With a Bullet

Part 4

The cycle had again turned cold, but Valencia Kirk paid no attention. With knowledge of her abductor's plan, came the understanding that Courtwright would make certain that she survived any of his attempts to wear her down. He wanted her uncomfortable, depleted, ill, but not dead. At least, not yet. Even as he added a mist of water to increase the chill, she sat relaxed in a meditative state, re-playing his shooting exhibition in her mind. Many times in the past hours, she'd realized her heart was racing and she'd had to force herself to calm down. She understood and accepted that she was afraid, but she couldn't allow her anxiety and desperation to overcome her instinct for survival. Val was certain that the events of the last 2 days had revealed a way to escape her predicament. All she had to do was visualize it.

Of course, even if she figured out how to best Courtwright, there would still be Mueller and his associates to tackle. They were all armed professionals who were unlikely to embrace the idea of going to jail. Luckily, Wilson had provided her with an opportunity to reduce the odds against her without his injury appearing to have been done for that purpose. Finally, she allowed herself to drift off to sleep. She needed to be as rested as possible come morning.

Val awoke to find herself being carried down a hallway by De Souza and Jones. Her wrists were again cuffed behind her back. They entered a locker room and Val spied her costume, neatly folded, on a long table. De Souza saw that their burden was alert.

"Candy, she's awake."

Jones nodded in understanding and allowed Colt's legs to drop to the floor. The Weapons Mistress unsteadily wavered on still rubbery limbs. De Souza unhooked Colt's bra in the back and easily tore the sheer fabric straps around her shoulders, allowing the garment to drop to the floor. Then, she grabbed the lace at each of Colt's hips and ripped the panties away from the heroine's body. The Weapons Mistress raised an eyebrow and De Souza smirked before pushing Colt toward another door.

"Time to get you cleaned up for your funeral!"

The feel of warm water splashing against Val's skin soothed bones and muscles sore from over 30 hours of combined confinement. De Souza enthusiastically applied fragrant soap to Colt's body while Jones kneaded shampoo through the trademark long red hair of the Weapons Mistress. Val enjoyed the massaging effect of their fingers pressing into her flesh. By the time the last of the sweat and grime had been washed from her body, she felt relaxed and invigorated.

As Jones turned off the shower, De Souza squeezed the excess water from Colt's hair. With stunning quickness, Val slammed the back of her skull into De Souza's forehead, sending the wiry blonde reeling. Before Jones could react, Colt leaped into the air and caught her with a straight kick to the chest that slammed her into the wall.

Val made a break for the door and her gear, but as she crashed into the adjoining room she tripped over an extended leg and skidded futilely across the floor. A knee between her shoulder blades stopped her floundering attempts to regain her footing.

"Grab her legs."

Mueller and Ames hoisted the Weapons Mistress into the air and dropped her down hard on the table as she squirmed unsuccessfully in an attempt to break free of their grips.

"Now that wasn't very nice of you! The ladies were just following Mr. Courtwright's orders to have you looking fit and healthy for the showdown."

Jones burst through the door from the shower room. "Aaargh! I swear, I'm going to lay a whippin' on that..."

"Forget it, Candice! Everything's under control. How's De Souza?"

"She's out cold, Bill! Probably got a concussion! As far as I'm concerned, we should just do her now. She's dangerous! We're takin' a big chance here!"

"Yeah, maybe, but you know as well as I do that Courtwright's a helluva lot more dangerous. Look, Patty'll be fine. She's tough. Go get some smellin' salts and wake her ass up, that's all."

Mueller pressed down hard on the back of Colt's neck and grabbed a towel from the table with his free hand while Ames maintained an iron grip on her ankles. He chuckled as he began to dry off her back.

"I'll tell you what, Colt. It's a good thing you only have another hour to live or that girl would kill you!"

Once he had finished toweling off her rear, Mueller and Ames flipped the Weapons Mistress over. Pressing his forearm against her throat, Mueller smiled as Colt tried in vain to draw air into her lungs while he worked the cotton fabric against her chest and abdomen. Her body jerked violently as she slowly asphyxiated, but Mueller abruptly removed the pressure against her throat and shifted it to her chest as he went to work drying off her legs. Finally, he dried her hair as best as he could and wiped off her face while Jones returned and went into the shower room to revive De Souza.

"There you go, almost done." Mueller tossed her costume pants down towards her legs. "Now, Ron here is going to help you put your clothes on." He had gone over her garments with a fine-tooth comb and was fairly certain that he'd removed all her hidden gadgets. Still, just in case, he had taken the precaution of putting all of her clothes in the microwave for 30 seconds, long enough to disable any electronic signal device he may have missed. "The boss wants you in costume when he guns you down and then we'll do the big reveal at the end so that his employers can confirm your identity."

Colt noticed that the pile of clothes didn't include her underwear. Probably not integral to Courtwright's plan and, therefore, subject to scavenging by his vultures as souvenirs. She suspected her earrings had likely been taken as trophies by Courtwright himself.

Mueller covered Colt's face with the towel and pulled it down tight around her head, once again limiting her ability to breathe. "The longer it takes Ron here to get your pants on, the worse off you're going to be when you face Courtwright, so I suggest you don't struggle."

Ames released one of her ankles and slid a legging over her foot as the Weapons Mistress began to kick violently. "Oh, good, it looks like this is going to take awhile. I was going to go slow and enjoy myself, anyway."

As Colt wriggled in her attempts to get free of Mueller's restraint, Ames carefully worked her pants up onto her legs, avoiding her kicks as she blindly lashed out at him. Once he had reached the top of her thighs, he paused and drank in the scene before yanking the elastic fabric up over her hips. Then, the two men rolled the helpless heroine onto her stomach and Mueller extracted a key from his shirt pocket and unlocked her handcuffs. The weight of the two men forcing her body against the table kept her from being able to wiggle free and they slid her arms through the sleeves of her jacket before her wrists were re-handcuffed. Finally, Ames grabbed each foot in turn and put on her socks and boots before she was pulled off of the table and onto her feet.

Mueller moved in front of the Weapons Mistress, stepping squarely on her toes, while Ames held her from behind. Colt stared at him defiantly, her chest heaving from the exertion of the last few minutes. Mueller pulled the jacket up over her shoulders and buttoned it closed in the front, his eyes never leaving her chest. Ames yanked her hair back into a ponytail and placed her mask onto her head, tying it tight in the back. Then, with a patronizing tap, her hat was placed on her head.

The pair was finished dressing her when Jones and De Souza finally emerged from the shower room. De Souza had a glazed look in her eyes but was walking and seemed to know where she was and what had happened to her. The two women exchanged their wet clothes for dry garments and assisted Ames in holding Colt while Mueller walked over to a cabinet at the far end of the room and removed Colt's gunbelt from within. He grinned in triumph as he saw the covetous look in the eyes of the Weapons Mistress and wrapped the belt around his own waist.

"Barely fits! I guess I'll have to have it lengthened." Mueller thrilled at the look of dejection on Colt's face. "Things not exactly working out the way you want, huh? I guess maybe you're not the smartest person in the room, after all."

Colt's eyes narrowed. "Who is? Ames?"

"Hunh!" Mueller checked his watch. "Okay, folks, time to head out."

With De Souza leading, Jones and Ames holding Colt's arms, and Mueller bringing up the rear, the group moved through the maze of passageways and staircases until they exited the mansion. The ocean water glistened as they walked across the grounds until Colt stood with her back at the fence guarding the cliff. Before her, in the distance, were the steps that she had walked down yesterday. Wilson sat at a table off to the left, elevating his injured leg on a folding chair and talking on a cellphone. On the right, at the middle of the field, was a bank of electronic equipment. Colt noticed several stationary video cameras mounted around the field. Apparently, Courtwright wanted every angle covered. Ames and Jones walked toward the video console and Jones began testing to make sure everything was ready to record while Ames retrieved a hand-held video camera and took up a position just off toward Colt's right. De Souza moved off to her left and toward Wilson, while Mueller remained by her side.

"There's no place to run, Colt. So don't even think about it." Mueller pulled a vintage Colt .45 out of his shoulder holster and popped out the empty cylinder. "I know it doesn't look like much, but I promise it shoots straight. If you beat him on the draw, the gun won't fail you. You deserve that much of a chance."

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

Mueller placed a single bullet into the cylinder and slid the apparatus back into the revolver making sure that the firing pin would strike the loaded chamber on the next pull. "If you miss, it'll already be too late."

"Sure."

Drawing her waistband away from her skin, Mueller nestled the gun against her belly. "You're not used to pulling from an open holster anyway."

"This way's just as fast."

Mueller glanced at the Weapons Mistress, her breasts moving up and down with each heavy breath. Removing the handcuff key from his pocket, he moved behind her and put his Glock to her head. "I'm going to unshackle one of your wrists. Put your hands in front of you and cuff your wrists together again or I've been authorized by Mr. Courtwright to blow your head off."

Colt paused and then slowly did as she was told. When the handcuffs clicked back into place, Mueller exhaled, put his gun away, and moved off to her side. "It's almost over, just a little longer."

As noon approached, all eyes turned towards the top of the stairs as Courtwright appeared. Dressed in his finest gunslinging garb, he looked like an outlaw in an old western movie. However, the quick-draw guns and gun-belt he sported were decidedly modern. Courtwright began to descend the stairs with a deliberate pace and Mueller knew from his employer's walk that the tiny heroine would bleed out in the most slow and painful way that Courtwright could engineer. He almost felt sorry for her. She didn't really deserve to die that way.

"Mueller, I'm sorry but I don't think I want to die today."

Mueller felt the bullet rip through the right side of his abdomen before the sound of the shot echoed in his ears. Dropping the gun in her hand, Colt reached out and unlatched her belt from his waist, pulling it off of him as he fell backward. She flung the gunbelt to the ground before her and knelt down as a bullet whizzed by her head.

Courtwright had watched as the Weapons Mistress twisted her body in Mueller's direction and, while he hadn't heard the shot, he knew immediately that she was trying to rob him of his moment of glory. Leaping down the steps in twos and threes, he had drawn his guns and was firing shots on the run even as he tried to decrease the distance to his target.

Colt efficiently and methodically pulled her Clipper from it's holster, ignoring the bullets pounding into the dirt around her. Grabbing a special bullet from a pouch, she inserted it into the gun's chamber and sighted Courtwright from a kneeling position. He was still about 75 feet away but he was bringing himself under control to take more careful aim as he continued to volley shots with both guns. She felt the sting of a bullet grazing her shoulder just before she fired. Another bullet whizzed past her ear and a final one sliced through her shirt sleeve before she saw his body contort and he fell forward like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

Quickly popping a cartridge into the Clipper, Colt fired a knockout bomb toward Candice Jones and the video console. In succession, she emptied the cartridge at Wilson, De Souza, and Ames. The group of bodyguards had been so sure of the outcome that only Jones had reacted quickly enough to get off a shot when things went screwy. Colt's hat fluttered to the ground pierced by Jones' bullet.

As the smoke cleared, all was quiet. Colt thanked the decision of her overconfident captors to give the able-bodied Jones and Ames video duties instead of having the already hampered Wilson and De Souza handling the chores. The extra distraction, coupled with the disbelieving surprise of all, probably accounted for the bare margin by which she had escaped mortal injury.

"I can't believe you shot me! You don't believe in using deadly force!"

Colt looked over at the fallen Mueller. "I believe in it as a last resort. You should have left me a choice."

Mueller struggled to sit up, holding his wound as blood poured over his fingers. Disbelieving, he looked at Colt wordlessly.

Colt surveyed the motionless bodies littering the field. "Just apply direct pressure and I'll get you an ambulance." Turning back toward Mueller, she saw him reaching for his Glock. Swinging her gunbelt around, she knocked the weapon out of his hands before he could pull the trigger. "That was stupid! Take a look around; you kill me, who's going to keep you from bleeding to death?"

"I ain't going to jail. Rather die."

Colt stood before him. "Too bad."

A vicious kick to the jaw sent Mueller into dreamland like his comrades. A conscious enemy to keep an eye on was a problem she didn't need right now. Colt reached into his pocket and pulled out the handcuff key. Once her hands were free, she put on her gunbelt and retrieved her hat. Mueller was searched for more weapons and those that were found were confiscated. She then cautiously proceeded to Ames, Jones, De Souza, and Wilson, collecting a cache of firearms and knives.

Finally, she approached Courtwright with care. She was definitely in his range now and, while both his guns had slipped from his grasp when he fell, she didn't want to learn that he had been playing 'possum. Reaching him, she kicked both guns away and rolled him over onto his back. His eyes were wide open in shock and drool was coming from his mouth. She pulled the dart out of his chest. "The same nerve toxin you used on me yesterday after that demonstration you gave. I notice you didn't give me any exhibition of your ability to shoot targets from a great distance. I wonder why you left that out?"

Colt stripped off his clothes, leaving him in his underwear. "Just checking you for other weapons. You can't be too careful, y'know." She looked around the field and chuckled at the video cameras. "Not exactly the scene you were hoping to record, is it? I imagine that you're going to have some people very upset with you. Prison walls probably won't be able to keep you safe. Of course, that's not my problem."

Walking away from the immobilized Courtwright, the Weapons Mistress slipped the cell phone out of the unconscious Wilson's jacket and pressed 3 digits. Her six tormenters were all out of commission. Each, in their own way, had tried to humiliate her and gratify themselves, but she had the last word. "Hello, there's been a kidnaping and attempted murder at the Courtwright estate. One of the perpetrators has been shot and is seriously wounded. Send the police and an ambulance!"

The End