by E A Chance
“Do you plan to go to New Mexico and look for him?”
“Impossible to say. Right now, I just want to get you home. Who knows what our futures hold?”
Riley squeezed her hand. “Excellent point.” She glanced up and saw pinpricks of light in the distance. “That must be the town.”
The four of them picked up the pace and reached the edge of what Conrad had called a town in thirty minutes. What Riley saw was more a collection of buildings.
“Conrad and I have differing ideas of what a town is,” she said.
Coop pointed to a sign twenty yards ahead. “Made it easy to find the bar.”
They made their way to the bar, not knowing what to expect. A few patrons looked up when they entered, but most ignored them. They were mostly cowboy types with a few bikers thrown in. The bar was dark, lit only by candles and lanterns, but there was an actual jukebox playing in the corner. The bartender stared for a moment, then went back to setting bottles on the sparsely stocked shelves behind the bar. Riley felt like she’d stepped onto the set of a bad seventies’ movie.
They found a table in the corner to not appear so conspicuous. A girl wearing a leather miniskirt who looked no more than eighteen approached their table.
She took a tablet and pen from her apron pocket. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll have a beer and she’ll have a club soda,” Coop said, pointing to Riley.
“Beer for me, too,” Dashay said.
Adrian squinted at the girl in the darkness, looking totally out of his element. “Do you have iced tea?”
The girl stared at him like he’d asked for a glass of blood. “We have a few Diet Cokes left.”
“That’ll be fine.”
As she sauntered off, Coop said, “I don’t see anyone matching Jax’s description.”
Dashay gave one more look around. “Me either, but those two in the corner have been watching us since we came in.”
Riley gave them a quick glance. One was a man in his fifties with a long bushy beard and hair to match. He was with a woman at least twenty years his junior, wearing a cowboy hat over her two braids.
Adrian let out a gasp. “The woman just smiled at me and she’s coming over.”
“Relax,” Dashay said. “Maybe mousy scientist is her type.”
As she approached their table, she said, “Is that you, Cousin Louis? I wasn’t sure if you made it. How long has it been?” Adrian froze, staring at her with eyes as big as saucers. “You’re acting like you don’t recognize me. It hasn’t been that long. Didn’t we dance at Mildred’s wedding?”
Mildred’s wedding was one of the code words Conrad had told them to expect from Jax, but he was supposed to have the exchange with Dashay.
Adrian recovered enough to say, “I think we did. It was Achy Breaky Heart, wasn’t it?”
The woman gave him a playful slap on the shoulder. “No silly, it was Cotton Eye Joe.”
She’d given all the right words, but she was most definitely was not Jax.
“You’re right,” Adrian said. “So much has happened since then, I’d forgotten.”
“Are you going to introduce us to your cousin, Louis?” Dashay said.
The woman extended her hand. “I’m Jaxi.” Dashay took her hand and flashed a smile. “Come meet my friend,” she said, waving them to her table.
Adrian looked to Riley and Coop in a panic. Riley gave a slight nod and stood to follow “Jaxi.” Adrian jumped up so fast he nearly knocked his chair over. Improvisation clearly wasn’t his strong suit.
When they reached Jaxi’s table, she made a flourish with her arm, and said, “Everyone, this is Buck. Buck, this is my cousin, Louis and his friends.”
The man looked up from under his bushy eyebrows, and mumbled, “Howdy,” in a gravelly voice.
“This place is too dark and stuffy,” Jaxi said. She leaned closer to them and put her hand to her mouth. “I have beer in my wagon. Let’s take it to your trailer, Buck.”
He got up without a word and lumbered toward the door. As Riley and the others followed, she prayed they weren’t walking into a trap. Jaxi had a horse and wagon parked on the side of the bar. She motioned for the others to get in the back while she rode on the seat with Buck. He took them to a trailer park a mile west of the bar and stopped in front of the most dilapidated trailer Riley had ever seen. Buck climbed off the wagon seat and grunted for them to go with him inside the trailer. She wondered if they’d ever come out again.
What she saw inside was her biggest surprise of the week. The trailer was clean and looked newly refurbished and decorated. Buck pointed to the two couches while Jaxi sat at the small wooden table. Buck remained standing.
“Where’s Jax?” Adrian blurted out. “What did you do to him?”
Buck let out a booming laugh. “Jax works for me. I sent him on another assignment since Conrad kept insisting that you were priority assets. You’re not what I expected.”
“Likewise,” Coop said.
“Sorry about that. We didn’t have time to get word to you.” He dropped onto a bench with a grunt. “Now that I see you, I’m not sure we should go ahead with the mission.”
Riley shifted forward on the cushion. “What do you mean? We’ve come this far.”
Buck pointed to Coop and Dashay. “Those two are fine, but a pregnant woman and him? He looked like he was going to have kittens when he caught sight of Missy here.”
Dashay pointed at Adrian. “He’s the priority asset.”
When Buck raised his eyebrows in disbelief, Adrian reached into his pocket and pulled out the note for the driver. Buck read twice, then folded it and handed it back to Adrian.
“I see,” he said, then sat staring at them and stroking his beard.
“I’m crossing that border with or without you,” Riley said.
“You wouldn’t make it ten yards without me.”
“She’s tougher than she looks,” Dashay said.
“Not the problem. The situation has escalated in no-man’s-land. The enemy patrols have started shooting people crossing the area instead of taking them prisoner. I don’t know where they get these morons. If Kearns knew, she’d be the one having kittens. What good are a bunch of dead citizens to her?”
Coop glanced at Riley, the fear obvious in his eyes. “You know how to get past these patrols?”
Buck gave a quick nod. “I do it every day, but now you understand my hesitation.”
Riley got up and stepped in front of him. She was as tall standing as he was sitting. “You’ve made the risks clear, but we have to get across that border. We won’t hold you responsible for what might happen.”
Buck stood and extended his hand. “It’s your life, Mrs…”
Riley shook his hand and said, “It’s Doctor. Dr. Poole but call me Riley. That’s my husband, Dr. Cooper. Goes by Coop. That’s Dashay. She’s a nurse, and the star of the show is Dr. Adrian Landry.”
“No wonder they want you over there,” Missy said. “Let’s do it, Buck. Conrad and Bailey are counting on us.”
Buck gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Riley stretched to her full five feet. “What do you need us to do?”
Yeager lifted the binoculars to his eyes. When he recognized the horse and cart, a smile crept up his face. After months of being one day behind or one town away, he finally had Daybreak. He climbed into the van and pounded on the side for his driver to go.
They caught up to the cart within five minutes, and the driver blared the horn for them to stop. The man on the seat driving the cart fit Daybreak’s description. He pulled on the reins and the horse came to a halt, but the man didn’t move. Yeager jumped out of the Jeep and strode up to him, psyching himself up to take control of the situation. The cart driver was wearing a straw hat and kept his head lowered so Yeager couldn’t see his face.
“Get down from there, now,” Yeager ordered.
Without raising his head, the man said, “Why should I?”
Yeager r
eached up and yanked the hat off his head. “Because I’m taking you into custody in the name of President Kearns, Dr. Landry!”
The man raised his eyes to Yeager, then smiled and said, “Who?”
He wasn’t Daybreak. Against his best efforts to stop it, Yeager felt a twinge of panic spark in his gut. He’d taken the bait.
The man pulled the piece of hay from between his lips, and said, “You must be Colonel Yeager.” On cue, the three people in the back of the cart stood and removed their hats. They were decoys, too. “Looks like we’re taking you into custody.”
Yeager and his driver turned and raced toward the Jeep. The decoys in the cart raised their weapons and fired. The driver went down, but Yeager dove behind the steering wheel just in time. The Jeep was running, so he ducked and threw the gearshift into reverse. The imposter driving the cart urged the horse to turn the cart, but he got confused and was too slow. Yeager spun the Jeep around and sped off, leaving the cart in his dust.
He felt guilty for leaving his driver behind. They’d become as close to being friends as Yeager ever was with anyone, but he couldn’t risk going back for him. As he raced back to his camp, he chided himself for not bringing backup. With his years of experience, he knew better but thought he’d have nothing to fear from Daybreak and his associates.
He also wondered who those people helping Daybreak could have been. From intel he’d gathered in the long chase, they always traveled alone. That they now had supporters trained in military tactics was a new cause for concern. They were up against the border and if Daybreak crossed, he’d be out of Yeager’s reach permanently. He’d have to come up with a new strategy to do whatever was necessary to prevent that. No matter if it took the rest of his life, he could not let Daybreak slip through his fingers.
Riley and the others had trudged through sage brush for over an hour when she began to question her insistence in crossing the border that night. She’d made the mistake of wearing shorts because of the heat, and now her legs were covered with scratches. This is the easy part, she thought as she hopped to the side to avoid a tumbleweed.
Coop was behind her and tapped her shoulder. “Look at your legs. Buck told you to wear pants.”
Not needing to hear the obvious, she said, “Ask him to stop so I can change.”
She pulled her pack off her shoulder as Coop ran ahead to catch up with Buck. She had just opened the zipper when he ran back, shaking his head.
“He says there’s no time. We’re already behind schedule. We only have a few hundred more yards.”
She scrambled to her feet and dusted off her shorts. “I can make that.”
“I’ll go in front of you and pick out the clear spots.”
She got into step behind him, keeping her eyes focused on the ground to avoid the stickers. There was no point in looking up. Buck and the others were so far ahead, she couldn’t see them in the darkness. She trudged on, reminding herself that her children were the prize at the end of the nightmare. Emily and Jared were only a few days away. It had been nearly eight months since she’d held them, but it felt like a lifetime.
She was absorbed in imagining her reunion with her children when she bumped into Coop. When she looked up, he said, “We’re here, Babe. No going back.”
Ignoring her stinging legs, she straightened her shoulders and said, “I’m ready.”
Buck put on his pair of Night Vision Goggles, then waved them over to him. “Wish I had NVGs for all of you, but I was lucky to get my hands on these. This is my first trip crossing this far north, so the ground will be as new to me as it is to you. Follow my orders without question, no matter what I tell you to do, and we’ll get you across alive. Ready, Missy?”
She nodded and followed him to the barbed wire fence. He pulled a pair of wire cutters from his pocket and cut the strands. Missy put on a pair of heavy work gloves and peeled the wire out of the way.
When the opening was ready, Buck stepped through but held up his hand to stop them. “Wait for my signal.”
Riley’s heartbeat quickened, and it was getting harder to take a deep breath. Coop reached for one hand and Adrian for the other. She felt their strength flow into her. Dashay danced around like she was warming up for a marathon.
“I’m pumped,” she whispered.
A second later, Missy said, “There’s the signal.”
She moved to the post by the opening in the fence and waved them into no-man’s-land. Dashay went first, then Adrian. Riley was impressed with his bravery. He’d come a long way since she found him tied to a tree and dying in Branson’s compound.
Coop gestured for Riley to go next. When she passed him, he put his fingers through a loop on her pack and followed her. Missy brought up the rear and re-wrapped the barbed wire behind them to conceal the opening. Riley refused to let herself think about where she was and concentrated on the border fence on the far side, just visible in the moonlight. Her muscles ached, her mouth was parched, but the surge of adrenalin propelled her toward entrance to freedom and home.
They had just reached the halfway point when Riley heard the rumble of an engine in the distance. Before she figured out what it meant, Buck shouted, “Hit the deck.”
Riley dropped to the ground and curled into a ball. She turned her head just in time to see a patrol Jeep with two occupants slowly heading north past the spot where they’d entered no-man’s-land minutes earlier. They drove by without noticing.
“Stay put,” Buck said, just loud enough for her to hear.
His warning was unnecessary. She had no intention of moving until that Jeep was long gone. They all waited, hidden in the sage brush until silence returned. It felt like hours to Riley but couldn’t have been more than five minutes.
“Clear,” Buck finally said.
Riley got to her feet and was surprised to find Missy only two feet away from her. “That was too close,” she said.
They were facing the US side of the border. Missy leaned forward and squinted at the fence, then spun around to face Buck, and said, “Check the fence. I think the barbed wire came loose. They’ll see the opening in the fence.”
Buck stared at the fence through his NVG’s. “You’re right. Nothing we can do about it. Let’s book it.” They started for the far border again, but only made it five yards before they heard the Jeep returning. “Run,” he bellowed, waving them forward.
Coop pulled Riley’s pack from her shoulder and tossed it into the brush. She stared at him in shock for a second, then grabbed her belly and took off after Missy. She was huffing and puffing but knew she had to reach the far side or die.
She looked back over her shoulder to see what was happening when the Jeep stopped. It was parked with the headlights shining on the opening in the barbed wire. She faced forward and ran with all her might, but it was too late. The men began sweeping the area with searchlights.
Buck rushed past her, heading toward the Jeep, yelling, “Don’t stop. I’ll cover you.”
The gun shots started seconds later. Riley heard the thunk of rounds hitting the dirt near her feet. Coop grunted and went down with a thud.
“Coop’s hit,” she screamed and dropped to her knees beside him.
“Adrian, too,” Dashay yelled back.
“Where are you shot?” she asked Coop.
Before he could answer, she saw the blood stain spreading under his T-shirt sleeve.
“My arm,” he gasped. “Get out of here, Riley. Are you insane?”
“Clearly, or I wouldn’t be here,” she said. She glanced up and saw Buck firing at the men. One of them went down, but the other was still on his feet. “Why is it always you?” Riley hissed at Coop through her teeth.
Coop yanked off his shirt and held it out for her to tie around his arm. “Don’t waste time on me. I can’t even feel it. The broken rib and collapsed lung were much worse.”
“Shut up,” she barked as she tied the shirt on his arm. He pantomimed locking his lips and watched her work. “Adrian got shot, too. Th
is might have all been for nothing. Why do you ever listen to me?”
A round hit the dirt five inches from Riley’s knee. “Because you’re usually right.” He grasped her hand to get her to stop and listen. “Don’t blame yourself for this. Please, Riley, leave me and get the hell out of here.”
She pulled her hand free as another round hit the dirt, and Missy screamed. Riley looked up just as Buck crumpled in a heap. She turned to find Missy, but she must have gone to help Dashay with Adrian and was behind her.
“Don’t move,” she told Coop and got up, running in a crouch to Buck. Blood was seeping through his shirt at his abdomen, but he was alive and conscious.
“What are you still doing here?” he gasped.
“Saving all your lives.” She cut off his pant leg and pressed it to his stomach. “Hold this. Press down.” He put his hand over the cloth and did as she ordered. “Are there rounds in the rifle?”
“I think so. Don’t know how many,” he whispered.
Riley crawled to Buck’s weapon and stared at it for a moment, trying not to freak out over what she was about to do. What she had to do. Forcing herself to pick it up, she raised her head just enough to get a look at the other border guard, but she couldn’t find him in the darkness. She picked up Buck’s NVGs and slid them over her head. Keeping as low as she could, she scanned the area again and spotted the guard crouching next to the Jeep, reloading his weapon.
Riley took three deep breaths to steady herself, then stood and aimed. He stood just as she pulled the trigger and the round hit his thigh. He yelped and dropped his weapon, then slid to the ground next to the Jeep.
Missy flew passed Riley, and when she saw the guard was still alive, she aimed her handgun and fired. The guard slumped over. Missy stood above him for a moment, then rushed to Buck’s side. Riley shoved her shock at what had just happened aside and crawled back to her patient. He was still conscious, but only just.
Missy was holding his head and rocking back and forth, sobbing. Riley touched her arm to get her attention. “I’m going to do everything in my power to save him, but you need to let me work. My supplies are in the pack next to Coop. Bring them to me.” Missy nodded and lovingly laid Buck’s head on the ground. As she got to her feet, Riley said, “Great job taking out that guard.”