by Jason Kasper
I was led into the back of a truck or van, felt the creaking shift of the floor beneath me before the handcuff on my right wrist was transferred to a fixed anchor point.
Sage spoke quietly, matter-of-factly. “Just a short ride, and it will all be over. Are you going to remain quiet, or should I give you the injection now?”
“If I’ve got a curvy redhead chaining me up, I’ll take the good with the bad. I won’t give you any trouble.”
“They all say that.”
“Then let’s hold off on the injection while I think of something original.”
She exited the back, and I heard a hatch close and lock behind me. We began driving, rumbling along a dirt road before coming to a stop. A chain link gate rattled open to our front and we began moving again, and I heard it clang shut behind us before a second gate opened. The path transitioned from smooth dirt to rough trail with a series of increasingly jarring bumps as we headed away from the Mist Palace to places unknown.
After what felt like an hour, the truck braked sharply.
I heard the driver’s door open and slam shut, followed by the entrance to my compartment being unlocked and thumping footsteps as someone entered. My goggles were stripped away, and I could finally take in my surroundings.
I was in the back of a covered truck, and Sage was now beside me, wearing an expression of frantic urgency.
“Do exactly as I say.” She unlocked my wrist cuff, leaving it to dangle from the anchor point. “If you don’t, we’re both dead.”
“Both of us?”
“Get out of the truck. Hurry.”
I stepped onto a dirt and rock path whose serpentine twists took it through a craggy forest floor, sunlight filtering dimly through a roof of pine trees rising high above us. Sage was hunched in the flatbed, flipping the rubber floor mat out of the truck toward me. Then she ran her fingers under the bench until I heard the click of a hidden latch and a panel comprising most of the truck bed shifted upward.
She pulled it off, and a man sat up from a false bottom in the truck.
He squinted as he adjusted to the sudden change in his surroundings, pulling himself out of the compartment with his right arm only—and when I saw why, a chill of fear ran up my spine.
His left arm was hidden in a black sling, hand loosely clutching a red rubber ball identical to the one I held. Likewise, he was dressed in the same prisoner jumpsuit that I was, and as he took in my features at a glance, his face transformed into a solemn mask of understanding. I felt my mouth hanging open, my mind grinding to a state of shock.
His face mirrored mine as much as his arm sling and clothes—iridescent green eyes, short, dark blond hair—even his nose and cheekbones bore more than a passing similarity.
Sage addressed him firmly. “Quickly, Nikolai.”
He nodded and climbed out of the truck as I nearly yelled at Sage, “Stop, you fucking idiot!”
“What do you mean, stop? I’m saving your life.”
“The Handler is testing you—you have to kill me, or my friend dies.”
“I know it’s a test. I’ve known for weeks. Obey the Handler, and Ian spends his life a slave. Obey me, and Ian will be freed.”
“You can’t fool the Handler, he knows everything—”
“If I didn’t know every aspect of his test, we wouldn’t be speaking right now.” Turning now to Nikolai, who stepped shakily toward the forest, she said, “Be strong. Otherwise, your family gets nothing.”
He gave her a weak, forced smile. “Thank you.”
I tried to place his Eastern European accent. Polish? Hungarian?
He spun in place, barely completing his turn away from us before Sage shot him.
A faint puff on the back of his head and a momentary eruption of crimson as he crumpled to the damp forest floor. The red rubber ball sprang free from his hand, bouncing off a moss-covered stone before disappearing amid a bed of ferns.
I felt frozen in place, unable to comprehend the speed with which my circumstances had spun 180 degrees, as the sound of approaching vehicles sliced through the forest.
Sage leveled her cool gray eyes at me.
“Get in the compartment, Mr. Rivers. You’ve got ten seconds to decide or we’re both dead.”
If I rebelled against her plan, she would likely kill me. And if she didn’t, the Handler just as easily could—he was a known quantity of manipulation and evil against the mystery surrounding this woman and her intentions. It was a spin of the roulette wheel, and in the urgency of that moment I had to gamble with both my life and Ian’s.
Without another thought, I spun and darted into the truck bed. My adrenaline was through the roof, images of Ian and the Handler racing through my mind as I slid into the coffin-sized slot in the floor and she pulled the cover back into place over me. I heard the thump of the floor mat being situated to hide the compartment, then a rustled thumping over me that I realized was her rolling Nikolai’s body into the bed before the back door slammed shut. I was encapsulated amid the smell of Nikolai’s sweat and fear permeating the false bottom compartment while my heart felt like it was going to explode out of my chest.
The truck engine growled to life and we rolled forward again, proceeding for less than a minute before stopping abruptly.
“Kill the engine,” a man’s voice commanded, and our truck went silent.
Sage shouted, “What’s the meaning of this?”
“Is your prisoner in the back?”
“Of course he is.”
“What was the gunshot we just heard?”
“I heard a thumping sound in the back. I stopped the truck, unlocked it, and saw that the prisoner had picked his handcuff and was trying to force open the cargo door. He tried to escape, and I shot him. So what?”
“Open the back.”
“This is a routine drop—”
“You know better than to question protocol. Open it, or I’m taking you into custody.”
I heard the back door unlock and swing open.
“Satisfied?” Sage asked. “Now if you’ll allow, I have a transfer to make.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” A pause before he continued, “This is Alpha one-five. Send the biometrics team to link up with me on Route Candace, five hundred meters south of checkpoint Charlie two-three.”
“Copy, on the way.”
“Biometrics team?” Sage questioned, sounding offended. “What is going on?”
“All you need to know is that our orders come from the One.”
I heard another vehicle approach and stop, then the sound of people dismounting and climbing into the back of the truck. New voices now, muted and hollow as I felt their weight shifting on the floor above me.
“Make sure you photodocument everything.”
“Got it. Start with known injuries.”
“Scarring on right shoulder, left deltoid, and left bicep all consistent with gunshot wounds within the past four weeks.”
“I confirm. Proceed to surgical identifier.”
“There’s a longitudinal scar extending midline of the posterior arm, from just inferior to the acromion process down to the olecranon fossa. Scar has red appearance, edges slightly raised. I’d say it’s two to three weeks old, with stitches removed sometime in the past seventy-two hours.”
“Agreed. Scar is consistent with posterior humeral shaft open reduction and internal fixation procedure undergone by subject. Outfit identifiers?”
“Raised circular scarring on left bicep and between two left ribs, likely cigarette burns.”
“Consistent with injuries sustained by subject during Outfit Selection Round 2-2009. Let’s move on to the obvious injury.”
“There’s a mosaic fracture to the skull…clean edge of the wound is flat and round, interior edge of skull has conchoidal beveling. Massive trauma to brain area and sinus canal, and upper dental plate is cracked.”
“Positive infrared pattern consistent with gunshot residue, pattern of dispersal approximately six inches,
estimate muzzle to target distance of one and a half feet. Sodium rhodizonate confirms presence of lead. All observable trauma consistent with gunshot wound, where bullet entered the back of the skull and exited through the face. Agreed?”
“Without a doubt.”
“Let’s proceed to live-scan.”
A long pause.
“Friction ridge analysis of left thumb and index consistent with points of identification. Checking right thumb and index…ridge ending, bifurcation, delta, core…all consistent with subject.”
“Rapid blood typing result consistent with A Positive.”
“Retinal scan and bite pattern are both inconclusive due to damage from probable gunshot wound. But the filling in right deciduous mandibular second molar is consistent with work from subject’s known dental record. So that’s it.”
“That’s it? You’re done?”
“Buccal swab of skin cells in the mouth isn’t an instant result, but we’ll run it to the lab and confirm or deny DNA profile within a few hours. Pending that result, everything checks out with our subject.”
“You’re ready to confirm?”
“Yes. I confirm positive identification of David Clayton Rivers, Outfit Member Number 296.”
“All right. Take your team back to the house.”
Sage’s voice now, sounding smug. “Satisfied?”
“Continue with your transfer. Complete a full written report upon your return.”
“I will.”
The sound of vehicles pulling away, and then my truck rumbled forward once more.
This leg of the journey lasted another hour, my body shifting forward and back in the tight confines of the false bottom compartment. When the truck stopped again, I heard the murmur of indistinguishable words. The engine was left running as Sage recovered me from the compartment, and I climbed out past Nikolai’s corpse, now slumped in a pile to one side of the truck.
She led me into the trees as the truck pulled forward down the trail, piloted by an unseen driver.
I spoke quietly as I followed her into the forest. “How did you install a false bottom in one of the Handler’s vehicles?”
“Mr. Rivers, the false bottom wasn’t a clandestine installment. The entire vehicle was an identical replica, and one procured at great expense.”
“All that trouble just to save me?”
“All that trouble,” she agreed, “just to save you.”
Our foot trail led to a blanket of camouflage netting draped over a waist-height shape.
I asked, “Don’t think that I’m not grateful, but…why?”
She pulled off the camouflage netting to reveal a flat black all-terrain vehicle. The ATV’s hood and bumper were laden with black fuel cans covered by custom-fitted cargo bags with bulging zippered pouches. The vehicle was rigged for expeditionary use, the state of its knobby tires telling me this thing had spent many hours threading through the mountain trails of our surroundings.
She unzipped one of the cargo pouches, withdrawing an olive GORE-TEX cold weather coat and handing it to me. I slid my right arm into the sleeve and pulled the left side over my sling as she straddled the ATV and looked back at me.
“Get on, Mr. Rivers.”
I straddled the seat behind her, threading my right arm around her tight stomach.
She fired the engine, and the ATV whirred to life with a muted growl. Whether it had a custom engine, custom exhaust, or both, it was surreally quiet for an all-terrain vehicle—she only had to slightly raise her voice over the idling engine for me to hear her say, “The ride will be rough.”
“Why is this turning me on?”
“Don’t be a smartass. It’s going to be murder on your injured arm.”
“Quicker recovery time than getting shot in the head. Where are we?”
“Somewhere in the Cascades of British Columbia. He has GPS jammers covering a wide swath around the Mist Palace, so that’s about as specific as I can get.”
“Then where are we going?”
“You’ll find out in a couple hours.”
Then she raced us forward along an ill-defined, muddy path that plunged through a stream before climbing a rocky slope on the far side of the ravine. The pain in my injured arm was nauseating, every bump in the trail tenderizing my flesh. Deeper we raced into a dark forest, the sun’s foggy rays dimming with each passing minute. Sage negotiated the winding trail with expertly timed bursts of acceleration and braking, the ATV moving as quickly as the ground conditions allowed.
Finally she stopped the ATV, giving me a merciful reprieve to take long, slow breaths in an attempt to steady the brutal pain of my recent surgical repair.
She killed the engine, exposing a thumping cadence of sunset birdcalls that permeated the forest as she asked, “How’s your arm doing?”
“I’m starting to wish you had killed me.” I grimaced.
“Make no mistake, Mr. Rivers—I did kill you.” She unzipped a cargo pouch draped behind the handlebars, retrieving a night vision device and pulling the head mount over her red hair. While tightening its straps, she continued, “And it’s just a matter of time before the Handler finds a way to make my death appear incidental. Think of your return from Somalia. Have you wondered why he told the Outfit he’d be arriving on the jet when it was just me? It was to draw out assassins—he is well aware there are several of them working at the Outfit. If that plane got blown up by a rocket, I’d be killed in the process. As would the assassins. Believe me when I say the Handler is not above sending me to death in the line of duty, much less you.”
“I get that, but why not just kill you if he suspects you’re working against him?”
“I’m not expendable.”
“Everyone’s expendable.”
She started the engine and said, “Speak for yourself, Mr. Rivers,” before she pulled forward again.
My mind reeled at this last detail stacked upon the others. In the short time since I’d left the Mist Palace, I’d gotten a behind-the-scenes view of an identical replica truck with a false bottom, a willing victim to serve as my body double who had apparently undergone physical modifications to replicate my scars, and a heavily customized ATV outfitted for stealthy long-range use.
Taken with Sage’s apparent knowledge of the Handler’s entire plan to entrap her, complete with a fully outfitted biometrics team and the digital records swap required to trick them, I was no closer to understanding who she was or what her plan entailed, but I was increasingly certain that Sage wasn’t running an amateur operation.
The wilderness around us faded to inky blackness as the temperature plummeted. From the speed with which she carved our ATV through the darkness, I could tell she wasn’t relying on ambient light alone—the vehicle must have been equipped with an infrared headlight, allowing Sage to see the trail under night vision almost as clearly as if it were daytime.
When she finally brought the ATV to a stop again, she killed the engine and activated the beam of a red flashlight as we dismounted.
“This way,” she ordered.
Her flashlight’s crimson glow illuminated weathered wooden stairs that we climbed to a door. I followed her carefully into a building, and she activated a camping lantern within.
The harsh white light illuminated the interior of an ancient cabin. One corner was stacked high with crates of field rations, bottled water, and miscellaneous supplies like toilet paper, shower wipes, first aid kits, and batteries. The other corner contained a cold weather sleeping bag, clothing ranging from thermal underwear to fleece jackets, and a jumble of color-coded elastic bands piled on top of a white binder.
Sage oriented me quickly, her voice crisp and businesslike. “These are your materials and instructions for completing physical therapy for your arm. I’m going to need you at full strength. There’s a small bedroom and woodstove in the back, and as many books as I could transport up here. You’ll find an outhouse behind the cabin, along with plenty of firewood and an ax if you need to chop more, but don�
��t create smoke during the day if the mist has lifted.”
I glanced around the cabin, my gaze settling on her. “Why’d the Handler pick Canada, of all places?”
“He’s got locations all over the world,” she explained. “All isolated, all developed just enough to be reinforced or occupied with people when he needs full-purpose functionality.”
“And the Mist Palace?”
“Built at the site of an abandoned mining community from the Cariboo Gold Rush. Mid-1800s. A decade ago it was nothing more than an old settlement in ruins, with just enough overgrown trails in its vicinity to facilitate transit.” Sage hesitated, then continued, “It happened to be the nearest residence when he almost died of a botched assassination last September.”
I was still in exile then—that must have been Ian’s failed attempt.
Brushing the thought aside, I said, “Who are you, Sage, and why are you not expendable?”
“I’m a wet woman, Mr. Rivers.”
“An assassin?”
Sage shook her head. “Not just an assassin. I possess the tradecraft to gain access to some very important people, the artistry of seduction to lure them into private settings, and the lethality required to kill them and escape.” She didn’t seem embarrassed, relaying her skill sets with the sober diction of a professional resume. A tone of pride colored her voice when she continued, “One or two of these traits isn’t hard to find. The combination of all three is next to impossible. And I’ve got an impeccable service record.”
I considered this information before countering, “But how have you been able to plot against—”
“I share a trait held by every high-ranking double agent of the last eighty years: I can lie to polygraphs without detection. He has no proof that I’m disloyal, and to kill me on a whim would disenfranchise an organization kept in power through assassination attempts and conspiracies. No sitting Handler wants to taunt that.”
“What about the other three conspirators who helped free me?”
At this, her long eyelashes fluttered in amusement. “Who said there were three?”
“One who delivered the ATV to you and took over your execution truck, and one who fed you the information about the Handler’s test in advance. You would’ve needed both to know where to stage my death—just far enough from the Handler’s inspectors to give you time for the switch, just close enough that your lateness wouldn’t have been suspicious.”
