by Cindy Dees
Brothers leaned back in his chair and stroked his mutton chops while studying Mike shrewdly. “I did. What was she shooting?”
Mike glanced sidelong at Piper and caught her infinitesimal nod out of the corner of his eye. “As I recall, it was a modified Sig 550 sniper rig.”
“Still target shooting, are you, Pipes?” Brothers asked.
“I won a couple of competitions last year,” she replied. “Mike’s a decent shot, too.”
He allowed his mental snort to escape his throat. Decent? He was a military sniper, for god’s sake.
“Oh yeah? What do you shoot?” His father-in-law skewered him with a sharp stare.
“Pretty much anything, sir.”
Silence reigned as Brothers scowled at him. The fire crackled gently as the newly added wood started to catch fire.
God, this was awkward. The man was no doubt sitting there picturing all the filthy things Mike was doing to his daughter in bed. Worse, the man would not be wrong. This was exactly why Mike had no interest in getting married for real. His own family was hassle enough. He bloody well didn’t need to inherit more nosy relatives.
“What are your political beliefs?” Brothers fired at him.
Holy shit. Loaded question. “Pretty conservative, I guess. Piper’s told me a little about the Patrick Henry Patriots.”
“She tell you we have horns on our heads and belong in rubber rooms?”
“Not in so many words, sir,” Mike answered dryly.
Brothers laughed heartily. Without warning, though, he waxed serious. Intense. “Why’d you break into my shop, boy?”
Mike shrugged. “To see if I could do it. Piper said you guys had pretty sharp security. I didn’t think a guy like you would be too impressed by some stranger knocking politely on your front door to let you know I had married your baby girl. I figured you’d want to know I was man enough to be part of the family.”
That made Brothers lean back hard in his chair and stroke his mutton chops furiously. Eventually, the man looked over at Piper. “Never thought you’d marry a man like me. Thought you’d go for some military asshole who swallows the government’s propaganda and spouts it back like a robot.”
Mike schooled his jaw to relax, his expression to stay open.
“Oh, he can be an asshole from time to time,” she muttered.
Brothers laughed. “Doesn’t let you push him around, huh?” The man’s gaze lit on him. “Good for you, son.”
He’d been upgraded from boy to son. He hoped that was a good sign.
“What do you do for a living?” Brothers demanded.
“Mechanic,” he answered, sticking to the legend the analyst had created for them. Less chance of him and Piper getting their story wires crossed that way. “Diesel engines, mostly.” The diesel detail had been Piper’s idea. Tractors used the old-fashioned engines and were slightly less unacceptable to the PHP than modern, electronic, fuel-injected vehicles.
He shrugged. “I also like to hunt. Do some fishing. I carve a little in my spare time. Not that Piper leaves me much time for that. Always seems to have a list of stuff for me to do.”
The entire group of men laughed at that. Honey Do lists were universal, apparently.
Piper scowled on cue, and said, “It’s getting late. Can we bed down here, tonight, or should we head back to town?”
“Where you staying?” her father asked.
“We grabbed a cabin at the Trout Camp.”
“Might as well throw down a sleeping bag here. We can talk more, tomorrow. Get to know Mike, here.” So. Brothers didn’t entirely trust him, yet. Good instincts, the guy had. Didn’t completely buy the story of why they’d broken in to the compound. Mike’s own instincts said the guy was buying time. Delaying them. Why? What was on the verge of happening that he and Piper had to be kept out of the way of?
She’d had a good idea trying to talk them out of the compound like that. Although frankly, he’d have been suspicious if Brothers had let them go so easily. Sleeping bags were brought for the two of them to bunk down in front of the fire in here, overnight. Mike endured a few ribs about the bags zipping together and caught a scowl from his “father-in-law” over the jokes. God. Did all men go through this when they married the daughter of some redneck with a shotgun? It was a wonder anyone married those poor girls.
Brothers left them a lantern with a gruff, “Don’t sleep with the Devil, Piper.” And the two of them were left alone.
Mike visually scanned the room for surveillance measures, but spotted nothing. He extinguished the lantern, and they duly crawled into their double sleeping bag by the dim light of the fire. He held his arm out in invitation, and she snuggled up against his side.
“We being watched?” he murmured against her temple.
“Not electronically, but maybe.”
“You sure they’re not using electronic surveillance? When we were lying on the floor, I think I saw motion detectors and pressure pads in the shop.”
“Really?” She started to push up on his chest to stare down at him, but he used his hand to anchor her shoulder and hold her down.
“What did your father mean by that last comment about not sleeping with the devil?”
“Favorite saying of his. Sometimes you have to sleep with the Devil if you want to catch him.”
“A cheery bedtime thought,” he muttered. Interesting. The guy thought that sometimes you had to do what you were opposed to for the sake of a greater goal? Mike filed that away for later analysis.
“We need to get out of here,” Piper breathed from behind unmoving lips. “He doesn’t trust you.”
“He doesn’t trust you, either,” Mike replied.
He felt her sigh against his side. Now was not the time to rail against her for failing to reveal her personal connection to this mission. Uncle Sam was gonna have her head—and her job—on a platter for it when they got back to Washington. Too bad. She had real potential as a field observer. Assuming she could learn not to involve herself in local events.
“We should head out sooner rather than later,” she commented. “They’ll expect us to wait until just before dawn to leave. I’d suggest we give everyone a half-hour to settle down and then we split.”
“Why will they expect a pre-dawn escape?” he queried.
“Lot of these guys are ex-military. It’s when most military types would make the attempt.”
It was, indeed, when he would have tried it. His training taught that people’s body rhythms were at their lowest in the pre-dawn hours, and most people would be deeply asleep at that time. Those who’d tried to stay awake would be at their least alert and fighting off an urge to nod off.
He set a silent alarm on his cell phone to vibrate him awake in a half hour, and Piper did the same. A power nap never hurt in the middle of an op. Except, when he closed his eyes, his mind drifted back to the object he’d seen under the tarp in the back of that airplane. That large magnetic coil had been connected to a motor of some kind. An electro-magnet. There had been something inside the coil, but he hadn’t been able to take a good look at it before Brothers and company had burst in.
What could these guys be doing with a large electro-mag—
—It hit him like a ton of bricks. Ho. Lee. Shit.
That was an electro-magnetic pulse generator. The concept was simple. Explode a small bomb inside a magnetic field, and a giant wave of energy would be propagated outward. Said wave would be electro-magnetic in nature and wipe out all electrical objects in its path. Generator, televisions, phones, computers, toasters, anything using electrical current would be fried, as in destroyed. Permanently unusable.
Of course. These guys wanted to take America back to the nineteenth century. How better to do that than by wrecking all modern technology? Christ. He had to get another look at that bomb. See how powerful it was. Hell, disable it.
He lay tense and still beneath Piper as she napped on his chest. Where were they planning to detonate this bomb of theirs? With a
small airplane, they could fly it just about anywhere in the United States. And if they happened to explode it while airborne, the pulse would travel line of sight for miles. That one device could wipe out a big chunk of a major city.
A suicide bomber? Was one among them? Or would they remote-pilot the plane? The technology was available to turn a plane into a drone easily enough.
His silent alarm vibrated against his hip, and Piper jerked awake beside him. He breathed in her ear, “Arrange your sleeping bag so it looks like you’re still in it, then follow me. We’re going back to the shop to have another look at that airplane’s cargo.”
Piper stiffened and whispered back, “We have to get out of here.”
“After that.”
“But—”
“No arguments. We have to do this, even if we get caught again.”
“If they catch us in there again, they’ll shoot us.”
His response was grim. “So be it. Consider this an order. Life or death. I’ll explain later.” Thankfully, she nodded and made no further protest even though the expression in her eyes was doubtful.
They worked in silence, bunching up their sleeping bags and lacing on their boots quietly. She hand-signaled that she was ready to go, and he headed for the window least back-lit by the fireplace. He oiled the wooden jamb and eased it open. They climbed out the window quickly, rolling to the ground to scan the area around them. No movement. No reaction to their escape. At least not yet. He reached up to ease the window shut and signaled Piper to follow him.
He led the way behind several cabins toward the big shop building. The dogs didn’t show themselves, and he didn’t go looking for them. This time when he broke into the shop, he operated on the assumption that there were silent alarms and electronic surveillance. He found the main incoming electrical feed, disabled it, and waited in the bushes behind the building for a good ten minutes to see if anyone would react to the loss of power.
Since no men with guns showed up, he gathered that their security was not so sophisticated that a power interruption would trigger an alarm. He jimmied open the small window in the back wall and, again, waited for a response. Nothing. He indicated that Piper should stay outside and stand watch while he infiltrated the shop.
As he slithered through the window, he contemplated that this was the first time a woman had ever had his back on an operation. Not just any woman. Piper. Did he trust her? She hadn’t revealed to anyone in the government who her family was, what her connection to the PHP was. It wasn’t exactly a lie to have omitted the truth, but it cast serious doubt on her motives.
Even if she did betray him out there, he had no choice but to go forward with this maneuver. No way could he leave an operational EMP weapon sitting in the hands of dangerous nutballs. He gained his feet inside the hangar and froze, checking for telltale signs of motion detectors or other security measures that might still be operational. Avoiding the rubber mats on the floor that might be hiding pressure plates, he moved quickly to the airplane. The pilot’s door was unlatched, and he reached for it just as a silhouette briefly appeared in the window he’d used.
He reached for his sidearm before he recognized the lithe shape of Piper joining him.
“I told you to stay outside,” he whispered tersely.
“It’ll go faster in here with two of us. What are we looking for?”
Irritation raged through him, but the damage was already done. She was already inside. “Search the cockpit for anything that might indicate where they’re planning to fly this bird to.”
She nodded, and he climbed into the back, straddling the bomb. He ducked under the tarp with the bomb and turned on his flashlight. Shielding it heavily with his hand, he let a small beam of light trickle down on the device. Bundles of dynamite nestled inside the copper coil of the electromagnet. He had to disable this thing. But in a way the PHP wouldn’t see and repair before they tried to detonate it.
He carefully unscrewed the housing covering the detonation circuit board, timer and trigger. Using the tip of his knife, he carefully detached the wires between the three components. He reattached them randomly, leaving out a couple of vital connections that would complete the circuits. When all the wire ends had a home, he replaced the housing and screwed it back in place. Good Lord willing, the bomb’s maker would not recheck the wiring closely before trying to explode it.
He turned around in the cramped space to where Piper was searching the passenger side map pocket built into the door. “Find anything?” he breathed.
She shrugged.
He hand signaled her to ask if she was ready to go. She nodded and crawled out of the aircraft. Moving quickly now that their primary mission was accomplished, he darted to the window. A quick peek outside. Clear. Out he went. Piper landed lightly beside him. He paused just long enough to close the window and then headed for the woods. He took the lead, moving cautiously, testing for trip wires and booby traps with each step. It was slow going, but he’d learned his lesson with these guys. Better safe than sorry.
Eventually, the compound disappeared from sight in the trees behind them. He disciplined himself to continue moving carefully until they’d topped the big ridge well beyond the compound. Finally, at long last, he stopped and turned to face Piper. He had a thousand questions for her, but they would have to wait until they were completely away from here.
“We’re clear,” he said in a low voice that would only carry a few feet. “Our truck’s off to the east about a half-mile.”
“Want me to take point?” she asked.
“Nah. I’m good. Just don’t let anyone sneak up on us from behind.”
“I’ve got rear guard,” she affirmed.
Did she? Really? He had to play this thing out and wait for her to turn on him. His shoulder blades twitched ominously as he headed out.
It took nearly an hour to reach the vehicle through the brush and heavy terrain, but if she was planning to betray him, Piper had another moment in mind, apparently. He breathed a sigh of relief as he started the truck and drove off into the darkness. Once he’d put several miles between them and the PHP, he finally turned on his headlights.
They turned onto a paved road and he accelerated away from the compound, gripping the steering wheel tightly. He glanced over at Piper who was staring fixedly out her window. As tempted as he was to demand answers from her, he needed to wait until they were stopped somewhere. Somewhere he could detain her. Arrest her, even, if she gave him the wrong answers.
They drove for several hours, and he stopped only when they reached Fairchild Air Force Base on the outskirts of Spokane, Washington. He flashed his military ID and was given a visitor’s pass to the base, which was the home of Aircrew Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape Training. He headed directly for the advanced prisoner interrogation facility. It was a non-descript building on the outside. Inside, he knew it to be equipped with state-of-the-art interrogation equipment…which he prayed he would not need to use on Piper.
Frowning, she followed him into the unmarked building. He pulled the desk guard aside and had a brief, muttered conversation with the guy out of Piper’s hearing. A few phone calls were made, and in a few minutes, he and Piper were led to a soundproof room with no surveillance cameras. He ushered her inside, followed her in, and locked the door behind himself.
He said grimly, “Have a seat. We need to talk.”
Fourteen
Piper gulped. The odd acoustics of the padded walls were familiar to her. She would never forget the advanced interrogation techniques that had been part of her CIA training in Virginia. She’d known this moment was coming ever since she’d uttered the words, “Hi, Daddy.” But she couldn’t stop her knees from knocking together or her teeth from wanting to chatter.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she blurted to Mike.
He perched on the edge of the table bolted to the floor in the middle of the room, and folded his arms, studying her. “How’s that?” he asked evenly.
At least he sounded like he was willing to hear her out before he condemned her out of hand. But his eyes were cold. Closed. So unlike the open, generous lover she’d come to know over the past few weeks. Right now, he looked every inch the angry intelligence officer she knew him to be.
“I’m not one of them. I think my father and brother are a little crazy and in need of watching. That’s why I’ve been tracking the PHP for the past two years on my own time.”
He moved so fast she didn’t even have time to react, grabbing her shoulders, lifting her out of the chair and slamming her back against the spongy wall. He snarled in her face, “That’s exactly what you would say if you were secretly working with them, infiltrating the government intelligence apparatus to find out what was being said about them, any actions that might be planned against them.”
He looked furious. Murderously so. God knew, if he decided to kill her she wouldn’t be able to stop him. He was right about one thing. She would never be the Special Forces soldier that he was. He had eight inches in height and sixty pounds of solid muscle on her.
She answered candidly, “If I had admitted they were my family and that I thought they were nuts, would anyone have taken me seriously?”
Mike gritted, “Probably not. Without a credible threat from them, you’d have been ignored.”
“Hence, I watched them myself and waited for something to change. The minute my dad and brother headed for Sudan, I reported it to my boss.”
“But you still didn’t tell him who you were, or who they were to you, did you?”
“Well, no.”
He flung her away from him and paced a restless circuit around the tiny room.
“How’d you convince André Fortinay to send you after them?” he threw at her.
She held her position carefully, not moving in any way that would provoke the tiger in him to attack her. “I told André I had a gut instinct that something had changed with the PHP and that they were becoming dangerous. Which wasn’t a hard idea to sell given that they were headed for Khartoum, the birthplace of most of the world’s worst terrorists. And I wasn’t wrong that they’re dangerous, was I?”
