Lear

by Jasinda Wilder

  Her glare, fierce enough to strip paint off a wall from a hundred yards, got uglier. “I’m not playing anything.”

  “Feels like it.”

  “You call getting a knife to your throat playing?” She pressed harder, and I felt a droplet of blood trickle down my throat. “This feel like a game to you?”

  I poked the tip of my own knife into her thigh—her femoral artery lay just a few centimeters under layers of smooth caramel skin and firm muscle…and she knew it.

  “Yeah, kind of,” I said, unable to help the grin of excitement.

  She swung off me, flipped the knife around in her fist and sheathed it in a smooth, practiced flash. “You’re fucked up.”

  I stood up, rubbing the back of my head. “That was hot.”

  She blinked at me. “Hot.”

  “Yeah, it was hot.”

  “Getting body-slammed and threatened with a knife…is hot, to you?”

  I shrugged. “I mean, it’s not my kink, no. It’s more about it being you doing it than what you did.” I hesitated, but a filter wasn’t my style. “I mean, if we hadn’t gotten all sweaty together, it wouldn’t be as hot. But the fact that I know what you look like naked under all that sexy tactical gear? Yeah, it made you body-slamming me hot as fuck.”

  I felt the anger and the threat radiating off of her. “I thought I had made it clear that shit was on lockdown.”

  I laughed. “Oh, you did. I just don’t follow orders very well. Why do you think I left the NSA to work for a mercenary security firm?”

  She shook her head. “You really do have a death wish, don’t you?”

  I heard that all the time, when people found out what I did for fun. Even my brothers in Alpha One Security have said that to me. How little they knew the truth.

  “Something like that,” I answered. “Now, if you’re done threatening me, we need to go.” I indicated the bank of monitors, one of which was flashing a red warning flag. “We’ve got company.”

  She glanced at the screen, which was a camera located a good half mile down the alley behind my street. It was not just a camera, either—it had recognition software I wrote myself coded into it, so it recognized the difference between normal traffic, cats and dogs, pedestrians, and something unusual. I could have sold the software for a large fortune, but I was already rich, and it could have been dangerous in the wrong hands.

  The software had picked up on a clear threat: two squads of six in full tactical gear slinking down the alley toward my place. Another screen started flashing, and I saw a similar scene unfolding at the other end of the alley. A third screen showed the cube van trundling slowly down my street, parallel to the alley.

  Cuddy hissed. “Fuck.”

  I grinned at her. “Luckily for us, I have a bolt-hole.”

  She frowned at me. “A what?”

  I slung my ruck on over my vest, hung my Steyr Aug by the strap from one shoulder, and went behind the stairs leading up to the main floor. Didn’t look like much at first glance—just a whitewashed cinderblock wall, with a couple metal hooks driven in to hold an old fly-fishing rod. I lifted the rod off the hooks, and a section of wall swung inward on silent hinges, revealing a crawl space just big enough for a man to move in crouched down.

  I headed in, and Cuddy, after a moment of open-mouthed gaping, followed. The interior was dusty and filled with cobwebs, and things scuttled and scrabbled away in the darkness, and it smelled damp. I had a flashlight on the lower rail of my Steyr Aug, and I flicked it on, illuminating the short, low tunnel.

  I waited—counting.

  “What are you—”

  I shushed her. “Wait.”

  Ten seconds went by, and then twenty—there was a click, and the section of wall slid closed with an ominous, final thump.

  My flashlight illuminated the tunnel ahead of us, but little else. Cuddy’s breathing was slow and even. I turned and leaned past Cuddy, and my light revealed a small keypad in the wall—I entered a ten-digit code, and then reentered it, and a small red light started flashing slowly.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “Security measures.”

  “Like what?”

  I moved away down the tunnel as fast as I could, which considering the low ceiling and narrow confines, wasn’t fast. “Like, the house is going to blow up in…” I consulted my watch. “Four minutes and thirty-eight seconds.”

  “Blow up?”

  “Hopefully with a lot of them in it.”

  “You’re serious?”

  I kept moving. “Yes, I’m serious. I wouldn’t joke about blowing up Nana and Papa’s house. My fondest memories from my youth are in that house.” I hoped to fuck my voice was even.

  She grabbed me by the arm. “Then turn it off! There has to be a better way.”

  I jerked my arm free and moved forward down the tunnel. “There isn’t. There were at least twenty-four if not closer to thirty highly trained professional killers headed this way. There are two of us.” I checked my watch—three minutes and eight seconds. “It’s just a house. The memories cannot be taken from me as long as I stay alive.” Another few feet and we’d reach the end of the tunnel. “Plus, once the code is entered and confirmed, there’s no turning it off. In…two minutes and eighteen seconds, approximately three and a half pounds of precisely placed plastic explosives will detonate, and hopefully take out the majority of our current wave of enemies. So, let’s move. The exit is just ahead.”

  I saw the end of the tunnel—an olive-drab metal door with a scratched and tarnished metal handle set in a termite-eaten wooden frame, surrounded by whitewashed cinderblocks. Through the unlocked door, and up a narrow set of rickety wooden steps, a bare light bulb shed a dim, pale yellow light. At the top of the steps, was a section of wall—nothing but studs eighteen inches apart and the backside of drywall. A section of the wall swung outward on hidden hinges, and we emerged in a garage—nearly identical to the one on my grandparent’s property: old, rickety, cobwebbed, stinking of old engine oil and dust.

  I checked my watch. “Sixty seconds.” I dug a tablet computer out of my rucksack, entered the passcode, and pulled up my surveillance app—cameras four through ten showed the interior and exterior of the safe house swarming with tangos. Perfect. I squatted and pressed my back to the cinder block wall. “Get ready.”

  “What about the houses around yours?” Cuddy asked.

  I kept my attention on the countdown. “I had my buddy Puck lay the charges—he’s an explosives expert. They’re set to explode inward and upward—destroy the house and the occupants. Some broken glass, probably, and some ringing eardrums, maybe some minor exterior damage.” I shifted my Steyr Aug around front. “Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two…one…”

  BOOOOOM!

  The garage shook, glass cracked in the windows, dust shook loose from the rafters and rained down on our heads. A brief, fraught silence.

  I stood up, let out a slow breath. “Let’s go.”

  Cuddy eyed me. “You okay?”

  I shook my head. “No. I’m pissed. I set that up as a last resort and hoped I’d never have to use it. Now that I have, they’re going to pay. Cain is going to pay. I’m going to kill him with my bare fucking hands. I’ll put a hollow point through his fucking skull for this. He’s hurt enough people, caused enough damage.”

  Cuddy nodded. “I’m with you on that.” She tilted her head, regarding me steadily. “You know, Lear, to be honest, fury isn’t a good look on you.”

  “My grandparents’ house is gone. So yes, I’m furious.” I indicated the tarp-covered hulk occupying the center of the garage. “Time to move. Gotta put some miles between us and the next wave.” I heard sirens. “And them.”

  I yanked the tarp off and tossed it aside, revealing a 1989 Chevy Blazer. Black, tinted windows, four-inch suspension lift, thirty-eight-inch mud tires. Cuddy’s body language immediately went on alert, and fairly hummed with eager interest at seeing the vehicle.

&
nbsp; She ran a palm over the hood. “What’s she got under here?”

  I grinned. “You’re a gearhead?”

  She shrugged. “More of a car nut than a gearhead. I buy them and I drive them, I don’t work on them.” A speculative look. “You don’t seem like the grease monkey type, either, to be honest.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I know. But Papa was a tinkerer, so most of my nights after school and all day on the weekends were spent in this garage, helping him work on his latest project.” I patted the hood. “Blown big-block. Eight hundred and ten horsepower, with the torque band geared way down low. This fucker will paste your brains in the back of your skull pan.” I paused for effect. “Not to mention, I’ve got bulletproof glass and armored door panels, and a few other little goodies.”

  Cuddy’s grin was downright diabolical. “I really like the way you think.”

  I slid behind the wheel and fished the key out of the hidden compartment near the steering wheel. Twisting the key in the ignition, the engine snarled to life with a guttural roar of big-block power. I opened the garage door, inched the big vehicle out slowly, shut the door again as soon as the bumper was clear. I scanned around us, and then eased the Blazer onto the quiet suburban street. Behind us, a few streets over, flames billowed, and sirens howled.

  My gut instinct was to floor the gas pedal and send the truck screaming at top speed away from the scene, but I knew better. I kept the speed down as I made my way—as if in no hurry—toward the exit of the suburb. Several police cars passed us, flying in the opposite direction, and my heart thundered, but I knew there was no tracing this vehicle to that house, or to me.

  The license plate was legitimate—a registered 1989 Chevrolet Blazer owned and insured by one Timothy Allen Carter, which was the name on the license in the wallet I kept in the glove box. The address on the license was for another house elsewhere in the neighborhood which Tim owned, with evidence that the garage I kept the Blazer in was also owned by Tim Carter. He was, obviously, a fictitious person, but one only the most stringent and expert investigation could reveal as fake—he had a birth certificate, a social security number, credit history, employment history, educational history, a few civil infractions, even a social media presence with girlfriends and breakups, and U-of-I football games attended with a group of buddies, a few quasi-political posts here and there…a full life, carefully crafted; all separate from the actual safe house, which I owned and maintained through another, different identity, this one an obvious dead-end front.

  If I had any kind of real identity available to the public, it was as Timothy Carter. The girlfriends, the football games…I’d physically gone to those places and made temporary friends, taken real photographs with real people. Dated real women, taken real selfies…and then doctored them and used them as evidence of Tim Carter being a real person.

  It was years of work in the making, and no one knew. Not Harris, not any of the guys at A1S…none of them knew Timothy Carter existed.

  More police cars flew past us, and I kept going down the wide, maple tree-lined avenue, slowly, as if minding my own business.

  And then, as I half expected, one of the patrol cars squealed around, lights flashing, and rolled up behind us.

  Cuddy cursed floridly.

  “Relax.” I reached back into the rear seats and came back with two old hooded sweatshirts, both emblazoned with the U-of-I logo. “Put that on over the vest. Lay the rifles in the back footwell and cover them with the blanket. Take the hat off, and act nervous.”

  We both shrugged into the hoodies, which were large and voluminous, easily covering the vests and accouterments. We looked lumpy, perhaps, but unless we gave the officer reason to frisk us, we’d pass visual inspection. I set my Steyr Aug on the floor of the back seat and Cuddy did the same with her HK, and I tossed the large hand-knitted U-of-I stadium blanket over them, fiddling with it until it looked as if it had lain there like that for weeks or months.

  I hurriedly grabbed the wallet out of the glove box and shoved it in the kangaroo pocket of the hoodie. I glanced at Cuddy as the officer approached, his hand on his sidearm.

  “Act nervous,” I reminded her. “If you’re too calm, it’s a giveaway. No one likes being pulled over.”

  She nodded, and yanked her ball cap off of her head at the last second, running fingers through her hair.

  I rolled my window down and kept my hands on the steering wheel, smiling with what I hoped was a nervous expression as the officer leaned over and peered in, flashlight shining blindingly. “Hello, officer,” I said, squinting.

  “Where are you coming from?” he asked, his voice gruff, terse.

  Fortunately, I’d been heading in the direction of the home owned by Timothy. “A friend’s house across town,” I said. “Going home, just a few blocks down.”

  “License and registration, please.”

  I blinked, as if trying to catch up. “Did I do something wrong, Officer?” I asked this even as I handed him my license and registration.

  He gave the pieces of ID a cursory glance, and then flicked the beam to the back seat and over to Cuddy, giving us a good once-over. Cuddy was shifting in her seat, fiddling with the cuffs of her hoodie, doing an impressive job of looking on edge.

  “You didn’t hear the explosion?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “We were at our friend’s house until a few minutes ago,” I said. “I heard something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. There was an explosion? Is that what all the smoke and the police cars are about?” I widened my eyes. “Was anyone hurt?”

  “We’re still investigating.” He shined his light on Cuddy again, and she squinted at him, and then ducked her head as if trying to hide nerves. A long pause, and then he returned my license and registration. “Straight home, no rubbernecking. It’s a closed scene.”

  “Yes sir, thank you.” I waited until he’d gotten into his patrol car and squealed back toward the scene of the explosion. I let out a long, tense breath, and stripped off the sweatshirt; Cuddy followed suit, taking both from me and tossing them back onto the rear bench. “Okay. Here we go.”

  More sirens, more police cars and fire trucks.

  Cuddy eyed me. “A lot of units showing up for the call,” she noted.

  I navigated at the speed limit to the main road, hooked a left, and accelerated away. “They’ve discovered the armed bodies,” I surmised. “Plus, all that ammo in the basement is about to start cooking off, if it hasn’t already.”

  “That was a lot of gear to lose,” Cuddy said.

  I nodded. “This shit is costing me big time,” I growled. “More reason Cain is going to pay for this.”

  “I wonder if we got them all?” Cuddy asked.

  “Most of them, if not all of them.”

  “How long before Cain’s guys find us again?”

  I shook my head. “No idea. I’m going to avoid toll roads and anywhere there’ll be cameras, but a good intel team with access to satellite imagery will be able to track this vehicle, and he’ll send a team to check us out, at the minimum.” I rubbed the back of my neck with one hand. “I have to let my guys know Cain is active again.”

  “You have a cell phone?”

  I shook my head. “Hell no. A cell phone is the single easiest way of making sure anyone with the right know-how can ping your exact location.”

  “So…”

  “Do you have any experience or training in operating off-grid?” I asked.

  She shrugged, shook her head. “No, not really. I know how to limit my exposure to public information, and I can create shell companies in my sleep. But spy shit like this? Not so much. When I’m on an op, I go in dark, operate dark, and extract dark. I can stay gone, but disappearing is another trick entirely.”

  I gave her a cocky grin. “Well, you’re in luck. I happen to be an expert at finding people, and therefore avoid being found—normally, at least. Cain has obviously stepped up his game.” I glanced at her. “So first up, you’re not carrying a phone, are
you?”

  She shook her head. “My time off is sacred to me, so I don’t provide a way of being contacted off duty. I’m not carrying ID or credit cards, only cash.”

  “Good,” I said. “The chances of your clothing being tagged is essentially zero, I’d imagine.”

  “Tagged, like with a tracker?” she asked, clarifying.

  “Right.”

  “Not possible. I have several layers of security at my place, from high-tech shit like lasers and motion detection and breakage detection, to low-tech shit like Scotch tape and a strand of hair between the door and frame. My place was tight. No one in but me, guaranteed.”

  I nodded. “Very good. My next bolt-hole has tracker detection gear, so we’ll go over ourselves when we get there, but I think we’re clear that way.”

  “Cain is capable of putting trackers on people?”

  I snorted. “Oh, absolutely. He can be very devious. I suppose I may have made him sound like less of a threat than he is. If he’d gone after literally any other group of people than my team, they’d be dead. Even for above-average operatives, Cain is a deadly serious threat, and one you do not underestimate. He has huge resources, huge risk, deep pockets, and he knows how to hire the right people. He may not be personally savvy enough to track down someone like me, but he knows how to find people who can, and believe me, that list is very, very short indeed.”

  “Meaning you probably know exactly who he’s hired to find you.”

  I nodded, grim. “There are perhaps four people on the planet who I think could track me down. Calhoun, Leif, Alice, and Yancy. Calhoun, last I checked, retired and lives in a fishing hut on a beach in Fiji, drunk out of his skull twenty hours of the day. Leif works for Interpol and would probably die before working for someone like Cain, and I know for a fact Leif has no vices or relatives to be leveraged. Yancy is a scumbag, but extraordinarily competent, and I wouldn’t put it past him to take a payout from Cain, but I wouldn’t rate him better than me, only on par—it’s his lack of morals which make him a threat.” As much as I wanted to hit the freeway and gun it, there were cameras on the freeways, so surface streets were safer, if much slower, so we continued winding our way slowly away from the suburbs outside Chicago. “Alice is my pick. Back in my D and D days, I labeled her as a chaotic neutral, if not chaotic evil. Wicked smart, clever and creative, she has a penchant for staying on the wrong side of the law. She was probably approached by Cain when he first started trying to track down us down, and I figure she liked the work enough to stay in his employ.”