by J. M. Madden
“Most of the men seem to have settled on the porch of the cabin. I can’t tell if Regent is still there or not,” Amberly murmured after half an hour. “I’m going to start down the mountain.”
“Roger that,” he responded. He glanced back once from where he’d come and he thought he saw lights, then they disappeared. The Jeep had been parked so that the headlights wouldn’t draw attention when the vehicle was started.
After about an hour of steady jogging, he reached the inner perimeter of fence, around the corrals near the barn. Horses were more aware of their surroundings than cattle, and a few of them snorted at him as he moved close. Dev spoke softly to them, hoping they would think he was just another hand, out for a nightly stroll. They eventually settled down as he passed by.
Before he went over the final plank fence, he crouched behind a black rubber water trough and watched for movement. There were a few lights on in the barn, but it seemed like everything had been buttoned up for the night. It was going on eleven at night, so most people would be looking for their beds, he hoped.
Pulling the NVGs down, he looked away from the barn, into the night. It was quiet. Nothing moved, other than the animals, dozing lazily. Flipping the goggles back up, he jumped the fence and headed for the barn. As soon as he was inside, he flattened himself against the giant sliding door. Then he looked for a way to go up.
“Who are you?” a female voice demanded. “You’re in the wrong place.”
Dev had spun, Requiem half-raised, as soon as he heard the voice, and his heart sank. It was a young girl, maybe sixteen or seventeen, leaning on the top of a stall door. A gray mare stood behind her, ears pricked forward.
“You people know he’s up in the cabin. We’ve told you to stay away from the animals,” she continued. Then she narrowed her eyes as she looked him over. “You’re not with the Blade. Who are you? Are you going to take the asshole out?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
The girl grinned and gave a funny little dance. “Finally. If he tells me one more time I would be a good wife for one of his men, I was going to shoot him myself. You can do it for me.”
Dev snorted. “I’ll try. I’m trying to be quiet here, though.”
“Oh, yeah,” the girl’s voice dropped as she let herself out of the stall. “I get you. Can I help? He’s screwed my dad up.”
Dev looked at her. Typical ranch kid, dirty boots and jeans. “Your dad is Chris?”
She nodded. “Cole showed up about a month ago and started making himself at home, telling dad these crazy stories. Even I know they’re fake news.” She rolled her eyes for emphasis. “Dad’s had to take over the ranch, though, and he’s having problems with the DNR not renewing his lease and stuff.”
“I’m sorry.”
Dev felt ridiculous standing here in his full kit, weapon in hand, just tempting fate to send another fucking witness. “Listen, you need to go to the house and tuck in. Pretend you never saw me. You hear me?”
Threatening a kid was out of the question, but he could strenuously suggest.
“I hear you.” She glanced down at his gun, and something went over her face. “Wow, you really are here to shoot him. I think he’s doing bad things, so you should.”
She stared up into Dev’s face for a long moment, before motioning to the far corner. “If you need to go high, those are the stairs. On that far wall,” she pointed beyond his shoulder, “there’s a ladder up to the cupola. It’s not very big, but it’s sturdy, and you can see everywhere on the ranch.”
Dev swallowed and gave her a single nod. “Go in the house and lock up. Who was it that left a while ago?”
“That was the housekeeper and her son. They always leave later.”
“Okay,” Dev murmured. “You should go. Lock the doors and don’t let anyone in. If you hear gunfire, take cover.”
“Don’t shoot my dad,” the girl pleaded. “I think he’s up there with him.”
Wincing, Dev shifted. “You need to try to get him down to the house. If he shoots at me…”
The girl blinked her big eyes. “I understand. I’ll try.”
Unable to do otherwise, he gave her a nod. “And I’ll try not to kill him if he stays,” he promised. “Go get safe.”
The girl took off at a run, dust flying up behind her boot heels. Devlin watched until she got into the house before heading for the stairs. “Did you catch all that?”
Amberly laughed on the other end of the line. “Yes. Way to put you in a pickle.”
“I’m not in a pickle,” he murmured. “If he raises a weapon in support of Regent, I’m going to drop him.”
“Yes.”
“Are you down the mountain?”
“I am,” she confirmed. “Ready to tear in and get you.”
“Okay. Love you, babe.”
“Love you too,” she breathed.
Then he turned the com unit off. He needed to concentrate for a while.
Climbing the stairs into the hayloft, he tried to be quiet. Hopefully, the girl would stay in the house and keep her mouth shut about seeing him. Just in case she didn’t, though, he needed to hurry up and get into position. The secondary ladder was where she said it was, and he climbed up to a plank walkway, which spanned the width of the barn. Right in the center was another ladder up into the cupola. It was a tight fit, but he managed to get situated, pushing one of the little vented doors open. Then he fit the muzzle of Requiem through the opening.
This was perfect.
There was a bit of an angle up to the cabin, but the wind was quiet. He put his eyes to the night vision scope and focused.
Half a dozen men sat on the front porch of the cabin. Dev wondered if it had been a manager’s cabin, or something. Maybe an old bunkhouse, and they were all staying there. One of the men stood and walked out into the yard, answering a call. Was that Chris? For the girl’s sake, Dev hoped the man listened and went home.
Within just a few minutes, after talking to the men again and laughing, the man headed down to the main house and disappeared inside.
The timing wasn’t going to get much better. Yes, there were a lot of men on the porch, but if they all decided to turn in and headed inside, it would be a lost shot.
Snugging the weapon to his shoulder, he plotted out the targets. Regent would be first, of course, then he’d work to the right, where the easier targets were. Even though he had a suppressor on the end of the weapon, as soon as he fired, he would be exposed. There was only so much muzzle flash and noise that could be obscured. He expected return fire.
Dev took a few deep breaths, his heart racing. Finally, after all this time, he was going to take out Cole Regent, the man who had basically destroyed his life, whether or not he realized it. Dropping the crosshairs onto his head, Dev rested his finger on the trigger, and slowly squeezed.
18
Amberly had the windows rolled down and the truck off hoping to hear anything from the ranch. Devlin had turned off the coms unit, but she breathed shallowly in case she missed a whisper or other sound.
Her gut was churning, and she didn’t know how to make it better. So much was riding on this night. They needed a twelve-man CIA Insertion team to effectively carry out this plan. Instead, it was just the two of them, and Dev was doing the bulk of the work at this second.
Did she drive up the driveway in the hopes of being closer in case he needed her? No, because if she did that, somehow they would miss each other. She would wait until he called her, then get in there as fast as she could.
Getting out of the car, she paced along beside it for about ten feet, then crossed back. She was so worried for Devlin. So much had changed in four days.
This was a stupid plan. They should have waited until Regent was leaving and take him out on the truck or something. Instead, Devlin was in the middle of the hornet’s nest.
Grabbing her phone, she looked for a text or anything. Nothing. Brown had her new burner number. That niggling thought bugged her again. How had he l
earned about Hatchett’s granddaughter?
She typed off a message to Brown, asking him.
Frank heard I was looking and said he helped find them a place out there. We’ve got a team on the ground in Antigua looking for him.
Amberly’s stomach twisted. Frank. Her friend. Or at least, she thought he was her friend. Frank Callypso had been there for her her entire professional career. When everything had gone down with Devlin, he’d been a literal shoulder to cry on. She’d eaten meals at his house with his wife, and listened to him complain about his kids moving away.
Frank had been in charge of the escort team the night Regent was moved. If he’d known SAC was going to remove Regent… then he’d probably known that Devlin was going to be set up as the fall guy.
Her heart ached at the thought of her friend taking part in terroristic activities. Yeah, he’d bitched about some of the country’s policies. More often, he bitched about the politicians. Had it been such an anger that it would impel him to take action against the country she thought he loved?
She stared down at the message on her phone.
Brown, where is Frank now?
He’s taking a couple of days off. It’s he and his wife’s anniversary.
No, it wasn’t, but Brown, who’d only been there a short time, wouldn’t realize that. His anniversary is in May, right after his wife’s birthday.
The phone rang in her hand. “So, what are you saying, Temple?”
“There are enough inconsistencies that I believe Frank Callypso might be Regent’s inside CIA man.”
“Fuck, that’s what I thought you were saying. Let me do some digging.”
“See if you can ping his phone.”
“Just a minute,” Brown murmured, and it sounded like he was holding the cell phone with his chin. She heard computer keys clacking. Then a long silence. “Temple. His phone was last at a Bozeman, Montana tower.”
“Are you fucking kidding me,” she hissed. “What the fuck do I do?”
Brown sighed on the other end of the line. “I’m going to continue digging, but right now, the fact that he’s out there and not because of you makes me think he’s in collusion with known domestic terrorists.”
Her eyes burned, and she blinked. Frank Callypso, her mentor and friend, was playing dirty.
Dev squeezed the trigger… just as some guy ran up the steps of the porch, fouling his shot. That man went down, and he saw Regent jerk, then lunge to the side for cover. So, he’d hit him, but hadn’t killed him.
“Fuck,” he hissed, acquiring the next target. The man sitting beside Regent with a beer in his hand never even moved as he died, just dropped the beer. One man sailed off the edge of the porch and Dev caught him in the neck. He skidded on his face and was still. Dev jerked his scope back to where Regent had gone down, but his view was obscured by a truck. He scanned back and forth, very carefully controlling his breathing.
Where the fuck had he gone?
There was movement at the back of the truck as someone started shooting an automatic AR 15. They were firing wild, though. They hadn’t actually seen where he was, just thought they knew. There was a small building down the hill from the cabin they were aiming and firing at.
Dev took the shooter out, watched as another man peered out from behind a vehicle and started to fire. At the very least, he’d ruined most of Regent’s plan by taking out these men.
By his count, he’d killed four and wounded two. The first guy might still be alive, though he had to be in pain.
Dev debated dropping down from the barn and hustling up there. It was less than half a mile, but he would be exposed.
A truck sped up the drive and for a moment he thought it was Amberly, arriving early. But the vehicle turned up the hill to the cabin, and Dev realized it was trying to rescue Regent.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said, taking aim.
He couldn’t see the front wheels, but the back wheels were easy enough to take out. The car skidded wildly, but still seemed sound enough to pick someone up and turn back down the hill. Surely that had been Regent getting into the car… Aiming at the driver’s side of the windshield, he plowed round after round into it. The car suddenly accelerated as it slammed into the plank fence and jounced into the field, coming to rest against a tree.
That had been a devastating crash, and Dev doubted anyone would make it out. Pivoting, he scanned the area around the deck. There was a man on the ground waving his hand weakly, but that was the only movement.
He keyed on his coms unit. “Come get me. We have some cleanup to do.”
“Roger that,” Amberly said, voice calm.
Dev watched for another minute, waiting to hear the Jeep roaring up the driveway before he started making his way down through the hayloft. A couple of the horses nickered as he jogged through the barn and out the big door he’d originally come through. Amberly was there, parked at a hitching post.
It wasn’t easy getting into the passenger side of the Jeep, but he managed it, stowing Requiem on the back seat. Pulling his sidearm, he pointed for her to drive.
“We need to check that vehicle.”
She gassed the Jeep and they tore through the grass and gravel. She followed the path the previous truck had and looped wide around the tree. Slamming it into park, they both tumbled out, weapons up, and crept up the sides of the crumpled mass. Amberly took the driver’s side, Dev the passenger.
“This one isn’t going anywhere,” she said, peering in at the corpse.
“Neither is this one. And it’s not Regent. It’s one of the brothers.”
“And this is the other one,” she confirmed.
Just then they heard the roar of an engine, but it sounded different. They turned toward the cabin just in time to see a side by side ATV take off behind the cabin.
“You shoot, I drive,” Amberly called, darting for the open door of the Jeep.
Dev wasn’t even settled by the time she took off back through the crashed fence. “Stop at the cabin. I have to see if it’s Regent.”
The Jeep roared as it climbed the drive, then skidded as Amberly hit the brakes next to the truck the Blade had been using for cover. Dev jumped out and circled the bed, weapon up and ready. There were bodies everywhere, but none of them were Regent. He looked at the chair where the man had been sitting. Yes, there was a significant amount of blood on the wood, but not enough to debilitate him, obviously.
Dev scrambled up the steps and into the cabin, pushing the door wide.
And took a shotgun blast to the chest.
Dev flew back across the front porch and landed on his back at the base of the steps. A man staggered out of the cabin, gun raised, blood coating his front. He staggered, gaze locked on Dev, and took a bullet through the neck from Amberly’s gun, then another through the chest. He collapsed where he stood.
Then Amberly was there, peering down at him. “Get your ass up, you’re fine. Your vest took the shot.”
Dev gasped in air, gritting his teeth. Amberly ran up the porch steps and through the door, leaping over the body. She returned seconds later, as he was surging to his feet. The Beretta was still in his hand, miraculously.
“No one else in there. All the info on the bombings is, though. That must have been Regent taking off.”
She jerked on his vest, pulling him up, getting his legs moving. “Let’s go, Moon Devil. You’ve got work still to do.”
They clambered into the Jeep and Amberly followed the path of the ATV. It was easy enough to see, even in the dark, because it was lined with pine trees. Gunning the truck, they surged up the mountain. The Jeep wasn’t as nimble as the ATV probably, but it definitely had more power, and on this narrow track, power was more important for the moment.
Then they broke through the trees and into a meadow, it looked like. Amberly had to slow to get a direction of travel. The ATV, and its bouncing tail lights, had gone to the right, still climbing. She followed the path of crushed grass several hundred yards until it disappe
ared into another stand of pine. This track was even narrower, tree limbs scraping the sides of the truck. Dev held onto the ‘oh shit’ handle as Amberly expertly drove through an increasingly cluttered path. At one point, they jounced over a pine tree on the ground, bucking them up out of their seats.
When they broke out of the pines, Amberly had to slam on the brakes. They skidded right to the edge of a rocky embankment. “Fuck,” Amberly breathed.
His own balls might have sucked up a little as well, because that was a hell of a drop-off. “Good job, babe!”
Grinning, Amberly backed away from the cliff and turned. There was a narrow track running along the edge of the rock wall. “Will we fit?”
“Hope so,” she murmured, guiding the Jeep to follow.
It looked like it used to be a damn horse path. Then ATV or dirt bikes started using it, widening the path a little. He didn’t know if it was wide enough for a full-sized Jeep though.
Amberly was focused on the track, mouth open, breathing heavily as she concentrated completely on keeping them alive. She flinched as the driver’s side mirror hit a rock outcrop and flipped into the door. Dev was impressed that she kept it so close to the rock wall, because his side was a near vertical drop.
Then, suddenly, the road opened up and they seemed to be on a plateau or something. It was damn near level.
That was when the gunshots sounded. They both ducked, but Amberly continued to drive forward, bouncing over rocks and through depressions. They were a big, bright target coming across the field in the pitch black night.
That gave him an idea. “Turn off your lights,” he commanded her.
“What,” she screeched.
“Just do it!”
Amberly turned the lights off on the Jeep and turned to the right, getting out of the line of fire. Then he flipped the NVGs down over her eyes. “Sorry about that, babe.”
“Oh, dude. Hell yeah!”
Spinning the wheel, she floored the truck, taking sharp turns and hitting her brakes as they drove through the night. Bullets stopped hitting them, and Dev knew they had to be damned close to Regent.
