Which had mostly worked, but then she had met Mahegan and together she saw that they had become an unstoppable force.
She gunned the engine, popping a slight wheelie, and sped along the fresh asphalt. She couldn’t be certain, but the sounds of other motorcycles seemed to be vibrating through her helmet. Cassie scanned feverishly for any kind of opening or gate, but was coming up empty. Estimating her speed to be in the 50 mph range, she knew it wouldn’t be long before Broome’s lackeys, once they figured out what was happening, would corral her, perhaps even pinning his death on her. She had his credentials, after all, and was most likely video recorded leaving his office. This being her second escape attempt, Cassie knew that she carried a chip near her spine that could only be surgically removed.
She was on everyone’s Find My Friends app—at least everyone in the lab.
Trees whipped past her like hundreds of indecisive soldiers, frozen in time, branches looking like outstretched arms, confused as to whether to help her or stop her. The shiny chain-link fence kept pushing her to her left, circular, back toward the facility from which she had escaped. To her left were the bright lights of the inner cordon, which now washed the first-perimeter fence in light brighter than day. She assumed the cordon to her right was the outer ring, the last barrier between her and freedom.
Two motorcycles from the opposite direction bore down on her from nearly two hundred yards away, the distance to a head-on collision closing fast. The headlights cut through the trees like target lasers seeking aim on her body. A slight bend in the road was up ahead. She would maybe reach it a half second before the guards to her left.
Cassie gunned the engine. Death was better than what she would have to endure in the laboratory that masqueraded as a trauma therapy clinic. Where the road bent, there was a slight depression to the right, as if the engineers had emplaced a culvert for drainage purposes. Outside the fence, the land fell away sharply up ahead. Instead of seeing the bases of tree trunks, she was looking at the tops of the tree branches. The bend included a speed-calming bump. There was open air on the other side of the fence. Twisting the throttle to full, she popped a wheelie off the speed bump, stood from the seat, and lifted the bike into the air as she had done so many times before on so many tracks in Greene County. Two motorcycles lay flat beneath her as she flew over them like an aircraft taking flight.
The razor wire hummed like a tuning fork as the rear wheel spun across it with barely enough clearance. It was also just enough friction to take the air out of her leap and force the motorcycle to nose over. There was a culvert to her right rear, high ground to her left, and a retention pond to her front. She double-wrapped the cooler strap around her wrist and pushed the bike away from her as she leapt in the opposite direction, toward the pond.
Landing with a splash, Cassie was up and running through the muck. Rifle fire echoed above her, the bullets plunking into the mud and water. High-powered spotlights homed in on her location as she fled toward the bank. Climbing out of the slime, she found the motorcycle, which was damaged, but still operational. She climbed on, straightened out the handlebar, and sped into a thick forest, letting the flow of the steep terrain carry her down the hill . . . or was it a mountain? She couldn’t be sure. While it had been just a few weeks since her admittance to the rehab clinic, it seemed like years. Her memory of arrival was painted over by the pain and anguish of what she and the other women had endured.
Branches scraped at her bleeding face, like sharp-nailed fingertips clawing for purchase on her soul. The air was crisp. Was it September? The drugs had muddied her mind so much that she struggled with the basics. Logs burned in a chimney not too far away, the acrid smoke giving her hope. The farther downhill she rode, the dimmer the lights became. Wouldn’t they just meet her on the next switchback? She rode slowly, navigating between trees and deadfall. This was no trail. Eventually she found a red clay firebreak. She let the motorcycle idle; she feared if she shut it off, the engine would not restart. It sputtered in agreement. Straddling the bike, Cassie leaned against a pine tree and took deep breaths. An owl hooted overhead, perhaps sizing her up for the nightly kill. Another echoed, perhaps dismissing her as unattainable prey.
She unzipped the medical cooler’s outer pouch and retrieved the cell phone. Beneath that pouch was a retractable electrical cord for keeping the cooler at the proper temperature for the concoction inside. Cassie looked at the phone and dialed the only number she knew from memory.
Two rings.
“Mahegan.”
“Jake, it’s Cassie.”
She heard Mahegan pause, holding emotions in check, no doubt. It wasn’t so long ago that he had found her near death in an Iranian high-mountain desert cave, surrounded by spent Mossad and Jordanian Special Forces soldiers.
“Status?” he said.
“I don’t have time to do a back brief, Jake. I’m in a world of hurt,” Cassie said.
“Roger. Where are you?”
“Not sure. Shenandoah Valley somewhere. Like, near Smith Mountain Lake, but not exactly that.”
“I’ll call Savage,” Mahegan said.
“I’m sharing my location with you now,” Cassie said.
After a moment, Mahegan said, “Rod Weston?”
“That must be the guy I killed.”
“You’re in between Lynchburg and Roanoke. Find a secure location and I’ll send help. I’m on detail right now, but will break away ASAP.” Mahegan spoke as if the thought of her killing someone was ordinary.
“Detail?”
“No time, Cassie. Go to ground.”
“Jake, I’ve got a medical cooler,” Cassie added, catching him before he could hang up.
Mahegan paused, no doubt processing. She hoped he understood what she was saying.
“How much time does the cooler have?”
She cursed herself for not having checked ahead of time. Unzipping the upper flap without opening the cooler, she saw the digital display flicker to life. An hour after being unplugged, the cooler began a countdown before it began using internal power to keep the contents at the proper temperature.
Dogs barked in the distance. She hadn’t slept in days. Planning, plotting, and executing her escape had sapped her. Like with a soldier going to combat, often energy was depleted in the complex tasks of arriving at the battlefield. How was she supposed to fight, now that she was outside the wire? Could she keep running?
The red numbers winked at her, flashing like a warning.
“Seventy-one hours,” she whispered into the phone.
“Ditch the phone. Stay alive, Cassie. I’ll find you,” Mahegan said.
Whining motorcycle engines sounded in the distance. Cassie looked over her shoulder and continued her flight downhill.
CHAPTER 5
CASSIE SPED ALONG THE WINDING TRAIL THAT FOLLOWED THE MOUN tain ridges until she saw a sign that read, TAYLOR’S MOUNTAIN. She slowed as she nosed over the eastern lip of the mountain and found a trail off the paved highway. Revving the throttle with her right hand, she winced at the number 17 tattooed on her right wrist, like a hip, modern-day tat. Her mind kept spinning with Zara’s voice.
Artemis teams are ready.
Her relative isolation in Walter Reed and then in the Valley Trauma Center had shielded her from much of the political environment of the day. She knew it was nothing short of divisive, but had always believed the country could unite over common cause. There was nothing like a severe threat to the nation to bring people together. Yet, the Russia, Iran, and North Korea alliance had done little to sow unity. Rather, the identity politics and emphasis on uniqueness had led to hardened beliefs, tribal allegiances, and adherence to conspiracy theories.
Angry that the country she fought bravely to secure was so utterly divided, Cassie revved the engine again, and it whined like a chain saw.
She had done as Mahegan instructed and tossed the phone into a stream as soon as she’d sped from her temporary hide site outside the fence of the compound. Pu
lling up to the edge of the forest, she shut off the engine of the motorcycle and removed the helmet, giving herself some time for her ears to adjust to the sounds. The land sloped away from her at roughly a thirty-degree angle. Tall hardwood and pine trees towered above her. Cassie had used the motorcycle to hasten her egress to the southeast, away from the compound, but without a GPS, she had little idea where she was or where she might be going. Motorcycles screeched in the distance on the far side of the mountain, sounding like wailing banshees.
The wood frame cabin was maybe seventy yards from her position. It had a single smokestack on the right side. A footpath angled to her left from the back door into some lower ground. Cassie guessed there was a stream in that direction. A single cable hung low from two telephone poles and fed into the house opposite the chimney. A small satellite dish perched near the chimney and angled to the southwest, her right. The open land between her and the trees was worn, as if animals grazed, though she didn’t immediately see anything moving. Maybe horses or cattle, she figured.
She stopped. To her far right, she saw the outline of a barn and considered that the animals might be in for the night, especially if they were horses. Another black cable fed into the barn, which was more than a hundred yards away. The evening sounds began to replace the muffled vibrations of the now-muted motorcycle engines. Crickets chimed their rhythmic buzz. Bears growled in the distance. A semitruck hit the rumble strips of a road somewhere in the distance, keeping it between the ditches. A horse whinnied from the barn.
And a pistol clicked to her right.
“Don’t move,” a voice said.
“Not moving,” she responded quickly.
“A woman?”
“Yes. A woman.” Her hand inched toward her gown pocket, heavy with the HK pistol, safety off, round chambered.
“This is my land,” the man said. His voice had the tenor of an adult, but not an older man. It was solid, but not gruff. Deep, but not bass.
“No intention to trespass,” Cassie said.
“Yet, here you are,” the man countered.
“I was being chased,” Cassie replied, wary of how much information to provide. More than likely the laboratory from which she had escaped paid retainers to people in the region to watch for escapees such as her. There were rumors. The infrequent interaction she had with the other “patients” had mainly consisted of sharing horror stories of treatment, plans to escape, and urban legends of those that had tried and failed.
“What’s that box you’re carrying?” the man asked. He spoke clearly with a country accent, but enunciated in such a way that she guessed he had some education.
“It’s a medical cooler with vials of medicine that I have to keep chilled.”
A long pause ensued. He was thinking. Her fingertips touched the gown pocket, brushing the cotton and then sliding inside to touch the cool metal. She slipped the V of her hand into position and wrapped her three nonshooting fingers around the grip. Keeping her finger straight along the trigger housing, she began to slowly lift the pistol.
“Move that right hand another inch, this thirty-eight special will blow a hole in you the size of that helmet,” the man said.
“Understand.” He had given away what type of weapon he carried, which was useful. Or he had disclosed one of the types of weapons he might have on him.
Twigs broke and leaves rustled as the man closed the distance. She didn’t have time to crank the motorcycle and speed away without risk of getting shot. On the other hand, he seemed to be considering all factors. He had every right to shoot her on the spot. She was likely on his property, as he’d said. Maybe the lab paid extra if he returned a live patient, she wasn’t certain.
He was close now. She could smell the horses on him. He must have been in the barn earlier, probably prepping the horses for nighttime. Feed, water, and brush was the routine she remembered from her parents’ farm.
His hand reached into her gown pocket and retrieved the pistol. He also removed the tactical knife. She was defenseless. Perhaps she should have provided more resistance, but instinct told her to not resist, despite the rage she was feeling. She fought the urge to attack and remained still.
“Step off the bike,” he said. “Opposite side of me.”
His voice was firm, but there was a thread of empathy hidden in the dialect. A voice carried the history of its owner, like a DNA marker. Pain, joy, anguish, happiness, discontent, contentment, stress, relief, all came through. As an intelligence officer and efficient linguist, Cassie listened for the crazy edge or the psychobabble, but found instead a humanitarian inflection. Not wanting to make too much of her two-second analysis, she remained on guard, as prepared as she could be, straddling the idle motorcycle.
She lifted her right leg and spun off the motorcycle slowly so that she was facing him. With her left hand holding the handlebar, and her right gripping the medical cooler strap and the padded racing seat, she stared at the figure standing less than five feet away. Night vision goggles protruded from his face like a robotic soldier. He held a pistol in one hand and had what looked like an M4 carbine—more likely an AR-15—strapped across his chest. He appeared to be a basic infantry soldier on patrol. A dark long-sleeved T-shirt covered his muscled upper body while he wore tan cargo pants above what appeared to be lightweight combat boots.
“What now?” Cassie asked.
“State your business,” the man said.
State your business.
Words every infantryman who ever stood guard at a post knew by memory.
“I’m being chased by men that want to hurt me,” Cassie said. Appealing to the inner knight in him seemed like the best move.
“Why did you come here?” he asked.
The question seemed loaded, as if his place might be a safe haven, maybe even a location others like her had found. She knew of no escapees from the compound, but she had only been there a few weeks.
“I followed Skyline Drive and took the turnoff onto this trail. Saw the clearing and wanted to proceed with caution. Not my property.”
He nodded in the darkness. The goggles peered at her, then turned toward the house before returning to her.
“Walk the bike into the barn. I’ll follow you,” he said.
Cassie took some clumsy steps in her oversized boots.
Behind them two motorcycle engines whined loudly, maybe a half mile away, having just come over the ridge.
“Get on,” he said, sweeping his arm around her torso. He straddled the bike behind her and pumped the START button. The engine roared to life and he stepped on the gearshift, propelling them forward. With his pistol wedged precariously between his hand and the throttle, he drove in serpentine fashion through the pasture, slowing as they approached the barn. Shutting the engine, he shifted into neutral and let the bike glide into one of the horse stalls. Three thoroughbreds looked up from their evening chow and studied the duo and went back to work on their oats.
“Close the doors,” he directed. A pale light shone in the barn. He dimmed it. One of the stalls to her right was actually a small alcove with two rectangular tables and some equipment hanging from the wall. Like a workshop, but different, she thought. There were some electrical outlets at the end of the metal tubing snaking down from the rafters. The tubes were stapled to the two-by-four frame and carried the electrical cables. Cassie jogged over and set the cooler on one of the tables, unwrapped the electrical cord, and plugged it in. Then she pushed the heavy oak doors shut and lowered the cantilevered arm through the holds on either door. She turned, and he was standing behind her.
“Know how to use this?” he asked. The AR-15 had a nightscope and PAQ-4C aiming light. This was advanced weaponry.
“Better than you think,” she said. “But without goggles, it’s useless.”
“Here,” he said, offering her a PVS-16 night vision monocle with head harness.
He guided her up to the loft, climbing a straight-up ladder, then leaned over and hefted her up onto the
plywood flooring covered with hay. Bales of hay were stacked five high around the entire loft. Small windows were in the corner, like castle firing ports.
“I’ll take the right and you take the left. Don’t shoot unless I do. It’s my property. If they trespass and have weapons, then we’re good with hostile intent.”
Hostile intent.
Another military maxim.
“Roger,” she said.
“One question,” he said. “If you lost them, how do they know you’re here?”
“They injected an RFID tag in my back. I’m pinging live right now.”
“Fuck. And you had to come here?”
“Sorry, but it looks like I came to the right place. Long rifles. Goggles. You got a Barrett or SR-25?”
Her question about the two sniper rifles was intended as a joke, but his face remained serious. “Just an SR. Barrett is expensive.”
“If we’re fighting together, what should I call you?”
“Doug,” he said. “Doug Raxler. Or they just call me Rax.”
“Rax it is,” Cassie said.
“And you?”
“Cassie Bagwell,” she said.
After a pause.
“I’m going to ask for proof of that after all this is done. If you’re Captain Cassie Bagwell, we better keep you alive.”
“I like that plan,” she said.
He nodded and slid to the right about ten yards, while Cassie charged the AR-15, flipped off the safety, and crawled to the window. Donning the night vision goggle, she instantly saw the headlights of the two motorcycles bouncing along the same trail she had followed.
Using the scope, she tracked the trail rider as the two motorcycles fed single file into the clearing. It was a perfect ambush location. They paused, engines running, and then sped in their direction. Most likely using in-helmet communications systems, the riders wasted very little time. Strapped across their bodies were long rifles.
Rax must have taken that as a cue for hostile intent, because he squeezed two rounds into the chest of the lead rider. He flipped back, letting go of the handlebars, and spun off of his motorcycle, which popped a wheelie before spinning backward.
Double Crossfire Page 4
