by Janie Crouch
She once again was so thankful Finn had taught his son skills to survive. That he had played with him out in these woods for hours, rather than just leaving him to video games.
When the small, black-haired head had disappeared, she went in the opposite direction, making as much noise as reasonably possible. Breathing like she was about to have a heart attack did not require much acting.
She ran as far as she could as fast as she could, trying to give Ethan as much time as possible to get away. Henry was catching up with her—she could feel terror eating away at her insides. Still, his flying tackle caught her off guard. He knocked her to the ground, but she scrambled away again, kicking and punching at him.
“You bitch.” His fist crashed into her jaw, snapping her head to the side. “Where’s the kid?”
She spat out blood where her teeth had cut her cheek. “Gone. Hiding. He’s Finn’s kid. Finn is a survival expert. Don’t you think he taught his son wilderness survival? At least enough to get away from you.”
Thank God that was true.
Henry backhanded her, then yanked her to her feet. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t need him. He doesn’t know who I am, and even if he did, who’s going to believe a kid?”
Finn. Finn would believe Ethan without a single doubt.
“Especially when I’m done spinning this to look like you were behind it and that you ran off with a bunch of money.”
Knowing how bad her finances were, would Finn believe Henry? Think the worst of Charlie? That she’d betrayed him again?
Not that she was going to be around to know.
“What do you want, Henry?”
“I want the code you memorized.”
She shrugged. “Fine. Got a piece of paper?” She’d be glad to write down some random symbols for him.
He yanked her hair back, bringing tears to her eyes. “You think you’re so clever? You’ve been hanging out with Linear Tactical for too long. Those damn Special Forces guys, always thinking they’re God’s gift to humanity. Saving the world one mission at a time. Did you know Bollinger’s nickname in the Army was Eagle? Ironic, considering he couldn’t even see what was right in front of him the whole time. Me.”
“You were the one behind Operation Sparrow? Selling the information about air space?”
Henry rolled his eyes. “That intel’s so small-time, I wouldn’t even get out of bed for that. But believe me, Cline deciding to do it provided the perfect cover for what I’ve been waiting years to do.”
“And what is that?”
“Those codes you have inside your head are what I need to access the override sequence for eight NORAD drones. Once I have them I’ll be able to redirect them anywhere I want or sell them to someone who might like to use the United States’ own weapons technology against them. Do you know how many can be killed with a single drone attack when used correctly?”
She didn’t nor did she care. What she did know was that she was never ever giving him the information inside her head.
He yanked her to her feet. “Give me the code, Charlotte.”
“Wow.” She tapped her finger against her lip, ignoring the pain, the picture of nonchalance. “This opportunity to give you the code and die, or not to and die . . . Let me think about it.” She spat more blood on the ground and glared at him. “I think I’m gonna go with not helping you.”
That got her another fist crashing into her face. She tried not to moan but couldn’t keep it in. As soon as she recovered, she tilted her chin back up. “You may as well kill me now, Henry. I’m not going to give you the information you want.”
“Look at you.” Henry leaned back against a tree. She guessed it was too much to hope he’d get bitten by some unknown bug that would leave him paralyzed. “You’re all tough, just like your Linear boyfriend. He may have taught you quite a bit . . .”
He yanked her closer by the front of her shirt. Finn’s, which she’d put on last night after a shower. She felt it rip. “Did your Special Forces lover teach you how to withstand torture?”
She didn’t say anything. Refused to in case she gave away the terror pulsing through her. Henry gripped her chin and forced her face to within inches of his. “Did he teach you the most fundamental rule of torture?”
She refused to show her fear. “What’s that?”
“No matter how tough you are, how strong you are, how much training you have . . . Everybody eventually breaks. You will too, Charlotte, and you’ll tell me what I want to know.”
Henry pulled out a gun from a holster at his waist and she thought he was going to shoot her. She didn’t even have time to throw up her arms as the gun flew down and cracked her on the back of her skull. All she could do was watch the world fade quickly to black.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Finn and the guys stopped by Linear headquarters on their way home from The Silver Palace. They were all exhausted and frustrated. Whoever had been shooting from inside the building, whether it was Stellman or not, had gotten away. Sheriff Nelson hadn’t been able to make any arrests in all the chaos.
No one had been hurt in the fire, but then again, hurting people hadn’t been the intent of the blaze. Escape had been, and it had worked perfectly.
The only person who had died had been identified as Rocco Christensen. Finn assumed that was the man Henry had taken out while rescuing Charlie. Thank God he had, or else Charlie would’ve been taken or maybe already dead.
“So, we’re basically back at square one,” Aiden said, unloading the weapons and equipment they’d grabbed on the way out to The Silver Palace.
“Not completely,” Finn reminded him. “Charlie saw the code and was able to memorize it. That’s got to provide some sort of intel.”
Zac took off the Kevlar vest he was wearing. Finn and Aiden stowed their firearms in the weapons safe. They may have thousands of dollars’ worth around the Linear facility, but they were always kept locked away. Too many children might hurt themselves. Not to mention the much more dangerous overgrown children who thought they knew about weapons but didn’t.
“Give me a couple hours to shower and to eat,” Finn said. “Then I’ll bring Charlie here, so we can contact the major and figure out exactly what these codes are about.”
The thought of Charlie being at his house waiting for him with Ethan should’ve scared him, but it didn’t. It felt perfect.
The others were talking about getting breakfast, Zac leading the charge since his woman was working a double at the hospital, when Finn’s phone buzzed in his hand. It was Peyton.
“Hey, Peyton,” he said as he answered the call. “Thanks again for—”
“Finn.” The woman’s voice was frantic, cutting him off midsentence. “Ethan is here and says someone is chasing Charlie.”
“What?”
His friends stopped talking at Finn’s roar. He put the phone on speaker, so everyone could hear. “Peyton, is Ethan okay? Tell me what’s going on. Where are you right now?” He could hear a car running.
“Ethan is fine. I’m on my way to you.”
“I’m at Linear.”
“Shit,” Peyton muttered under her breath.
“Mommy said a bad word. Mommy said a bad word,” Little Jess sang from the back seat.
“Sometimes bad words are okay,” Finn heard his son say, sounding like a well of deep wisdom.
“I’m turning around,” Peyton muttered. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“I’ll call Sheriff Nelson, so he can radio his man at your house,” Zac said and walked out of the room, phone in hand.
“I’m going to your house,” Dorian said. The big, quiet man didn’t wait for confirmation, just turned and left. He would report back as soon as he had any info.
That might be only five minutes from now, but it was still an eternity.
“Tell me what happened, Peyton.”
“She came to your house last night, I don’t know, around midnight or so. Said she would be staying with Ethan until you g
ot home.”
“Right. And she was fine when you left?”
“Yes. She told me about the fire, and she had some scrapes on her arm, but besides that she seemed okay. So, I went home. I was getting breakfast ready for Jess just after dawn when Ethan showed up.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t just hiding from Charlie? Got freaked out because I wasn’t home?” Maybe sending Charlie hadn’t been the best idea. Maybe Ethan wasn’t ready. Not to mention the kid had been known to go to Jess’s before, although not without asking. Ethan knew the shortcut through the woods.
“No, this was different. This was not him coming to check on Jess like he always does. He ran in as fast as he could, talking about Charlie and how a bad man was after her.”
Zac came back in the room, shaking his head. “Sheriff can’t get his man on the radio.”
“I’m pulling up now.” Peyton disconnected the call and Finn ran outside. He had the door to the car open and his son in his arms in seconds.
Ethan started to cry. “I didn’t want to leave her, Daddy. But Charlie said I had to protect Jess.”
Finn didn’t know what was going on, but he knew his son wasn’t at fault. He set him on the ground and crouched down so they could see eye to eye. “And is Jess safe?”
Ethan nodded.
“Then you did the right thing. When Charlie gets back, I’m sure she’ll say the same.”
That reassured the boy enough to get a small smile out of him.
“Can you tell me what happened, buddy?”
Everyone listened as Ethan told them about a man knocking on the door and Charlie telling Ethan to run.
“Where were you when Charlie told you to go to Jess’s house?”
“Almost halfway to the creek, heading south.”
Finn nodded. He had always made sure Ethan understood directions—it was something everyone should know. It was paying off now.
His son looked at him, the bit of accusation in his eyes clear. “I don’t think Charlie knows the woods as good as us. You need to fix that. I’m afraid she’ll get lost.”
Finn wanted to crush his son to him. The fact that Ethan cared so much about Charlie warmed every part of his heart. “I will, buddy, I promise. Even better, we’ll fix it together. You and I will teach her all about the woods near the house. Do you remember anything else?”
Finn’s phone buzzed. A text from Dorian to the entire Linear group.
Cop dead in patrol car. Stabbed. Tracking Charlie into woods.
Shit.
He glanced at Zac, then Aiden, and both had the same concerned expressions. Zac began responding to Dorian, probably to provide the information Ethan had just given them.
Ethan tugged on Finn’s shirt. “The man was yelling about a code. Charlie wanted me to tell you about it. Fire his pretty chair horse and blue baby eat just when my old dog sleep.”
They brought Ethan inside, so he could write it down using symbols instead of the words.
“I’ll be damned,” Aiden muttered. He pulled out the napkin he’d taken from Cline. The first part matched perfectly.
“And we need to get the major right now. And Henry too. He was freaking out about the code at The Silver Palace, so he must have some idea what this is.”
Ten minutes later they had the major on a video conference call. They’d already sent the codes. The look on the man’s face did not reassure any of them.
Major Pinnock didn’t beat around the bush. “This is bad in some of the worst possible ways. The code you sent is in two parts that should never have been together in one location.”
“They weren’t, really,” Finn said. “Charlie saw the second set inside The Silver Palace. She thinks someone—Stellman, maybe—was using the club to pass along information.”
“It wasn’t Cline, I can tell you that,” the major said. “This is definitely not info he had access too. Or at least not both parts. The second code is from a contractor we use, an engineering company.”
“Do you know what it is?”
The major scrubbed a hand over his face. “The first section is the computer override access for eight UCAVs with their full weapons capacity.”
Unmanned combat aerial vehicles. Drones.
Full weapons capacity meant the consequences could be devastating.
“The first code alone doesn’t really mean anything,” the major continued. “It has to be used at a particular terminal at a particular time.”
“Then why is someone after Charlie?”
“Because that’s what the second code is. The terminal and access time.”
Finn whistled through his teeth. “So, what you’re telling me is that inside Charlie’s head is everything needed to access eight UCAVs to be used at will?”
The major nodded over the screen. “But the good news is, without the specific laptop the code refers to it’s all useless—” The major stopped talking as someone came up to him and whispered in his ear. Finn watched the color drain from the man’s face.
“Is Henry with you?”
Aiden shook his head. “I haven’t seen him since the fire last night.”
“Then, gentlemen, we have a huge problem. I think Henry has played us from the beginning. I’ve just been notified that the terminal the codes belong to are for one in his possession. A remote terminal. Again, not problematic in and of itself.”
“But if he gets the second code from Charlie, he’ll have everything he needs to hijack eight drones. Is that what we’re saying?” Finn asked.
The major nodded. “Affirmative.”
Shit.
Finn was thinking this was about as bad as it could get when a text came from Dorian.
I found signs of struggle. Definitely Charlie, long blonde hairs. Blood, but not life-threatening. I tracked them back toward your house where he moved her to a vehicle.
In other words, where Dorian couldn’t follow. The man was damn near a genius when it came to wilderness survival and tracking, but no one could track a moving vehicle on foot.
“It’s going to take at least twelve hours to contain this and change the codes in our system,” Major Pinnock said. “Henry was smart. He distracted us with the whole Cline/Operation Sparrow stuff. Pretending to work with you provided all the cover he needed.”
“He’s been playing the long con,” Aiden said.
Aiden’s instincts had been right all along.
“Once he has those codes from Charlie, he’ll have no reason to keep her alive.” Finn didn’t give a shit about how or why Henry had been able to fool them. Charlie’s blood was on the ground and Henry, someone who had been lying to their faces for weeks, had her life in his hands.
Zac’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Charlie will know that. She’s smart.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. She’ll figure out what Henry wants and that he’ll use it for acts of terror. She won’t tell him. That just means he’s going to use force to get it from her.”
Going to? Henry was probably already using whatever method necessary to get the information from Charlie. Agony swallowing him, he turned to Zac.
“Zac, she thinks she’s so strong. She thinks she’ll be able to withstand . . .”
He couldn’t finish the sentence. Zac’s hand squeezed his shoulder again. They all had personal experience with torture. The thought of Charlie going through that . . .
“Focus, Eagle. Her survival is the most important thing. We’ll get to her.”
Finn pushed down the terror threatening to swamp him.
“If you can get him on his cell phone, we can track him,” Pinnock said quietly.
He wanted to slam his fist on the table. “What good will that do? He could have her anywhere. Be on the move.”
“Not if he’s trying to obtain intel by force,” Aiden said. “Henry has to have her somewhere he can control outside factors. We get his location. We extract her as a team.”
Aiden and Zac were already moving, gathering the weapons they would need for thei
r impromptu strike team.
“Henry has no reason to think we know he’s a traitor,” Aiden said. “If we play it cool, we can keep him on the line. But you’re going to have to focus, no matter what he does.”
Finn nodded. He might want to rip that bastard apart piece by piece, but he would hold it together until Charlie was safe.
The major gave them the info needed to track Henry, then disconnected the call to handle his own crisis within NORAD.
In under five minutes Finn, Zac, and Aiden were in Finn’s Jeep, ready to pull out in whatever direction the tracker led them. Zac would be driving, with Finn and Aiden in the back so they could talk to the other man. Henry wouldn’t be able to see the GPS feed NORAD was sending them.
“Focused,” Aiden whispered to Finn. He nodded. He had never been more focused on anything in his life. The only thing that mattered now was getting Charlie back alive.
Aiden made the call to Henry, keeping it on speaker.
They needed to keep him on as long as possible. After one minute, the GPS tracker would at least give them a direction to head in. Three should pinpoint Henry’s location.
Of course, this would only work if Charlie hadn’t already given up the information. If she had, Henry would have no reason to pick up at all. Finn held his breath as the phone rang once.
Twice.
A third time.
His hands clenched into fists.
In the middle of the fourth ring, the call connected. Henry’s voice rang out. “Aiden, what’s up, buddy?”
Finn let out a silent sigh of relief even as he wanted to jump through the phone and strangle the other man.
“Hey, Henry,” Aiden responded with a smile. “We lost you at The Silver Palace. We’re all heading out to breakfast and wanted to see if you’d join us. Figure out our next plan of action and see how many problems we caused by not being at The Lion’s Den.”
“Finn there with you?” Henry asked.
“Yeah, hey man.” Finn forced his tone to be as neutral as possible as Aiden eased the phone closer to him. “I’ve got to eat something before I go home. I’m starving.”
