by Debra Webb
“To a degree,” Ross admitted, “the retrieval is off the record. There appears to be some hesitation about reopening the case involving the group known as Resurrection. We’re hoping any information Levi may have will help make that happen.”
Making it doubly important that she brought him back alive. Sadie considered the other woman at the table. The hope in her eyes was impossible to miss. Right now, Sadie could walk away and that decision would not adversely affect her career since this mission was off the record. She could stand up, walk out that door and never look back rather than risk her life for some informant she did not know.
Chances were, if she made that decision, the informant would die.
And though that decision would not prove unfavorable to her career, it would prove immensely unfavorable to her conscience.
“I see. Let’s have a look at what I’m up against.”
Tanner went first. He explained that he had not encountered any trouble with members of this group—at least, none of which he was aware. The members of the so-called Resurrection group were anonymous. Any who lived in the community kept quiet about their involvement. Neighbors, friends, possibly even family had no idea about their participation. The tactic was actually fairly common and had been used for centuries by one secret group or another.
Brannigan spoke for the first time, agreeing with Tanner’s summation. The Winchester Police Department had not run into trouble with anyone who claimed to be or who was thought to be involved with this extreme group. The crime rate in the county was comparatively low. Rumors regarding the group known as Resurrection leaned toward the idea of extreme or doomsday-type preppers. The problem was, there appeared to be an offshoot fringe group known only as the others who were far more dangerous.
Ross took over from there. “We’ve contacted a source within the ATF but we don’t have anything back from them just yet. Whatever else we do, we can’t keep waiting and risk losing Winters. Ultimately, the hope is that the Bureau and the ATF will initiate a joint task force, along with local law enforcement, to look more thoroughly into what this group is up to. For now, our immediate focus is on extracting Winters.”
Sadie understood perfectly. “If Resurrection or this offshoot group has him, we need to get their attention. Obviously...” she scanned the faces at the table “...you don’t have the location where he’s being held.”
Tanner tapped the stacks of maps. “There are certain areas we feel are the more likely places.”
“But there’s no time to search.” Sadie nodded. “Time is our primary enemy.” She set her gaze on Ross’s, knowing he would understand the goal. “We need their attention. I would recommend a news bulletin about a missing federal agent last seen in the Winchester area. Keep it ambiguous for obvious reasons. Give my description but not my name.” She shifted her attention to Tanner. “I’ll start with the most likely place and beat the bushes until they find me.”
“You want them to find you?” Tanner looked uneasy as he asked the question.
“We don’t have time to locate and infiltrate any other way. Prompting them to find me will be much faster and far more efficient.”
“Isn’t that far more dangerous, as well?” Brannigan asked.
“Yes.” Sadie saw no point in whitewashing the answer. “But it’s the only way to accomplish our goal in a timely manner.”
“Agent Buchanan is highly trained for exactly these sorts of situations,” Ross assured all present.
Judging by the expressions Tanner and Brannigan wore, his assurance did little to alleviate their reservations.
“You’re suggesting going in without backup.” Brannigan shook his head. “The only thing I see coming of that is two hostages needing extraction.”
Sadie acknowledged his assessment with a nod. “That is a possibility. But, chief, you can trust me when I say that if I wasn’t experienced and completely confident in this situation, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I know what I’m doing. I understand the risk and I am not overly concerned.”
“I may be able to help.”
All gathered around the table turned to the woman who had spoken. Cecelia Winters looked directly at Sadie even as the men in the room started to argue with her announcement.
“Not happening,” Ross stated unconditionally, tension in his voice, his posture and the set of his jaw.
“He’s right,” Tanner agreed with a firm shake of his head.
“This whole thing is far too risky as it is,” Brannigan added.
Sadie ignored them all. Instead, she focused on the woman who had made the statement. “How do you believe you can help?”
Cecelia blinked at Sadie’s question. “The people in this town know me. They know what happened to me—to my family. Nothing is secret anymore. If I spread the news, they’ll believe me. They will pass it along far more quickly than something reported in the news. Not everyone around here trusts the news.”
“Cece,” Ross argued, “you getting involved could only complicate matters.”
Sadie got the picture now. Ross and Cecelia were a couple. He didn’t want her anywhere near the line of fire. A personal connection more often than not spelled trouble when it came to an assignment like this one.
“Help from most any source can be useful, but Ross could be right,” Sadie said, not to change the woman’s mind but because it was true.
The hard look Ross sent her way shouted loud and clear that he wasn’t happy with how she had responded to the offer. Too bad. He wanted Sadie to do a job, an extraction—a very risky extraction. Why wouldn’t she use any available resources?
“Levi is my brother,” Cecelia said. “I want to help.” She glanced at Ross. “I need to help.”
“You understand that when this is over, there could be a backlash?” Sadie needed her to comprehend the long-range ramifications of any step she might opt to take. Sadie didn’t like getting civilians involved but it seemed as if this one was already eyeball deep in the situation.
“I do. The past decade of my life has been one long backlash. I think I can handle a little more.”
Ross obviously didn’t think so.
Sadie stared directly at him. “Is this going to be a problem for you?”
She didn’t like problems. Especially those that came from the people who were supposed to be on her side.
He held her gaze for a moment before saying, “I guess not.”
“Good.” Sadie turned back to Cecelia. “You tell whomever you believe will get the word out the fastest that the agent who was working with your brother showed up and was going around town asking questions.” She shrugged. “Trying to help, but now she’s suddenly gone missing and you’re worried about her.”
Cecelia nodded. “Okay. I can do that.”
“The most likely starting place?” Sadie asked, looking from one man to the next.
“The church,” Ross said. He glanced at Cecelia as he spoke. “We have reason to believe the Salvation Survivalists were working with the primary group in some capacity. They were housing weapons most likely intended for Resurrection, but we don’t have solid evidence of that conclusion. The ATF is looking at that possibility along with numerous others but they’re taking too damned long and they’re not sharing.”
“But you’re certain the two are or were connected.”
“We are,” Ross said.
Tanner and Brannigan agreed, as well.
“Then that’s where I’ll start.” To Cecelia she said, “You put the word out about me asking questions.” She shifted her attention to Tanner. “Make sure the local news reports a missing federal agent. No name, just a description.”
Tanner nodded. “I can make that happen.”
“I’d like to familiarize myself with maps of the area, particularly around the church.”
Ross spread the maps on the confer
ence table and started the briefing regarding the landscape. Sadie took her time and carefully committed the maps to memory. One of the things that made her good at her job was her ability to memorize maps and recall landmarks. For a girl who grew up in the city, she was a damned good tracker. As good as any hunter she’d ever worked with and she’d worked with a few.
More than anything, she paid attention. The old saying that it was all in the details was true more often than not. The details were crucial. She didn’t need a photographic memory to recall the details. She just had to pay attention.
“What about the church?” Sadie considered the map of the area around the church, which appeared to be well outside town. “I need some additional history on it.”
“My father started the church about thirty-five years ago,” Cecelia explained. “He was a very cruel man, capable of anything. He had—has—many devoted followers who turned to my older brother, Marcus, after our father’s death. There are those who still believe one or both to be messiahs of a sort. I’m confident the most deeply devoted know far more than they’ve shared. If they hear about you, I’m confident the word will go where you want it.”
Ross pushed a folder in Sadie’s direction. “This will give you a good overview of what we know. It’s not complete by any means, but it’s as much as anyone knows.”
Sadie opened the file and skimmed the first page. “I’d like some time to go over what you have and then I’ll drive out to the church, hide my car and start digging around. If I’m lucky, someone will come looking for me in short order.”
“For the record,” Chief of Police Brannigan spoke up, “I still think this is a bad idea.”
Sadie wished she could convince him otherwise, but to an extent he was correct. This was most likely a bad idea.
But their options were limited. Sometimes the bad ideas were the only feasible ones.
Copyright © 2019 by Debra Webb
Keep reading for an excerpt from Security Risk by Janie Crouch.
Security Risk
by Janie Crouch
Chapter One
The noose around his throat slowly strangled Tanner until gray blurred the edges of his vision. At the very last moment before he lost consciousness, he forced his weight onto his legs, providing blessed air. He knew the relief was short-lived. One leg was broken, the other almost useless after the hours of trying to support his weight on just his toes on the stool where he balanced precariously.
“Tell us who the cop is, and this can all end.”
Tanner could barely see through his swollen eyes. “I already told you.” The words were garbled whispers—blows to the face and the trauma to his throat had ensured that. “I’m the cop.”
Someone pushed his leg out from under him, causing the rope to tighten around his neck once again, his hands tied behind his back rendering them useless. Airflow immediately ceased, although he didn’t jerk or move unnecessarily. He’d learned after the first hour that flailing didn’t accomplish anything but using up more energy and oxygen.
He had a limited supply of both.
“Which one of them is the cop? We know you were communicating with one of them.”
The voice was referring to the two men also tied up with Tanner, but sitting in chairs, one barely twenty-one years old. Tanner couldn’t see them. Couldn’t hear them. Could only try to survive this moment.
Someone helped him plant his good leg back on the stool so he could relieve the tension on his throat. At least they’d finally figured out he couldn’t talk while they were attempting to suffocate him.
He breathed in as much as his swollen throat would allow. “I wasn’t communicating with one of them.” That was the truth. He’d been communicating with both of them. All three of them had been sent undercover together. “It’s just me.”
The blow to his stomach caught him completely unaware and had him coughing up blood and struggling to balance on the stool. Tanner didn’t know how much more he could take. But he would do whatever he had to if it meant Nate and Alex would walk out of here.
Tanner definitely wouldn’t. He’d already made peace with that.
Before he could prep himself for another blow, someone ran into the opposite side of the warehouse screaming curses that would make a sailor proud.
“Cops! They’re everywhere outside!”
For a split second Tanner felt hope. They were going to make it.
The hope died a moment later at the simple instructions the leader of the syndicate gave his men.
“Kill them all.”
It echoed over and over in Tanner’s head.
Kill them all.
Kill them all.
At the first blast of gunfire and thump of a body, Tanner used all his strength in one last Hail Mary attempt to dive from the stool. He could barely believe it when the rope gave way, snapping from the ceiling rather than ending his life. He crashed to the floor and—ignoring that agony lighting through his entire body—forced himself onto his feet.
And turned just in time to see one of the syndicate members point his Glock at twenty-one-year-old Nate Fletcher’s forehead where he was strapped to a chair.
Tanner dived for them.
* * *
EIGHT HOURS LATER the nightmare still felt slick and slimy on Tanner Dempsey’s skin. The flying motion had woken him up. It was what had woken him up, often violently, hundreds of nights since what happened in that warehouse three years ago.
Tanner was never in time to save Nate in his dream, just like he hadn’t been in time to save him in real life. He’d watched as the life of a promising law enforcement officer—and human being—had been snuffed out.
Tanner had been too late to save Alex, the other undercover officer, too. He’d died with the first bullet when Tanner had still been strung up.
The place had been swarming with cops not a minute later. Almost everyone in the Viper Syndicate, a human-and weapons-trafficking cartel, had been caught or killed that day, too.
But not in time to save Nate or Alex.
Tanner scrubbed a hand over his face. He was sitting in a Denver courthouse, having finished giving his testimony in a drunk-driving case. Normally, he would’ve already left after providing his info, but he was staying to catch the prosecuting attorney during the court recess for lunch.
Ryan Fletcher, Nate’s brother.
Maybe knowing he would be seeing Ryan today was what brought the nightmare back last night. Although, after three years’ worth of required visits with the department psychiatrist, Tanner knew there didn’t necessarily have to be a reason for his subconscious mind to start dwelling on what had happened that day. Sometimes his mind just went there of its own accord. Some PTSD triggers were visible, but many more were hidden.
He and Ryan had become not quite friends, but more than just professional colleagues over the last year since Ryan had moved to Colorado and become one of the district attorneys. When Tanner was in Denver, or Ryan was in Grand County to see the sheriff, they sometimes got together to spar at the gym. Ryan might be a lawyer, but he kept himself in good shape.
And Tanner had worked damn hard to come back from what had happened at that warehouse. Tried to use his wounds—both physical and mental—to make him a better police officer. He demanded it of himself. As captain of the southeast department of the Grand County Sheriff’s Office—which included his hometown of Risk Peak—he would do whatever it took to keep the people in his care safe.
A half smile popped up on his face before he could stop it. Risk Peak now included Bree Daniels, the woman who’d been causing smiles to pop up on his face unbidden for months.
She’d run out of money, and hope, in Risk Peak three months ago while being chased by a terrorist organization. Normally, Tanner wasn’t thankful for bad guys, but the fact that these had led the socially awkward yet breathtakingly beauti
ful Bree to his front door was enough for him to make an exception.
“We haven’t won the case yet.” Ryan walked up to him and slapped him on the shoulder. “You might want to save grinning like an idiot for when we do.”
Tanner reached out to shake the man’s hand. “Think there’s going to be any problem getting a conviction?”
“That would be a definite no. Guy was on a suspended license and ran from the police. Plus, I’ve got Dr. Michalski providing his professional evaluation of the defendant this afternoon.”
Tanner nodded. “Dr. Michalski is good.” Tanner should know—he’d been seeing the man for three years. Tanner wasn’t a huge fan of his sessions—sometimes it felt like he had a million other things to do than just sit around and talk about the past, but he couldn’t deny that Dr. Michalski was a good psychiatrist.
“Yeah, he’s definitely better on the stand than the last department psychiatrist I worked with in Seattle. Jury responds much better to him.” Ryan grinned. “Of course, he’s never going to be as good as putting you on the stand. Anytime I know you’ll be testifying, I try to get as many women in the jury as possible.”
Tanner rolled his eyes. He’d been teased about his looks before, by both the district attorneys and his colleagues in the sheriff’s department. But as far as he was concerned, there was only one person whose opinion of his looks mattered. And it definitely wasn’t anybody in a jury.
“Anything I can do to help get bad guys off the street.”
“Speaking of.” Ryan’s easy smile slid from his face. “You heard that Owen Duquette got released on parole last week?”
Tanner swallowed a curse and nodded. “I made my objections known to the parole board. Strongly. Both in written form and in person at the parole hearing.”
“It just feels like a slap in the face, you know? Duquette might not have been in the warehouse that day, but he knew what was going on. He was complicit in Nate’s death. I’m sure of it.” Ryan’s fist tightened around his briefcase handle.
