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  After listening to their rants and loud voices, it was clear to Emily that they had been drinking and the scene was nothing more than obnoxious horseplay between two men. This situation worked to the couple’s advantage.

  Emily watched as the heavyset, tattooed man swayed back and forth, and then shuffled away to sleep off his booze indulgence. He opened the front door of the larger building and went inside; the indoor lights flashed on, and then went off seconds later. The radio voices abruptly quieted as well. Emily gambled that the two girls were inside that house.

  It was as if Rick had read her mind. He stated. “Go find the girls, I’ll take the guy on watch.”

  She nodded and whispered, “Send all info to the local sheriff’s department right away. It’ll take them some time to find this place.”

  “Already on it.” Rick used his cell phone’s touch screen, moving pertinent information around with his right index finger, and attached all the information to send to the county police dispatch, watch commander, and the detective division.

  Emily squeezed Rick’s shoulder before she backtracked around the property to enter the compound. He looked at her with concern, deep respect, and love.

  Emily quietly retreated from the safe position and made her way to the farthest side of the compound. She brushed her fingertips to her holstered gun and knife out of anxious habit, but also as a way to calm her nerves and keep focus on the rescue.

  She could smell stale alcohol along with the pungent sewer leaching from the old countryside. Usually the smell of the country would relax the nerves, but the reek reminded Emily of death creeping in closely at her heels. She kept her effort on the task and stealthily proceeded to the small building with the dim light. For an instant, she thought the light blinked, like someone tried to turn it off, but then it reignited again.

  * * * * *

  Rick watched Emily silently disappear into the darkness. He knew that she was savvy and had the spirit of an entire police force inside her, but even still, he continually worried about her safety.

  Moving forward through the density of the landscape, he slipped his phone back into his pocket. He had the ability to hone his cop senses at one particular bad guy in an instant, and could anticipate what they would do next. It was easy to figure out the average thug’s motivation of greed, but it was also one of their biggest weaknesses.

  Rick heard soft murmurs of complaints and realized the military-looking man still protested his views on guns – only to himself. His words slightly slurred, indicated that he wasn’t up to his usual game, and Rick would take full advantage of it.

  Out of his peripheral, he saw Emily skirt around the small building. He took her lead and headed toward the front of the compound to detain the first man; careful to stay within the shadows, he kept his steps continuous like a stalking panther.

  A lighter sparked up another cigarette as the intense man took an exceptionally long pull from the filter-less cylinder. The embers glowed in the darkness and appeared to almost bob and weave as the man paced with an unbalanced gait. The entire time the captor kept his back to Rick.

  Hesitating out of intuition rather than fear, Rick paused against the building waiting for the perfect moment to strike. There was no use of jumping into a situation that could go sideways in a heartbeat. He wanted to wait to hear form Emily to verify the girls were stashed and safe.

  Patience was a virtue. Rick paid it homage and waited.

  * * * * *

  Stretching her body as tall as she was able, Emily ran her fingers up to the window’s edge, which still had the original price sticker affixed in the right corner. She peered into the partially lit structure. A few boxes and bags of tied garbage sat undisturbed. From the looks of it, no one had entered the building in quite some time. It seemed strange that the light was on inside, but time continued to tick away and Emily needed to locate the little girls.

  After quickly looking through a window of the other small building, Emily found the same results.

  Empty.

  The girls had to be inside with the tattooed man by the process of elimination. At least his drunken stupor could work in her favor. Emily thought a moment about waiting for Rick in case of trouble, but the drive of rescuing the sisters was far too great to ignore.

  Every second counted.

  She stopped to listen for Rick, but did not hear any voices or sounds of a confrontation.

  She whispered into the headset, “Both small structures are clear. Proceeding to house.” Emily didn’t expect Rick to reply, but she wanted him to know the updates as they became available.

  She walked around the manufactured home and came to the side sliding door. The small deck sat empty. Darkness loomed inside, but the little voice inside her head urged her to move on.

  She slowly slid the glass door open.

  For a brief instant, she thought she saw a dark shadow lurking inside, but it was only her imagination combined with an accelerated heart rate. Her vision clouded a bit under extreme stress, but her adrenaline never disappointed her in her time of need. She had learned to moderate it with breathing and intensified concentration for her next move.

  The house was in complete disarray with newspapers, magazines, overflowing garbage bags, and dirty dishes. The stench inside proved worse than outside. At first glance, the living room was a decent size with a sofa and two large chairs, but in the dim lighting the furniture resembled marauders waiting to pounce.

  Emily stepped inside and pulled the sliding door shut, leaving a couple of inches to let light and air inside. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the indoor lighting. She moved forward as even her slight weight made a creaking noise on the loose linoleum.

  Once her heartbeat returned to normal and wasn’t pounding loudly in her ears, she heard the soft snoring of the man lying on the couch. The whiskey and beer smell hit her senses causing her stomach to shift on the queasy side.

  Emily walked over to the couch and looked down, the man slept on his stomach with his face turned into the back of the seating area. She watched him breathe peacefully in his alcoholic stupor. He would be out for probably the rest of the night, and she decided not to restrain him.

  Her hand touched her Glock as the image of the man stayed suspended in her mind. She desperately wanted to press the barrel of the gun to his temple and pull the trigger. Emily quickly snapped back to reality and to the two little girls that desperately needed her.

  She took another quick look at the snoring thug. Then she headed down the hallway where there were three shut doors. Without wasting any more time, she opened the first door and it was empty.

  Then the second door, she pushed open and peered inside. A queen-sized bed pushed all the way against the wall, absent of linens or pillows, had the two little girls tied to the headboard. Their dark, long hair, matted and dirty, jeans and t-shirts looked soiled as if they were dragged across the countryside. When they saw the door open, the girls immediately became agitated and whimpered softly.

  Emily quickly put her fingers to her lips and smiled. She looked nervously over her shoulder and then entered the room, leaving the door slightly ajar not to make any more noise than necessary.

  Working quickly, she took their gags from their mouths and began untying the ropes.

  “It’s okay, I’m here to help you. Shhh… be quiet, okay?” Emily gently coaxed the girls. She didn’t want to think about what they had been through earlier.

  In her headset, she whispered to Rick, “I’ve got them, they are in a bedroom, south side, in the main house. I’m coming out in three…”

  Tears streamed down the children’s faces as they obediently complied to Emily’s reassurance. She could see some deep scratches across their faces and on their arms.

  The little girls looked to her for safety, like so many other children from other rescues, with the frightened, horror-stricken faces, and a questioning of why did this have to happen.

  Emily retrieved her knife because the ropes were tri
ple and quadruple knotted. She sliced the blade back and forth, careful not to accidentally cut through their skin.

  “Who are you?” The thick-necked, tattooed man demanded. His body filled the bedroom doorway as he held a machete in his right hand.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sunday 0135 Hours

  Before the dog hit top speed, the assassin grabbed a flimsy metal handle on the hallway linen closet and pulled with all of his strength. The thin pine door flung open just as he sidestepped the narrow gap.

  A loud crack walloped the door followed by a yelp.

  The killer, as if propelled by an unseen force, carried himself with lightning speed to the kitchen, where he grabbed a plastic garbage can that sat next to the refrigerator. Beer bottles and soda cans scattered out onto the floor with a thunderous clatter. He picked up the lid in one hand, and pushed the empty garbage can out in front of him with the other.

  It was a matter of seconds before the dog had regained its senses and composure. The killer heard the familiar growl. The dog stalked him and stood at the edge of the kitchen floor. Eyes direct and determined with a curious expression mixed into the defensive canine behavior.

  Two dirty butcher knives rested in the kitchen sink, but that would be messy and make the bedroom scene of suicide appear unusually out of place – even for the most inexperienced police detective.

  The dog managed top speed. It leaped through the air with gleaming teeth barred.

  The cool contract killer punched the garbage can lid forward with a perfect jab movement and smacked the dog directly in the chest. With a departing dull thud, the dog crashed on the slippery linoleum, furiously scrambled his four legs, and then tried to ready itself for another attack.

  This time the assassin thrust the empty can over the squirming dog. Within seconds, he managed to secure the dog inside the recycling plastic can and fastened the lid. A muffled bark and violent shaking bounced around inside the garbage receptacle like a deranged rat in a cage.

  Thoughts of what he would tell Bishop raced through the killer’s mind. He rarely had trouble with any of the hits he executed over the years. His situation tonight made him seethe in rage. His demeanor showed lack of any of the usual frustrations, but feelings and emotions festered deep within his soul. With every experience of hate and discomfort, he had filed those incidents away quietly, until the time in which they would serve him.

  As he dragged the garbage can down the hallway that reverberated with snarls and growls, his mind gathered momentum on all the tortuous ways to kill Bishop, including slicing, tooth pulling, and punctured eyeballs, were just a few that came to mind. Those thoughts kept him company as he paused a moment to look into the molester’s bedroom. The man was still in the exact position as ten minutes earlier with a stunned expression staring into nothingness – a fitting end.

  The killer continued his cleanup duty and he was not worried if anyone would arrive unexpectedly. It would only mean that he would have to stage a murder crime scene, instead of a suicide. Nothing worried him anymore; he had been shot twice, blown up, and even pierced through the solar plexus with an arrow. These things never worried him. It was just a job – nothing more, nothing less.

  He opened the last bedroom door, which doubled as a small storage room filled with boxes and included a brightly colored dog bed. He dragged the bouncing garbage can into the middle of the room, loosened the top slightly, and left it lying on its side. Quickly slipping out of the bedroom and shutting the door before the dog had a chance to get out, he left the dog where it belonged.

  The kitchen was already messy, but the assassin decided to sweep the cans and beer bottles to one area to give it a more true-to-life disorganized appearance.

  The dog kept a rapid barking tempo in between furious scratching on the bedroom door, which soon quickly lost steam.

  The killer took one last look around to make sure it looked like the pigsty that the predator had kept. Everything looked legit. He knew that the cops would not give any scrutiny to the appearance of the house.

  He exited and quietly closed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sunday 0210 Hours

  Emily watched the drunken man stare her straight in the eye. He still swayed from the evening’s booze flowing through his veins, but his basic faculties were still intact. Up close and awake, the man looked like a hardened criminal with a propensity for extreme violence. She could see the jagged scars on his tattooed arms and down the right side of his neck, which only slightly overshadowed the glint of the machete he held.

  “I’m not going to ask twice.” He snapped, words slurred slightly, and spittle dribbled from his mouth.

  The two girls, now freed from the restraints, cried as they slipped down into a corner of the bedroom. They made their already little bodies as small as possible.

  Emily slowly stood up, standing her ground, as the man eyed her sidearm as well as lingering a second to admire her body. There was no escape or easy way to diffuse the situation unless she pumped several rounds into his chest. She couldn’t take the chance of any stray bullets hitting the girls. She tried to estimate the distance from the doorway to the bed, about ten feet, if that, and how fast the man could wield the primitive weapon and make direct contact.

  “Don’t even think about going for it.” He grunted.

  “There’s some misunderstanding here, don’t make it worse than it already is for you.” Emily realized as soon as the words escaped her lips that her plea sounded weak and contrived.

  The burly man laughed – a loud maniacal burst.

  It wasn’t the reaction she had expected and that made her even more uneasy. She tried to block out the whimpers and stifled cries of the two little girls that counted on her to save them. If she failed, they were dead too.

  * * * * *

  Rick’s stomach plummeted as he heard the words that Emily spoke and he could hear the monstrous laugh in the background from what sounded like a demon. It wearied his mind on the dangerous scenarios they both now faced.

  He had to move now; otherwise, he would be of no use to Emily. For a split second, he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them to precisely dial in on the other captor.

  With little regard to what may or may not happen, Rick hurried forward in a half crouch, half sprint position, with his Glock firmly planted in his right hand.

  Just before he reached the man in the compound, the kidnapper turned in his direction. Their minds were in sync.

  Rick squeezed off two rounds.

  * * * * *

  As Emily’s fingertips touched her gun, the beefy man took his opportunity to strike out at her. He waved the machete with an erratic swiping motion, back and forth. It was obvious that he had never used the weapon before; it must have been the only available offensive instrument he could find.

  Emily took the chance, pulled the Glock from her holster, and pushed it forward just as two shots were fired from outside.

  Both combatants stopped for a fleeting moment, turning their heads slightly in the direction of the shooting from the front of the compound.

  “Rick?” She managed to utter. Emily knew that Rick had no other choice but to shoot the kidnapper, at least she hoped that was the case.

  Emily gave the huge man one more chance to surrender and ordered, “Stay right there!”

  The man only scoffed at such a request and took another step toward her, swinging the thick blade side to side with extreme exaggeration.

  She stepped toward him squeezing the trigger twice, just as the hulking man slammed into her arm with the back of his massive bicep – but she managed to hold onto the gun.

  The bullets hit the ceiling.

  The two hundred and something pounds of the drunken man shocked her system, shook her bones, as the impact thrust her backward onto the bed. The weight broke the box springs underneath them. Her ears rang with a peculiar buzzing noise. The smell of sickly sweat and last night’s stale booze invaded the available air aro
und her.

  The man groaned and strangely contorted his face, as he lay halfway on Emily and atop the cockeyed mattress. Her arm and gun were pinned beneath him and she tried to pull it free. She quickly turned her gaze on herself and half expected to see the machete sticking out of her chest or cut across her carotid artery; but instead, it seemed to have vanished.

  The machete had struck the captor’s shoulder separating the meat from the bone. The ghastly open wound wasn’t mortal, but it took his immediate strength away.

  Emily swung her left leg and pushed the moaning man onto the floor. He appeared helpless writhing in pain, a completely different person than just a moment ago. She pressed the gun into his face, hands now shaking. Anger infused every cell of her body. She wanted to blow his brains all over the walls, but knew that her mission was to diffuse the situation at every means possible before the use of deadly force. This kept her mentally and physically in check, and kept the chasm between what these people do, and what she did.

  “Get up.” She ordered, her voice steady and direct.

  Emily could hear the small, fragile whimpers of two innocent girls as they watched in horror; she couldn’t compound their already traumatic experience with more senseless violence.

  The tattooed man crawled toward the doorway on his hands and knees. Emily picked up the machete with a piece of paper and tossed it out of the way. She looked down. His blood had splattered across her shirt and speckled the carpet.

  One of the little girls dared to emerge from her hiding place and grabbed Emily around the waist.

  “Stay back honey, in just a minute we can get out of here.”

  Emily knew that she couldn’t look into the girl’s eyes because she’d lose her concentration. They weren’t out of danger yet.