by Vicki Hinze
“What?” Phoenix unzipped her fanny-pack and fingered the loose flower petals filling it. The light scent stirred, filling her nose.
“We need to retire.”
“What?” People like them didn’t get to retire. The only way out of NINA was to die.
“I said, we need to retire.”
“Your timing isn’t great for talking crazy.” He knew better. She sprinkled flower petals along her path.
“We’ve managed to stay alive this long. If we can do that, we can figure out a way to retire.”
She stared through the woods to the clearing ahead. “I don’t know how to live like that, Jackal.” This double life was all she’d known for decades. She barely remembered a time when duplicity didn’t rule her life.
“Me, either,” he admitted. “But what an adventure it will be to find out.”
Twigs snapped. She strained to see through the tree branches. Moonlight slivered and fanned the clearing. Something rustled straight ahead, at the entrance to the bunker. Phoenix stilled, lifted her binoculars to her eyes and spotted Johnson, walking behind Jaycee, obviously with his gun pointed at her back. “I have to go,” Phoenix whispered.
“Be careful.”
“Always.”
Chapter Fifteen
Monday, June 8th, 1:10 a.m.
The Bunker
Nick and Elle waited in the woods. “How are the guys going to find us?” Elle kept her voice soft and low, worked to keep her fear buried deep inside.
“Sam’s more bloodhound than man. He’ll lead them to us.”
Elle swatted at a mosquito, determined not to complain once about anything. Nick didn’t want her out here; no sense in reminding him. He’d insist she return to the car.
Not knowing what was happening would drive her over the edge. Not that she would go, but taking precautions avoided an argument neither of them had the time to engage in right now. She wanted Nick focused on her parents and Jaycee. She wanted to focus on her parents and Jaycee.
All the way up here, she’d prayed harder than for anything in her life, trying to keep her imagination in check and horrific images out of her head. She asked repeatedly for intervention and that they all emerge from this collision with NINA alive.
Considering the organization’s reputation and what she knew from experience they’d done in the past, the odds were admittedly against it, but she had to hope, and she dared to believe.
Something moved close behind them. Elle whipped around and saw Sam, Joe and Tim. Relief washed through her, yet the tension remained. Their faces were smeared with greasepaint, their clothes dark, and every one of them stood armed to the teeth.
“You’re here. Good.” Nick quickly briefed them on the lay of the land. “Clearing is twenty yards due north.”
“Bunker is on the far side, eleven o’clock when standing squared to the road,” Sam said. “Consider this a refresher, Nick. I briefed them on the way in.”
“Great.” Nick looked pleased. “I’m taking point. Tim you run command and control from here. Sam head east and cover the back side of the bunker entrance.”
“I’ll take west,” Joe said. “You planning to flush them?”
“Yeah.”
“Any sign they’re still alive?” Tim asked, shooting Elle an uneasy look.
“None.” Nick avoided glancing her way. Swatted at a mosquito.
“Uh-oh.” Necks snapped toward Sam. He hiked his chin toward the clearing. It was filling with smoke. “Either we’re too late or someone’s beat us to it, trying to get them out of there.”
“Let’s move.” Nick shot Elle a hard look. “Do exactly what Tim tells you to do. No matter what you see, you stay with Tim. Got it?”
“Be careful, Nick.” Their gazes clashed. She wanted to say more, to offer him something to let him know how much he meant to her. But she didn’t dare. Nothing would send him running as quickly as knowing she cared, and nothing would mess with his mind as much as knowing she cared. Now just wasn't the time. She wanted him to live.
Holding his gaze, she added nothing. Her heart thudded against her ribs, her pulse pounded in her temples, and her throat constricted. Silently, she watched Nick and Sam and Joe disappear into the woods and split off from each other.
A warning fired through her and a little mewl escaped.
“They’ll be careful,” Tim assured her, clearly sensing her fear. “They’ve done this kind of thing a million times.”
Cold and bitter, her anger at knowing that clawed through her. “Yes, but not against these people.”
He didn’t dispute her, and the warning inside her deepened to a droned beat. This effort would be extremely difficult and it would not go as planned. How she knew it, she had no idea, but she was certain of it. Certain they could all become NINA victims.
Fear crackled through her like an errant live-wire whipped by storm-driven wind. “Tell me they’ll be okay, Tim.” Elle hated the pleading she heard in her voice but she seemed helpless to infuse it with any strength.
Sympathy flickered through his eyes. “Don’t ask me to lie. I won’t do it. But I do hope they will be okay. They’ve faced daunting odds many times.” He hiked a shoulder. “That’s the best I can give you.”
There was an odd tremor in his voice. Had he sensed a warning, too? It wouldn’t surprise her. People accustomed to intense, dangerous situations had honed instincts.
An explosion split the air.
It shook the ground under her feet, rocked the east half of the clearing. Leaves blasted from the trees, swirled to the ground, twigs snapping, branches crackling. The dry brush burst into flames and quickly spread, fanning out over the land.
Tim instinctively grabbed her arm. “You need to get back to the car. Can you find it?”
“I’m not leaving the rest of you here.” Some movement—a person running through the flames—caught her eye. “Look! Over there. Two o’clock.”
“I see him.” Tim flipped down his lip mic. “Nick? Joe? Sam? Report in.”
Elle stared at the zigzagging figure hustling through the woods at the edge of the clearing. Pivoting and ducking to avoid the spreading fire. “Who is that?”
Tim frowned. “Not sure.”
“One of ours?”
“Not wearing a red jacket.”
Elle gauged the person by size and the way he or she moved. The facts became obvious. “It’s a woman. I can’t see her face, but I’m sure she’s a woman.”
“No need to see her face,” Tim muttered, then spoke into his lip mic. “Phoenix is departing the fix.”
Phoenix. He recognized her? And the others knew her also? If she wasn’t one of theirs, then she had to be with NINA. Elle strained to keep an eye on her through the trees. She slipped from the firelight into deep shadows and then disappeared in the darkness. Lost her.
Tim listened for a moment, then spoke again. “No, no confirmation on whether or not she was solo. Doubtful, though. She’s consistently been teamed with Johnson. He’s likely in the bunker or the immediate area, so stay alert.”
“I’m going in.” Nick’s voice sounded enough that Elle heard it.
“Negative.” Tim mumbled a curse. “Without a breathing apparatus, you won’t make it. The smoke’s too thick.”
“They’re in there. I have to try.”
“I said no, Nick. Stand down.”
“I’m going. My responsibility.”
That declaration spurred a flurry of exchanges between the other men and Nick. Them opposing Nick going in, him letting them know he was doing it anyway.
Terror sank in and Elle’s whole body clenched as if caught in a seizure. Nick was risking his life to save her parents and Jaycee. Doing it, knowing odds were against him making it out. She stepped closer to Tim, took control of his mic. “Don’t do it, Nick.” No one would expect him to sacrifice himself. No one. She couldn’t lose him and all of them. “Listen to your team.”
“Get her off this frequency.”
Tim fr
owned at her, reclaimed his mic. “Control resumed.”
She looked up into Tim’s eyes, let him see her emotional turmoil. “He’s going to do it.”
“Yes.”
Tim couldn’t stop Nick and neither could she, which left her one choice. “I’m going to help him.” She took a step.
Tim snagged her arm, jerked her back. He gently squeezed her arm. “Stay put, Elle. I don’t have time to fight them and Nick and you.” Tim shot her a warning look. “I’d rather not restrain you, but if I have to, I will. Your call.”
Only a fool wouldn’t believe him. “But I might be able to do… something.”
“Getting yourself killed won’t save them or Nick.”
She looked at Tim, struggling to check her emotions. “Okay. Okay.” Tim meant every word he’d said, and his words left her feeling drenched in water cold as ice. She nodded her acceptance, and fisted her hands at her sides, willing herself to stand in place and not to run to the bunker.
On a secure phone, Tim relayed developments to Omega One. “Nick’s moving into the bunker to attempt a rescue. The smoke’s way too thick for it, One.”
Tense minutes crept by. Minutes in which Elle silently screamed, begged and bargained and frantically searched the patches between the flames stretching into the trees, licking at the branches and beyond into night sky.
“We need to pull back,” Tim said. “Fire’s getting too close.”
“Wait. Look. I see something…” Shadows appeared in the smoke. “Look!” Her parents stumbled toward them, disheveled and grimy, hands bound behind him, breathing hard and faces contorted in fear and angst. “Hurry!” her father urged her mother, his voice husky and scratchy. “This way!”
Elle rushed forward through a break in the thorny brush and intercepted them, hugging her father and then her mother. Oh, thank you. Thank you for letting them live! “Are you okay?”
“Elle? What are you—“
“Later, Dad.” She tugged at his sleeve. “Come on.” She led them back to Tim, eager to get them away from the heat of the fire and its encroaching flames.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, tromping behind her. “I can’t believe Nick brought you—”
“He had no choice.” Elle cut him off. “Your shirt looks scorched. Are you sure you’re all right?” Her mother hadn’t said a word, but she didn’t look much worse for the trauma. A little stressed, her forehead puckered and her jaw tight. “Mom?”
“We will be fine, Elle.”
“As soon as we get these restraints off.” Her dad half turned so Elle could reach his hands, bound at the small of his back. “You?”
“I’m fine. Worried to death about the guys, but fine.” She looked to Tim. “I need something to cut them loose.” Their hands were wrapped with silver duct-tape. “Where’s Jaycee?”
“I don’t know.” Her father looked at Tim, nodded his thanks for the rescue then briefed him on specifics. “The same man who snatched us brought her into the bunker before the fire broke out. I figure she must have started it. That’s the last we saw of her.”
Tim retrieved a knife from a pocket at his knee. “How long ago?” Tim sliced through the duct tape.
“Twenty minutes before the fire,” her mother said, nodding her thanks to Tim for cutting her hands loose. “No more than that.”
Tim focused on the two of them. “About five ten, black hair, thick glasses.”
Her mom nodded, and her dad said, “Sounds like him.”
Tim adjusted his lip mic. “Confirmed that Johnson is on site. He interdicted the Howells and Jaycee.” Tim then repeated that transmission into his secure phone, informing Omega One.
“Did you see Nick?” Elle asked her parents, her gaze darting between the two of them. She’d tried and failed to sound calm.
“Our feet were bound and our eyes taped closed. We didn’t see much,” her mom said.
“Daris, be honest about him. You owe the man your life.”
“I just didn’t want her mistaking gratitude—“
“What you want is insignificant. It’s what she wants that matters.” Her dad frowned at her mother, then told Elle, “One minute there was nothing. The next, someone snatched the tape off our eyes and the gags out of our mouths. It was Nick, Elle. He saved us. He cut our feet loose and pointed us to you.”
Relief washed through Elle. Unfortunately, more fear chased it. The fire was ballooning, but moving away from them. In the distance, a huge tree fell, landing on the ground with a loud clap rivaling thunder. “Why didn’t he come out with you?”
Her dad sucked in a sharp breath, coughed and sputtered. “He went back for Jaycee.”
Nick was alive and moving. She had to hold onto that. Determined to think no deeper, to not imagine him struggling for air in the smoke-filled bunker, Elle asked her dad, “Who was holding you?”
“The man I described to him,” he said, referencing Tim. “I don’t know him, but I suspect—“
“NINA,” Elle finished for him, sensing his reluctance to mention the organization. It had to be Phoenix’s partner, Johnson. Had to be. “It’s okay to speak freely, Dad. These guys have clearance. They know more than we do.”
Her mother grunted. “The man’s a sadistic troll. He knocked out my masseuse and manhandled me. At the bunker, he battered your poor father, but he told him nothing.”
“The system?” she asked her dad.
He nodded.
Johnson was still after the system specs. Elle grimaced. Tim asked her dad a series of questions. Rapid-fire, they exchanged information. Tim relayed it to the guys and then reported it to Omega One.
Elle heard the discussion, every concise word, but it all faded into the background, growing weaker and weaker as if from far, far away. The fire captured her, thoughts of Nick and what he could be going through. She squinted to see through the flames, scanning and searching for some sign of him—any sign of him. But she spotted nothing.
Panic rolled through her, swelled and expanded. The smoke grew thicker, the flames inching higher up the trees, growling and hissing and setting more and more branches aglow. “Anything?” she asked Tim.
“Sam and Joe are in constant contact,” he said.
“Nick?”
“Not yet.” He nodded to her parents. “I need you to get them to the car. They need water, Elle. There’s a cooler full of it in the trunk.”
She didn't move. If she left, Nick might not make it back. She couldn’t leave.
“They’re dehydrated.” Tim studied her, saw or sensed the stark fear and raw emotion eating her alive. His voice gentled. “Elle, look at me. Into my eyes.” When she did, he went on. “You’ve got to take care of them. Get them to the car and stay put. As soon as Nick comes back, we’ll meet you there.” She hesitated. Tim cocked his head, then told her, “Sam says for you to be sensible and do what needs doing.”
“Sensible.” The phrase he often used with Lizzie. “He’s threatening to tell—”
“Half-pint, yes.” Tim grunted. “Go on now, Elle.”
Elle reacted outwardly, doing what he asked of her. She ushered her parents away from the fire and clearing, the bunker, when everything in her wanted to turn and flee to it, to Nick. “The road is this way,” she told her parents. “I know you’re weary, but we need to move quickly. I have to get back for Jaycee and Nick.”
“Elle, no. He said for you to stay with us. The fire—”
“No, dad. I don’t take the safe way and leave them in harm’s way. I did that once.” She had, with Jaycee. “I can’t do that again and live with myself. I won’t.”
He stilled, stared at her, and seeing her resolve, finally relented. “Where is the car?” he asked.
She pointed. “About four minutes, straight ahead.”
“You go back, then. I’ll get us to the car.”
“Get the water out of the trunk, but wait for us away from the car. Stay within spotting distance.” Elle brushed his sleeve. “There’s a woman out here in
a red jacket. I believe she’s with NINA. Avoid her.”
He nodded. “You stay away from that bunker. If there’s a way out, Nick will find it. He’ll take care of Jaycee. I need you safe.”
“I will.” Elle gave him the words because he needed them, then turned and ran back toward where she’d left Tim. Safe? How could she think about safe? Was Nick safe? Jaycee? Elle didn’t want to look at Lizzie and tell her she’d been safe while Lizzie’s mother and Nick were… Oh, she couldn’t think this way. She couldn’t!
Counting oaks, she made her way back to Tim.
He was stunned to see her. “I told you to stay with your parents.”
Elle ignored him. “The fire seems to have exploded.”
“It has. We’re pulling back.” Tim guided her back toward the road. “Sam’s worried. So is Joe.”
These men didn’t worry needlessly or easily. They’d endured too much. “No word from Nick?”
“Not since he went in.” Tim’s concern was evident. “But it might be inconvenient to talk at the moment. That happens. Depends on where Johnson is now. We have to trust Nick.”
“Time’s up, bro.” Joe’s voice came through the receiver dangling from Tim’s collar. “Sam’s with me. We’re going in after him.”
“No,” Tim said, putting weight and authority in his tone. “If he fell to the smoke, you and Sam will, too.”
“You’re cracking up, buddy.” Sam’s voice, now. “Can’t hear you.”
“Sam! Joe!” Tim elevated his voice. “Do not enter that bunker. That’s a direct… order.”
Elle squeezed Tim’s shirt sleeve. When he looked at her, she added, “They’re not in the military anymore. I think they’re beyond direct orders.”
“Yeah. Dumb jerks.”
Tim’s voice wasn’t steady. He hadn’t meant that, of course. Everyone on the PSC team was brilliant in his own way, but when worried, we all grab on to anything we can to cope.
“We got him!” Joe’s voice broke the tense silence.
“Both of ’em!” Sam added. “We’re coming out.”