by JT Sawyer
They resumed their travel along the larger canyon to the northwest, picking up their pace while skirting around the clusters of prickly pear cactus and agave. As they crested the shrub-choked rim, Mitch squatted low to avoid silhouetting himself. Ahead of them were miles of open mesa interspersed with occasional juniper trees which stood out like lone sentinels and provided the only shade in the otherwise bleak landscape. Four miles distant was a ridgeline in the limestone which revealed rows of caves, their darkened cavities resembling sunken eye sockets.
“We’ve got just over an hour of daylight left,” Dev said, glancing at her watch. He nodded in confirmation, looking at the position of the sun on the horizon which was nestled below a massive blood-orange thundercloud.
“Caves—God I hate being in caves. I spent half my time in Trashcanistan scouring through caves or hiding out in them,” he said, scratching the stubble on his chin. “Let’s head there for now. It’ll give us a good tactical overview of the area and we can rest for a bit.”
“I don’t need to rest—do you?”
His forehead wrinkled and he cast an irritated glance at her. “Of course not but with us pushing so hard I don’t need either of us wrenching an ankle—that’d put a damper on our retreat real fast, don’t you think?”
“I think you are always used to being in charge. I don’t mind that in this situation but you can talk with me instead of issuing commands, that’d be a big help.”
“You mean the fucking situation you brought down upon me when you showed up on my doorstep? The one that ended the life of a dear old friend of mine?”
She lowered her head, brushing a strand of black hair off her face. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to…”
He stood up and started walking, cutting her off. “Let’s go, I’ll sort this out later.”
For the past hour since their hasty departure from the ranch, he’d only had time to think about their escape. Now, the gravity of the situation struck him in the gut like a boxer’s right hook and he felt waves of fury rush over him. He had always been on the right side of the mission and the law. Now he wasn’t sure what he was up against and what this woman’s end game was. They needed to keep pushing on. Hopefully, there’d be time later for learning more about the details of the operation she had uncovered but first they had to put some distance between themselves and their pursuers. He forced his feet forward, plowing through the ankle-high scrub, keeping the distant caves in his focus like a boat captain navigating through murky waters amidst a jagged shoreline.
Chapter 12
Perry discerned Mitch’s desert boots from the jumble of others as he wove his way through the tangled wash of briars and boulders. The faint impression showed the Danner brand boot tread which Mitch always wore and that Perry knew well. Mitch was evidently moving fast given the displacement of the track in the soil and the kicked-up edges. The actual term was ‘dishing,’ which happened when the toe portion kicked back a dish of soil onto the midsection of the print. Perry recognized that dishing meant that the subject was either trotting, sprinting, or carrying a heavy load. A shorter stride would be indicative of the latter while an increase in stride with dishing meant the subject was running.
In this case, Mitch inadvertently left a slight toe print in the wet soil near the spring which could mean he was either in a hurry or tired and getting sloppy. Perry knew Mitch had the endurance of a mountain goat and that this rare sight in the soil was due to the fact that he was being pursued. What Perry didn’t understand was how Mitch was involved.
He pulled out his GPS unit to check the coordinates and then looked up at the canyon walls to match the features that were showing on his screen.
Perry and his three men rounded the bend in the arroyo where he saw faint movement fifty yards ahead. A group of men dressed in para-military gear were walking single file, their heads scanning the rim ahead. He raised his hand in a fist, motioning for his team to stop. He waved his hands to the right and left, indicating he wanted them to fan out around him while he went up the middle. Perry saw the group ahead disappear into the foliage. A large man who was at the rear issuing orders to the others turned and then slunk off into the undergrowth.
As Perry moved forward, the muffled sound of a single bullet sliced through the stout operator’s neck to his right, spraying a v-shaped pattern of red mist over the sandstone slab behind him. Another round tore through the lower jaw of the tall man on Perry’s left while the third man was struck in the forehead. His bone fragments showered over the manzanita bushes, sending a flurry of now-crimson butterflies skyward.
Perry raised his weapon and steadied his gait, his attention focused ahead. The large man from the grove emerged with six others behind him and began moving towards Perry, their weapons fixed on the terrain on either side.
“Only three—I thought you’d have a whole fucking platoon with you,” said Drake. He squinted at Perry and glanced over the man. “Good thing you sent me a photo of yourself on my phone earlier. You fucking feds all dress the same.”
Perry lowered his rifle, his gaze centered on Drake. “Just glad these were the newbies in the unit. It’ll be easier to explain their deaths,” said Perry. “How far away are the two fugitives?” Perry reluctantly spit out the last word, still puzzled as to how Mitch was involved in this.
“Two? I thought it was just the woman?” said Drake.
Perry rolled his eyes and pointed to the damp sand, presenting his evidence. “Surprised you made it this far. They’ve probably gotten a good lead on you by now.”
“We’ve been fifteen minutes behind them since we left the ranch but that gap keeps growing as this fucker’s a ghost.”
“We’re on his turf. He’s FBI as well as a seasoned combat tracker.” Perry heard some of Drake’s men grumble at his statement and cast concerned glances at each other.
“He’s going to be pushing forward with a few sideways dummy trails every mile or so to throw us off. He knows he has to get out of the region as quickly as possible before the search envelope folds in on him.” Perry looked at his GPS unit again, pulling up the topographic map for the area. “My guess is that he will head northwest until he can get up on the mesa and then make a beeline for the highway.”
While Drake’s men removed spare magazines from the dead agents, Perry got on the radio to Ryker, simulating transmission interference by issuing a garbled message. “This is Alpha….Team…over.”
“Go ahead.”
“In pursuit…hostiles, heading….east. No sign of….primary subjects.”
When he was done letting the static linger for a few seconds, Perry turned off his radio then moved back towards Drake.
“Ritter said that you were in need of my mantracking skills so I’ll take point on this leg of the operation.”
“He told me you were at my disposal as an advisor. I’ll let you know if I need any help, pal.”
Perry looked at the hulking figure’s forearms, which had numerous small lacerations from bushwhacking, then glanced down at the man’s nearly brand new, fresh from the box boots. “Back at Aeneid, you must be the top dog, but out here things are different. One of your guys steps on a Gila monster or runs into a javelina, it’ll only slow us down and allow our subjects to slip away.” Perry’s eyes remained unflinching as he took a step closer to Drake. “I’m guessing the old man told you to wrap this up quickly without a lot of attention being drawn to your presence here, am I right?”
Drake nodded, taking a step back. “Alright, lead on then, but you run anything by me first when it comes to major decisions.”
A few minutes later, a short man with a thick goatee came over, holding a blood-soaked wad of gauze in his hand. “Jameson is not looking good.”
Perry gave the man a puzzled expression until Drake spoke up. “He walked into a bunch of punji-type sticks on the trail.”
Perry shook his head in disgust as he walked with Drake to the swath of hackberry trees where a man was lying on his ba
ck in the shade. He saw the remains of the mantrap and looked at the moaning figure whose upper thighs were perforated with several jagged holes. “Ah, Mitch—you always did like the old-school shit.”
Perry shuffled forward towards the injured man, who appeared to be in his late twenties with powder-blue eyes. “That’s a nasty wound, son. Let me help you with that.” In a fluid motion, he flipped open the folding knife from his pocket and slashed the man’s throat. As the desperate figure clutched his gushing carotids, Perry stood up and looked at the other mercenaries who’d gathered in a circle, looking on in shock.
Perry stabbed his blade into the sand, removing the blood, then stood up. “Everybody clear on how I work? You fuck up out here, some coyote is gonna be shittin’ out your remains tomorrow.”
The men’s faces grew solemn and they focused their eyes squarely on Perry, averting their gaze as he glanced at each one of them. He rested his eyes on Drake, who had a startled demeanor cloaked by a veneer of anger. The brutish figure exhaled deeply and then looked away.
Perry unslung his rifle and walked through the center of the group back to the trail. “Good, now let’s push on and wrap this up by sundown.”
Chapter 13
Mitch and Dev sprinted from tree to tree, covering a hundred yards at a time. This gapping burst allowed them to cover sufficient ground quickly and protected them from the injuries associated with running long-distance over rocky terrain with cumbersome packs. Having studied penitentiary escapes, he found that most convicts face-planted in the first two hundred yards and sustained a fractured tibia or sprained ankle, thus ending their flight. He trained guys in his own Special Forces unit to do an initial hundred-yard dash to cover, take a breath and then assess the route ahead before continuing. Tossing in a few sprints in the opposite direction from your dominant step would also contribute to eluding pursuers as eighty-five percent of people are right-handed and will eventually arc in that direction when walking long-distance.
After several rounds of bolting to cover and analyzing the landscape, they arrived at the edge of the mesa. They had to drop down into a shallow canyon and then skirt up to the caves on the opposite side. There were close to forty caves peppering the ridge across from them. Mitch looked for the ones that had paths leading to the mesa above, which would provide an escape route out.
“Why are we stopping, Agent Kearns?” said Dev, who wasn’t showing any signs of being winded.
“It’s Mitch. I’m just searching for the best way, unless you know a better route.”
She exhaled deeply and put her hands on her hips. “I just want to get out of here and back to a city so I can finish what I started. I need a fucking laptop in my hands, not a map.”
He motioned to her to follow him down off the ridge along a faint deer trail. “Back at the ranch you said you had the files that implicated Aeneid?”
“That won’t be enough. I need to open the file and get further information on the attack. I didn’t have time to do that when I was there making the copy other than seeing a few pertinent details. Without that all I have are two guys emailing about some nebulous undertaking in the Caspian Sea region.”
“This guy Ritter, what’s his story? How did he come to be such a major player in this proposed attack?”
She clenched her jaw, taking a deep breath. “That son of a bitch is a master raconteur like no other. He could talk a bushman into buying hand warmers. The man had some inkling of military service in Central America back in the day. He and some of his soldier of fortune buddies pooled their resources and connections to start Aeneid, leveraging their contacts in the defense industry. Eventually, Ritter bought out all of his investors over the years until he retained full ownership. His off-the-books mercenary agency provides private soldiers for hire to regimes all over the globe.”
“That’s nothing new. The world of ex-military contractors is a huge industry. Hell, I’ve had offers myself over the years to run security details for dignitaries in other countries. The money was enticing, like $750 a day plus my own vehicle and house.”
“So what stopped you?”
“Mmm…the work was too sketchy. I’ve had friends that picked up those gigs and were rock-solid guys but they were asked to cross the line on occasion, if you know what I mean, and that’s not a place I wanted to go.”
“Yeah, well, Ritter has plenty of people at his disposal who don’t share your outlook. Only now he and his cronies want to expand their empire to the Caspian Sea.”
Mitch tilted his head up, sniffing the air. “Smells like we’re near a cow watering hole.”
“Is that why you’re always sniffing the air like a dog?”
“I wish I had my dog with me. He’d be a good sense multiplier, not to mention being great company.” Mitch glanced at Dev, noticing her irritated glance. “Not that you ain’t a blast. I mean, shit, this is just what I wanted to do with my time off.”
“I didn’t see your dog back at the ranch.”
“Nah, he’s, uh…he’s with my ex-wife. She thought it best to hang on to him with my being gone so much.”
She shook her head and smirked, making a weak attempt at trying to lighten the mood with humor.
“What, you don’t think I’d be a good dog owner?”
“No, just trying to imagine someone being married to you.”
His expression grew serious. “I got the right mind to leave your city-girl ass out here. You sought out my help, remember—not the other way around. I was supposed to be enjoying some down time. Before you came along, my life was just fine…just fine.”
He pushed past her, leading on through a winding route over slickrock to conceal their tracks then dropping down into a shallow basin that looked like a meteor had slammed into it thousands of years ago. As they trekked during the remaining light of dusk, they stayed silent, both of them embroiled in their thoughts and what the night would bring.
Chapter 14
With only a hint of light left in the west, they followed the narrow ledge that skirted along the second row of limestone caves until they reached the third level. Mitch scanned the dim entrance ahead to make sure there were no rattlesnake surprises and then crouched and walked inside. While the back recesses were dark, he could tell from the auditory clues and passage of the wind that it only went back a short distance. He squatted along one side of the entrance while Dev kneeled beside the other.
“Where are we?” she said, casting her eyes wide upon the eerie blue-gray landscape below for any signs of movement.
“Henderson Flats region, I believe. This area of the Sonoran Desert has ridge after ridge of honeycombed caves like this. We should be safe here for a while.”
He cleared his throat and glanced over at her face in the faint light. “You started telling me some things back at the ranch and on our little nature hike. You wanna finish that conversation and fill me in on what the fuck is going on?”
She finished the last of her water and sat silently as if she hadn’t heard his request.
He turned and gave her a penetrating look. “I’d like some answers on how your father is involved in this and your background. By the way you handle yourself and what you’ve described doing at Aeneid, I’d say that came from more than weekend outings twice a year with your old man.”
“I was just a rank-and-file soldier who did four years of military service and then got into the cyber security field afterwards with several different civilian corporations.”
Mitch looked over at her, motioning with his hands to continue. “And…”
She stared at the rising moon and then leaned back against the smooth limestone cave, finally relaxing her shoulders. “When my father returned from training what must have been your unit here in the States, he and some of his old colleagues from the Mossad started their own agency.” She rolled her boot over a twig on the ground, snapping it in half. “My mother was furious that I developed an interest in his tradecraft. It put a real strain on our relationship as she al
ways wanted me to get a regular job in the civilian world that didn’t involve guns or fighting.”
She rubbed her hand along the back of her neck. “My father put me, like any new recruit, through the same rigorous training that he had endured in Mossad—all except the assassination part, for which I am grateful. I am not cut out for that kind of work—killing someone in cold blood. However, I was good at the undercover aspect and negotiating with captors along with knowing a few things about computers.”
“Yeah, well, it looks like his training paid off. You’re still alive.” He paused and then sat down across from her.
“My father’s company employs former Mossad, SAS, and other ex-special ops personnel. In addition to field operations, we also have our own cyber security division and a proprietary malware that can force pairing with another computer to read its information. That’s how I was able to get past Aeneid’s firewall.”
“What led you to suspect Aeneid in the first place?”
Dev folded her arms across her chest. “We rescued a subject in Turkmenistan who had been captured by rebels that had attacked an oil rig in the Caspian Sea. He was connected with a group of American businessmen sent there to broker a deal on a gas pipeline that would run from the Caspian Sea to Europe, effectively cutting Iran out of the supply. His family had contacted us after he was abducted and all the usual diplomatic channels were exhausted.”
She ran her shirt sleeve over her forehead wiping away a sweat-riddled layer of grit while she continued. “The mission went as planned. We successfully freed the captive but he was a destroyed man; his captors had peeled his psyche back too far. He began spilling out details about a deal involving Assistant Secretary of Defense Thomas Monroe and Aeneid’s ties to the Caspian Sea pipeline. We were on our way back to the United States the next day with him, thinking his memory would become more lucid once he had time to recuperate and get therapy. Only someone intercepted him after the hand-off to your state department.”
