by Toby Neal
A low growl from below the fence froze Sophie as she dropped the large section of wire to the ground.
“Get him before he barks!” Dunn’s harsh whisper reverberated in her earbud. Sophie let go of the fence, relying entirely on the spikes in her boots and the rope at her waist to hold her upright. She unslung the rifle, and scanned the ground through the NV scope.
The dark shape directly below her stalked forward, stiff-legged and snarling. Its behavior had attracted its partner, a streak of moving canine menace headed for their corner.
Sophie shot the nearest dog in the neck and the running one in the side. Without waiting to see if they’d collapsed, she brought the rifle up and trained it at the sniper tree.
The watchman was slumped against the trunk, sleeping.
She nailed him twice in the chest, then looked back down at the dogs.
They’d collapsed, silent black mounds of fur. She shot each of them again, not in the mood to be bit as they passed by with the children they were taking. “All clear.”
“Good work. Drop the ladder.” Dunn handed her up a rolled bundle. Sophie tossed one side of the slender black nylon rope ladder over into the compound, and dropped the other back down to Dunn.
“Move out,” Dunn ordered. Sophie could feel Dunn’s leashed power behind her as her partner climbed the flimsy but strong ladder behind her, the wall thumping slightly as his weight swung against the wood. Sophie angled her body through the opening in the razor wire and slung a leg over, finding the ladder with her boot, trying not to snag the spikes on it. She only used a couple of the ladder’s supports before jumping backwards to land on her feet. She bent and unclipped the spikes, stowing them in a pocket, the rifle cradled in her arms as she scanned the compound.
Speed and silence were of the essence.
Dunn took the lead as they moved out of the relative cover of the yurt that visually blocked their penetration point. Sophie stayed close to his imposing bulk as he trotted from cover spot to cover spot until they arrived at the raised tent Sophie had identified as the children’s sleeping quarters. They avoided the entrance, marked by a yellow security light.
He signaled her, covering them as Sophie located a sharp cutting tool in her pack. It slid through the heavy tent material, zipping through the weave with a low hissing sound. Dunn went through the slit first.
They were going to appear so frightening to the children. She pulled the tranq pistol packed for human dosage but dreaded having to use it. Hopefully they could find the kids in their beds using the NV goggles and the photographs—but how to convince them to come without raising an alarm? She hoped the picture they’d brought of Blumfield would help.
Sophie took a deep breath and plunged after Dunn into the yurt.
The interior was pitch black and smelled of warm bodies—but not the muskiness of adults. The sweetness of this smell was innocence, sleeping. Through the glowing green of the NV goggles, Sophie saw Dunn already working his way around the series of bunk beds, holding the photo up next to each face.
Sophie turned to the bunk nearest her.
A boy was on the bottom, his long legs and large feet showing he was too old to be the child she was looking for. Another large boy’s feet protruded from the top bunk.
She moved on. A shock of blond hair on a smaller boy looked pale green. On the top bunk, a girl around the right age rested. Hair that would be red in daylight was a darker green than the boy’s.
“Possible targets located,” Sophie whispered. “Need to make positive ID.”
Dunn moved silently to her side. Sophie lifted the NV goggles and flashed the penlight she carried in the boy’s face.
“Target identified.” Sophie paused, unsure how to proceed.
A weight landed on her back and a scream filled her ears. Sophie grunted, dropping to her knees as the heavy adolescent’s momentum carried her forward to hit the floor. Her attacker must be the boy from the top bunk beside them. She heard the muffled spit of the tranq gun in Dunn’s hand and abruptly the weight crushing her disappeared.
But all around her, the tent rustled with the sounds of waking children.
Dunn spoke low but definite. “Stay in your beds and you won’t get hurt. We are here to take two children, Lono and Pele, to their mother, Sharon Blumfield. Keep quiet, understand? This kid on the floor is just sleeping, he’s not hurt. I don’t want to have to tranq anyone else, though, ok?”
Silence.
Sophie hated that Dunn was frightening the kids, but it seemed to be working as the total stillness of held breaths continued. She tugged the girl down from the bunk.
“Pele?” The girl nodded. “Your mom sent us. My name is Sophie.” Sophie lit the photo of Blumfield with her penlight, and then bent to show it to the boy, still in his bunk. “We need you to come with us. Quick and quiet, now.”
The girl nodded, reaching for her brother. “Let’s go, Lono,” she said.
Sophie took the girl’s hand as she grasped her brother’s, and they ran across the room and out through the slit in the tent. She could hear Dunn’s breath behind her, the thud of his boots. The dogs she’d tranquilized were motionless black blots on the ground that made the kids turn their heads curiously.
The most challenging part still lay ahead: the wall, the flimsy ladder, and the escape.
“I’ll go over first and help them down on the other side,” Dunn whispered, reminding Sophie of the plan they’d discussed if the children couldn’t be retrieved without being knocked out.
Dunn surged up the ladder as Sophie turned, her tranq gun ready, to surveille the compound.
No one moved. The children in the tent had not given the alarm after that first cry.
“Where are we going?” Pele asked.
“To a helicopter that will take you to your mom.”
“Ready,” Dunn said, from the opposite side of the fence.
Sophie lifted the boy to grasp the ladder. He was a solid sixty pounds or so, and she steadied him and helped the girl up next, grateful for all her exercising, and feeling a target between her shoulder blades with her back turned to the compound.
The kids made it to the top and Dunn was helping them over as Sophie took a quick look around through the NV goggles. The sniper was still snoozing in the tree. The children’s tent was silent. Guilt stabbed Sophie—she hoped they hadn’t scared the poor kids out of their minds.
She jumped up and climbed, the tranq rifle banging on her back by its strap. She followed them through the gap in the razor wire, slinging a leg over, taking a step down on the ladder, and jumping back to land on the earth in a crouch.
“Chopper will meet us by the river. Gonna make some noise so let’s move out before we call for it.”
Sophie took the girl’s hand as she held her brother’s, and they followed at a trot into the deep grass. The bulletproof vest Sophie wore prickled with sweat and apprehension as they tried to get some distance from the compound.
The kids weren’t as fast as Sophie would have liked as they hurried down the cattle trail. Suddenly the lights came on in the compound, throwing the NV goggles into a whiteout glare as the place lit up behind them.
Dunn reached the relative cover of the albizia tree they’d climbed for their original surveillance of the compound, and Sophie and the kids were right on his heels as he used the walkie-talkie to call for the helicopter. “Five minutes,” the pilot said.
They moved out from under the tree, hearing yelling and shouts from the compound—and striking further dread into Sophie’s heart, the deep bark of the dogs. “They must have woken up!”
“Move, move!” Dunn rasped. They ran, reaching the open area near the river that they’d chosen as a rendezvous since it was out of sniper range but open enough for the chopper to land.
They could hear the chopper, but it wasn’t yet in sight.
Even in the dim light Sophie saw Dunn’s eyes widen. “Shit. Here they come.”
Sophie spun. A gate in the wall had retract
ed. They heard the roar of a four-wheeled ATV coming their way, along with the bark of dogs.
Chapter Seven
“Fall back to Rendezvous Two!” Dunn barked in her earbud, both to her and to the chopper, whose noise they could hear approaching, but not fast enough—not nearly fast enough.
Dunn spun and broke into a lope down the cattle path, sweeping the small boy up into his arms. Sophie ran after him, Pele’s hand held hot and tight in her own. Surely these people wouldn’t shoot at them with the children? But who knew what they believed. With ‘aggressive reincarnation’…perhaps human life wasn’t even valuable.
As if to punctuate her thoughts, the blast of a shotgun rained leaves from a nearby tree down on her. “Stop! Stop right where you are!” She heard the shout over the rumble of the quad and the barking of the dogs.
They were parallel to the river. “Ditch the packs so we can move faster,” Dunn said. “They’ll sink in the water.”
Sophie stripped off her heavy pack, tossing it into the nearby water, black and slick as tar in the faint light of the moon. Their packs splashed and sank, bubbling.
“Can you run faster?” she asked Pele. The girl shook her head, wheezing—apparently she had asthma. “Okay. Jump on my back.” She picked the girl up, and ran after Dunn’s already retreating form.
The dogs were gaining.
Sophie could hear the barking getting louder as they headed back up the rugged goat track. They couldn’t follow on the quad on this rough ground with its rapid elevation, but it slowed her and Dunn too.
The chopper was directly overhead, settling down lower.
If she could just make it to the rendezvous point…
Her whole focus narrowed to the path in front of her, steep, rough with stones and protruding branches, rendered in shades of shallow green by the NV goggles. Her arms ached with the weight of the little girl, seventy pounds at least. Her legs burned. She breathed in hot, rending gasps that left the taste of blood at the back of her throat.
But she was keeping up with Dunn. They were going to make it.
The dog caught her from behind by the pants, his teeth leaving a fiery pinch. Sophie fell with a cry, rolling desperately to the side to try to protect the child. Pele shrieked with fright as she hit the ground. “Run!” Sophie screamed. Pele scrambled to her feet and ran up the trail.
The dog didn’t let go of Sophie. It dragged at her by the leg, shaking her, growling—and he was big enough that she slid backward down the steep, rough path. “Jake!” Sophie yelled.
Dunn appeared through the otherworldly green of the NV vision like a demon rising from hell, a knife in one fist and a gun in the other. He kicked the Shepherd and caught it in the side, lifting it off Sophie with a yelp as he tranqed it—just in time for the second dog to leap at him from the trail. Sophie scrambled to her feet and ran. She didn’t have time to see if Dunn was going to be okay—she had to make sure the children got to safety.
The chopper had landed, and the side doors were already open. The children squatted in the open doorway, their eyes huge—but they were in the chopper and safe. Sophie whirled back around as Dunn ran toward her. “Let’s move out!”
Sophie jumped into the chopper. “Get into the seats and get your belts on, kids.”
Dunn jumped into the chopper right behind her, slamming the door. “Get us the hell out of here!” he yelled to the pilot.
The chopper rose, weaving slightly. Sophie helped the kids fasten their four-point harnesses and finally put on her own. She slipped her helmet on as the chopper leveled out and sped up, banking to head back toward Oahu.
“This what it’s like every day?” She asked Dunn, seated beside the pilot in front.
He turned to look at her, gray eyes bright in his painted face, and grinned. “Only the best days are like this.”
Overhead light bathed Sharon Blumfield and her children through the Security Solutions medical clinic’s window. It had been a long night, but a good one.
A bubble of satisfaction swelled Sophie’s chest as she and Dunn stood in the doorway watching the tender reunion. The company’s on-call doctor had met them on the helipad to assess the children, and he’d taken the kids down to the clinic area to meet their mother.
Sharon Blumfield’s sunken eyes overflowed as she embraced her children, and both of them embraced her too, everyone crying. “We missed you so much, Mom! Why did you leave us?” Pele exclaimed.
“I had to. But I sent Sophie and Jake to get you. It was the best I could do,” Blumfield said.
“But what about our brothers and sisters? Where are their moms? Did they run away too?”
Where, indeed? That question was really beginning to bother Sophie.
Blumfield made soothing noises, and Dr. Kinoshita, Security Solutions’ psychologist, came forward. “You kids seem to have some questions. Come sit with your mom and me, and let’s talk.”
The doctor, with a nod to Dunn and Sophie, shut the clinic door to give the family privacy.
“You must be Sophie Ang. I’ve heard so much about you.”
Sophie turned to face the male voice at her elbow.
“Sophie, this is Kendall Bix, our immediate supervisor in charge of operations,” Dunn said as Sophie shook Bix’s hand. The man’s grip was light but strong, and he looked her over with sharp brown eyes. Razor-cut black hair and an upright bearing showed a military influence. “Pleased to meet you,” Sophie said. “I thought I’d meet you yesterday, when we were planning the op, but Dunn said you were busy.”
“Not that busy.” Bix’s smile was a baring of teeth. “Let’s debrief upstairs.” He spun on a heel.
Sophie followed Dunn and Bix down the hall. They took the elevator in silence to the third floor. The whole five-story building on a quiet Honolulu side street was given over to the private security firm’s operations. The high-rise building Sophie had visited during a previous case she’d been on was only a small portion of the company’s holdings.
Bix waited until they entered a conference room before he lit into Dunn. “Dunn, you took a completely untested short-term contractor on a dangerous op with possible impact to human lives—children’s lives! Without even a heads-up to me! And no backup!”
“I knew what I was doing.”
Bix and Dunn faced off, bristling.
Apparently the FBI wasn’t the only workplace with protocols that Sophie already wasn’t following—not that she was taking any responsibility for this. She exhaled a long slow breath. “Mind if I sit?”
Neither man responded, so she sat.
“I had total confidence in Ang. And as you can see, she pulled it off,” Dunn leaned into his superior’s face. “We’re damn lucky she came on board. She can work a lot more than computers, it turns out.”
“That’s not the point. You had no experience working with her! We always rehearse, do a dry run. The case wasn’t time-sensitive. There was no reason to go all Rambo out there, making it up as you went along!”
“Worked out, didn’t it?” Dunn wasn’t backing down.
Sophie cleared her throat. “I apologize. If I was in violation of protocol, it wasn’t intentional.”
Bix’s brows went up. “I’m not blaming you.” He seemed a little mollified. “I’m sure this won’t happen again.”
“I can’t speak for Dunn, sir. Just let me know your standard operating procedure and I’ll do my best to follow it.” Sophie leaned in Dunn’s direction, conciliatory. “And Jake, it was a pleasure working with you. I wouldn’t have made it out if you hadn’t got that dog off me.”
Dunn gave her a brief glance of gratitude before resuming the stare down with his boss.
“Why didn’t you submit an operation plan and run this whole thing by me?” Bix said, raising his hands. “Including hiring Ang? I should have been in the loop.”
“I had orders to recruit Sophie from Remarkian himself, and even the case we were working. I think it was part of Remarkian’s effort to recruit Sophie—give her so
mething he knew she wanted in on. I assumed you knew all about it, because orders came from over your head. So if you have a problem with this, Remarkian is the one to speak to.”
Bix breathed heavily through his nose a moment.
“Wait here.” He left.
“I pity Remarkian right now.” Dunn flopped into a molded plastic chair beside her.
“Remarkian did tell me we reported to Bix,” Sophie said mildly. “I wondered why we didn’t have a sit-down with him before going in.” She longed for a shower. The dog bite, a bruise on the back of her calf, ached. “You should have checked the op with him, and I think you know it.”
“Et tu, Brute?” Dunn’s gray eyes crinkled with humor. “Thought you wanted to go get those kids.”
“Et tu, Brute? Some kind of slang?” Sophie still ran into phrases she wasn’t familiar with, after being born in Thailand, educated in Switzerland, and living in Hong Kong.
“Too obscure to explain. Google it.” Dunn extended long legs in muddy black trousers. His huge lug-soled boots had already marked the shiny floor. He stretched thick, ropy arms overhead and gave a jaw-cracking yawn. “Bix is just sore we didn’t get his rubber stamp of approval.”
“I don’t blame him,” Sophie murmured. “I would be angry too. After all, we plunged right in after a brief planning session with a topographical map and consult with the pilot. I was surprised we didn’t do more prep and rehearsal. So many things could have gone wrong.”
“But they didn’t.” Dunn surged up and began his restless pacing, back and forth in front of the windows. Dawn was sharpening the silhouette of Diamond Head, just visible between nearby skyscrapers. It was a familiar view, but from a different, unfamiliar angle.
Sophie missed her cool dim computer lab with a sudden fierceness. She missed the quiet, the corner where she liked to exercise and watch the sky, the private feeling of each computer bay, the way the tech agents left each other alone to chase perps down cyber-pathways.