by Regan Black
The irony of this mission, so very unromantic in what was considered a romantic area, wasn’t lost on him. Anger fueled his motivation to take down his target, the man who’d helped ROC bring the ugliness of high-stakes crime to this beautiful area. Rob’s weapon’s sight was trained on the one building on the planet that the world’s most sought-after crime bosses were operating from. He’d followed the dirtbag for the last six weeks. Dima Ivanov was the head of a major Russian organized crime group on the East Coast. Yuri Vasin was number two, Ivanov’s right hand. Ivanov led up to two thousand criminals and a plethora of illegal enterprises. The most recent was human trafficking, and that’s what had pushed the FBI to ask for Trail Hikers’ help. Several dozen underage girls had been smuggled into the US via the Canadian border in Maine and trucked down to the Poconos. From here they were about to be dispersed to the winds of the ROC sex trade.
Time was of the essence.
Ivanov was an old badger, but he wasn’t stupid. In his most recent photos he’d looked older, less energetic than the younger ROC member he’d been. Back when Rob had been with the CIA he’d trailed Ivanov to Russia, Ukraine and back without ever being detected by one single ROC member or any government officials. Rob had helped bring down an entire branch of the East Coast crime ring over a three-day period in the hot hell of New York City and Trenton, New Jersey, last year. It was during a summer heat wave that included power outages and heat-induced rage. He’d come face-to-face with Ivanov. Close enough that the criminal spat in his face as the FBI cuffed him and carted him off. Ivanov had gotten off on a technicality, thanks to the best attorneys money could buy. That was a year and multiple lifetimes ago, as far as Rob was concerned. He’d participated in countless missions since then.
But this was his favorite. He’d majored in Russian in college and knew Russian history inside and out.
Come on out, Ivanov. Rob forced his muscles to relax and drew upon years of experience as he waited for his prey. If he could disable the son of a bitch and his guards, allowing for law enforcement to come in and apprehend the criminals, he would. If not, he’d at least take out Yuri Vasin, who was responsible for ordering hits; nearly two thousand deaths were known. Countless victims’ bodies would never be found. One of Vasin’s main trademarks was leaving no trail of human remains. Vasin didn’t care about getting credit for a hit.
Hot summer sun beat on the back of Rob’s neck and through his drab olive T-shirt and cargo pants. The Poconos were beautiful when snow covered, or drenched in green as they were now. But the July humidity was oppressive, soaking his clothes after only an hour on target.
He’d thought Ivanov would have shown his face by now. There’d been no sign of him since last night, when Rob spotted him taking his last smoke break before bed, around nine o’clock. He knew Ivanov chain-smoked and had come out for fresh air, a risk when he had to know he was a wanted man. Ivanov and Vasin had been surrounded by guards. If Rob wasn’t on such strict orders from Trail Hikers headquarters in Silver Valley to keep collateral damage to a minimum, he’d have taken out both monsters and their thugs in that moment. His mission was to disable Ivanov and Vasin, call in other law enforcement agencies, or LEAs, and then get the hell out of Dodge. Typical of a Trail Hikers op, there were to be no fingerprints of his government shadow agency’s involvement.
Rob liked to think of Trail Hikers as the helping hand for all other LEAs, national and local. A Trail Hikers agent enabled an FBI agent, state trooper, sheriff or local cop to come in and finish the job. And take credit for it.
The real reason he’d gone with Trail Hikers instead of another shadow agency was for his mental health. After three years of ignoring the regret of not crossing the street to let Trina Lopez know he’d lived, he’d sought counseling six months ago. And discovered he still needed to finish what he’d tried to do in Norfolk. Trina was with the US Marshals in Harrisburg, and Silver Valley was only twenty minutes away across the Susquehanna River. He’d made the move to Silver Valley a month later, so that he could face her again, put to right the lack of initiative on his part three years ago. As far as he knew she was still with someone else, had her own family, but he still needed some kind of closure, if only to wish her well. It was for his own sanity.
The beauty of Trail Hikers was that he could live anywhere in the country and work for them. He’d grown to like Silver Valley over the past several months, and it would be nice to stay, but he didn’t think permanently living that close to Trina would be healthy, even with closure.
A gnat flew into his eye, and he swatted it away.
He wondered why Ivanov was staying inside so much today. Usually he liked to go for a walk, at least twice a day if not more often. That sense of dread Rob identified as his instinct waved a warning flag. Did Ivanov and Vasin know Rob was out here?
Ivanov had puffed on his cigarette with Vasin and four other men around him, as if he knew he was hunted, that his enemy was close. Of course by now the criminal had to be downright paranoid, considering his constant need to be on the run. Add in his love of women, vodka and tobacco and he probably had at least the beginnings of cirrhosis and lung cancer. Ivanov’s mind and sense of trust in humanity were pretty much shot, Rob figured.
That Rob understood.
A glint of metal in the sun was his only warning before the building’s door opened. He took the safety off, positioned his fingers to shoot without hesitation.
He waited. And waited.
Nothing. The door was open, but nobody came out. With experience wrought only from years of tortuous situations, Robert ignored his annoyance, his impatience. He could outwait the best of them. As he watched, a tiny figure appeared at the edge of the doorway. An animal? Peering through the scope he discovered he was looking at a puppy.
A dog? He’d seen a lot of strange things in his years as a SEAL, CIA operative and now Trail Hikers secret agent, but he’d never seen a dog, much less a puppy, around Vasin. Unless it was a guard dog with killer instincts. He hadn’t seen any sign of guard dogs or any strays around this compound of sorts. He swiped at the sweat on his nape, the bandanna around his head unable to keep it as dry as his temples as sweat streamed off him, making rivulets through his sunscreen. He sensed a slight breeze around his neck and shoulders and went still.
“We meet again, Robert Bristol.” Hearing his name spoken by the all-too-familiar bass voice chilled him to the bone and made him grateful he’d heeded the CIA’s suggestion and changed his name after he’d been presumed dead as a Navy SEAL. The cold metal of a gun barrel pressed painfully into his temple. “Get up slowly, and leave your rifle. You won’t be needing it.”
Rob did as instructed. He knew the voice, the heavy accent. His captor was no one to brook argument.
Once Rob was standing, his nemesis shoved the gun more deeply into the side of his head, the pressure making white floaters appear in Rob’s vision.
“You try my patience, Bristol. Put your hands up and turn around.”
Robert turned, his arms at shoulder level, dreading whom he’d see.
“Vasin. Fancy seeing you in the Poconos, of all places. I thought Jersey City was your jurisdiction.”
“Go to hell, Bristol. Your time is over.” Vasin’s voice pulsated with acrimony as he stared at Rob, surrounded by four henchmen who also carried the best handguns money could buy. Vasin had stayed as lean and lethal as when Rob had tracked him in a CIA operation three years ago, and ended up in actual hand-to-hand with him. It had been a fight that started with knives and ended with several broken bones, on Vasin’s part. Rob had suffered three butterfly stitches over his left eye that one of his fellow agents had tended to on their helo ride out of New Jersey.
“How’re your ribs, Vasin? I see you can at least breathe again.”
Rob saw the polished tip of Vasin’s Italian loafer close in a nanosecond before an explosion of pain shattered his vision. His body collapsed with zero fight. A
kick to the balls did that to a guy.
Dirt. The ground is hard. The grass is like straw.
Thoughts to take his mind off the pain, keep him detached from the anguish to come. Vasin knew a sadist’s way around the human body—what hurt the most, what would elicit a confession the quickest. Rob and cruelty were on a first-name basis. He knew every torture method intimately. So did his bones.
“Drag him by his feet to the ATVs.” Vasin’s thugs grabbed his legs and started the laborious trek over hardened field grass and mud. Rob sucked in his gut as hard as he could despite the quaking tremors from his groin. It was enough to hold his neck up, away from the ground. Enough to protect it from the excruciating jolts, enough to be able to observe that Vasin and his dirtbags were facing front, not looking at him as they trudged to the waiting off-road vehicles. In an instant he grabbed the knife he’d tucked in his front pocket and threw it with little preparation. His target arched his back and dropped. The man let out a loud whoosh as he hit the ground. Satisfaction cleared some of Rob’s pain-addled vision.
One punctured lung.
The second knife was in his left hand, raised to throw it, when one of the remaining men turned and crushed Rob’s arm with one fierce stomp of his foot. Rob saw Vasin’s shoe again through a shroud of unbearable pain before his throat was pressed closed and darkness prevailed.
* * *
US Marshal Trina Lopez looked at the map, her phone GPS and the email from her boss. She was four hours into what was supposed to be a two-and-a-half-hour drive, and all of her coordinates indicated she was in the right spot. But instead of a resort complex as described in her target’s case file, she was looking at a warehouse of sorts. A single, nondescript warehouse that in any other part of the country, on the outskirts of a city, would look normal. If it were lined up with other warehouses. If it had trucks coming and going. If it had access to an interstate highway.
Instead, this building had none of the above. It was in a place she’d expect to see a log cabin, maybe, or some kind of ski lodge. At the base of the mountains in a beautiful, scenic Pennsylvania valley, the desolate building was incongruous with its surroundings. Under the cover of the thick summer foliage, it was no wonder it had looked like just another camping gear storage building. An afterthought of sorts.
She’d had to maneuver along a narrow dirt road in her company car to get here. The Ford Fiesta wasn’t made for the sudden dips and dried-out potholes from last winter. Why had she chosen today to take the agency’s small car and not the company SUV?
Because another mission had priority. It wasn’t her job to question her superiors. Yuri Vasin was wanted for a number of crimes, with drug and human trafficking at the top of the long list. Drug runners abounded, and with the current opioid epidemic the US Marshals had a lot of pressure to bring in any drug-related fugitives. Still, the right equipment for the job helped, and someone hadn’t done their homework right. This site was far more rural than the case file had described. She was supposed to be taking him in from a resort hotel room, not from a camping site. Her partner was coming in from the other side of the mountain and waiting to hear from her to bring in backup.
Rechecking her GPS, she confirmed she was in the right spot before she turned her car back around and drove out a mile to hide her vehicle under a pile of woodland debris.
Car in place, walking to building, she texted her partner. His reply was immediate, and predictable.
If it’s ugly, don’t go.
Mike always played the big brother. Or maybe wannabe lover, she wasn’t sure. And didn’t care. She had no interest, no attraction to him.
Roger.
Her military reply indicated she’d received his text. Mike Seabring was a great partner, and she enjoyed working with him. But his protectiveness could annoy her.
It’ll never be like working in the Navy.
More like it’d never be as natural a fit as working with fellow Navy pilots and one special Navy SEAL—had been.
She steered her thoughts quickly away from that emotional quicksand and kept walking. The hike back through the woods would have normally refreshed her. She breathed in the pine scent, hoping to feel revived. But it was too hot and her day was growing too long to feel anything but tired, sweaty and cranky. By the time she reached the clearing again she was ready to get the show on the road. Or more accurately, get her fugitive and take him back to Harrisburg or have Mike do it. She wasn’t in it for the credit—she wanted this bad guy caught and put away, no matter how they had to do it.
Trina adjusted her holster, as it was digging into her waist. She thought about shedding the leather jacket she wore over her body armor and thin white T-shirt. It was too warm for the jacket, but she wasn’t going into a strange building without her weapon, and didn’t want to open-carry her Glock .45, either. She rustled her thick, unruly hair into a ponytail holder she found in the front jacket pocket, needing to feel prepared and without any possible distractions. Vasin’s case file said he’d always gone easily into custody when caught alone, or she wouldn’t have been sent in solo to apprehend him. Mike would be next to her instead of a mile or so out, checking for signs of a perimeter patrol. Still, she never knew what was behind a closed door.
Her practical, steel-toe combat-style boots stirred up the dirt that surrounded the aluminum building, and thin billows of dust rose to her hips. It was the middle of a long, hot summer, and the record-breaking heat had taken its toll on the grass undergrowth. One short spark and this place would become a forest furnace.
She was confident that Yuri Vasin’s arrest would go smoothly, but her instincts were warning her to be on high alert. Whether it was the drive she’d had up here from Silver Valley, the isolated look of the building she approached or just nerves, she didn’t know. Nerves were part of her job—they let her know she was paying attention, aware of her risks. Her stomach started to flip, and she reminded herself that this was supposed to be one of the more routine apprehensions—not that she ever considered catching a fugitive “routine.” But her work had been pretty stable for the past several years, allowing her to be home for dinner most nights. A plus for her and her five-year-old son, Justin, but she’d called him Jake because she couldn’t bear to hear his father’s name on a regular basis.
Justin Berger. It didn’t hurt anymore, most days, when she thought of her little boy’s namesake. Because she did think about Justin every day, the man who’d fathered her son and given the ultimate sacrifice serving as a SEAL in the Mideast. Back in another life, when she’d been a Navy P-8 pilot and had worked with the special ops teams to help root out the bad guys.
Trina physically shook her head as if it’d rid her mind of the errant memories. It was approaching the anniversary of Justin’s death; it was only natural she’d think of him now.
She turned her thoughts back to the present, back to the work in front of her. Arrest Vasin. Call in Mike to take him or get the jerk into the back of her tiny vehicle. She’d place a call to her team manager as soon as either of them had Vasin in cuffs. Take him to the nearest federal facility for processing, which in this case was Harrisburg.
Movement in her peripheral vision made her stop and reassess. A tiny furry creature crawled out from the other side of the building. Phew. A rabbit. She continued forward. But then the creature whimpered.
A puppy. Jake would be elated if she came home with a puppy to add to their growing menagerie at the farmette she’d recently purchased for them in Silver Valley, Pennsylvania.
No way.
Crap. This was not a canine rescue mission. Yuri Vasin was her man, the fugitive wanted for money laundering in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. With new charges of human trafficking coming out of Wilmington, Delaware, this morning.
Vasin was Russian, five feet eleven inches, one hundred and eighty-five pounds. He definitely was not an approximately ten-pound caramel-lat
te-colored fuzz ball with big brown eyes and large paws on a too-skinny body. As the puppy stumbled along toward her, tail wagging tentatively, its whines turned to yips.
“Shhh!” She had to stop its noise. Bending down, she hoisted the little guy up and went to gently muzzle his puppy snout with her hand. He wriggled his face out of her grasp and licked her chin, his tiny body quivering with excitement. Or maybe relief?
Vasin couldn’t be that bad, not if he had a new puppy. Although he needed to feed the pup more—this little guy was skinny. She looked around, making sure she was still alone. There weren’t any visible cameras on the outside of the building. It looked abandoned, in fact.
Except for fresh tire tracks that ran from where the front door was to the surrounding grasslands. She saw the tracks emerge from the fields, and as she turned the corner with the puppy in her arms, she found the three ATVs that had made the tracks parked alongside the corrugated metal building.
The flips in her stomach turned to alarm bells.
Vasin wasn’t alone.
* * *
Rob lay on the concrete floor of the warehouse and willed his aching limbs to stay still as he listened to Vasin and his men. His labored breathing made it difficult to ascertain the colloquial Russian, but he understood enough of their conversation to know two things.
First, they said they were hiding out in the Poconos to protect Dima Ivanov who was in his “bunker.” That meant that Ivanov was nearby. This was new intelligence that the Trail Hikers didn’t have—they knew he was close but didn’t realize he had a full-on shelter. No one had suspected Ivanov would risk remaining so close to New York City and his usual operation area, not while the heat on him from all federal agencies was so heavy. But most importantly, Rob hadn’t heard the all-too-familiar sneer of Dima Ivanov’s voice, however. Which meant Vasin was running this current op, whatever it entailed. Rob could handle Vasin. Ivanov’s voice was one he dreaded, because he knew if he heard the heavy, smoke-addled voice, Rob would be dead.
