by Nick Thacker
9
Reggie
Reggie pulled against his restraints. Zip ties, the thick, semi-opaque kind used for heavy-duty purposes. They cut into his wrists and ankles, but he barely felt the pain. He was in a rage, but his calm countenance and demeanor said otherwise.
He shifted, rolling to his side and leaning into Sarah. His girlfriend moaned, but the duct tape she had over her mouth muffled much of the sound. He tried to tell her it would be okay, but his mouth too had been taped over, and the best he could muster was a grunting sound as his eyes bulged out of their sockets.
They were in the back of a jeep, but the vehicle wasn’t moving. He could see out the windows, and he could tell they were close to where they had been camping and training. He couldn’t recall all the details, as he’d been unconscious until about five minutes ago.
He remembered walking through the woods with Sarah, opting to take the longer way around back to the cabin. The others — Ben and Julie, mostly — had made fun of them for it, but Reggie was feeling like a little alone time together would be perfect for both of them.
And then, that was it. He couldn’t remember anything else. He’d woken up gagged, his head whirling and his vision spinning. He couldn’t feel any specific throbs of pain, which told him that the way their captors had subdued them was related to some sort of chemical. They’d been knocked out, dragged back to the jeep, and then bound and tossed inside. Their seatbelts were on, and Reggie couldn’t decide if it was just a cruel joke about ensuring their safety or just another layer of protection that would prevent their escape.
Either way, Reggie’s hands hurt from the tight bonds and the fact that he was sitting on them, and his ankles didn’t feel much better. He leaned over again and bumped Sarah.
“Where are we going?” he tried to ask, but the words came out as a mixture of grunts and mumbles. She looked at him blankly.
“Shit,” he said. Again, it was just a mumble.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to push away the growing headache and remember what had happened. There had been nothing out of the ordinary, he thought. Just me and Sarah. We were walking, and then…
Nothing. He had no idea what had happened after that. There had been no signals, no flashes in his peripheral vision. Reggie was a trained tracker, and an experienced wilderness survivalist. He knew for a fact nothing had been in front of or around them as they’d walked through the woods.
Which means they’re professional. Well-trained.
He opened his eyes.
Like special forces.
The driver’s side door opened and Reggie saw a huge brute of a man get inside. He crushed the seat, his head scraping the ceiling of the jeep. The man wore a tight parka that did little to hide his massive arms. He had a close-shaved crop of brown hair on his head and a beard that was kept broad and tight. While he looked American or European, he had no other discernible features.
Special forces, Reggie thought again.
But he knew there was no reason for any Spec Ops team to be up here, much less looking for him. And certainly not for his girlfriend. Reggie may have had a past that still had the US government’s hackles raised, but he had done nothing remotely bad enough to warrant this sort of treatment.
And that could only mean one thing.
“You’re a mercenary,” Reggie said. The mush that actually came out of his mouth, however, wasn’t understood by anyone in the car. The man looked into the rearview mirror with eyes that could have been on a dead fish, and shrugged.
“Whatever,” Reggie said.
The passenger door opened. Reggie turned to see who the newcomer was, and he felt his blood heat up before the man had entered.
The man’s features were unmistakable. Tall, chiseled, mid-forties to early fifties. Jet-black hair that was cut close to the sides but longer on top, even falling into a perfectly placed disarray in places. Reggie saw a few strands of gray, and if it weren’t his hair, he would have thought the man could have been in his early thirties.
But he knew better — Reggie knew exactly who the man was.
“Vicente Garza,” Reggie mumbled, knowing no one in the car would understand him. “The Hawk.”
Reggie felt a flash of nostalgia, then a strong desire to vomit. He pushed the feeling aside, knowing it was a psychological response triggered by the memories of this man. Long before he’d been involved with the CSO, long before he’d been out on his own as a survivalist training expert, and long before he’d given it all up for a compound in Brazil, he’d been a soldier.
Sarah met his eyes, and he knew that she knew the truth: he knew this man.
He knew this man very well.
Employed by the US Army, Gareth Red had been a sharpshooter, a hotshot sniper who had been recruited for a mission by a bank that was not exactly “on the books.” He’d made a few mistakes, barely escaping with his life, then getting wrapped up in vigilante justice in Puerto Rico and eventually landing in Brazil, where he’d started over.
Before all that, as a grunt in the Army and quickly rising through chaff as the best shot his superiors had trained in a long while, he’d had an opportunity.
An opportunity I’m still thankful I didn’t take, he thought.
That opportunity had come in the form of Vicente “The Hawk” Garza, a once-captain who’d been slowly recruiting young men into a defense contracting company that specialized in security for foreign corporations. It paid well — extremely well — and it had a carte blanche attitude toward legality and ethics.
“Hello again, Reggie,” The Hawk said, as the large man swung into the front seat. He turned and addressed Sarah. “And you must be Reggie’s new little fling, is that it? Dr. Sarah Lindgren, I believe?”
Sarah glared at him.
“Has Reggie told you about the others? He has always been quite the charmer. That huge grin of his usually works wonders in a crowded bar.”
Sarah looked at Reggie, but Reggie just shook his head.
“Oh, yes,” The Hawk said as the driver began to back away down the driveway. “He’s had several intense relationships, I believe. One, even, with a pregnancy?” The Hawk cocked his head sideways as he stared at Sarah.
Reggie wanted to scream. He tried lifting his hands to work them free, but the men who’d bound him — no doubt trained by Garza himself — were professionals. He wasn’t going anywhere. Furthermore, Reggie saw that the driver had slowed once again, and two other men were now mounting the step rail on the opposite sides of the jeep. They grabbed at the roof rack and held on, and the driver picked up speed once again.
A team of four, Reggie thought. Small, quick, efficient. He knew it was a good tactical choice, made even more so by the exclusion of a second vehicle. They had the ability to get in, get the payload — Sarah and him — and get out. Simple.
“He didn’t tell you?” Garza continued. “Yes, well, I can’t remember her name. It was a long time ago, and our intelligence only dips so far. But she was gorgeous. Absolute stunner. Not unlike you, my dear. Anyway — he got her pregnant. A baby girl, I think?”
Reggie seethed. His mind raced, his heart was pumping out of his chest, and he felt scared. Truly, utterly, scared. He hadn’t felt this — vulnerability — in a very long time.
But The Hawk’s words brought him back. His apartment, empty, long after she’d left him. The television, on yet showing nothing. Hungry, yet not wanting to eat.
“How did that end again?” The Hawk asked. “You really should be more open with your lovers, Reggie. It’s only polite.”
He hadn’t told Sarah about her — his ex-girlfriend or his daughter. The pregnancy had been terminated, and he still couldn’t bear the thought of knowing that he’d had something to do with it.
Sarah looked from The Hawk to Reggie, incredulity in her eyes. He wanted to reach out, to grab her hand or her arm Something. He wanted to hold her.
I’m sorry, Sarah. He couldn’t say anything, and he knew she wouldn’t understand i
t anyway. He had to hope that the least she understood was that he had made mistakes. Those mistakes were in the past, and he was paying for them every day of his life.
If only I’d fought harder, he thought. Then maybe I’d have —
“We’ve got a bit of a drive ahead of us, you two,” Garza said. “Might as well get as comfortable as possible. Once we’re in the air, I’ll take off the tape on your mouths. But I’d get used to those zip ties. They’re not going anywhere.”
Reggie calmed himself down and looked out the window, at Ben’s woods passing by as the jeep accelerated onto the wider section of dirt road. They had a few miles to go before they hit the highway, and then another hour or so before they reached Anchorage. Assuming they were headed to Anchorage.
Reggie loved Alaska, but the part that he loved most about it was ironically now the thing he was most terrified of.
Alaska was massive, and it was easy to hide in.
10
Julie
“Let’s go,” Ben said. “Mrs. E is staying here to figure out how the hell they got past our communications.”
Julie nodded absently as she reached for the weapons in the gun case. Since the CSO had set up a permanent headquarters at their cabin, Reggie had significantly upgraded the defense systems they’d had in place. And since there had been effectively none to begin with, those upgrades, to Julie, seemed over-the-top.
Now, however, she was grateful that he’d had the foresight to have the contractors put in a special “defense bunker,” similar to the one Reggie had had in Brazil. The concrete basement was a room that had been built underground, right behind the cabin, with plans to connect it to both a staircase that would start in the cabin’s kitchen and the rest of the CSO building that would be erected just above the bunker.
The bunker had been finished even though the building above it and the connecting staircases had not been, and it was into this bunker that Julie had rushed after Ben had snapped into action. She’d found what she was looking for, entered the combination, and the massive, titanium steel door popped open. To Julie, the weapons inside looked like those out of a sci-fi movie. Even though they’d all trained on each of them, she only felt comfortable with the AR-15 assault rifles at this point. She grabbed two of those, two clips of ammunition, and a few spare magazines. She’d hefted the door shut and waited for the latch to lock, then run back up the ladder and out into the bright morning light.
Ben was waiting for her. “Ready?” he asked.
She nodded and tossed the weapons and ammunition into the front seat of Ben’s SUV. He got into the driver’s seat and before she could enter and close the rear seat door, he had floored it. She felt the force of the vehicle lurching forward onto the gravel driveway and the door close by itself. She had no time to put on a seatbelt, but she knew she wouldn’t need one, anyway.
It was simple: Ben was a great driver, and she was a great shot. She’d be riding “shotgun,” even though she was carrying a massively upgraded version of the Old West’s description of a shotgun and she’d be riding in the backseat, but the term still fit. If they could catch up to The Hawk, there might be a chance at rescuing Reggie and Sarah before they got away.
The trouble was that once they hit the highway, they weren’t sure where The Hawk was going. There was only one dirt road in and out of Ben’s property, but the highway went in two directions: toward Anchorage to the northwest, or head south on Seward highway and end up anywhere on the Turnagairn Arm or the along Chickaloon Bay.
If they couldn’t catch up to Garza by the time they hit the highway, they were hosed. They had no idea what he was driving — Garza had run down the dirt road after leaving the cabin, and he’d parked his vehicle behind the tree line, so when Ben and Julie had finally emerged, armed, he was nowhere to be found. Only the sound of the car starting in the distance told them what they needed to know: Garza had gotten away, and the longer they waited, the longer the odds.
So they’d jumped into action and were now racing over the bumps and troughs of the road as if they didn’t exist. Julie knew Garza would be moving fast as well, but Ben was treating the road as if it were the smoothest highway on the planet. She saw the odometer and was stunned to see that he’d been able to hit 65 MPH on the rutted dirt road. The ice and snow-packed divots helped, but she also knew that it was risking their lives if they hit one wrong or if Ben didn’t see a disguised patch of black ice.
But none of that mattered — they were moving fast, and that meant they had a chance at saving their friends. She loaded the rifle, rolled down the window, then grabbed the seatbelt. She wrapped it around her left arm and pulled the belt all the way out of its housing until it clicked, then released it. She felt it cinch up around her upper arm and shoulder and tested its resistance. Barring a head-on collision with Garza or a tree or rock, the belt should keep her in place and stable as they barreled onward.
She sat back down and held onto the edge of the door as they rode. Ben didn’t speak, and Julie didn’t need him to. They were a team, always had been, and they were good together. They didn’t need to talk through things or discuss anything. All of that would happen later. Right now was about the closest thing to a simple smash-and-grab mission as she could think of.
Another few minutes passed and Ben spoke. “Coming up, dead ahead,” he said through gritted teeth. The words jostled in the air as the SUV jostled over the bumps, but Julie could see the jet-black jeep in the distance, about two-hundred feet up.
“How long until we engage?” she asked.
Ben shook his head. “I don’t care. You’re the sharpshooter. Depends on how much ammo and how well you think you can hit the tires — and not hit the back seat.”
She nodded. “I think a hundred feet or closer. Get me there and I might be able to pick off the guys holding onto the side.”
“Either they’re Mr. Universe-level strong, or Garza’s driver will have to go slower so they can hold on. Should put us within range in a few seconds.”
“Copy that.” She checked her magazine again, she leaned forward and kissed Ben on the cheek. “Love you. Don’t kill us.”
“Love you, too. And you don’t kill us, either.”
She gritted her teeth, leaned out the window, and opened fire.
11
Garza
“Take a left on the highway,” Garza told his driver. “Ignore what I say on the phone.” Edgar Nunez, the young Mexican-American he’d recruited two years ago, nodded his affirmation. They had already discussed the plan, so nothing about what Garza had just said was news to him.
The kid was smart, thanks to a four-year degree paid for by the United States Army and a graduate degree in mechanical engineering paid for by Garza himself. He preferred to be in control of as much of the lives of his men as possible, including enforcing a no-marriage policy while they were under his employ. His soldiers were free to leave, but he also had a pay-what-they’re-worth policy that made most young men’s eyes water.
Vicente Garza paid his active-duty men salaries that started at $200,000 a year. Bonuses went up from there depending on the projects taken, the number of missions performed, and an overall quantitative assessment at the end of the year. From the beginning Garza had tried to build an organization that was based on merit, qualifications, and performance. He was the de facto head, and his word was law. But beneath him, the men jostled for power and recognition, and they voted in their own leadership. Many of his career soldiers were making upwards of a million dollars a year, an incredible amount in security and defense contracting.
Yet Garza’s organization, Ravenshadow, accepted missions that were as incredible as the salaries he paid. They had fought in the favelas of Brazil, the deadly outback, and the open seas. They took jobs that no one else would touch, as Garza responded to one enticement: money.
He didn’t want power, and he didn’t care about who might be in power in whatever country they were operating in. He cared about getting paid, and he had tu
rned on more than one client who’d refused to pay what his team was worth. His reputation had reached the corners of the globe, from companies interested in protecting their investments in energy in places they shouldn’t have been in to governments interested in protecting their stranglehold on the local economy.
His men had taken down corrupt dictators in order for a more corrupt dictator to take their place, and they had killed anyone standing in the way of their clients’ goals.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket just as the ping of a rifle round bounced into his ears.
“Boss, they’re shooting at us,” Edgar said.
“I hear it. Keep moving.” He banged on the hardtop roof of the jeep, and within seconds he heard his men firing back. He knew it was unlikely they would be accurate while holding onto the top of the jeep with one hand and trying to fire backwards, but he would use any strategy available to him. He pulled the phone up to his face once again and dialed the number.
It took a few seconds, but connected with a clear signal.
“Listen, asshole,” the voice began.
He cut him off. “Harvey,” Garza said. “Shut up. Listen to me. You shoot your friends on accident and I’ll finish the job for you. You shoot my friends, and I’ll kill you and yours.” He turned around to see Sarah and Reggie sitting forward in their seats, their eyes strained. “The only way out of this with your friends alive is to let us get to the airport. Anchorage is only…” he stopped mid-sentence, hoping the ruse would reach Ben’s ears. “We’re going to leave without interference Ben, and I hope you understand what it means if you disobey me. After that, you have one week. Find the book.”
He didn’t wait for Ben to respond, disconnecting the call and turning once again to his driver. “Turn left at the highway.”
