Nobody who is not fearless.
Nobody but me.
When I hit the point where a normal person would stop, I speed up. Three quick steps that take him entirely by surprise.
I use the heels of both hands as weapons, a lightning strike to the sides of his temples like I’m crashing a cymbal. The skull is designed to protect the brain from injury, but a forceful impact will cause the brain to collide with solid bone. If I’m able to create sufficient impact, I will temporarily short out the brain’s electrical system.
I strike hard and fast, and I see his eyes roll up into his head as his grip releases on the girl’s neck.
But not before the gun fires.
Into the air and over my shoulder.
In the extra second I’ve earned, I grab the girl away from him.
“Run and hide behind the toolshed,” I tell her, and I turn and attack, not allowing the man’s brain time to come back online.
I flip him over on his back, and I grab the rifle from around his shoulder.
He winces like I’m going to shoot him, but I don’t shoot him. I turn the gun upside down and hold the barrel so the blunt stock is pressing into his throat.
I push down, slowly crushing his windpipe.
“Why are you here?” I say.
He eyes dart from side to side, hoping one of his partners has revived. He doesn’t know I’ve removed that possibility.
“It’s just you,” I say. “There’s no help coming.”
He refuses to speak. I press the gun stock harder into the soft structures beneath his neck. He starts to choke, and I back off the pressure the tiniest bit.
“Who sent you?” I say.
“I don’t know,” he says.
I press harder, feel the beginning of tissues giving way in his throat.
“Who?”
“Freelance,” he says. “We’re just a freelance team.”
“For who?”
“Different employers, different assignments.”
“Are you military?”
“Ex.”
“You’re not affiliated?”
“We’re affiliated with whoever pays us.”
I imagine the life he must lead. A former soldier, once loyal to a cause, who now sells his services to whoever pays the rent.
For a moment, I pity this man. Even though he came to kill me and he would have willingly allowed a girl to become collateral damage.
I pity him. Maybe that’s why I decide to let him live.
But the moment I lift the gun stock from his throat, he is in motion, elbows dug into the ground to propel him up toward me, legs moving into striking position.
I swing the rifle in a pendulum motion, hitting him in the head hard enough to rattle him.
But he is resilient. It does not stop him.
He was a good soldier. I can see that now.
Before he turned, before he became this other thing. He must have been very good in his day.
Not now.
Now he reaches for his pistol on the ground, the one that has fallen but remains within arm’s length.
I wanted to save this man’s life, but he’s given me no choice.
I bring the stock down into his head.
Once. Again. A third time.
His hand was reaching for the gun. Now it twitches and stops moving.
Police sirens in the distance. That means the parents made it to safety. From the sound of the sirens, I’ve got four to six minutes to finish here.
I step away from the dead man, glance across the backyard at the bodies scattered there. I don’t have to take a breath. I’ve been breathing all along, evenly and calmly, even as I’ve defeated these four men.
I lean over the body of the man I’ve just killed, checking his pockets. I find something at chest level.
An iPhone.
I swipe the phone. For just a moment, I expect The Program’s secure apps suite to pop up, but that’s ridiculous.
Why would The Program send a team to kill me? Especially a team like this, unaffiliated and crude in its tactics.
The Program is smarter than that.
But I can’t dwell on this now. I check the iPhone log for recent calls. It’s amazing how many operatives will not pause to wipe their phone clean before embarking on a mission. It’s arrogant and foolish at the same time, but on some level it’s understandable. Almost nobody heads into a mission thinking they’re going to fail, and remembering that even in failure, they must protect their organization.
But this man was good. He cleared his phone’s memory before he arrived. There’s no information for me to find.
I reach to put the phone back in his pocket, and I feel something hard against my knuckle. I probe the pocket. It’s empty.
I tap the outside of the pocket, and I feel it, a small hard object.
I reach in and tear the pocket lining. I find a tiny black micro SDHC card. A secure digital high-capacity memory device.
I slip it into my own pocket.
I hear soft footsteps in the grass behind me.
I spin around, ready to strike.
It’s the daughter. She’s looking at me, her eyes wide.
Moving slowly, I place the rifle on the ground. I step in front of the ex-soldier’s body, blocking her sight line because I don’t want her to get scared and scream.
She doesn’t scream.
“You’re just a boy,” she says. “How did you do those things?”
She watched me kill a man. She should be terrified, not asking questions.
I forget how resilient kids are. This girl in particular. She’s her mother’s daughter.
I move closer to her, my voice gentle.
“You have to go to the neighbor’s house. Your parents are there,” I say.
“Where?”
“Four doors down. A green house. Do you know it?”
“Ms. Weiss.”
“Go there now and wait for the police.”
“What about you?”
“I can take care of myself.”
I lead her through the bodies, blocking her view as best I can. I open the gate and when I’m sure it’s clear, I let her out, watching as she runs down the street to safety.
The police sirens are close now. I hear the screech of tires as they turn the corner onto the block.
I glance out to the street. Neighbors are grouping now, emboldened by the sound of the police on their way.
I move in the opposite direction, passing quickly through several backyards until I come out at a street a ways down from the house.
I walk slowly so as not to attract attention. I’m thinking like this freelance team might have thought, where they would stage for this assault, how they would move toward the house, how close they would have to be to get away after they were done. I’m looking for a particular kind of vehicle, something generic enough to go unnoticed yet parked in a way that shows me it’s not from the neighborhood. I pass a few likely suspects, check them briefly, but all of them look lived-in. While it’s possible these guys stole a car, it’s doubtful. Not for an operation like this, where they needed to get loud and then get away unseen.
I find it a quarter mile away on the side of the road, a Chevy Silverado, parked at a slight angle as if it were stopped too quickly. I pass by and note the truck is completely empty inside, not even a coffee cup in the holder.
I kneel down as if to tie my shoe and reach into the front driver’s-side wheel well. My hands close around a key fob.
I was right. It’s the truck they came in.
It’s standard operating procedure to leave the keys with the vehicle. You don’t let someone carry the keys if you’re not sure all of you will make it back. You leave the keys with the vehicle, thereby allowing an escape under any circumstances.
Before I get in, I put my hand on the hood.
The metal is cool to the touch, about the same temperature as the outside air.
Depending on climate and usage, it can take an engine two hours or more to cool down after being driven. If these men followed me from the camp, they would have parked here less than half an hour ago. The engine block would still be warm.