An Artifact of Death

by J. J. Cagney

  He’d pulled back to see the confusion in her eyes and he’d cursed himself for adding to her emotional distress in an already fraught moment.

  He’d never forget the compassion in her gaze when he told Cici his father had abused him. The softness of her touch, the lingering warmth of her hug. He’d thought, then, maybe…maybe she wouldn’t look down on him. Maybe Cici could see him as a strong partner—the one she needed.

  But he hadn’t acted then either.

  The last was the brief glimpse of hurt in Cici’s eyes when she’d seen Jeannette on his porch earlier this week. Whatever Cici thought she knew about Sam and his relationship with Jeannette had caused her deep pain.

  He regretted that, too. He wasn’t willing to regret more could-be moments with Cici. But, then again, he wasn’t sure he’d have the chance to do more than regret.

  Sam stood in the field outside the town limits as the helicopter’s blades began rotating. Dust and small bits of grit kicked up around the assembled group.

  “Let’s go,” Jeannette said, grabbing on to Sam’s long-sleeved tan camouflage T-shirt. It was courtesy of the small force moving forward and jumping into the chopper.

  The guys all seemed smart, capable, focused. None of them had as much riding on this mission as Sam did, especially after Sergeant Jack Peterson, an old UNM buddy, vouched for him.

  Within moments of entering the aircraft, Sam realized helicopters would never be his favorite mode of transport. Nor would he ever be entirely comfortable with the large-capacity automatic rifle now resting in his hands.

  Sam put on and adjusted his beige tactical vest. Yes, beige was better than black in sunny, desert-like New Mexico, but the additional weight of the vest more than offset the benefit of the color change. An additional fifteen pounds of bulk he was supposed to haul around while he picked off bad guys and pulled Cici to safety. Not that he hadn’t worn these before. He had. And he understood the necessity, but he couldn’t help his sigh as he stared down at the gun in his hands, avoiding Jeannette’s gaze. She’d insisted on coming sometime early this morning when the tactical team showed up and Sam had bro-hugged Sergeant Peterson as soon as he had walked with the team into Jeannette’s motel room.

  “Is there anyone in the area you don’t know?” Jeannette had asked, her voice filled with sardonic humor.

  “Yeah. Those guys,” Sam had said, dipping his head to the rest of the tactical response team.

  “Got you a good group, Sam,” Sergeant Peterson had said. He had laid his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Let’s go get your girl and our guy.”

  Sam had clapped his shoulder one more time. “Guess I better tell her that.” He’d squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “Thanks, man.”

  “We’re out,” Jeannette had said.

  “We?” Sam had said.

  “Can’t let you take all the glory on this assignment, too,” Jeannette had said.

  “What was that?” Peterson had mumbled. He’d eyed the back of Jeannette’s head. “She always this badass?”

  “I have no idea,” Sam had replied, also watching Jeannette. “I used to think she was the mayor’s secretary.”

  “Huh. Story there. You can tell me as we get you suited up,” Peterson had said, leading Sam toward a couple of duffel bags the men had brought into the small hotel room.

  Now, an hour later, Sam’s stomach tumbled as the chopper lifted off the ground, the fickle New Mexican winds lambasting both sides of the transport helo as they lifted off the dry, dusty mesa a few miles south of the jet fighters’ hit on what they assumed was a Russian camp. Some smoke still plumed in lazy, black gusts from whatever equipment and gas-powered items now littering the ground up there, broken and charred, for the forensic teams to pick through over the coming days.

  Sam didn’t envy them their work out here in the dry, oppressive heat. But he did wish they’d already managed to work through this rescue mission, because Cici’s life hung in the balance. Thankfully, Jeannette and her boss wanted Cici out alive. Better optics, they said.

  But Sam understood that if it came down to Cici or a Russian operative who could explain his mission and who his boss was—and how long they’d planned this—Cici’s life was worth less than his.

  As they flew over ruins, Sam’s mind cleared to a simple realization. Maybe it was the long hours of the night he’d spent wrestling through the problem. Or maybe one of Anna Carmen’s comments had finally stuck. Sandra had wanted Cici happy. Sam, in high school, was too much of a mess to help pull Cici out of her funk caused by her parents’ divorce. But they were adults now. With careers dedicated to helping others. Careers they both loved.

  Sam had a stark choice. He could continue with the promise he’d made to Sandra as an eighteen-year-old with a chip on his shoulder, or, as Anna Carmen prodded, he could go after the only woman he’d ever wanted.

  The helicopter rocked in the swirling winds, knocking Jeannette into the soldier beside her.

  Sam leaned forward, but the topography looked the same—so much like a Georgia O’Keeffe painting that Sam felt a shock of awe for the painter’s ability to capture this landscape so well.

  They looped the area in ever-widening circles based on the last GPS coordinates that came in from Cici’s cell.

  Nothing moved.

  Jeannette gazed outward, her facial expression morphing from determined to concerned.

  “Nothing,” she muttered into her headset’s speaker. “You guys picking up any movement?”

  They all said no.

  After another even wider circle, the pilot’s voice crackled through Sam’s headphones. “Less than a quarter tank of fuel left. I can make one more pass before we need to set her down.”

  Sam gripped his weapon more tightly. No. They couldn’t leave. Not without Cici. He closed his eyes, trying to visualize the landscape he’d viewed the night before. He pulled out a few landmarks—the gorge, which they passed on the right. He frowned. Hadn’t it been on the left on the screen? On the other side of the ravine. Something was wrong. The GPS coordinates must have been off.

  “We’re over the wrong mesa,” Sam said.

  “What?” Jeannette asked.

  “They’re over there,” he pointed.

  Jeannette frowned, annoyed, no doubt, it had taken him this long to say anything, but she called in the order to fly over the other mesa. As they veered across, Peterson pointed. “Wreckage.”

  Jeannette asked the pilot to come in low. Peterson whistled as he took in the splayed body and two more burned corpses in what was left of an old Army Jeep.

  “Shit,” Peterson muttered. “They had some good equipment.”

  Sam swallowed but remained silent. Still, he could tell they all wondered how the Jeep ended up a burnt out husk at the bottom of the sandy ravine.

  They had no answers, but at least appeared closer to more recent activity.

  The chopper pulled up out of the deep arroyo and Sam, a shock jolting through him, recognized bits of the terrain he’d stared at for so many hours last night.

  “Veer more to the east,” Sam said into the headset.

  The pilot glanced back at Jeannette for confirmation. She dipped her head, eyes scanning the ground.

  Sam’s heart slammed against his chest as his eyes jumped and leaped over the cactus and juniper, desperate for any sign of Cici’s long, dark hair.

  “Ah, shit,” Peterson muttered. Two more open-top Jeeps, each mounted with heavy-fire machine-gun artillery, bore down on a cluster of limestone.

  Sam homed in on the rocks. Even from the great distance, he found her, huddled tight to one of the boulders. Not that he was surprised. Since that day in seventh grade, when he fell in love with her, Sam seemed to perform voodoo magic because he always knew where Cici was when she was in the area.

  “There,” he pointed to the small humans clustered closer to the rocks, probably to shield themselves from the helicopter.

  Jeannette’s mouth flipped up in a sardonic twist. “This is w
hy I signed off on you on this chopper,” she said. “You’re like a goddamn bloodhound.”

  More like an eagle that mated for life. Not that Sam had the choice in the matter, but he planned to finally act.

  He thrilled at the sight of her dark head of hair even as his guts clenched tighter than Jeannette’s chokehold.

  “Oh, no,” Sam muttered.

  The men around him continued to check their weapons and other tactical gear, but Sam’s eyes remained glued to the devastation unfolding on the ground.

  27

  Cici

  To see what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.― Confucius

  Waiting for one’s imminent demise proved more boring than Cici expected. Time ticked away in tiny increments, slowing to an exponential level where Cici could almost count each blood cell pulsing through her veins.

  Cici sipped the last bit of water from the bottle Anton had given her yesterday. Much as she hated to litter, the bottle was bulky, banging into Cici’s elbows. Since she wasn’t a great shot—never wanted to be, even now, really—she needed the least number of hindrances.

  “You finally chose to arrive at the party.” The voice that spoke was silky, an accent threading through the words.

  Cici pressed in close to Anton’s side but not too close, not wanting to crowd Anton.

  A man stepped forward from a large, low boulder. On the other side, a tall outcropping rose into the crisp, blue sky. Not a cloud in sight.

  “Figured you’d show up here. Only possible shelter for miles.” He glanced around, his lip curled. “This place is a hell hole. Worse than northern Siberia.”

  In the distance, an engine rumbled closer, followed by another. Nearer, a pack of coyotes howled, their voices carrying on the still morning air.

  Cici tried not to flinch as the man leveled his weapon at Anton’s chest.

  “Give it to me,” he said.

  “What’s that?” Anton said, squinting. After two full days in the New Mexican sun, his face was lobster-red and starting to peel. They needed to get off this mesa, and not just because they were going to collapse from dehydration soon. The sun’s intensity took its toll on their ability to function at capacity. The only positive was the other guy didn’t look much better.

  “I want the stone,” the man growled. “The rest of the crew isn’t far behind me.”

  He tilted his head back and Cici took in the growing plumes of dust. Multiple vehicles, then. At least two by the distinct dust trails. She nibbled at the corner of her lip. They wouldn’t get so lucky with two Jeeps coming at them.

  Cici heard more snuffling. A full pack out here, then. They must be hungry—desperately hungry to follow humans. Or they wanted the water.

  Water. Yes, that made sense.

  Especially after the short, intense storm the other night. All of it soaked into the ground or evaporated, once again leaving the pack—and their young cubs born a few months before—desperate for more.

  Cici needed to focus on what she could change. This moment mattered so she could get to the next—the Jeeps. But first she had to survive the man with the gun trained on Anton’s chest.

  How many days without rain in this region? She wasn’t sure about this quadrant but the last report she’d seen on the news, parts of the state had been precipitation-free for ninety-two days. The storm two nights ago barely counted because it only struck part of the mesa—not enough to fill any of the arroyos here, miles away from the flash flood.

  Yes, the coyotes must be devilishly thirsty and they were trying to locate the water she’d sipped moments before. The bottle at her feet was empty.

  “Out exploring the canyon without a permit, Otis?” Anton tsked.

  “Hand it over,” Otis said. His finger rested on the trigger.

  “Oh,” Anton said with a nod. “Right.”

  Cici said a silent prayer to her sister as she lifted her arms, placing her hands at the top of her pack. With a slow, deliberate movement, she depressed the straw, shivering as a slow drip of water trickled down her side and made a soft plink with each drop on the thick limestone underfoot. She said a silent thank-you that even these few precious drops filtered from the pack.

  Otis’s teeth flashed under a thick, bushy brown mustache. “I’d tell you to stop wasting your water, but you aren’t going to live long enough for it to matter.”

  Cici long considered a mustache one of the most unattractive options a man attached to his face. Might have something to do with the year her university decided to bring back the “porn stache” as the fraternities had called it. At the time, when she was nineteen, she found the idea amusing—a hipster take on her parents’ heyday—and anything that made fun of her dad, Cici wanted a part of. But not, she found them nothing short of atrocious. Especially on this man.

  “It’s in my pocket.” Anton patted the front pocket of his pants that concealed one of his guns. “I didn’t want to startle you as I reach for it.”

  Otis grunted, his eyes taking on a greedy gleam as he stared at Anton’s left thigh. With a quick gesture, Anton shoved his hand into his pocket, no doubt trying to shield Otis’s gaze from the pistol there.

  “One question,” Anton asked. “Will you let the woman live?” He canted his head toward Cici.

  Otis licked his lips again, his gaze devilish and about as probing as any Cici had ever endured before.

  “For a time,” Otis said.

  Cici’s skin crawled. She wouldn’t like what he had in mind during that “time” she lived.

  “Right. Just needed your promise,” Anton said. A coyote howled to her left, another chiming in on the right, probably letting their brethren know they’d triangulated the smell.

  Otis flinched, no doubt unused to the sound. As Cici hoped, he turned and fired to the right.

  Anton wasted no time in launching himself forward. The two men grunted as they fought over control of Otis’s gun. The coyotes ran off, braying and howling, probably in frustration of being so close to the water they couldn’t have.

  Anton must have gotten in a strong elbow because the larger man grunted and began to collapse. In the next moment, Otis yelped and his gun skittered across the limestone toward Cici’s feet. She bent and picked it up, trying to ignore her shaking hands as she trained the weapon on the tangle of limbs.

  She’d need a clean shot—she thought that’s what Sam would call it—uninterrupted access to Otis before she’d fire a shot. Otherwise, between her nerves and their flailing, Cici worried she’d hit Anton.

  At that moment, Anton grunted a curse, then hissed, obviously in pain, before Cici registered a flash of something shiny. Otis crumpled.

  Anton stood, his breath ragged. He yanked the shiny thing from Otis’s chest. Oh. Cici pressed a hand to her mouth. Oh.

  “We need to move,” Anton said, even as he rummaged with efficient movements through Otis’s black knapsack. He pulled out a few water bottles, extra ammunition, sunglasses, and a baseball cap. He turned to Cici and tilted his head. “Got you some more ammo.”

  She tottered forward on shaky legs, trying to get her bearings. Much as she didn’t want to leave Otis injured or dead, much as doing so ripped at her soul, she didn’t have a choice. She grabbed a few of the bullets from his hand, held them in her shaking fist, and swallowed hard.

  A loud thwap, thwap, thwap of rotor blades filled the air. Anton hissed a curse.

  They had a helicopter. Cici shut her eyes as the futility of their situation crashed into her.

  Anton pressed the gun into Cici’s other hand. “You’re going to need it.”

  “Why?” Cici asked, but she bent down and scooped up the weapon.

  Anton grabbed Cici and pulled her into the tight space between the large boulder and the rock wall they’d found earlier. Their last stand, Anton said then.

  “Too late to run. That company you mentioned earlier? They’re all here. Even in the air.” He glanced overhead with a look that appeared to be sadness. “Drink.”r />
  Anton handed her one of the water bottles he’d pulled from Otis’s pack and Cici fumbled with the pistol and ammunition for a moment before organizing her hands to hold the water. She drank, shocked to find her hands remained still.

  Oh, Aci, I really didn’t think it would come to this.

  And where the hell was Sam? She glanced up at the helicopter, which had banked around and was slowly coming nearer. If she and Anton were lucky, the chopper wouldn’t be Russian.

  If…

  “You face west,” Anton said, maneuvering her into position. “That way you won’t have the sun in your eyes. Shoot anything that moves. Anything.”

  “But—” What if Sam was in the helicopter? What if it was the good guys? They’d been out here long enough for the SOS call to go through. She thought.

  Cici swallowed. The Jeeps were in sight now—just like the one she’d lured over the edge of the cliff yesterday.

  Anton placed his hands on Cici’s shoulders, shaking her with gentle but insistent pressure. “Cecilia, this is not a drill. It’s them or us. I don’t want you to die today.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You’ve made this journey too interesting.”

  Cici’s breath came in soft, jagged gasps. “I think the helicopter’s friendly,” she said.

  Anton’s eyes crinkled. “Your sister tell you that?”

  Cici hesitated, but then she managed a brief nod.

  Please let it be so, Aci.

  Anton smiled, his gaze already searching for the next target. He took the water bottle from her, and clasped her hands around the weapon.

  “Anything that moves,” he reiterated.

  “On the ground,” Cici said.

  “On the ground,” he agreed, but he looked up at the helicopter with a deep scowl. He didn’t believe her. As the Jeeps sped closer, Anton shoved Cici low to the ground. He drank from the water, capped it and crouched so his back was to hers.