Lost in Shadows

by CJ Lyons

  Blocked out everything until the only thing that remained was the fleeting glimpse of his Lady. Then she too was gone, vanished in the darkness. Her words sang through his mind, a haunting whisper in the darkness.

  Life is hope.

  “Agent Cavanaugh? Open your eyes. There you go, that’s good. You’re in the cardiac care unit, everything went fine. You’re going to be fine. You understand, Agent Cavanaugh? You’re going to be just fine.”

  Lucky focused on the smiling face of his doctor and knew the man lied. No matter what the verdict from his heart biopsy was, everything was not going to be fine.

  Never again.

  CHAPTER 1

  Lost River Mountain, January 18

  Helluva place for a city boy. Lucky wished he were back home in DC, familiar streets and buildings framing every view instead of these West Virginia mountains with their wide-open spaces alternating with claustrophobic stands of tall trees looming over the narrow road.

  “You’re sure you know where you’re going?” Lucky asked his fellow ATF agent as Tillburn drove them deeper into the shadows of the Appalachians.

  “Of course I do,” Tillburn said. “These rednecks always want to meet on their own turf. Makes ‘em feel superior to the gangbangers from the projects. Don’t know why. They all want the same stuff. Bigger, badder, faster. I figure these Liberty guys will be wanting some MAC-10’s modified to full auto, maybe a few AK’s, nothing too fancy.”

  Lucky reached over to turn up the Redskins game on the radio. He should’ve known better when Tillburn burst into the lab this morning, asking, “Hey, Lucky, still got all your fingers and toes?” by way of greeting.

  Tillburn was a cowboy, one of the agents who worked undercover for the ATF. The cowboys always figured Lucky got his nickname because he had yet to lose any major body parts in the six years he’d been a demo man.

  Lucky and his fellow demolitions experts were looked upon as “kooks” by their undercover counterparts who preferred the adrenalin rush of the streets to the more tedious but no less dangerous work of defusing and analyzing bombs.

  After trying it once and barely escaping with his life, Lucky didn’t understand the allure of street work. Give him the well-ordered life of demolitions any day: he got to blow things up, then dissect and rebuild them, all in a setting where chemistry and electricity followed the predictable laws of physics.

  If he wanted adrenalin, he could go out on a call with the Metro Bomb Squad guys. They liked having him along, there hadn’t been a bomb yet that Lucky couldn’t either disarm or safely contain.

  “I told you I had to be in Fairfax by seven tonight,” he reminded Tillburn. If the Redskins hadn’t been hosting the NFC championship for the first time since ‘91, this would have never happened. The only person left in the office when Tillburn came looking for backup was Lucky. He wasn’t even supposed to be there. He had the weekend off, was going to be best man in a wedding this evening.

  “Don’t worry, this will be quick. It’s only a meet and greet. All you have to do is stand there and look intimidating.” Tillburn cut his eyes over at Lucky’s scrawny frame and shrugged. “Well, just stand there anyway. I don’t expect any trouble.”

  Lucky shook his head at the undercover agent’s cavalier attitude. His last partner, Chase Westin, had spent the better part of a year undercover with The Preacher’s renegade militia.

  When Lucky joined him for a few short months that had seemed to stretch into eternity and which had nearly got both of them killed, Chase taught him never to take anything for granted when you were undercover. “Murphy’s Law rules,” Chase would say whenever a monkey wrench got thrown into the works.

  Like a pretty FBI agent showing up with her own agenda and covert operation, Lucky thought with a smile. KC had ended up saving both his and Chase’s lives. If Chase hadn’t beaten him to the punch, Lucky would have proposed to her himself.

  “Stonewall Jackson invented guerrilla warfare and tactics in these mountains,” Lucky said, trying to ease the knot of apprehension that constricted his stomach with each mile they drove.

  Tillburn turned off the highway, and they headed further into the mountains. “That so? I’ll bet Whitney and his crew think they’re still fighting his battles.”

  The radio faded to static. Tillburn cursed as he tried in vain to recapture the Redskins. Layers of gunmetal-grey clouds pressed down overhead, and even though it was three in the afternoon, the sun had vanished into an early twilight.

  Snow banked against the edge of the twisty road, a good two feet or more that gusts of wind had scoured and etched into a bizarre menagerie of beasts guarding their forbidden wilderness.

  Lucky watched the trees bend in the wind, as if trying to block their progress into the forest. He shivered and reached to turn the heater up high. Definitely no place for a city boy.

  “I told you not to touch anything, right?” Lucky asked.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s how The Preacher blew your cover last month, he has a back door into our undercover agent database. Thought the computer geeks were beefing up security.” Tillburn didn’t act as if he were too concerned.

  “The Preacher broke through security the last time we upgraded,” he reminded Tillburn. “Don’t underestimate him, he might be crazy, but he’s one smart bastard.”

  Tillburn glanced at Lucky. “Right, you’ve actually met him, haven’t you? About the only person to live to tell the tale.”

  “Watch the road,” Lucky groused, his fingers stroking the rabbit’s foot on his leather jacket. He wasn’t superstitious. The rabbit’s foot was a gift from his older sister. It reminded him of home, family, of why he did what he did.

  Growing up the youngest of five kids with a father on the Metro force and his three older brothers following in Dad’s footsteps, the importance of “protect and serve” had been drilled into him at a young age. Lucky and his sister, Alice, were the rebels of the Cavanaugh clan. Alice had joined the Secret Service while he’d parlayed his master’s in chemical engineering into a career with the ATF.

  Going undercover for a few hours was no big deal, but he was getting a bad feeling about this. Why couldn’t the Liberty Hunt Club have come into DC to go shopping for their munitions instead of forcing them to traipse all over creation?

  “Almost there,” Tillburn said. They passed a sign announcing that they were entering the Lost River National Forest and Wilderness Area. “Yeah, that road on the right.”

  The BMW, the product of a DEA curtailment, fish-tailed as they turned onto a gravel drive. Another few miles and they pulled up to a small, white-framed house with two pickup trucks and a Ford Expedition parked in front.

  “Remember, let me do all the talking,” Tillburn said as they left the car.

  Lucky slid his hand inside his jacket, touched the grip of his forty caliber Glock and nodded. He eyed the gathering clouds warily. Chase was going to kill him if he was late for the wedding. “Let’s go.”

  They entered the Liberty Hunt Club. The door opened directly into a large room with fireplaces at either end and a long bar along the back wall. A balding man with glasses sat at a desk immediately inside the door, a laptop before him. Behind the bar, a beefy, red-faced man poured a glass of Bookers for one of the other two men waiting.

  There was silence for a moment, except for the clicking of the man typing on the laptop. Lucky positioned himself beside the door and hunched his shoulders, trying to look menacing.

  The guy at the computer kept looking up at him, squinting his eyes like he thought Lucky was spying on him. What was he doing, Lucky wondered, surfing porn?

  Tillburn strode forward and shook the two men’s hands, declined their offer of a drink. “No thanks, still have to make it off this mountain in one piece. You all have a beautiful place up here, but I’d like to get down to business. Got to get back to the city, you know.”

  “No problem,” a tall, broad shouldered, grey-haired man wearing a silk polo said with a nonchalant wave
to the bartender.

  Must be Whitney, the leader, Lucky thought. Tillburn had told him that these guys mainly used their hunt club as a dodge to get away from the women folk and talk about the way things would be if they ran the government, reminisce about the South’s good ole days. Their records were clean.

  Tillburn thought they were mainly harmless, but if they wanted to buy some illegal arms, he’d be happy to sell to them—and then bust their asses. A collar was a collar, even if it was a bunch of hicks.

  Lucky didn’t think these men were a bunch of hicks.

  Whitney slid an iPhone from his pocket and held it out for Tillburn to see his “shopping list”. His partner, a narrow-faced, tall, skinny guy with sideburns like Elvis Presley, sauntered towards the door and looked over the computer guy’s shoulder. He wore a camouflage hunting parka but beneath it his shirt was Brooks Brothers.

  This didn’t feel right.

  “Hey, Tillburn, we got to get going,” he said, hoping the cowboy would take the hint.

  Tillburn ignored him as he considered Whitney’s list, his lips pursed together in a silent whistle. “This here’s a pretty big order. What kind of time frame are we talking about?”

  “Two days.”

  “Rush job will cost you extra. Seven-fifty should cover it, you can keep the truck.”

  Lucky looked up at that. This was more than a few MAC-10’s. A hell of a lot more.

  “Our last supplier said he could get it for half a mill.”

  “So what’cha need me for?” Tillburn shrugged, moved as if to leave. Lucky caught his eye, gestured to the door, but Whitney called them back.

  “Wait, it’s a deal.” Whitney looked down at the computer guy whose fingers were still flying over the keys.

  Tillburn smiled. “Half now, half on delivery.”

  “You think you’re dealing with amateurs? One hundred now, the rest on delivery. After I’ve inspected everything and test fired one round from each box.”

  Lucky crossed his arms, one hand inside his jacket on his Glock. If something was going to go wrong it would be now, when the money came into play.

  “Nice doing business with a pro. Next time why don’t you come on into the city instead of dragging me all the way out here?” Tillburn said.

  The balding guy at the computer abruptly stopped typing and looked over at Whitney, a frown on his face. The room grew ominously silent.

  Lucky edged forward to where he could cover Tillburn’s back, but between the guy at the bar and the two at the front of the room, they were caught in a crossfire.

  “He’s no good,” the computer guy said, jerking his chin at Tillburn.

  Whitney nodded to the other two men. The bartender drew a Beretta while Brooks Brothers pulled a Taurus Raging Bull from under his jacket. Lucky saw the almost foot-long bad boy revolver, a favorite on the streets of DC, and blanched.

  These guys weren’t kidding. The Taurus took forty-four Magnum rounds, guaranteed to stop a grizzly in its tracks.

  “Nice try, guys,” Whitney said.

  Lucky watched in horror as before Tillburn could blink, Brooks Brothers shot him at point blank range. The boom of the Taurus thundered through the room. Lucky didn’t have to look twice to see that Tillburn was dead, a hole the size of a nickel drilled through his forehead.

  Lucky kicked the desk over, returning fire, using it as cover as more gunfire erupted, now aimed at him. He shot the bartender and the guy dropped out of sight. The computer guy grabbed him from behind, ruining his aim as he tried for Whitney.

  Computer Guy scrambled, grasping his laptop like it was the crown jewels. Lucky gave him a hard shove, knocking him into Brooks Brothers.

  The computer skidded across the wood floor, and Lucky grabbed it. Firing one last salvo over his shoulder, he ran out the door.

  Damn it, not again, the thought raced through his mind as he sprinted over the gravel. He’d had enough of people shooting at him last month—only this time he didn’t have Chase or KC to rely on for backup. This time he was on his own.

  Out in the middle of nowhere.

  The sound of gunshots punctuated his curses as he wrenched the BMW’s door open. Then came a sharp kick of pain in his left shoulder, kind of like running full throttle into a brick wall. An ominous wetness and burning sensation crept down the inside of his shirt.

  Man, this just keeps getting better. He threw himself and the laptop into the front seat of the BMW, grit his teeth and tried his best to block out the pain as he turned the key in the ignition.

  Another bullet slammed into the windshield. The glass cracked into a starburst but didn’t shatter.

  Good old German engineering, the thought danced on waves of pain as he skidded the BMW into reverse and backed down the drive, his foot to the floor on the accelerator. He hit the paved road and spun the wheel, propelling the car into a sharp turn, then sped down the mountain.

  He fumbled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket, leaving the Glock between his knees in case he needed to grab it quickly, and dialed with one hand. Nothing. He risked his life, glanced down at the phone. No signal.

  Headlights filled the rearview mirror. He threw the phone aside, straining to keep the car on the road.

  Lucky had a feeling that he wasn’t going to make it home in time for Chase and KC’s wedding.

  CHAPTER 2

  God save her from idiots, Vinnie Ryan thought as she negotiated the curves leading to Lost River Mountain.

  She sipped from her extra-large cup of Sheetz coffee and looked up at the sky. Snow tonight, maybe next few days. Good, snowed in up at her cabin was like heaven to Vinnie. Peace and quiet.

  And no idiots to rescue. She’d spent the last two days at the New River Gorge, searching for two kayakers who thought January was a great time to try running the Gauley with the new boats they’d gotten for Christmas.

  One had been swamped on Hangman rapid, lost his boat and almost drowned. The other tried to pull them both to shore and smashed his kayak on the rocks. The two geniuses had then decided to try to hike out—up the sheer cliff walls of the gorge—and had been stranded halfway to the top. It was sheer dumb luck Vinnie and her team had found them before they died.

  Why were men always in search of new and creative ways to try to circumvent the laws of Nature? It was as if they felt compelled to prove Darwin right.

  She pressed down on the accelerator, happy to be driving the steeply graded switchbacks. She loved the way her Subaru hugged the curves, and she was in a rush to get back home before the snow got serious.

  The car was silent. The early darkness enveloped her and the Forester as if they were alone in the universe.

  Just the way she liked it.

  The sound of a car horn shrieking made her jump. She glanced into the rearview mirror and was surprised to see headlights bearing down on her just as she entered a hairpin turn. What the hell—hadn’t she had enough suicidal idiots to contend with for one weekend?

  The car behind her was right on her bumper, its horn blaring. As if she had anywhere to go to get out of his way. The only things separating her and the Subaru from the sheer drop off the side of the mountain were a few feet of gravel and some oak trees.

  The car tried to pass her, but the driver thought the better of it as the curve tightened, and he swerved back behind her, grazing her bumper. She fought to control the Forester, its passenger side wheels spinning into the gravel.

  Her coffee bounced from the cup holder, splashing everywhere as she forced the car back onto solid pavement. Headlights blinded her when she looked into the mirror. The road straightened as it swept from one curve into the next. The car behind her gunned its engine and roared past.

  Good riddance. Vinnie eased her sweaty grip on the steering wheel. The other car rounded the next curve, and she slowed down, caught her breath and unclenched her hands, trying to shake the life back into them.

  Must be a city slicker. No one else would drive these mountains like a lunatic, not unles
s they had a death wish.

  Lord, just get me back to my cabin in one piece, she prayed, glancing at the St. Christopher’s medallion hanging from her rearview mirror. A little peace and quiet, was that so much to ask for?

  She pulled out of the next switchback. A hundred feet in front of her red taillights angled off the road. The idiot would have smashed his way down the mountain if it weren’t for the large oak tree that halted his progress.

  Hitting her brakes, she skidded to a stop beside the crumpled BMW.

  So much for prayers being answered.

  Vinnie was used to it. She and God hadn’t been on very good terms since her husband, Michael, died two years ago.

  She was too stubborn to have the blind faith her religious upbringing called for, to believe that any good could come from Michael’s death. She figured God was just as stubborn, since he hadn’t shown her the sign she asked for, any sign that there was some kind of plan, that it was worth her while to have faith and bide her time patiently awaiting His design to unfold.

  Hey, it was God’s own damn fault: He created stubbornness, Vinnie just happened to have gotten a double helping of the trait.

  She unbuckled and climbed out of her car, grabbing her flashlight from the driver’s side compartment. The front of the BMW was crumpled, but the driver was still inside.

  That was good, an ejection at the speed he was going would have been a death sentence. She slipped through the snow-covered gravel until she reached his door. It had been flung open by the impact, and he was slumped against the driver’s seat. His seatbelt was on—all right, so he wasn’t a total idiot—and the powdery remnants of a deployed air bag filled the interior.

  Carefully supporting his neck, Vinnie felt his carotid pulse. Airway intact, good breathing, pulse steady but a little fast, the ABC’s of trauma ran through her mind in an automatic checklist.