Once a Hero

by Jan Thompson

  “Maybe Helen can tell us more secrets in the morning.” Jake checked his phone. Out of juice again. He charged it in the USB socket in the car. “Must be nice to have this. My old stick-shift has nothing but AC.”

  “Cassette player too?”

  Jake nodded. “It’s broken though.”

  The rain eased up as they drove on a winding road heading east through the forest. The GPS on both of their phones was intermittent. All they could see around them were tree trunks. The tops of trees were three hundred feet into the dark night of California.

  If the headlights on their rental SUV stopped working, they’d have to wait until daybreak before they could find their way off of the long road.

  “I want to know why this can’t wait until morning,” Earl asked.

  “We’re several steps behind Molyneux already. Don’t we want to get ahead sometime?” Jake wasn’t sure they would ever get ahead of the terrorist, who seemed to have known their every move. How?

  Helen Hu’s contacts had informed them that the dead sniper at Fisherman’s Wharf was undocumented and they had no idea who he was. However, his weapons were military-grade, meaning that he was probably not there to just shoot at the crowd.

  He probably had someone in mind.

  Which led Jake to wonder if Molyneux had sent him.

  “Am I a target again?” Jake mumbled.

  Apparently, Earl heard him. “Don’t think so highly of yourself. For all we know, Molyneux might be going after Beatrice Glynn and her team as well.”

  “No schadenfreude for me. I don’t want her killed. We know that Molyneux can—”

  Crunch! Pop!

  The SUV stopped dead in its tracks.

  Nothing Earl did moved the vehicle forward.

  “Something on the ground?” Jake asked.

  “I’ll go check.” Earl unbuckled, palmed his Sig Sauer, and went outside.

  Except for the SUV headlights, the entire forest was dark around them.

  Earl came to Jake’s side of the vehicle. He rolled down his window.

  “Someone put a spike strip on the ground,” Earl reported. “The two front two tires are blown out. I think we only have one spare tire.”

  “A prank?”

  “Whose bright idea was it to take this shortcut?” Earl asked.

  “There’s no shortcut. There’s only one road. You saw the map. Check your GPS.” Jake opened the glove compartment and retrieved more ammunition. He put it in his backpack pocket—

  And heard a twig snap.

  Earl went around the back of the SUV, turned off the lights, removed the vehicle key, and then retrieved his messenger bag from the back seat.

  Jake was outside the SUV now, weapon in hand. When nothing happened, he second-guessed himself.

  It was probably an animal in the forest stepping on a twig.

  While Earl locked the SUV, Jake listened to more rustling sounds among the giant redwood trees.

  Hurry up. We have insurance. No need to lock it.

  They heard a vehicle coming up the road.

  “Help is on the way.”

  Jake stopped him. He pointed to the trees on the side of the road. “Let’s make sure.”

  Quickly, they ran to the side of the road and hid behind the giant trees.

  Silently they waited.

  The vehicle came by and stopped behind their SUV. Two men came out.

  Armed.

  This is not good. Jake held his breath.

  And Earl’s phone rang.

  Shots fired in their direction as Jake and Earl ran blindly in the forest. There was no time to check their GPS for suggested walking trails.

  There was no time to even breath!

  Or pray!

  The forest was dark—pitch black—and Jake pointed his dim cell phone light on the trail in front of him to see the way without alerting their pursuers to where they were.

  The bad news was that he had been trying to charge up his phone back in the SUV, but it hadn’t charged up much. He couldn’t remember if he had another charger in his backpack. If they didn’t find help soon, he’d run out of battery before the night was over.

  Earl was breathing heavily behind Jake. “I need to lose weight.”

  Jake couldn’t speak a word.

  Gunshots!

  Jake ducked, as if it helped. If their pursuers had night vision goggles, it was only a matter of time before they caught up with the duo.

  Then what? Call 911?

  More gunshots!

  They were closer now.

  Earl stumbled and fell. He let out a short scream.

  Jake spun around. Earl’s ankle was in a hole by the side of the trail, where a root showed.

  “What are you doing?” Jake snarled.

  “I was trying to take a break.” He gritted his teeth.

  Jake helped him get his foot out of the hole. “Is it a sprain?”

  Even before Earl could answer, Jake knew. His foot was sideways. He had probably broken it.

  Jake helped Earl to hop on one foot so they could hide behind a tree.

  Jake tried to call 911.

  No signal.

  “Give me your phone,” Jake said.

  Earl looked everywhere for it. “I had it a minute ago.”

  “Well, if my phone doesn’t have signal, yours might not either.” It was all he could say.

  Jake checked his phone again. His battery power was at ten percent. He texted Helen Hu, who had told them to call her twenty-four seven. Maybe texting would work if voice didn’t.

  SOS. Send help.

  He entered their GPS coordinates.

  And prayed.

  Chapter Ten

  “Do you think they’ve found the cabin?” It was Raynelle’s turn to drive, and she was making chitchat to stay awake.

  Or at least that was Beatrice’s assumption.

  Raynelle’s job was to follow the signal on Jake’s burner phone. Wherever they were going seemed to be in the direction of Philomena’s cabin in the woods.

  The problem was that Jake’s phone had no directions. It had been obvious that Earl’s phone was the one with the address of the cabin. For some reason, Kenichi was unable to hack into Earl’s phone. It was NSA-grade.

  Beatrice was in the back of the cargo van with Kenichi, going over data that he had collected about Jake’s time at Molyneux’s organization. Nothing so far. When Jake had been undercover there, he was a low-level employee—dispensable—whom Molyneux had deployed to the Great Smoky Mountains several years before to capture a British Special Forces soldier who had been hiding at a top-secret retreat center.

  “To answer your question, Ray, I don’t know.” Beatrice didn’t look up from the laptop she had been staring at for hours.

  There was nothing there. No leverage.

  Beatrice sighed. “So all we have is the three-amber brooch. Assuming Jake has the one-amber brooch, we still can’t get the location of the Amber Room.”

  “Correction, Bee,” Kenichi said. “The location of some of the panels of the Amber Room. And we still don’t know if the brooches are what your dad said they are.”

  “Hey guys,” Raynelle said. “Something wrong here.”

  Beatrice tried to stretch but the van didn’t have a ceiling tall enough for her to stand up. At five nine, she wasn’t that tall, but her thick lug-sole boots didn’t help.

  Beatrice went to the front to sit down on the passenger seat. She buckled up. “What?”

  “His phone is stationary—in the forest.”

  Beatrice leaned toward the display on the dashboard. They were ten minutes from the location of the phone. “So they added another a few minutes to their drive?”

  “Like they’ve stopped,” Raynelle said, eyes on the dark road ahead.

  “Maybe they went to the bathroom,” Kenichi shouted from the back of the van. He laughed all by himself.

  Beatrice wondered… Nah.

  On the other hand, yes. “Molyneux might’ve found them.”r />
  “And thereby us, since we’re coming up to them,” Raynelle said.

  “Ken, please check on Jake’s phone.” Beatrice unbuckled her safety belt and went to their stash of firearms. “What’s happening out there?”

  “You know what your brother says about you and shotguns.” Kenichi laughed.

  “That’s not my thing.” Beatrice slipped two handguns into her vest pockets. It would be hard to get them out if she needed them in an instant.

  Kenichi whistled. “Houston, we have a problem.”

  “What?”

  “Jake is in the forest.”

  “What I said.” Raynelle shook her head.

  In front of them, two vehicles were parked right in the middle of the road.

  There seemed to be someone still inside the vehicle.

  Before Beatrice could say anything, Raynelle had parked their van, left the headlights on, and was walking toward the driver, who seemed to be looking her way through the rearview mirror.

  Beatrice couldn’t hear what Raynelle said to the man, but she suddenly yanked open the door, and pulled the man out on the road. What looked like a rifle fell to the road. Raynelle kicked it away.

  Why would that person have an assault rifle right in the middle of the redwood forest?

  Raynelle stepped on his neck.

  It looked like she was interrogating him.

  Beatrice found some cable ties. She pulled up her bandana mask over her mouth and nose, and was about to exit the van when Kenichi grabbed the cable ties from her.

  “Your brother would kill me if I let you walk out there.”

  “Stop coddling me,” Beatrice snapped. “I pay your salary.”

  “I would still not let you go out there even if you don’t pay me anything.” Kenichi put on a ski mask. “You’re like a sister to me, and I want to see you safe.”

  And out he went.

  Beatrice sat down at his laptop. Onscreen, she could see Jake’s phone. It was at five percent battery.

  Her eyes widened when she saw the message.

  “Over ten minutes ago. Where are they?” Beatrice decided to reply, even though it would look weird to Jake. On his phone, if he could see it, it would be as though he was talking to himself.

  Beatrice: Are you okay?

  Jake: Who is this?

  Beatrice: A friend. Are you injured?

  Jake: No. My associate is.

  Beatrice: How?

  Jake: Broken ankle.

  Beatrice: Stay where you are. We’re coming.

  Jake: Who are you?

  He had asked a second time. He would find out eventually, but there was no reason to tell him now while they were entering the forest.

  Beatrice: You know who I am. Keep your phone on.

  Jake: I’m running out of battery.

  Beatrice: Conserve.

  Jake: One more thing. What’s the local police number?

  Beatrice: Don’t worry. I’m calling 911 for you.

  Beatrice was relieved that Jake was okay. She called 911, but she wasn’t sure how long it would take them to come. She made sure to tell them that someone was injured in the forest.

  She burst out of the van and ran toward the man on the ground. He was bleeding from the mouth. What did Raynelle and Kenichi do to him?

  “He’s not talking,” Raynelle said.

  Gunshots echoed through the forest.

  Oh no. They might have found Jake!

  Beatrice pressed a weapon on his chest. “Who are you after?”

  The man spat blood on her boots—as if he knew she wouldn’t shoot.

  Sigh.

  “Don’t mess with me. Tell me now what they want from my friends they’re chasing.”

  He said nothing.

  “You’re afraid of Molyneux, but you’re not afraid of me?” Beatrice’s gloved hand went around his neck. She pressed, every calmly.

  His eyes widened. “What…”

  Beatrice pressed. She wondered how much she could press before he couldn’t breathe, but so far her words had scared him.

  And herself too.

  She wanted him to answer her before she started to get nervous. “Speak.”

  “Cabin.” The man looked defeated. “They’re looking for the cabin.”

  Beatrice noted the subtle shift. The man was changing sides. He had said “they” instead of “we.”

  They figured Jake and Earl knew where the cabin was. They were probably right. That was also why Beatrice had followed Jake.

  “Get him up,” Beatrice said. “Should we take him into the forest with us?”

  Raynelle smiled. She seemed to like that sort of instruction. “His buddies could make him their target practice.”

  “No…. Let me go,” He pleaded in a whiny voice. “They also want the brooches. Molly asked for them.”

  “Molly?” Molyneux?

  If Jake had the one-amber brooch, he’d probably stashed it somewhere else, not on his person. Beatrice didn’t carry the three-amber brooch everywhere with her.

  However, if Molyneux’s men caught up with Jake and Earl, they’d try to make Jake turn over the brooches.

  “How many people are with you?” Beatrice asked.

  “Two. I’m just the driver.”

  “Two.” Assuming he was telling the truth.

  Beatrice turned to her team members. Raynelle nearly laughed. Kenichi shrugged.

  Beatrice guessed they were both thinking the same thing she was. They weren’t sure whether to trust the driver.

  “Gag him and throw him in the trunk of his car,” Kenichi said.

  “There is no trunk-trunk in his SUV.”

  “Then just tie him to a tree.” He laughed. “But we don’t have a rope that long to go around a big old tree. So why don’t we just kill him?”

  The driver whimpered. With Raynelle pointing the bullet end of a gun at his forehead, he didn’t dare make a louder sound.

  Raynelle rolled her eyes at Kenichi’s silly ideas. She gagged the driver and pulled him to his feet. When they reached Jake’s SUV, she made him get in the back. She tied him up like he was a roped calf in a rodeo.

  Beatrice thought that was enough. The driver wasn’t going anywhere. And he was in the FBI agent’s SUV.

  Beatrice went back to the van with Kenichi. “What can we use as a splint? Jake’s friend twisted or broke his ankle.”

  “We have the first aid kit. That’s all.”

  Beatrice climbed into the van. She found duct tape and two travel pillows, which were quite small. She could not find any foam that was small enough to wrap around an ankle. She stuffed the pillows and duct tape into her back pack. And threw in several bottles of water.

  Kenichi was suited up and weighed down with ammunition and weapons. He brought extra weapons for Raynelle, who was outside the van.

  He gave Beatrice a tiny Glock and an LED headlamp.

  Oh, wait. It wasn’t only a headlamp. It projected in front of her a three-dimensional map of the forest.

  Kenichi locked the van and they all put on night vision goggles.

  “This way.” Beatrice projected the map in front of her.

  As Raynelle came close to her, she quietly handed Beatrice a second firearm, the bullpup with the shortest barrel that they had in the van.

  Sigh.

  At least it was still a Tavor. And her brother had taught her how to use it.

  “In my moment of weakness,” Benjamin would tell her numerous times after that.

  If Benjamin had his way, Beatrice would never leave Charleston. Sometimes Beatrice wished her older brother wouldn’t hover over her.

  The world might be cruel, wicked, and evil, but God was greater still.

  Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

  The verse from 1 John 4:4 emboldened Beatrice. “Let’s go!”

  Chapter Eleven

  You know who I am.

  He stared at the tex
t message screen, but nothing else came through. He had done what that person ordered him: conserve.

  Fortunately, he hadn’t installed many apps on his burner phone. He dimmed the lights on his phone.

  Unfortunately, he was still at five percent juice. He wished he had bought extra battery packs with him. The mapping software ate up a lot of battery, for some reason.

  He could hear Earl breathing heavily.

  There was no way they could move fast enough with Earl’s broken ankle, so their best bet was to stay put here until help came.

  There was not enough signal for him to call on the phone or google the police station number so he could text for help.

  He prayed that his rescuer had called the police on their behalf.

  Twigs broke. Footsteps drew closer.

  He had heard gunshots earlier, but they seemed to be farther and farther away from him.

  Thank God.

  “Jake?” A woman’s voice came on the night wind. “Jake?”

  Jake debated whether to reply. She sounded like…

  Beatrice Glynn.

  “I called 911, Jake. We’re here.”

  There she went, confirming that she—or her team—had hacked into his burner phone to enable her to text him. They would need to sort out the legal problems later.

  He was so stunned that he failed to respond to her calling out his name.

  “I think they’re behind the tree.” Another woman whispered. “I can’t believe how big these trees are.”

  “Hurry up,” a man said. “They might double back.”

  Jake thought that man’s assessment was correct. By the mercy of God, their pursuer had overshot and walked—or ran—past them under the giant redwood tree trunk with an exposed root.

  “We’re here,” Jake finally said.

  He felt someone squatting in front of him, but he could not see them. “I can’t see you. My phone battery died and we have no light.”

  “I can see you with my infrared goggles,” Beatrice explained.

  Moments later, someone turned on a flashlight. In the dim light, Beatrice pushed her goggles above her head. Jake saw the same kind eyes he had seen before in San Francisco. She was wearing a bandana mask, so he couldn’t see most of her face. She pulled it down to show him who she was