The Unknown

by Brett Battles

  What he couldn’t figure out was why his captors would want to empty his bowels. Was it their idea of torture? If so, they might be on to something.

  His colon cramped again.

  Please make it stop.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Quinn scanned the fence via his phone and shook his head. “Nothing.”

  He and Jar were now parallel with the end of the runway, a good nine hundred meters from the guarded building. The only gate they’d spotted was clear on the other side of the airfield.

  “Then we must use the drainage ditch,” Jar whispered.

  Quinn stared at the fence.

  “It is the only choice,” she said.

  Quinn took a deep breath and nodded. When they’d discovered the ditch, he had hoped they would find a better way in farther on, but the only thing of interest they’d seen—thanks to the angle of their new position—was a fuel truck parked behind the building. As far as ways onto the airfield, the ditch was their best option.

  They moved back through the trees, parallel to the runway, until they reached the crease in the ground again. The ditch started near the runway and ran into the woods. At the point where it crossed under the fence, metal mesh hung down, covering the hole the dip would have created in the barrier.

  “Stay here,” Quinn whispered.

  He started lowering himself to the ground, but Jar grabbed his arm.

  “I am smaller. It is better if I go.”

  Quinn hesitated. The drainage ditch was shallow. No way it would completely hide his silhouette. But Jar? She could disappear in it. Granted, if the ditch proved to be a workable entrance, they would all have to make the trip, but there was no sense in risking detection yet.

  “Okay. Just—”

  “Be careful?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jar lay down in the ditch and snaked out from the cover of the trees, toward the airfield. Quinn swung his gaze back and forth from her to the sentries, checking her progress and watching for any indication she’d been spotted.

  He needn’t have worried. Neither guard even looked in Jar’s direction.

  When she reached the fence, she began fiddling with the ties that held the mesh to the chain-link fence. Quinn used his camera to see how she was getting on, but her body, as tiny as it was, blocked most of the view.

  After approximately ninety seconds, she flipped around and headed back, the mesh still blocking the ditch. Quinn helped her up when she reached him. Her gloves, jacket, pants, and shoes were all covered with mud, courtesy of melted snow from a storm that had passed through the area that morning.

  “No luck?” he said.

  “It is almost off. There is one connector I could not undo. But with cutters or pliers, it will only take a moment.”

  “Is there enough clearance for all of us to get under?”

  “Kincaid will not fit. But if we make a vertical slit up from the bottom of the fence, that should give him enough space.”

  Quinn hoped Daeng and Kincaid had found a gate, because the idea of dragging himself through the cold mud was not appealing.

  “Let’s clean you up,” he said.

  They moved deeper into the woods, where Quinn wiped as much of the mud off her as he could, using handfuls of dead needles to scrape it away. She was still a mess, but at least she wasn’t caked in the stuff anymore.

  Back at the rendezvous point, they found Daeng and Kincaid waiting for them. While Daeng looked his normal chill self, Kincaid was clearly excited about something.

  “Finally,” the bodyguard said when he saw Quinn. “You’ve got to see this!” He turned to Daeng. “Show him.”

  “You found a way in?” Quinn said.

  Daeng shook his head. “It’s solid fence all the way down. The only way in is if we cut a hole through it. What about you?”

  “We found a drainage ditch. It’s not perfect but it should work.”

  “Come on, show him,” Kincaid said.

  “What is he talking about?” Quinn asked.

  As Daeng pulled his phone out of his pocket, he said, “We saw a couple people exit the building as we were coming back.”

  He brought up a video and tapped the play icon. The shot was zoomed in on the front of the building, and featured two people standing several meters away from the door, looking up at one of the guards on the roof. From their movements, it appeared they were having a three-way conversation. One of the people below was a man, dressed in the same black outfit as the guys on the roof. The other person was a woman.

  “It’s her,” Kincaid said.

  “From the train?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is kind of grainy. Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive. The same hair, same profile, and the exact same jacket she was wearing when she walked right by me.” Kincaid grinned. “Brunner’s got to be inside the building. We found him. We can get him back.”

  “We don’t know for sure if he’s there,” Quinn said. Before Kincaid could argue the point, Quinn added, “But yes, I agree. There’s a very good chance he’s inside. Before we do anything about it, though, you need to calm down.”

  “I’m calm, all right? I’m calm.”

  Quinn stared at him.

  “I’m calm,” Kincaid said in a slower, quieter voice.

  Whether he wanted Kincaid to participate in the rescue was still an open question, but he didn’t need to answer it right away, because the rescue wasn’t going to happen until their weapons arrived. He called Orlando.

  One ring, then, “Hi.”

  “What’s your ETA?” he asked.

  “Depends. How long’s the hike?”

  “You’re here already?”

  “Yeah. Just need a few minutes to unload the gear and we should be on our way.”

  “Hold on.” He lowered the phone and looked at Daeng and Kincaid. “They’re at the car. Go help them with the gear.”

  Daeng nodded, and he and Kincaid disappeared into the woods.

  “Help’s on the way,” he said to Orlando, then gave her a quick rundown on what they’d found.

  After he hung up, he turned to Jar to tell her they should head back to the edge of the woods to keep an eye on things, but stopped himself. Jar had her head cocked, and appeared to be concentrating on something.

  “Do you hear that?” she said.

  He listened. He could hear nothing and was about to say so, when his ears picked out a low drone in the distance.

  Jar’s eyes widened half a second before Quinn’s did. Without a word, they ran toward the airfield, dodging trees and bushes, until they reached the edge of the clearing. The droning sound was much louder now, its source marked in the sky by a pair of glowing lights, growing closer and lower with every second.

  Quinn texted Orlando.

  Plane landing. Run!

  As Orlando shoved the roll-up tool kit into the duffel bag, next to the comm-gear pouch, she could hear Nate zip up a bag at the rear of the car.

  “All set here,” he said. “Do you need any—”

  She turned her head, wondering why he’d stopped, and saw him staring into the trees. Before she could ask what was wrong, she heard the distant whine of a jet engine.

  “We’ve gotta go,” she said, zipping up her bag.

  Nate slammed the trunk closed and swung his duffel’s straps over his shoulders.

  As Orlando shut the compartment she’d been pulling things out of, her phone vibrated in her pocket. Ignoring it, she adjusted her backpack and picked up the equipment duffel.

  “Give me one of the straps,” Nate said, running up to her.

  Though she was more than capable of carrying the bag alone, rule number 241 in the espionage handbook dictated saving your strength when you can. She passed one of the straps to him, and together they ran into the forest, carrying the bag between them.

  Daeng heard the plane first, and increased his speed. Behind him, he could hear branches slapping against Kincaid’s jacket as the bodyguard tr
ied to keep up.

  He knew if he had heard the plane, Orlando and Nate probably had, too. Which meant they wouldn’t wait for him and Kincaid to reach them. He was far enough away now that he could raise his voice a little without being heard back at the airfield. In a half shout, he called, “Orlando! Nate!

  A half minute later, he heard, “Daeng?”

  He adjusted his path slightly to his left and, twenty meters on, nearly plowed right into Nate.

  “I’ll take that,” Daeng said, reaching for the duffel bag Nate and Orlando were carrying together.

  As Orlando helped him get the straps over his shoulder, Kincaid arrived.

  “This the bodyguard?” Nate asked.

  Daeng nodded and introduced everyone.

  “We can shake later,” Orlando said, and took off sprinting again.

  The plane’s running lights leveled off just as a screech of rubber signaled touchdown.

  Quinn watched the jet race down the airstrip, its engine whining. As it sped by the building, Quinn finally got a good look at it. A Dassault Falcon 7X. On a full tank it could go nearly six thousand miles. That was not good.

  The jet continued on, rolling nearly to the end of the runway before stopping and turning to make the much slower trip back.

  Jar tugged at Quinn’s jacket and pointed at the building.

  Two men had exited. The shorter one headed around the side of the building, while the taller one took several steps toward the runway and stopped.

  The sound of an automotive engine starting drifted across the tarmac. A few seconds later, the fuel truck Quinn and Jar had seen earlier swung out from behind the structure and parked next to the building, idling.

  As the plane neared, the man standing by himself turned on a pair of flashlights that had transparent red cones connected above the lenses. He used the flashlights to guide the plane to a parking position. When the man crossed the cones, the plane stopped moving, and the pilot spun the jet’s engine down—annoyingly—in the exact spot blocking Quinn’s and Jar’s views of the building’s entrance.

  The fuel truck drove over to the plane.

  Quinn’s phone vibrated with a text from Orlando.

  We’re here.

  Leaving Jar to keep an eye on the airfield, Quinn hurried to the rendezvous point.

  Orlando and Nate were passing out weapons and comm gear as he arrived.

  “Where’s Jar?” Nate asked as he handed Quinn a SIG SAUER P226 and three spare mags.

  “On watch.”

  Orlando tossed Quinn a comm pack. “What are we looking at?”

  “A Dassault Falcon 7X,” Quinn said. “They’re refueling it now, which means they probably don’t plan on staying on the ground for long. We have to assume when they do go, they’ll be taking Brunner with them.”

  “We’ve got to stop them,” Kincaid said.

  Nate, who had been sticking a magazine into his gun, paused and said, “I’m pretty sure that’s the plan.” He looked at Quinn. “That is the plan, right?”

  “That’s the plan.” Quinn motioned for Kincaid to come over, then he walked the bodyguard a few meters away from the others. “I want you to stay back here and wait for us.”

  “No way, you can’t—”

  “This is not up for discussion. My team and I have been in these kinds of situations before. We know each other. More important, we trust each other to do what needs to be done. Maybe you’d fit right in, but I don’t want to find out if that’s true or not in the middle of a firefight.”

  “I can handle myself.”

  “See, that’s the thing. This isn’t about any one of us. It’s about all of us, and how we work together.”

  “I can’t just sit here and wait. Brunner is my responsibility.”

  “It’s nothing personal, but the decision is final. Are you going to respect that?”

  Kincaid clenched his jaw. “I’ll stay.”

  Quinn nodded and led him back to the others.

  “Give him one of the rifles,” he told Nate.

  Nate handed an assault rifle to Kincaid.

  “You’re the backstop,” Quinn said. “In case things go sideways.”

  After Quinn assigned tasks to everyone, he and the team—minus Kincaid—headed to Jar’s location.

  “Any change?” Quinn whispered to her.

  “The sentries climbed off the roof right after you left,” she said.

  “Anyone else come outside?”

  “No.”

  Quinn scanned the fence to the right, in the direction of the drainage ditch. Given Brunner’s presumed imminent departure, Quinn worried it would waste too much time to reposition there, cross under, and then work their way back to the plane. The direct approach was their only real choice. Thankfully, that task had been made easier by the sentries leaving the roof and the airplane itself blocking the view of anyone at the building.

  He nodded to Daeng, who snuck up to the fence and began cutting a flap in the chain link.

  Quinn signed for Orlando to give him another comm pack and night vision binoculars. She passed them over and he gave them to Jar. “You’re our eyes,” he whispered. “You see anything, you tell us.”

  She nodded and donned the radio.

  A few moments later, Daeng made his last cut. He opened the flap, slipped through to the other side, and waved for the others to join him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Brunner rubbed the side of his head. It was pretty remarkable that since being snatched off the train, he had yet to have a migraine. They were a constant problem in his life, and most prone to showing up whenever he was under stress. And there was no question he’d been under a lot of stress. The helicopter, the murder of Clarke, the confinement in this cell, and the hours of enduring twisting bowels as the laxative did its thing.

  Through it all, no headache. Not even a hint.

  Until now.

  He could feel it at the very back of his head—not pain per se, but pressure. Soft, almost not there. But that was how it always began.

  If he had his naratriptan, now would have been when to take it. Three-quarters of the time it would keep the migraine at bay. Without it, there was a hundred-percent chance he’d be in pain within the hour.

  He heard a key turn in the lock on the door.

  He looked over as the door swung open.

  In strode the woman and the man who’d been working with Clarke.

  “On your feet,” the woman said. “Back against the wall.”

  Brunner did as she said.

  The man looked out the doorway. “Bring it in.”

  Two of the dark-clad men entered the room, carrying a gray container. The box was over two meters long and nearly a meter wide. It appeared to be made of heavy-duty plastic and had metal handles on both sides. As the men set the box on the floor, the other similarly attired guards walked in and stopped by the door.

  One of the men undid the clasps and raised the lid. Inside, the box was lined by some kind of white hardened foam, and through the middle of it ran a long, open cavity.

  “Get in,” the woman said.

  Brunner gaped at her. “I-I’m not getting in there.”

  “You’re getting in, one way or another.”

  “I-I-I’ll suffocate.”

  “You will not,” the woman said. “Now get in.”

  Brunner took a deep breath and moved toward the box.

  “Remove your shoes first,” the man from the train said.

  Hands shaking, Brunner pulled off his shoes.

  The woman tapped the end of the case nearest the door. “Lie down, with your head here.”

  After another slight hesitation, Brunner lay down in the case. The foam surface was spongy and surprisingly comfortable. Perhaps that should have made him feel better, but it only ratcheted up his fear.

  Above him, the man took something from one of the soldiers and dropped it into the box.

  “Put it on. You will not have enough room to do so when the lid closes.”


  Brunner picked the item up. It was an oxygen mask connected to a long, flexible hose. “What’s this for?”

  “You were worried about suffocating? Now you do not need to worry.”

  Brunner slipped the mask over his mouth and nose and pulled the straps over his head.

  “If you fall asleep, be careful not to knock the mask off,” the woman said. “That would be…unfortunate.”

  Heart rate quickening, Brunner asked, “How long will I be in here?”

  “What?” the woman asked.

  Brunner lifted his mask away from his face and repeated the question.

  “No more than twenty-four hours.”

  Twenty-four hours? No wonder they’d cleaned out his system.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Enough questions,” the man said. “Put the mask back on.”

  Brunner complied. The man took the other end of the hose and shoved it into a hole in the foam Brunner hadn’t noticed before. There was a click.

  “See you soon,” the woman said and pulled the lid down, plunging the box into darkness.

  It wasn’t until this moment that the pressure at the back of his head returned, only stronger. “Wait! Wait!”

  The mask muffled the sound. He tried to move a hand to pull it off, but as he’d been warned, there wasn’t enough room to do so.

  “Wait! I need medicine! Please! Open up!”

  Brunner looked around, eyes wide, but he could see absolutely nothing.

  He jerked at the muffled sounds of one of the metallic latches being reengaged. The remaining latches followed.

  The case was lifted into the air.

  Brunner had expected to hear something before being raised, but there had not been a sound. The foam was not only there to protect him; it acted as soundproofing, too. Which meant no one outside could hear his shouts.

  He was on the verge of hyperventilating. He had never been this scared in his life. Even getting whisked out of the train and hauled up to the helicopter had been better than this, as at least then, he’d known what was happening.