| General Fiction posted March 20, 2025 | Chapters: |
...44 45 -46- 47... 
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At the house where Johnny is being held
A chapter in the book The Devil Fights Back
The Devil Fights Back - Ch. 46
by Jim Wile
The author has placed a warning on this post for language.| Background Three intrepid women team up to conquer medical challenges. |
Recap of Chapter 45: Upon hearing from Dana that Brian’s phase-2 trials are going well, Rudy contacts Peter Israel with instructions to begin the next phase of the intimidation.
While lunching with Dana, Fran gets a call from the FBI that they picked up the phone call between Rudy and Israel last night, but it somehow didn’t get relayed until now when they just picked up another call that an attack is imminent. Fran calls Brian and warns him and then calls Julia, who, with Johnny and Marie, is being driven by Rudy to Johnny’s doctor appointment. She overhears Julia and Marie being tased by Woody, who was in on the plot, and the baby being kidnapped. Fran and Dana are on their way to Brian’s house, where the family will decide what to do.
Chapter 46
When Fran and Dana were still 20 minutes from Brian’s house, Fran’s phone rang. It was the FBI Communications Center with the location of the rental home. The wiretap on Israel’s phone had picked up Woody’s call to Israel once the baby had been snatched. Israel told him the rental house was at 213 Kipp Road in Shelby. Dana looked this up on Google Maps and found it was 15 miles from Cherryville. Fran continued on to Brian’s house as she thought about the best way to approach the situation.
When she and Dana arrived, Brian met them at the front door. Fran gave Brian a hug and said, “We’ll get him back.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes, Fran.” He showed them into the family room where Julia and Marie were seated. Julia’s eyes were red, and her face was tear-stained. Her hair was a mess, and she was obviously very distraught. Marie was holding her hand.
“I’m so sorry this is happening, Jules. Don’t lose hope. We’ll get him back. Hello, Marie. You both remember Dana, don’t you?”
Marie said, “Yes, hello, Dana. Do you know where they took Johnny, Fran?”
“We do. Our phone tap picked up the location. It’s in Shelby.”
“Shelby?” said Brian. “That’s only 20 minutes from here. Do you know the address?”
“I’ve got that too.”
“Well, let’s go get him,” said Julia.
“Not so fast, Jules. The kidnappers will be armed, and we don’t know how many there are. Have you gotten a call from them yet?”
“No,” said Brian.
“It ought to come soon. Do you have a landline here?”
“Yeah.”
“The call will probably come on that. Alright, I’m going to go there by myself now and scout out the situation. I’ll also be calling the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office for backup, but I’m going to wait a bit for that. I know the sheriff, and he’s a bit of an asshole. He’ll want to come in with sirens blaring, and I just want to see what the situation is first. What does Woody look like, by the way?”
“Real big guy with a crew cut,” said Brian.
“Thanks. Y’all stay here and call me as soon as you hear from the kidnappers.”
“I’m coming with you, Fran,” said Dana.
“Dana, no. You’re a civilian. These are guys with guns. I can’t bring you along.”
“Look, I promise I’ll stay in the car. I’ll just come along for moral support. Besides, I won’t give you back my key fob unless you let me come with you, and my car’s blocking the driveway.”
After a moment’s consideration, Fran smiled grimly and said, “Jesus, Dana. Alright, you can come, but you’ve got to stay in the car. Don’t you think I could get that fob from you if I really wanted to?”
“Oh, probably.”
Fran said, “I’ve got to make a quick call to my boss and let him know what’s happening. I’ll go in the other room.”
While Fran was making her call, Dana excused herself to use the bathroom. Marie said she was going to fix herself a drink. That left Brian and Julia alone on the couch. He put his arm around her and held her close while tears continued to stream down her face.
When Fran returned, Brian said, “Maybe I should go with you instead of Dana, Fran. I’ve got a gun, you know.”
“No, Brian. Jules needs you. Plus, you’ve got to stay here and get that phone call. You just call me on your cell when you hear from them. When is your bodyguard shift change?”
“Four o’clock.”
“Why don’t you call the agency and tell them to stop whoever is scheduled to come from coming. You don’t know if he’s also one of the bad guys. Of course, he may show up anyway, in which case you should probably have your gun handy, but don’t let him in.”
“Alright, Fran. You and Dana be careful. Take this backup inhaler with you too,” said Brian, handing her a canister of albuterol. “There’s one in the diaper bag they took and a spacer too. You know how to use it, don’t you?”
“Yep.”
When Dana rejoined Fran, they headed to Dana’s car. She handed Fran the fob.
Fran shook her head and smiled ruefully. “This is against my better judgment, Dana. No heroics, okay?”
“Who, me? I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Yeah, right.”
Fifteen minutes later, when they were perhaps still five miles from their destination, Dana said, “I wonder why Shelby? What the hell is there?”
“Fun fact. Shelby is where Earl Scruggs was born,” said a voice from the back seat.
This so startled Fran, she nearly lost control of the car. “Marie! What the hell are you doing here?”
Marie had popped up from the floor of the back. “Well, duh. I stowed away. Grandma wants to get that baby back as much as you do, Auntie. Probably more. If you do manage to get him back, he’s going to need someone to comfort him on the way home.”
“Jesus Christ, Marie! I ought to leave you here on the side of the road. I’ve already let one civilian come along. Now I’ve got two. Is there no end to this shitstorm?”
“Deal with it, Fran. I’m here now.”
“Marie, you had better stay in the car too when we get there. If I see you out of the car, I’ll shoot you myself.”
“I will. I promise.”
To lighten the mood a little, Dana said, “How did you happen to know that Shelby was where Earl Scruggs was born, Marie? I thought you hated bluegrass music.”
“You got that right, but I was intrigued by that hillbilly name and the effect he seems to have had on Julia and that damn banjo, so I looked him up on Wikipedia. They’ve even got an Earl Scruggs Museum in Shelby. Whoop-de-doo, right?”
“Yeah, maybe we could all go visit it when we get Johnny back,” said Dana.
Fran was not amused and, frowning, quietly shook her head from time to time.
They arrived at the rental home at 213 Kipp Road within minutes. It was an average-sized, two-story, craftsman-style house. Fran parked a few houses up from it on the same side of the street.
“Alright, I’m heading out now. Both of you remain in the car. If I’m not back in 15 minutes, I want you to call the Cleveland County Sheriff’s office and tell them the situation. Here’s the number to call.” She gave Dana the number. “Final word: Stay in the car. That means you too, Marie.”
“Aye aye, sir,” and she gave a mock salute with her left hand.
Fran exited the car and walked back to the house, stopping on the edge of the property at the corner of the lot. She extracted binoculars from her oversized handbag and scanned the front of the house for cameras. Seeing none, she began her approach to the house.
Inside, Woody was getting frustrated by the baby’s constant crying. He’d just changed a stinky diaper. The smell was terrible, and he opened the back door to go out and deposit it in the trashcan. In his agitation, he failed to relock the door.
The baby continued to cry, so Woody began heating up a bottle of formula he’d found in the diaper bag. The baby was driving him nuts with his fussing, and Woody figured he might be hungry, and this would shut him up. And what was with all those noises he was making—all that snorting and wheezing?
The other kidnapper, Billy, was studying a computer monitor in a corner of the living room. It was just the two of them. The monitor showed six separate pictures from minuscule hidden surveillance cameras that had been mounted at strategic points outside the house by the advance team. They were to give early warning of any attempt to break in.
Fran made her approach on the far side of a hedge between the properties of 215 and 213. When she was opposite the front of the house, she squeezed through the hedge onto the property of 213 and began circling the house, peering carefully into windows. She spotted a big, crew-cut guy in the kitchen. Had to be Woody. He was pulling something from the microwave oven. The window she peeked in was partially open, and she could hear Johnny inside, crying, but it was more than that. She could hear gasping and wheezing with occasional coughs. Was this an asthma attack? A new sense of urgency propelled her forward.
She passed the back door. It was too near the kitchen, where Woody was, to check whether it was unlocked.
As she passed by some more rear windows, she was unable to see the other guy, Billy, in the corner of the living room monitoring the computer screen because the shades were drawn. She couldn’t see Johnny either. She circled around the rest of the house, crossing the driveway, where she saw a single car, and made her way back across the front. What was Dana doing there at the corner, and was that a gun she was holding?
“Jesus, Dana, didn’t I tell you to stay in the car?” Fran said in a loud whisper.
“I couldn’t just let you go in alone without a partner. You told me yourself you always have a partner in dangerous situations.”
“Yeah, an FBI partner. Where did you get that gun, and do you even know how to shoot it?”
“It was in the glovebox. I practice at a gun range all the time with it. Remember I told you I packed when we first met at the Omni Hotel?”
“Dana, it’s too dangerous. I can’t let you break in with me.”
“Well, you’re going to have to disable me then to stop me. Otherwise, I’m coming.”
Fran hesitated for a long moment, sizing up the situation. Maybe it was time to put a little faith in Dana, who had proven time and again to be a very capable individual.
“God damn it. This is against my better judgment, but I don’t feel like disabling you, so I guess you’re coming in with me. I could only see Woody in there. There’s bound to be the other one too, but I don’t know how many more there might be. I could see just one car in the driveway, so I’m guessing it’s just the two of them. How many men does it take to guard one baby? I hadn’t really planned to go in there alone. I was only going to scout the place out, but I think we’ve got to now. It sounded like Johnny was having trouble breathing. He has asthma, and we don’t have time to wait for backup.”
“Yeah, I’m with you. I can’t stand thinking how frightened that poor baby must be.”
“We have to use the front door because all the activity is at the back of the house. I saw sidelights by the front door, which is probably locked. I’ve got my gun and a glass cutter from my bag and the inhaler, but I’m leaving the bag here. You sure you want to do this, Dana? Last chance to back out.”
“No way. I’m coming with you.”
The two women snuck along the front of the house, keeping low beneath a shadeless window on what was probably the dining room. They made their way to the front door, which Fran gently tried to open, but it was locked as she’d suspected.
Placing the glass cutter against the pane on the sidelight by the doorknob, she traced a round circle with the cutter. The suction cup soundlessly pulled the cut glass from the pane. Fran reached her hand in, felt for the deadbolt lock, and turned it.
“Ready?” she whispered to Dana.
“Yep.”
(5 more chapters to go)
 Recognized |
Fran Pekarsky: One of three narrators of the story. She is an FBI agent from the North Carolina field office in Charlotte.
Dana Padgett: One of three narrators of the story. She is a confidential informant (CI) for Fran and works in Big Pharma.
Brian Kendrick: Fran's younger brother. He is the inventor of Dipraxa and Glyptophan.
Julia Kendrick: Brian's wife. She is a world-class violinist who now plays in a bluegrass band.
Johnny Kendrick: Brian and Julia's baby boy and Marie's grandson.
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother. She is the third narrator of the story.
Cedric (aka Cecil): The doorman at the apartment house where Marie lives.
Lou D'Onofrio: Fran's boss at the FBI.
Leonard Merra: A vice president at the Big Pharma company where Dana works. He is in charge of stopping Glyptophan.
Rudy Spangler: A vice president at Gideon Pharmaceutical. He is in charge of stopping Glyptophan.
Peter Israel: The security chief at Gideon Pharmaceutical. He is in cahoots with Rudy Spangler to stop Glyptophan.
Woody Sandbulte: One of three bodyguards hired by the Kendricks for protection.
Nick Burwell: One of three bodyguards hired by the Kendricks for protection.
Harvey Briggs: One of three bodyguards hired by the Kendricks for protection.
Picture courtesy of Poe Assistant
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