Tactical Rescue

by Maggie K. Black

  Okay, he had a point, and usually she’d be the very last person to defend her stepbrother.

  “But he sounded panicked,” she said. “He’d been yelling it. Like it mattered a lot. You should’ve heard it.”

  “But I didn’t hear it, because he drugged me and then tried to manipulate you and take advantage of your good nature.”

  “Yes, but he wasn’t like normal Seth. He was different, panicked. First he said my stepfather sent Black Talon after me. Then he took it back and said he hadn’t meant to say that at all. But that he had written the blog about how the General was a philanderer and the person who’d convinced him to steal the computer program contacted him through the blog. I’m guessing because they figured he had no respect for the military or respecting people’s privacy. Sometime in all that I think he also sang a medley of show tunes.”

  Zack just stared. Okay, so it did sound kind of crazy when she tried to explain it like that.

  “But then, when I started passing out, and Black Talon, or whoever it was, started coming through the woods to kidnap us, he hissed in my ear something like, ‘Remember the trophy you got the night you thought Zack stood you up.’”

  “What do you mean?” Zack said. “I never stood you up.”

  As if that mattered now.

  “Yes, you did,” she said. “Remember? You invited me to go to the sports banquet with you. I’d thought it was a date. I went to a hairdresser and bought some stupidly expensive dress. Spent all the money I had saved. Then I waited around for, like, an hour by the front door for you. You didn’t show. I cried buckets. But hey, I was seventeen and nobody had ever asked me out before.”

  Zack stood up slowly. His lips set in a grim line. His face looked so pained, she thought for a moment he was going to be sick.

  “Sorry, I’m not trying to upset you. Just being honest. Eventually, Seth took pity on me and insisted I go to the banquet with him. They were just serving the main course when I got there. It was probably, like, the one decent thing he’d ever done.”

  Zack ran his hand over his face.

  “Of course.” His head shook. “Of course you did...of course he did... I should’ve... Of course... Forgive me... I was such an idiot...”

  “I don’t understand.” Why was Zack so upset? That night was ancient history and he’d known what had happened better than anyone. “So, you decided to stay home and apply for the military instead of going. We were both really young. I know you never meant to hurt me.”

  Zack slid his arms down to his sides and looked at her straight on. “Seth came over to my house earlier that night and told me you were canceling our date.”

  Her heart dropped through her stomach. The pain felt just as acute as if that one night twenty years ago had somehow crashed straight through the barrier of time and landed in the moment in which they stood. “Oh no...”

  “Oh yes.” There was a bitter edge to Zack’s voice. A decades-old ache filled his eyes. “Seth told me that you had only agreed to go to the banquet with me because you felt sorry for me. Because I was so emotional and sensitive, you were afraid to say anything because you didn’t want to hurt me. So he said he’d decided to step up and tell me to stay away from you. Because a fat slob like me wasn’t good enough for a girl like you, and I’d never amount to anything in life, and you knew it.”

  I was trying to protect you from Zack, Seth had said. He wasn’t good enough for you. So I stepped up and showed you what kind of guy he really was.

  Her head was shaking. For a moment she wanted to cry. She wanted to hug him. She wanted to find Seth and strangle him. No wonder Zack hadn’t picked her up. No wonder he’d signed up for the military that night.

  “You believed him,” she said.

  “Of course I believed him!” Zack’s voice rose. “He was right, wasn’t he? I was out of shape, eating my feelings, going nowhere. I hardly had a mature handle on anything in my life. I’d wanted to be in the military. I’d wanted to be special forces. I’d wanted to be the man I am now. Seth’s words might’ve been cruel, but they gave me the kick I needed to make it happen. So after he left, I changed out of my suit, sat down and signed up for the army.”

  And then he’d run through the pouring rain to angrily, defiantly tell her that he’d done it. Not because he’d rejected her. But because he thought she’d rejected him.

  She stepped toward him. “You should’ve told me.”

  Zack crossed his arms across his chest. “Well, he was right, wasn’t he? You were so beautiful, Becs! You were tenacious and kind and smart and strong. Any man would’ve been blessed to have you. I was hardly the guy you deserved.”

  “Yes, you were.” Her hand brushed along his crossed arms; she wished they’d open, that they’d hold her. “You were the guy that I’d wanted.”

  You’re the only guy I’ve ever wanted. Even before I knew how incredible you are now and how you’d changed your life. Why can’t you see that?

  He looked at her for a very long moment, as if he was weighing what his next words should be.

  “Thank you,” he said finally. “It means a lot that you thought so highly of me.”

  Zack bent down and started scooping their belongings back into the bag, including her broken trophy. “I’m not sorry I joined the military and made the changes to my life I did. But I regret getting so wound up that night and not handling my conversation with you better. And I apologize for not calling to confirm I wasn’t coming and leaving you without a ride to the sports banquet. That was rude of me.”

  That was it? That was all he was going to say?

  “Now, come on,” he said. “I suggest we follow the river. Judging by the sun in the sky it’s flowing southeast and if we keep going that way we’ll eventually hit civilization. We should both make sure we’re well hydrated.” He filled the water bottle from the river and offered it to her. “I think we should split a granola bar for breakfast, if that’s okay with you. I can run on pretty low fuel, but I don’t think either of us should be on an empty stomach.”

  She took a long drink of water and handed the bottle back. He finished it.

  “Now, I need to think.” He slid the bottle back into the bag. “I don’t know who we can trust right now and I’ve got to be smart in how I plan our next move.”

  He started walking. She followed. So that was it? They were going to confess all that to each other, and then he was just going to shut it down and change the subject?

  Realizing that Zack hadn’t meant to break her heart and that Seth had sabotaged their date that night meant everything to her. But apparently, it meant nothing to Zack.

  They kept walking. Zack was silent. The river grew wider.

  She started to hum, then sing show tunes under her breath. The weird little medley Seth had been singing outside the camper when she’d been drugged still spun in her mind like an earworm she couldn’t shake. “Maria. Maria in the winter...”

  Zack stopped walking dead in his tracks, so suddenly she nearly walked into his back. “What did you just sing?”

  There was a look on his face she couldn’t quite read.

  “Just some silly thing that Seth kept singing, round and round. I’m sorry, I guess it got stuck in my head.”

  “And you’re sure those are the exact words he was singing?”

  “I think so.” She shrugged.

  “Think, Rebecca. It’s important.” Zack’s hands touched her shoulders lightly. He turned her toward him. “What exactly did Seth sing? What was the context? Why did he sing it?”

  There was an edge to his voice she’d never heard before. A hard edge. A dangerous edge. As if she alone knew the secret password to unlocking a major weapon and he was waiting on her to confirm it.

  She closed her eyes. “He was singing songs with the name Maria in them. Then he asked if I’d eve
r heard of Maria, and that was the name of the woman who’d contacted him and told him to steal something from the government computer to prove my stepfather was a bad person.” She opened her eyes. “But I don’t see how that matters, considering the woman who came to meet him in the park was really just a Black Talon operative and not actually this Maria person.”

  Zack’s hands tightened on her shoulders. “Did he tell you where Maria was now?”

  She shook her head. “No. He thought she was dead, remember? Why?”

  “I can’t tell you why. Not until I’m certain. Did he tell you her last name?”

  “No. He didn’t tell me anything more than that. He just said her name was Maria, and then sang something like, ‘Maria in the winter, Maria in the snow, snow, snow.’”

  “Snow?” Zack’s face paled. He closed his eyes. “Oh, God,” he prayed. “Oh, God, have mercy.”

  “What?” She grabbed his hands as they fell from her shoulders. “Zack? What? You’re scaring me. Does this all mean something to you?”

  “It means I think I might actually know what it was that your stepbrother stole and got downloaded on your laptop, and why Black Talon members would kill each other to get their hands on it.” He opened his eyes. “And it’s a cyberweapon.”

  ELEVEN

  Shock spread like cold water over Rebecca’s limbs. “You’re telling me that my stepbrother stole a cyberweapon from the Canadian government, and two factions of a European gang are willing to kidnap and murder to get it?”

  “I’m saying that it’s possible,” Zack said. “Certainly I can’t rule out the possibility.”

  She’d never seen fear in his eyes before. Not like this. But she could see a faint glimmer of it there now, and that terrified her. “That sounds like something you shouldn’t tell me.”

  He didn’t answer. He looked at her for a long moment.

  “Maybe,” he said, finally. “But I trust you, and my top priority right now is telling you what you need to know for everyone to get out of this alive.”

  Then they started walking again. His footsteps were quicker now. His long legs strode through the trees. Questions flew through her mind so quickly, it was as if she could feel them crashing into each other. What kind of cyberweapon? What was it? What did it do?

  But somehow as she looked at Zack, she felt something inside her shift. He was concerned, worried, as if he was carrying knowledge he didn’t want to carry. And somehow, seeing that look in his eyes told her everything she needed to know.

  Her hand brushed his arm. “It’s okay, if you can’t tell me more than that. I understand you can’t tell me everything I want to know.”

  “Thanks. I really appreciate that.” He swallowed hard. Then he took her hand in his and squeezed it tightly for a long moment before letting it fall. “So much more than you know.”

  They kept walking in silence, side by side over the rocky shore by the river’s edge.

  Zack pulled an old-looking silver medallion from his wallet, spun it slowly between his fingers and then slid it open sideways. He held it up in front of him, as if trying to get their bearings. It was a compass of some sort, with a small pedometer underneath. He turned left and started walking through the trees.

  Her legs ached. Sweat ran down her neck. She used the utility knife to cut a thin slit of fabric off the bottom of her sweatshirt and twisted it into a headband to tie her hair back. But even still bugs swarmed her skin. Zack’s fingers brushed the back of her neck, then pinched her skin softly. The gesture was sweet, strong, comforting.

  “Mosquito,” he said. “I killed it before it could get you.”

  “Thank you.”

  He paused. Then said, “I need you to trust me. What qualifies as ‘need to know’ has shifted a lot in the last couple of hours, and I don’t think it helps either of us for me to keep you in the dark. I’m pretty much convinced of that. But—”

  “But you still can’t tell me what you can’t tell me.”

  “Right.” He smiled. “Thanks. And you can’t repeat what I tell you. Not to anyone. Ever. Okay?”

  She nodded. “Understood.”

  “A while back, I went into a hostile Eastern European country to extract a young computer engineer, who’d contacted our government seeking asylum,” he said. “Literally nabbed her off a crowded street, in broad daylight, when she’d gone on a coffee run for her office. I had her out of the country and over the border in hours. She was in her early twenties and had grown up in a particularly unpleasant orphanage. But still, she left everything behind to come to Canada. Everything.”

  Rebecca nodded slowly. Again, why was he telling her this? She could tell it was important. She didn’t know why.

  “This young woman was truly brilliant. She’d developed a decryption program that was intended to revolutionize cybersafety. You know how you have passwords for everything online?”

  She nodded. “Yes, and Seth keeps hacking them.”

  “Well, imagine living in a country where the government asks people like Seth to create a computer program that gives them the power to systematically hack into people’s accounts,” he said. “To overwrite your password with one of their own, so that you can’t get into your account anymore, but they can. Giving them complete access to any account they want. But not just email accounts. Banking. Financial institutions. Other militaries’ secrets and weapon launch codes.”

  Her heart stopped. “Oh.”

  “Imagine your own government found you in an orphanage, realized how talented you were, sent you to school and trained you. But then in return expected you to create a computer program like that for them. But then a dangerous organized criminal group discovered you had it, too, and wanted it for themselves.”

  Black Talon.

  “Suddenly two different factions inside this one gang are both terrorizing you,” he added. “Maybe you suspect the criminals have people planted in your work or your apartment building. But then, so might your own government. Maybe a mercenary kidnaps you for a couple of days and threatens to hurt you unless you give them the program once you’re done. But your own government isn’t much better and you figure that no matter who gets ahold of this program, you’re dead. So, you contact the local Canadian embassy and beg them for asylum in return for giving them the program and keeping it out of enemy hands. Then some guy like me extracts you and gets you to Canada.”

  The sound of the river disappeared in the distance.

  Zack turned to face her. “Now, imagine this whole thing is so classified that even a guy like me isn’t allowed to know anything about this. Because this whole situation is above my pay grade. I only know it because I spent three hours driving through hostile territory with you, wedged in a secret compartment inside my dashboard, and you kept blurting out things that I wasn’t allowed to know. So I never told anyone. Not my colleagues. Not Jeff, my commanding officer. I just get you safely on a plane and erase everything you told me from my mind.”

  She closed her eyes and let the pieces of what Zack was telling her fall into place.

  “She told me to call her Maria Snow,” he said. “I think Maria might’ve been her real first name. But the Snow part was clearly fake. She was beautiful and brilliant, and reminded me of you in a lot of ways. I can’t imagine she’d come to Canada only to throw her lot in with Black Talon criminals and I have no idea why she’d ever contact Seth and tell him about the decryption program. But there’s only two ways Seth could’ve heard the name Maria Snow. Either someone in the Canadian military leaked that information to whoever in Black Talon impersonated her, or Seth was actually contacted by the real Maria Snow, who for some reason decided to blow the deal she made with the people who rescued her.”

  He looked down at the compass and suddenly she realized it wasn’t pointing north. It was pointing somewhere else entirely, a
nd the pedometer at the bottom seemed to be counting down. Wherever he was taking them, it was now less than fourteen thousand steps away.

  “I’m telling you this so you get what’s at stake,” he added. “I’m telling you this so you understand why I’m about to take the action I’m about to take and so that you’re clear what our situation is. I need you to trust me.” He flipped the compass upside down and flicked the bottom open. Inside was a tiny key. “And to do that, I need to trust you.”

  * * *

  After another hour, they’d hit a rural highway and started to pass by the occasional business or farmhouse. Occasionally a vehicle would slow and ask if they needed a ride. But Zack just slung his arm casually around Rebecca’s shoulders, kept his head down and avoided eye contact. Rebecca did the same.

  Eventually he spotted a dilapidated gas station and convenience store at the side of the highway. Paint was peeling on the white shutters. Torn and faded posters were slapped along the side. There were only two cars filling up and nobody else in sight but a scruffy-looking teenager with a backpack bigger than he was, smoking on a bench next to a crude hitchhiking sign.

  “I need to try to make a phone call,” Zack said. “I’m taking you to the Shields’ island house. Think of it like an unofficial safe house. I don’t want to show up unannounced, if I can help it, even though to be honest I’m not sure they’re even in the country. While I’m on the phone, how about you try to fill up the water bottle?”

  She nodded, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and then headed around the side of the building. He pulled his hoodie over his head and walked to the pay phone beside the convenience store. He lifted the receiver and was relieved to get a dial tone.

  “Hey, hey. You heading south?” the teenager with the backpack shouted at Zack. He sauntered across the parking lot. “Give me a ride? Eh? A ride? A ride?”

  Zack shook his head. “Sorry.”