“Bingo.” Jake stood and gave Tom a quick salute for deterring the guys from finding his hiding place before quickly and quietly moving to the front of the store.
A quick peek outside told him there were none of Bradley and Jasper’s ilk around, unless someone was sleeping in the back of one of the parked cars. He held up the Chevy key fob, pointed it at the big Suburban, and pressed the unlock-disarm button. The lights on the Suburban blinked once in acknowledgment.
“Excellent,” Jake said. He didn’t know what a janitor was doing driving a Suburban. Maybe he’d borrowed it from his parents or had a really big family, but Jake wasn’t going to argue with luck.
He jogged out to the truck and opened the door. This time, there was no blaring alarm, so he placed his M4 carbine on the passenger seat, shut the door quietly behind him, and pressed the start button.
The engine roared to life and then settled to a soft purr. Jake put the vehicle into drive and coasted slowly by the front of the Lowe’s, turning around the side of the store and pulling into the back lot. He backed the truck in between the two long trailers and right up to the Ford Explorer he’d left covered there the day before.
As fast as he could, Jake tore the cover off the Explorer, opened the back hatch, and began transferring his supplies and Captain Sanchez’s case over to the idling Suburban. Within fifteen minutes, Jake had everything packed nicely into his new ride.
He walked to the end of the trailers and looked both ways to see if any cars were coming. He didn’t hear or see anything in the immediate vicinity, although he could hear vehicles running on the main road out behind the store. Whether they were just regular people driving by, or members of some gang, Jake didn’t know.
Something warm touched the back of Jake’s hand, and he jerked it up in front of his face, turning it back and forth without finding the cause. Curiously, the same warmth touched his face, then his shoulders and neck, causing a pleasant shudder to run down his back. Astounded, Jake looked up into a bright blue sky filled with white, streaky clouds, searching for the source. A shadow passed across his face and then the warmth emerged once again.
With a gasp, Jake realized it was the sun. The beautiful sun, its light crawling across his cheeks and neck like warm honey poured from the sky. He closed his eyes against it, soaking up the energy like a battery plugged into an electrical socket. Even though he knew he should get back into the Suburban and get moving, he could only stand there, stupefied, as his body and mind fed on the light.
It melted away the past month’s darkness, and it filled his soul with hope.
Eventually, a cloud blocked the sunlight again, breaking the spell. Jake lowered his head as tears rolled down his cheeks. He wanted to wait for another few minutes until the light returned, but he didn’t want to push his luck. Sara and the kids were just a few hours away.
Chapter 17
Yi, Gatlinburg, Tennessee
Yi stepped from their shot-up SUV and looked ahead at the cell phone tower pointing straight up from the middle of the field; its metal frame, dishes that ran up its side, and cable boxes looked wholly unnatural in the deep fall landscape of swirling leaves and wind.
Katrya’s soldiers stood around in no distinct formation. Some gathered around the back of one of their trucks while the others stood on guard, peering out toward the forest and roadways.
He met Chen and Ivan at the front of the vehicle, and they all looked around.
“I don’t see Katrya,” Yi said as his eyes took a quick inventory of all the men and women. Some others were missing, too, like Jacques and Victoro.
“There,” Chen said, pointing upward. “There she is.”
Yi lifted his head and peered up into the fast-moving clouds where Chen pointed. He spotted Katrya at the very top of the cell tower where he hadn’t looked before, leaning back with her arms out in a Christ pose, somehow suspended two hundred feet above the ground.
“What in the dragon’s name is she doing?”
“Who knows with that one,” Ivan responded, shaking his head. “But I am beginning to see your point about her. She brings me great annoyance.”
One of Katrya’s men strode over and nodded to Yi with a modicum of respect. “She told me to send you up once you arrived.”
“Up there?” Yi glanced up, incredulous.
“You know she doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” The man nodded once more and then turned to rejoin the other soldiers.
Yi sighed before he placed his rifle on the hood of the Ford. “I guess I’m climbing.”
“Be careful, comrade,” Ivan said with a doubtful look at Katrya. “I don’t trust her. She may try to kill you after your last outburst over the radio. You disrespected her in front of her soldiers.”
“I’m not sure she cares about keeping the respect of her soldiers,” Yi said, “or the success of our mission. I’m not sure what she cares about.”
“Maybe you will find out,” Ivan said with an indifferent shrug. “Then you come back and tell us, yes?”
Yi strolled toward the tower, exchanging looks with Katrya’s soldiers before he reached the ladder. Without hesitation, he placed his hands on the first rungs and began climbing. Yi wasn’t afraid of heights, yet the wind made the climb far more difficult than it should be, swiping at him with gusts that felt more like punches, threatening to toss him off like a piece of dirt. He focused hard on putting one hand above the other, one foot on each rung, ascending the steel spire until he made it to the very top.
Climbing up through a gap in the walkway grating, Yi put his hand on the rail to balance himself and turned toward Katrya.
The woman was just a few feet away on the other side of the rail, attached to it by only a climbing rope and clasps. Her feet were pressed to the edge of the walkway, arms thrown back as she smiled up into the sky. The wind whipped her short red hair around and sent her swaying back and forth.
Yi’s stomach did a brief flip as he imagined himself hanging in the same position over that void, nothing between him and the ground but a couple hundred feet of air. He quickly quelled the feeling and assumed a professional air, standing straight with one hand on the rail and his eyes lingering on the thin sliver of rope that kept the woman from falling.
“You’re wondering if you can cut my rope before I shoot you with my pistol.” Katrya practically yelled the words to be heard above the wind.
“That is not true.” Yi frowned at her, slightly embarrassed to be caught considering exactly that. He shook his head. “What are you doing up here, Katrya?”
“I wanted to talk to you. Away from the others.”
“A short distance of twenty yards would have sufficed.”
“I had to be absolutely sure,” the woman yelled before she grabbed the rope and reeled herself in. Then she simultaneously disconnected herself and spun on the catwalk, placing her back to the tower. “Also, I wanted to see if I could get a better signal on the Box.” She held up the homing device and pressed a button on it. The signal lit up on the screen, yet was still too weak to establish a direction.
“The signal is being blocked,” Yi said.
“It appears that way.” Katrya’s ice blue eyes stared out across the valley of orange and gold trees, many of them with their tops stripped clean by the wind. She smiled. “It is beautiful, no?”
“I have thought the same thing on a few occasions,” Yi conceded, thankful to be able to lower his voice. “And then I always remind myself that we are not here for the scenery. We’re here to complete a mission.”
“And what is that mission?”
Happy to reiterate it for her, Yi went on. “To disrupt America’s infrastructure and spread fear and panic within the populace. To turn them against one another through deceit and, when applicable, violence.”
“And have we accomplished that?”
Yi thought about it for a moment, looking out over the landscape. “We started off well, but I fear we have gotten off track.”
“As you�
��ve reminded me multiple times,” Katrya’s eyes closed until they were half-lidded. “And that’s why you hate me.”
“I do not hate anyone,” Yi said, and that was the truth. “I simply do not think you have a shred of honor, and I do not think you have the leadership abilities to see our mission through.”
“And what marks the end of the mission? How do you envision it?”
“The downfall of the Imperialists during the second wave of the dragon’s breath. Our agents gaining control of all military assets and infrastructure in the country. The eventual subjugation of its people until they see the error of their ways.” Yi was silent for a moment. “My death.”
“I knew it,” Katrya chuckled. “You want to be a martyr.”
“I want to be remembered as an agent of the dragon. I want to be remembered as someone who brought down a great evil to save the people of the world from rampant capitalism.”
Katrya paused for a moment as she sank down until she was sitting on the catwalk, her boots hanging out into the void. “I envy you in many ways.”
“How so?” Yi sat next to her.
“I’ve never felt such a sense of honor in my life.” Katrya stared down at her hands in what Yi thought was a moment of vulnerability. “I grew up on a farm near the Russian front. When the occupation started, our fields, once full of golden wheat, were turned into minefields almost overnight. And the Russian soldiers…” Yi glanced over to see if she was crying, instead finding her jaw clenched tight and a hateful look in her eyes. “I had two brothers and two sisters, none of whom survived.”
“I am sorry to hear that.” Yi was not used to giving condolences, though he shuddered to imagine his own family perishing under such circumstances. “That is why you don’t like Ivan.”
“That is correct. And that is why I do not have the honor you so wanted to find in me. I do not seek honor. I only seek revenge.”
“Revenge against who?”
“Everyone.” Katrya practically spat the word, her hand balled into a fist at her lap, eyes narrowed. At that moment, with her flaming hair blowing around her delicate, high cheeks and pale skin, she looked almost ethereal, certainly deadly. As deadly as a dragon. “I want people of all countries to know my name, but never speak it for fear of drawing my wrath. Like some folk myth about a ghoul that stalks the night, I want them to shiver in their sleep for fear I am near. I want them to suffer like I did when I was a little girl.”
Yi glanced at Katrya’s bloodstained hands where they lay in her lap. Her fingernails were stained red where the nail met skin. “And how will you do that, if you kill everyone you see? How will they remember you?”
Katrya shrugged. “I have scrawled messages on the walls in their blood. I have taken your lead and allowed some to live. The people of this country will remember the Red Blade.”
“You want to become a dark legend? An angel of death? A fairytale?”
Katrya chuckled. “Is that so hard to understand?”
“I understand,” Yi said with a slow nod as a hundred thoughts raced through his mind. “I truly do.”
“Then you will understand when I tell you there is life after this mission, if you want it.” Katrya’s voice changed to a more professional tone, as if she were readying her soldiers for a mission.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not dying here on this cursed soil. I have made arrangements to be lifted out of here at a time and location of my choosing, but I cannot do it unless we find the Box.”
Yi wanted to discount her claim out of hand, but the truth of it hit home like a punch to the head. His next words dripped with venom. “You never cared about the mission. You never cared about the New Block or what we’re trying to do here. All you wanted to do was kill people.”
“Correct, comrade,” Katrya said with a smirk. “The New Block’s mission was a foolish one from the start, and it should never have been executed. The Americans will win, like they always do, and every agent sent into this forsaken country will be dead within a month. I, on the other hand, ensured my payment was sent to a long-lost aunt who will pick up the funds in a certain East Asian country.”
Yi returned a smirk. “And you are the long-lost aunt who will be picking up the payment.”
“That is right.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “And then what? Where will you go?”
Katrya shrugged. “I will take a vacation, and then get back into the game.”
“The game?”
“There will always be work for assassins like us, Yi.” Katrya looked askance at him, her lips a deep shade of red spreading around her porcelain white teeth. “That is why I want you to come with me.”
“But I am not like you.”
“No, you are not. You have a steady temperament to balance my recklessness. I think that together, in another world, we could be quite a team.”
The thoughts circling in Yi’s head changed direction a dozen times, though ultimately he deferred to his feelings of pride at being called forth to carry out this mission. The joy he’d felt at being able to do some good in the world. The promises he’d made to his country and people. He shook his head harder. “Your dream is not my dream.”
“You’d be able to see your family again.”
That one struck him in the chest like a spear. Even though he’d already said his goodbyes months ago, he had to admit that seeing them again would be nothing short of a miracle, considering he’d been determined to die for the cause every second of every day.
Katrya stood and gathered her rope, not waiting for Yi to respond. “My offer stands, but only for you. Not the Russian. Not Chen. Just you. We retrieve the Box. I put in the order for our extraction. We leave together and get the explosives removed from behind our ears. I’m giving you the chance to live again. I hope you will.”
Yi remained staring at his hands as the Ukrainian agent stepped on the ladder and descended until her red head disappeared. He went over the conversation in his head slowly. Once, and then again.
Part of Yi wanted to feel sympathy for the little girl who’d been through so much at the hands of the Russians. The same part of him wanted to take Katrya up on her offer to leave this place and become a freelance killer, spreading their form of justice all across the world. It appealed to a small, selfish part of his ego that wanted to become a legend, too.
However, another part of him saw Katrya for what she was. A sick dog that needed to be put down. Would he have the courage to do it when the time came?
Chapter 18
Sara, Gatlinburg, Tennessee | 2:03 p.m., Sunday
“This is heavy,” Barbara said with a huff as they slid the generator down the stairs of Karen and Frank’s cabin and settled it on the floor.
“No kidding,” Sara replied, red-faced. “Let’s slide it outside onto the patio.”
“Do you think the power cable we took will be long enough to reach the breaker box?” Barbara asked as they wheeled the generator across the carpet to the sliding glass door.
The breaker box was conveniently placed in a side room, but they didn’t want to start the generator up inside the cabin due to the exhaust and noise.
“If not,” Sara shrugged, “we’ll have to go out and find one that is.”
“Post-apocalyptic problems,” Barbara quipped. It wasn’t the first time she’d tried to be funny that day. The girl seemed to be opening up to Sara the more time they spent together, and she knew that there would be a point when she could ask the girl what had happened to her family. They had plenty of time for that, and Sara didn’t feel the need to press things. They were a good team, and that’s all that mattered.
Once they placed the generator out on the patio, Sara stood and looked down at the equipment. “Tex said he’d be able to connect it to the existing electric panel.”
“He’ll probably have to back-feed it in like Daddy used to do,” Barbara said, dusting off her hands. “It’s not entirely safe, but you can do it in an emergency
.”
Sara only nodded, having no idea what Barbara was talking about. She would have to trust that Tex and the girl knew what they were doing and wouldn’t catch the string of cabins on fire.
“Hey, Sara?” Dion called down the steps.
Sara stepped back inside. “Yeah, Dion. What is it?”
“We’ve got some visitors. You might want to come up.”
Glancing back at Barbara, Sara shrugged before hurrying across the game room and coming up the stairs two at a time.
“Is it wounded?” Sara asked Dion when she got to the top, though one look at his serious expression told her otherwise.
“I don’t think so, Sara.” Dion followed her to the cabin’s front window where they met Karen.
“Frank is out there talking to them,” the woman said, her hands knitted with worry.
Sara stood next to Karen at the window and observed the scene. Outside, a sedan was parked just outside the roundwood gate. From what Sara could see, there was a man sitting in the driver’s seat of the car and two more standing outside the car talking to Frank.
“I’m going out,” Sara said, feeling a nervous tic in her belly. “The rest of you stay inside. Have your guns ready in case there’s trouble.”
Dion nodded, holding up his .357 for Sara to see, and Barbara patted her pistol where it rested in its holster on her hip.
Sara retrieved her rifle from where she’d leaned it against the wall and slung it on her shoulder. Then she grabbed the front door handle, sighed, and pulled it open. Stepping outside into an intense wind, Sara looked to her left to see Natasha standing on her porch with her braided hair tied up tightly into a knot on her head, watching the men with a wary eye.
Weathering The Storm (Book 5): Downburst Page 11
