Miss Jenny Jones #4
Simo assessed his situation. The laundry room was a kill zone.
The side door out of the garage was the better option.
Watching the laundry room door, he backed his way to the Audi and switched off the parking lights, leaving the garage in darkness.
He examined the garage’s single exit door.
He crouched and slowly unlocked the deadbolt.
As he set his hand on the doorknob, his nose itched, and he stopped dead.
Simo raised his hand up high and shot several silenced rounds down through the door. He was rewarded with a large clatter and thump against the doorframe. Then nothing. He raced into the laundry room as he replaced his magazine.
Peering around the laundry room’s doorframe into the hallway and kitchen, he saw he was clear. He worked through the kitchen to the dining room, peered through the shutters, and saw the M4 barrel in the side yard.
Simo slipped outside and crept along in a crouch along the windows.
At the corner of the side yard, he went prone on his belly and peered around the corner of the house.
He expected to see the backup with his handgun aimed where his head would have been.
Instead, a man was writhing in pain as he tried to drag himself toward the closed side gate.
Simo heard the gurgle of breath and knew the man was in dire straits. Then he stopped trying to drag himself away, and the sound of the man’s sigh was one that told Simo he was done for.
“Not dead yet?” Simo called out quietly.
“F… fuck, y’all.”
“Live or die. Up to you. Toss out your sidearm and maybe you live… unless you got paid enough to die today?”
Simo watched from behind the corner as the man struggled to toss his sidearm. It didn’t land very far away.
“Do not move, not even a twitch.”
“Roger…” the man replied hoarsely.
Simo checked his six, then crept up to the prone man, his FN 57 at the ready. “Where you hit?”
“Fucking… all over. Lucky bastard,” the man grunted.
Simo quickly sized him up: Black guy, good-looking, about six feet tall with a wiry frame.
Their eyes met and Simo could see the man was in agony.
“You can bleed out if you want. Since Christmas is coming, I am feeling generous. We can deal some band-aids for information and I might let you make a call. Your choice, Alabama.”
“We… can deal,” the man replied with a pained, exasperated sigh.
“I will pull you into the garage. You scream? Santa Claus sends you a bullet. Understand?”
“Roger that.”
He pulled out two zip ties. “Hands.”
The man did his best to raise his hands and, in one deft move, Simo had both zip ties tight around the man’s hands. Simo searched the man and found a combat knife. He pocketed that and grabbed the back of Alabama’s Kevlar vest. “This is going to hurt.”
“Been there… do it,” Alabama whispered and gritted his teeth.
With as even a pull as he could manage, Simo turned the quietly grunting man around and pulled him into the garage.
He propped him up against the back wall and, using his boot, closed the door.
With his flashlight, he illuminated the man’s face.
“No movement.” Simo got a good look at the man.
Very military, good-looking, shot up, and in extreme pain.
Simo spoke into his mic. “Eko ena sto garage.”
“Nekros?” Dead? Theo asked.
“Maybe,” Simo replied.
Simo squatted down next to Alabama. He found the man’s radio, jerked it free, and smashed the receiver on the concrete. He continued to search Alabama as he spoke. “Who contracted you?”
“Joel Miller…” the man gasped.
Simo produced Alabama’s knife and pointed it millimeters from the man’s eyeball. “Backup on the way?”
Daring not to shake his head no, Alabama spoke. “No… you can check. Cell phone, inside pocket.”
Simo found the cell phone and put the knife away as he scanned through Alabama’s texts and calls. “You have first aid?”
“Pant pocket… Hem-con.”
Simo checked the thigh pocket and pulled out a handful of Hem-con blood-clotting bandages. “You move, I let you bleed out. Understand?”
Alabama nodded.
“Taking your shit off, no screaming.” Without waiting for approval, Simo, using Alabama’s knife, cut the tactical Kevlar, then pulled it off the grunting man.
He then cut off the man’s shirt. He saw the first wound on the man’s ebony skin.
It looked like the bullet had broken his right collarbone.
He could see the depression and a weeping bullet hole.
“Lucky shot…”
“Yeah,” Simo muttered as he continued examining Alabama.
Another shot had entered his deltoid and exited.
Checking the man’s chest and belly, he was clear with the exception of old bullet wound scars on his chest. Looking lower, he saw wetness on the front of the man’s pants. “Your cock still there?”
“Hope the fuck so… inside thigh.”
“Cutting open pants,” Simo said and immediately saw the bullet wound. Blood was oozing from a hole in his left groin. A few inches more and Alabama would have been dick-less. Simo tore open the first bandage and pressed it down hard as Alabama squirmed in pain.
Panting, Alabama asked, “Bad?”
“Maybe. No arterial bleeding. I use armor-piercing rounds… I think good for you… maybe.”
“What you hit me with?”
“FN 57,” Simo responded and proceeded to search for the groin’s bullet wound exit. He found it and pressed another bandage in place. Then Simo pressed a bandage onto Alabama’s collarbone and Alabama hissed in pain as sweat poured down his face.
Through gritted teeth, Alabama spoke. “Y’all Greek?”
“Yes. Pulling you up. I don’t see an exit.”
“Lung’s on fire…”
“Should have exited.” Simo pulled him forward and saw blood running down the man’s lower back. He quickly put the last bandage on the exit wound. Simo sat him gently back against the wall and looked into the man’s dark eyes. “How many did Joel contract? Who is your team leader?”
Alabama sighed. “Four. Y’all got Bodell the rookie. My boss is Major John Harding… a cold-hearted, shit-kicking bastard.”
“How cold?”
Alabama coughed and nodded. “Fallujah… searching homes. Dog wouldn’t stop barking at him. He kicked it and it ran into an open door, but it kept barking at him. The Major peeked inside and casually tossed in two grenades.”
“So?”
“I heard the screams… a family with three kids was in there with no way out. His report stated that the family was building IEDs and one appeared to go off prematurely…”
Simo sighed and shook his head. “You have medical resources?”
Alabama coughed, groaned, and spit out a mouthful of blood. “Yeah, a doc on standby.”
Simo stood up and met Alabama’s pain-filled eyes. “Maybe you have a half an hour… maybe less.” Simo pulled out Alabama’s phone and sighed.
“What?”
Simo stared at him for a long moment before answering. “A dilemma. I let you live, I am at risk. You have to report all this mess. Or… I can use you as bait and take out all who come for you…”
“Or y’all can just drop me close to the doc’s… he’s not far and on station. Use… use my cell…” Simo saw the man’s eyes were yearning to survive, but he wasn’t going to beg.
“I do this for you, you owe me. I ask for payment and you don’t deliver? My team will track you and wait for optimal collateral damage. Your family, your friends, even your cat if you have one. This on my order if I’m dead or alive. There is your deal.”
“Deal… can’t shake hand…”
“Your word is good enough…. I am going in to bring out the body. You should wait here…”
Alabama snorted a laugh and ended up coughing up more blood.
Simo rushed outside and collected all the weapons. Going in the back way, he raced up the stairs to the safe room and knocked quietly.
“It’s Simo.”
The door opened and JJ peered out, wide-eyed at the blood covering Simo. “Are you ok?”
“I’m good.” He waited until she crawled out, tossed the guns inside, and shut the door.
He pulled JJ close and whispered into her ear. “One man is dead in the garage. The other is halfway there. He is coming with us. You play dead. I wrap you up. No talking, no moving, no nothing. Understand?”
She nodded.
“We are going to drop someone off, don’t even squeeze out a fart on the way there.”
After what seemed like hours, JJ felt Simo peeling away the layers of the blanket, exposing her to desperately needed fresh air. She felt queasy as she mumbled, “So hot in there… not feeling good.”
Simo quickened his pace and soon had her fully unwrapped. He helped her sit on the bumper of the Audi and JJ breathed in the cool night air.
“Where are we?”
“A deserted parking lot.”
“Well… I see that.”
“We have things to talk about. You ok now?” JJ nodded and Simo continued. “You will drive to LAX and park exactly where this paper shows.” He produced a folded piece of paper and handed it to her.
“Why here?”
“The cameras won’t see you. From your car, you head straight back to the curb; we will be waiting.”
“Ok... uh, Simo? Where am I going?”
“Later,” he replied.
JJ watched him pull out a piece of torn cloth from his pocket and head up to the front passenger side of the Audi. She turned and watched as he began wiping up blood from the front passenger seat. Then the cloth went into a sealable ziplock bag. “What’s that?”
“Your blood and my previous passenger’s. It’s insurance.”
A van pulling into the lot startled JJ and she got off the bumper and started to move toward Simo. “It’s Theo. Now, get in your car and do exactly like I told you. We will be a minute behind you. Turn left and the freeway is there. Go.”
His hand gave her a nudge, but it felt more like a side of beef hitting her shoulder. She let out an ‘oof’ but didn’t waste any more time. She got in and headed off toward LAX.