Hopefully.
Jericho waited as long as he could. He watched the three men striding forward—so confident, so oblivious. They were probably trying to circle around behind the agents below, hoping to take them out before reinforcements arrived. It was a reasonable strategy, but there was nothing else competent about them as they stomped through the forest; they seemed used to hunting things that didn’t shoot back. Men who’d decided to play soldier, but who didn’t want to follow the rules of being in the actual military.
Of course, stupid men were still dangerous, or maybe even more dangerous, when they were packing as heavy as these assholes were.
So Jericho took a deep breath and had his M4 ready before he half stepped out from behind the tree. “Mosely County Sheriff’s Department,” he barked. “Drop your weapons.”
And as he’d known they would but prayed they wouldn’t, the assholes swung their barrels up and toward him. He squeezed off a shot as he shifted back behind the tree. The guys had been five paces away, and Jericho had good aim; he didn’t need to see the target’s chest explode to know it had happened. But that left two assholes, and his tree wasn’t the world’s best cover.
Then Kayla shouted, “Freeze!” followed almost immediately by one shot, then another. Kayla’s sidearm, Meeks’s M4. Obviously the perps hadn’t frozen.
Jericho spun back around his tree and found one of the targets with a bloody shoulder but still standing, still pointing his gun toward where Kayla and Meeks had returned to their sheltered position.
“Drop it,” Jericho said. He tried to sound calmer than he had before, tried to make it apparent this was all over and there was no need to die for the cause. The only logical path forward was surrender.
Then Jericho’s weird extra sense kicked into action, and he spun back behind his tree, crouched, edged around— Shit. There was someone coming toward them up the hill, and if Jericho moved to have cover from the new arrival, he’d be exposing himself to the wounded asshole. “Movement on our six!” Jericho bellowed. “Meeks, cover the injured perp. Morgan, cover Meeks against the new target.”
Jericho flattened himself on the ground, making himself way less mobile than he wanted to be. He trained the barrel of his M4 back down the hill, pinpointed the movement, recognized the approaching figure—and was tempted to pull the trigger anyway.
“Drop it,” he heard Meeks yell, and then the seemingly inevitable rattle of the M4 firing.
Then there was silence, even the gunfight below temporarily quiet, as Jericho glowered at Jackson struggling up the hill behind them.
The errant deputy saw Kayla, then shifted around so his back was to her and told Jericho, “We’ve been ordered to this position.”
“No shit, asshole. Kay ordered us here.” Jericho turned away, trying not to look at Jackson. Trying not to punch him in the face. Sure, maybe the third militia guy would have died anyway; maybe he would have stayed stupid, even if Jericho hadn’t been distracted and had been able to keep trying to talk him down. But maybe not.
He turned to Kayla to see how she wanted to proceed, and found both her and Meeks staring at the bodies. Oh, shit. Things were usually pretty quiet in Mosely; it was entirely possible that neither of them had ever shot anyone before. Never taken a life, and never had to confront what their own bullets had done to a human who’d been alive only moments before.
“Forget it for now,” he ordered them both. Things were still active, and they needed to stay on task. “Check your weapons and reload.” Stay busy, don’t think. Don’t look at what you just did, and don’t start wondering who these guys were, what brought them here, or how else you could have handled the situation. Don’t think about who’s at home waiting for them, and who’s going to be at their funerals. Those thoughts would all come to anyone who hadn’t lost all humanity, but they couldn’t come while you were still in the field.
Jericho kept his weapon ready as he eased toward the three bodies. There was no doubt about their status, but training was training, and there could be other enemies nearby.
He crouched by the first man, the one who’d been carrying the grenade launcher. The sounds of the firefight flared up again, and this time Jericho was relieved to hear the three-round burst of the sheriff’s department’s M4s. The cavalry had arrived. But they would still be woefully underpowered if the gear on these three was typical. Jericho started working the weapons off the dead body as he turned and told Jackson, “Run back down the hill and tell dispatch we have three bad guys down. One M32 in our custody, with—” Jericho jerked the man over and poked into his backpack “—12 HE rounds.” He surveyed the other bodies and added, “M4 with an M203, double-barreled shotgun, couple handguns—”
He broke off as Jackson moved closer and poked one of the bodies with the toe of his boot.
Somehow, it was that gesture that made Jericho’s rage explode. “Get the fuck away from him, you insubordinate coward!” He was about to say something about Jackson not deserving to touch one of the men someone else had killed, but he caught himself in time. They weren’t hunters, and the fallen weren’t trophies. They were human beings, or had been, and there was no damn reason for anyone to be kicking them. Instead he stepped forward, brought his face to within an inch of Jackson’s, and growled, “Get your ass down the hill. Report in as ordered. And don’t come back up. Is that fucking clear?”
Jackson’s eyes widened. Jericho knew why. The deputy was used to living in the safe, respectful civilian world, where his politics and connections made a difference. But up here, at this moment?
“You’ve been suspended,” Jericho said. “And you came up the hill anyway and messed up our operation. The only reason you’re not sitting there cuffed to a goddamn tree is that you might be useful if you follow your fucking orders. So get moving or turn around and give me your wrist.”
“Yeah, you’d like it if I turned around,” Jackson sneered.
It was so stupid. So petty, so childish, so absurd. Right up there on the mountain, with three dead bodies at his feet and a firefight raging down the hill, Jericho laughed out loud. Mostly in surprise, and maybe a bit of extra aggression mixed in.
“Jesus, Jackson,” Kay said, shaking her head. “Don’t give me any more reasons to fire you. Get your ass down the goddamn hill.”
Jackson had his eyes narrowed and his mouth open, never a good combination for him, when Meeks urgently said, “Go, Jack. Shit. Just go.”
And finally Jackson started moving.
The whole exchange had been quick, maybe fifteen seconds, and Jericho was pretty sure it had been worthwhile. Dispatch needed to know about the grenade launcher, if nothing else. But, still, he felt guilty for wasting time. A lot of rounds could be fired in fifteen seconds, a lot of bullets that could do a lot of damage to human bodies. Feds’ bodies, and deputies’ too.
“Let’s move,” Jericho said, gesturing to the right. “Back to the original plan. We’ll try to get in behind them, like their guys were trying to do to ours.”
Then they were off again, a shuffling run that had all of Jericho’s muscles singing a familiar song. The adrenaline, the mix of fear and relief, the savage triumph he was almost ashamed of but couldn’t deny. For a moment, he thought of Wade. Was the difference between them just that Wade was more honest about the things Jericho tried to hide? Wade embraced his darkness just as surely as his light, and there was something about that—
