Chapter 6 - Retaliation in the Dark
By nineteen-hundred hours, the sun had finally dipped below the Georgia pines, leaving the sky bruised with shades of deep violet and burnt orange. The heat didn't leave; it simply settled into the red clay, radiating off the asphalt like an open oven.
My cheek was throbbing with a dull, sickening ache. A medic at the base clinic had cleaned the cut, applied three butterfly bandages, and handed me an ice pack and a bottle of ibuprofen. I had spent four hours in an interrogation room at CID headquarters, giving my official sworn statement to three separate federal investigators while a stenographer typed every word.
When I finally pulled my battered ten-year-old Honda Civic into the driveway of my quarters on Cherokee Way—a modest, single-story duplex in the junior NCO housing area—my hands were trembling against the steering wheel.
The front porch light was on.
As soon as the engine cut off, the front screen door banged open. Bree stepped out onto the porch, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. Behind her, through the living room window, I could see the twins, Toby and Lucas, sitting on the carpet, their faces illuminated by the glow of the television.
"Mom?" Bree walked down the concrete steps, her dark eyes instantly locking onto the white bandages on my cheek. "What happened? Mrs. Henderson from next door said the MP barracks were on full lockdown. She said people were talking about Gate Six."
"I'm fine, baby," I said, forcing a smile that pulled painfully against the stitches. I pulled her into a tight hug, inhaling the sweet, familiar scent of strawberry shampoo and cinnamon toast. "Just a rough shift. An unruly civilian at the gate."
"Mom, you're bleeding through the tape," Bree said, her voice trembling. She was sixteen, old enough to know that when an MP sergeant comes home with a split face and rumors are running through the post grapevine, things are very bad. "They said Colonel Harmon was relieved. They said his wife was arrested by federal marshals. Mom... did she do that to you?"
"Come inside," I said gently, guiding her by the shoulder back toward the porch. "Go check on your brothers. Let me get out of this uniform."
Inside, the house smelled of canned tomato soup and grilled cheese—Bree had taken care of dinner, just like she always did when I had a late shift. I hugged Toby and Lucas, listening to them chatter about a stray dog they’d seen near the playground, before ducking into my small bedroom and closing the door.
I peeled off my sweaty, dust-caked utility uniform, tossing it into the laundry hamper. In the bathroom mirror, the damage looked worse under the harsh yellow bulb. A deep purple hematoma stretched from my cheekbone down to my jawline.
I washed my face with cold water, changed into a pair of faded sweatpants and a worn gray Army Physical Fitness t-shirt, and sat on the edge of the bed.
On my nightstand sat my personal phone. There were twelve missed calls.
Four from unknown numbers. Three from the MP battalion administrative officer. And five from a local civilian number I didn't recognize.
As I stared at the screen, the phone vibrated again, buzzing against the wood.
I tapped the screen and held it to my ear. "Conroy."
"Sergeant Conroy," a voice purred on the other end. It was male, smooth, low, and devoid of any military cadence. "You've had quite a busy afternoon."
I stood up immediately, every protective instinct I had honed as a mother and a cop snapping to high alert. "Who is this?"
"A friend of the Harmon family," the voice replied smoothly. "A friend who understands that forty-four-year-old single mothers with fourteen years of service have a great deal to lose. Your eldest daughter... Bree, isn't it? She walks to the high school bus stop on Dusty Trail at zero-seven-hundred every morning. Fort Ansel is a big base, Sergeant. Lots of heavy transport traffic. Blind spots near the pine groves. It would be a terrible tragedy if an industrial vehicle had a mechanical failure near that intersection."
My heart stopped. The blood rushed out of my face, replaced by a cold, murderous clarity.
"If you come anywhere near my children," I whispered, my voice shaking with pure lethal intent, "I will not call the Provost Marshal. I will take my service weapon and I will put two rounds through your forehead."
A dry, chilling chuckle echoed through the receiver. "You don't have your service weapon, Kate. You left it in the General's truck. And Bruce Harmon may be in quarters, but his friends are not. Withdraw your statement. Tell CID you misidentified the driver. Tell them you were suffering from heat exhaustion and hallucinated the assault. You do that by zero-eight-hundred tomorrow, or your pension will be the very least of your concerns."
The line went dead.
A sudden, sharp knock banged against my front door.
I dropped the phone. My heart surged into my throat. Bree screamed from the living room: "Mom! Someone's outside!"
I didn't hesitate. I reached under my bed, pulled out the heavy steel lockbox bolted to the floorboards, spun the three-digit combination, and lifted the lid. Inside was my personal weapon—a Mossberg 500 twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun I had bought five years ago for home defense.
I grabbed a box of 00-buckshot, loaded four heavy shells into the magazine tube with sharp, mechanical clicks, racked the slide back with a loud, terrifying *clack-clack*, and walked out into the hallway.
"Bree," I commanded, my voice like steel. "Take the boys into my bathroom. Lock the door. Turn off the light. Sit in the bathtub and do not make a sound until I tell you it's safe."
Bree’s eyes were huge, filled with terror, but she grabbed Toby and Lucas by their shirts and dragged them down the hall without questioning me.
I approached the front door, holding the shotgun at low-ready, my thumb resting on the safety switch.
"Step away from the door!" I shouted through the wood. "I am armed! Identify yourself immediately!"
"Sergeant! Sergeant Conroy, please! Don't shoot! It's Dewitt!"
A frantic, cracked voice came from the porch.
"Dewitt?" I hesitated, keeping the shotgun leveled. I reached out with my left hand and pulled the lace curtain back from the narrow window beside the deadbolt.
Standing on my porch under the yellow bug light were Privates Dewitt and Salas.
They weren't in uniform. They were in civilian jeans and hoodies, soaking wet with sweat, looking over their shoulders into the dark street as if a pack of wolves were trailing them. Salas was clutching a heavy, sealed plastic Pelican case to his chest like a life preserver.
I unlocked the deadbolt, pulled the door open six inches, the shotgun barrel resting firmly against the doorframe. "What the hell are you two doing at my quarters?"
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"Sergeant, let us in," Dewitt pleaded, his voice breaking. "Please. They're coming. Harmon's people... they're wiping the servers at the battalion depot right now."
***
