Page 33 of Fish in a Barrel

“I don’t know where we are. There’s a dirt track running down the hill past the picnic area. We’ve found it, and it seems to be heading deeper into the brush and the woodland. We’re running toward cover—”

Jackson and Cody both heard a shout and tramping feet, and Jackson didn’t finish that sentence. Hugging the side of the road, risking the rocks and the uneven terrain, they both started jogging toward the darkness of better cover, hardly able to see where they were going in the sheeting rain.

Another shout and a shot—this one going wide again—and Engall Goslar’s voice proclaiming loudly, “McMurphy, goddammit, stop shooting at them! Your ordinance can be tracked!”

“Fuck!”

And Jackson used that moment to dodge into the brush, off the path, pulling Cody with him.

It was harder to run this way; the bitter clawlike branches of the manzanita bushes scratched their faces, and the rocks were trying to maim them with every step. Just as Jackson thought their luck couldn’t hold out, his foot hit a piece of decomposed granite and his ankle rolled. He went tumbling down a slight hill, coming to a stop with a smack against a leveled stretch of dirt packed too hard for the rain to soften.

He glanced around, figuring he’d landed in a campground of some sort, and looked up in time to see a figure in a yellow rain slicker crash into Cody Gabriel.

Jackson pulled himself to his feet and rushed to Cody’s aid, getting behind the figure—he thought it was Goslar but couldn’t be sure—and kicking him in the vulnerable place behind the knee. Their attacker went down, and Cody looked up in time to shout a warning.

Jackson felt the blade, hampered by his sodden sweatshirt, as it sliced down his shoulder, ground into bone, and slid down his side as he turned, elbow up, to fend it off. It hit flesh and then ribs before he lunged, elbow making contact with Freddy McMurphy’s nose, the crunch satisfying and brutal, right as the full extent of the damage flash-fired through Jackson’s brain.

“Fuck!” he snarled, and something crashed into his legs from behind, sending him sprawling backward, Freddy McMurphy on him with a three-inch fixed-blade, illegal as fuck and highly lethal.

Jackson had his arm up to block, and McMurphy was fighting like a man possessed, driven by pain, adrenaline, and the promise to kill.

Jackson grabbed his wrist in both hands, scrabbling to stop him, and McMurphy used his other hand to squeeze Jackson’s throat. Breathing was getting hard, and Jackson’s vision wavered, dark and rippled, but Jackson kept his hands on the hand with the knife in it and raised his knee,hard, between McMurphy’s legs. McMurphy’s grip on his throat lessened, and the dagger—oh thank God—droppedfrom between his fingers onto the mud by Jackson’s head.

Jackson raised his knee again, hard enough to rupture this fucker’s balls, and McMurphy let out a whimper and collapsed to his side, leaving Jackson to scramble to his feet, looking wildly around to see where the next threat was coming from.

He saw Cody Gabriel on his knees, Engall Goslar behind him with his own fixed-blade inches from Cody’s throat, and he had just enough time to think,I can’t get there in time. Oh God, I can’t get there in time!Suddenly Goslar went stiff, as though struck by lightning, dropping his own dagger onto the muddy earth and falling on his face, missing Cody by inches and leaving him, wet and trembling, on his knees.

In Goslar’s back, Jackson could see two electrodes and the wires that connected them to Henry’s taser.

Henry was standing, feet apart in a classic shooting stance, face contorted in a snarl as the rain washed down on them all.

Jackson’s knife wound suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree, and he had to work not to keel over and throw up from shock.

“Nice job,” he managed to rasp, moving creakily toward Cody and trying to control his own shaking.

“Ta-da,” Henry replied, bringing his arms down and disconnecting the spent taser wires. “Backup.”

“There’s a reason to have it,” Jackson said seriously. “How far away are you parked?”

“Other side of the rise.” Henry nodded with his chin. “I watched you guys disappear toward the campgrounds and these assholes follow you. What should we do now?”

“Remove the taser prongs, retract the wires, find the tags—every taser charge has them. They can identify the buyer,” Jackson said, voice robotic as he knelt by Cody. “Do you have some plastic bags?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because we’re treating the knives like evidence in a crime,” Jackson told him grimly. “Ellery is admitting them into evidence tomorrow, in case they try to use this little incident against us.” He placed two fingers under Cody’s chin and pulled his eyes up to meet Jackson’s own. “Brother, you’re okay. You’re okay. You’re alive, and we need your help.”

Cody nodded, but Jackson could see the shakes already start to overtake his body. The adrenaline had probably burnt off the last of the drugs in his system.

Behind him, he heard McMurphy moan, and he stood and reached out imperiously for the plastic evidence bags Henry would have in his cargo pants, because Jackson had taught him well.

He scooped up McMurphy’s knife in the bag first, checking on McMurphy long enough to see that he’d live.

“Did I rupture your testicle?” he asked clinically, and McMurphy whimpered some more. Jackson hoped so.

Then, bagged knife in hand, he grabbed Cody’s elbow and, while Henry was still cleaning up the taser, started escorting Cody to the car. He’d found it—and Henry had just joined them—when he heard Freethy and Brown shout, probably finding their accomplices disarmed and injured in the mud.

“What now, boss?” Henry asked, panting. “Hospital for you?”