by Sandra Brown
He ran a hand over his nearly shaved head. “It’ll take a bit of getting used to.”
She handed him a plastic trash bag, filled with empty dye bottles and wads of her hair. “Put this by the gym bags. Don’t want to forget and leave it here.” She began scrubbing her hair with a towel.
“Will do. Then we need to get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.”
* * *
The 4:00 a.m. alarm startled Tim. He rolled toward Martha. She wasn’t there. Then he heard the shower running. He joined her.
Thirty minutes later they were on the road. Out of the city, into the wooded hills south of town, off on a rarely used gravel road. Tim pulled the SUV into the trees, no longer visible from the road. He parked near the clearing he had found months earlier.
He set up the tent. Not exactly set it up since it was one of those self-contained jobs. Floor, walls, ceiling, support cables all in one. He simply removed it from its flat storage sleeve and dropped it on the ground. The cables unwound and a tent appeared.
He crawled inside and, using his Swiss Army knife, cut two dinner-plate-size holes in one end. About eighteen inches from the bottom. He then piled three pillows near each hole.
It was 5:00 a.m. Two hours to wait. Then they could get this done, stuff the tent and everything else into plastic trash bags and drop them into the industrial Dumpster over by the packing plant where they would ultimately disappear into a landfill. Then back to the mall parking deck, pick up the new car and finally curb the SUV on the east side. Keys inside of course. Easy for the crack dealers to snatch and chop. After that, goodbye. The transformation of Tim and Martha Foster into Robert Beckwith and Cindy Strunk would be complete. He smiled. He actually looked forward to Robert and Cindy getting married. She would make a great North Carolina blushing bride.
He looked at her. She lay on her back, eyes blank, staring at the tent’s roof. “You okay?” he asked.
“Nervous.”
“Me, too.”
“Look.” She held up a trembling hand.
“You’ll do fine. You have to. We both have to.” He rolled onto his side and looked into her face. “For Steven.”
* * *
Tabitha Martin stood near the prison entrance, a rolling chain-link gate behind her, and a hundred feet beyond that the metal double doors that led to the facility’s interior. Inside you could find the worst of the worst. Rapists, murderers, child molesters, you name it. And, of course, Walter Allen Whitiker.
A big day for Tabitha. Her first real hard news story. Not her usual new cub at the zoo, tornado uprooted tree, or Labor Day Parade fluff piece. An honest-to-God story about the city’s most controversial trial.
She stood, facing the Channel 16 News camera, and waited for the signal. The cameraman gave her a countdown, finger after finger folding from sight, until only his fist remained.
“This is Tabitha Martin reporting live from Stone Gate Prison. We are just minutes from the release of Walter Allen Whitiker. Three years ago he was arrested for the murder of eight-year-old Steven Foster, whose body was found six months after he went missing in a wooded area just five miles from where I now stand. Murder charges were brought based on DNA evidence obtained from what were believed to be tearstains in the back of Whitiker’s van.
“The murder charges were dropped when Judge Ben Kleinman disallowed this evidence on a technicality. Walter Allen Whitiker was then tried and convicted for obstructing a police investigation and perjury. He received a three-year sentence, and now, nineteen months later, he is being released for good behavior.”
She turned and looked back toward the prison, where several guards had gathered near the metal doors.
“I see some activity, so Whitiker might come through that door very soon.” She turned back to the camera. “As we have reported here in the past, Whitiker remained in the public eye for making what many believe were not so subtle threats toward Martha Foster, young Steven’s mother. Whitiker has repeatedly stated that she lied about seeing him cruising their neighborhood on the day Steven disappeared. Many feel that these threats should preclude Whitiker’s early parole, but the parole board ruled that he was safe for release and Judge Kleinman agreed.”
* * *
The scope was a Bushnell 30x50. It pulled the image of Tabitha Martin into full view. As if she were standing right in front of him. Tim could clearly see the Channel 16 pin she wore on her sweater. She was looking directly at the cameraman who aimed his shoulder-balanced camera at her.
Tim and Martha lay prone on the plastic floor of the tent. Tim had snapped off a few branches of the brush, allowing a clear view down the gentle slope and across the road, to where Tabitha and a small group of curiosity seekers had gathered. He could almost hear what she was saying. How Whitiker had been charged with murder and wiggled free by the machinations of his slick lawyer and a corrupt judge. How he had been a model prisoner. How his threats to Martha weren’t real, just the imagination of distraught parents and a homicide investigator who felt that the judge had trashed his reputation. Which is exactly what that nut-job Kleinman had done. Whitiker a model prisoner? Maybe him saying he would “get even with that lying bitch” and “even the score with those that falsely accused him” weren’t really threats. Get real.
He wiped his damp palms with a towel. “You ready?”
“I think so.”
Tim worked the bolt action of his 30.06, settling the bullet into the firing chamber. Martha did the same. They each rested their weapons on the stacked pillows. Martha pressed her eye against the scope on her rifle.
“Just do it exactly like you did with all those practice shots. Calm, relaxed, exhale slowly, squeeze.”
“What if I miss and hit someone else?”
“You won’t.”
She glanced over at him. “What if the tent doesn’t dampen the noise enough? I have a vision of everyone turning and pointing at us.”
“You can’t watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers anymore.”
That got a smile from her. Relaxed her a bit.
“We’re three hundred yards away,” Tim said. “They couldn’t see us even if they knew where to look. The tent will work just fine. If they hear anything, it’ll be so soft and nondirectional they’ll have no idea where it came from. By the time they figure it out, if they ever do, the Fosters will no longer exist and we’ll be halfway to North Carolina.”
“I hope so.”
“Remember, on three.”
They had decided that this was a one-shot deal and would be best if one shot came from each of them. The worst thing would be to miss. Then all of this would be for nothing. Simultaneous shots would also help soften any future guilt. No way to know who released the killing bullet.
He looked through the scope again. Just behind the reporter, he saw the prison doors swing open. With arrogant strides and that permanent smirk on his face Whitiker appeared and walked toward the chain-link gate.
* * *
Tabitha heard a commotion behind her and turned.
“Here he comes now,” she said into her microphone as she and her cameraman moved forward.
The gate rattled open. Whitiker walked through. A free man. The two officers turned and headed back inside.
Tabitha pushed the microphone forward. “Mr. Whitiker. How does it feel to be out of prison?”
“Should never have been there. I never lied to the police. They lied about me. I never hurt that child. I never done nothing to no one.”
“What about the DNA evidence?”
“They set me up. When I wouldn’t confess…even after they beat on me…they got their lab folks to plant evidence. Just that simple.”
“Isn’t it true that the lab results were never questioned? Wasn’t it the method by which the evidence was obtained that was the controversy? A probable cause issue?”
“Their probable cause and their corrupt lab are jokes. A waste of taxpayer money. This was a railroad job and you know it.” He smiled at her. “What’re y
ou doing after this? I’m going to get myself a cheeseburger and a bunch of beers. Want to come along?” He looked her up and down. “Been a long time since I had me some… .”
Whitiker’s body jerked. Two crimson blossoms appeared on his chest. His eyes widened, then glazed over. He wavered as if being rocked by a breeze. His legs folded and he crumpled to the ground.
* * * * *
DYING TO SCORE
A Black Ops., Inc. Story
Cindy Gerard
I’m hooked on Gerard’s tough-talkin’, straight-shootin’ characters. Her story is exciting, taut, sexy and just plain fun to read. ~SB
Oh, yeah. Judging by the chuck, chuck, chuck of her custom AR-15, Crystal—aka: Tinkerbelle, Johnny Duane Reed’s own personal transplant from never-never land—was kicking some serious ass. If help didn’t arrive soon, preferably in the form of their Black Ops., Inc. extraction team, not only was he going to die in this snake-infested jungle, Tink was going to take the long goodbye with him.
The thought of losing her redoubled the pain that screamed through his shoulder where an AK round had ripped through flesh and bone.
“Shoulda clipped…your wings, Tink.” He shook his head and fought the darkness from the blood loss and the suffocating, wet jungle heat that threatened to drag him under. “Told Nate…this…was a…bad idea. Never shoulda…let you…come along…never shoulda—”
“Shut up. Just shut up,” his wife snapped. She popped off another burst of return fire, answering the AK-47 rounds that flew at them from a gully fifty yards away. “You don’t get to talk anymore. You don’t get to do anything but lie still and put pressure on that damn bleeder.”
That’s my girl, he thought as he closed his eyes and wrestled with the jolt of fire searing through his shoulder. She don’t take no lip from nobody. But, damn, he shouldn’t have folded when she’d begged to get out from behind the desk again. He should have insisted she stay behind.
“Intel on Luis Reyes, big player in the Zeta Mexican drug cartel,” their boss, Nate Black of Black Ops., Inc., had recounted, “tells us Reyes has set up a sophisticated paramilitary training compound for his private army.”
The team had been gearing up at the same time as their flat-bottom speedboat delivered them to their infiltration point along the south bank of the Rio Usumacinta in Central Guatemala. An active waterway for drug smuggling, the Rio Usumacinta bisected a wild jungle that was a perfect spot for the cartel to set up camp.
“Not only are they training at the paramilitary compound, they’re producing weapons,” Nate had continued with a hard look as he ran through their mission one last time. “Your primary objectives are to infiltrate Reyes’s camp, conduct a recon to confirm their ability to produce weapons, get a read on their inventory and get out. We need a big score on this op.
“And people,” Nate had added, glancing at the four-person BOI team consisting of Luke Colter, aka Doc Holliday; Gabe Jones, aka the Archangel; Johnny and Tink, before the boat had pulled away and left them on the riverbank, “let’s make this an easy in, easy out, okay?”
Okay, Johnny thought, biting back another groan.
Easy in—check.
Easy out—not so much.
The team had infiltrated the seven-hundred acre enemy encampment through dense, heavily forested terrain in less than two hours, gotten eyes on and confirmed the intel was accurate. The facility included a firing range, a heavy breaching area, an urban training ground used to build explosives, processing and storage facilities, and a chopper landing pad.
It had been a smooth-sailing, piece-of-cake mission…until a truckload of Reyes’s thugs had barreled up, caught them inside a bomb prep building and opened fire.
Doc and Gabe had sprinted one direction, he and Tink the other. And that’s when he’d caught the round in his shoulder. He and Tink had made it a hundred yards before the blood loss had forced them to stop and hunker down.
He fought to focus on his wife as she continued to cover Reyes’s guns with her rifle fire. Damn. She was still too green for this kind of op…and yet, she was keeping his sorry ass alive. If the bullet didn’t end up killing him, the hit to his ego just might finish the job.
What a world. Two years ago, if anyone had given Reed ten to one odds on his chances of someday bleeding out from an AK round in some Central American shit hole of a jungle, he’d have walked away from the bet. In his line of work, a “good” end just wasn’t in the cards. The law of averages said he’d buy the farm in a confrontation exactly like this: pinned down by enemy fire, chance of rescue, nada.
By the same token, if that same anyone had told him that his best chance for survival from said AK round came in the form of a hot, petite redhead who was built like a Vegas showgirl, swore like a Force Recon Marine and flitted around like Tinkerbelle on speed, he’d have told them to go blow smoke up someone else’s ass.
If that same farseeing SOB had told him he’d not only fall in love with that sexy little fairy but marry her, he’d have asked them exactly what kind of ganja they were smokin’.
Look at her, he thought with more pride than he’d ever thought he was capable of feeling. Lying on her belly, elbows planted in the dirt, sighting down the barrel of her AR-15 and holding off the baddest of the bad guys while bullets whizzed all around them. She was a pint-size warrior woman, fierce and fearless and ready to take on an entire battalion if she had to, to keep them both alive. And she just might have to if help didn’t arrive soon.
“God, do you have…any idea how much…you turn me on…right now?” Blood loss made him slur his words but that didn’t stop him. “If you weren’t…already my wife, I swear…I’d propose. At the very least…proposition you.”
“I said, shut up. Save your strength, Reed, because if you die on me, so help me, I’ll make you sorry you were ever born.”
“That’s…my girl,” he ground out around a grimace then cursed his useless right arm. He pressed harder on the compress, gritted his teeth against the ripping pain and prayed to God the quick clot Tink had emptied over the wound would do its thing soon. Best guess—he was well over a pint low. He needed to plug the leak fast. And more grim news—he couldn’t feel his hand anymore.
This was bad. This was so freakin’ bad.
* * *
Crystal Debrowski Reed bit down on her lower lip, wiped a trickle of sweat off her forehead with the back of a grubby arm and slowly swept the jungle through her rifle scope. Several silent minutes had passed since they’d last taken fire. No muzzle flashes. No bang-bangs. All was quiet—for the moment. But the bad guys were still out there. No question about that. She glanced over her shoulder at her husband lying on his back in the damp, decaying leaves and fetid jungle heat. His eyes were closed. His mouth was clamped tight with pain. The pasty pallor of his skin scared her to death. She needed Doc to work his magic and fix Johnny up. But Doc and Gabe were out of radio contact, only God knew where. So it was up to her to keep him alive and keep Reyes’s thugs at bay until they could hook up and get the heck out of here.
“Did I…mention,” her husband asked with that crooked, arrogant and totally smart-ass grin she’d fallen in love with, “that you…are sooo turning me on right now?”
“Yeah, you mentioned it,” she grumbled and kept her head on a swivel, checking 360 degrees around them at all times. “Which just goes to show how much blood you’ve lost.”
Looking like she did, she couldn’t “turn on” a lightbulb let alone compel a second glance from this tall, blond and gorgeous elite operative who just happened to be her husband and who had better not, by God, die on her.
Her hair looked like it had been groomed by an orangutan. Hell, it looked like orangutan hair—orange/red, short and spiky—and not in a glitz and glamour way that had originally turned the head of this sweet-talking Texan. Her face and arms were covered with camo paint, bug bites and blood. Johnny’s blood.
Oh, God. Her stomach sank as she thought of just how much blood he’d lost. She c
ould not lose this man. Please, God, do not let me lose him.
“So…d’ya hear the one…about the mercenary…who walked into the—”
“Damn it, Reed,” she sputtered, frustrated and afraid for him. “You do not get to make me laugh, either. You need to save your breath, not keep my spirits up. I’m fine.”
And she was. Because she had to be. She wasn’t going to let her guard down. She was going to hold on until help arrived because Reed could not, and would not, die here.
“Gambler, Gambler, this is Tinkerbelle,” she whispered, cupping her Micom 3 Pathfinder radio mic close to her mouth. She had to risk raising Doc. “Do you read me, over?”
Several silent seconds ticked off before she gave up on Doc and tried Gabe.
“Angel, Angel, this is Tink. Do you read me, over?”
“Nothing?” Johnny asked after more tense seconds slogged by.
She compressed her lips and shook her head, trying to hide her growing desperation.
“Either they’re…out of range,” he said, “or they…can’t respond.”
Which she knew. Which worried her even more. If either Doc or Gabe were down, hit by enemy fire, the chances of any of them making it back to the extraction point were about as good as Reed making it an hour without flirting.
Trouble didn’t get any bigger than this. They weren’t dealing with run-of-the-mill hired guns. They were dealing with Reyes’s mercenaries, men who dealt in money and gold and lead. This was their compound, their ground. They owned it. Anyone who came looking for trouble was going to get a faceful of it.
Or in Johnny’s case, a shoulderful.
“How many…left, do you figure?” Johnny asked as his head dropped back heavily onto the dirt. Once again, his eyes were closed; his jaw was clenched tight in agony.
Crystal’s chest tightened. “In this group? Three, maybe four. But they’re bound to have called in reinforcements from other parts of the camp.”
“You need to…get out of here, babe. See if you…can hook up with…Doc and Gabe and…send them…back for me.”
