“Sure.” Pat lifted his head. Before he even asked, John said to Grant, “Pat wants to know when his bike will be here.”
“Tell him it’ll be in Monday’s delivery along with some stuff mom sent.”
John related that to his son, who said, “Awesome!”
Grant said bye and they hung up.
“So.” He gave his boy a squeeze. “What do you want to do today?”
“Can we go exploring?” Pat’s stomach rumbled. “Can we have pancakes first? I’m hungry.”
John flipped on the radio in the apartment while he whipped up pancake batter. Two rock songs sung by men who were likely in their seventies by now aired back-to-back before the DJ came on.
“Better batten down your hatches, folks. Battle Night begins at eight tonight. If you’re on the street, you will be shot. Both teams are reporting in, ten privates each and two sergeants per five-man squad. Lieutenants are Bolton Farrera for A team and Dan Walden for B team. Major General Halt has confirmed all slots are now full and the rosters are closed. Good luck to all. Stay safe. And remember; only losers get dead!”
**
“I want to come!”
John glanced aside at him. “I know you do, Pat. But it might be dangerous.” He pulled on a jacket, his shoulder holster snug across his back and under his arms. The weight of it was familiar, like a pair of boots not worn since last winter. “You should stay here. Watch one of the movies you have on your iPad and call me from the phone at my desk if you need anything. I doubt I’ll be out for long.”
“I won’t get in the way.”
“Pat, I said no. I need to be able to trust you’re gonna listen to me and do what I say.” Pat looked at the floor. “Why don’t you hang out downstairs? I don’t want you answering the door to anyone, but maybe you can call Uncle Nate.”
“It’s too late tonight. He’s in Florida and he has a game tomorrow.”
“So call Uncle Ben or Grandma.”
“Okay.”
“Look.” John crouched. “I’m not saying you can’t go to Battle Night ever. But we don’t know these people. Once we make friends, then when the next time rolls around we’ll talk about it again. Does that sound okay?”
Pat bit his lip and tears filled his eyes. “Are you going to come back?”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me. Haven’t I come back every time?” John squeezed the back of his neck and touched his forehead to Pat’s.
John kissed the top of his head and pulled his son to him. The kid put on a brave face but inside he was dead scared he was going to get dumped off by another parent. John hadn’t done him any favors being gone so much. Still, that wasn’t going to happen anymore. Part of the reason why they were here was so they could spend time together. To finally be a family, for real. And forever. It didn’t matter what the town threw at them. It didn’t matter who these people were. John was going to win at this—being sheriff being a parent, all of it.
He was going to make that happen.
**
The command center set up at the Meeting House was a bust. John couldn’t very well observe people acting natural when they knew he was watching them. Conversations turned clipped the minute he entered.
The personnel stationed around the folding tables were mostly aging men who strode around with military bearing. The coffee flowed thick and fast, courtesy of Olympia who gave him a wave. The major general shook John’s hand, but quickly turned his attention back to the map spread on a table in the center of the room.
Little flags on the map marked each of the team members, the safe zones and the location of each team’s flag. Two team colonels were there—Father Mathews, who had given the prayer at dinner along with a stocky man who had a long beard and a leather vest and introduced himself as Hal, the radio DJ. Each of them used separate radio channels to communicate with their lieutenants.
John didn’t know why either was qualified to command a team, but there it was.
What bothered John was the two black flags on the map. When he asked about it, the major general just glared. A woman in a pant suit who looked like she should have been on staff at the Pentagon, snapped straight and said, “Those are dark agents.” As if that explained it perfectly.
John filled a paper cup of coffee and headed out. He strode by the front window of the sheriff’s office. Pat was on the computer, probably online. That wasn’t exactly what John had told him to occupy himself with but he wasn’t going to argue the point right now. Pat was a good kid but John had been away from him for a long time. He needed to rebuild Pat’s trust.
He strode down Main Street toward the farm, since he hadn’t been over that part of town yet. Eventually he’d have to figure out a route to run in the mornings, get a better idea of the layout of the town and a good six mile course.
This end of town had a gym opposite the hardware store, but the glass windows out front showed a boxing ring and a series of punching bags around the place and that was it.
The last building on John’s side looked like a café or diner, with tables and chairs outside wrapping around the corner. Both the front and side had windows, and the interior would seat fifty people easily between the booths and tables. Sunday’s advertised special was going to be roast beef and mashed potatoes.
Two figures dressed in black strode from the opposite side of the street. John ducked against the side of the building and hid in the shadows of the diner’s front door. Armed with paintball guns and wearing wool caps and goggles, they walked like it was Sunday at two and they were going out for ice cream. Both had the letter A drawn on their cheeks.
“…so Sheila told me she didn’t want to see my sorry butt again. By the time I got over there she’d thrown all my stuff on the front lawn. It took me years to build up that collection of The Amazing Spiderman. I had nearly every single one except number three-hundred, you know, with the first appearance of Venom. Now I’m back at my mom’s house.”
“That’s harsh, dude.”
“You’re telling me.” The first guy sighed. “Issue number seven got mud on the corner.”
The two guys couldn’t have been older than early-twenties. John waited until they crossed in front of him at a right angle to Main Street and then he sprinted across.
The road to the farm was much like the road to the ranch. As wide as a two lane road it was blacktop all the way to the open gate. Air puffed from his lungs in clouds as John moved down the side of the road where the tree line was. He couldn’t hear much, but past the gate there was movement and the low rumble of men talking.
John froze. He ducked against the nearest tree. Ten feet to his right something moved between the trees. The steps were silent but he heard the rustle of fallen leaves as someone made their way to the farm. John lifted his wrist and illuminated his watch.
8:47 p.m.
“Freeze!”
John pulled his gun surrounded by four men, all masked. They pointed paintball guns at his chest. Every one of them had the letter B drawn on their cheeks.
“Easy, man.”
John waited until they lowered their guns and then re-holstered his weapon. “Sorry. Reflex.”
The one in front grinned. “Looks like we caught ourselves a dark agent boys.” The man took John by the arm and hauled him with the group to the yellow light of the barn. John figured he’d just go with it.
A tall, dark haired man wearing a black t-shirt and black cargo pants sat on a bale of hay. He was younger than John but had an air about him that was solid. Salt of the earth, his mom would have said. Even with a B on both his cheeks.
“Sheriff?”
John nodded.
The man cracked a smile and stuck out his hand. “Dan Walden. You’ll have to excuse me for missing last night’s welcome dinner. I was elbow deep in mare placenta.”
John blinked.
“Thankfully it all came out okay.” He motioned at a stall to their left, where a brown horse with a smattering of white hairs across its neck
and back stared at them. “That’s Bay.”
The guys who’d walked him in gathered closer to the huddle. “He’s the dark agent,” one said. “He has to be.”
Dan looked at John a question present in his eyes. It was hard to imagine the man ever getting flustered, even when he was “elbow deep in placenta”. Whatever that meant, John didn’t even want to know.
“I’m not the dark agent.”
Dan’s eyes narrowed. “Still, you’ll remain here with us where we can keep an eye on—”
The lights went off. John stood completely still. The room smelled like hay and other less appealing farm odors. The men around him spun, bumping into each other. John pulled out his flashlight and flipped it on. Behind Dan, a slender figure darted through the room.
“Right there!”
The flagpole across from Dan tipped over. Someone fired several bursts of paint like the steady slam of a nail gun.
“Get her!”
Dan ran for the figure. Paint slammed into his back but he didn’t stop. Animals whined and shifted about in their stalls. The guys ran after the farmer out the single door at the back, leaving John alone in the barn.
From a dark corner the slender figure emerged. A wool cap covered the woman’s hair and a mask like Zorro covered her eyes. She wore all black and made no sound as she crossed the room with a red flag in her hand. Black C’s were drawn on both of her cheeks. Another team? She tucked the flag into her back pocket, the bright red bait clearly visible to anyone in pursuit. She lifted one gloved finger to her lips and then sprinted out the wide front doors of the barn.
The men ran back in. “Where is she?”
“That was the dark agent!”
“Who was it? I’ve never seen her before. Have you?”
“No, never. She disappeared into nowhere.”
They talked over each other until Dan came back in. “Tanner, radio the colonel. Tell him our flag has been taken.” He glanced at all of them. “Saddle up boys, we’re going after her.”
Chapter 6
The boys jumped into a rush of movement, dragging out horses and loading them up with saddles. John lifted one finger.
Dan halted. “Make it quick.”
“She had the letter C on her cheeks.”
“What?” Dan shook his head. “That’s not possible, there’s no team C.”
John shrugged. “Take it or leave it.” He turned to the door.
“Hold up.”
John turned back. Dan accepted the reins of a gigantic black horse. It took every ounce of will not to step back in an act of self-preservation. Dan smiled. “Here.” He threw a set of keys and John caught them. “The truck’s been on its last legs for five years but it runs. Or thereabouts. I don’t have anything else with four wheels and I usually ride Indigo everywhere anyway.” He patted the flank of his horse, while the animal stared at John.
“The ranch has more than one truck, don’t they?”
Dan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m aware of that.” He swung up on the horse. “Truck’s over by the house.”
“Hey, thanks.”
Dan shrugged and kicked the horse into gear. At least that’s what it looked like to John. The farmer, and the four guys with him, took off in a cloud of dust kicked up by horse’s hooves and a thunderous noise. John looked around, half expecting the woman to emerge again. Had it been Andra?
On the surface she didn’t seem the type to get involved in a game, even if the participants he’d observed so far seemed to take it seriously. Could she put aside the way the mayor and his wife—and the doctor and his wife—had dismissed her as being irrelevant? She probably wasn’t the first person they’d snubbed and he didn’t figure she’d be the last. No one else at the dinner had spoken to her. Did that mean everyone knew what the town’s figureheads knew, or did they simply follow their lead? Most of the men he’d met so far didn’t seem like the kind of guys who followed anyone’s lead but their own.
John found the truck and drove back into town. Streets were deserted. The whole town looked like the fake towns he’d done training in, both in the military and with the marshals. He half expected to see a dressed-up mannequin on the sidewalk.
John parked outside the sheriff’s office and took the stairs two at a time. Pat was asleep on the couch, all the lights were on and the iPad had died. John set it on the coffee table and put his son in bed but left both the lamp in the bedroom and the light above the oven on. He left the truck and walked to the Meeting House.
Deputy Palmer still wasn’t there, though it was hard to tell when everyone buzzed between radios stationed around the room to the table. Pieces were shifted, knocked over and moved to opposite ends of the map. By the looks of it, Dan’s team B had made it across town.
“Team A’s flag has been taken.” Hal strode over. “That’s both teams who’ve had their flag taken by a member of this team C. What is going on?” He stared down the major general. “There isn’t supposed to be a C team.”
The major general stood perfectly still. “There is no C team.”
John stopped at the other side of the table. “I saw one of them.”
Both men turned to him. The noise in the room dissolved into silence. The major general’s eyes narrowed. “Impossible. I would have been notified. That was not part of the battle plan.”
“Did A team say it was a woman who took their flag?”
Hal said, “They did.”
“Probably the same woman I saw. Probably decided to make her own team and show you all what she’s made of.” John liked the idea. He’d always admired women with cunning, which—it turned out—was both the reason why he’d gotten married and also the reason why he was now divorced.
“Impossible.”
“She took the B team flag at nine-seventeen. When was the A team flag taken?”
Hal grinned. “Nine thirty-five.”
“There is no way…” The major general’s rant dissolved into rambling.
John folded his arms, liking this woman even more. “So she made it from one end of town to the other in fifteen minutes and got herself two flags.”
The major general’s craggy face turned red. “I would have been notified!”
“Because things always go the way you planned in battle?” John shrugged. “Sometimes a new enemy crops up, one you weren’t expecting. It would be a shame to let her get the jump on both teams and get away with it, wouldn’t it?”
The major general rubbed the palm of his hand across his girth, which was covered with a wool vest. “Not under my command!” He turned to the pentagon woman. “Call all troops back to the command center. I want all intel before we mobilize the teams to retake the flags.”
She snapped straight. “Yes, sir!”
Five minutes later both teams poured into the Meeting House. Dan and Bolton both strode over, but not without glancing sideways at each other. Bolton was the first to talk. “Whose idea was it to have a team C?”
John studied the man’s dark features. He’d seen him somewhere before but couldn’t place where. Likely it was a law enforcement connection; DEA by the look of the man. He seemed the type to infiltrate drug cartels and bring down their empires while simultaneously winning the heart of the cartel boss’s virgin daughter.
John didn’t trust him at all.
He was going to have to do a serious amount of reading in the next few weeks if he was going to get to the bottom of who each of these people were. And that was the short-hand route. It would take too long to meet each individual person and determine the threat level of them living in this town. He had to know what they were capable of if he was going to decide whether to trust them with the formative years of Pat’s life. Because there was no way John could shelter the kid from a whole town.
Bolton chewed out the major general on his lack of sharing. It appeared Bolton didn’t know the old man had no clue what was going on, either.
Dan glanced aside at John. “The truck start okay?”
“A little slow on the uptake but once it got warmed up it was happy.”
Hal leaned toward them. “Sounds like my kind of woman.”
John burst out laughing, as did Dan, but the farmer didn’t seem to find it quite as funny. Bolton glared at them. “Do you mind?”
John stared at the man and tried to remember any big cases or busts but he’d been undercover for a year, which put him severely out of the loop on that stuff. He glanced at each of the men. “Any of you seen Deputy Palmer? He was supposed to be in here tonight, supervising.”
The men glanced at each other.
“Care to share?”
Dan was the one who spoke. “Palmer’s not a bad guy. He’s just a little…exuberant. Probably wandered off to give someone a citation.”
“He said he’s lived here all his life. Does that happen often?”
“I’m a native, too.” Dan shrugged. “Palmer and I went to school together. The guy never met a rule he couldn’t follow.”
John smiled. “Anyone else feel like weighing in?”
Bolton sniffed and turned away. Hal said, “He’s fine enough. For a young un’.”
“All right.” John motioned to the map on the table top. “So what’s the plan for team C?”
The major general lifted his chin. “Intelligence indicates it was the same woman who took both flags.”
Dan said, “So who is she? You saw her, sheriff. Any idea who it is?”
John had a fair idea, but he wasn’t going to give them everything. These were the kind of men who had to figure it out for themselves instead of having him take half the fun out of it for them. Besides, he could be wrong. “I’ve met maybe a dozen people in town. I couldn’t say for sure who it was in your barn. Slender. Five-seven. Hair was covered, dressed in all black. Dark brown eyes. That’s about it.”
“Great.” Bolton rolled his eyes. “I had one of those in my barn, too.”
Was he questioning John’s ability to sheriff, or just his observational skills? John studied him. “You got a problem?”
Bolton didn’t even blink. “Marshal Mason whose older brother is the director, gets all the cushy assignments. Living life on the edge, undercover, reeling in the fugitives and walking away clean.”
Sanctuary Lost WITSEC Town Series Book 1 Page 6