Shadow of Betrayal

by Brett Battles

  Up until the dirt road entered the rocky hills, it was a smooth ride. But the moment they passed between the boulders they had seen from the highway, things changed.

  Ruts and erosion had deteriorated the surface of the road to the point where Quinn had to take it down to a near crawl. Even then, several times the BMW’s tires smacked the top of the wheel wells. The rocks that lined the way were also a danger. They undulated in a random pattern, often coming within inches of banging into the side of Quinn’s car.

  The road bent to the south for several minutes, but then, two and a half miles in, it turned east for a couple hundred feet before swinging back to the north.

  “Shit,” Nate said. “I think that was it.”

  “Think, or it was?” Quinn asked, stopping the car.

  Nate looked at the map for a moment, then said, “Yes, that was it. This will just take us farther and farther away.”

  Quinn backed the BMW down a gap between the rocks, following its contour as it curved around one of the hills. Once he was sure the car could not be seen from the road, he stopped.

  Quinn popped the trunk, then they both got out and met at the rear of the BMW. From a case in the back, they each chose a firearm— Quinn taking his SIG, and Nate grabbing the Glock.

  “Comm gear?” Nate asked.

  “Yes,” Quinn said.

  Nate tossed a set to Quinn.

  “Thanks,” Quinn said.

  As soon as he had his earpiece in and mic secured, Quinn pulled out his own equipment backpack and donned it.

  He stopped before he closed the trunk and looked up at the sky. While it was still afternoon, their proximity to the mountains meant the sun would pass out of sight in the next hour or so, putting this part of the valley into a deep shadow. That could be helpful while they did their recon, but it might also make getting back to the car difficult.

  He reached back in and moved a couple of the boxes out of the way until he found what he was looking for. It was a black hard-plastic container not much bigger than an old-fashioned cigarette case. Inside were four plastic squares stacked together. They were each about the size of a business card cut in half, and an eighth of an inch thick. To their right was a small panel built into the box housing a single button. It was a homing device. All the squares were linked to the device and, when on, would guide the bearer back to the box. Quinn removed two of the squares, then touched the button on the panel, shut the box, and placed it back in the trunk.

  “Here,” he said, tossing one of the squares to Nate. “It’s going to be dark soon. We may need a little help getting back.”

  Nate pocketed the remote, then they headed out across the hills toward the road that led to Yellowhammer.

  “I doubt they’ll have audio sensors, but we should keep conversation to a minimum just in case,” Quinn said after they’d been walking for several minutes.

  “Copy that,” Nate said.

  The hike wasn’t an easy one. Everywhere there were rocks, most the size of small cars, some the size of a house. Red and gray, vertical and horizontal, stable and loose, it was like the set for an alien planet out of some sixties sci-fi show. Star Trek, maybe. Or Lost in Space. Boulders balanced on top of boulders, others jetted upward and leaned against each other like books on a shelf. Where enough rocks gathered together, they formed the hills.

  Quinn tried to lead them through the lower passes, but at times they were forced to go higher on the hillsides to find the easier route.

  After fifteen minutes, Nate took over the lead. Quinn kept an eye on him, looking for signs of fatigue or struggle, but his apprentice pressed on as if both his legs were whole.

  “I see the road,” Nate said a few minutes later.

  He was about thirty feet ahead of Quinn. He had crouched down near the top of the next hill.

  “Empty?” Quinn asked.

  “Seems so,” Nate said.

  “Any sign of sensors?”

  “Hold on,” Nate said.

  Nate pulled out the sniffer.

  “I’m not picking up anything,” Nate said. “But the road’s just at the edge of this thing’s range.”

  He set the sniffer down and removed a pair of small but high-powered binoculars out of his pack. Quinn watched as Nate moved his head from right to left, then returned to a spot just off center and stayed there for a moment.

  “There’s something down there that might be a motion sensor,” Nate said. “Come take a look.”

  Quinn climbed up beside him and pulled out his own binoculars.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “See that rock that’s leaning about twenty degrees to the left?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right,” Nate said. “Now go another ten feet to the right, and closer to the road, maybe three feet from the edge. Mounted on top of a small rock.”

  Small was relative out here. The small rock Nate was talking about was the size of a recliner. There was a bump on it that seemed out of place. Quinn adjusted his zoom to get a better look. It was hard to tell, but there was no question that it was man-made. A square box with a little rounded dome on top. He retrieved his camera and shot off several images so they could take another look at it back at the motel, then match it up to a specific product.

  “This is about as close to the road as we should get. If we go down there, they’ll know it right away.” Quinn looked back behind them. “We can parallel it from over here.”

  “Okay.”

  “Keep the sniffer on.”

  “I guess this means we’re at the right place, at least,” Nate said.

  “Doesn’t mean anything yet.”

  They started out again, this time heading toward the Sierras, always keeping a mound of rocks between them and the Yellowhammer road. Every five minutes they would check the road again, and each time they spotted more of the sensors.

  “That one looks brand new,” Nate said at one stop.

  The sensor he was referring to was only a dozen yards away, at the base of the hill they were perched on top of.

  Quinn held his hand out, and Nate gave him his binoculars. One look at the device confirmed Nate’s assessment.

  “Probably we can rule out that they were left by somebody else,” Nate said.

  Quinn wasn’t surprised. It was the assumption he’d been working under since they’d seen the first one. Still, it would have been nice to discover that the sensors had been no more than junk left by a previous occupant. But nothing was ever that easy.

  “Come on,” Quinn said as he pushed back from the edge.

  Distance was hard to tell out here. Their route was far from straight. Instead it wound through the boulder graveyard. But after another ten minutes, Quinn figured they were about three miles from the highway.

  “The map shows an obstruction crossing the road,” Quinn said. “If I’m right, we’re less than a quarter mile from it. It’s got to be a fence. My bet is it goes around the entire perimeter of the facility. Keep an eye out. We don’t want to get too close.”

  Nate was a good twenty feet ahead of him. He made no physical indication that he had been listening, but his voice came through Quinn’s earpiece loud and clear. “Copy.”

  Two minutes further on Nate cut to the left for another road check.

  “I’ve got movement,” Nate said. His voice was hushed but urgent. “A man.”

  Quinn stopped at the bottom of the slope. “Did he see you?”

  “No,” Nate said.

  “What’s he doing?” Quinn asked.

  “I only have a partial visual,” Nate whispered. “Waist and above. He’s walking down the road. East, in our direction. He’s armed. M16. And he’s wearing fatigues. Brown camouflage. Army… wait, he stopped.”

  “He’s alone?”

  “I don’t see anyone else,” Nate said. “He’s turning around and heading back the way he came. Looks like guard duty to me.” Nate said nothing for several moments, then, “Okay, he’s moving out of sight… and … go
ne.”

  Quinn waited for Nate to crawl back down, then said, “I think we need to put a little more distance between us and the road. Just to be safe.”

  “Safe sounds good.”

  The sun slipped behind the ridge of the Sierras five minutes later engulfing Quinn and Nate in a dark shadow, and almost instantly dropping the temperature several degrees.

  “Tighten up,” Quinn said into his mic. “It’s going to get dark quick. Let’s keep each other in sight.”

  “Do you hear that?” Nate asked.

  “You hear someone?”

  “Not someone. It’s constant, low. I can almost feel it more than hear it.”

  “Hold your position.”

  Quinn jogged ahead until he was standing next to Nate.

  “I don’t hear anything,” he said.

  “My ears are younger than yours.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Shhh. Just listen.”

  Both fell silent again.

  A half-minute passed, then there it was. Very low, almost blending into the background. Even as hard as it was to hear, Quinn could tell it was not something that belonged in the hushed hills.

  By silent agreement, they moved toward the sound side-by-side. It seemed to be coming from just beyond the pile of rocks directly in front of them.

  “Around, or over the top?” Nate whispered.

  “To the top, but not over. Let’s see what we can see from there.”

  The closer they got to the top, the easier it was to hear it. When he first heard it, Quinn had thought it was like the sound of a distant freeway. But now he realized it was more like a hum than a drone.

  The valley was almost in complete shadow when they reached the top. And here, the sound was much louder, the hill no longer shielding the noise.

  When Quinn brought night vision binoculars back to his eyes, he saw the fence right away. Rather, fences. There were two running parallel to each other, and disappearing off to the left and the right. The only break was at the point where they met the road. There a gate closed the gap. Next to it was a concrete building no more than fifteen feet square—enough room for some bunks, a table, a hot plate, and some storage. Guardhouse, Quinn thought. Light spilled out of the solitary window on the east side.

  Nate tapped Quinn once on the arm, then pointed a dozen feet right of the outpost. Quinn stared at the spot for several seconds before he made out what had caught Nate’s attention. There were three men standing in a loose group. Quinn assumed they were talking, but they were too far away to hear anything.

  Nate tapped him again. But instead of pointing at anything, he made a waving motion with his fingers like he wanted to pull back, then he retraced their path down the hill. Quinn followed.

  “Did you see it?” Nate asked, once they were off the hill.

  “The men?” Quinn said. “Yeah, I saw them.”

  “Not the men,” Nate said. “The fence.”

  “I saw it. What about it?”

  “It didn’t seem odd to you?”

  “Tell me what you saw,” Quinn said.

  Nate seemed to be lost in thought.

  “What?” Quinn asked.

  Instead of answering, Nate started walking along the edge of the hill, toward the fence.

  “Wait,” Quinn said. “What did you see?”

  “I might be wrong,” Nate said. “I want to get a closer look first. We should be able to approach it right up there.” He was pointing along a gully to the right.

  As they neared the fence, the hum grew louder again. It was … electronic, Quinn thought.

  They came around the edge of a rock that looked like a gigantic T-bone steak, and found themselves only twenty feet away from the double fence.

  The hum was loud enough now that Nate had to raise his voice above a whisper to be heard. “I was right,” he said.

  Each fence was a series of thick wires strung horizontally from one post to the next with no more than six inches between them. The posts were made of some type of composite material and were placed every ten feet. The planners had taken the extra step of staggering the two fences so that their posts didn’t line up. And as for the sound, it was coming from the wires. Each crackled and hummed with electricity.

  Quinn looked first left, then right. It was the same setup for as far as he could see.

  “How the hell do we get through that?” Nate asked.

  But Quinn said nothing. It was better than saying he had no idea.

  CHAPTER

  26

  “WE’VE GOT AN ALERT ON THE OLD ROAD.” THE guard’s voice was clear, though a bit overamplified.

  Tucker moved his handheld radio closer to his mouth. “Any visual?”

  “No,” the guard replied. “Just the motion sensor.”

  “Still going off?”

  “It was a single notification. Just happened.”

  The system didn’t use simple motion sensors like some people had in their homes or offices. These devices were more refined, weeding out most extraneous movement and only reporting on objects that were large enough to be human. Over the two months they had been deployed, there had only been one false alarm. Perhaps this was a second; Tucker wasn’t going to take any chances. The Dupuis woman had friends out there somewhere. Maybe they had decided to come for a visit.

  “Send someone to check,” Tucker said. “But do not intercept yet. I want to know how many people are out there first.”

  “Copy,” the guard said.

  Tucker heard the guard relay his instructions, followed by a distant grunt of agreement.

  “I’m sending a team out to you just in case you need some backup,” Tucker said. “Should be there in five minutes.”

  “All right.”

  “Report back the moment you know anything.”

  Tucker didn’t wait for an acknowledgment before clipping the radio to his belt. He used Yellowhammer’s built-in PA system to order one of the other security teams to the main gate.

  He reached for his desk phone, but stopped before picking it up. With the helicopters due to leave in just over eight hours, he knew Mr. Rose would still be in the lab overseeing the final preparations. The old man would not be happy to be disturbed. Better to find out if the alarm was real or not, and implement an appropriate response before filling his boss in, Tucker thought.

  He still picked up the phone, but instead of Mr. Rose, he called his contact in Toronto—a guy named Donald Chang.

  “You get anything from Montreal yet?” Tucker asked.

  “Hold on,” Chang said. “Let me bring it up.”

  Tucker could hear the clacking of a computer keyboard. Once it stopped, Chang came back on the line.

  “There wasn’t really anything at the house,” Chang said. “Plenty of prints, but they mainly belonged to the family.”

  “Mainly?” Tucker asked.

  “The other ones check out as members of the Montreal Police Department. Which makes sense, of course. Unless you think the people you’re looking for might be cops.”

  “I don’t,” Tucker said.

  So the Dupuis house was clean. Tucker was only mildly disappointed. It had been a long shot at best.

  “I did get a hit from the license plate on the car you were following, though,” Chang said.

  “What kind of hit?” Tucker asked.

  “Police found it in Brossard, on the other side of the St. Lawrence River.”

  “You got prints from inside?” Tucker asked, hopeful.

  “No. It was clean. But we did go ahead and check motels in the area. The car matched a description given by a man staying at a Comfort Inn that night. There were three people, actually. Two men and a woman. One of the men and the woman stayed together. The other had his own room. They left the next morning. No one knows exactly what time, they just left their keys in the rooms.”

  “Did you get any names?” Tucker asked.

  “The couple registered as Mitch and Sissy Booth. The other guy as Vince Sa
las. But they were phony. Home addresses didn’t check out.”

  “How did they pay?”

  “Same credit card for both rooms,” Chang said. “The name on it was Mitch Booth. It was good, but I back-checked. It’s the only time it’s ever been used.”

  Prepared false IDs. No prints. A disposable car.

  Professionals.

  “What about security cameras? The motel had to have one.”

  “You’re going to love this,” Chang said.

  “What?”

  “They had a jammer.”

  Tucker said nothing.

  “The camera in the motel office takes stills every ten seconds, low res. At the beginning of each day, they burn the previous twenty-four hours to disk. My guy got a look at the night the people you’re looking for checked in. But at the time they would have been in the office, the pictures were just digital crap.”

  “So other than knowing where they stayed, you’ve got nothing?” Tucker said.

  “Not exactly nothing,” Chang said. “There is another camera. Parking lot security. Whatever type of jammer they were using, it looks like it had to be within thirty feet or so of a camera for it to work.”

  “So you got them on the parking lot camera?”

  “Yes. It’s from a distance, and not very clear, but it’s something.”

  “Send it to me.”

  “Should be in your email now.”

  “Thanks,” Tucker said, then hung up.

  His laptop was in a shoulder bag next to his desk. He pulled it out and booted it up. Mr. Rose’s technicians had installed a wireless system that worked throughout the facility, so as soon as his desktop appeared, he activated his email. The message from Chang was there, complete with two attachments. He highlighted both and opened them.

  The first showed a grainy nighttime shot of a parking lot. There were dozens of cars parked in neat rows. Though the photo was black-and-white, he thought one of the cars parked next to the motel building looked very much like the car he had followed in Montreal. Beside it were three people. The two closest had their backs to the camera and were opening the doors on the passenger side of the vehicle. One was the woman. She was short and thin, but other than that she was unidentifiable. On the other side, facing the camera, was the second man. But his head was lowered in preparation to climb into the car, leaving only the top visible. He could have been anywhere from eighteen to sixty.