by Elle James
“I’ve got her,” Peter said and tossed Lana over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He walked through what appeared to be a make-shift camp, populated with a couple shacks and green military-issue tents.
“Peter, what are you doing? Why are you with these people?” Lana spoke quietly between having her diaphragm gouged by his shoulder as he walked across the rough terrain.
“Shut up.”
“But you’re not one of these fanatics. You care about our country.”
“You don’t know anything. You started this investigation knowing nothing about what you were digging into. I should never have gotten involved, but I did. Now, it’s too late.”
“No, Peter. It’s not too late. You can get out of this. All you have to do is walk away,” she insisted. He might be her only hope for getting out of the mess she found herself in.
“I said, shut up,” he bit out. “Once you’re in, you don’t get out. Alive.”
Lana could sense the fear in his voice. “What happened?” she asked. “How did you get this deep?”
“The director caught me looking into the files. He gave me two choices, join them or find myself at the bottom of the bay wearing cement overshoes. I chose to live.”
“And to kill for them?”
“It was kill you or be killed. I like living, so it was you that had to go.” He slowed, hefted her up on his shoulder and continued moving.
“Where is the director now, Peter?”
“He’s here. When he found out you were going to the FBI, he left San Diego and came here. You have no idea how influential the man is. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have offered to help you. I wouldn’t be here now.”
“Peter, you can’t let them push you into something you’ll regret.”
“I already regret getting involved with you. But there’s nothing I can do to stop what’s about to happen. So, stop talking before you get me in more trouble than I already am.”
“Peter, they’re going to kill me.”
“Good. If I’d done it right, you’d already be dead, and the mission wouldn’t have been compromised. You’ve pissed off a lot of people.”
Men stood in groups, their dark silhouettes standing still as Peter passed them and entered one of the shacks made of plywood and tin.
The shack was divided into two rooms. The front room appeared to be an office of sorts with maps tacked to the walls along with signs stating things like, Take Back America, Politicians Must Die and Our Government Sucks!
A door at the far end of the room had a bar across it, locking it from the outside.
A large man with a grizzled beard pulled the lever up and opened the door. He shined a flashlight into the room. “Try anything, and I’ll feed you to the bears in pieces tonight.”
Whimpers sounded from inside the dark room.
Peter dumped Lana in the middle of the dirt floor and backed out of the room.
Lana tried one last time. “Peter, don’t do this. You’re not one of them.”
“Shut up, bitch!” he said and slammed the door.
Lana lay in the dark. Before the door had been shut, she’d noticed several other people inside. All women, their faces drawn, tear-streaked and terrified.
“Will someone help me get out of this duct tape?” she asked.
When no one moved, she added, “Please.”
“If we help you, they’ll beat us,” a women’s whisper sounded in the darkness.
“They beat us when we talk to each other,” another said. “Don’t talk.”
“Help me, and I won’t have to talk,” Lana said.
Pounding thundered against the wall. “Shut the fuck up in there!”
The shuffle of movement sounded beside Lana, and fingers felt along her arm from her shoulder to where the tape bound her wrists. After much tugging and picking, the fingers pulled the tape free a little at a time, easing it loose to keep from making any loud noises.
Lana bit down on her bottom lip to keep from crying out as the last layer pulled free of her wrists, seemingly taking a layer of skin with it.
“Thank you,” she said softly. Once her hands were freed, she pulled her knees up to her chin and went to work on the tape around her ankles. Little by little, she eased the tape loose and set it aside. She might be able to use it in some capacity. “Is there any way out of this cell?” she asked so softly, only those who were in the room could have heard her.
“No,” one woman answered.
She scuffed her shoe against the hard-packed floor. “The floor is dirt, have you tried digging your way out?”
“We have no tools,” someone said.
“What about the roof?” Lana ran her fingers along the wall, reaching as high as she could. The shack wasn’t all that tall. She could feel where the metal roof connected with the walls. “Can one of you give me a boost so I can check it out?”
“Please, don’t. Ray will hear you.”
Lana assumed Ray was the hulking jerk who’d opened the door for Peter.
“He’ll come in and beat you with a metal rod,” another woman said.
A sob sounded from the corner. “He broke my arm.”
Lana’s heart contracted, and her back stiffened. These women had been abused. She had to get them out before they were burned to death. “Look, they plan on burning this place to the ground, with us in it. If you want to live, you’ll help me.”
Silence greeted her whispered entreaty.
A moment later, a hand reached out to touch her arm. “I’ll bend down. You can step on my back,” a young voice said.
“What’s your name?” Lana asked.
“Rebecca.”
“Thank you, Rebecca.” Lana waited for the woman to hunker down. Then she gently stepped onto her back and pushed her hand against the corrugated tin roof.
The sheet held fast.
“We need to move over and try again.” Lana climbed down. “Move to your right.”
Rebecca crawled to her right. “Go ahead.”
Lana stepped up onto her back and pushed her hands against the tin. The panel moved. Lana pushed a little harder. This time, the panel raised up several inches. “It’s loose,” she whispered. She raised it up and ran her hand over the top of the wall and felt a cool breeze caress her skin.
She jumped down and helped her new friend to her feet. “We need something to prop the roof panel up, so we can slip over the edge. Is there anything in here? A bench, chair, stool, piece of wood. Anything?”
“Nothing,” Rebecca responded. “They cleared the room completely before putting us in here.”
“Why are you segregated from the others?” Lana asked.
“For different reasons,” Rebecca answered. “I refused to have sex with my husband until I was past my monthly cycle.”
“Oh, dear Lord,” Lana hugged Rebecca. “Does he know Ray is beating you?”
“He doesn’t care. But I fear for my children. He has no patience with them.”
“What about the rest of you?”
“I burned supper two nights in a row,” another woman said. “My daughter has been sick, and I neglected the food on the fire to take care of her.”
“I disagreed with my husband in front of others,” a woman said softly. “I knew I shouldn’t, but it just came out.”
Each woman had a story that broke Lana’s heart. “Why do you stay with these men?” she asked.
“We have children and no money. How would we provide for them?”
“There are services that would help you until you could get back on your feet. You don’t have to put up with this abuse.”
“They’ll steal our children from us,” Rebecca said. “We can’t abandon our children.”
“You don’t understand,” Lana said. “They plan on leaving this camp and burning this building to the ground. With. You. In. It.” She paused for emphasis. “If you want to live to help your children, we need get the hell out of here.”
“You can use my shoe to hold the roof u
p,” one of the women whispered.
“Honey, it’ll take more than one shoe to hold it high enough.”
Eight shoes were shoved into her hands.
“This might work.” For the first time since she was captured, hope surged.
Lana added her shoes to the pile and, with the help of her new friends, she stacked them in between the ceiling and the wall to prop up the corrugated tin roof panel high enough to allow a person to squeeze through the gap.
Outside the shack, the camp had come alive with men moving about, shouting orders. Someone had fired up a generator to power lights. The gap in the ceiling allowed a little of that light to penetrate their little cell.
Lana could finally see the women she shared the small space with. They each had circles beneath their eyes, bruises on their arms and faces and dirty, bedraggled hair and clothing.
When she got them out of there, she’d make certain they and their children found a safe, clean place to go to. But first, they had to get out of the building the men were planning to raze.
Chapter 14
Within forty-five minutes of Trevor’s call, Hank arrived in Bozeman with five of his men from the Brotherhood Protectors.
Navy SEALs Swede, Chuck Johnson, Caleb “Maddog” Maddox and Brandon “Boomer” Rayne. Army Ranger Alex “Taz” Davila, Delta Force dog handler Joseph “Kujo” Kuntz and his dog Six rounded out the team of seven highly trained, former special operations fighters.
Swede brought with him a handheld tracking monitor and was already following Lana’s progress. “They’re headed into the Bitterroot Mountains.” He looked up from the display. “That’s not all. I got word from the FBI that they received an anonymous tip from a guy identifying himself as WolfST6. He said the Free America group has started a countdown. The time ends tomorrow at eleven hundred hours. He deciphered an encrypted message from the group with what he presumes are a grid coordinates.”
“Did you plot the coordinates on a map?”
“We did,” Hank said. “And we looked for what events are taking place at the location tomorrow at that time. The president of the United States is scheduled to give a speech at Montana’s state capitol building in Helena tomorrow at that exact time.”
“They’re going to attack the president,” Trevor said. “Frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass about what happens to the president. He has an entire team of Secret Service bodyguards protecting him. Lana has no one. Where is she now?” He leaned over the display in Swede’s hand.
“Near the foothills of the Bitterroot Mountains.” Swede pointed to the map on the display screen. They have an hour’s head start on us.”
“Then we have no time to lose.” Trevor jerked his head toward his truck. “Swede, you’re riding with me.”
Hank tossed his truck keys to Chuck. “Anderson’s truck will take the lead. You guys follow. Those of you along for the ride can prep the weapons and make sure they’re primed and ready to deploy.”
“Yes, sir,” Chuck said. He slid behind the steering wheel.
“I call shotgun.” Maddog climbed into the passenger seat.
Taz and Kujo slipped into the backseat with Kujo’s dog Six in the middle.
“Do you want to drive?” Trevor said to Hank, even as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
“No. You can take the wheel. Swede, we need you up front with that monitor.” Hank slipped into the back seat with a duffle bag full of weapons and ammunition.
“She’s an hour ahead of us. One of the tracking devices is in this truck, but the other one’s still moving. I would assume it’s Lana.” Trevor stared down at the monitor as he started the truck engine. “Hold on to your bootstraps, we’re going to be flying.” He slammed his foot against the accelerator and shot out of town on the main road leading across the state and into the mountains. With Lana an hour ahead of them, they had to make up the time somehow.
He kicked up his speed to over ninety-five miles per hour, praying a state policeman didn’t pull him over and slow him down.
By the time they reached the foothills of the Bitterroot Mountains, the sun had edged down below the tallest peaks, casting long shadows over the valleys. They’d been forced to slow considerably as the roads curved and twisted through the hills and mountains.
All the while, Swede fed Trevor directions. So far, the little green dot on the screen was moving. Where it stopped would be where they found Lana. Hopefully, alive.
Darkness settled over the land when Swede finally announced, “They’ve stopped.”
Trevor slowed long enough to look down at where Swede pointed at the map on the monitor. “It appears they’re out in the middle of nowhere. I don’t see any roads where they are.”
“How far out are we?”
“I’d guess we have another thirty minutes until we arrive,” Swede said.
“You made good time, speeding through the flatlands.” Hank leaned between the seats and stared at the screen. “You had me worried a couple of times, taking the curves a little faster than I would have.”
Trevor glanced in the rearview mirror. The trailing vehicle had kept up with them all the way.
“You know the drill,” Hank said.
Trevor nodded. “We stop somewhere between one or two miles short of our destination and hike in on foot.”
The rest of the journey was conducted in silence, the tension rising as the Trevor closed the distance between the team of Brotherhood Protectors and Lana’s tracking device. He prayed she still wore the necklace, and that they weren’t chasing a false lead into the mountains.
Twenty-five minutes later, Swede looked up. “You should look for a place to pull off the road. We’re getting close.”
Trevor found a dirt road leading off the highway. It appeared to have been used recently, with fresh, wet potholes and deep-rutted tire tracks.
He bumped off the road and into the woods, bringing the truck to a stop behind a stand of trees and bushes. As soon as he shifted into park, he dropped down from the truck and waited impatiently for Swede to disembark.
Swede glanced at the device, and then raised a finger to point. “She’s approximately one and a half miles in that direction.” The route was packed with trees and underbrush, and it rose up a steady incline. The going would be rough.
“Let’s get a move on.”
The team met between the two vehicles and took quick stock of the firepower Hank had brought along. They adjusted radio headsets in their ears and tested them to make sure they worked.
Trevor grabbed an AR 15 rifle with a powerful scope. With the rifle, the handgun he had tucked beneath his jacket, his Ka-Bar knife and several magazines filled with ammunition, he was more than ready to rescue Lana. Trevor fell in beside Swede as they moved toward their goal.
The team fanned out, moving through the woods, down into ravines and up sharp ridges.
On point with Swede, Trevor emerged at the top of a hill overlooking what appeared to be a camp in the middle of a small valley. Vehicle headlights shone brightly, and shadowy figures appeared to be loading things into the trucks.
“She’s down there,” Swede said.
Hank stood on the other side of Swede and spoke into his headset. “Come up to the ridgeline,” he ordered the others.
One by one, the team reported in.
Hank studied the camp below through binoculars. “I see men moving about. But I don’t see any women or children.” He handed the binoculars to Trevor.
Trevor adjusted the settings and stared down at the camp. As Hank had indicated, the camp seemed to be in a flurry of activity, loading vehicles with boxes. At the far-left end of the valley was what looked like an old school bus. Movement beside the bus caught his attention. “The women and children are being loaded into an old school bus. They appear to be carrying bags and suitcases.”
“They’re bugging out,” Swede said. He lowered his binoculars and studied the monitor’s screen. “Ms. Connolly isn’t in that group. She’s near the back of t
he camp, but in the middle. There appears to be a hut of some sort there.”
“I’m going down.” Trevor slipped over the crown of the ridge.
“Not without us,” Hank said.
“If you’re coming, let’s get a move on.”
“What the hell are they doing?” Swede said. He was still looking through the binoculars at the camp below. “Damn.”
“What?” Trevor raised field glasses to his eyes and took a moment to focus on the valley below.
Several men carried what appeared to be jugs, and they were shaking them around the outsides of the only two permanent structures on the camp—one of which Lana’s tracking device indicated she was inside.
“They’re spreading accelerant around the buildings. We have to get down there. Now.”
His rifle in hand, Trevor raced down the hill, not giving a damn that he was making enough noise to wake the dead.
The bastards were lighting the buildings on fire.
With Lana inside.
Chapter 15
The shouting continued outside the building, and then it got quiet.
Lana turned to Rebecca. “Boost me up.”
Rebecca cupped her hands.
Lana stepped one foot into them and pulled herself up to the ledge to look outside.
A man ran along the outside of the building, shaking a large jug.
“Hurry!” someone called out to him. “Or they’ll leave without us.”
The man flung the jug at the building. It bounced off the plywood siding, sloshing liquid on the ground.
An acrid scent rose in the air, stinging Lana’s nostrils.
Then the man lit a match and tossed it at the jug.
Lana watched in horror as the flame flew through the night. When the flame snuffed out before it hit the ground, Lana let out the breath she’d been holding.
But another match followed the first. This time the flame hit the liquid, and it caught, traveling over the ground toward the wall of the hut.
Lana tried to keep from panicking. The last thing she needed was to trigger pandemonium among the prisoners in the hut. She waited until the man rounded the corner of the hut, and then pulled herself up to the top of the wall, pushing the tin roof of the building up with her shoulder. “Time to go, ladies,” she called down to the group below. “Don’t hesitate. We only have minutes to spare.”