Chapter 19

GABRIEL

“Call!” The order came through their radio, and Gabe felt his heartbeat quicken as Deputy Corporal James Coolidge pounded a heavy fist against the front door, then stepped back against the wall. The sagging porch creaked beneath the weight of the four deputies in their protective gear, the rickety porch boards buckling where they stepped. Deputy Reese Finnigan stood ready with the ram to the side of the jamb.

“Sheriff’s Office! Open the door!” Coolidge’s voice was loud and authoritative as he banged on the door. “Greenburg, open the door!”

The sound of something falling and running feet could be heard through the rotting boards of the walls, and the order came over the radio, “Breach!”

Finnigan pulled the ram back and slammed it into the lock, the door flying open in a spray of splinters and a loud crash. The four deputies quickly entered the house in the clearing formation, flowing along the long hallway to the open doorways on either side, two of the officers entering the door to the left and Gabe and Coolidge going right, clearing the living area.

The room was heavy with the dust of the drugs that had been crushed, weighed, packed, and distributed from the room, the white residue filling the cracks of the scarred table. Gabe cleared his throat of the chemical particles that caught in his airways. A sound drew his attention to a cupboard in the corner of the room, and he lifted his firearm in that direction. He tapped Coolidge on the shoulder and indicated the cupboard. Coolidge nodded and took a position at Gabe’s right shoulder as they carefully approached the corner of the room.

Coolidge pulled the door open as Gabe called out, “Sheriff’s Department—”

The other door burst open, and a man jumped out. He was about a foot shorter than Gabe but fast and caught Gabe around the waist, and he thanked his lucky stars that he was as big as he was because it kept him on his feet. He quickly reactivated the safety on his shotgun and clasped his hands around the barrel, bringing the stock down sharply on the assailant’s spine, bringing him to his knees. The man was a fighter, and Gabe grunted as the man jabbed a hard fist into his ribs. Gabe twisted to his right, bringing his left elbow down hard on the man’s jaw, and swung his gun like a baseball bat. When the assailant dropped to his stomach, Coolidge placed a knee on his spine and quickly handcuffed him.

“Go, I’ve got this.”

Gabe nodded as he readjusted his vest and made his way to the kitchen, his shotgun at the ready. He found two of his colleagues in the kitchen about to open the door to the basement. Racking the shotgun and resting the stock against his shoulder, he turned the handle. But he hesitated, his instincts screaming at him.

“Von Ashner?” Finnigan asked him. He shook his head in answer and took a small step forward… And then he saw it…the tiny glimmer of light reflected on a thin wire, and he immediately held up his closed fist.

“The place is rigged,” Gabe said, looking over at Finnigan. “Get the guys out of here.”

Finnigan lifted his hand to his radio, but Gabe grabbed his wrist as he shook his head vehemently. “We don’t know what’s down there nor how it’s set up and what can trigger it. Make sure they check for wires.”

Finnigan nodded as he made his way out of the kitchen, making sure everyone left the house. Gabe heard their retreating footsteps, but he was focused on investigating the trip wire. He carefully crouched before it, his flashlight showing him where the wire was taped to the door frame. It joined with several others that came from all directions, and Gabe recognized them as secondary leads from other areas of the house. A tiny bundle was set at the first upright at the top of the stairs.

“Shit,” Gabe muttered as he inspected the tiny charge stuck in the miniature brick.

“What’s the news, Von Ashner?”

Gabe looked at the sergeant as he stood at the open door, watching Gabe.

“They set the charges up so that it could possibly detonate if there is enough vibration.” Gabe looked over his shoulder at his senior officer. “The type of vibration that would be caused by a dozen or so law enforcement officers running through a beaten down house, intent on taking down the motherfuckers who sell drugs to kids.”

The man blanched as he realized what Gabe was saying. “You’re saying that if the guys had gone upstairs first as was the plan—”

Gabe nodded and the sergeant gulped. “We would have lost quite a few lives, sarge.”

“Fuck me sideways and tip me upside down…” If the situation wasn’t so serious, Gabe would have laughed at the normally quiet man’s expression. “Can you…um…?” He waved a hand down the stairs.

Gabe flickered his light down the banister to see if there were more charges to where it became too dark to see the rest of the way to the bottom. “I could go check it out. If it’s something basic that I don’t need tools for, then yes. If it’s more complex, then maybe I can tell the bomb guys what’s down here.”

“Okay.” Then Sarge scratched his temple, sizing Gabe up from top to bottom. “How are you going to get down there though?”

Gabe grinned. “Let’s just say, Sarge, you can either stay and see or high tail it out of here.”

“I ain’t going nowhere,” he retorted, folding his arms over his chest.

“Suit yourself.” Gabe shrugged. “Just don’t move until I say so. And when I say run, don’t ask questions.”

“You gonna talk all day or show me what you got?”

Gabe chuckled softly as he stepped over the first trip wire, carefully checking each tread for more wires before carefully placing his foot on it, rolling it gently from toe to heel. At the halfway mark, he took a moment to breathe, wiping a drop of sweat that rolled along the side of his nose. He slowly dropped his ass to a step and inspected one of the charges close up. Smothering a frustrated sigh, he rose to his feet.

“What?” Sarge called softly, almost as though he was afraid his voice would set off the charge.

Gabe shook his head. “I thought I could disarm them individually, but they are linked. If I touch one, they’ll discharge like a stack of dominoes.”

Before his CO could say anything more, he made his way into the dark basement, following the leads across the rafted ceiling until he came to the central support pillar. Gabe froze when he saw the sight of the C-4 stacked around the pillar, the flat bricks packed knee high, each pack with its own charge. He narrowed his eyes at the simple, but deadly, hook-up, the thin wire on the Y-tip charge drawn tightly between the prongs. Any movement could cause a trigger, igniting the next brick like an explosion in a full underground parking garage.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the cuff of his black long-sleeve T-shirt as he followed the wires to the detonator. It resembled the starter board for the fireworks display at a Fourth of July parade, each charge rigged so that it became a puzzle, and disarming one wire might be what ignites the next. The trick was to find the main charge wire out of the complicated mess.

Gabe reached out a hand to the charge board, his heart pounding so hard it clogged his ears, and he couldn’t hear anything else except the heavy thud with each beat. Through the vibrations, he heard the sniffles of the three children, young boys no older than ten. He blinked the sight out of his mind, but the memory of two years ago wouldn’t let him go, and he sank to a knee on the cold concrete floor beneath the mental weight.

“No,” he moaned, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples, but the image wouldn’t leave him.

~The three boys had been tied to the top of a similar sadistic structure, their tiny arms cable-tied together, their fear palpable, the smell of their sweat and bodily discharge permeating the busy market square. He heard a woman’s scream bouncing off the white walls of the surrounding houses as she cried for her sons. They had been rigged in such a way that the three boys were sitting on landmines set on top of the C-4. If one boy was freed, it would ignite the charges on one of the others, and Gabe had experienced real fear that day.~

~“Sir, please, save our brother.” Gabe had been shocked at the acceptance of the eldest boy. His willingness to sacrifice himself to save his brother had humbled Gabe.~

~“I’m getting all of you out of here,” he had argued.~

~“Comfort my mother to give her one of her sons, please, Mister America…” The boy’s dark brown eyes had been resolute. “We understand and we forgive you.”~

Gabe blinked hard to get rid of the memory, but it kept playing like a movie that was stuck.

~He could still hear the snap of the cable ties when his team members simultaneously cut the boys free. The youngest one was too panicked and tried to jump off the mine, the young corporal barely able to keep him in place. Gabe could still feel the hoarseness of his throat as he had shouted at his team to get the other two boys out, the snap and smell of sulfur igniting sharp in his nostrils as the charge ignited. Gabe remembered the feeling of the eldest boy kicking him in the chest to get him away from the heating pile of C-4. Still, Gabe had grabbed his leg, pulled him from the pyramid of explosives, lifted him onto his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, and ran like Cerberus himself was chasing them.~

~He could still feel the heat of the inferno lifting him from the ground and knocking him into the nearest building. Gabe had used his larger body to shield the boy from the flying debris and shrapnel that seemed to fall for days, but it had been mere minutes after the loud explosion that still woke Gabe in the middle of the night.~

“Von Ashner!” Sergeant Brady’s voice pulled Gabe out of the destroyed market of Yemen and back to the darkened basement in the rundown Olathe neighborhood in central Kansas. Gabe closed his eyes and breathed in the dusty and moldy air, controlling his breathing as the last vestiges of the memory faded from his mind.

“Here…” His voice was nothing more than a hoarse whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Here, Sarge. I’m good.”

He removed his Swiss army knife from one of the pockets of his black field pants and opened the cutter tool. “Sarge, I need an extra pair of hands. I’ll guide you down the stairs and you do exactly what I say.”

Carefully following Gabe’s instructions, Brady froze in the center of the basement, much like Gabe had, his brown eyes dark with shock on his pale face. “What the flying fuck?”

“Over here, Sarge.” Gabe handed him the flashlight and showed him how to hold it. Making sure not to tug on any of the wires, Gabe gently ran his fingers along them, and when he was satisfied he had the right links, he started cutting wires.

“You must have some happy lady friends if you treat them with as much reverence,” Sarge said softly, his voice shaky with fear.

Gabe lifted his hands clear of the wires because he couldn’t stop the chuckle at Brady’s words. “None of my lady friends are a threat to my life… My balls maybe, but not my life.”

“Funny that you’re full of jokes at a time like this,” Brady scolded as Gabe resumed cutting the wires.

“Last one, Sarge,” Gabe said softly as he placed the cutters on the wires. At the same time, he closed the blades, he felt the difference in tension from that particular wire, and he knew that they were fucked when he heard a timer click on.