by Erik Carter
The idea of making a run for it flashed through Dale’s mind. The tree line was only a few yards away. He’d be there quickly if he sprinted. But, like he concluded at the airport, he was heavily outnumbered. And now that everyone was armed, the situation was even worse.
The sky was now completely dark. Pitch black, no stars. The parking area’s lights were blazing bright. The steps that led to the massive front porch of the cabin were only a few feet away. Dale felt anxiety seeping into him, the idea of going back in that building, locked within those walls … now that Hendrix knew. And all his followers were armed.
Dale didn’t stand a chance. He couldn’t go into that building. But what could he do?
Hendrix and Lebedev were at the front of the group, still speaking in Russian as they continued toward the cabin. Hendrix turned around then. He looked at Dale.
“It seems Ulan here is a history buff too. That’s something else, huh, Dale?”
Dale. He’d addressed him as Dale.
And he put on that same dark grin he’d worn at the airport after the encounter with Penny. The corners of his lips curled up. Sheer menace.
If Dale went into that cabin, he was a dead man. He had to do something drastic.
If he was going to survive.
No time to think.
There was only time to act.
Steeger was walking beside Dale. The Guide. Dale grabbed the man’s ponytail, yanked down hard, and at the same time pulled out his Model 36. He threw Steeger in front of him, using him as a human shield, and stuck his gun under the man’s chin. He tugged him back, several feet away from the group, their shuffling feet spitting gravel.
Dale locked eyes with Hendrix. That wicked, smartass grin had left Hendrix’s face. Now he was confused, shocked.
Dale had gotten the drop on him.
“All right, you son of a bitch,” Dale said. “I have The Guide. And now you’re gonna give me some damn answers.”
Chapter Forty
“What?” Sloane shouted into the walkie-talkie, not believing what he’d heard.
“Yes, sir,” his man positioned in the forest replied. “Target has just taken Trent Steeger hostage. He’s negotiating with Hendrix.”
Sloane had been dumbfounded so many times during this assignment that he was almost surprised to find himself speechless again. Finally, he said, “Monitor the situation, Alpha Four.”
“Sir.”
Sloane put the walkie-talkie away as another car passed by, slowly, in the darkness behind him. He and the rest of his team—three of them, altogether—were gathered around the massive trunk of one of their black Lincoln Continentals. The trunk was so big that it formed the perfect table for their impromptu briefing. On it, Sloane had spread their maps, notes, and several photographs that one of his men had taken that morning in the woods. There was still room to spare on the trunk’s surface. It was massive. The Continental was a real land yacht.
He’d pulled the men from their positions in the trees to inform them of their new objective, leaving one guy behind for surveillance. Three beams of light from their Kel-Lites illuminated the materials on the trunk, and Sloane pointed toward the photographs. The car was parked on the shoulder of the road, at the edge of the forest. It was nearly 1900 hours. That gave them plenty of time to hike back into position before Hendrix’s meeting began at 2000 hours.
“We have a new objective with our target,” he told his men.
His finger rested on a photo of the brown-haired guy with the leather jacket who carried a Model 36.
“We don’t know who he is, why Maddox was trailing him, or how he’s connected to the Russians,” Sloane continued. “But we know he’s the key to everything. Everything goes back to this guy. So we’re done monitoring him. The director wants us to bring him in.”
Nods from his men.
Sloane looked at the men in turn, letting his eyes land for half a moment on each of them.
“And this part comes from me, not the director. This bastard is the reason Maddox came out here and got his head blown off,” Sloane said, stabbing his finger at the photograph of the man. “Another star on the wall at Langley. So if you need to drop his ass … do it.”
Chapter Forty-One
The shocked look on Hendrix’s face slowly melted away, replaced once more by that nasty grin, which was even darker now as he bore into Dale with his eyes. He gave a little laugh, shook his head.
Dale wasn’t quite sure what this reaction meant. But he didn’t like it.
“I see our little ruse has really worked on you, Tommy. Erm, Dale. Whatever the hell your name is. The way I figure, you’re some sort of federal agent. I’ve always had a suspicion you feds were watching us. Which is why I started working with Trent Steeger here.”
He motioned with his head toward the man Dale was holding hostage.
“He was the one I sent to Russia to meet with Lebedev. Of course the CLEAN Conference was eventually going to get linked to me out here in the woods, the new Prophet of Oak Ridge. And the mysterious Guide would need a face. Naturally, investigators would assume it was the man who’d flown to Moscow and met with the Soviets. They would assume it was the notoriously violent ecoterrorist who’d made multiple visits to Oak Ridge during the last year.”
“You set Steeger up…” Dale said.
Hendrix gave a casually guilty face—a whoops expression—and glanced at Steeger.
“I’m afraid I did. Sorry, Trent.” He looked at Dale again, flicked his eyes to Dale’s gun resting beneath Steeger’s chin. “So, do you really think you have leverage on me, Dale?”
Hendrix took a couple steps to his left, cupped his hand over Cody’s ear, and whispered something. Cody took out a Colt Python.
Dale squeezed in tighter behind his human shield of Steeger.
Cody aimed the gun in Dale’s direction. But he didn’t aim directly at Dale.
He aimed at Steeger.
The gun roared.
Steeger screamed and dropped out of Dale’s grasp, landing hard in the gravel. He grabbed at his stomach, writhing violently, kicking rocks in all directions.
Hendrix put his hands in his pockets and casually strolled back over.
Dale’s bargaining chip was dying in the gravel. He was out of options. So he raised his hands in the air as Hendrix approached.
Hendrick stopped when he was a couple feet away. He looked down at Steeger, whose moans grew quieter. His violent twisting subsided, giving way to nothingness.
“Thank you for your help, Trent, but your services are no longer needed.”
Hendrix watched Steeger’s final twitching, dying movements. Then he looked up at Dale.
“Ya see, pal, Steeger wasn’t running the CLEAN Conference. He wasn’t The Guide.”
Dale remembered his earlier thought, from the previous night, the hypothesis he’d formed when he listened in on Hendrix’s Russian phone conversation.
He looked at Lebedev and back to Hendrix. “Him! The Guide is the damn Russian.”
Hendrix chuckled.
“Wrong again.”
He stepped closer to Dale, within inches.
“I’m The Guide.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Becker stood in the spare bedroom next to the loveseat. His hand was on the blanketed mound that was his sleeping wife. The room was dark but for the television, its volume low, a game show playing.
On the table beside the loveseat was the bottle of rum, almost empty now. The pill bottle was closed. He picked it up, popped it open, and shook the pills into his palm. He counted. The same number as there had been that morning. A small comfort, he supposed.
He stared absentmindedly at the screen and kept his hand on the slightly-moving blanket, felt her breathing, her warmth.
“It’s going to get dangerous tonight, Joan,” he said.
One of the contestants on the screen took a guess at the puzzle’s answer and failed miserably. The crowd laughed.
His wife said nothing ba
ck to him. Completely unconscious. The slow breaths of deep slumber.
“I just wanted you to know,” he said.
He rubbed the blanket.
“I love you.”
He left.
Chapter Forty-Three
The lights threw long shadows off Hendrix as he paced in front of Dale.
“I’ve been running this whole operation myself, both Oak Ridge and Knoxville. Steeger was my fall guy, Dale. It is safe to call you ‘Dale’ now, yes?”
Dale scoffed. “Of course he was a fall guy. And between the two of you, Steeger was the only real ecoterrorist. Why don’t you tell these people the truth?” he said, motioning with his chin toward the other members of the inner circle. “That you don’t give a shit about pollution or toxic runoff or groundwater. That you’re a Russian operative who’s already embezzled American dollars for the Soviets while you worked in Denmark.” He called out to the new arrival. “Isn’t that right, Lebedev?”
Lebedev didn’t respond.
“Don’t take it personally, Dale,” Hendrix said. “Hims no speaks da English too good.”
He looked at Dale’s hands, still raised above his head. He reached up and plucked Dale’s Model 36 from him.
“I’ll take that.”
As he put Dale’s small gun in his back pocket, he turned to face his inner circle.
“Have you heard all this? This government man wants to turn you against me, to make you doubt our environmental cause.”
“What makes you so sure I’m a fed?” Dale said.
Hendrix chuckled. He turned back around, looked at Dale. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe when you showed up here last night with Roy Becker, head of the ORR’s security.”
Dale took in a breath.
“That’s right, Dale,” Hendrix continued. “We know who Becker is. We know all about him. I have my spies too. Plenty of them. I have people deep inside Y-12. How do you think I’m going to pull off my operation tonight? That’s why I let you ‘join’ the inner circle. Why I had you go into town to get sandwiches.”
Dale knew where this was going …
“I figured you’d go running back to Becker,” Hendrix continued. “And you did. I know because we followed you. I imagine Becker is going to have some sort of preemptive strike planned for tonight. A raid. But we’ll be waiting for him.”
Hendrix smiled, all big, toothy, and obnoxious. And sinister.
“Congratulations, Dale. You just walked Becker right into a trap.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Becker was at the front of the group, all eyes upon him.
He wore dark tactical gear—SWAT-style fatigues—as were the men watching him. They were in the armory, a massive building with tall metal walls, brightly lit by rows of large fluorescent fixtures hanging from the ceiling. Several of the weapon vaults had been opened, and the men held the M16s they’d retrieved. On the wall behind Becker was the map he’d brought from the conference room in the office building.
He pointed to the map, at the wooded area surrounding Asa Hendrix’s resort cabin.
“This is our location. The meeting starts at 2000 hours. We’re getting there well ahead of time, positioning ourselves in the trees all around the building.”
He ran his finger along the map.
“The building is well off the road. For obvious reasons we can’t park at the cabin. We’ll hike through the woods, parking here.” He indicated a road to the west, about a mile from the cabin. “People will be taking this road to get to the meeting, so no security police vehicles. Take your personal cars. Shortly after the meeting commences, we’ll start the raid. Bring every last soul in. I don’t care if it’s a ninety-year-old grandma, a ten-year-old boy. Everyone comes in. Understood?”
Nods from his men.
“Don’t forget that these people are civilians. We might face some resistance, but let’s finish this as peacefully as possible.”
He took a photo out of a folder and pinned it onto the map. An official portrait. A man in uniform, American flag behind him. Lionel Kemp. The guy they’d lost.
“Let’s do this for Kemp. Fall out.”
The men headed for the exit.
As Becker fell in behind them, his mind wandered to the gravity of the situation. In all his years with the ORR, this was the first time he’d conducted an outside operation of anywhere near this magnitude.
This was something very big.
And it could get messy.
Chapter Forty-Five
Dale fidgeted with nervous energy, ready to explode.
Becker would be there at any moment. He and his team. Walking into a trap.
“I already have a group of guys positioned out in the trees,” Hendrix said. “Armed to the teeth. I’ve had it planned all along, knowing that someone would come knocking on our big night. Word was always gonna get out somehow. And the boys out there know these trees like the backs of their hands. No one’s getting through to this cabin.”
The desire to fight his way out, to go and warn Becker was overwhelming now, but Dale had only to look at the armed people in front of him—all under Hendrix’s powerful trance—to remind himself of the precarious situation he faced.
Hendrix smirked, arms behind his back.
“Sonya,” Hendrix said, leaning over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off Dale.
Sonya stepped up beside him.
Still with his eyes on Dale, Hendrix reached behind his back and took out a Beretta 70. He handed it to Sonya.
“You failed your first test, told me you couldn’t hurt ol’ Watson here. Now’s your chance to redeem yourself.”
She looked up at him.
“But you said I proved myself last night when we…”
He shook his head.
“Oh, Sonya. Do you really think something like that can redeem you? I need to see that you have what it takes, that you’ve truly been tested like everyone else here.” He pointed at Dale. “Kill Watson.”
Dale didn’t flinch. He just readied himself. He’d been in more than a few situations where someone wanted to kill him. He’d get out of this.
And, besides, Sonya O’Neil didn’t have it in her. She wouldn’t shoot. She was as brainwashed of a follower as Dale had ever seen, but there was something about her that projected a sense of purity. A good soul. She was no murderer.
She shook her head, still looking at Hendrix.
“I don’t … I …”
He smiled at her, solemnly. Gave her a nod, like a patient mentor.
“Come on, now.”
Sonya’s eyes turned to Dale. Her mouth was open. She breathed hard.
The gun was at her side, shaking.
She wouldn’t do it. Dale could tell.
Still looking at him. Lips parted. Breathing harder.
Her mouth closed. Eyes narrowed.
And she raised the gun.
Okay, maybe she would do it.
Dale saw movement in her trigger finger.
And he sprang into action.
Dale had never been a Bruce Lee type. Although he’d had plenty of martial arts training, most of his fighting came from a place of instinct—instinct coupled with the foundational skills in which he’d been trained.
But right now, for whatever reason, he went into full-on karate mode and high-kicked Sonya.
Right to the head.
Just before her finger squeezed the trigger, the thick rubber sole of Dale’s motorcycle boot made contact with the left half of her face—nose, eye, cheek. There was a deep, wet thud. Her head snapped back, flinging her hair behind her. The arm holding the pistol flew back too, swinging the gun into the sky.
But there was no crack of a bullet. Just the small click of the firing pin.
Sonya crashed onto her back in the gravel, a few feet away from Steeger’s body. The other people gasped.
Because Dale had kicked her really damn hard.
Sonya twisted in the loose rocks, covered her face with her free arm. She began t
o cry.
Hendrix laughed as he stepped to her. He bent over and took the Beretta from her hand.
“Damn, Sonya,” he said. “You were actually gonna kill the guy. Congratulations. You passed your test.”
She didn’t look up at him, just remained on the ground, folded in on herself, arms over her face, shaking with her sobs.
Hendrix walked toward Dale, displaying the bottom of the gun and the empty slot where a magazine should go.
“See, I need you alive for a little while longer, Dale. I need to get some information out of you. Cody! Get this asshole out of my sight.”
Cody stepped up, grabbed Dale roughly by the back of the arm. He pushed him toward the backyard. Toward the barn.
“No, not there,” Hendrix said.
Cody brought Dale to a halt, turned them back around to face Hendrix.
“This guy’s a slippery one. Gotta keep an eye on him. Take him to the cabin,” Hendrix said, giving Dale another wicked smile. “We’ll have our fun in there.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Sonya slammed the bathroom door shut behind her.
Her breathing was so hard, so rapid, that she could hear it. Little gasping noises.
She was hunched over with her head hanging. Her hands grasped either side of the sink, shaking violently. She had yet to look in the mirror. She just stared down toward the hands.
The porcelain was exquisite. Smooth, perfect, and new. The faucet and handles and drain were all brass, polished to a flawless shine. Expensive. All of it.
And so unlike her. All of this was unlike her.
She was the pure one. The one who sought the truth. The one who rejected her parents’ cold objectivity, searching the world for meaning and reason and light. She was the one who wanted desperately to believe in something. Anything. Someone. Sonya was the one who helped people, who helped animals, who helped the planet.
