CL Hart -From A Distance

by CL Hart

  "Call Manuck. This is his mess, and he needs to clean it up."

  "Yes, Senator."

  "On second thought, don't bother. I'll make that call myself."

  "Yes, sir."

  Palmer seethed for several long seconds before he dialed the number. It rang twice and then a low, unhurried voice answered the phone.

  "It's me." Palmer knew he didn't need to identify himself further. "It appears San Diego was unsuccessful, and we've lost Cobra."

  "I know. Viper will be there shortly to pick up where Cobra left off." There was no immediate response but Manuck knew the senator was still on the line because he could hear him grumbling.

  "You do realize the ramifications if Maquinar were to become public knowledge? Covert is supposed to be just that, covert.'

  "You don't have to tell me. We're all in this together."

  "Jesus Christ, Manuck, I can't keep burying this. If the wrong person even gets wind of this, we're all going to jail...or worse." Palmer sat down in his chair and reached for the ashtray.

  "Relax, Senator, no one is going to jail. Once we've eradicated the problem, everyone will lie low for a while, then we can reorganize and be back in business. Nothing has to change."

  "Well obviously something has to, or we wouldn't be in this mess to start with. I told you we should have gotten rid of that woman in the beginning. If she has put it all together, we're all going down." Palmer bit hard into his cigar.

  "That's not going to happen, Senator."

  "You said that before, and look at the mess we're in now. The body count is rising and the collateral damage is out of control. And we have no damned clue as to where those two are!"

  Kenzie's eyes narrowed as she stared at the small white mass that stood out so sharply on her x-ray. It was the size of an apple seed, though more rectangular in shape.

  Heather and Cori turned to look at her, and Cori asked, "What is it?"

  "Get it out of me," Kenzie said as she laid back in exhaustion.

  "But what is it?" Cori persisted as she moved to Kenzie's side.

  Her eyes were shut and her features were drawn. "It's the reason we've had someone on our ass at every turn."

  Heather leaned closer to the x-ray. She had seen something like it before, but never in a human.

  Cori felt the small hairs on the nape of her neck tingle "Kenzie...what is it?"

  "It's an identity chip," Heather said as she glanced from the x-ray to the women. "Isn't it?"

  "In a manner of speaking." Kenzie opened her eyes to look at Con. "It's worse than that. It's a tracker. This means they know I'm here." Kenzie felt defeated and betrayed. When the hell did they put that in me, and why? Or do we all have one? "Shit," she muttered regretfully as she closed her eyes. "We should' have checked Cobra...to see if he had a reader." She took several breaths and then continued. "That's how they keep finding us." Kenzie opened her eyes and stared at Heather. "You need to get this out...now."

  "I-I can't," she stammered. "I can't cut into you. I don't have the training for that."

  "You have to. And do it quickly." Kenzie blinked several times as her consciousness began to fade. "Cori..."

  "I'm right here." She settled a gentle hand on Kenzie's arm.

  "She has to get it out...destroy it...crush it..." Kenzie's voice faded.

  "Cori, I can't cut into her," Heather pleaded.

  "We don't have a choice."

  Heather looked down at the unconscious woman and then back at the x-ray. The device did not look as if it was very deep into the subcutaneous tissue, but still, she had never taken a scalpel to an animal, never mind...

  "Now, Heather," Cori said.

  Quickly, yet methodically, she gathered what she would need to excise the small tracking device, as well as the instruments she needed to remove the sliver of wood and stitch up Kenzie's wound. She was shaking on the inside, but her hands were steady. Flushing the wound first, she removed the wood before she sutured Kenzie's side and bandaged it. She and Cori then carefully turned Kenzie over so Heather had access to her back. They pinpointed the location of the device and Cori noticed it was under the small scar she had seen on Kenzie's back the night on the fishing boat.

  "You're doing fine," Cori said as Heather hesitated, scalpel in hand.

  Taking another deep breath, Heather slowly drew the blade across Kenzie's skin. A few moments later she pulled the electronic device out of Kenzie's lower back with a set of forceps and dropped it into Cori's waiting hand.

  It was the size of a small vitamin caplet, but clear, and in the bright light of the operating room, Cori could see some of the electronics. Big Brother was indeed always watching. She dropped it to the floor and raised her foot to step on it.

  "Wait." Heather held up her hand.

  "Why? She said destroy it."

  "But if you destroy it here, this will be the first place they'll look."

  Cori shook her head at her own lack of foresight. Heather was right. She plucked the capsule off the floor and held it between her fingers. "Any suggestions?"

  "Well...ah...let me think for a sec." Heather looped the suture twice around the tip of the needle driver and knotted another stitch into Kenzie's back. "Where are you heading from here?"

  With everything that had happened, their eventual destination was the last thing on Cori's mind. They had nowhere to go and no means of getting there. She had a little bit of money in her American bank account, but something told her the moment she withdrew it, someone out there would know.

  Heather watched the defeat wash over Cori's face. "You have a plan, dont you?"

  "We did." She held the capsule in her palm and closed her fist over it, squeezing it tightly.

  Heather watched for a moment and then returned her attention to finish Kenzie's bandaging. "I'm done, we can roll her

  Cori nodded, her mind a whirl of possible destinations.

  With Kenzie lying on her back, Heather went about cleaning up the surgical suite, periodically glancing at Cori, her sympathy growing with each look. "I'll be right back. I'm just going to go and get her some meds," Heather said, motioning toward the door.

  Cori shrugged. If Heather wanted to escape now, there was no point in stopping her. She had done all that Cori had asked and more.

  Cori was deep in thought when Heather returned "Okay. I have a bottle of Cephalexin for the infection. She needs to take two tablets, three times a day. The Meloxicam," Heather held out another bottle, "she needs to take two, once a day, to help with the infection and the fever."

  "Thank you, Heather. I don't know what we would have done without you. Cori took the pill bottles and stowed them in the duffle bag on the floor where Heather had dropped it "We'll go now."

  "Do you know where you're going?"

  "No," Cori admitted reluctantly.

  Heather looked from Cori's crushed expression to the unconscious woman on the table. "And how far are you going to get, lugging her around?"

  Looking over at Kenzie, Cori bit at her bottom lip as she struggled to keep her tears of frustration at bay "You can't stay here."

  "I know," Cori said quietly.

  Heather was a big woman, with a big heart. These two women had entered her workplace and forced her to perform surgery, but she still felt compassion for them. She was convinced they were not bad people. She glanced at her watch and made a decision "Tell me where you want to go."

  "Pardon?"

  "Tell me where you want to go and I'll take you...as long as it isn't too far. But we have to figure out what we're going to do with that thing." She motioned to the tracker in Cori's hand.

  "I can't ask you to do that, Heather."

  "You're not asking me. You're commanding me at gunpoint," she said with a slight smile. "At least that's what I'm going to tell my boss and the authorities...eventually...once you're long gone."

  An angel with big, brown, bedroom eyes, Cori thought as she wrapped her arms around Heather's neck. "Thank you. I don't know when or how, bu
t one day we'll pay you back. I promise."

  "Whatever. Let's just get you out of here, and get rid of that."

  "You're an angel, Heather."

  "Actually," she said with a bright smile, "they refer to me as Princess."

  "Princess?"

  "P.I.C. - Person in Charge, or in my case, Princess in Charge," she said, emphasizing each word with a zigzagging snap of her fingers.

  For the first time in a long time, Cori laughed.

  They carefully dressed Kenzie in a spare tracksuit the hospital kept around in case someone needed an emergency change of clothes.

  "Won't they miss it," Cori asked.

  "No, it never fit any of us, so it serves them right, for keeping a size 10 track suit when none of us could fit into it," Heather said as they dragged/carried Kenzie outside to the tech's small pickup truck. It took some maneuvering, but they finally managed to get Kenzie into the backseat. She roused several times, but never for very long.

  Heather checked on the animals in the hospital one last time before she locked the back door. She was leaving enough of a mess that the morning staff might be inquisitive, but not enough for them to be alarmed. And by that time, she'd have come up with a reasonable explanation of what had happened.

  Heather climbed into the driver's seat beside Cori and started up her truck. "Where to?"

  "I don't know. Let's just leave."

  Heather drove out of the alley and came to a stop on Grand Avenue just as a city bus roared by. It stopped at a bus stop just down the corner from them and they watched as an older woman disembarked.

  When the bus pulled away, an idea began to take shape in Coris mind. "Heather."

  "Yeah."

  "Follow that bus"

  When Manuck deplaned, he was not dressed in a uniform, nor was there anything about him, other than his rigid demeanor, that indicated his military rank or position of authority. The only things that identified him as military were the plane and the base where it landed Colonel Manuck descended the stairs and before his feet could hit the warm tarmac, a large, dark SUV pulled up to greet him. There were no outward trappings that revealed who was in the vehicle, and he thought that a good thing. He opened the door and slid into the backseat.

  Calvin was behind the wheel. He was ex-CIA and ex-military so he found it hard not to salute a superior officer. "Evening sir "

  "Get us out of here, before someone starts asking questions." Calvin nodded and followed the colonel's orders. Viper was sitting in the passenger seat, clicking away on a laptop. He turned slightly and nodded to his boss before turning his attention back to the screen to finish what he was doing. "What do we know?" Manuck asked.

  Viper stopped typing long enough to hand him a file folder.

  "Thats not about the women, sir. All that is," he nodded at the papers in Manuck's hand as the colonel quickly flipped through them, "is the transcript of the initial call concerning the explosion at the marina. There was a body found, a...Dennis Squires."

  Manuck lifted some papers and read the 9-1-1 call sheet of the emergency personnel. "Who the hell is Dennis Squires?"

  "He worked for the marina and was an alumnus of the university sailing team," Calvin said as he exited the airport "And where does he fit into all of this?"

  "He doesnt. Hes just collateral damage," Viper answered callously.

  Manuck looked up from the file. "Where are we heading?"

  "Mission Bay, sir. That's where Cobra was found. We can stop there and regroup, then figure out what our next move should be," Calvin glanced in the rearview mirror. "I didn't think you'd want to be doing this at the division office or on the base. Too many questions all the way around."

  "Good," Viper said, tapping away on the laptop. "I don't like hanging out with you ex-CIA spooks anyway."

  Calvin's face tightened in contempt, his narrowed eyes illuminated by the light from the dashboard. "Yeah, well, beats hanging out with you and your jungle jarheads any day," he said.

  "Bring it on, college boy. I know more ways-"

  "Enough! We have other issues at hand, gentlemen. Once this mess has been cleaned up, if you two want to kick the shit out of each other, I might just pay to see that happen, but let's concentrate on the problem at hand." Manuck turned his attention back to the file. "Where is Cobra's body now?"

  "At the morgue. He was found a few blocks away from the explosion. He'd been shot twice - once in the chest, and a money shot between the eyes. I spoke with the locals, and the coroner, don't worry, they saw the badge not a name."

  "What story did you give them?" Manuck asked.

  "Just said we were looking into the explosion, possible terrorist connection, and when the call came in that a body had been found that close without ID, we figured it was worth a peek. They bought it. I pulled rank, and got a few moments alone with the body. I got his microchip tracker and this-" Viper held up Cobra's Blackberry and then slipped it into his front pocket.

  "Is it working?"

  "Yup. I've downloaded the information onto my laptop."

  "Where is she?"

  "At the Greyhound bus station, near Old Town," Viper said with a sneer as he turned his attention back to the screen.

  "What?" Manuck looked up in disgust. "Millions of dollars spent on training her, and she runs to the bus station to get out of town."

  "She's desperate, or maybe she's injured."

  Calvin pulled into a nearly empty parking lot just southwest of the remnants of Kenzie's boat. "Her boat was over there. I had everything set before you sent Cobra to the border. He was efficient...I think they just got lucky. You can still see the smoke, and the fire department and Coast Guard are still there. Cobra was found a couple of blocks north of here."

  "How did they get to the bus station from here? They surely didn't walk."

  "That we don't know," Viper said.

  "Something doesn't add up. This is a highly trained soldier, black ops and special services, the works. I'm having a hard time believing that when her plans fell apart, she chose to hop a bus. This isn't a decision LeGault would make."

  Calvin reached into his pocket and pulled out a flip pad. He balanced his wrist on the steering wheel while he searched for some information. "Cori Evans withdrew twenty-three hundred dollars, pretty much the balance of her one and only account, at three thirty seven this morning at a Money Mart - that's a check cashing place."

  Viper's fingers tapped madly as he searched for additional information.

  "Twenty-three hundred bucks isn't much to run on," Manuck said as he closed the file folder.

  "Apparently it was enough. She purchased two bus tickets to Branson, Missouri."

  "Missouri? Who the hell is in Branson, Missouri?" Viper flipped to another screen, "Evans' mother lives in Springfield."

  Manuck's brow furrowed as he looked down at his watch. It was almost five in the morning, and he was hoping to wrap up this catastrophe so he could be home by lunchtime. Going to Springfield was not in his plans. "What time does the bus leave for Branson?"

  "Six thirty," Viper said.

  Manuck thought for a moment and then tossed the file folder onto the dark leather seat beside him. "We don't want to get there too early and spook them, but I think we should drive past and take a look at the layout and then go from there."

  Calvin obediently started up the SUV and set course for the Greyhound bus station.

  Heather split her attention between Kenzie and the glass doors outside the ticket office. The last thing she wanted was for Kenzie to wake up without Cori there. She liked the young student that was why she had offered to help them, but the woman with the golden eyes frightened her. Who runs around with a microchip in their back - and doesn't know it?

  She impatiently drummed her fingers on the steering wheel Come on, come on." She scanned the parking lot, but she had no idea why. Who am I looking for, anyway? Several vehicles pulled up and dropped off passengers, but no one looked out of place. Most of them seemed to be families. They
got out of their cars to give last hugs and kisses to those departing. Heather glanced at the clock on the dashboard of her pick up. Cori had better hurry up with buying the tickets. There's not much time

  Cori's plan was slow in developing, but once she had formulated the first step, everything seemed to fall into place. They had phoned around to the different stations to find out available departure times and destinations, and then it had just been a matter of Heather getting them to the station in time.

  Heather turned in her seat to check on Kenzie. As far as she could tell, the fever had come down. At least the woman was not going to die. She turned back and looked at the glass doors of the ticket office, just in time to see Cori emerging. Seeing a quick thumbs-up, Heather sighed with relief.

  Cori hurriedly crossed the parking lot and opened the passenger side door. "Two tickets," she said, holding them up triumphantly. "Now we just have to get Kenzie on board without a lot of questions."

  "I think my hospital scrubs should help with that, as long as no one pays too much attention to the puppies on them."

  "How can I...how can we ever thank you enough, Heather?" Cori said as she pulled the bag from the floor of the front seat and slung it over her shoulder.

  "You already did," Heather answered with a small smile. "You didn't shoot me. Now, let's see if we can wake her up and then get you both settled in."

  Cori reached into the back and placed a hand on Kenzie's forearm. "She's definitely not as hot as she was," she said to Heather. "Kenzie...Kenzie you have to wake up. Come on." She gently shook her uninjured shoulder.

  An inaudible murmur escaped her lips.

  "Kenzie, we have to go." Cori shook a little harder and pressed her thumb into Kenzie's shoulder. "Come on, Kenzie, wake up," she said, her tone lower and more commanding.

  Kenzie's eyes fluttered open but there was no recognition in them.

  Cori smiled. "Hey there, remember me?"

  Kenzie blinked hard several times before looking around the small confines of the truck. "Do you think there's a chance I could forget you?"

  "We've gotta go. Do you think you can walk?"

  "I'll do whatever has to be done," she murmured.

  Cori took hold of her arm, helping her to sit up, "We need to get going or we're gonna miss our ride." It was a struggle to get Kenzie out of the backseat, but a little easier than it had been to get her into it.