If Jack had any doubts the thing in front of him was really a phone, it started to vibrate before playing a generic ringtone.
“Answer it!” the man from the front yard shouted again. “I promise it’s not booby trapped.”
Jack stared at the phone as it moved back and forth an inch at a time against the carpet. He shot the back windows another look, just to be sure.
“You’re gonna want to hear what I have to say!” the man shouted. “It’s either that or we come in with everything, and you get dead. What’s it going to be?”
Jack sighed. Shit. What the hell was going on here?
The phone stopped ringing and moving.
For about five seconds, anyway; then it started again.
“Go on, answer it!” the same voice shouted.
Jack stared at the phone and thought about going into the guest bedroom and bringing Walter out to fetch the device. But that wouldn’t work, because he needed Walter. And from every indication, he wasn’t the only one. The guy shouting at him to answer the phone hadn’t come here for him. Oh no, it was all about Walter, all right.
Jack leaned the rifle against the wall, then got down on his hands and knees. He took a breath, let out a curse at his shitty luck, and quickly crawled forward and snatched up the cheap plastic phone. It had survived its toss mostly intact, though parts of the outer shell were cracked and missing small pieces. The screen, though, looked in one piece.
He reversed course and didn’t breathe again until he was back in the hallway and on his feet with the rifle in one hand. The phone had stopped vibrating and ringing when he got it, but he didn’t have to wait very long for it to start up again.
He pressed the answer button. “So talk.”
“My name’s Monroe,” a man said through the phone. It was definitely the same voice that had been shouting at him from the front of the house. “What’s yours?”
“Jack.”
The man chuckled. “Right. Jack.”
“You saying Monroe’s your real name?”
“It is.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want…Jack,” Monroe said.
“So what do you want, Monroe?”
“Oh, I think you know what I want. Who I want, to be precise.”
Jack glanced over his shoulder at the guest bedroom, the one with Walter inside. There was still no tap-tap-tapping coming out of it.
“Who are you?” he said into the phone.
“Same as you,” Monroe said. “Just some guy trying to make enough to keep the lights on.”
“Nice rides.”
“Thanks. You can have one, if you like. All you have to do is throw down your guns and come outside. I got the keys right here.”
“I don’t think so. I think we’re going to stay right where we are and pick your boys off one by one as they try to come in.”
“‘We,’ Jack? You telling me there’s more than just you in there keeping Walter prisoner?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t believe you. My man only saw you.”
“He needs to get his eyes checked.”
Monroe chuckled, though Jack thought it sounded just a bit too forced. “Saw a little blood around the car out here. You boys run into a little unexpected trouble?”
Understatement of the decade, asshole, Jack thought, but said, “Nothing we couldn’t handle.”
“I believe that. You guys are pros, after all.”
Jack wondered if Monroe really bought his tale about there being more than just him inside, or if the man was just humoring him.
“That’s right,” he said.
“So are we.”
“Monroe, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Doesn’t ring any bells.”
“That’s the idea. You should know a thing or two about that. We’re expendable, Jack. That’s why I don’t think this needs to get out of hand.”
“It’s already out of hand. You shouldn’t have tried to come in.”
“Had to give it a shot.”
“Your man would disagree.”
“Yeah, well, I’m the one who’s going to have to tell his wife how he died. I think I’m going to make up a story. Training accident, maybe. Something like that.”
“Hey, do what works for you.”
Another too forced-sounding chuckle. “What’s it going to take to convince you boys to hand Walter over to me without further bloodshed? How much?”
“There’s three of us,” Jack said.
“Tell me how much, Jack.”
“You authorized to make deals?”
“I am.”
“How much you have on you?”
“Not on me,” Monroe said. “But it can be arranged. You know how this goes. Untraceable funds in untraceable bank accounts. It’ll be waiting for you as soon as we come to an agreement. Direct wire transfers. All that good stuff. That sound good to you?”
He had to admit, it did sound good. The real money was finishing the job and getting paid by the client, but that was money he couldn’t spend if he was dead. Right now, right here, he’d take a sandwich if he could walk out of this house alive.
Of course, he wasn’t going to tell Monroe that.
“You still there, Jack?” Monroe asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Why don’t you and your friends talk it through, then get back to me.”
“How much time do we have?”
“How about till morning?” Monroe asked.
I won’t need that long, Jack thought, when there was a loud crash!
Jack looked out and toward the back door, just in time to see a figure barreling its way into the house, smashing apart the remains of the doorframe.
Lying sack of shit! his mind screamed, even as he lifted the Sig556 and pushed off the wall to get a good shot.
The man must have literally thrown his body into the door and lost his balance soon after, because even as Jack was lining up his first shot, the man thumped! against the floor face-first. He was attempting to scramble up when Jack shot him in the left shoulder — the biggest part of the body presented to him. The man grunted but kept rising.
Jack shot him again, this time aiming for the chest, but the suited man was surprisingly swift for someone of his size (the guy had to be well over six-two, and bulky), and Jack’s round hit him in the side of the neck instead. The man collapsed, the Uzi that was clutched in his hand clattering to the floor before he did.
There was no time for Jack to enjoy his success, because loud crashing sounds exploded from the front of the house as Monroe’s other men assaulted the door. Hearing the chaos, Jack wanted to laugh out loud. Not only at Monroe’s lies, but also at his own gullibility.
Jesus Christ, he had almost believed the guy there for a second!
As if it was going to be that easy. You idiot.
Jack switched the rifle back to full-auto just as two men staggered through the gaping hole that was the back door. They saw their dead comrade and one of them froze, which was a mistake, because Jack put three rounds dead center into his chest.
The second one was smarter and faster, and he ran forward and slid for cover behind the granite island countertop inside the kitchen. Jack sent a few bullets in his direction anyway, smashing the countertop and pinging! one round off the refrigerator, adding to the dent already there from when he tried to pick off Allie earlier.
A loud crash! as the front door gave under the assault.
Jack turned and fled into the back of the house even as he heard Monroe shouting, “Watch your fire! Watch your fire!”