Battle Tested

by Janie Crouch

  “And he would definitely be aware of changes,” Brandon agreed. “He knows not only the sound of Rosalyn’s voice but the pitch and the patterns.”

  Rosalyn couldn’t help the shudder that ran through her.

  “It’s probably part of how he’s known what buttons to press to get the biggest reactions out of his victims,” Brandon continued. “He studied their voice patterns to see what caused the stress and then preyed on that.”

  Rosalyn nodded, trying not to lose her nerve. “So we all agree that taking it out is not the best thing to do.”

  Everyone around the table began talking at once. There was no clear consensus about the best plan.

  Steve held up a hand to quiet everyone. He turned to Derek. “Derek, you and Ashton and the rest of SWAT will be heading up most of the sting. What’s your opinion?”

  Derek leaned back in his chair. “It’s never my first choice to put a civilian in the line of fire. A pregnant one makes the situation even more complicated.”

  Rosalyn refused to be cast aside because of what might happen. “But...”

  Derek held up his hand in a gesture that encouraged her to let him finish. “But I agree with what you’re saying about the transmitter. The Watcher knows your voice. Changes now might spook him.”

  “We can use you to give all the verbal cues,” Ashton said from his place beside Derek. “Then use a replacement agent in the actual location where we plan to arrest him.”

  Steve looked over at Derek. “You agree?”

  Derek shrugged and nodded. “I understand you wanting to keep Rosalyn completely out of this, boss, truly I do. But she’s right. Using her is our best bet at catching this guy before he hurts someone else. And if we use Ashton’s plan, the risk to Rosalyn is minimal.”

  Rosalyn reached over and touched Steve’s arm, bringing his attention to her. “I want to do this. I need to do this.”

  “And I need to keep you safe. Keep the baby safe.”

  “We will be safe. You’ll be there to protect us every step of the way.”

  She knew Steve understood. Knew he knew this was the best plan. But she could also understand his hesitancy.

  “Fine.” He turned back to everyone. “But we don’t leave here until we have a plan with no holes. And time is of the essence. Rosalyn has been out of the Watcher’s ear for over two and a half days. If we wait too much longer, we’ll lose him for good.”

  Rosalyn knew if that happened, they might never find him again.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “I’ll keep hunting him, Rosalyn. We know he’s here in the Colorado Springs area because of the note at my house. But I don’t think you should leave.”

  “I don’t want to leave you, Steve. We just found each other again. But I have to. We can’t be together.”

  Even knowing the words were fake—an act of theater put on for the Watcher’s benefit—Steve didn’t like them.

  They were about a mile away from the Omega offices. Nothing blocked the transmitter now. The Watcher should be able to hear everything they were saying.

  Rosalyn sat inside a café. In the very back corner in a booth. She was huddled down near the table as if she was cold, but really she’d been told to keep her head down in case the Watcher decided to change his MO and take a shot at her.

  There were three exits in this café—a front door, a window in the bathroom and the back delivery door. Every person in the building, from the waitstaff to the cooks to the customers, were Omega Sector employees. Not all were active agents, but all were trusted.

  Steve wasn’t sure exactly how they’d gotten the café completely emptied in the three hours since they’d finished their planning in the conference room. Steve had asked Joe for a favor, something he’d never asked Joe in the six years he’d known him. He’d asked Joe to use his money and connections to find them a building to pull this off in a ridiculously short amount of time.

  Joe hadn’t even blinked an eye. He’d called Deacon Crandall, Joe’s sort of jack-of-all-trades, and next thing Steve knew, they had a café that could be used for the next week for anything Omega needed. Maybe Joe had used some of his millions of dollars and bought or rented the place; maybe he had just smiled prettily for the owner; who knew? Joe had a way with people. And Deacon was just a man who got stuff done.

  Steve wanted to control as many circumstances as he possibly could. He already had a bad feeling in his gut about this situation. But maybe he would have that in any situation that might jeopardize a pregnant civilian.

  The building was surrounded by four snipers. Ashton Fitzgerald, by far the best long-range shooter Steve had ever known, had the restaurant in his sights. He wouldn’t let anything happen to Rosalyn there.

  Steve couldn’t be in the café with her. This had to be a telephone call between them for it to work. They didn’t plan on it being long enough for the Watcher to get a bead on her location right now. Just enough to get him here tomorrow, when they’d be ready for him. Steve was watching the entire scene from multiple camera angles at the home base inside Omega. But still he itched to be there with Rosalyn. Didn’t like having her so far out of his reach.

  But he trusted his team.

  “You don’t need to leave.” Steve continued their scripted conversation. “I’ll track him down. Just give me more time.”

  “I can’t risk you, Steve. He almost killed you on the motorcycle. If you hadn’t turned in time—”

  The emotion in Rosalyn’s voice was real. And he could see it on her face in the monitor.

  “But I did. And I’m okay.”

  “But how long before the Watcher tries again? I can’t take the chance. I have to go.”

  “No, Rosalyn, just tell me where you are. Where you’ve been for the past two days.”

  This was part of the plan. To assure the Watcher they didn’t know about the transmitter in her tooth. To make sure Omega wasn’t part of his thought process.

  “Just at a hotel.”

  “You’re not safe at a hotel. He might find you.”

  “I’m not safe at your house either, Steve. He found me there.”

  Steve pulled from his own frustration at not being there next to Rosalyn and put it in his tone. “I can protect you. The Colorado Springs Police Department can protect you.”

  Steve and Rosalyn realized that they had never talked about Omega outside the Omega building itself. Therefore, the Watcher would not know Steve worked for the multifaceted law enforcement agency. They would convince him Steve was just a member of Colorado Springs PD.

  A lone member with no real backup.

  “Did you tell your bosses there about the Watcher?”

  Steve waited a beat. “Yes.”

  He could see Rosalyn stir her coffee on the screen. “They didn’t believe you, did they?”

  “Look, just tell me where you are.”

  “I can’t right now, Steve.”

  Jon pointed at his watch. They needed to wrap this up. Not give the Watcher enough time to find her today. It had to be tomorrow, when they were ready.

  “When are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow. I’m taking a bus. That worked before and the Watcher didn’t find me for a long time. I’m hoping that will work again.”

  “Okay, well, just meet me for breakfast or coffee or something before you go, okay? I just want to see you. To feel the baby kick one more time. You might have him before I can catch the Watcher.”

  “Okay, fine. My bus leaves at 9:45 a.m. tomorrow.”

  “Good. Let’s meet at eight.”

  “Fine. There’s a little café I’ll meet you at.” Rosalyn gave him the name and directions to the place she was at now.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, sweetheart.”

  “Be careful, Steve. I don
’t want anything to happen to you.”

  Then she clicked the off button.

  Steve tapped his communication button to Derek’s earpiece. “Okay, get her out of there.”

  Derek was wearing an apron, posing as a cook in the back. He could see the entire seating area from where he stood.

  “Roger that. Everyone in here is still Omega.”

  Steve watched on the screen as Derek nodded to Lillian, a SWAT team member no less deadly just because she stood barely over five feet tall. She brought Rosalyn a bill. “Here’s your check, ma’am.”

  “Thank you.” Rosalyn made a wincing sound as if she was in pain.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Just my tooth. Something’s wrong. But I hate going to the dentist, you know?”

  Hopefully the Watcher would buy that there was something wrong with the transmitter. It would force him to move up any timetable he had. To come after Rosalyn tomorrow even if he wasn’t planning to. To make a mistake.

  “I hope you feel better.” Lillian touched the check. “I can take that whenever you’re ready.”

  “Thank you.”

  That was the agreed-upon code that it was time for Rosalyn to leave. Steve watched as she got up and went out the front door and around to a car in the side parking lot. The camera lost her then, but he knew from there she would drive, as if she was looking for a tail.

  Just like she always had done before she’d known how the Watcher was following her. Four different Omega vehicles would be following her, piggybacking off each other so they wouldn’t get made. Once they gave her the signal that she was clear, she would drive immediately to Omega, where the transmitter would once again be jammed.

  The Watcher would think he’d lost her again for whatever reason. Maybe it was the mountains, or maybe the transmitter itself was faulty—after all, he hadn’t had a signal from her the entire time she’d lived with the Ammonses. But hopefully he wouldn’t decide to dig too far into it tonight.

  But Steve didn’t feel like he could draw a complete breath until Rosalyn made it safely back through the gates of Omega. As soon as a member of SWAT brought her up to the offices, Steve pulled her to him, breathing in the scent of her hair.

  “How do you think it went? Do you think he bought it?” she asked.

  “I hope so.”

  Jon walked out of the control room. “You did great, Rosalyn. If he doesn’t buy it, it’s definitely not because of anything you did or didn’t do.”

  She looked up at Steve. “I just want this to be over with.”

  He kissed her forehead. “Tomorrow it will be.”

  But Steve knew that even the most well-thought-out plans, the no-holes plans, could sometimes fail.

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING all the Omega Sector employees were back at the café. They opened the restaurant at 7:00 a.m. as if they had been doing it for years.

  Derek was in the back again as a cook. Jon was in the command room, but it was a van parked around the corner rather than at Omega. He would be calling the shots today, having the bird’s-eye view of everything.

  Steve had a different role to play: concerned lover.

  It didn’t require much acting on his part.

  Steve would arrive at 7:45 a.m. Rosalyn would come in at 7:55 a.m., say something briefly to him, then excuse herself to go to the restroom.

  From there, she would be taken out the back door and directly to Omega HQ. Steve categorically refused to risk her life by having her in the middle of a sting operation.

  And the operation was huge. Not only were the dozen employees and customers in the restaurant Omega agents, but there were SWAT agents all around the building, and most of the people outside were theirs too. The lady walking the dog. The jogger a few blocks over whose route happened to go by the café a few times.

  Others. All watching the café. Anyone who entered would be tagged: faces captured on camera, fingerprints collected and filed. Anyone who could possibly be the Watcher—so any male under the age of sixty—would be followed and/or tracked.

  Steve had decided to use the Watcher’s own means against him. Lillian was still playing the waitress. Her petite form belied the fact that she could kill a person in a dozen ways with her tiny bare hands. She would make sure that anyone who could possibly be the Watcher got a transmitter put on him.

  It was a complex operation, but complex was what Omega did.

  And it was showtime.

  He parked his car, trying to make this all as normal as possible, and walked in the front entrance. Lillian greeted him with a perky “Good morning” and told him to sit wherever he wanted to.

  He chose the booth near the corner and sat with his back to the wall so he could see the door. Just like he would do in any given restaurant. At least he didn’t have to pretend that he wasn’t law enforcement.

  The place was relatively empty outside the people working for Omega. There was an older couple at one table and a young mother with her toddler at one of the booths. They would all be checked out but none of them were viable suspects.

  The building had been thoroughly swept for explosives—at this point Steve didn’t put it past the Watcher to just take out the whole place. They’d also been sure to search the closets and attics and crawl spaces. After what happened earlier this year—a psychopath deciding to reside in an agent’s attic until the time was right for a kidnapping—they’d all learned their lesson.

  Now all Steve could do was wait and watch. And pray that nothing tipped off the Watcher. It wouldn’t take much.

  Five minutes later a man came in, their first real possible suspect. He was tall, sort of bulky, wearing business attire. Jon’s voice came on in Steve’s ear.

  “We’ve got him. Got a good shot of his face. Running it now to see if he shows up in any of our facial-recognition software.”

  “He’s got a briefcase,” Steve murmured behind his hand.

  “Roger that.”

  A briefcase could carry explosives or a weapon.

  “Infrared on the briefcase suggests no explosives,” Aidan Killock, SWAT’s explosives expert, said through the earpiece. He was in a different van outside.

  The man was getting a coffee and muffin to go.

  “Tag him anyway, Lillian.”

  He saw her nod briefly before she came around the counter and stood before the man.

  “Here,” she said, reaching up and messing with the back of his collar. “That was folded up a little, but now it’s perfect.”

  “Thank you.” The man seemed relieved and flattered to have received such attention from someone with Lillian’s looks.

  And the transmitter in his collar would allow them to track him.

  “We’ve got him,” Jon said. “He’s not showing up in any of our facial software.”

  “I don’t think that’s him. Build isn’t right for the guy who came at me on the motorcycle.”

  But Steve knew they would follow him anyway.

  Business began to pick up as a number of people entered, some couples but a few single guys. Steve had to trust his team to do their jobs, because right at 7:55 a.m. Rosalyn walked in the door.

  She waved to him and he stood and hugged her as if he hadn’t seen her in two days rather than just the hour it had been.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked her as they sat down at the booth.

  “I’m always hungry.”

  This, again, was part of the script they had worked out last night. The Watcher had to be listening.

  “What do you feel like?”

  “Something soft. I have a bad toothache.”

  Lillian came over and took their order. Steve asked Rosalyn how she was feeling and if the baby had moved again.

  He wanted Rosalyn out of there. The
more crowded it got in the café, the more tense Steve became.

  There were three men in the café right now who could possibly be the Watcher. One in particular looked nervous. But then again, Steve didn’t think the Watcher would look nervous.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Steve brought his hand up to his mouth and turned his head to the side. “I’m sending Rosalyn out now.”

  “Are you sure it’s not too soon?” Jon asked.

  “I don’t care. There are too many unknown variables.”

  “Roger that. The car is waiting.”

  Rosalyn didn’t have an earpiece in case the transmitter also picked up on what was being said to her.

  Steve nodded at her. She nodded back, knowing it was time to go. She reached over and grabbed his hand, squeezing it. He winked at her.

  “I’ve got to go to the restroom.”

  “Okay.”

  She stood and walked to the back. The agent in the car reported a few minutes later that he safely had Rosalyn and they were headed back to HQ.

  Whatever happened now, at least Rosalyn was safe. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  It was short-lived, as a man—the nervous one he saw earlier—sat down in the booth across from him.

  He pulled at a gun and pointed it straight at Steve.

  “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m the Watcher.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A cascade of emotions flooded Steve.

  Rage that this bastard had terrorized Rosalyn for so long. And other women too, to the point of them killing themselves.

  Relief that Rosalyn was gone, safe. Out of his clutches. She’d never be in this man’s clutches again.

  Surprise. This wasn’t what he’d thought the Watcher would look like. He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d thought the Watcher would look like, but it wasn’t unkempt and sweaty like this man. But how did you put a face to a monster?

  Either their plan had worked perfectly and the Watcher had grossly underestimated who Steve was and what sort of weight he carried in law enforcement, or the man had nerves of steel. He’d just pulled a gun on a cop in broad daylight with dozens of witnesses.