Reunion Under Fire

by Geri Krotow

  A motion caught her eye, and she leaned around the rough boulder to verify the dread that dropped her stomach to her knees. Valensky clomped through the woods not two hundred yards away from her. She’d have expected one of his lackeys, but with three of them in custody he might be shorthanded. Without hesitation she pulled out her phone and snapped several photos, after which she texted Josh and Claudia that she’d seen their person of interest, using the code phrases they’d agreed upon. She couldn’t risk texting the photos in case of the ever present risk of interception.

  Sometimes modern technology blew.

  Soup’s on. Come eat.

  Josh’s immediate text back had a double meaning, she was certain. He didn’t want her facing Valensky alone. The man was unpredictable, no matter what Kit said about him being in control when sober. And they’d found the women and wouldn’t let them out of their sight.

  Need to see end of show. She texted back, referring to why she was lingering. She didn’t want to leave her perch too soon. According to Claudia, the assigned TH agent’s mission was complete the second she and Josh laid eyes on the women. They had the baton.

  She’d never forgive herself if Valensky disappeared with these women on her watch. She wasn’t an agent and didn’t have any illusions she was. But opportunity presented itself, and Annie dug in her heels.

  Soup will be cold. Come now.

  Another text came on the heels of Josh’s, from Claudia. Using the agreed upon code word, Claudia relayed that they’d confirmed there were women in Valensky’s compound. Annie and Josh’s job remained the same: stay with the women on the Appalachian Trail.

  “Okay, okay.” She spoke low and under her breath, but it was too loud. She heard the snap of twigs, the pad of feet on the hardened dirt. Someone was coming to check out who’d spoken, and it could be Valensky.

  Grateful she’d put her hair in a ponytail, she fully tucked it under her a bandanna and pulled up her collar as she shoved her sunglasses on. It was getting late in the day for shades, but she couldn’t risk Valensky recognizing her.

  She made like she was leaving a bathroom area and walked casually back to the campground. Only a few hundred yards separated the outcroppings from the campsite, but it seemed like miles as she kept her face forward, her stride even, when all she wanted to do was to break into a run and throw herself into Josh’s arms.

  A heavy hand suddenly covered her mouth as a strong arm hauled her up against a large body. Shock jolted through her as she moved to crush Valensky’s instep, but he was wise to self-defense tactics and easily outmaneuvered her. His meaty forearm was across her throat, threatening her airway.

  “Fancy meeting you out here, Annie.” Valensky’s thick accent filled her ears as his cigarette-and-coffee-laden breath hit her nostrils. Panic melded with nausea and she held tight to her focus, refusing to allow revulsion to cost her her objective.

  She jerked every which way possible, a keening sound coming out of her throat, but it was muffled by the monster’s bulk. Josh would never hear her. She’d never see him again.

  No, no, no. She forced her body to be still, gathering her wits.

  “Make another noise and I’ll slit your throat. Then I’ll take out each of the girls. Understand?”

  He didn’t want to kill her, not yet. He had the women to think about and if she screamed, even if he did murder her, the others would get free—Josh would make sure of it. And there were more, hidden on his property, according to Claudia. She might be the only chance to help free them.

  He shook her from behind, his arm cutting off her air. She moved her mouth to bite him but before she could, a massive blow to the side of her head floated stars in front of her vision.

  “Start walking, slowly, or I’ll kill everyone in the campground. Do you understand?” Menace and nastiness peppered every syllable of his request. She wasn’t sure that he had a weapon; she’d seen nothing and didn’t feel a barrel in her back. And she knew that men like Valensky, with rap sheets a mile long, were smart enough to not carry a weapon. But she couldn’t risk it. And more than anything, she trusted Josh. He’d know something had happened and would come to find her, or call in backup. Plus, weren’t these mountains crawling with Trail Hiker agents?

  You’re okay. You’re safe. Stay focused.

  “Yes.” Her voice matched the grogginess his hit to her temple caused. Nausea made her head swim, and she realized in a far-off way that he’d probably given her a concussion. She had to stay conscious at all costs or she’d be no help to anyone.

  “Move.” He forced her to walk farther into the woods, away from the campsite, away from the women.

  She turned to look at him. “What about the others?”

  His face crunched up in a mean scowl. “None of your business. Move or you’re dead.”

  She had no choice but to do as he told. He shoved and prodded her each time her steps faltered on the slippery, leaf-strewn path. They were heading downhill on a steep grade and her hiking boot caught on a tree root, flinging her forward and down the rocky path on her belly. A sharp pop sounded as hot, searing pain lanced her side.

  “Oof.” Her cry was quiet, subdued. Not at all expressing the incredible pain she was in. It had to be a broken rib. And the pounding in her head—it was like trying to move and think through a fuzzy skein of mohair yarn.

  “Get the freak up.” Two rough hands on her shirt, yanking her up by the shoulders. Pain washed over her, and she braced herself for a fall into unconsciousness. Before it came, she found her feet moving again, but this time Valensky was right behind her, the front of his body up against her back. “You’re too heavy to carry. If you fall, you die.”

  His words were punctuated by heavy breathing. A part of her brain wondered if she could make him have a cardiac arrest by turning and running up the mountain, making him catch her again. But she knew she couldn’t do it. It was hard enough moving in a straight line downhill.

  Her vision blurred, but she made out the wall that surrounded his property. The campsite was only a half mile from the property as the crow flew and as the mountainside allowed, but it would be at least twenty minutes of driving on the twisting highway that the Appalachian Trail crossed. She struggled to stay focused, to pay attention to details she could tell Josh later. So that they’d find this pathway again, find wherever he was taking her. Save the women.

  Without warning Valensky yanked on her arm, forcing her sharply to the left. He placed her against an outcropping, and she had a sense of him using something—his phone?—pointing it out in front of him. A hole appeared in front of her where the rock had been. Fear permeated every cell of her being. The instinct to keep moving, save the women, proved stronger. Cold, hard rock scraped her back and she used it as a grounding point. He hadn’t killed her yet; hope still existed for the women. He shoved her down metal stairs, keeping her upright via her shirt collar. Her neck chafed and she struggled to fill her lungs, fighting the black spots that clotted her vision. The door that opened in the rock shut behind them, the darkness total. A scream ripped from her throat. It reverberated like a howling specter as lights lit up the space where the stairs ended and a short corridor that led to a large commercial double door.

  “Move!” He pushed her through the doors, and she was up against another set of stairs going upward.

  “I...I can’t.” She gasped, the pain with each breath excruciating.

  “Move or I’ll break your arm.” He twisted her arm behind her, the pain joining the sharp shocks of agony in her side. Her knees buckled and slammed onto the concrete floor.

  Valensky’s string of Russian epithets were the last sound she heard.

  Chapter 16

  Josh’s brief annoyance at Annie for not returning to camp immediately turned to anxiety when he saw the women they’d tracked arrive back and sit around the small tent they appeared to share, followed by Claudia�
��s text confirming more captives were on Valensky’s property.

  He’d sent a text to Claudia as soon as Annie walked off into the woods, indicating they’d locked eyes on the group. The objective was to watch and see where the women went. TH agents had called in sightings all along the trail from ten miles away. The groups of women came and went and disappeared. Some were taken off the trail sooner than others, and a few had been rescued with the help of TH. They’d ascertained that this group had made it this far and was expected to be under the control of Valensky. But the group TH reported moving this far south had ten women, not five. What had Valensky done with the other five women?

  Stay in camp. Have personnel working it.

  Claudia’s reply via encoded text wasn’t enough. He needed to know Annie was okay now, not when some TH agent got back to them.

  He couldn’t go over to the women, not without scaring them or blowing his cover. Frustration and fear morphed into near panic as a text from Claudia came in.

  Annie is down. Repeat. Annie is down. Come out of camp immediately.

  Like hell he would.

  Josh ran through his mental checklist. He had all the tools he needed, and ducked behind a tree to quickly holster the weapon he’d carried in his backpack. He threw on a beat-up flannel shirt over his T-shirt to hide the SIG Sauer .45 and took off for the area where Annie had disappeared. Images of Valensky’s paws on Annie clawed at him. He’d thought he knew what fear and anxiety were when the thugs had assaulted Becky. Wrong. Knowing the love of his life might be suffering, taking her last breath at the hands of Valensky, took his experience to unimagined levels of terror.

  Breathing heavily, he scanned the boulder-dense, treed swath, and campers looked at him with wariness. It wasn’t usual for a hiker to be so nosy in what was clearly a natural place to take care of bathroom business. Making out a definitive trail through the woods, he started the long trek down the side of the mountain. Only to be brought up short by a firm grip on his arm as a figure darted out from his right side, from behind an especially large outcropping.

  He turned to neutralize his attacker. As soon as he looked into their eyes, the fight left him.

  “Claudia.”

  She didn’t reply verbally but held her finger to her lips and motioned for him to follow her.

  Only because of years of training and dedication to duty did he fight his instinct to go after Annie. After only one hundred yards they were up against what appeared to be a huge, overgrown hedge. They stood in the middle of several rock piles, surrounded by bushes and sapling trees. Josh followed Claudia into what looked like an impossible bunch of scratchy branches, under which he knew a portable command unit operated. The van had had bushes and branches affixed to it by horticultural experts. The most trained AT hiker wouldn’t see anything amiss. As he went into the van with Claudia, he broke out in a cold sweat.

  “Annie—”

  “Hang on, Josh.” Claudia’s whispered command brooked no argument.

  I’m coming, Annie. Wait for me.

  Dear God, please let her wait for him.

  * * *

  Bright light shone through Annie’s closed lids, causing a pain in the back of her head that made nausea swell. With her eyes still closed and head pounding, she turned her head to the side and threw up.

  “Oh my God. You son of a bitch, what did you do to her?”

  “Kit?” Was that her voice? It sounded like a cricket.

  A cold, damp cloth wiped her face. “It’s me, Annie. You’re...you’re okay.” Kit’s voice. Annie couldn’t open her eyes yet.

  “Stay here or you’re both dead. There are cameras on you, and my team is under orders to kill either of you if you disobey my orders.” Valensky’s voice. Annie cracked her lids and saw Kit’s knees, in the usual black leggings the woman wore. Kit was still here, which meant she was risking her life, too. Just past her were heavy, muddy shoes. Valensky’s.

  Rage flared, and Annie tried to sit up.

  “Don’t, Annie. Rest for a minute.” Kit’s hand was on her shoulder, keeping her down. Some memory of Kit saying she knew how to handle Valensky spoke to her, and Annie relaxed back onto the floor. She recognized the smell of the water from the pool and hot tub. They were in the pool house. But hadn’t Valensky taken her through a tunnel? And wasn’t it under the wall?

  It hurt too much to think.

  * * *

  “I am going in with the team that takes him down.” Josh spoke to Claudia in the Trail Hikers’ mobile command unit, fully equipped with the newest generation technology available only to agencies like Trail Hikers. No hiker would think twice of the local flora, and obviously the ROC criminals moving shipments of women had paid it no heed, either.

  Josh and Claudia sat in the middle of a bank of seven screens as three other TH agents worked the equipment, keeping comms open with the agents on the AT and near Valensky’s compound.

  Where Annie was, condition unknown.

  “I support that, but know what you’re getting into first, Josh. Are you going to be able to remain clearheaded, keep the mission first, with Annie’s life at risk?” Claudia’s eyes observed him in the way that only a boss who’d been in the same position could do.

  “I have to go in there, Claudia.”

  “Right.” Claudia looked past him to the agent watching the video taken by a camera the TH or FBI had placed on a tree overlooking Valensky’s compound. He couldn’t look at it again, couldn’t go through the torture of seeing Annie at the hands of a madman, but he couldn’t rip his gaze from it, either. As if by watching it he was shouldering some of her suffering, relieving her of her terror. The feed showed Valensky coming from behind a rock out of nowhere, hiking up the forest path that led to the campsite where he and Annie had been. Valensky forcing the unmistakable shape of Annie, her head bowed, feet shuffling, down the same path. Their images disappeared once around the side of the outcropping. Then Valensky reappeared, ran up the path and returned with the five women, going around the rocks the same way he did with Annie.

  “What have you figured out, Candy?” Claudia’s question jolted him from his despair.

  A petite blonde with her hair showing tints of pink and blue didn’t take her eyes off the video feed as she spoke to Claudia.

  “There’s definitely an entrance to some kind of passageway that goes to Valensky’s place, probably the unidentified building. The time between taking the first captive, Annie, into his lair and then retrieving the five remaining women is less than five minutes. He was in a hurry to get those women in there once he’d trapped Annie.”

  Josh’s gut clenched at the word captive, and he turned to Claudia. “Are there any agents there yet?”

  “We’re waiting for a tip from the FBI. They’re the ones who have to go in there, Josh. TH is in the operation to provide intelligence, to take out the head of ROC if needed. Dima Ivanov is long gone, somewhere in the Poconos or closer to New York City. As always, TH has to remain invisible.” Claudia’s disappointment that they’d lost their chance to capture the head of the East Coast ROC was keen. But all Josh cared about was getting Annie out of there.

  He stilled. For the first time in his career, he didn’t care about the case, except as a means to an end. A way to save Annie.

  He loved her. And his life would have no meaning without her. She was his life.

  “Josh, you with us?” Claudia’s intuition was downright creepy at times.

  “I’m here.” He met her gaze head-on. It was a hell of a time to figure out he loved Annie, but so be it. He’d do whatever it took to save her.

  “Use your emotions to fuel your focus.” Spoken like a true Marine.

  “Got it. I don’t have to be invisible as an SVPD officer, do I?” A plan had begun to gel, but he had to have Claudia on his side.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I c
an show up at Valensky’s place to talk to Kit. As a uniformed officer.”

  “Go on.”

  * * *

  “What are you doing here?” Annie’s mind had cleared enough to wonder why Kit had shown up as Valensky dumped her here in the pool house.

  “Vadim caught me right after I found where he’s keeping the women. There are women here, Annie, in the building behind us.”

  “You should have run.”

  “I know this now. It’s too late for me.”

  “No. It’s not. Let’s work through this. Where is he?”

  “He left but he’ll be back. He’s getting angrier each time he walks back in here. Like he always does, before he explodes.”

  “Where are the men he said will kill us?”

  Kit rolled her eyes. “There are no men—not on this property. Of this, I’m sure. He wanted to scare us.”

  “Then let’s get out of here, Kit.” She could get Kit to leave, then do what she could to get to the women.

  “Can you get up? If you can walk, we can try to get to the main house.” Kit was next to her on the deck of the pool. The concrete floor was cold under her back, but she felt the heat of the pool, heard the bubbling spa water.

  “If we go slow, I can. I think I broke a rib.”

  “Let’s try. Take in a few shallow breaths instead of one big long deep one.” Kit spoke like someone who’d had her own share of broken ribs, and Annie decided then and there that pain was the least of her worries. She had to save Kit, save the women who Valensky had corralled.