by Vicki Hinze
She checked the back of the house; saw no movement outside. Easing through the kitchen window, she dropped down into the shrubs beneath and paused in a familiar crouch, waiting for her eyes to adjust and for her ears to attune to the sounds of the night. She checked the sky. No moonlight. Finally, a break.
Hoping that would be indicative of the escape effort, she slowly made her way through the bushes and trees to the golf course. Hugging the edge of the trees, she stayed low to the ground and worked her way to the seventh-hole safe zone.
Joan stood waiting beside Mark, her arm around Jeremy, whose eyes sparkled with excitement. “Are we set to go?” Joan asked.
“I’m good on my end, so long as Simon is in place,” Amanda whispered.
“He is,” Joan told her.
Amanda nodded, then looked at Mark. “You set?”
“We’re good.” He nodded.
Amanda’s heart calmed. He had the chopper ready. “What about Beefy?”
“Beefy?” Joan looked confused.
“The guard who hit his head,” Mark said.
“He’s out for the night—maybe for the next twenty-four hours.” Joan swiped at her forehead, pulled Jeremy closer. “I had to report his accident to Mr. Kunz. But it’s okay. He wasn’t suspicious or anything,”
“How do you know that?” Amanda asked, bristling.
“He didn’t come to the clinic,” Joan said. “Whenever he’s uneasy about a development, he comes to the clinic. Instead, he kept me busy all day with some silly report.”
“Just in case, let’s not linger.” Amanda looked at Mark. “You get them to the chopper. I’ll get others and meet you where we met during the recon. Then we’ll claim the chopper and bring everyone on board.”
“Everyone?” Joan asked, her voice shaking.
“Everyone we can. As many detainees as we have room for,” Amanda said.
“No, Kunz will know.” Joan’s voice elevated a pitch. “They’re too closely guarded.”
“Lower your voice, Joan,” Amanda said. “Listen, I know it elevates the risks, but the ones we leave behind...” Seeing Jeremy, she hesitated.
He didn’t. “They’ll get dead, Mom.”
Amanda hated seeing a kid that little have the frame of reference to deduce such dark and ugly things. “He’s right. Before we can get back.... Mark’s been passing the word for the detainees to use the first opportunity to get out of the compound and head east. Tonight there’s going to be an opportunity. Our escape will provide them a little confusion cover. As soon as we can get Rescue here, they’ll pick the detainees up. But there will be a delay. And it might not be soon enough.”
Mark frowned. “It’s the best we can do, Joan. But taking who we can with us is better than leaving them here.”
“We have limited space on the chopper and no means to communicate outside. At least not at the moment.” Amanda’s emotions burst through and the old feelings induced by her father surged through her. Helplessness, outrage, praying for help she knew wouldn’t come in time to save her—all of it, in vivid, excruciating detail. Her heart wrenched, a tremor invaded her voice, and her stomach felt full of stones. “We’ve been detainees, and we’re feeling it, too.” She swallowed hard. “But a nation is at risk.”
“Yes, it is,” Joan agreed, a tear leaking from her left eye and splashing on her cheek. “I understand. Of course we have to take as many with us as possible. I didn’t mean to sound so selfish.”
“It’s okay,” Amanda comforted her. “We’re all scared, and we’re all human.”
Mark picked up on Amanda’s emotions and stepped closer, pulling her into a quick hug, and she felt their connection, pulled it close. His heart thundered against hers, and for the first time she didn’t feel vulnerable or afraid. She felt comfort. Reassurance. Shared pain. “We’re doing our best,” he whispered.
She dipped her head against his chest. “Sometimes our best isn’t good enough.”
He gave her a little squeeze, then looked into her eyes. “Sometimes it isn’t.”
His turmoil flooded her, reflecting all the conflicts gnawing at her inside, and knowing her feelings were shared calmed and stunned her. But she didn’t shun any of it. She needed that knowing to do what she had to do, and grateful for it, she grabbed hold and stashed it in her heart.
Mark stroked her hair back from her face. “Be careful, okay?”
“I will.” She stepped back. “You just jam that surveillance and run the loop feed of film for me.”
“Consider it done.”
Jeremy snagged Amanda’s hand and tugged. “Are you going to get my daddy?”
That surprised her. Jeremy had led her to believe that he didn’t know his father was here. “Yes, I am.”
He looked up at her, his eyes too serious and old for such a little boy. “Don’t let him get dead.”
Amanda felt a hard hitch in her chest. “I won’t.”
“Thank you, Amanda,” Joan said, tears shimmering in her eyes. “You, too, Mark.” She passed Amanda a syringe. “In case you run into trouble.”
“Is it lethal?”
“No. It immobilizes.”
Amanda took the syringe, slipped it into her waistband. “Thanks.”
Mark spoke up. “Amanda, go—22:15. Hack ten.”
She checked her watch. He’d need ten minutes to get the surveillance jammed and the loop of film running. Then she could move around more freely. Target time: 22:25—10:25 p.m. “Right.”
“Be careful.” He winked.
She held his gaze a moment, and then another. Some of the best promises were those made without words. “You, too.”
He guided Joan and Jeremy along the edge of the fairway toward the helicopter hangars. Amanda turned and headed down the course to get to the cabins where Joan’s husband, Simon, was being held prisoner.
Flat on her belly in the dirt, Amanda peered through squat, spiny bushes at the cabin. The guards worked their grids, moved predictably along their paths. Happy to see that, she checked her watch: 10:22. In three more minutes, Mark should have the surveillance jammed and the loop of film running so the monitor minders would consider everything normal. The guards walking the grid would be two rows over on five cabins. She’d have enough time to get Simon and the others out before the loop feed ran out and began repeating itself.
At that mark, the danger increased rapidly and it would continue to increase until the chopper flew outside the compound’s antiaircraft artillery firing range. How much Triple-A Kunz had available, Amanda wasn’t sure. If Mark knew, he hadn’t shared that information with her, but Amanda would bet Kunz definitely had more than enough to bring down one chopper.
She stole through the darkness, tree to tree, to Simon’s cabin. There were two windows in the back wall. She risked a glance inside. Two guards. Heavy arms. Simon was sitting at a rickety wooden table in the center of the room.
“No one is coming here.” Simon’s voice carried through the glass. “Can’t you at least go outside so I can get some sleep?”
“Shut up.” The larger of the two men walked from the back to the front of the cabin, then looked out the front window beside the door.
“I think we’re wasting our time, too,” the second guard said. “She’s asleep in her bed. You heard the report just like I did.”
The large man scowled. “We don’t get paid to think. Mr. Reese said guard him, so we’ll guard him.” Speculation gleamed in his eyes. “Unless you want to tell Mr. Reese otherwise?”
“No.” The second guard answered too quickly not to reveal his fear of Paul Reese.
Amanda knew then she could take them. She scratched lightly on the window, and then backed out of sight.
The large guard walked across the floor to the back of the cabin, looked out into the darkness through the dust-smudged window then stepped back away from it. “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah, I did,” the second guard said, sounding as uneasy as he looked.
Pulling a gun ou
t of his shoulder holster, the large guard headed to the front door. “I’m going to check it out.” He motioned toward Simon. “Don’t let him out of your sight.”
Amanda watched from the corner of the cabin for the guard to walk outside. Moments later, the boards on the front steps creaked under his weight. He stepped down into the grass and, when he rounded the corner to the rear of the cabin, she approached the front door. Watching for a minimal-risk opportunity, she seized it, letting Simon catch a glimpse of her.
Picking up on his job in this rescue, he claimed the second guard’s attention. “I don’t understand why you’re all over me,” he said. “What’s going on? Is my wife in danger?”
“What detainee in this compound isn’t in danger?” The guard grunted. “Of course, she’s in danger. So are you—especially if you don’t just be still and shut up.”
Amanda crept forward at the guard’s back, caught him in a headlock and twisted. He slid bonelessly to the wooden floor.
Simon paled. “Is he...?”
“Dead.” Experience had proven to her that there was no easy way to say it.
Simon recovered quickly. “There’s another one. He’s out-—”
“I know.” Amanda motioned for Simon to get behind the door and stay flat against the wall. She put the dead guard in the chair Simon had vacated. “When he comes back, your job is to get out that door. Walk straight ahead into the trees and wait for me there.”
He nodded, blinking fast. He was a small man, very gentle and bookish-looking. “Watch out for Krebs—the other guard. He’s mean.”
She nodded. “I’ll be right there.” She lifted a fingertip over her mouth, shushing Simon, then snagged the dead guard’s weapon. He sat slumped over the table, as if he’d dozed off.
Krebs came back inside, shoving his gun into its holster.
He took one look at the guard seated at the table, and whipped the gun back out. Amanda kicked his wrist. The gun flew out of his grip, skidded across the floor.
He turned on her. “West.” A low growl ripped out of his throat. “I’m going to wipe the floor with you.”
Amanda smiled, stepped in. He caught her with a right hook that knocked her off her feet. She scrambled upright, took one to the ribs. Finally, he left himself open. Stepping in to close the distance between them and screwing up his swing, she straight-armed him, shoved the heel of her hand into his nose. Blood sprayed out and he bent double, cupped his face. Any more force behind the blow and she’d have driven bone into his brain and killed him. Instead, she took him down with a fast blow to the back of his neck that wouldn’t kill him but would leave him with a whopper of a headache when he woke up. He hit the floor with a resounding thud just as Simon cleared the doorway.
She made sure Krebs was out, then injected him with the syringe Joan had prepared to immobilize. All too aware of Gaston’s remarks that many were in the compound under duress and not because they wanted to be working for Kunz, she opposed killing these men—except when given no choice. Some were fighting for their survival just as she was, but determining who worked for Kunz by choice, and who’d been drafted by him and had no choice, was a complicated process.
The first guard clearly had enjoyed flaunting his power over the detainees too much to be doing it under duress. She didn’t waste a breath regretting having to kill him.
Krebs sounded meaner but did what he did out of fear. His distaste shone in his eyes and in his moves. In all fairness, she couldn’t even take his hitting her personally. He struck out against the enemy to sustain life, unlike Paul Reese, who had hit her to punish her for defying him personally.
Double-checking her watch, she shoved Kreb’s gun into her waistband and moved to the door. She had three minutes and then the perimeter guards would run a pass. The loop-feed time Mark had used to jam the surveillance monitors had elapsed. They’d either be repeating now or they would shut down and the monitor minders would see what was actually happening in real time. She didn’t know which was taking place, but either carried significant concerns.
She swallowed hard, steeled herself, then made her way into the woods to Simon. He sat stooped in the dirt. “Where are the others?” she asked. All the cabins were dark and empty.
“Gone. They moved most of them out today. A couple of choppers landed a little before two, I think. They loaded up quickly and took off again.”
A sinking feeling pulled at her stomach like concrete anchors. That must have been what woke her up earlier. Kunz knew she’d be planning an escape. She had anticipated that, but not that he would prepare so soon. “Gone where?”
“To one of his other compounds, I would imagine. He has several.” Simon rubbed his head. “Just before nightfall, Krebs and some of the other guards handcuffed and chained the rest of the detainees, and took them out of the camp. I couldn’t get to Joan to let you know.”
The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach expanded and her chest went hollow. “Oh, no.”
Simon blinked hard, squinted, having difficulty seeing in the dark. “There are two others still here.”
The news kept getting worse and worse. “Where are they?”
“Next cabin over. I warned them to be ready. We don’t get to talk with each other much, but the guards were busy, and I took a chance. One of them was a pilot. They left him behind in case Kunz needed to evacuate. We’re too far out in the middle of nowhere to evacuate by ground.”
Harry? Amanda’s heart raced. “Wait here,” she told Simon, and then checked her watch for the placement of the guards. When she had clearance, she moved out into the long shadows.
Hugging the rough cabin wall, she heard voices and peered into the window. Two men—Harry and a second man she didn’t recognize—sat bound to chairs with ropes. Paul Reese stood in front of them, impeccably dressed in black, talking on a phone. She strained to hear him clearly.
“You pulled a visual check and you’re sure she’s in that bed?” he asked someone on the other end of the phone.
He paused to listen, and the tension loosened in the set of his shoulders. Apparently he was talking with Amanda’s guard and had been reassured that she was in her apartment and sound asleep.
Actually, the guard must have seen the body of Rosalita, Joan’s nanny, who wanted only for Jeremy and his family to get away from here and live a normal life. Amanda admired the old woman’s strength and sacrifice. She’d made Amanda swear not to tell Joan what she’d done to help them, and Amanda would keep that confidence. Joan would have refused to let Rosalita sacrifice herself, and knowing she had would only make Joan feel guilty forever.
Reese turned his back to the window. “Fine,” he said, his voice carrying through the window screen. “Make sure she stays there. Mr. Kunz doesn’t want any trouble tonight and I’ve given him my personal guarantee that there won’t be any.” He disconnected the phone, spoke to Harry and the other prisoner. “Well, it appears your guardian angel has taken the night off.” Paul smiled, lifted a hand. “No rescue.”
“Are you going to untie us?” Harry asked.
“No. No, I’m not.” Paul walked to the door of the cabin. “But I am going to leave you to the guards.”
A raccoon ran across Amanda’s foot. She jerked and bumped against the cabin wall.
Reese stopped in his tracks, looked toward the window. Amanda broke into a cold sweat, flattened herself against the cabin wall and prayed he couldn’t see her. She slowed her breathing, stood statue still, glimpsing the bandage on the side of Reese’s face at the window. He looked out, moved from side to side and listened intently. Amanda didn’t move, didn’t breathe, afraid he’d hear her.
Finally, he backed away and she dropped to the ground, hugged the dirt and slid on her belly around the cabin wall to the back, fully expecting Reese to come out and check around outside.
She took cover under a thick bush, took aim with the guard’s gun and waited. Seconds later, Reese moved through the grass, his footsteps heavy, crunching on leaves and twi
gs.
Amanda weighed her options. She could expose herself and take him down. But then the entire compound would be alerted. Paul Reese had to die for hitting her; that record would stay intact. Yet the timing was hers to choose, and killing him right now wasn’t in her best interests. Not if she wanted to get Harry, Simon, Mark, Joan and Jeremy out of here alive. And she did. So she stayed put, nestled the gun, saving it as a last resort.
Reese took the corner at the back of the cabin. Amanda put her nose down into the dirt to avoid any potential light reflection off her exposed skin. He moved cautiously, gun raised, sweeping the perimeter, stopped not a foot in front of her.
Her heart pounded against her ribs, but she didn’t move. He sensed her there—she could feel it—but he hadn’t pinpointed her location. She waited, sweat beading on her skin, adrenaline pumping through her veins. If he found her, great timing or not, she’d have to kill him.
The raccoon raced by, brushing against Reese’s foot.
“Whoa!” He jerked and jumped a foot off the ground, took aim at the raccoon. “Get out of here.” He shouted, but he didn’t shoot.
Reese blew out a shaky breath and walked back the way he’d come, clearly convinced the raccoon had made the initial noise that had set him on edge.
Amanda watched him walk away, turn the corner and walk over to the guard’s cabin and close the door. Having no choice, she stayed still a long minute, in case he was baiting her to expose herself.
The clock ticked constantly in her mind, reminding her that for every second that passed, the danger and risk of them getting caught increased.
Reese didn’t come back out. The guards didn’t alter their routine. Convinced he’d blamed the raccoon, she moved.
Showing her face at the cabin’s window, she hissed.
Harry looked over. His eyes crinkled and he gave her a slight nod, and then looked at the man seated beside him and winked. When the man winked back, the cycle of messages had been completed. They knew she was coming in after them.
