“Worth a try,” Kevin said, climbing out of the driver’s seat.
The two climbed the wooden steps of the commo shack. About halfway up Kevin froze in his tracks and shot an arm out to halt Arthur. When Arthur looked at his friend questioningly, he saw Kevin’s head cocked to the side, listening.
“What is it?” Arthur asked.
Kevin held a hand up to silence him. When Arthur focused, he could hear Carlos speaking inside in a raised voice but he couldn’t decipher a word of it through the insulated walls and closed doors. Kevin wasn’t having any better luck.
“I can’t hear any of it,” Kevin said, shaking his head in frustration. “I wonder who he’s talking to.”
“My handheld is on and I can’t hear a damn thing,” Arthur replied. “Maybe he’s talking to himself. Maybe he’s cracking up. The kid could have PTSD. He had combat time, and perhaps the transition from civilian life back to these conditions is too much for him.”
“What do you want to do?”
Arthur was contemplating this when the door to the commo shack swung open and Carlos was standing before them, a startled look on his face.
“What the heck?” Carlos asked.
“What’s wrong?” Arthur asked. “Why so jumpy?”
“No reason,” Carlos replied nervously. “I was just going to grab a quick smoke.”
“Who were you talking to in there?” Kevin asked.
“Talking to?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. We heard you talking to someone,” Kevin said. “It sounded like you were arguing with someone.”
“No,” Carlos said. “I was talking to myself. I was pissed at myself for screwing up earlier and leaving my station. I was reminding myself to stay focused. Sometimes it helps if I talk things out, even if it’s just with myself.” His eyes flitted around the entire time he was speaking. He was obviously making the story up as he went.
“I’ve heard people talking to themselves before,” Arthur said. “If you’re arguing with yourself, it’s a little concerning.”
“I’m good,” Carlos said. “Really I am.” He lit his smoke and took a deep drag. He leaned against the railing and looked off into the woods. He was done with the conversation.
Arthur continued up the steps and stepped around him. “We need to borrow the radio a minute.”
“I can help,” Carlos offered, trying to slide back into the room.
Kevin shot a hand out against the doorframe and barred Carlos from going inside and shook his head, the message a clear not happening.
“You just enjoy your smoke and give us some privacy,” Arthur said.
“No prob, whatever you say, boss.” Carlos looked at the ground.
Arthur let the sarcasm in Carlos’s voice slide and went inside.
Kevin closed the door behind them. “It’s sweltering in here,” he said, raising a window on the back, away from where Carlos was smoking. “Why aren’t these open?”
“Who knows? I don’t have any better answer for that than for any of the rest of it.” Arthur dropped into the desk chair and confirmed that the radio was on the same frequency they’d been using to reach the congressman, then slipped on the headset. He dropped the volume on the external speakers that Carlos had clearly planned on using to monitor radio traffic from the porch.
“Bridges for Congressman Honaker. Bridges for Congressman Honaker.”
The congressman fired back nearly immediately, as if he’d been sitting there waiting on the transmission. “What is it, Arthur?” He sounded frustrated, with less theatrics and bluster than on previous transmissions. He sounded like hearing from Arthur was just one more bad part of an already crappy day.
“Looks like you’re packing up over there. What’s going on?”
“You think we really have a choice?”
“No, you never had a choice,” Arthur replied. “I made that clear to you from the beginning and you just weren’t interested in listening.”
“Well, I never expected you to go after our families,” the congressman shot back. “What kind of man are you?”
Arthur didn’t reply. He was staring at Kevin in surprise. The plan was that Robert would attempt to lead the families in the wrong direction and then disable them somehow so that they couldn’t make their way to the compound. Arthur had no intention of letting the congressman in on the plan until the families were already stuck. Hopefully, that would increase his sense of desperation and force him to pull out quickly to save them. There was no way the congressman should already know that they were en route to the families. Even if he’d surmised that they got a vehicle out of the compound during the fiasco with Bob the training dummy, there was no way they should have known where that vehicle was headed.
Unless someone told him.
Arthur dropped the headphones, letting the last question from the congressman go unanswered.
What kind of man was he?
The kind who killed a traitor when he found them.
Kevin was a step ahead of him, yanking the door open, and exiting with pistol drawn. Carlos was nowhere to be seen. “You think it was him?” he asked.
“Has to be,” Arthur said. “Why else would he be acting this way?”
“He’ll be trying to get to them. He can’t afford to let them get away without him. He’d be stuck. His only chance of surviving is with them.”
“I want his butt back here,” Arthur said. “We need to confirm that he’s the spy and that he’s the only one.”
Arthur went back inside and put the headset on. He switched to the frequency his men used for their own internal communication. “Bridges for all hands. If anyone spots Carlos Munoz I need him detained. Please consider him armed and dangerous. Use utmost caution but try to take him alive.”
He slipped the headset off his head and leaned back in the chair. He’d considered a lot of scenarios but this wasn’t one that had even crossed his mind. He never expected to find a rat within their walls. He started to get up, then noticed a paperback book on top of one of the radios. It looked familiar. Arthur flipped it over and saw it was one of Robert’s books. It was unlikely Carlos was reading the book. He’d never seen the man with a book before or heard him express an interest in reading. Was he researching Robert? If so, why? It was just one more question begging for an answer.
“We need to find him,” Arthur repeated to Kevin.
Kevin pulled out his handheld radio. “Kevin for Brandon. Kevin for Brandon.”
“Go for Brandon.”
“I need you at the commo shack in full load-out ASAP. We’re going hunting.”
24
“So you were just going to pull out and leave me?” Carlos hissed through clenched teeth, trying to speak into the handheld radio while desperately running for his quarters.
“The idea that you are somehow a central part of this operation is a misperception,” the congressman replied. “Certainly you were an asset important to this phase of the operation but you’ve become obsolete.”
“Obsolete?” Carlos barked. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“The compound is no longer our objective. Your role in this operation was only relevant toward helping us reach that particular goal. Toting you around now would be like hanging on to a spare oil filter for a car you no longer own. What’s the purpose?”
“The purpose…is that...you got me into this and…you have to…get me out!” Carlos was speaking louder now, his labored breathing making it difficult to hold a conversation.
“I have to do no such thing. Was there ever any discussion of me accepting responsibility for you if this mission failed? No, there wasn’t. There was only one discussion: help me get into that compound and you’re welcome to stay on and reap the benefits with the rest of us. You failed to help us get the compound. In fact, you were a faulty component from the start. You did nothing to further this operation. If we ever conduct any post-game analysis, we may find that your failure to provide useful intel doomed this m
ission from the start. So don’t bother coming over here. You’re not welcome.”
“I will…kill you!” Carlos snarled.
The congressman chuckled. “You’ll do no such thing. In fact, I doubt you’ll even escape that compound. If you’re compromised, they’re probably coming for you right now. I expect they’ll be torturing you for information here pretty soon and you don’t even have anything useful you can give up.”
“Please? I’ll beg…if I have to. I have…family at home waiting…to hear from me.”
“I just checked my list and that’s not my problem,” the congressman said, the smug humor in his voice driving Carlos into a rage.
“You better hope I never find you,” Carlos warned. “If I do, I’ll be the last…thing you ever…see.”
“Oooh, I’m terrified,” the congressman replied, his voice quavering theatrically.
Carlos choked back a cry of rage and hurled the radio with all his might, shattering it against a tree by the side of the trail. He buried his head and dug in, running as fast as he could. He should have been smarter about this. He should have had a bug-out bag hidden in the woods near the commo shack. He should have considered the possibility of being compromised a long time ago, but it never occurred to him. The congressman had been so certain they could take this camp that Carlos just assumed it was a matter of time until it belonged to them.
Now the mission was a total failure. Carlos was a total failure. His family hadn’t wanted him to leave them alone in the suburbs of Northern Virginia but Carlos told them he had no choice, that he was leaving them behind to secure their future. Now he had no idea how he was going to get home or what he might find when he got there.
His only hope was to stow away in one of the vehicles belonging to the congressman’s party. Perhaps one of the other guys would help hide him. There were other vehicles besides the congressman’s. If he could reach those guys and lay his cards on the table, maybe one of them would help him. Soldier to soldier. Father to father. Man to man.
Carlos was running so hard when he reached his bunkhouse that he leapt the two stairs to the porch. He threw out his arms to catch himself when he hit the wall, then slung the screen door open and raced inside. He went straight to his bunk and began throwing on gear. He dropped on his plate carrier, strapped on his belt, and pulled a backpack from beneath his bed.
He slung open his locker, the steel door swinging wide and smacking against the cabin wall. He raked out things he thought he’d need and shoved them in the bag. Snacks, ammo, survival gear, headlamp, and poncho. Basically everything but spare clothes was crammed into the pack before it was fastened and slung over his back. He grabbed up his rifle, slammed in a mag, chambered a round, and headed for the door.
The weight of the gear felt awkward. As a stockholder in the compound, he’d taken weapons and survival training on a regular basis, but he hadn’t operated with a heavy pack on his back since leaving the military. Part of it had to be the weight of the ammo but he’d just shoved in all of it. It was too late now. There was no time to repack or jettison gear. To stop now was to die.
He lumbered back out the screen door and down the steps, taking them more carefully now as his body adjusted to the weight of the pack. He paused a moment to take his bearings. The most direct route to the congressman’s camp was to return to the command pod and then angle toward the gate but that was out of the question. There were too many people there and a greater concentration of sentries. He would be spotted. They may have even alerted folks to be on the lookout for him. He didn’t know.
After bolting from the steps of the commo shack, it might have been smart to monitor the compound’s channel rather than ranting at the congressman but he couldn’t stop himself. He had to try, he had to make another attempt at swaying the congressman, who had remained immoveable.
Carlos was new to the ways of espionage and was only realizing at this belated stage of the game that he should have established a better contingency plan. Though he’d studied the compound maps numerous times, he’d never paid any attention to the terrain around his bunkhouse and how it related to the perimeter of the property. He had few options and had to get moving. He picked a direction, did some dead reckoning, and started running. It was all he had.
There were no trails going where he wanted to go. He jogged through an ankle-high carpet of forest debris. Rotting leaves, small branches, and low briars tugged at his feet as he fought the terrain. He hadn’t taken the time to properly strap on the pack and the heavy burden swayed on his shoulders, threatening to make him lose his balance. He’d gone less than a hundred yards when he tripped in a hole left by a rotting stump. The hole was buried beneath the leaves and he never did see it.
He face-planted hard, the heavy pack grinding him into the forest floor. He recovered quickly and forced himself back to his feet but there was a nagging pain in the side of his knee. He remembered that particular pain from before, from a long run in boot camp. The doc said it was his iliotibial band. He recalled the knife-sharp sting and the fact that it took so long to heal. He would have to tough it out.
The pain was made worse by the uneven terrain. He ran along a hillside, one leg higher, the other lower, and the pack swaying. His feet slid continually, losing purchase on the damp mulch of rotting leaves and moss. He’d gone nearly a mile before he started to breathe easier, thinking he’d gone deep enough in the forest that he was safe. Then he heard the rhythmic plodding of steps tearing through the leaves.
Carlos froze, hoping he might be able to sink down and blend into the terrain. He hadn’t located the source of the noise yet. Maybe it was a deer or one of the free-range hogs?
It wasn’t. It was that idiot Kevin Cole. He must have placed himself between the congressman’s camp and the bunkhouse, then started working his way back. He’d anticipated Carlos’s move. Worse yet, he’d already spotted Carlos and was headed straight for him. His only hope was to move quickly and keep trees between him and Kevin’s weapon.
Carlos propped his rifle against a tree and dumped his pack. It hurt to do so but it was the only way he even had a chance. It was too damn heavy and awkward. The pack hit the ground and started rolling down the slope away from him. Carlos grabbed his rifle and turned to run. When he did, he found Brandon mere feet away from him, honed in like a ballistic missile.
Carlos cried out in panic, trying to get his rifle up, and get a shot off. There was not enough time, not enough space, between him and the speeding man. Brandon went airborne, striking Carlos with a flying Superman punch that knocked his lights out.
Brandon fell on top of Carlos and was prepared to restrain him but there was no resistance in the limp, unconscious man. Brandon was just climbing off him when Kevin closed on them, his weapon at the ready.
“He’s out,” Brandon said.
“Good job,” Kevin said. “How did you get here so fast? You had a lot of ground to cover.”
“I ran,” Brandon said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“I ran too. Your running and my running are apparently different,” Kevin replied. “You search and secure him, then we’ll retrieve his gear.”
Brandon went into action, carrying out Kevin’s request. While Kevin covered him with his weapon, he hit the mic on his radio and called for a side-by-side to pick them up nearby. Brandon retrieved Carlos’s pack and rifle, slinging it over his own back.
“Where to now?” Brandon asked.
“We haul his sorry ass up to the bunkhouse trail, then we take him to the hay barn. Arthur has a few questions for him. Wants to have a private talk.”
“You want to carry him or carry this pack?” Brandon asked. “Not sure I can do both.”
“I’ll take the pack,” Kevin replied.
“I figured that’s what you would say,” Brandon said, unslinging the pack and dropping it to the ground. “But you’re going to have to help me get him onto my back. If I ranger roll him on this hill, we may both roll all the way t
o the bottom.”
Kevin helped Brandon shoulder the stocky Carlos, then followed behind while Brandon carefully negotiated the climb to the trail.
“You’re a better man than I am, Brandon,” Kevin said.
The only response he got was the steady, forced breaths of a man concentrating on managing a heavy load without dropping it.
25
The national forest where Georgia met North Carolina was beautiful country. It would have been an amazing opportunity to see it by ATV if not for the distraction of all that had happened that day. It made it impossible for Sonyea and Robert to let down their guard at all. They were wary of strangers and of riding into a trap. They were wary that Jeff was lying to them and all of this time spent trying to find this campground was a waste. If this was a trick and he was taking them in the wrong direction, the families would probably slip by them on the road and all of this would have been for nothing.
As if they weren’t nervous enough already, things got hairy when they approached the general area of Murphy, North Carolina, where a lake limited their trail options. They had to take more public roads and traverse neighborhoods where they were exposed and vulnerable. Robert was deathly afraid they’d encounter a roadblock or someone would open fire on them. He skirted the actual town, and ran into no problems. He maintained enough speed that he was gone before people really had time to process what was going on.
They re-entered the woods near a casino, following a winding road to the top of a mountain. Robert killed the engine in an empty clearing. The sun was setting, throwing a brilliant orange light on the world around them.
“We stop for the show?” Jeff asked, nodding toward the sunset.
“We’re close to that campground you were talking about,” Robert said. “As long as you were telling the truth.”
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