Shit.
Where are they going?
If they don’t go into the safe room, then where would they go?
I have to find them.
I have to protect them.
My company won’t be the only group to want that bounty.
“Black Shield, this is Tate Rodgers,” I say. “Continue to hold perimeter. This assignment has changed. This is no longer a hunt. This is a protection detail. Confirm.”
“You’re a fool.”
I turn to Andrews, whose face is as red as I’ve ever seen it. My finger twitches to pull the gun on my side and put a bullet into his brain. It might come down to that.
Without taking my eyes from Andrews, I issue an order to Deakins. “I need to be at that house. Now. Make it happen.”
Deakins is out the door and I watch Andrews take a small step in that direction. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to be him either at this moment.
“You killed four of my men just now.” I close in on him, itching to put my hands around his throat.
“I didn’t—”
“You overrode a standing order. I do not take bonds on military comrads. This company does not and will never do that.”
“You’re passing up good assignments. Costing us money.”
“My company. My money. My decisions.” I take another step closer.
“You’re the pansy of the security world, you know that?” he sneers at me. “The fucking pansy who picks and chooses the easy jobs.”
I pull my Glock, leveling it between his eyes. “Who secured the bond?”
He scoffs. “And you’re stupid. You know they don’t sign their names at the bottom of the page.”
I don’t blink. “Who secured the bond?”
His finger inches toward his weapon. “Figure it out for yourself.”
Deakins appears at the door and Andrews’ eyes twitch to the side. Mine don’t. I’m on him, bringing the gun down hard on his temple and he crumples to the floor. I flip him to his stomach and zip-tie his hands behind his back before tossing his weapon out of reach.
“Your helicopter leaves in five minutes, sir,” Deakins says, not missing a beat. “They’re re-fueling now. Pilots are making their way back to the jet, filing a flight plan for McElroy. I’ll have a helicopter waiting for you there. Do you want to be fast roped or locate a clearing at—”
“Fast rope. What’s the ETA?”
“Approximately one hour and twenty minutes, sir.”
Damn. It is what it fucking is.
I point at Andrews who is still out cold. “Call in a guard. Secure him downstairs.”
“Will he be having an accident, sir?”
I think about it. “Not yet. I might need him.”
Behind my desk, I pull out a bag and toss in the radio I’ll need to communicate with the team. I also toss in a voice amplifier and a laptop. Maybe I can find a way to communicate with Duff before he heads out. Let him know I’ve got his back.
I’ve got to find him. I owe him one. Hell, I owe him two. Maybe more.
Damn.
This is a fucking mess. With a bounty that size, almost every team will be on it. He’s dead unless he can keep one step ahead.
“What other properties does he own?”
Deakins finishes his call to the guards and flips through some folders in his hands. He hands me one. “Home near Ft. Bragg, sir. His parents and grandparents own multiple properties around the world.”
Would Duff turn to his family? When I served with him, his relationship with them was strained at best.
I shake my head.
“What do we know about Grace Johnson?”
“Twenty-four, lived in Tennessee up until a few months ago, after she lost a baby in a still birth and divorced her husband of two years. Nurse and physical therapist, she became a traveler. Ended up in the Duffy household after the Syria incident. Was scheduled to return home today, then resume a new therapy position in LA next week.”
I look up at him. “How do you know all that?”
A tiny grin appears. “Television, sir. There was a candlelight vigil and a one hour segment regarding Sergeant Duffy and the woman.”
“Property?”
“No, sir. Her home was sold following the divorce. Her parents own a farm, eighteen acres. Her maternal grandparents have a home on the same property as her parents. Her paternal grandparents do seem to own large sections of land, mostly mountainous.”
My balls tighten. There’s something there. “And her family is showcased in the TV segment?” I ask, zipping up the bag. I grab the bag I just carried home, go through it, toss out half the clothes and zip it back up. I heave it onto my shoulder.
“Send me a link to that segment. I’ll watch it on the plane.”
An hour and a half later, I’m dropping from the chopper and making my way to team lead Reynolds. “Status.”
“No sound. No movement, sir.”
I drop my bags and unarm, pulling out only the voice amplifier I’ll need for communication. “Continue to watch your backs,” I tell him. “We could be expecting company.”
“Yes, sir.”
Stepping toward the house, I turn on the amplifier and raise the mic to my mouth. “Duff. It’s me. Tate Rodgers. T-rod from way back. Heard you need a little back up. I’m coming in. Unarmed.”
I repeat the message over and over as I make my way to the house and front door. Under my orders, the men re-establish electricity and the house is a bright beacon in the dark night. Squeeeak. I grin as I push the door open. Old school. I like that.
“Duff! I’m in.”
Spotting a camera high on a wall, I face it and take off my jacket and then pull my shirt over my head. I unbuckle my belt and then drop my pants to my ankles. I slowly turn so he can see I’m unarmed if he’s watching.
Pulling my pants back up and tugging the shirt over my head, I lay down the handheld device and walk further into the house. I talk to him. Let him know what’s been happening and search the main floor room by room.
Nothing.
Heading downstairs, I search there too. Then up to the third floor.
Back in the master suite, I step over the bodies of my men, gritting my teeth with the rage of their unnecessary deaths. Andrews. I’ll fucking kill him. No way can I let him live after this.
I briefly glance at the safe room’s metal door. I already know they didn’t go in there. No need to spend time on it. I step to the room I saw the woman walking to just before the last camera went black.
A closet.
I tap the walls. Standard.
I stomp the floor. Not standard.
I think back to the nights in the barracks, going over the conversations we all would have. Talking about the homes we’d build. The decoy measures we’d put in place. The safe room was a decoy. So where is the real one?
I look down.
Kneeling on the floor, I feel around the baseboards and find the access panel. Locked.
I bang. Old morris code.
I wait.
Nothing.
He’s not here. I know it.
He would have communicated with me by now.
I can’t leave without checking. I need a drill.
But if my instincts are correct, he won’t be down there.
Where in the hell is he?
Chapter 9 – Grace
Breathless. Exhausted. I’m sweating and cold at the same time. I lean against the storage building Link led us to. Fate is sticking her head out of the neck of my jacket, being the best little girl in the world.
The rumble of a garage-type door opening is a beautiful sound. A sound of ‘welcome.’ A sound of ‘we made it.’ The sound makes me want to cry.
Then there’s another sound.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
I know that sound.
I fear that sound.
Please no.
I look into the sky, trying to locate its lights. Trying to not let the rhythm of its rotor
s take over my entire universe.
“Link.”
Careful to stay next to the building, I edge around the side and into the dark cavern of the storage space. The only light is what’s coming from the cab of an open truck door. Link is tossing bags into the back.
“Link!”
His head swivels to look at me. His face is tight. His lips pressed together. Worry and anger is etched into every line.
“I hear a helicopter.”
He tosses in the last bag and steps to a wall of cabinets. He opens a drawer and pulls out a pair of binoculars. At the door, he lifts them to his eyes and looks across the horizon, then up the mountain in the direction I know to be his home.
“I see it,” he says. “Civilian.”
I don’t ask questions because I know I’ll be hushed. He’ll tell me later. Maybe. I wait and stroke the dog’s fur, kissing her soft head under my neck.
Time passes. It could have been a minute or an hour, it all seems the same. Finally, Link moves and searches the sky all around us. He steps out into the night and does a full three-sixty. Then he listens closely.
I’m relieved when he says, “We need to go.”
Sitting Fate in the backseat, I pull off my jacket and jump in the passenger side. Link goes through the cabinets, tossing things I can’t see into a bag. Placing it in the back seat floorboard, he grabs the binoculars again and steps outside.
I adjust the temperature and glance at the clock. It’s a little after one-thirty in the morning.
Could that time be right?
Is it really only an hour and a half ago that I shot a man?
When the door had squeaked its signal, I’d already been in my position at the closet door. My hand had been shaking so hard, I’d nearly dropped the gun, so I sat down and used my knee to steady myself.
Link was behind the barrier he created earlier from cinder blocks he’d had downstairs. His guns were already lined up. His ammunition ready to be used.
I remember thinking this wasn’t real. This wasn’t happening.
I remember thinking we lived in a good world. The best world. A world where love would win. A world where peace would conquer all.
That way of thinking was shattered a moment later when a man came into the room. Low. And he just started firing over and over at the bed. At the shapes of us Link had carefully lumped under the blankets.
He didn’t ask questions.
He didn’t bother to check our IDs.
He just shot at where he thought we were.
Where we had been ten minutes earlier.
He cared about nothing but killing the two of us.
I’d been enraged. So angry at that thought. They didn’t even plan to give Link a chance to live, to explain, to sort through whatever was happening.
They didn’t care if he was innocent.
They didn’t care that I was innocent.
He was a mark with a bounty over his head. I was nothing but collateral damage.
When the second man came into the room, Link began firing and so did I. I wasn’t supposed to. Link had told me to only shoot to protect myself. But the rage. Oh god, the rage that had filled me was like burning lava flowing through my veins.
I shot all fifteen bullets, then ejected the clip like Link had showed me. I slammed in another one then started shooting again. I shot until the gun only clicked when I pulled the trigger. I shot until Link pulled me to my feet.
When all was quiet, he searched the men, keeping his eyes on the iPad, watching those outside. He told me to shut the panic room door and started destroying the men’s cameras one by one.
“We have to go.”
I’d been confused. I thought the goal was to catch one and interrogate him for information. I’d even joked that he should let me pour the water, so I would have practice when we waterboarded Rob.
Now, we were leaving, going downstairs for reasons I didn’t yet understand. But I didn’t hesitate, just did what he asked me to do. Soon, we were through the panel door and he was shoving all the bolts into place.
He’d led me down a narrow hallway and into the larger safe room where Fate sat on a pile of towels, whining. He shut the door and typed in a code on a keypad next to it. I heard metal scrape into place, then he turned to a computer system and tapped the mouse, frowning as the screens came to life.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered even though Link had assured me earlier that I could scream my head off down here and no one would hear me.
“They’re standing down.”
Standing down meant stopping, I knew that much. “That’s good, isn’t it?”
He shook his head. “Not necessarily. They could be calling in reinforcements.”
“Boom?” I asked, sinking to the floor, my legs deciding to lose their bones.
He looked at me and nodded.
“Are we leaving or hunkering?”
He squinted at the men outside on one knee. He squinted at them for a long time. One man was on a radio, looking up through the trees. He made a hand signal to the other three men and they began spreading out around the house.
“We’re leaving.”
Moving to Fate, I pulled on my jacket, cursing as my shoulder resisted the movements, then unleashed her from the wall and stuffed her inside.
Link placed the iPad in his jacket pocket and began picking up the bags he’d gotten ready earlier. Then he led me through a door, punched in some codes and the door closed behind us.
I knew what was coming next. My least favorite part. A spiral staircase that seemed to never end. The space around it was small. So small it seemed Link barely fit in it. He started down the steps, and was soon consumed by the darkness. I went slower behind him. Down into the black hole that appeared to be endless.
At the bottom, Link waited for me. He’d taken the iPad back out and was reviewing the screen carefully. I was sweating and panting for breath by the time I got to him. I was just glad we were going down, not up. That would have well and truly sucked.
“Are they still standing down?” I whispered, this time more from lack of breath than a need for secrecy.
“Yes. No reinforcements yet. They are way above us now. Keep Fate quiet and we shouldn’t run into any trouble.”
The little dog was so still and quiet inside my jacket, I didn’t think she would be a problem.
Powering off the iPad, Link stuffed it in his pocket again and punched a code into the door. I can’t believe how he’s able to remember all the different sets of numbers. I’d asked him that earlier and he talked about how necessary it was to absorb and retain large quantities of information, especially in war zone areas. “You can’t have coordinates written down on a piece of paper with enemy all around,” he’d told me. Still, it was amazing what all his brain held.
Through the door, we stepped into the night, now more than halfway down the mountain. From there, we walked slash jogged slash fell slash ran well over an hour until we came upon this storage building.
Now, I wait.
Wait for him to scan the sky again.
Wait for him to tell me what to do next.
Wait to see if my world will ever be good again or if it will always be tarnished—shattered—by the new fear that seems to surround me.
Chapter 10 – Duffy
We drive until dawn, heading east into the rising sun and I pull down the visor to shield my eyes. I’ve got sunglasses in the console, but I don’t want to wake Grace. She finally surrendered to sleep and is curled onto her side, her jacket serving as a pillow between us.
I’m not tired. Actually, I’m the exact opposite. My mind won’t let me rest.
Dozens of questions. Zero solutions.
They’re all fucking with me. Taunting me. Circling around in my mind.
Why did they stand down so quickly?
Why the helicopter?
Who was the man?
Why no explosion and no fire?
The chopper wasn’t big enough to carry a s
econd team and the security cameras only showed one man being lowered down and joining the crew that circled the perimeter. Why? What the hell was going on?
Another puzzle.
I wish I’d had time to monitor the situation longer, but knew it was dangerous to wait. The moment the chopper fast dropped the man and gained altitude before heading west, I’d known it was our window to disappear. Headlights at one-thirty in the morning in this rural area would be easy for a helicopter to spot. We needed to hit the road in case another one showed up.
Now, over four hours later, the questions keep turning in my head. Fate whines from her bed on the floor, and I imagine her crossing her legs.
Soon, I mentally tell the dog.
Soon, we’ll pull over.
Soon, we’ll find a room.
I want to avoid traveling by day if possible, not with both mine and Grace’s faces plastered everywhere now because of the vigil. Of course, Tennessee is still nearly twenty hours away. If I only drove at night, it could take us three days to get there. Three days of being in the open. Three days of possibly being recognized by check in clerks at hotels. We might need to risk daytime driving to get there sooner.
I drive for another half hour and pull into a rest stop, leashing the dog and stretching my legs. Grace groans and moves a little, but doesn’t wake up. The pain pill she took as soon as we got in the truck has fully knocked her out. I’m glad I forced her to take a whole one.
Fate doesn’t even sniff for a spot, she squats the moment her feet hit grass. After she does her business, I walk her to the bathroom to do mine before heading to the vending machine area for caffeine. The area is deserted, thankfully, and I grab two coffees and several soft drinks as well as a couple honey buns and several bags of nuts. I plan on driving at least another couple hours. Daylight or not, my instincts are telling me to keep going.
Back at the truck, I pull out the iPad and pull up the security camera screen. Nothing. Everyone’s gone. Even the bodies inside have been removed.
I scroll through each camera again. Perimeter is clear. Snipers are gone. Back inside the house, I take my time virtually searching through each room. I tap to access the cameras in the downstairs safe room and am not surprised to see the doors were breached with what was probably C4.
Badass - The Complete Series: A Billionaire Military Romance Page 36
