Old School Ch. 04: The Weight

Advantages like these are rare, but there were still a thousand things that could go wrong. Any of them could cause the whole thing to end badly, and it would all be Corder's failure if, for some reason, bullets flew. She couldn't rest easily until Moorefield was in custody and the children were found safe and reunited with the Apostle.

Her sweating hands were clenched into fists as she listened to whispered updates from an FBI agent concealed in the brush alongside state troopers who lay in wait for Moorefield.

"Subject vehicle is in sight ..." he said. "Now headlights flashed ... three times."

More silence. "Truck moving forward, farther into the boat launch area ..."

Then, "Trap is sprung. He's surrounded. Hands are up ... He's out of the truck, thrown to the ground ... now he's cuffed. Scene secured."

Sandy Corder shook her fist in affirmation.

"Kiddos ... what about the Apostle's grandkids?" she murmured to herself.

"Miss Corder, incoming phone call for you," said a technician working the bank of computer monitors, switches and keyboards. "Pick up on the line at your station."

The phone beeped and Sandy picked it up instantly. "Corder here."

She listened for a few seconds. The commander of the southeastern Indiana post of the Indiana State Police in Lawrenceburg confirmed that Kylie and Kendall Rothermel had been found in Moorefield's trailer. They were hungry, dirty and terrified but safe in an ISP car en route to Lawrenceburg where they could be reunited with Ruth Rothermel.

Kass Felson could hear Sandy's celebratory yelp in her seat outside the locked door to the cocoon. Unsure what it meant, her heart began to pound. She still knew nothing of the fate of Les Walker. And now this ... noise behind the locked door. What did it mean?

Enough was enough. What were they going to do to her for knocking on the door? So she did, sobbing and pleading to those inside, "Will someone please tell me what's happening?"

Corder looked around the room and realized that she had forgotten that Will Gustin had escorted Kass to the antechamber of the mobile command center.

"Oh, shit! I gotta go," Corder said, rising from her chair. "By the way, exemplary work ... all of you. I've never seen better coordination on such short notice."

The Cincinnati Police technician punched a series of numbers into a keypad and the door unlatched. When Sandy Corder emerged through it, she found Kass standing there weeping uncontrollably and wrapped her in her arms.

"Oh Kass, I'm so sorry you were subjected to all of this," the FBI agent said. She held Kass and let her cry for a few moments before she gained enough composure to ask about Les.

"Come with me," Corder said with a blank face. She led Kass out of the bus and down East Fifth Street to a waiting cordon of ambulances. She stopped at the second one, showed the driver her badge. "Open the rear please," she told him.

The EMT exited the cab and walked around to the back doors of the vehicle, its engine idling and its lights flashing. Sandy and Kass followed him. He knocked on the rear door. "It's me," he said.

The two doors swung open. Inside it, Kass saw a gurney, and on the gurney was a man in a gray suit and socked feet. Her heart froze. A medic in pale blue scrubs was leaning over the man, attending his upper extremities.

"Oh God ... no," Kass gasped.

"Kass?" It was Les's voice.

"Les! Les!" Kass screamed, trying to push her way into the patient care area before the EMT restrained her.

"Kass!" Les yelled, now sitting up on the gurney and pushing aside the woman in scrubs who had been tending to a bandage around his head. "Can I see her? Please?"

The attending EMT looked at him, looked at Kass and then nodded at the colleague who had blocked Kass's entrance. He shrugged and released her. Kass clambered into the treatment bay of the ambulance, struggling to keep her balance on the steel floor and the tight confines.

She was sobbing again by the time Les wrapped her in his arms. She squeezed him fiercely and peppered his face with one kiss after another, pausing occasionally to return to his lips. He threaded her reddish curls through his fingers again for the first time in more than three months.

"Oh, Les, I thought they'd killed you. I got here fast as I could after I talked to the Apostle when she came to the store ... and they got her grandkids so she came in to vandalize my store but warned me your life was in danger ..." the words tumbled forth from Kass in a nonsensical, stream-of-consciousness manner.

Finally, she gave up, kissed him again, pressed her face against his chest and sobbed some more, releasing months of pain and fear and heartbreak and loneliness. Les cradled her in his arms as she did. The medics and Sandy Corder just backed away and gave them a moment.

"How soon before we can talk to him," Corder asked the medic in the scrubs.

"We're taking him to the UC ER to check the severity of his concussion and make sure there's not a skull fracture. They pistol whipped him pretty hard," the EMT said. "Can't say whether they'll keep him overnight or release him. My gut says overnight."

Sandy nodded. "We can wait," she said, content to bask in the happiness of the reunited lovers and relish the unlikely successful conclusion of a harrowing day. "No rush. Today it ended with everyone alive and the bad guys with nowhere to run."

Next: Chapter Five — Danville