Protecting Dallas

“Tension breaker,” I breathed, smiling as I quoted one of my favorite movies. “Had to be done.”

Fifty-Six

MADDOX

The perimeter alarm chirped sometime around noon.

It was strange, because we hadn’t picked up signs of motion. There was no one outside, nothing to be seen anywhere on the property. After checking the feeds, none of the monitors showed activity on the block either.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

Kane was already at the door, pistol drawn. I had the safety off on my MP5, just past the south window. In perfect position to back him up.

For a few long seconds we did nothing. Then, just after the second knock came, Kane snuck a peek through the peephole.

“Unfuckingreal.”

He grabbed the handle and flung the door open. Before I even knew what was happening, he’d grabbed the person on our doorstep and heaved him into the house, slamming him against the nearest wall.

“EASY! EASY!”

The man stood on his tiptoes, hands held high over his head. He was big. Big like us. Blond hair, squared shoulders. I couldn’t see his face yet, but Kane’s pistol was jammed so far under his chin his tongue was practically forced out of his mouth.

“Fuckin’ RELAX!” the man snarled.

That voice…

I’d already drawn down on him. Now I stepped in and jabbed my barrel violently into his ribs. He doubled over in pain, and in a flash Kane both kicked the door closed and slammed the man in the jaw with the butt of his Sig Sauer.

“I’ve seen a lot of shit,” Kane growled, dropping his knee onto the man’s back. He grabbed his arms. Pinned them behind his torso. “But never a straight-up deathwish like this!”

“Motherfucker,” the man growled from the floor. All the air had been knocked from his lungs. He was wheezing hard, trying to regain his breath. “Shut the fuck up already… and listen.”

Holy shit.

Dietz.

“Listen to what?” Kane growled. “To how you betrayed us? To how you got Winters killed?”

“I didn’t—”

“To the sinister shit you’ve been doing out in the desert with your friends? “ I added. I produced a pair of thick white zip-ties. Kane had the man bound in seconds, hands and feet, still coughing as he lay on his side.

“Pat him down.”

We did it together. The whole thing happened quickly, surgically. Like we’d done it a thousand times.

Which of course we had.

“He’s clean. Not even a blade.”

Dietz coughed again, and this time there was blood on his lips. Kane slid a chair over, and together we lifted him up and planted him upright.

“You assholes,” Dietz spat, and a tooth came out. It skittered noisily across the tile floor. “This is how you answer the door?”

“It is when a traitor shows up.”

Karl Dietz looked like shit warmed over. Part of it was his scraggly patch of stubble, which was halfway between clean-shaven and a respectable beard. The other part was his dirt-streaked face. His dust-caked hair. The pink froth of blood, dribbling from his split bottom lip…