Chapter Forty-six
(Friday, 1340)
Reynolds’s agonizing wait was over. His family was free, and the man responsible for hurting them, and for killing his friend was standing before him. Despite the adrenaline pumping through his body, he looked to be calm; even knowing Lopez and his men might make a move for him at any moment. The two men next to Lopez had looked over to him several times, but had not seen any sign he wanted them to do anything. Lopez, for his part, simply stood, watching Reynolds, likely evaluating him. Reynolds was sure Lopez was trying to decide whether it would be worth it to go at him, and he was right; Lopez was sure he and his men could take Reynolds, but he was concerned they might end up seriously hurting, or maybe even killing him, and that would mean the loss of his shot at the drive. It wasn’t a risk he was willing to take. Yet.
His last call with Sanderson made it clear that losing the drive meant losing his life, so he would wait.
After a few minutes he tried taking a tiny step toward Reynolds in the hope he would be able to creep his way close enough to increase his odds of getting to him. Ever so subtlety Lopez, with his men following his lead, crept forward—taking turns and taking their time. But after one of the men tried a longer step, Reynolds raised his right hand, and with it the gun. He cocked the hammer and then set it down on the table, still holding it, and with his finger on the trigger. This startled Lopez—he didn’t expect something so provocative from Reynolds. After a few minutes his men started to inch closer again, but when Lopez raised his right hand very slightly, forefinger pointing out, they stopped. At this point they all simply stood there quietly, a portrait of impatience.
Reynolds sat watching and thinking. He more scared than he had ever been in his life. More than he thought he could be. He was outnumbered three to one, and Lopez and his men were professional killers who wouldn’t hesitate to end him. They obviously wanted to, were even anxious to kill him. Reynolds’s holding them made them angry; it was a professional embarrassment to be put in such a weak and impotent position by an amateur.
Reynolds was only able to contain his fear by knowing he was saving Maggie and Jenni. The longer he was able to hold Lopez, the more distance they could put between them and these murderers. But he pushed thoughts of his family out of his mind for fear of being distracted and giving them an opening to come at him.
“How long do you plan on holding us here Mr. Reynolds?” said Lopez in a casual, almost friendly tone, a slight smile on his face, but a fiery hatred roaring in his eyes; while he engaged Reynolds his men inched a little closer.
“As long as is necessary for my family to get to safety,” Reynolds returned with a low, lion-like growl. “But don’t worry, when Mackenzie calls, you’ll get your drive and we’ll all be on our way.” Reynolds tried to give Lopez a reassuring smile, but he wasn’t able to deliver one. “I never wanted the damn thing.”
“Well, they’ve had plenty of time, and my patience is limited, so if the call doesn’t come very soon we’ll have to accelerate things,” Lopez said, hostility woven into every word he spoke.
“Do what you will. I’m not surrendering the drive until I get the all-clear from my family.” Reynolds (while raising the gun) spoke with such resolution that it was clear to Lopez that he was not going to be able to persuade him to give up the drive out of fear; this was a man of concrete conviction, the most dangerous kind of man. Lopez would have to think of something else.
The group had only been waiting five minutes or so, but it seemed like hours. They were all becoming anxious, but Reynolds was sitting. Lopez and his men had been standing the whole time, inching ever closer when they could, with a harder and harder time restraining themselves; not wanting to move out of fear it might startle Reynolds and start something they didn’t want to start, not yet any way, but their muscles, and their egos, were begging them to act.
Reynolds was fine sitting, the chair was hard and uncomfortable, which helped him stay focused and alert. His biggest problem was not discomfort or overcoming his fear but, surprisingly, for a man of nonviolence, resisting the temptation to start shooting the men who had done his family harm. He had never wanted to kill anyone before. Even when the Sudanese militia members who’d shot women and children were captured and brought to him for medical care, he took care of them. He didn’t want to kill them, he just wanted them to stop—that was not how he felt now.
Reynolds decided he needed to give himself a way to relax his focus a little—he wasn’t going to be able to indefinitely maintain the attention level he had so far, so he said, “You gentlemen look uncomfortable. Why don’t you have a seat on the floor?”
Lopez’s men looked over to him as he calmly replied, “No, we’re fine.”
Reynolds wasn’t asking, and Lopez knew it, but Lopez wasn’t about to put himself into an inferior position. Besides, despite what he had said earlier, he wasn’t going to wait much longer. He had decided that rushing him, three trained and experienced mercenaries against a nurse was a contest he could win. And once they had captured him, he would simply torture the information out of him, get the drive and then turn his attention to Mackenzie. He practically salivated at the idea of getting his hands on her.
Reynolds was about to insist they sit, when his cell phone rang. The sudden interruption caused everyone to flinch. Reynolds raised his left hand with one finger up and everyone stood in place, waiting. He then put his left hand into his pant pocket and pulled out his phone (a disposable Mackenzie had bought earlier for this very moment) and answered it with, “Is everyone safe?”
###
Mackenzie pulled up to the curb outside a deli where they’d left her car. She got out and walked around to the sidewalk and opened the door to the back seat. Maggie and Jenni stepped out. At the same time the front passenger door opened and Denton exited onto the sidewalk. The four stood there for a second and then Mackenzie spoke. “Remember you are not to call anyone until you hear from me or Stanley, understand!?”
“Yes, I understand, but how soon until we see Matt?” Maggie asked.
“As soon as we can get him.” Mackenzie replied.
Denton then added, “I’ve programed the map app on the phone to lead you directly to the place we told you about. When you get there you drive around back and go straight to the pool house. There’s food there, and a bed, so eat something and get some rest, Okay?” As he spoke he looked eagerly from Maggie to Jenni to make sure they were listening as he and Mackenzie led them to Mackenzie’s car.
“Okay,” Jenni said demurely. Then she stepped forward and put her arms around him and squeezed tightly. At the same time Maggie turned to Mackenzie and reached out her hand, smiling, but with a sad, frightened look in her eyes, and said, “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”
Mackenzie returned her smile absently as she scanned the street to see if she could spot anyone who might have been following them and said, “You’re very welcome, but you’ve got to get going before they have a chance to catch up to us.”
“Okay,” said Maggie, “but bring Matt back to me, please.”
“Yes, please,” added Jenni who turned to look at Mackenzie with an expression that was not so much asking as begging.
Mackenzie forced a smile. “Of course, but the best thing you can do for him right now is get to safety,” she said plaintively. “Right now that’s all he cares about, and all he needs.”
Maggie and Jenni looked to each other and then climbed into the car, started it, activated the map app and drove away. As they pulled away, Jenni turned, leaned out of the window and waved.
Denton watched them, waving, as they shrank down the street until they were out of sight and then he turned to Mackenzie. He had several questions to ask her, but she had pulled out her phone and dialed.
###
“Yes, everyone’s safe. Maggie and Jenni are on their way to the safe house and we’re on our way to the encryption key.
“How’s it going with you?”
“A-okay.” This was a relief to Mackenzie: he’d used the safe word she had come up with. This meant he was still in control and the plan was going as expected.
“Okay, give Lopez the drive and get out of there.” Though she tried to hide it, there was a sense of urgency in her voice. She knew this was the most difficult and dangerous part of the plan they had worked out. She wasn’t happy when Reynolds had insisted, at the pool house, on being the one to stay behind, but he was right that Lopez was more likely to go along with him, an amateur and family man, than he would be with a homicide detective who was trained and who he thought had no skin in the game. So she had agreed, reluctantly, because he wouldn’t relent.
“It’s my fault this has happened and I’m not going to risk anyone else’s life to stop it,” he’d said emphatically.
“Matt, you didn’t kno…”
“Yes, but I know now.”
They decided they would make it seem like he was raising his decision at the moment and that it was a surprise. She hoped that its appearing to be unexpected would help convince Lopez to agree; it would feed his confidence and convince him it was an advantage. Besides, Mackenzie had given him something she hoped might make a difference if things got hot, but she knew there were no guarantees.
Now was the moment the plan would be tested. Denton had created a substitute drive he hoped would fool them. It was a pretty good fake, but he only had a short time, and if Lopez had any computer knowledge he would be able to see that the encryption files on the drive were not the same size, and the code was different, either of which would be bad for Reynolds.
As she and Denton listened anxiously on the cell phone speaker they could hear Lopez say, “Well, Mr. Reynolds, are you ready to surrender the drive now?”
They could hear the rustle from his coat pocket as he took the drive out. “Sure. Here it is, and good riddance,” he said as he set his phone down on the table and slowly stood.
“You’ve had it on you all along! I admire your courage Mr. Reynolds. Now please give it to my associate.” There was menace mixed with his admiration, which left Reynolds cold.
“No. Stay where you are. I’ll set it right here on the table and then I’m going to walk out of the door. Once I’ve gone, you can come for it.”
“Mr. Reynolds,” Lopez said with a tone of amusement, “you don’t think I’m going to let you leave here until I’ve had a chance to verify the drive is authentic, do you?” Reynolds didn’t really think it would work, but it was worth a try if it would get him a little closer to the door.
“Okay then, I’ll toss it to you, and once you see it’s the drive you want, we’ll go our separate ways.”
There was silence now. Mackenzie’s anxiety level was spiking along with Denton’s. This was what she was afraid of. Was he going to accept it? Or would he realize he was being played?
She heard Lopez say, “Here,” which she assumed meant he had given the drive to one of his men. She and Denton looked at each other, fear aching in every cell of their body. The wait was excruciatingly long; at least thirty seconds. Mackenzie was fidgeting while holding the phone, the helplessness, like a tidal surge, crashed over her. She considered telling Reynolds to just make a run for it, and she was about to say it when she and Denton heard Lopez say, “I’m very disappointed in you Mr. Reynolds. This fraud might be passible to some, but not to me… No more games. Where’s the real drive?” His rage, now unrestrained, was evident even over the phone.
“What do you mean? That is it!” Even Mackenzie and Denton could hear he wasn’t very convincing. Reynolds simply wasn’t a very good liar.
“I’m going to give you one last chance, and then I’m going to have to take this to the next level: I’m going to hurt you, like I did Welling—he begged me to kill him—or I’ll send my associates to find your family and bring them back here so you can see me inflict my anger on them. What shall it be?”
There was no doubt from the sound of his voice that Lopez meant what he said, and Mackenzie decided it was over. It was a long-shot, they tried it, but it didn’t work, so she yelled into the phone, “RUN!”
Mackenzie and Denton heard a table being knocked over as gun shots rang out and the phone dropped to the floor.
Then there were more shots fired—it sounded like about four or five—it was hard to tell as there were many fired at once, and then someone, one of Lopez’s associates, yelled, “Manny’s down! Followed by Lopez yelling, “You’re not going to get out Mr. Reynolds, you’re losing too much….”
There was another loud shot, followed by silence for a few seconds, then they heard Reynolds’s voice, weak and raspy, saying, “That’s for Mike.”
Then there was another shot. It was louder than the others, closer to the phone, and then the sound of shuffling footsteps moving very slowly and becoming louder until someone picked up the phone and Mackenzie and Denton heard, “You made me kill him, Detective. His death is on your head.” His voice was low. He had the tremor of someone in serious pain. He was breathing slowly and gasping.
Mackenzie replied, “You’ve lost Lopez. Your best move now is to get to a hospital and….” Before she could finish the phone went dead.
Mackenzie and Denton stood looking at the phone, and then at each other, and then she dialed 911 and reported shots being fired at the warehouse. After she gave the operator the address she hung up. She thought about calling Capt. Davis but decided against it. He could be being watched, was likely being watched. Mackenzie shut off the power, opened the back, and discarded the phone and its battery in a trash can near the deli.
Denton didn’t move. His face was turning red, his eyes were watery, and, after a moment, he broke down and cried, painfully sobbing as he fell against the building.
Mackenzie raised her chin and looked off in the distance, stifling her emotions. “I should have never have let him stay behind. I should never have left him alone,” she thought.
After a minute she turned to Denton and said, “Stanley, I know it’s hard right now, but we’re not finished. We have to do our part. We’ve got to get the drive to the encryption key and out to the world.” She paused for a moment to collect herself, and to allow Denton to do the same, and then she continued, “Matt did his part, we can’t let his sacrifice be in vain.”
Denton wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand and tried to collect himself. He straightened, looked up, turned and looked at Mackenzie, eyes still red and wet. “All he cared about was saving Maggie and Jenni. And he did that.”
“Yes, he wanted to save Maggie and Jenni. But that wasn’t what started this, and that’s not all he wanted to do, he was doing this for the country too!
“All of this has happened because President Henry and his cronies betrayed their oaths, their offices, and our country, and Matt refused to allow that to happen, he wasn’t going to allow the deaths of all those who sacrificed their lives for our country to be sullied by Henry’s egomaniacal move to become czar or king or emperor or whatever delusional title he wants. He wasn’t going to let him go unchallenged…. And neither are we!”
Mackenzie wasn’t sure if that was true. After Maggie and Jenni were taken he really only cared about them and seemed to lose interest in the drive. But she cared. Denton stood silently absorbing Mackenzie’s words. He looked up at the cloudy sky and closed his eyes as a breeze rushed by, comfortingly caressing his face. He needed to channel his emotions in some direction and Mackenzie had given him one—President Henry. He couldn’t get Lopez, but he could fuck the guy who hired him.
“Okay. You’re right…we’ll finish this…for Matt.”
###
Lopez had dropped to the floor and was leaning his head against the wall. Blood was soaking his shirt, it was almost completely red. He was having difficulty breathing and he was getting cold. The pain wasn’t as intense as before, but he knew that likely meant he was in shock. He was angry with himself for letting Reynolds get off his last shot, or even the first one. He had underestimated him. That was not something he did, “but they hurried me,” he thought. He never considered Reynolds would be willing to sacrifice himself, especially after his family was free. But Lopez had never had a family. He never cared about someone more than he cared about himself, so while the idea of self-sacrifice was something he could understand intellectually, the idea, much less the experience, was too abstract for him to comprehend.
He was impressed Reynolds had managed to kill his two men, even more impressed Reynolds had managed to shoot him. But, he thought, they were in such close quarters that Reynolds simply blasted away and got lucky.
Or was it luck? Lopez thought he and his men were being clever, inching their way toward Reynolds while talking to him, distracting him, but he now realized Reynolds actually might have been allowing them to get closer to him so he would be better able to hit them. “Stupid,” Lopez thought. Then his eyes went wide and his head fell to the side.
A moment later, the door to the warehouse opened and a man stepped through with his gun drawn and aimed. He was soaking wet. After taking a second to scan the room, he lowered his gun and stood slack, taking in the scene: the table was on its side and divided the room, chairs were scattered everywhere. To the right side, the men with whom he had been hired the day before were laying where they had fallen, and on his left was the man he had driven there, and behind him the boss, Lopez, splayed out against the wall. He stood, taking in the spectacle, pools of blood painting the floor, and silence filling the air, until he said with quiet venom, “Damn, You killed Manny!”
He then heard a low moan coming from the man laying on the floor next to Lopez. The wet man walked over to him and saw he was beginning to stir. He bent down and noticed that under his coat his shirt had two holes. He looked more carefully and saw through the holes that the shirt had hidden a kevlar vest. “Clever,” he whispered to himself.
Reynolds, laying on the cold concrete, fought to regain consciousness, but his mind filled with images of Maggie and Jenni and his dad. It was only a few seconds, but in those seconds he finally understood why his dad had sacrificed everything, time with his family, and even his life; he wanted his wife and son to be safe. But he, like his father, became so enamored with the nobility of his work that he forgot about the nobility in being a husband and a father, and in that moment of epiphany he understood his dad’s regret. Everything made sense to him now, the missed birthdays and holidays, all the time away. For a moment he returned to his childhood love for his dad, and with that love and understanding came the low moan, “I’m sorry, Jenni.”
Surprised, the wet man stood, raised his gun, aimed at the moaning man’s head and fired. “That’s for Manny,” he said as water dripped to the concrete floor.