by Toby Neal
Dunn stared at her for a long moment, then laughed again. “Hard to get, are you? I can dig that too.”
Sophie kept her face blank with an effort—but she had years of hiding her emotions, thanks to Assan Ang.
“I like you, Ang. I think we’ll get along fine.” Dunn strode to the door and pulled it open. “Your dog likes me. That oughta mean something. Here’s my number. Let me know what you decide.” He set a card on the shiny black lacquer table beside the front door and shut the door behind him.
Sophie let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. Dunn seemed to have sucked all the life out of the room and taken it with him. Ginger appeared to agree, as the dog sat and stared at the closed door, whining mournfully.
Todd Remarkian answered her call on the second ring. “G’day, Sophie! Thought I might hear from you.” The Australian’s tone was upbeat, as usual. “I take it Get ’Er Dunn hit your doorstep.”
Sophie snorted a laugh. “The man has the manners of a tank.”
“Jake’s a diamond in the rough. So I take it you got the contract? Calling with questions?”
“I want to know why you reached out to me with employment at this time.”
Remarkian sounded surprised. “Security Solutions got this Waipio case, apparently on your referral. I thought it was high time I tried to steal you from the FBI.”
“Oh.” No one but her immediate FBI team knew she’d quit the FBI. She smoothed the contract on the desk before her. “I’m not sure I’m ready to make a commitment as an employee. But I’d like to work this case. Can we work out a temporary contract to start?”
“Sure. I’ll have Human Resources work up a private contractor contract. We do that all the time, actually.” A long pause. “So, Dunn is primary on this case. He has a number of useful skills, but he needs a partner, someone with communication and tech skills who can also work out in the field if need be. Think you can work with him? I know he’s a little crude…”
“I can handle him.” Sophie folded the contract decisively and slid it into the drawer of the desk. “Shall I come down to your office tomorrow to take care of the paperwork?”
“What about the FBI?”
“I resigned. Irreconcilable differences.” The trite phrase was all she planned to say to anyone about it.
“Their loss is our gain.” Remarkian sounded delighted. “Meet me at nine a.m. at our downtown office. I’ll have the contract for you, and you and Dunn can plan the op.”
“Sounds good. Thanks for thinking of me.” Sophie ended the call.
The depression was back in its box, banished by Marcella and the whirlwind that was Dunn and this new job opportunity. Sophie sat down at her computers. She emailed the lawyer she had filing the patent on DAVID, asking for some kind of motion to keep the FBI from claiming it as work product and explaining what had happened. Could she sue for damages? She inquired.
It was worth a try. And now it was time to see if the Ghost had checked their chatbox.
He had.
“I’m sorry to hear you won’t be chasing me anymore. I enjoyed our little games. You deserve to work for someone who appreciates your talents. Please don’t hesitate to contact me and let me know how I can help you. A word in the right ear could open doors.”
Sophie wrote back. “Thanks, but it’s under control. Know anything about the Society of Light cult on the Big Island? About to figure out what life is like in the private security sector in a case involving children held against their mother’s will in a compound in the Waipio Valley.”
She paused, fingers poised above the keyboard. She wasn’t sure what she wanted from this man.
The Ghost was someone who killed—indirectly, through manipulation, it was true—but killed nonetheless, by using information he’d stolen to turn unsavory criminals against each other. She’d uncovered this using DAVID, and now that the program was shut down, there was no way to track if the Ghost was still up to his tricks.
“Until next time, I’ll be adjusting to civilian life.”
Sophie shut the chat window and got up. Time to organize herself for the first morning of the rest of her life.
Todd Remarkian greeted her, walking forward for a brief hug. He smelled of sandalwood aftershave and the hair gel spiking his dark blond hair. His blue eyes were bright with pleasure to see her. “Sophie! You’re looking terrific.”
“Thanks.” She’d got up early and put on makeup, which she seldom used—but something had to be done about the circles under her eyes. She’d dressed for the meeting in her standard FBI “uniform” of a crisp white button-down with a tank shirt underneath, stretchy black pants, and athletic shoes. The shoulder holster holding her Glock rubbed a little against her elbow through the gray blazer she wore to conceal it. “I’m excited to get those kids out of the Waipio Valley.”
“Hey.” Jake Dunn had been leaning on Todd’s desk, and the man pushed off, striding forward to engulf her hand in his. “Glad you’re coming on board.”
“Just a trial run.” Sophie addressed her comment to Remarkian. “Thanks for the opportunity. I have a vested interest in this case. I’m sure you heard from the children’s mother that my SAC pulled the case and punted it back to Hilo PD.”
“Yeah. And they aren’t doing anything until the mother has a custody order. So what can you tell us about what we’re getting into?” Dunn was dressed for action as he’d been the previous day, and looked ready for action.
Sophie took a step back to get more personal space. “I turned over all the video and surveillance to Hilo PD, but I can give you a verbal recap of the intel we collected.”
“Before you get into all that, let’s dispense with the contract formalities. Jake, can you give us a moment in private?” Remarkian asked.
“Sure. I’ll see you at my office, Ang, and we can get started planning the op.” Dunn lifted a hand and exited. Sophie was left with the sense of a dust devil passing, leaving a whirl of energy settling in its wake.
Todd’s eyes crinkled. “He’s a piece of work. But gets the job done, Dunn, as it were.”
“Lots of puns to be had with his name,” Sophie said. “I’m sorry. I’m not quick with those. I’m bilingual, but didn’t move to the US until around five years ago. At least I can catch them now.”
“You don’t need to be funny. You’re intelligent and talented, not to mention beautiful.” Todd’s voice was warm, and Sophie glanced at him. His expression was guileless and bland, his smile neutral. Sometimes she had the feeling he was interested in her in a romantic way, but he’d never asked her out beyond their shared interest in hike-running with their dogs. She wasn’t sure how she’d respond if he did make a move.
“You had a contract for me to look over?”
“Of course.” Remarkian handed it to her, mounted on a clipboard with a silver pen attached.
Sophie sat on one of the chairs in his seating area, a fluid arc of poured wine-red plastic that was surprisingly comfortable. “Looks in order.” She was shocked at the high hourly pay, which she was to log and submit an invoice for. All expenses were covered, and additional “bodily hazard insurance” was offered. She initialed, accepting the insurance, and signed the paper. She handed it back to Remarkian.
“Good.” He took the contract and walked around to his desk, another red poured plastic form which somehow looked right in the modern minimalist décor. The downtown Honolulu view made a tropical backdrop, framed by huge windows. “Now that this is in order, you can get started. I have an office assigned to you temporarily, next to Jake’s. Down a floor, and to the left. You two will be reporting to Kendall Bix, VP of Operations. I don’t usually work with individual service providers, but I wanted to grease the wheels to get you on this case as fast as possible.”
“Thank you, Todd.” Sophie held the man’s gaze and spoke with sincerity. “This offer came at the perfect time.”
“My close friends call me Connor. It’s my middle name. Glad we could find a way to make it work.�
�� Remarkian’s tone was a little over-hearty, the Aussie accent broader than usual.
Somehow his comment reminded Sophie of Waxman’s insistence that she “call me Ben.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. You’re kind of my boss now.” Sophie frowned.
“You’re a short-term contract employee and you answer to a distant department head. What, we can’t be friends now?” Remarkian’s chuckle sounded forced. “I would rather have you for a friend than an employee, much as I value your skills.”
Sophie looked at the floor. Friend she could do. She wasn’t ready to be more with Remarkian. “Okay, Connor.”
“Let’s run this weekend if you’re free. Dead Man’s Catwalk?” Remarkian named an off-limits but famous hike that ended at a spectacular tongue of concrete protruding from a giant cliff over the ocean. “Anubis needs a workout.”
“Ginger does too. Excellent.” Sophie gave a mock salute. “Thanks. I’m ready to get to work.”
Looking around her new office, Sophie battled a sense of unreality.
Just days ago she’d been in her haven, her cave: the FBI’s IT lab, with its cool dark bays and humming, quiet energy.
Now the light of a bright Honolulu day blazed through tinted windows, illuminating a large desk, sleek computer console, phone, and round-tabled seating area with a large smartboard mounted on the wall. She was going to be out in the field, not behind a computer, most of the time.
“Nice, right?” Dunn thumbed to his office next door, identical to hers right down to a green-shaded lamp on the desk. “Come check out this topographical map of Waipio that I’ve got set up. The company helicopter’s reserved to take us to the Big Island in two hours, so we need to get to it.”
“I see why Remarkian calls you Get ’Er Dunn.” Sophie followed the big man into the next office.
Dunn grinned at her. “I’ll answer to that. Now gimme all the intel you picked up over there, and let’s get over to the Big Island.”
Chapter Six
The helicopter they took into Waipio was a Bell Jet painted in camouflage colors, every bit as fast as the FBI one she’d taken there just a few days earlier. They’d timed the flight for late evening—a popular time for helicopter tours, frequent in the big valley with its spectacular waterfall and soaring, ridged green walls.
Sophie leaned her forehead against the curved Plexiglas window, watching the ripple of the ocean pass beneath them, cobalt blue and crinkled as a crumpled piece of aluminum foil. “No whales this time of year,” she commented to Dunn, sitting up front with the pilot.
He nodded. “Lived in Alaska for a few years. Amazing how far the whales are willing to come to play in the warm water here. No food for six months either. That’s commitment.”
They flew past the variegated hump of Maui, crowned in clouds. The Big Island loomed ahead, blue-purple in a haze of “vog,” volcanic emissions from Kilauea’s ongoing eruption. The rugged golden slopes of the dry side of the island soon gave way to the lush green of the eastern side, where rain clouds were captured by the prevailing height of the dormant Mauna Loa volcano.
Waipio Valley appeared as a vast rift in the island, a primordial layering of shades of green. Even having been there recently, Sophie half expected dinosaurs to appear among the spreading albizia trees along the velvet pastureland and olive satin of the river.
“Fly along the valley walls and set us down at least a mile from the compound,” Dunn directed. “Don’t want to spook the target.”
“Roger that.” The pilot kept them at a typical tourist viewing height, then swooped swiftly down to land in an open area on the top of one of the ridges. Sophie hopped out of the chopper, lug-soled boots sinking into soft mud.
She and Dunn unloaded their surveillance and extraction equipment and waved off the chopper, with orders to come in and pick them up out of sniper range from the compound’s tower when they called for it.
Sophie slung on the lightweight backpack packed with everything they had anticipated needing to extract two potentially unwilling children from a hostile, armed compound.
Her heart thudded in the cage of her ribs. Was she really up for this kind of work? No way to know but to get in and find out.
Jake handed her a shallow tin of camouflage paint. “Do your face and hands. We can’t be identified. This isn’t the FBI, where you have the weight of law on your side. It’s get in, nail the objective, get out. They’re justified in shooting at us if they catch us.”
Not like the FBI at all. She’d always been protected by her position as a federal cop before. Now, the law was on the other side. The shift felt surreal, especially since what they were doing was the ethical thing.
Sophie rubbed the thick, gooey paint onto her face. “I don’t need as much as you, white boy.” Teasing him for the first time felt like taking a risk.
“Yeah, I’ll give you that.” Dunn’s grin was a flash in the gloom of approaching dark. He wasn’t offended. “Let’s get the night vision goggles out for when we need them.”
They’d chosen evening for the flight and nightfall for the raid. Sophie checked her weapons, loaded with nonlethal ammo, and hung the NV goggles on their adjustable strap around her neck.
“Ready?” Dunn cinched down his loaded pack.
“Ready.”
Dunn took off at a rapid walk, finding a goat trail down the side of the ridge. Sophie was glad of all the hours she spent at her favorite hobby, hike-running rough trails, as they navigated the slender track in near dark at a fast clip. She dogged Dunn’s heels, pushing him faster.
Once they were off the ridge, Dunn used a GPS to navigate toward the compound’s coordinates. They moved as fast as they could through long grass and tangled brush. Sophie was glad Hawaii had none of the poisonous snakes or hazards of the jungle in Thailand, though they ran into a stand of “cat’s claw” vine with huge thorns and had to navigate around it. They were able to make better time once Dunn found a cattle track heading in the general direction of the compound.
“Let’s set up a surveillance node within a klick of the compound,” Dunn said. “Raised ground would be ideal. Let’s go in slow in case any guards are posted outside.”
The landscape was rendered in glowing green through the NV goggles and depth was hard to judge. The coordinates glowed from Dunn’s handheld GPS as they slowed to a stealthy walk, pausing to check for movement. Sophie’s senses felt heightened: every touch of leaf, the smell of dry grass and mulch, the rustle of wind in the trees—all of it was magnified by the surge of blood through her veins.
Adrenaline was a great antidote to depression.
They found a slight rise but no handy vantage points to see into the compound. “Gonna have to climb trees,” Dunn muttered. “Hate climbing trees.”
“I don’t mind.” Sophie clipped the climbing spikes they’d brought onto her boots and in moments she was up in the spreading limbs of an albizia, NV binoculars held to her eyes as she tracked movements inside the compound and relayed the information to Dunn.
Sophie watched for an hour before climbing down. “The children are all together in one yurt and in bed already. Identifying our targets in the dark is going to be an issue. That and the dogs.” They had a photo of each of the children, but how would they find the ones they were after? They each had copies of the photos in their pockets and they’d have to try to keep the kids quiet while they found the targets. Sophie hadn’t spotted any more guards patrolling besides the manned sniper tree—but that was because two large black German Shepherds were wandering loose. “Got those tranquilizer darts handy? We need to take out the dogs and the sniper, too.”
“Hate dogs,” Dunn said. “Unpredictable.”
“Kind of a baby, aren’t you?” Sophie said, beginning to enjoy needling him.
“Yeah.” Dunn grinned with the easy good humor that seemed to be part of his personality. “Want to kiss it and make it better?”
She had no comeback for that.
“The tricky
thing is going to be getting close enough and high enough to tranquilize the dogs without them raising the alarm,” Dunn said. “You’re good at climbing. I want you to get up the wall and take them out with the rifle. Then cut the razor wire. I’ll be right behind you and we’ll go over and penetrate the sleeping area.”
Dunn was testing her. He knew Sophie had been mostly backup support at the FBI, insulated from front-line activity by her tech role. Now she was leading a dangerous civilian raid. She’d never felt more vulnerable, more uncertain—and yet more alive. After the lethargy of the last few days, the acuteness and energy felt like a drug.
“Roger that.” Sophie wasn’t about to let her lack of confidence show. Dunn handed her the silenced rifle, already fitted with a NV scope and loaded with tranq darts. He gave her a belt and a climbing rope. She bent and attached the spikes to her boots, then donned heavy leather gloves.
The ten-foot wall of the compound rose dead ahead, a dark monolith, the razor wire topping it a lacy scrim against the faint glow of yellowish security lights that stayed on even though everyone in the compound had gone to bed. Sophie made sure that wire snips were in her cargo pocket and patted her Glock for luck. She approached the wall at the farthest corner, partially out of view of the sniper tower and behind one of the taller tents.
Making a cradle for her boot, Dunn boosted her higher up the wall than she would have believed—the man was strong. She caught the top of the heavy wood, careful to grab between the coils of razor wire. Using upper arm strength, she hauled herself high and dug the spikes at the toes of her boots into the wood of the fence.
The razor wire caught the heavy ripstop sleeve of her black jacket and sliced it like butter. “Maggots writhing in rotting deer meat,” Sophie cursed softly.
“What’s that?” Dunn’s voice sounded tinny in her earbud.
“I’m going to have to cut some of this wire before I can do anything else.” Sophie set a metal piton into the top of the fence. She ran the rope through her belt and the piton, dropping the loose end to Dunn on the ground. Once he held the rope, anchoring her with the piton to the top of the fence, she was able to use both hands to cut a section of the razor wire, working with quick, quiet movements.
