Scorpion Strike. John Gilstrap

the owner’s kid!” Hunter exclaimed.

      Welcome to the show, Jonathan didn’t say.

      “How did you get away?” Gail asked.

      “I slipped out when they weren’t looking,” Tyler said. “I know stuff that regular guests don’t know.”

      “Like how to slip out when people aren’t looking,” Jonathan said, drawing a smile.

      “I figured that once they figured out who I was, and where my stepfather isn’t, I’d wish I was somewhere else.”

      “Weren’t you with a young lady?” Lori asked. Her voice was heavy with disdain.

      “Annie,” he said.

      “But didn’t I hear you say that if one part of a couple ran away—”

      “The others would be killed, yeah.”

      Tyler’s words sort of sucked the air out of the jungle for a second or two.

      “Look,” he said, “I’m not proud that I left, okay? I asked her to come with me. Begged her, but she wanted to stay.”

      Jonathan cleared his throat. He got where the kid was coming from, but he wondered how he was going to feel about the decision later if something bad happened to his girlfriend.

      “And besides, it’s not like we’re an actual couple,” Tyler pressed. “There’s no record of her being here, either. And even if they connect us, my last name is different than my stepfather’s. So, even if they puzzle out who I am, what are the chances they’ll figure out my relationship with her?”

      “All it would take is for one of the other hostages to want a favor at her expense,” Hunter said.

      “Moving along,” Jonathan said. “What’s done is done, and it’s not our job to judge you or anyone else. Chances are, this whole thing will take care of itself quickly, and there’ll be no more loss of life.” That last part was total bullshit. In fact, Jonathan fully expected this to get much, much worse before it even began to turn the corner.

      He changed the subject. “You were going to tell us where you were going.”

      * * *

      When the kid talked about a shantytown, Jonathan had wondered if he knew what that meant. It was clear that he did. There were ten of them in all, constructed of tar paper and two-by-fours and arranged in parallel rows straddling the overgrown remains of what had once been a road. The structures had not aged well. Windows were mostly broken, and relentless water and humidity had inflicted brutal damage to the roofs and floors in particular.

      “Are you sure it’s safe to use a flashlight here?” Hunter asked. “Aren’t we going to attract attention?”

      “It’s a big jungle,” Jonathan said, “and we’re on the other side of the mountain. There are no guarantees, but rest assured that if I thought it was a bad idea, I wouldn’t do it.”

      “How long ago were these abandoned?” Gail asked.

      “At least twelve, maybe fifteen years,” Tyler said. He pointed to the shack that was farthest down on the right. “That last one down there isn’t in too bad shape. Me and a buddy sort of keep it up. We don’t have glass for the windows, but there’s that roll-up plastic stuff for the bad storms. We cover the windows when we’re not here, and the roof is in pretty good shape.”

      Lori cleared her throat. “Are the outhouses . . .”

      “They work, and we even have toilet paper,” Tyler said, earning a smile from Lori. “But this is still the jungle. I wouldn’t sit without checking first.”

      “Thanks for the safety tip,” Gail said.

      Jonathan held up his hand, a signal for all of them to stop. “Do you smell anything?” he asked Gail.

      She sniffed the air. “Weed?”

      “That’s what I got.” Jonathan thumbed the safety switch to FIRE and brought the M4 to his shoulder. “Y’all stay here,” he said. Maybe the bright white light hadn’t been a good idea, after all.

      “Wait!” Tyler said, racing ahead. “Jaime, is that you?” he whisper-shouted.

      “Who the hell is Jaime?” Hunter asked.

      “Dude, if you’re there hiding, step out. It’s me. It’s Ty.”

      “Hold where you are,” Jonathan said. “I don’t know who Jaime is, but if that’s not—”

      “It’s him,” Tyler insisted. “I know it is.”

      “Stop, goddammit!” Jonathan shouted. No whisper to it. “Jaime, if that’s you and you’re hiding, this is the only chance you will have to present yourself.” He opened his muzzle light to its widest aperture and lit up nearly the whole structure.

      From somewhere up ahead, a shaky voice said, “Don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot.”

      “We’re getting that request a lot tonight,” Jonathan said just loudly enough for Gail to hear.

      Tyler turned to face Jonathan and waved both his hands. “That’s his voice,” he said. “That’s Jaime Bonilla. He’s the maintenance guy here.” Then he turned and hurried to the door of the tar paper shanty and pulled it open.

      A dark-skinned man dressed in flowered shorts and a wifebeater lunged from the opening and tackled Tyler to the ground.

      Jonathan tracked them with his muzzle, but couldn’t get a clear target through the tangle of flailing limbs.

      “Jaime! Jaime!” Tyler yelled. “It’s me. What are you doing?”

      Jonathan let his rifle fall against its sling and he waded into the fight. It was really more of a schoolyard flail fest, the kind of struggle where both players were guaranteed to escape with only a few bruises. The kind of fight you saw among people who didn’t know how to fight.

      Jonathan found a shirt collar, closed his fist around it, and pulled. The fabric pulled then tore, but it held enough to peel Jaime out of the scrum and onto his feet. Barely older than Tyler, he weighed maybe 125 pounds, and he was still flailing. He spun to flail on Jonathan, but whatever he saw convinced him in an instant that throwing that punch would be a bad idea.

      Jaime pulled away. “Who are you? What the hell is going on?”

      “Settle down, son,” Jonathan said. “We’re in the same boat as you. No clue what’s happening, and just trying to stay alive. Now, are you going to settle down, or are we going to have an issue?”

      Jaime looked to Tyler. “Sorry, bro. I thought . . . oh, hell, I don’t know what I thought. Did I hurt you?”

      “No, I’m fine.”

      “What’s going on down there?” Jaime asked. “I heard all this shooting, and then there was screaming. I mean, what the hell?”

      “Terrorists.” Tyler took the better part of a minute to catch his friend up.

      As they chatted, Jonathan poked Gail’s arm, and motioned for her to join him, away from the others. Together, they swept the structures in a search for bad guys, but neither was surprised that the shacks were empty.

      “We can’t win this fight,” Gail said. “Not if it comes to shooting. Even if we got rifles for every one of them—”

      “Yeah, I know,” Jonathan agreed. “Whoever these terrorists are, they seem to have skills. That’s concerning.”

      “Right,” Gail said with a chuckle. “That’s exactly the word I was going to use.”

      “You were able to snag our cell phones on the way out of the room, right?”

      “They’re in my backpack.”

      “Okay,