Ransom

“They got Carl!” he shouted, and then turned on Peter, still holding the machine gun. “You bastard, you killed him!” Stark said as he fired a round at Peter. Peter had time to look at him for only a fraction of an instant before the bullets sawed his body in half, and he fell at Jim Free's feet.

“What are we going to do?” Jim Free asked Stark.

“Get the fuck out of here, if we can.” They already knew the brush was too thick on either side, and there was rock face behind them. They had no equipment to climb it, and the only way out was through the front and down the driveway, which was littered with bodies now, not only Carl's but the men that he and Stark had shot, before they got him. There were three bodies lying on the ground between the front of the house and the road, and Sam saw them as the man carrying him ran. He was like a running back heading for the end zone. He just ran harder and suddenly he was within two feet of Ted and Fernanda. They could see Sam now, as the sun streaked across the road. She was sobbing as she watched him, and then suddenly Sam was in her arms and everyone was crying. His eyes were wide and he looked shell-shocked and filthy dirty, but he was screaming for his mom, and she couldn't make a sound.

“Mommy!… Mommy!… Mommy!!” She was crying so hard, she couldn't say anything to him, she just clutched him to her, as they both fell to the ground, and she lay there, holding her baby, loving him, as she had every second he was gone. They lay there together on the ground for a long time, and then Ted gently picked them both up, and signaled to some of the men behind them to take them away. He and Rick had been watching them, with tears running down their cheeks, as were the other officers. A paramedic came to help them then. He carried Sam to a waiting ambulance, with Fernanda running along beside him and holding Sam's hand. They were taking him to a local hospital to check him out.

“Who've we got left in there?” Ted asked Rick, wiping the tears from his face with the back of his hand.

“Three guys, I guess. Waters is down. That leaves Morgan and two others. I don't suppose Morgan is still alive by now… that leaves two …” Inevitably they would have killed him, when they discovered Sam was gone, and particularly after Waters's death. They had seen Stark run back in, but they also knew that there was nowhere for them to go. They had orders to shoot to kill all of them save Morgan, if he was still alive.

The marksmen and sharpshooters came in then, and a man from the SWAT team with a bullhorn. He told them to come out with their hands up, that they were coming in. There was no response, and no one walked down the driveway and into the clearing. And within two minutes, forty men headed up, with tear gas bombs, high-powered rifles, machine guns, and flash bangs, which when thrown, blinded you with light, disoriented you with an explosion and a burst of pellets that flew everywhere and stung like bee stings. The sound of the ammunition being emptied into the house was deafening, as Fernanda drove away in the ambulance with Sam. She saw Ted standing with Rick in the road as they left, wearing a bulletproof vest and talking to someone on the radio. He didn't see her go.

Fernanda heard from one of the FBI men at the motel that the siege at the house had lasted less than half an hour. Stark came out first, choking on tear gas, with bullets in one arm and one leg, and Jim Free came out right behind him. One of the agents told her later he'd been shaking from head to foot, squealing like a little pig. They were taken into custody on the spot, and would be sent back to prison for parole violations, pending trial. They would be tried for Sam's kidnap sometime within the next year, as well as the murder of two police officers and the FBI agent they'd brought down during the siege, and four more men when they'd kidnapped Sam from his house.

They found Peter Morgan's body when they went in. Rick and Ted watched them remove it. They saw the room Sam had been held captive in, and the window Peter had shoved him through for the escape. Everything they needed was there. The van, the guns, the ammunition. The house had been rented in Peter's name. And Ted knew all three convicts by name. The death of Carlton Waters was no loss to anyone. He had been on the street for just over two months. As had Peter. Two wasted lives, almost since the beginning, and ever since then.