Defensive Action

by Jenna Kernan

  “I have to go there.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now, before our adversaries recover it.”

  “By yourself?”

  “I’ll contact Colonel Braiser.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Friend of a friend.”

  “You trust him?”

  “My former commanding officer, Jorge Hernandez, vouches for him. I have to go with that.”

  “So you’ll wait for Braiser and your people to arrive and then join them?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Wait. No. Not by yourself. You said that your people are coming. They could be here in...what? An hour or two.”

  “I don’t know when they will be here, but I know where I am and where the biological weapon is.”

  “You have no idea how it’s guarded,” she said.

  “I have no choice.”

  She blinked at him. “I’m sorry I told you.”

  He stood.

  “Haley, you need to go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Back to your old life.”

  But she didn’t want to. Now she saw her Brooklyn apartment as what it was, a safe little cave in which to hide. And her job...taking no risks as she broke down virtual walls.

  She stood and moved to the window, touched the curtain, and he was there, clasping her wrist, drawing her away. She would make a fine target in that window for anyone searching from the woods. Were they out there now?

  “I should come with you,” she said.

  His eyes were sad as he gave a shake of his head. “I won’t bring you back into danger. You saved my life. I’ve tried to do the same.”

  The debt was repaid. She let her chin sink to her chest, wishing she could go back and never have spent the night in his arms. Because how could she let him go, now that she knew the perfection of his body, their lovemaking and oh, dear Lord, she loved him. The tears dribbled down her cheeks. She dashed them away.

  What an idiot she was.

  “How do you know they won’t come after me?” she asked. “That I’m really safe?”

  She didn’t care if she was safe as long as she was with him and so she grasped at straws.

  “Once I make the delivery, you are of zero value to them.”

  And to him. She looked up into his eyes and saw regret.

  He released her wrist and stepped back, letting his hands drop to his sides. He was letting her go. She had no doubt.

  She wanted to ask him to come back to her and suddenly saw herself through his eyes. She’d mainly been a hindrance, making his job harder on several occasions. Going with him now could endanger him even further and nothing she could say would stop him.

  “Well, thank you for keeping me alive,” she said. Her voice broke.

  “Oh, Haley, you’re killing me.” He dragged her in and tucked her close. He stroked her hair as she indulged in tears.

  Ryan couldn’t believe he had to do this or how much it tore him up inside. Ironic that now that he’d finally found a woman he wanted to spend time with, he was forced to let her go for her own good.

  “I’ll miss you,” she said.

  “That’s hard to believe.” His voice held a mirth she just could not muster. “Haley, I’m not the guy you need.”

  She pulled back, seeming to rally because she straightened her shoulders like a soldier at attention.

  “So, is that how you do it? Give them a colossal orgasm, wine and a fine meal before shoving off?”

  “Haley...it’s not like that.”

  Her hands went to her hips. “How is it exactly? We going to meet up in NYC? You gonna call me from Africa on FaceTime?”

  “Haley, I don’t make promises I can’t keep. I’m already assigned to my next gig.”

  “Got it. Thanks for breakfast. Very thoughtful.” She extended her hand as if to shake goodbye.

  He took her hand and kissed it. “I’m no good for you, you know?”

  “Keep telling yourself that. Should make me easier to forget.”

  “I won’t forget you, Haley.” He turned and left the room. She waited until she heard the door to the hallway click shut before she collapsed back into her chair.

  “Well, I’ll be doing everything I can to forget you,” she whispered.

  She had to. It was the only way to survive losing the man with whom she had been stupid enough to fall in love.

  * * *

  RYAN WONDERED IF he should just walk away and keep walking. It was what he’d do in normal circumstances. She was safe and their protective detail was en route. She didn’t need him and he surely did not need her.

  But somehow he did.

  Ryan hurried his steps, putting distance between them. He had to get to the location that she’d decoded from the thumb drive and as predicted there was time-sensitive information there. Takashi’s reason for moving the meet was now very clear.

  In the lobby he lifted his phone and called Colonel Braiser, giving him the details and his course. His friend and confidant Jorge Hernandez had assured him that the leak had not come from their end. Ryan had to go with that. Braiser said that the protective detail he’d requested would make contact with Haley and escort her away from Saratoga Springs.

  As for his backup, they were en route and would be redirected to the coordinates Ryan provided. In addition, they had a helicopter on standby ready for transport of the sample to the Center for Disease Control. The bird was en route now and awaiting coordinates for landing.

  Haley had done her nation a great service. He planned to see she got the recognition she deserved in this case. But first he had to see about the vaccine and viral serum.

  In the parking lot he paused to look back at the hotel.

  What was happening here?

  He lived by rules that had kept him from getting hurt. No attachments. The mission comes first.

  “But does it?” Had he said that aloud?

  Of course it did. Haley was sweet and smart and brave, but she wasn’t coming with him on his next assignment. She shouldn’t be here on this one.

  Yet she’d been an asset. He knew of a few that preferred working in teams. Partners.

  But not romantically involved. Not partners in the true sense. Is that what he wanted? Finish an assignment and come home to find Haley there asking, “How was your day, dear?”

  “No,” he muttered.

  He wanted her in his bed every night and beside him when he wasn’t bedding her.

  “This is crazy.”

  He replayed Haley’s goodbye in his mind. She’d seemed less shattered than furious. How had she thought this would end? More importantly, what did she want to happen between them?

  It didn’t matter what she wanted. She was going back to her life and he was returning to the mission. The colonel assured him that Haley would be protected.

  Ryan had orders. But suddenly they didn’t seem his whole world.

  The problem was that he found everything about Haley attractive. Not just the smell and feel of her. It was her smarts and her bravery. She’d been dealt a hard blow with the death of her sister. She didn’t need to be involved with a man who might never come home. But beyond that, he had a mission. Everything else had to come second, even the woman he loved.

  He would let her go now, while she was safe and he still had a mission that required his attention. Because if not for that mission he might just decide to keep her, make her believe he would survive the crazy risks he took and bring her along on his own personal adventure camp.

  Ryan realized he was still standing before his vehicle after an unknown number of minutes. He snorted and lifted the fob. In less than thirty seconds, he was on his way.

  * * *

  HALEY SAT ALONE for a long while staring at the woods beyond the sunny little porch.
>
  Ryan had left her behind. Was she a hindrance or was he protecting her? She thought of what he’d said in the woods about not being able to protect those men under his command. Since then he seemed to have taken every dangerous assignment possible and he worked alone. No risk of failing someone else. Survivor’s guilt. Yes, that fit, but in his hurry to protect her, he was risking something she could not live without... Him.

  She rose, knowing that she would not go back to adventure camp or back to her dad in Colonie or even back to Brooklyn and her consulting business.

  She was going after Ryan. Perhaps he wouldn’t need her. But she was going, just the same. But first she had to steal a car. Haley yanked her hair into a ponytail and tucked the pistol he’d left her into the front of her bra. She wheeled it from the room to the bell stand. There she stowed the suitcase, collecting a claim check. Ryan would be furious, but Ryan was not here. She called the valet and ordered the GMC to be brought out front. Then she tucked the claim ticket in the tiny pocket of the tennis outfit and headed outside, where she handed over the ticket to one of the valets, got in the driver’s door and drove away.

  She programmed in the destination and, just like that, she was on her way north again, back to Lake George and the garnet mine that lay northwest of the lake.

  Ryan was not going after that serum alone. She wasn’t good backup, but perhaps her presence would be better than nothing. Besides, it could be worse. She could be preparing to fly down a zip line.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ryan discovered that the garnet mine was up a winding improved dirt road on the side of a mountain that offered zero chance of a helicopter landing. That meant he not only had to find and extract the biohazard, he had to transport it from this site. He bypassed the mine office and ignored the signs warning of private property, no trespassing and danger of blasting.

  He had GPS coordinates and he continued on, through the open wire mesh gate and past the twelve-foot wire mesh perimeter fencing. The trees opened up to reveal a dirt parking lot that sparkled with the tiny glistening crystals of bloodred garnet. There were two work trailers, a nice variety of mud-spattered pickup trucks and heavy construction machinery. He recognized a bulldozer, backhoe and Bobcat. Before him was a thirty-foot rock wall with a crudely made road running along the base. A handful of men worked hydraulic jackhammers while the backhoe operator raked the tailings away from the cliff wall with the bucket. The pockets of garnet were obvious in the dark gray stone. They looked like circular patches of deep red glass. He knew enough about garnet to know it was used as an abrasive on sandpaper and emery boards, but imagined the industrial uses were many. He also imagined that the raw rock would be transported somewhere to be crushed and processed. From there it would be shipped anywhere in the world. And along with it, the biohazard, unless he could find it first.

  According to Takashi’s thumb drive, this was the first drop. From here it was destined for a production plant, the location of which was still unknown. The best way to find that plant was to allow the biohazard pickup and follow it to its destination.

  But the colonel did not like to take chances. He wanted the toxin contained and in the hands of the CDC. Ryan could hardly disagree. Although waiting for backup might mean losing his chance. His realization was brought into sharp focus when a pickup truck drove past him, destined for who knew where. Hopefully not a drug manufacturing plant.

  No time to wait, he decided and parked his vehicle with the others and checked his coordinates. This was the location. The trailers were the obvious place to store the package. Likely the office trailer had a refrigerator. Other possibilities were the garage, made from corrugated sheets of metal, or one of the trucks, many of which had long tool kits in their pickup beds.

  A man stepped out of the office trailer. He wore a dirty hard hat, a frayed, insulated underwear shirt with dirty cuffs and ill-fitting jeans.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  Behind him, Ryan saw the window slide open and the barrel of a rifle aimed in his direction.

  “Hey there!” he waved. “My kid is an absolute nut for rocks and minerals. You ever give tours up here?”

  “No, mister. You’re trespassing on private property.”

  Ryan was now standing in a position so that the shooter’s line of sight was blocked by the man who confronted him.

  “What about a sample then? I’ll pay for it.”

  “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  The man was covered in rock dust. He aimed a dirty hand in the direction of the gate. He was not, in Ryan’s opinion, a member of Siming’s Army or a mercenary. So he didn’t kill him.

  Ryan did throw him down the stairs, grabbing the hard hat from his head as he fell. Once inside, he threw the hard hat at the man by the window who was having trouble extracting his rifle barrel from the frame. Then he locked the trailer door.

  Ryan had his pistol drawn and aimed at the guy’s head. He made the right move, lifting his hands and letting the rifle fall to the bench seat beside him.

  “Where is it?” Ryan asked.

  “Where is what?”

  “Up,” Ryan said, using the pistol to motion him in the direction he wanted him to move.

  The work trailer was open, showing a kitchenette and a padlocked closet.

  “You got that key?” he asked.

  The man nodded, sweating now as he continued toward the closet. He fumbled with his keys and released the lock.

  “Open it,” Ryan ordered. By now the worker outside would be up and either following him inside or running for help.

  The guy opened the door. Ryan ordered him away and made a quick check. Then Ryan ordered him in and locked the door behind him.

  Back in the kitchenette, Ryan opened the refrigerator and saw a neat red plastic cooler. He lifted it clear and set it carefully on the counter. Inside was a black leather case about five by seven by two inches that zipped closed. He opened it and stared at the two vials. Someone had secured the top of one with sealing wax, as one does a bottle of fine alcohol. The other vial just had a snap-on plastic cap. The vials were glass. The writing on the outside was Chinese or Korean or Japanese. He didn’t know.

  Now for the hard part: getting out of there.

  The blast of automatic gunfire brought him to the ground. Beams of light shone through the multiple holes in the side of the trailer. Inside the closet, his captive screamed. Ryan hoped he was smart enough to get down.

  The walls of the trailer were no match for the lead chewing through the exterior. And Ryan’s handgun was no match for the weapons wielded by his foes. Two shooters, he judged from the directions of the gunfire and the angle of the bullets flying over his head. They circled the trailer, spraying it with bullets.

  There were only two exits and both were on the same side of the trailer. He now faced a terrible choice: destroy the samples or let them fall back into the hands of their enemies.

  As the bullets chewed through the siding like termites though wet wood, he was glad that Haley was not here with him. But then her words echoed in his mind.

  Maybe you are burying your guilt behind a revolving door of dangerous assignments.

  She was right. And if he could figure out how to survive this assignment, he planned to tell her so.

  * * *

  HALEY LAY ON her belly on the ground beside the gate leading to the open-pit mine. Behind her, just past the view of anyone on the job site, was the GMC. She left the car close but out of sight, with the keys in the ignition.

  She surveyed the scene, just as she had learned in her CPR class, looking for dangers, and saw nothing but a seemingly ordinary construction site.

  The job site looked normal, with dump trucks picking up the tailings lifted into their enormous containers by a single-bucket evacuator. Men worked with jackhammers at the glittering pockets of garnet which were over t
en feet in height and roughly circular.

  But three men did not fit the scene. They were dressed in slacks and the sort of bulky jackets that could hide firearms.

  They faced away from the job site and were stationed in lookout locations, but a shout brought them all running toward the office trailer.

  Was Ryan here yet? Was he in there?

  The answer came when they unloaded a torrent of automatic gunfire into the side of the flimsy structure.

  She now had little doubt who was inside.

  They were making such a racket that they did not hear her arrival as she headed for the construction vehicles.

  She knew full well that the only way to get Ryan out was to get those men clear. And she wasn’t doing that with the SUV or the handgun he’d left her. She needed some real horsepower. Something designed for ripping away earth and blowing through obstacles.

  “Thanks, Dad,” she whispered as she chose the familiar backhoe. It was perfect because it had a large bucket at the front and a small bucket on a stick and boom in the back. She climbed up the metal rungs and into the cab. Keys dangled in the ignition.

  “Bingo.” No reason to lock up vehicles that were already inside the locked perimeter. Just slowed down work. It was lazy, but it was commonplace, at least at the jobs she’d been on.

  By the time the shooters realized she was heading for them, they had time only to scatter ahead of the backhoe. One of the pair fired and sparks flew off the steel bucket. They took cover behind the line of pickups and she just kept on coming.

  Before she reached them, she lowered the bucket and angled the blade to the return-to-dig position and then plowed the trucks forward like dirt.

  Her actions gave her time to swing the seat around and use the smaller bucket to tear a hole down the middle of the trailer.

  Ryan appeared long enough to spot her, and grinned.

  She was in Reverse when the gunfire cut through her tires. Didn’t matter. She still managed to lift the bucket before her and ram it into the side of the trailer.