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She brought her right elbow back and caught him in the solar plexus. Air chuffed out of his lungs, whistling past her right ear. Her left hand found the second holster on her left hip and whipped out the Taser X26P, a handy little compact plastic fuck you.

From there, it was simply a matter of twisting out of his grasp and squeezing the trigger. Two vicious barbs, each connected to the weapon with coiled wire, jumped out and dug themselves deep into Charlie’s abdomen like fishing lures out for vengeance. Over 13,000 volts sparked through him, effectively shutting down any kind of control Charlie had hoped to exert over his own body. He involuntarily groaned, twitching like a cattle prod had been shoved up his ass.

Axel was already rushing at her. Sandy grabbed her canister of Mace clipped to her belt with her right hand and brought it up, blasting him directly in the face. To Axel’s credit, he didn’t slow down. He just couldn’t see anything anymore.

Sandy sidestepped his pinwheeling arms and let him crash into his brother. The two of them went down like two trees in a monsoon. Her hand went to her third and last weapon, the Glock. She gave Edgar a meaningful look.

He sat still on the stage. His head wasn’t bouncing anymore.

Sandy left the Glock in its holster, replaced the cartridge in the Taser, and turned back to the younger brothers.

Axel kept trying to stand up, but couldn’t find his balance with his eyes screwed tight, as clear mucus gushed out his nose and filled his bottom lip, his entire face the color of homemade hot sauce. He crawled away, managed to find his feet, and struck out in a random direction until he banged against the front doorframe and staggered outside.

The charge only lasted five seconds, and Charlie regained control. He sat up and glared at her. “You fucking—”

Sandy wasn’t in the mood and shot him again with the Taser.

Charlie writhed on the dance floor for another five long seconds. At the end of it, he went limp. Sandy knelt among the Anti-Felon Identification confetti that had sprayed out of the Taser when it had been fired. She gathered all four wires and snipped them off with a Leatherman. Keeping his shoulder pinned down, she used her right hand to rip the barbs out of his torso with as much of a ninety-degree angle as she could manage.

She decided he could live without the sterilizing swabs and Band-Aids and stood, using her boot to roll Charlie over onto his stomach. He groaned. She ignored this and crossed his hands in the small of his back. She snapped plastic zip ties around his wrists and left him facedown on the dance floor. She decided to leave Axel for now and pointed at Edgar. “You. Facedown on the floor. Fingers laced on the back of your neck. Now.”

“I didn’t do nothing,” Edgar said. “You got no right.”

“I’ll give your lawyer a call later. At the moment, I will cuff you one way or another. You can either climb into my vehicle under your own power or I will be forced to persuade you. The choice is entirely yours.”

Edgar didn’t like it, but he got on the floor and interlaced his fingers at the back of his head. He glared sideways up at the bar patrons as Sandy handcuffed him. “Fuck all y’all. Buncha bitches and pussies.” She left him facedown on the floor. He continued to yell at everybody as Sandy went out the front. “Bitches and pussies. Fuck you. Fuck all of you. I know who you are.”

Sandy found Axel punching her squad car. She kicked his legs out from under him and put him on the asphalt. He tried to push off the ground but Sandy jammed her knee deep in the center of his back to remind him to be still. She wrenched his arms back and zip tied his wrists as if she’d just roped a calf in a rodeo.

Folks spilled out of the doorway to watch.

Sandy threw Axel in the back of the cruiser and went back inside. She found Freddy G standing over Charlie, giving serious thought to stomping on Charlie’s head. Edgar was still cussing at anybody in his line of sight. Charlie was smart enough to stay quiet and pretend to be nearly unconscious.

Sandy looked up at Freddy G. “What’s the damage?”

He peeled back his bloody lips in a grimace. One of his top incisors was gone. “Keeping it in a shot glass over there,” he explained.

“I’m no dentist,” Sandy said. “But crushing his skull won’t grow you a new tooth.”

“It’d make me happy,” Freddy G said.

Sandy couldn’t argue with that.

Edgar rolled over and saw the bouncer looming over them like Paul Bunyan. “Hey man, this is your job, ain’t it? What you get paid for. You gonna whine like a bitch all night?”

Sandy stepped in front of Freddy G and helped Edgar to his feet. “Let’s get you to the car before any accidents happen.”

Freddy G shook a pudgy finger at Edgar. “Y’all are not welcome in here anymore. I see you in here again, I’ll put you in the fucking hospital.”

Edgar started to say something back, but Sandy gave his arms a swift, savage tug straight up, torqueing the hell out of his shoulders. He gave a squeal of pain and they were out the door.

Edgar went in the backseat with Axel. Charlie took longer, mostly because he couldn’t walk on his own worth a damn. Sandy tipped her hat at Freddy G, who was settling back into his spot on a bar stool outside the front door. He spit blood into the parking lot and didn’t wave back.

* * *

When the phone rang, the Mortons had just finished dinner. Belinda was in the kitchen, washing up, and Bob was settling into his chair with the paper and the remote.

Belinda knew better than to answer. Even though it was almost always for her, she would wait until her husband picked up the cordless phone they kept between his chair and the couch, and if it was for her, she would wait for him to call her name before she picked up the handset in the kitchen.

Bob said, “Hello?”

The voice on the other end was no one he had heard before. “Mr. Morton?”

“Who is this?”

“Mr. Morton, this is Paul Cochran. I am the acting Vice President of Affairs for Allagro and I am afraid that it is my duty to call with unfortunate news.” Cochran waited a moment, giving Bob a moment to ask the obvious question.

Bob said, “What are you talking about?”

A sad, heavy sigh. “I wish I could be there in person to tell you. However, certain safety protocols are preventing any of us to travel at the moment. I will be there shortly. Tomorrow night at the latest.”

Bob repeated, “What are you talking about?”

“At approximately eleven-thirty a.m. local time, our Caribbean facility was targeted by an extremist environmental terrorist organization. Everyone on the island was killed, including your son.” The voice softened. “My deepest sympathies.”

Bob felt as if he was tipping forward into an impossible abyss and almost dropped the phone.

Cochran seemed to sense this and waited for a moment before resuming. “Of course, we will do everything within our power to find those responsible and bring them to justice. Your son was a valued member of the Allagro team. I hope that the knowledge that your son died defending his deepest beliefs makes this burden easier to bear.”

Bob did not know what to say. His involuntary Midwestern compulsion for politeness kicked in and he mumbled something like, “Thank you for letting us know.”

“Our thoughts and prayers are with you at this difficult time. As I said, I will be flying out at the earliest possible window… and I will be accompanying your son’s remains. This information, at the moment at least, is still classified. I trust that it will remain so until Allagro is able to present the facts at a press conference tomorrow. Please, for the sake of your son, and the company he had devoted his life to, please do not speak to anyone from the media until I am there to assist you.”