Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 107352 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107352 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Whoever this guy was, I was betting he’d been watching the house and seen me with the streaks of silver and white in my hair and thought, fuck this guy, I can ditch him easily. I was hoping that was the case. I didn’t want him to have any intel on me. Wanted him to be clueless that I had years of military training to fall back on.
Tracking him was easy. I was careful and methodical, and three streets over, when he reached his Ford Bronco, when he opened the door, I wrenched him away and threw him down onto the sidewalk.
He rolled to his feet, but when he unzipped his jacket, I wasn’t about to let him pull his gun or whatever weapon he had. I dove at him again. Bigger, stronger, younger than me accounted for nothing in the rain trying to drown us both. Plus, I was carrying my Pro-Tech TR-3 X1M switchblade in my left ankle holster.
Did I know the knife was illegal in Washington State? Not before I arrived. But it went, as my gun did, in my duffel as checked baggage. The knife flew inside a compartment that would be impossible for anyone to find. If TSA wanted to open my luggage and look at the hardshell, biometric gun case my Glock traveled in, they could. But they couldn’t open it. All in all, though, my baggage was pretty boring. Plus, the standard-issue Army duffel was not something most TSA agents, or baggage handlers, thought twice about. That was probably not great, but at the moment, that worked to my advantage, as my switchblade, having made the trip, was far more easily accessible, and helpful, than my gun.
Surprisingly—and interestingly—the guy didn’t pull any weapon. All the sicarios I’d met up with before in my life carried both a gun and a knife, just like I did. Instead, this guy lunged at me, and I rammed the knife into his side, straight, not trying to hit any vital organs, solely trying to hurt him enough so he’d stop fighting. I didn’t want him dead; he couldn’t answer questions that way. His scream was lost to the downpour and the thunder before he pulled me down with him into the quickly running water near the storm drain.
As we rolled around, each of us getting scraped up on the concrete, he landed some punches, but I got in more, finally fisting my hand in his jacket and lifting him up so I could hit him. It was harder to punch down than people thought, because if someone moved, a fist into the curb or sidewalk could very well result in a broken hand.
Once he was finally knocked out, I turned him on his side, and got in the passenger side of the Bronco so I was out of the deluge. My phone was cracked, that quickly dead, but when I checked the glove compartment, his was there. Calling 911, I got the Newcastle Police Department, reported the emergency, and told them I was on my way to Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue and could they please send officers there. After a few moments, a deep male voice came on the line.
“Mr. Miller, this is Deputy Chief Gabriel Sampson. Is the man who was on the Duchesne property in danger of losing his life?”
“Probably not, but he’s losing blood.”
“I’m on my way now with two officers, and I have two EMTs coming as well. We’ll meet you at the Eena police station in five minutes tops.”
“How are you so close?”
“We just left there. We’ve been going through files all day. We have been since Wilson was removed.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you there.”
I was surprised as I sat outside the police station that the guy did not wake up. He didn’t even stir when I took off the T-shirt under my cardigan, wadded it up, and pressed it to his wound to stem the blood flow. But between the shallowness of the injury and how cold it was, I realized he’d lost far less blood than I thought he had.
True to his word, Sampson arrived on time, followed in short order by the EMTs, who worked on the man to ready him for transport to the hospital. He woke up when the IV needle went into his arm and was quickly restrained and cuffed to the gurney.
Once he was secured, Sampson pulled the guy’s wallet and his gun before he was sent with an officer in the back of the ambulance, and two patrol cars following, to Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue. The Ford Bronco was pulled into the station’s garage, and Sampson waved as his crime-scene technicians showed up.
“That is a lot of people to call up on a Saturday night,” I told the deputy chief.
He grinned. “Not a lot going on in Eena other than you, Mr. Miller.”