Conard County Spy

by Rachel Lee

  “How so?” Turning, she found he’d risen and now stood in the doorway.

  “If you think too hard about something, you can fail to make room for anything else. Overlook things. Quash your subconscious. So, like I said, I lined up my ducks and I’ll wait to see.”

  “Sure you’ve got all the ducks?” she asked as she opened the package of sliced ham.

  He laughed. “I hope so. Ryker was right. Something like this hasn’t been simmering for a decade. I can probably trace it to something that happened in the last two or three years.”

  “Any way you can get more information about those, um...people?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Not really. So what I’m waiting for is a ping in my neural net.”

  She gaped at him. “Okay, that’s too science fiction.”

  He laughed quietly. “My brain is churning. All those connections are taking turns firing. At some point, with any luck, something I know, something I didn’t think of as terribly important at the time, is going to surface. If it clicks, I’m off to the races.”

  “Now that’s something I understand.”

  “A lot of what I did had to be intuitive. I had to rely on instincts, on a feel for a situation, on my impressions of someone I was working with. I didn’t have time to think out every move as if it were a chess game. Too much has to happen fast when you’re dealing with people. So, yes, I rely a whole lot on my intuition.”

  “Which is honed by experience?”

  “Of course. It always is.”

  She pulled the bread out of her chrome bread box, a nice rich rye from the bakery. “Mustard, mayo? Or both?”

  “Mayo, please. When I was in Europe, I noticed they use mayonnaise the way folks here use ketchup. On everything.”

  “I don’t know if I’d like that. But I’m not a big fan of ketchup, either.” Swiss cheese, lettuce, and the one decent tomato she’d been able to find at the grocery.

  She made three sandwiches, and as soon as she passed him two, she started brewing the espresso for lattes. “Trace? Would they really put a tracking device on your car?”

  “Not likely, but possible,” he answered. He gave her a crooked smile across the bar, half a sandwich in his hand. “There’s always a risk that if they did that and I had a car problem a mechanic would find it. For example, if they did, my wreck could cause them headaches. That device would have to be recovered or explained. I don’t think they’d do it, but then I never thought any of this would happen.”

  She nodded, tipping two shots of espresso into a tall mug, then started steaming milk. “What about tracking devices on your clothes or luggage?”

  His smile widened. “Only good at short range, like a pet’s microchip, only a little better. Broadcasting a signal over a large area requires increasing amounts of power, which sooner or later makes the devices too big to hide. Hence, tracking cell phones.” He paused. “You know, most tires you buy these days have a radio-frequency identification device in them.”

  Her head jerked up. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Problem is, it only has a range of twenty-four inches, and it’s designed to talk to the car’s computer, to tell when air pressure is getting low, that kind of thing. It could also be used to assign a tire to a particular VIN, which might be useful to the police after the fact. But it’s sure no good for tracking anyone.”

  “Wow,” she murmured as she finished making the lattes and joined him on the other side of the bar to eat. “The things I learn. But what about these tracking devices in kids’ shoes?”

  “They rely on cell towers. Same with anything they might put on a person. But why put one on my personal belongings that would need a nearby cell tower to locate me? That takes time, I’m on the move, and I could move out of range repeatedly. Plus, I was already carrying a phone. Most adults do. Yeah, I changed it a couple of times, but every time I did that I revealed my whereabouts again. I had to pay for them, you see.”

  “But you got rid of your most recent one?”

  “Right. So for now I’m a blank.”

  “It’s not like the movies,” she remarked as she picked up her sandwich. Less scary in some ways, and more scary in others.

  He spoke quietly. “It is possible to disappear. Don’t use your bank cards, your credit cards. Get rid of your cell phone. Change cars. You can vanish.”

  “I guess that’s why the FBI still has a wanted list.”

  He laughed quietly. “Exactly. People can’t be tracked like packages. A package moves only when a human moves it, and tracking depends on scanning its bar code. No way you can really do that with a person. We move around too much, and we can avoid doing anything that can identify us.”

  “So you could be perfectly safe here?” She felt her hopes rising.

  “For a while. Not for long. At some point, if someone really wants to find me, they’d backtrack from my last known location.”

  She nodded, feeling a sinking, uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Safer if you move on, in other words.”

  “Probably. Again, only for a while. Sooner or later I’d do something. I’d have to, even if it’s only tapping my bank account. A day labor job could cover me for that, but who’s going to hire a one-armed man?”

  She fell silent, eating only because she had to, thinking about this situation. Now she understood why he kept wanting to move on, but she also understood why Ryker seemed to want to keep him here. Trace couldn’t live on the run forever. Eventually they’d find him again. At least in this area, they’d have some control over the situation. Strangers had a way of sticking out. Including Trace, which she suddenly realized maybe wasn’t the best thing in the world.

  Her stomach took another plunge, and she stopped eating. Impossible situation, and she’d walked right into it. Not that she wished she’d passed on by, and yeah, she got the part about it being dangerous. But now she was thinking how awful this had to be for Trace. He was trapped and he couldn’t even see what was trapping him. Moving or staying—either one seemed like a bad option.

  There were no good options for him. This really stank.

  “It would,” she said slowly, “take a really big organization to track you like this.”

  “Yes.”

  She looked at him, meeting his brown eyes. “So if they are, it has to be your bosses.”

  “That’s pretty much a given.”

  “Ryker couldn’t be wrong?”

  Trace swallowed the last of his sandwich and washed it down with latte. “Ryker, I learned over the years, is rarely wrong.”

  “And you?”

  “Same thing. That’s why we’re both still alive.”

  * * *

  Julie returned to her lesson plan after lunch, but Trace could still feel the suppressed agitation in her. She might appear to be concentrating on that spiral-bound book in front of her, but he didn’t believe it.

  So, he thought, the shadows of his world had fallen over her even more. Maybe he’d said more than he should, but he’d never forgive himself if she didn’t understand just how real this game of cat-and-mouse was, if she didn’t grasp that he couldn’t stay hidden forever. Ryker had bought him some time, but that’s all he’d gained.

  Beyond Julie’s head, the storm continued to rage, additional cover. In his present position, he needed to view everything in terms of cover and exposure. Julie was cover, and it sickened him. He half wished she’d throw him out into the storm.

  He’d seen the look in her eyes when he’d said that rarely being wrong was the only reason he and Ryker were still alive. It was an ugly truth. Maybe he shouldn’t have shared it. But he had to be absolutely certain she knew how real this was. He gave her huge points for guts, determination and loyalty, but how could she not be sitting over there asking herself whether her desire to protect her friends mi
ght be better served by throwing him out on his can?

  Of course, he could always take himself out. Not that he was the best shot with his left hand, but he could do it if necessary. And there were certainly other means. So why didn’t he just walk out into that storm?

  Because too many people mattered. Ryker had hit that nail on the head, and he’d run up against it himself. As long as he was alive, others might be at risk. And if his employer got away with this crap, turning him out into the cold to face and help an angry killer, then others he worked with would be at risk of the same treatment.

  No, he had to end this for everyone, and his death wouldn’t do that. He could see the faces of people he’d worked with, people he’d come to care about. They were his only real family now. He had to protect them, too, and he could only do that by exposing this mess and proving it wasn’t just his imagination gone wild on painkillers. That he wasn’t just paranoid.

  He had to catch this guy. No asset could have the kind of power to track him around this country without help from the Company. None. So once he was exposed, that would expose those who had helped him. The mission was clear.

  He knew Ryker could protect himself and his family. Besides, if anyone had been listening to his cell phone for random conversation and heard him get his friend’s address, by now they’d know Ryker had thrown him out the night of his arrival here. Had told him to stay away. Then the phone had left town the following morning.

  But there was also Julie, and that pained him most of all. Ryker was accustomed to a world where he could get tail-bitten by the unexpected, and he knew how to defend against it. Julie was totally inexperienced. Good instincts, but little know-how. She needed him to protect her as long as he was around. She’d probably hate hearing that, when she thought she was protecting him.

  He popped a pain pill and started another pot of regular coffee.

  Yeah, she’d hate the idea he was protecting her when she’d dived into all this to protect her friend, and then him. She’d certainly given him cover, but that was as dangerous as the job itself. That probably hadn’t crossed her mind, and he hoped it never did.

  He wished to hell Ryker and the sheriff hadn’t been right about possible collateral damage. He couldn’t just buy a clunker and head for the West Coast. Anywhere he went, the shadow of death followed him.

  So he might as well face it here with people who’d volunteered for this mission. Even if Julie didn’t fully grasp its parameters. At least he wouldn’t have any explaining to do if he yelled for them to clear out. At least here the threat might stick out enough that they’d see it coming. It sure as hell would be invisible in a big town or city.

  Cusswords, as Julie had called them, traipsed through his mind like a Greek chorus. Betrayal burned in his belly, but rage did as well. He was being hunted by someone who was being aided by the very people he’d entrusted with his life countless times over the years. People he’d served well. Rage? He’d like to punch holes in walls.

  As he knew from experience, a fire like that in his belly could fuel him for a long time. He’d known it before when one of his operatives had been betrayed by an asset they were cultivating. He’d known it when a good asset had been discovered and killed before they could pull him out. It didn’t happen often, but it happened. And when it did, Trace made sure retribution descended. You don’t mess with me and mine. A clear, unmistakable message, however anonymous.

  Now there was a new card in his deck, a truly lovely woman who didn’t have the experience or training to really handle any of this. He thought again about going out into the storm. Freezing to death might not give the tiger the satisfaction he wanted, but it would solve the problem for everyone.

  Instead he sat staring out that window over Julie’s head and began running through his mental list again. If it was an asset the Company wanted to appease, then he had to be a big one. An important one. One on whom a lot depended.

  Just thinking about it shrank his mental list a bit more. Every asset mattered, but some were in a position to be nearly indispensable. He’d run a few. He knew of others. So who would be worth this kind of trade?

  “You got any family, Trace?”

  He snapped back to the present and saw that Julie had turned her chair around. God, she was pretty, and whatever she might have been stewing about earlier had been pushed into the background. Her expressive face reflected only natural curiosity.

  “You won’t believe it,” he said. Anticipating her reaction, he felt a bit of humor leaven his gloomy, angry mood.

  “Why not?”

  “Do I look like I was raised by medical missionaries?”

  Her eyes widened, then she laughed. “How in the world did you wind up here?”

  “Different ideas of helping the world. A stethoscope in one hand and the Bible in the other didn’t appeal to me. When it comes to religion I’m sort of a live-and-let-live kind of guy.”

  “And your parents?”

  “Very deeply involved in their faith and good works. I grew up in Indonesia, India and Africa.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “They went racing into Sierra Leone at the outset of the Ebola crisis. Unfortunately...” He shrugged a little. “They died doing what they believed in. You can’t ask for much more than that.”

  Her entire face drooped. “I am so sorry, Trace.”

  “I miss them occasionally, but I understood them. Belief is a powerful motivator. We just had different sets of beliefs about how to make the world a better place.”

  He wondered if he actually had, though. He’d believed in what he was doing for a long time, but lately... Well, this wasn’t the time for soul-searching. Not that kind. If he survived this, he could take some time for that. If he survived this, he was going to have plenty of time to examine his sins.

  “Anyway,” he said, trying to bring the conversation back from the brink, “you could say I’m a typical preacher’s kid. I rebelled and went my own way.”

  “But with the same set of ideals.”

  “Not quite.” He smiled almost bitterly. “Not by a long shot, really. But the basic goal was the same.”

  “So what was it like growing up in such exotic places?”

  “Kids adapt rapidly. I melded with the surrounding culture as much as I was allowed to. I developed a facility for languages, learned how easily I could be a chameleon.”

  “Will the real Trace Archer please stand up?” she said lightly.

  “Can’t do that. I took a pain pill, and anyway, you’re getting the real me. What’s left, anyway.”

  Again that shadow flitted across her face. “You need some coffee?”

  “I made some, but right now I don’t want to move. Pain pill is kicking in, and at this very moment the fire seems a long way away.”

  “Want me to bring you some?”

  “Please, if you want to talk to a guy who isn’t half brain-dead.”

  “So it burns?” she said as she poured and brought him a mug of coffee, placing it within reach of his good left hand.

  “Burns. Yeah. Sometimes it feels like it’s in a blacksmith’s forge and being hammered on. Not all the time, thank God. But right now...hey, that hand must belong to someone else.”

  She laughed as if she felt it was expected, and he admitted he’d been hoping for it. He liked the sound of her laugh. She should always laugh.

  He grabbed the mug, realizing he was in danger of becoming sappy.

  “So you learned to be a chameleon,” she remarked as she retreated to her desk chair. “How did your parents feel about that?”

  “My folks were good people. More tolerant than some. When I adapted to the local culture, it was good for them, too.”

  “I guess I can understand that. But what about later? The path you took?”

  He paused,
sensing dangerous waters here. He resorted to the stock answer, even though he felt bad about not being able to share all the truth with her. “I traveled a lot for the State Department.”

  Her face shadowed. “I see.”

  And there he had to leave it. She already guessed or knew more than she should. Nor did the irony of it escape him. He was giving his cover story to his cover story. Life sometimes had a twisted sense of humor.

  And thinking about cover stories brought him back to theirs. “We never hammered out our story,” he reminded her. “Nothing beyond that I was a guide you hired when you were hiking in the mountains. I need details that fit with what your friends might remember of that trip. Maybe some photos so I don’t stumble about what the area looks like.”

  She raised her brows. “So there’s some place you’ve never been?”

  “Quite a few, actually.” He summoned a smile for her benefit.

  “I’ll bet most of them are within the borders of this country,” she said tartly. “Okay, then, get ready for the teacher to teach.”

  She urged him to sit in her desk chair and carried over the chair he’d been sitting in for herself. Then she opened a folder of photos labeled “Coast Range.” Two hours later, he felt he had a good enough handle on what the area looked like, including some of the small towns at the foot of the mountains. She brought up a map that he memorized quickly, then told her that he would say he hadn’t grown up in that area, that he was a relatively recent arrival who had brought his guide skills from the Appalachian Trail.

  “It’s all about not getting too specific,” he advised her. “Were there any particular stories that you shared with friends that I should know about?”

  “Wait, have you walked the Appalachian Trail?”

  “Portions of it as I had time, which wasn’t very often. Why?”

  She put her chin in her hand, green eyes growing dreamy. “That was next on my list. What did you think of it?”

  “I enjoyed it. It’s truly challenging in places. And not everybody attempts it without a guide. In theory you could do it alone, but not everyone is cut out for that. So you can get guides to lead small groups on hut-to-hut hikes, or even longer trips if you want.”