by T. W. Connor
“The truth is,” he started out quickly, “you’re right about me, John. You’ve been right the entire time. I’m not a vet. I never even pretended to be one. But it’s a good cover for being out here. ‘Small-town doctor moves into the country for retirement, takes on animals for veterinary care as a hobby and service to the community.’ Hell, people have brought me animals, and I have treated them, but I’ve certainly never asked for that. It’s not why I’m here.”
“So why are you out here?” I asked, his tone of voice rubbing off on me and making me feel as though we needed to get through this as quickly as we could—for reasons that I didn’t even start to understand. “And who sent you?”
“I’m here because decisions were made by those higher up than me. There’s a high concentration of veterans in Michigan, did you know that? And an even higher concentration of veterans with special training. It’s hard to tell why, though it could just be luck of the draw. Could be that people born and bred in Michigan have a higher chance of finding their way into Special Ops. Could be that when they get home, they’re attracted to the rugged, outdoor lifestyle the people lead here. Those things are unimportant. What is important is that in this small area, I have direct access to over fifty different veterans with special training. Special skills of one sort or another.”
“You’re a keeper,” I said softly, leaning back in my chair as I tried to wrap my mind around it. A keeper. I’d heard of them, of course—anyone who was in Special Ops had. They were people assigned to watch after specially trained veterans in the real world. Make sure they got back into society okay. Make sure they didn’t do anything stupid or use their training in ways they weren’t supposed to.
But I’d thought it was a rumor. I’d never thought they actually existed. I’d come home from my tours in Afghanistan one of the most highly trained Special Ops commanders, with skills that ranged from designing and running secret missions to peaceful interrogation. And I’d never once dreamt that anyone had been here watching over me.
I’d never seen any sign of it.
Marlon tipped his head back and forth twice. “I’m a keeper, but I’m also a whole lot more,” he muttered. “It’s my job to make sure that the soldiers who return to this area are healthy and getting on in society, yes. But it’s also my job to bring them here. I get them directly after they come home, and many of them are wounded. That’s why I have the surgical suite downstairs. That’s why I have all the rooms. I’ve housed up to twenty soldiers at once and nursed several of them back to health before they went out into the world.”
“How long were you watching us?” Angie suddenly asked. “How long were you watching John?”
Marlon moved his gaze to her but didn’t hesitate with his answer. “Since he arrived here.”
“And that’s how you knew what our movements were on the day you saved us,” she guessed.
“More or less. John wasn’t a man who required immediate assistance to reintegrate into society. He did that well enough on his own.”
He gave me a nod, which I didn’t return. I hadn’t reintegrated as well as he—or his program—thought I had. I still woke up with nightmares every night, and questioned almost every move I made.
But I also had Angie. And she was about the softest landing a man could ask for.
“John was also…a special assignment. So when you disappeared from town, I was immediately concerned. When you didn’t return, and your track showed that you had gone toward Randall Smith’s place…the concern grew. The day I found you, I was on my way to Randall’s house myself, to determine whether he’d seen you.”
I put the coincidence and convenience of those last few statements right to the side, because the first thing he’d said had grabbed my attention.
“What do you mean I was a special assignment?” I asked roughly.
Why did I feel like that was what this was all about? Why did I feel like this was where shit was really going to hit the fan—right here where I discovered that the military was here for me again?
What the hell could they possibly want? And why would they have sent some babysitting glorified nurse to do it for them?
Marlon looked right at me, his face incredibly serious. “You’ve asked time and again who I work for, and I’ve told you that I used to be in the CIA. The other truth is, I’m still an active member. I’m a recruiter. And they have a mission for you. But before we can learn anything more than that—because believe me when I say that I don’t know any further details—we have to get back to town. And we have to do it quickly.”
I lengthened my stride to catch up with Marlon, who had taken off from the kitchen after his last insane statement and was now striding through the snow toward the barn in the distance.
“What the hell are you talking about, go back?” I snapped. “We just got here. We have the people settled, and we have them safe. There’s absolutely no reason to move them again. No reason to go back and try to fight a losing battle against a madman who wants to claim the town as his own.”
Marlon cast a glance at me from the corner of his eye. “So you’re just willing to let him have the town? Willing to let him stay there indefinitely, in your homes?”
I bit my lip. The answer to that was definitely no, but that wouldn’t help my argument right now.
“Not necessarily,” I hedged. “But that doesn’t mean we need to go back right now. The people are safe here. I want to give them time to rest.”
“You can give them time to rest. But I’m telling you that you and me, we need to go back. And it’ll be a hell of a lot easier if we take most of the men with us and just win the town back at the same time.”
I grabbed his arm and yanked him to a stop. “We don’t have the weapons for that.”
He gave me a sly grin. “Want to bet?”
He turned away from me and shot forward into the growing gloom, his eyes on the barn, and I darted after him, too confused at this point—and honestly, too overwhelmed—to be able to get my mind around what he was talking about, or what he could possibly mean.
But when he finally reached the door of the barn and I caught up to him, I had my next answer prepared.
“Why the hell do we need to get back there so badly?” It was short, and it was blunt. But I wanted a straightforward answer from him, for once.
“Because, John, my communication with my superiors depends on it. I have a communication device hidden in that town, and it’s the only way I get my news. It’s how I knew about the EMP. It’s how I knew what we were supposed to do about it. It’s how I get all my orders, and it’s how we’re going to figure out what we’re supposed to do next. We’re on a relatively tight timeline here, and though I don’t know all the reasons for that, I do know that the only way to get them is to ask.” He paused and looked at me. “I assume you want answers to all the questions currently running through your head.”
Damn right, I did. I wanted more than answers. I wanted motivations. I wanted big explanations. And I wanted to know who was behind it all.
“I do,” I said grudgingly.
He nodded. “Then we have to get to that communicator so I can ask them. The sooner we do that, the sooner we get rid of Randall and get out of this mess. The sooner we can figure out whether there’s any help coming for us.”
Well those were…good reasons. Those were very good reasons. Because I hadn’t forgotten about the danger that Randall presented. The man could show up at any moment with his gang of thugs, and we’d be defenseless.
And I also hadn’t forgotten that we were out in the middle of nowhere, with no electricity and no way of knowing when—or if—it would come back. We had no way of calling for help, no way of knowing what was happening in the larger world, or how it would affect us.
Except that we evidently did. If Marlon was telling the truth—and I’d never known him to actually lie—then we did have a way of communicating with the outside world, and calling for help.
We had a way of making
sure all the people in town were safe for the long run, rather than just tonight. And in the end, that was what changed my mind and made me follow Marlon into the barn. Because I didn’t know if I believed that the CIA had sent him to recruit me for some top-secret mission. I didn’t know if I believed that he was a keeper for the military.
But I did believe him when he said he had a way of communicating with them. Because he’d known about the EMP when I first met him, and he’d known how far-reaching the consequences were. He shouldn’t have known about either of those things—unless he had a way of asking someone.
I took one stride after him, and then another, and by the time I got through the door of the barn, I was walking quickly, my mind whirring with more questions.
But I stopped dead at what I saw in front of me.
26
Marlon had more weapons in this one room than many of the squads I’d been a part of. Hell, he had more guns than many of the larger platoons, depending on where they were and what they were supposed to be doing. They were organized in neat rows along the walls of the room, the handguns stacked butts-out so that they would take up less space while the larger rifles and machine guns were presented like trophies spread out over the walls.
I turned, my mouth open, and took in entire bins full of grenades, and a row of what looked like every kind of grenade launcher known to man. Or at least known to this man.
The next wall held a number of different uniforms. Or rather…not entire uniforms, but the makings. Many, many bulletproof vests. A number of helmets, and a number of backpacks. He also had, I saw, three additional exoskeletons—one of which looked like it was made for an entire body.
The final wall held rockets. Real, honest-to-God rockets. Not big ones, of course, but it was easy to see that those meant business. I didn’t even want to ask where the rocket launcher was—or whether he’d ever had to use it.
What he might have used it for.
“You’re better-equipped than some of the smaller companies I’ve worked with,” I murmured, too awestruck to put my breath behind my words.
Because whatever I’d thought Marlon was, it was obvious now that he was a whole lot more. And whoever was backing him, whether they were Intelligence Community, or military, or both…
Well, suffice it to say that I no longer doubted his story. I no longer doubted him being a keeper or a recruiter or something even more that he hadn’t told me about yet. Because you didn’t get this sort of arsenal unless you had some major backing.
And those backers only gave you these sort of weapons if you were into some really heavy shit.
“What the hell are you really doing out here, Marlon?” I asked next.
I turned to look at him, trying to focus on one question at a time. Trying to wait until he gave me answers before I started jumping to conclusions. Mostly, I was just glad that Angie and Bob hadn’t come with me. I’d seen these sorts of weapons before, and I’d seen this many of them at once, and even I was having trouble coming to terms with this much firepower.
There was no way civilians would have been able to deal with it. Especially when it had been living so close to their town.
“I am exactly what I told you I am,” he said gently. “When I was in active duty, I was a CIA agent attached to a company of high-level Special Ops soldiers. I went with them into Afghanistan and Iraq. I’ve been to Russian and Uzbekistan. I’ve been into the worst parts of Africa and seen things in South America that I don’t even want to remember. I played a very active role in many undercover missions, and I was one of the best. Then I…burnt out. I just couldn’t do it anymore. So the CIA set me up with a new mission. The one I told you about. This arsenal was supplied when I arrived, and they haven’t told me what any of it is for. But I’m thinking that as long as it’s here…”
He shrugged, and I could see very clearly that he was doing his best to suppress a boyish grin.
I grinned back, unable to stop myself. “We might as well make some use of it.”
At that, he laughed outright. “Exactly my thoughts. And we’re going to need this sort of weaponry if we’re going to get Randall out of our town and get my communicator back. Come. We have to tell Bob and Sean—make sure they’ll support us.”
Bob just stared at Marlon for several long moments after Marlon finished talking. His face didn’t register anything—shock, surprise, or even horror—and I wondered suddenly whether he’d already guessed all of this. He’d obviously known that Marlon was more than met the eye, and I wondered now how much he’d already guessed at.
“So you are military,” he said, confirming my thought. “And CIA. Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. I’d assumed you were bigger in the world than you were letting on, but I would never have guessed…” He trailed off, then shook his head.
And, just like the Bob I knew and appreciated, he settled down and got right to the important point.
“And you say there’s a communication device in the town? Something we can use to contact outsiders? Something we can use to call for help?”
“There is,” Marlon said firmly.
Bob nodded once. “Then we have to get to it. We can’t keep the people out in the forest, and we definitely can’t stay here. I’m going to guess that you don’t have enough food reserves to keep us for long.” Marlon shook his head at Bob’s pointed look after the question, and Bob nodded again. “We have the same problem in town. We have some reserves, but not enough to last us for long. We’re used to frequent deliveries when it comes to food and necessities. Without them…”
“Everyone in town is going to be in trouble,” I finished for him, seeing that he saw exactly what the problem was. “Which is why we have to get back to town and take control again. So we can call for help.”
Bob’s shoulders straightened, and I could see I was doing what I thought of as donning his personal uniform. The one that allowed him to take care of his people without thinking twice about the pressure.
“We don’t have a choice,” Bob said. “So how are we going to do it? When do we move?”
I grinned at him, and a quick glance at Sean, and then Joe, told me that they were on board as well.
“First thing in the morning,” I said. “We stay the night, get as much rest and food as we can. We leave anyone who can’t fight here, and that includes most of the women, all of the kids, and anyone over sixty. Everyone else is coming with us. We’re going to take our town back. And then we’re going to call for the reinforcements we need.”
Bob, Sean, and Joe might have gotten on board with us quickly, but when it came to Angie…
Well, it was a different matter entirely.
“I just don’t understand why I can’t go help,” she said again from the floor on the other side of the room.
She’d marched right over there when I told her what our plans were and slid to the ground, where she’d crossed her arms and tried to stare me down. I hadn’t thought she’d take it lightly, so I wasn’t surprised. She wouldn’t have been my wife if she’d taken this sort of order laying down, so to speak.
She’d never liked being left behind.
“You don’t see why we can’t take you, really?” I asked, casting a very pointed look at her leg. She’d taken off the exoskeleton now, but she was still in a brace, and the wrappings alone were enough to keep her from walking normally—or quickly. I definitely couldn’t have her coming with us and slowing us down—or needing protection.
Her gaze followed mine, and she twisted her mouth in frustration.
I walked across the floor and went to my knees at her side. “Listen, I’m leaving you to do something that’s even more important than what I’m doing,” I told her, allowing my emotions to color my words. “I need you here to make sure everyone else is safe—including Sarah. I need you to make sure nobody gets up and wanders off, or gets too worried and starts to panic. I need you here telling them that everything is going to be okay, and that we’re going to save the day.” I put my
palm up to her cheek and stroked it lightly. “I need you here because it’s the best way I can protect you. And because I know you’ll do anything to protect the people of our town while I’m gone.”
She stared into my eyes, her own eyes brimming with tears, and I could see that I already had her agreement. She knew how important it was that we have a leader on the road and one back at camp. Because we couldn’t leave people here to fend for themselves. Not without someone to tell them what to do and make sure they did it.
“Promise you’ll come back to me when it’s all over?” she whispered. “Promise that you’ll be as careful as you can be, and that you’ll be back?”
I leaned forward and gave her a slow, steady kiss. “I promise,” I whispered against her forehead. “As long as you promise that you’ll be waiting here for me when I get here. Unharmed. Don’t go breaking any more bones or fighting bears just to try to prove you’re tougher than me.”
I heard her snort, and then sniffle. “Well the same goes for you. No fighting animals. We’ve done enough of that this week to last us our entire lifetimes. But do me a favor while you’re in town?”
I leaned back and looked at her, wondering what favor I could possibly do for her in town. “Anything.”
Her brows came down, and her expression turned suddenly to one of anger and frustration. “Shoot that bastard Randall. I’m sick of him messing up my life, and messing with the people I love.”
27
The next morning, we were up as early as we could manage, and getting ready to head out on our mission. Marlon, Bob, and I had made a list of all the people in the town—relying heavily on Bob’s memory of every single person—and then picked out the men who would go with us.
And the women. Because there were four of them as well whose skills would come in handy on this mission.
