by Regan Black
“Vehicle approaching,” said the voice in his ear. “Verify good target.”
He rattled off the truck description and plate number.
“Good target. Fire.”
He fired. The panel truck jumped up, bounced and tumbled to the opposite side of the road. “Good hit,” he said.
“Confirm no survivors. Clear area and rendezvous on schedule.”
He acknowledged the orders as he packed up his rifle, enjoying the silence as he picked his way down the hill, leaving as little trace as possible. The camouflage that blended into the terrain combined with his enhanced senses, allowing him to be as close to invisible as a man could be. He crossed the highway and approached the wrecked truck.
The scene struck him as familiar, tickling at the edges of his memory much like his name. He didn’t dwell on it, far too aware of the tight window they’d given him to reach the rendezvous point. He would have to run the whole way. If he was late, he’d miss his next dose of the drug.
At the wreck he thought the driver and passenger looked dead enough, but he’d been trained to be thorough. A misinterpretation of the orders, any mistake resulted in pain. He pulled his pistol and put a bullet through the forehead of each man. Holstering the weapon, he set off for the rendezvous point at a quick pace, grateful that whatever they’d done to his body, he could now run for hours without tiring.
*
Lying in the grass next to her camera mounted on the tripod, wildlife photographer Hope Small watched the land below and the sky above through the lens of the smaller camera in her hands. She had excellent shots and unique angles of the sunrise and clouds and was confident many of the shots could be touched up for sale on her website. She expected a few gems could even be enlarged for her next gallery showing.
She had loads of pictures of Cedar waxwings and other year-round bird populations. All she needed were the pictures of the birds the Audubon Society had sent her out here to find. Both the chestnut-collared longspur and the McCown’s longspur migrated across this area of the Crow Indian Reservation. Both longspur varieties were of conservation concern and Audubon believed her photos would give them more insight and raise public awareness. Fortunately, her Native American heritage made it easier to navigate the permits to roam wherever she wished on tribal land.
According to the notes from the birdwatching team that had tracked the migration patterns over the years, she was definitely in the right spot at the right time of year. This was only day three of the waiting game. Hope’s years of experience had taught her that patience was the best tool in her chosen career. Animals didn’t pose and didn’t follow a timetable other than their own. The requested subjects and perfect pictures rarely occurred when it was easy or convenient.
That dogged patience and a keen eye for composition made her one of the best photographers in the field. Even this field, she thought with a snort. She wouldn’t abandon her strengths simply because she’d grown a bit restless and bored on a beautiful spring morning.
She kept an eye on the sky while she listened for the longspurs calls but all she heard was the morning breeze stirring the grass nearby. Moving back to the camera on the tripod, she checked the view, startled by movement at the western edge of her shot. Zooming in as far as the lens allowed, she spotted a man loping into her frame. He was well over six feet—based on how deep his long legs dipped into the grasses—with pale blond hair and fair skin. How weird. She leaned back from the viewfinder, blinked rapidly, and refocused.
No, she wasn’t hallucinating. Wow. It was damn near impossible for a man to be more out of place than this would-be Viking in Crow territory. On a whimsical thought, she mentally dropped him into the same category as a rare white buffalo, chuckling at the stares he would get if he crossed through one of the more populated districts. As long as he didn’t veer closer and interfere with her potential shot of the migrating longspurs, she could ignore the oddity of him out here.
She kept an eye on him and an eye on the area the longspurs should be covering any day now. He had a steady, ground-eating stride that didn’t falter over any variance in the terrain. Remarkable. She’d spent enough time out here to know the grassy meadows were far from smooth. She adjusted the focus and continued watching him as he ran, making the process look too easy. Was he even breathing hard?
Over the years of watching and photographing wildlife around the world, she’d developed a feel for space and distance and this man was maintaining a pace somewhere close to ten miles per hour. Possibly faster, if that was possible. He moved with such grace, not a hitch in his motion. His gait was more appropriate for a smooth-surface running track. Even the best of runners occasionally adjusted stride or shifted to allow for a stone or rut or hollow when training or racing over natural terrain. How was it he knew just where to place each foot?
Was he an ultra-marathoner or extreme runner? During a photography expedition in Africa, she’d met a tribe with several experienced, winning, and aspiring distance runners. They weren’t built anything like this guy.
With an economy of movement honed to prevent startling wary animals, she shifted and continued to follow his progress. Closer now, she could see the item on his back was a rifle. She swore. Poachers were the lowest of lifeforms in her mind, no matter the continent or game they went after. Although he wasn’t carrying a kill, that didn’t mean he didn’t intend to be successful in the near future.
Decided, she pressed the shutter, holding it for a burst as he raced on. Still framed in her hand-held camera, she saw his head turn toward her. Nothing else in his stride changed, but she would have sworn his hard gaze bored right into her soul through the lens. Impossible. A coincidence, and yet a chill slipped over her skin. Her finger jerked into action and she held the shutter down again, hoping she hadn’t missed the opportunity for a full-face picture.
Whoever he was, she would share the incident and the photos with the tribal authorities as soon as she got back to her campsite. They could track him down and confirm that he wasn’t here on some criminal endeavor.
*
Movement to the south, low in the grass caught his attention. Even at this distance he knew it was too big to be a small animal like a rabbit or fox and too low to the ground to be a bigger animal. A person, lying down like a sniper, he thought.
Deep in his gut, he knew he wouldn’t have noticed the motion or made the assessment without the chemical boost from the lab docs. Score one for the black-ops team and methods, he supposed. Whatever they were giving him, he was starting to appreciate the advantages.
‘No witnesses’ was the brutal philosophy of the people who controlled him now. If he ignored the situation and there was a problem down the line, the punishment he’d endure would be worse than being late to the rendezvous point.
He tapped the mic and called it in.
“Pointer, hold course.”
He held course, ran onward. Despite killing two men an hour ago, he enjoyed the air, the sunshine, and the sense of freedom. Enjoyed it more since he had no idea if or when he would be out of his cell again. If they found a way to blame this anomaly on him it could be never.
He’d killed before, on orders from his superiors. The man in the gray suit had told him that, told him he’d served in the military. Although he couldn’t recall his name, the military service felt true and explained a few scars and the random images that flitted through his mind when he heard certain sounds. Being in the military also clarified how comfortable and accurate he was with a gun—any gun.
He didn’t exactly trust the man in gray, but he had nothing reliable in his head to counter the claims.
Now the crap he’d been fed about being convicted of murder felt different. Wrong. Again, no way to counter the assertion, but his gut instinct couldn’t reconcile it. Just in case the murder thing was true, he’d stopped fighting the program at that point, choosing even this twisted-up life over the death penalty.
He endured week after week of injections, training, and
testing, learning the system and the responses that resulted in the least amount of pain. And whenever an image that might be from his past flickered at the edges of his mind, he did what he could to hold on to it.
“Pointer, you are re-tasked to investigate and eliminate any witnesses. Officially, you have never been in this area.”
“Understood.”
He didn’t ask about the rendezvous, simply assumed he had to manage this diversion within the allotted time frame or else. He didn’t want the or else, so he ran a little faster. Circling wide around the area where he’d seen the person, he didn’t bother worrying over how he knew precisely where to go in this territory with no real landmarks.
One of the first things they’d drilled into him in training was how much he needed to trust his new abilities as they manifested. Comforting? Not in the least. But the voices in his ear hadn’t hung him out to dry yet.
So he didn’t question how he knew when to turn one way or another, he just let the undefinable intuition guide his feet. The scent came to him first. Female. Her scent blended with the sunshine and spring growth, rising into the air. He slowed down to a walk, honing in on the source.
He reached back for the rifle, prepped it to fire as soon as he was in range.
Something like resistance flared at the back of his mind. He suppressed it. Right or wrong, this was the job. Fresh air or prison? Incredible physical enhancements or intolerable pain? Her death for his life.
His choices were that black and white.
Minutes later and he zeroed in on that softer, mysterious trail teasing his nose. His enhanced vision picked up on the signs and once he understood how she moved, it was as if someone had highlighted the path for him. That was new and more than a little helpful. Maybe those lab docs and field trainers knew what they were talking about after all.
He could see how she’d walked into the field from the north. He paused, assessing. He could follow the path she’d taken toward the grassland, or choose the faint trail that likely led to her campsite.
Only one set of footprints, which meant only one witness to eliminate. That was something positive. He pressed forward. If he had time, he’d find the campsite and destroy it too.
Chapter 3
Hope watched the man run out of her sight, without a single misstep or visible change in that long stride. She told herself he was gone and good riddance. He had no reason to turn her way and yet she was more frightened now than when he’d stared right into the camera lens.
Every nerve in her body told her to run. It didn’t make any sense, considering she was one of only two people out here in the middle of nowhere. But he was armed with a rifle and she only had a pistol in her day pack. He could take her out from a distance and she’d never have a chance to defend herself.
With significant regret, Hope scrambled to remove the camera from the tripod, get both items into their respective cases and cover them to the best of her ability with the spring grasses. She had the location pinned on her phone app and with any luck, she’d survive and come back before the equipment was lost to the elements.
Only money, she reminded herself, tucking her smaller camera into the day pack and sliding it over her shoulders. She was already moving out of the area as she clipped the strap around her waist.
Prioritizing on the run, she decided the best thing was to put as much distance as possible between her and the tripod. She thought of the man’s rifle, his seemingly indefatigable pace and wondered if this was an exercise in futility.
Though the campsite offered safety and access to escape in her truck, he might very well find that and simply wait for her to return. Going deeper into the wilderness gave her the advantage. Probably.
Glancing back, she swore at the inevitable trail of bent grass in her wake. A blind man could follow her path easily. She pushed herself to run faster. Distance was her only ally. Well, distance and the instinct prodding her that he would come looking for her.
Reaching a creek running high with the winter runoff, she hunkered down behind the bank to scan the wide expanse for any sign of pursuit. Her boot slipped on mud as she crept along and she lost her footing, her knee landing hard on a rock. The spike of pain was forgotten an instant later as a chunk of the bank exploded over her head, leaving a divot behind. The rifle report cracked through the air a split-second later.
All the confirmation she needed that running was the smart decision. She had just become the prey in this scenario.
Hope dropped into the rushing creek, heedless of the biting cold as the water seeped into her boots and soaked her jeans. It was the best way to cover her tracks and give herself a chance to survive.
He was a foreigner on protected land. If she could get somewhere safe, with a decent cell signal, she could inform the authorities of the trouble.
*
He’d missed. Missed. That wasn’t normal. It certainly wasn’t the benefit he anticipated after being told repeatedly that things would go his way in the field. He looked at the rifle, the trigger, checked the sight. He should be advancing on a good kill by now.
Wasting time berating himself for the error wasn’t going to get him to the rendezvous on time. Not to mention how his target could use the reprieve to her advantage.
He secured the rifle once more and started running. Her path through the grass was so clear he almost didn’t need his enhancements. The details hurt his eyes as he took them all in, noticing every little thing. His nose could discern her scent under, around and through all the other scents out here. The tread of her boot prints lit up like beacons as she raced toward the shelter of trees clinging to the banks of the nearest creek. He could hear it clearly, despite the distance and the breeze in his ears. The water tumbling along its way, disrupted by the splash of something bigger than a fish.
Now that was cool.
He didn’t believe he’d volunteered to be a guinea pig for the man in gray, he was almost pleased with the result. To use these skills on his own terms? He could be the best… Hell, he didn’t know what he’d be beyond what they’d made him. As if the self-confident thought was an infraction, his foot snagged on a clump of grass and he pitched forward, arms wheeling before he caught his balance.
Huh. He hadn’t made a misstep in miles. He waited for the voice to admonish him or ask for an update, but there was only silence.
Unsure how to interpret that detail, he kept going, relentless in his pursuit. He knew the lab-coated doctors working for the man in gray had a tracker of some sort on him. Nothing else explained their ability to pinpoint him and guide him into or out of every location, be it exercise or mission.
He’d checked his body head to toe for implant incisions and come up empty. Drones might be involved, but with his enhanced hearing, he surely would have heard them in the air. More likely they’d chipped him like a dog, except those devices required much closer proximity to be read. Whatever they’d put on him or in him was something else entirely.
This whole situation was something else entirely, he thought, sliding down the bank of the creek inches away from where the woman had done the same. Pausing where she must have turned back to check if she was safe, he wondered again how he’d missed, how she’d known when to dodge.
Maybe she was in the program too and they had folded a new-trainee exercise into his mission. Definitely a possibility within the nature of the system, he thought. No matter. He intended to follow his orders and get back. Nothing was quite as bad as skipping a dose of the highly-addictive drug they kept him on.
Seeing the slash of her boot print on the muddy bank eased his mind. It had been dumb luck rather than skill or knowledge on her part. Anticipating where he’d find his bullet, he crossed the stream. Digging it out, he tucked it into the cargo pocket on his pants leg and resumed his search for the witness.
The footprints disappeared where she entered the creek to hide her trail. Definitely a smart move. He couldn’t pick up any trace of her with his vision. Standing in the middle
of the creek, he looked upstream and down, then closed his eyes. When he’d heard the splashing it was downstream. Picking his way along, hiding his tracks with the water as she had done, he followed the audible clues through the winding waterway.
There, another splash, barely perceptible under the shallow tumbling song of water over rocks. Opening his eyes, he moved cautiously as the sound had been closer than he expected. Had she stopped? Doubled back?
Something was off. Her scent was too close to the water while the sounds were too far away. If this was the first chink in the armor, if the enhancements shut down and he failed to complete the mission, he’d be found and killed.
Death was the only logical outcome. Leaving a witness put the system in jeopardy. He’d only been in the program a few months, but failure and death were as inseparable as peanut butter and jelly.
He paused, closed his eyes again as he searched for her with his other senses. He turned, a beat too late, and a stone connected with the side of his head. Hard.
“Pointer, report! Status…”
The voice in his ear echoed from a distance as his knees buckled. He dropped, boneless into the creek, unconscious before he could register the chill of the water.
*
In Eagle Rock, John wrestled with the news about the JAG officer’s death. The murder itself was bad enough, but the motive… John and Amelia assumed Messenger ordered the hit because the military lawyer had seen too much.
Naturally, without any hard evidence, witnesses, or a statement from the perp, the authorities could only speculate. Current theory was obvious: Harbison, enraged with the JAG officer’s failure, chose revenge over his previously untraceable escape from prison. The murder scene and Harbison’s face on the surveillance recording renewed the manhunt for Scott and Jesse Carlyle too, the third soldier who had been railroaded and subsequently liberated from prison at Messenger’s command.
Damn. John leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling in the office he shared with his wife. Scott carried new, reliable identification but John wouldn’t rest easy until he and Ben were back on the ranch. That should be later this afternoon, assuming they weren’t stopped along the way. With luck, they’d return with some helpful information the authorities hadn’t yet found or hadn’t shared with the press.
