by Fiona Quinn
“Body? What body?” Zoe spun around, searching for an answer.
“Let’s get saddled up and head out,” Prescott finished without answering Zoe.
“Roger that.” Titus moved through the door as two charcoal grey SUVs pulled in. “Prescott, you got restraining systems? We don’t have paperwork to carry the prisoner with us.”
“Yeah, let’s get him strapped into my vehicle.”
Titus turned back to the house. “Okay, bring him out.”
Gage maneuvered Zoe out the door and toward the car that would take the middle spot in the convoy. It sat center stage on the sparsely graveled drive.
Zoe turned to watch as one of the Panthers led a man out the front and down the cracked cement walkway. Prescott reached out and plucked the ski mask from his head, exposing the beginnings of one hell of a bruise, a split lip and a swollen jaw that hung at an improbable angle.
“Zoe, do you recognize this guy?”
With Gage pinned to her side, Zoe moved closer to scrutinize the man’s face.
“No. I don’t know him,” Zoe said as the man licked his lips suggestively. When his leer became a wink, Zoe had the urge to slap the smirk off the man’s face. Gage beat her to it with a straight punch that crushed the man’s nose. Zoe jumped back out of the way of the spurt of blood that shot from his nostrils and dripped down the front of his shirt. The man would have gone down except for the Panther’s tight grip.
“Goddamnit, Gage. You broke his goddamned nose.” Prescott threw his hands in the air. “Now he’s going bleed all over my goddamned car.”
“Sorry about that,” Gage growled. He was eye to eye with the man who tried to shoot his way into the house to get to her. Gage was palpably seething with violence, and Zoe thought he was having a hard time stoppering it.
Titus patted him on the shoulder. “Stand down, Marine. Get Zoe into the car.”
Gage turned. “Fucker,” he said and spat on the ground. He reached for Zoe’s hand. Gage stalked down the sidewalk, and she two-stepped to keep up.
A Panther opened the SUV’s door, and pulled the center bench seat down. “You’ll be in this one, ma’am.” He extended his hand to shake with her. “My name’s Thaddeus Crushed, I go by Nutsbe.”
“Nutsbe?” Zoe said wonderingly, then she put two and two together. “Oh!” She grimaced.
He crawled into the far back with a chuckle and pulled the seat into place.
“Go ahead, Zoe.” Gage held out his hand, gesturing her in.
She moved to the far side of the center bench. Gage folded himself in beside her.
A second Panther came over. “Hey, man.” He reached out and fist bumped Gage. “I heard you might be joining our team, dude. Did you think you’d get better cred if we saw you in action?”
“How am I doing?” Gage asked.
“So far, alive and kicking, and that’s about all anyone can ask. Ma’am, I’m Brian Ackerman.” He reached past Gage to shake her hand. “They call me Brainiack.” Brian, like the other Panthers, looked like he spent a good deal of time keeping his body finely tuned. His tactical jacket was unzipped, revealing how his uniform compression shirt showed off his pecs and washboard abs. His eyes were sharp and he wore an air of competence like a second skin. Gage would fit right in with these warriors. But she couldn’t imagine Gage ever leaving the Marines. She wondered why he even went for the interview. Maybe it was curiosity.
“Zoe,” she said in a near whisper.
Brainiack nodded, slammed Gage’s door shut, and jumped in the front seat as Titus jogged over and flung himself into the driver’s seat.
Titus cranked the engine and pulled out behind Prescott. “Forty minutes, so settle in,” he said as gravel crunched under their tires.
Prescott held the lead as they pulled away from the little house. The special agent had another Panther sitting shotgun. Zoe hadn’t seen the team all in one place. She turned and scanned the car behind them. There were two more heads. So six Panthers, one FBI agent, and one marine. She should feel safe. Should.
“Gage, are you sure the prisoner is secure? Could he get over the seat and out the back door?”
Nutsbe answered from the back. “The tango is shackled to the floorboard, his hands are cuffed to the rod above his head, and he’s safety-belted for good measure in the far back seat.”
“Okay. Thank you, Nuts—um, Thaddeus.”
“Tad will do, ma’am, if you don’t like my call name,” he said with a grin.
All of the men seemed vigilant. Competent. Ready. She was the only one who was shaking. Gage sent her a searching look, obviously trying to see how she was handling things. Zoe didn’t have it in her to lie, to let him think she was a brave little soldier. She was nothing of the kind. She didn’t inherit any of her father’s military blood. She turned her face to look out the window and wished for the sanctuary of her laboratory.
As they drove, Zoe’s limbic system was lit up. Sweat dampened her underarms and thighs and the small of her back. She licked her lips; her mouth had gone oddly dry. She felt like a woman crawling through the desert desperately hoping to get to water. As they merged onto the highway, Zoe realized that she was having a lot of desert thoughts. The stories her subconscious had pushed forward last night had helped her immensely in her condo when her body went stiff and all she had by way of defense were memories. With them, she had evaded capture or injury.
She would have survived on her own had she not sent that “come and get me” text to Gage earlier that evening. Had he not shown up, the would-be kidnappers might have headed on to plan B. But before they got the chance, Gage killed them. Gage killed them. She closed her eyes. They were Israeli soldiers. They had been assumed dead. Now they really were dead. And who knew why?
Zoe hated the tortured loops her brain was making. She wanted to be back in her life from twenty-four hours ago. Twenty-four hours, could that be right? She lifted her wrist to check the time and remembered that Titus had taken her watch and its tracker away from her. She pushed back her hair, now damp and stringy, getting it out of her face. She’d really like a shower. And some water. That thought brought her right back to deserts.
Travelling in a convoy reminded Zoe of the photos her dad sent to her and her mom from Iraq and stories she had heard on painful anniversaries when her dad drank too much. Her dad had been on a detail that ran VIPs down the hellish twelve-kilometer road that stretched between the heavy fortifications of the Green Zone and Baghdad International Airport. It was extremely dangerous. Getting from the airport to the Green Zone safely was not a given. Insurgents targeted the area because of the military convoys and the high-profile visitors. Suicide bombers, roadside bombs, even random shooters were the norm, not the exception. Her dad drove a hillbilly armored car. That was when a normal military vehicle was retrofitted with anything the soldiers could find in the scrap pile to give themselves a chance at survival.
She turned toward Gage. He was leaning forward, scanning to the right. Zoe looked back at Tad, his eyes were busy looking everywhere around them. “Tad, is this a normal SUV or is it tricked out with bullet proof panels?”
He maintained his focus on his surroundings but said, “Not armored. No, ma’am, But it’s got bullet resistant glass and run flat tires.”
“Thank you.” Zoe turned to look out her window again. They were side by side with an eighteen-wheeler, so she didn’t have much of a view. A soundtrack played in her mind, Tim McGraw’s I’m Already Home. Such a sad song. Zoe wasn’t a big country music fan, but this was the tearjerker that her dad played on endless loop every painful February 26th. It was the only night of the year when he became an angry drunk. Mean. The only night when her mom would slip out to call some of Dad’s buddies to come talk him down, while she came into Zoe’s room, locked the door and climbed in bed with her.
“This isn’t your father,” she’d whisper into Zoe’s ear. “This is the anger.”
In 1991, when Zoe was three years old, Dad’s twin was stati
oned in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia when a missile destroyed the barracks, killing twenty-seven and wounding another ninety-eight Americans. Zoe hated this song. It reminded her of vulnerability and craziness. Well, she guessed that was fitting, since she did feel vulnerable and crazy. As they drove forward, Zoe’s mind insisted on thoughts of Iraq. Why?
Zoe scanned her memory. She knew that Operation Desert Storm was over two days after the barracks attack, February 28th, 1991. Her teachers on base had made sure that date was drilled into her head. After the Iraqis announced they were withdrawing from Kuwait, they fled down Highway 80.
It was a huge Iraqi convoy of tanks and armored vehicles, fleeing troops, and trucks. Allied forces bombed them from the air. It became known as the “Highway of Death.” The PR was a nightmare, because the airmen bombed the front of the convoy, blocking forward movement, and then bombed the rear, stopping the Iraqis from turning around. For two days, they bombed everything in between. Most of the Iraqis fled into the desert on foot. But there were miles of destruction. It looked like the Americans were having a turkey shoot. That wasn’t the truth of it. But that wasn’t really the point here.
Zoe cleared her throat and once again wished for some water. “Could someone please explain to me how this works? How does the convoy stay safe if someone were to try to attack us?”
Tad was the one who answered. “Prescott’s the only vehicle with lights and sirens. The plan is to only use them in a tight space. We’re doing our best to keep a low profile, which is one of the reasons we left the Hummer back at the house. Our goal is to never come to a complete stop. Our route keeps us to the highways as much as possible, but highways can’t get us entirely from point A to point B. There are two times when we’ll have to deal with stop signs and traffic lights. No matter what, we’ll stay bumper to bumper in those spots to avoid the risk of the team getting divided.”
“Thank you,” Zoe replied. He didn’t add, “And possibly conquered,” but Zoe heard it in her head.
It really was a complicated time of day to not get cut off from one another, Zoe mused. People were pouring into the city looking forward to a Friday night of restaurants and entertainment, while others were trying to leave work early for their weekend away from the congestion of the city. Brainiack had told her that Iniquus was positioned on a green space along the Virginia side of the Potomac. That seemed like where the congestion would be concentrated.
Gage reached his hand out behind him, and she slid her hand into his. She knew that his right hand held the Glock just beneath the window line, out of sight but at the ready. They were moving off the highway to the first of the small towns they needed to traverse. They flew through the stop signs and traffic signals with the help of Prescott’s blue lights. They travelled in tight formation. In and out. Zoe had held her breath the whole way. As soon as their tires hit the highway and their speed was up to seventy, she breathed again.
They drove on for another twenty minutes before the blinker click-clacked, signaling their move up the ramp.
“Your heel jackhammering the floorboard is shaking the whole SUV, Gage. What you got going through your head?” Titus asked.
“This is too easy, man. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of these guys. This is their last shot at Zoe, and their last shot at getting their guy back before we interrogate him and make him spill. They should have been all over us by now. What have we got? Crickets. The hair on the back of my neck is standing up.” He scanned the roadway. “Let’s not get comfortable. If I were a betting man, I’d say it’s going to be when we go through this last town.”
“Well, let’s hope you’re wrong about that. Why don’t you lay Zoe down?” Titus said. “Nutsbe told you we’ve got bullet resistant glass, but its effectiveness depends on what kind of bullets they’re shooting. You feel me?”
“I feel you.” Gage pulled her hand toward him. “Zoe, put your head in my lap, sweetheart.”
Chapter
Twenty-One
Zoe
Anger is a stone cast into a wasp’s nest.
~ Malabar Proverb
Zoe’s brow furrowed. Somehow she was just now realizing that there were eight men putting themselves in danger for her. That was ridiculous. She resisted his tug. She wasn’t worth anyone’s life. Not these Panthers, not Damion Prescott, and certainly not Gage.
Gage pulled her hand harder until she fell into his lap.
This is what people meant when they wrote “her heart was in her throat.” It always seemed like such metaphorical phrase, but this felt literal. Zoe’s head rested on Gage’s muscular thigh, the seat belt bit into her hip, and she had no good place to put her long legs. Gage ran his fingers through her hair, leaving his hand on her back. She tucked her head down and covered her face with her hands, hating the fact that he knew she was crying.
The convoy slowed. “Not too close, Titus,” Brian’s low voice wafted back from the front. “Let’s leave a little get out of Dodge room if it comes to that.”
“Yeah, I hate to say it, but back in the sandbox the hair on the back of Gage’s neck was a damned good barometer on what was coming our way. I’d get my barrel up a little higher.”
The exchange was so low; she knew they didn’t want her to hear. But adrenaline, she’d found, had wild amplification qualities.
“Yellow light. Keep the gas pedal down, man,” Brainiack muttered.
They powered through, with horns honking on either side.
“One down. One to go. Then we should be home free,” Titus called back, then mumbled under his breath, “Come on, baby, stay green for me.”
Zoe turned her head in time to see Titus pull the cord running from inside his jacket up the side of his neck. His comms popped out of his ear. He tapped a button on his dash. “Panther actual, Beta team. Control, what are you seeing?”
A woman’s voice came over the radio. “Titus, you’ve got a cement mixer perpendicular, running south two blocks forward and an RV heading north directly behind car three. If they’re working together they can box you in at the next light.”
“Alpha, copy,” Prescott’s voice came over the radio.
“Charlie, copy.”
That must be the car behind ours, Zoe thought.
The woman’s voice came back. “That scenario is a go. The cement truck is picking up speed for an intercept.”
“Beta, going left.”
Zoe popped up out of Gage’s reach, when he let go of her to double-fist his gun. Titus peeled the car around, with a solid bump to the back fender of someone’s BMW. The sudden squeal of tires and squawk of a car alarm had Zoe’s blood pumping. She sat rigidly in her seat.
“Charlie, right behind you.”
Zoe turned to see the third car rounding the curve with better precision.
“Alpha, backing to follow. Lights and sirens.”
Moments later, though Zoe couldn’t see the car, she could hear the sirens behind them as they rocketed down the curving side streets of the town. What town? She had no clue where she was.
“Control. Beta, be advised, the cement truck is in pursuit. The RV is in advance of your position. Your road curves eastward, and they have the ability to cut off your present direction of travel. The cement truck is pushing Alpha from the rear. You are in danger of being boxed in.”
Boxed in. The Highway of Death.
“Alternate route?” Titus asked.
The men in the car were like the edge of a knife. Sharp. Capable of great harm. They all had a latent deadliness as they seemed to fearlessly face this danger. Focused, yes. Primed, yes. But not afraid. She, on the other hand, had the sudden overwhelming urge to pee. She crossed one knee over the other and squeezed her thighs tightly together.
“Control. Beta, be advised, two-hundred meters ahead there’s a break in the tree line. Overland, there’s an open space bringing you to a dirt road. It looks tight enough for you to get through, but a tough run for the cement mixer.”
“Roger that. I don’t see the break,
can you count me in?”
“Control. Beta, you are coming up on the turn in four, three, two, one, hard right.”
Titus spun his wheel, and the car bounced over the ditch in great leaps and bounds that threw Zoe up against the restraint of her seatbelt. Her hands reached out to grab the seat in front of her, and she was able to snatch them back in time. She didn’t want to jostle Titus as he navigated the deep furrows of winter wheat.
He was aiming for a narrow break in the trees. Too narrow? It looked too narrow. Zoe scanned left and right. There didn’t seem to be any other options. Their wheels were severely hampered on this terrain. Even though this was a SUV with high, wide tires, it seemed to her that the cement truck would have an easier time. She could hear the roar of its engine, and she could see how close it was pulling to Prescott at the back of their convoy.
Titus bounced and bumped into the trees. The saplings in front of them were felled and crushed. The paint scraped from the sides of the vehicle with shrill resentment as Titus gunned the engine and squeezed through. Charlie and Alpha held tight behind them, bumper to bumper.
The woman reported. “The cement truck was unable to navigate the trees, it has returned to the road and is backtracking. It’s a long shot, but if he follows along that road, he could possibly take you where the dirt road meets the public roadway. Keep your speed up as much as possible.”
“Where’s the RV gone?” Titus asked. His voice perfectly steady.
Glancing into the rearview mirror, Zoe could see his expression was the exact same look of underlying power that it always held. Should that reassure her? She didn’t feel reassured.
“Control. The RV is heading north.”
“Any other cars raising a red flag?”
“I’ll keep looking. I have an option for you, Beta,” she said.
“Listening.”
