediately grabbed the Glock from where it fell and tossed it behind her. She started looking around for Dan’s pistol. She had it just a minute ago. She needed to drink some water so she could start thinking straight again.

“Is that what you’re looking for?” asked Jones, pointing to Dan’s pistol lying in the grass about three feet back the way she just came. Jones tossed his Glock at her feet. “Here, take mine. I checked out of this circus about fifteen minutes ago.”

Sam picked up the gun and tentatively pointed it at its owner.

Jones smiled at her. “Chill, Sam. You don’t need to point that at me. I don’t much care for you, but I wouldn’t go up against you for all the tea in China. Oh, and I don’t know anything about this Chaplain shit, and frankly, I don’t want to know anything about it, thank you very much. So please don’t discuss him in front of me.”

Tadros walked out of the woods and stood next to Sam. “I guess I could have thrown the rock sooner, but I wasn’t sure I needed to hurt him. I mean, he’s an asshole and I wanted to hurt him, but I’m trying to be a good citizen and all.”

“Who said you could follow me, and where the hell did you learn to throw like that?” Sam asked.

“When I was a boy in Syria, I used to guard our flocks at night. We didn’t have guns to chase the wolves away, so we had to learn to throw stones.”

Sam handed Jones’s pistol to Tadros. “Well, you have a gun now. I’m deputizing you in this emergency situation. Don’t let any of these guys move.”

Tadros looked at Agent Jones, the only prisoner he had that was conscious. Jones laced his fingers and rested his hands on top of his head and said, “Hey, I’m cool man. I suggest we both sit down and, like, look non-threatening. And you should toss the gun and put your hands up like this when the police come charging in. We’ve had enough casualties for one day.”

Sam took Tadros’ phone out of her shirt, switched screens, and dialed 911 as she walked to the truck. “This is FBI Security Contractor Samantha Williams. Send the troops in at Superior Solutions to clean the rest of this mess up. All of the bad guys are down, and we have officers down as well.”

“Excuse me. Who did you say you were?”

Sam reached the passenger’s side of the truck. She stood on the running board and leaned in through the shattered window. Dan was laying on his side across the seat. She opened the door and called to him, “Dan, are you alive or dead? Either way, answer me.”

“Mmm. Shit. I guess I’m still alive. But I don’t know how much longer. I think I’ve lost a lot of blood.”

Sam grew serious. “So, do you want me to try to stop the bleeding, or is this the way you want to go out?”

“This is awfully peaceful, Sam," he said. “And Kim will be taken care of.”

“Well, don’t die before I tell you about my present, okay? I used Tadros’s phone to record Agent Black confessing that my activities in Milford were under government control. Kim’s got someone to sue now.”

Police cars were racing into the employee parking lot. An ambulance siren wailed in the distance. Sam waved her arms and shouted, “FBI, FBI! We have a wounded man here!”

Dan struggled to sit up. “Oh, God that hurts.” Sam slid in and helped him.

He had lost a small part of his left ear and was bleeding from gunshot wounds in his right leg, right arm, and the lower right side.

“You recorded it! Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked. When Sam just smiled at him, he said, “Okay. You can play Florence Nightingale and put on a tourniquet. I want to be around to see Kim’s face when she finds out about this.”