Soldier's Heart Part Four: Brotherhood Protectors World

by Ilsa J. Bick

  “True, but we’ll have a head start.”

  “But what were you going to do if I hadn’t shown up, Wynn? Gone off with the girls anyway? You couldn’t have known Bayles would find your missing medic and that Lambert and Oz would take a team.” She had the sense she wasn’t seeing something, but she didn’t have the energy to chase after it. She had plenty on her plate at the moment. Like shutting off this damn tracker. Maybe she could fry or short-circuit it without giving herself a frontal lobotomy. Although maybe leaving it on wasn’t a bad idea. She bet Vance’s people could be here in a couple hours. Then the girls would be safe. But then what about me? She wished someone would tell her the right answer. “What was your plan?”

  “Try on my own. I was thinking we could sneak off, the kids and me and Jean. You know, make something happen to Paulsen or Fowler or whatever. If I understand it right, Lambert and Oz were set to make the exchange on the opposite side of the mountain.”

  An exchange meant more men like Lambert and Oz. “And you would waltz right past them.”

  “No, I’d kill them.” Wynn’s gaze was steady. “They’d be expecting Lambert and Oz, only they’d get Dax and me. I take them out, grab a vehicle because they have to have something relatively close by for the girls, and then I take the girls into town.”

  “And helpfully turn yourself in, I’ll bet.”

  “No, I’m not stupid. I’d drop the girls and make a run for it.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, then. You don’t need me.”

  “But I do. You’re the game-changer. You’d be the goddamned hand of God.”

  Translation: he needed a Trojan horse. “What about Paulsen?”

  “He’s a decent guy and a good shot, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He’ll do what I tell him. But we got to go now, Mac. Once Lambert’s back, I can’t help you.”

  He was ignoring the obvious. He could simply let her walk away.

  “And then what, Kate?’ Jack asked. “You lie in wait and pick them off one by one? You still have the problem of getting the kids out without getting yourself caught.”

  Speaking of not being caught, any luck with the tracker? The damn thing was still on.

  “Working on it, Kate.”

  “If we go now,” Wynn said, “we’ll be clear by morning. You take the kids and Jean to the police, I disappear. You never heard of me, you never saw me.”

  That, she thought, wouldn’t hold up unless she could get the kids not to talk, and that woman, too. They would all have to agree on a story.

  “You’re forgetting the little problem of explaining who you are,” Jack said. “You could let this go. Gabriel might be at Chaney Peak by now. The local LEOs could know by noon.”

  A lot of coulds and mights. Jack, if we can’t shut down that tracker, we’re going to have a lot of company. On the other hand, sticking with the kids was the best way to ensure their safety. Lambert and his people were no match for a Black Ops team.

  “But Vance will know you outsmarted them. They won’t make that mistake again.”

  She wondered if, in fact, Vance and his people—that guy, Hacker—hadn’t already outsmarted her. She was like a pet dog with one of those shock collars. Jack, could Hacker have hidden something or preprogrammed the tracker to go off at a certain time?

  “Possibly. Give me some time, Kate. I might be able to—”

  Jack? But she could feel the difference. The tracker just cut out. Jack, did you—

  “Yes.” He sounded strained. “They’re already trying to reroute. I might be able to stay a step ahead.”

  They. Her blood slushed. Trying to reroute? He meant the other biobots. My God, Jack was nothing more than the biobots given a face and personality. Were there now others who were not as strong or coherent? Collectives that were not Jack but still with their own minds, their particular agendas?

  “So, what will it be, Mac?” Wynn was looking at her. “I want out of this mess. You got to decide, Mac. You with me and the girls, or not?”

  Her tracker had been active. Vance might already have scrambled a team. If she left now, she might just get clear. She might just save her own skin.

  “Well?” Wynn asked.

  “I’m with you,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter 5

  God, Sarah wanted to get out of here. I am in so much trouble. Snapping on a flashlight, she let herself sag back against the storeroom door. She could smell herself, the stink of sweat and fear steaming from her pores to mingle with the older scent of chilled wood splits, dry dog food, the tiniest trace of peanut butter with which she baited snap traps for the occasional intrepid mouse. The somewhat-fruity aroma of gasoline from a can some previous tenant had hauled up here for Lord knew what. A bundle of rags, streaky with ancient engine oil congealed to a sludge layer at the bottom of a plastic jug.

  Somebody, help me. She put a hand to her lips to catch a moan. Not only did she have the dogs to keep safe, but Tien, too. Oh, and yeah, it would be nice if she could avoid getting killed. And Hank? And Hank? The question was as relentless as a drum. She pictured Hank, splayed as a broken marionette, in a pool of blood as snow dusted his staring eyes.

  Stop, stop, stop! She was panting, her head threatening to go airy, her breaths rising in a bluing mist. Calm down, she commanded herself. Clamping her mouth shut, she forced even, slow breaths through her nose. If she’d a paper bag, she’d have used it. Don’t get all wispy on me. Much as she wanted to crumple up and wait for someone to please do something, she had to defend herself. That’s what Hank would want her to do. That’s what Pete would insist upon. But how? She was a veterinarian, for God’s sake. She didn’t know anything about war or fighting. Anything she knew had come from Pete, and he was gone. She was it, alone, and hadn’t a clue.

  You do know. The voice was not quite her own, nor was it Hank, though some of the cadences were the same. Look at what you’ve already done.

  Was that Pete? She thought it might almost be, or at least the barest vestige of his voice she had left mixed with, well...it had to be her own, the dregs she could conjure of Pete after all this time and the leavings, what they’d shared, things they’d done together. What remained of her lover were like the clothes she’d given to Hank: empty of substance and scent, filled out only with wisps of smoke and as easily dissipated. They could’ve been belonged on a mannequin for all the personality they had. Pete was a blur she conjured by force of will.

  And you have the will, the voice pressed. You drugged Mark. You got him to talk. You know more now than you did even an hour ago. You have more than you did.

  This was true. Besides, her own Remington shotgun, still in the cabin’s front room by the door, she had Mark’s sniper rifle. The Glock was in her pocket and she had ammo. She had another knife. There was plenty of firepower at her disposal.

  The problems were two. She was alone, and knowing how to use weapons wasn’t the same as actual combat experience.

  But I do know how to shoot. That was completely her own voice. I know guns. Hell, she lived in Montana, which was like Texas only prettier, and those guys who insisted on carrying their guns into church—many were pastors—didn’t accidentally shoot themselves in the foot.

  But she’d had knowledge before. Just about everyone in Wisconsin hunted. It was just one of those family things, although her mother hadn’t liked it and her lawyer-dad was always too busy, and then they were both dead. Her mom’s parents, though, knew guns, taught her how to first handle a .22 before graduating to more powerful weapons. Handguns, she’d picked up from Pete and done a lot of work on the range. Target shooting was just fun. A skill, like shooting a bow and arrow. She’d taken one concealed carry class during college in Madison, which was required if you wanted to carry a taser. Pete had once suggested she take a pistol home-defense class, which she’d considered then rejected because the idea of her getting into some kind of half-assed shoot-out seemed a really good way of getting herself ki
lled or killing some innocent person. She knew the basics of physical self-defense—go for the eyes, always go for the eyes because most people were too squeamish—but, unlike Pete, she wasn’t a soldier and had no desire to be.

  Still, she wasn’t helpless. She really wasn’t.

  At that, some of the tension dribbled from her shoulders. What she had to avoid was getting into a situation, like a firefight, where she’d only end up dead that much faster. What she had to do was force whoever was coming for her to play her game, not theirs.

  Okay, besides guns, what is there to work with? What can I use? Her eyes darted around this storage room, the pegs, the shelves. Although she was no neatnik when it came to this back room, littered with the detritus of previous occupants, she kept her own stuff organized. She saw at once things were out of place. Hank had been in here, rooting around for the bungee cords and chains he used to construct his homemade crampons, and in a hurry because of Tien, leaving everything in even more disarray. He’d shunted three cans of tuna next to a mason jar of screws, slotted a rusting toothless wedge of a saw blade atop a crate of canned peaches. Running her flashlight past all her canned goods...hooray, the bad guys could pig out because, wow, killing sure worked up an appetite...the beam picked out rusting tools, baling wire, a jumble of batteries so old they were streaky with whitish crusts of potassium hydroxide. In other words, junk. MacGyver could probably do something with this, but get real. Her gaze slid from shelf to shelf, to even more junk, spools of thin wire, a screwdriver, a clawed hammer with a brittle-looking wooden handle, a snake of black rubber that was a deflated mountain bike tube. Her flashlight beam slid left. A twinkle from a bicycle reflector. An old bike chain and, my God, were those derailleur pulleys? Someone’s mountain bike had bitten the dust up here. She wasn’t surprised. The trails were no good for one, as like to pitch a biker over a cliff, which probably explained why mountain biking wasn’t allowed in the Black Wolf. Some people loved breaking rules like that, though, pushing the envelope and margin for safety. Like the folks who made a beeline for Dead Man because the state said, you know, you really shouldn’t—

  A flash of rust-red winked in and out as her beam swept past.

  She stopped. Felt her eyebrows pull together in a frown. What was that, another reflector? She probed with the light. No, that didn’t seem quite right. She couldn’t make out what this was. Reaching a hand, her fingers closed around smooth plastic, and then she was drawing out a weird-looking gun-like weapon with a black grip and bright-orange plastic frame.

  Whoa. What was this thing? A pistol? Someone had stashed an old gun? It seemed more like a kid’s toy, though like none she’d ever seen. There was even a hammer, but the bore of this thing was huge. Breaking open the breech, she peered down the empty barrel. Close to a twelve-gauge, she thought, though not heavy at all because of the plastic. The thing was about half the size of a regular handgun, with a short, stubby barrel but no sight. Along the bore, in big raised letters, was the word ORION.

  Hunh. Still frowning, she reached further back into the shelf and came out this time with a rattling metal box. Inside were three orange cartridges which looked a lot like shotgun shells for a twelve-gauge. She squinted at the small black lettering on one. Orion Peru. Burn Time 7 Seconds. U.S.C.G.

  Burn time. Wait a minute. U.S.C.G. United States Coast Guard.

  “A flare gun?” Up here? Who would shoot a flare in a forest where things might, you know, catch fire? On the other hand...she hefted the weapon in a palm...there were stories of people who carried them as PDWs, personal defense weapons, against bears, of all things. In fact, she knew of at least one guy who’d posted YouTubes touting the virtues of marine flares to deter bears. In theory, she guessed a flare gun could be pretty effective. Unless you shot a bear in the eye or something, this wouldn’t kill it, but given the size of that bore and the fact that you were, in essence, firing off a small rocket, you hit a bear with this and that bear would probably think twice. The flare gun was also small, easy to slip into a pocket. No safety, she saw.

  Interesting. Hank must have overlooked this, she thought as she slipped both the gun and flares into a pocket, or else he’d have said something. This might come in handy. At the very least, she could shoot off a flare. No danger of anything catching fire with the snow and in the cold, and someone might see this and wonder who was in trouble up there. They’d arrive too late, of course, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  She was calmer now. The flutter of her heart against the cage of her ribs had eased. She forced her mind to tick through what she knew, what she might expect.

  Fact—she was safe for the moment. Mark was contained. No one had a gun to her head.

  Fact—yes, there were people coming for him and her and Tien, but she still had time. How much time was the question. When had Mark made his call? She couldn’t remember. Shit. She could feel the panic-rat digging its claws in her brain. Think, think, think. When?

  Easy. It was the voice, even, neutral. You have a watch.

  “Idiot”—although as soon as the word slipped from her mouth, she wanted to call it back. She had to stop beating up on herself. Enough with the self-doubt. What were these little derogatory asides other than ways of punishing herself for...what? She didn’t know. If she was still around at noon, she might sit down and have a nice long think. Now, she had to be positive, try to plan...no, no, she would plan. No more trying. She felt her lips curl in a true grin. Just like one of Pete’s favorite flicks. There is no try.

  She glanced at her watch, a digital Casio Ironman and a present from Pete. He’d gotten himself the same model, and they’d synced, setting them both to military time, so she’d always know whether it was night or day in Afghanistan. Odd, how she’d never gotten rid of that, either, that special little button which told her where Pete might be in his day, though she hadn’t toggled to check in more than two years.

  Her digital readout said 02:58.

  She thought back. She’d checked the time while still shoveling what she’d hoped was a landing area for a search and rescue chopper. Then, it had been about half past nine. She’d stopped for a snack then worked another half hour and been on her way in. But then, Mark had appeared. Which put him on her doorstep around ten. It had been close to eleven or even a little past when Mark went to the tower to make what she’d thought was a check-in on his souped-up Special Forces thingamabob radio. He’d been gone long enough for her to wonder and the stew to heat, the cobbler to grow bubbly and warm. So, figure another forty-five minutes. By then, she’d found the sandwiches she’d made for Hank earlier that afternoon in Mark’s pack and dosed the stew with ketamine on which Mark had pigged out and then passed out.

  Say, conservatively, another half hour. That meant she’d hustled out to the tower with Mark’s radio roundabout zero-dark thirty. Give her fifteen minutes of playing around with the radio, tracing out Mark’s path on both the map he’d left spread on the old Osborne fire-finder pedestal and his radio’s own GPS. And then I talked to the bad guys. That would have happened roundabout one. Give the bad guys fifteen minutes to get their shit together and boogey, which meant they’d started out at around one thirty or so.

  And it’s three now. Which put the guys headed her way on the trail about two hours ago.

  Was there a way of figuring out how far away these guys had been when she’d called? Maybe on Mark’s special super-duper—

  From beyond the closed door came a muffled shout then a hard thump and then, two more. Mark, probably pissed she wouldn’t let him piss. The thought tugged a grim smile. She really would have to let him pee. How was tricky. There was no way she would undo those zip ties, and she wasn’t going anywhere near his fly. Would she? No. Maybe. She didn’t have to decide this second. She would decide when she needed to. She was in charge here.

  The realization calmed her, opened a new space in her mind. She was in charge. This place, the mountain, was her space, her ground. She knew Chaney Peak. Having been on her o
wn for months, traipsing the trails, bushwhacking when she needed wood, she knew this area better than anyone. Plus, she had Mark’s phone with its stripped-down topo and the more detailed topo he’d left atop the concrete pedestal that had once held the Osborne fire-finder. Heck—she headed for the door—one thing a girl learns really, really well in search and rescue is how to read a bloody map.

  “Where are you going?” As she breezed past, her dogs obediently trotting behind, Mark shouted, “Bitch, I got to take a leak!” He brought his boots down in another angry thump. “I’m fucking talking to you!”

  Well, I’m not talking to you, asshole. She was in charge. She had to remember that.

  In the front room, she paused to check the woodstove—doing well—and then the girl, who was unchanged. After digging Mark’s radio from his pack, she eyed the rifle, her Remington. Wondered if she should take them and his pack then decided against that. They’d only get in her way, and she was just going to the tower to check maps. Wouldn’t take that long.

  “Bitch!” Thump. “You want me to piss my pants?” Thump, bump.

  Oh, for God’s sake. Ketamine would put him out, but she wanted to save that for when and if. Her gaze skipped over the table. What else did she have that would shut him up?

  Then, she thought, Ah.

  “Well, thank Christ,” Mark grated as she came back. “You gonna let me take a—”

  “Please, shut up.” Grabbing a fistful of Mark’s hair, she yanked back his head and, before he could twist away, slapped a long strip of duct tape over his mouth. Mark let out a muffled bellow then quickly ducked his mouth toward a shoulder.

  Trying to scrape the tape off. No way, asshole. This time, she wound tape directly from the roll around his head then took a step back to admire her work. Eyes bloodshot with rage, Mark glared. Every time he tried to speak, the tape bulged then deflated but held fast. His nose streamed snot.

  “I warned you. I’d concentrate on breathing if I were you.” Pulling the door shut, she slipped a padlock through an O-ring, and clicked it shut.