by Rebecca York
“You were out of it.”
He snorted. “Don’t make excuses for me. I’m having flashbacks to that torture session.” The moment he mentioned it, he wished he hadn’t reminded himself of the pain. Grimly he added, “I’m dangerous, and you need to ditch me.”
Her answer was swift and decisive. “No. I won’t last a couple of seconds out there without you.”
Maybe it was the truth. Maybe she was saying it for effect. And maybe the idea of her ditching him made his stomach knot. He couldn’t sort out facts from supposition right now. And certainly not any personal feelings.
Instead he focused on practicalities. Starting with his physical condition. He hadn’t needed another injury, but his head ached again, and also his ankle. He must have twisted it in the fall. Maybe broken it. Jesus, that would be bad news.
“How long was I out?”
“Only a couple of seconds.”
That was the good news, he hoped.
“You said that man’s name. Trainer. The one you told me about before. He was the one torturing you?”
“His men were doing most of the work,” he clipped out, hoping she’d drop the subject.
Gingerly, he moved his arms and legs. They all seemed to work, except for the pain in his ankle, but at least he didn’t think it was broken. Looking up to judge how far he’d tumbled, he saw smoke seeping into the tunnel from the crack around the closed trapdoor.
When he began to cough, Morgan gripped his arm, reminding him where they were and why. Her voice was low and urgent as she said, “We have to get out of here.”
“Right.” No time for self-recriminations or anything else besides the basics—survival. He’d figure out the rest of it after they got out of here. Pushing himself off the dirt floor, he winced as he felt new bruises that had joined the old ones.
She helped him climb to his feet. While she was reaching to scoop up the knapsacks, he tested his ankle.
“Careful of your head,” she said.
He raised a hand above him, feeling the low earthen ceiling and stooping slightly as he steadied himself with a hand against the rough wall.
Picking up the flashlight, Morgan shined the beam down the tunnel.
It looked like no one had been here in the past century. Even with the support timbers every few feet, he didn’t like the odds of the ceiling holding, especially with the fire burning above and making the house shift.
“You ever been in here?”
“I knew about the tunnel from listening to my grandma’s stories about the Underground Railroad. I found it and went down a couple of times.” She made a tsking sound. “Until my dad caught me and punished me for playing there.”
“Why?”
“He said it was old, and it could collapse.”
“Great.” He looked at the equipment they’d brought. It was tempting to just leave it, but he knew that would be a mistake. If they got away from here, they’d need the survival gear.
When he scooped up a backpack and slung it over his shoulder, she did the same.
She stayed right beside him as he tried not to limp.
“You hurt your leg.”
He gave her the only answer he could. “I’ll manage.”
He made his way awkwardly down the passage, keeping his hand on the wall and his shoulders bent so that he’d fit under the low ceiling. The position didn’t help his physical condition, but after maybe two minutes, they reached another ladder. It led to another trapdoor closed by a metal bar that fit into a metal slot. When he climbed up and tried to move it to the side, the bar seemed to have rusted into place.
Behind them, the smoke was billowing more thickly, and it was worse up near the tunnel’s ceiling. Then he caught the flicker of flames coming from the room where they’d first entered.
As he watched, the old timbers above the front of the tunnel began to smolder. They were damp and didn’t burst into flames immediately, but soon this place would be a barbecue pit, with them as the smoked meat.
He turned back to the door, trying again to push the bar aside, but time and disuse had fixed it solidly into place.
Could they shoot their way out? Maybe. But the gunfire would alert Trainer’s men that they were still alive and outside the house.
“Move over,” Morgan said. As she spoke, the words triggered a coughing fit, and she stopped climbing while she recovered.
Knowing he had to focus on escape, Jack worked his way to the side of the ladder, and she stepped up beside him. He threw an arm around her shoulder, wedging her against himself.
“Sorry.”
“About what?”
“Throwing you down. Just what you needed, under the circumstances.”
“Don’t worry about that.” She was holding a T-shirt, which she wrapped around her hands before reaching for the bar, making a cushion between her palms and the rough metal.
“Now,” she whispered.
He added his strength to her effort, tugging upward with everything he had. For long seconds he thought it wouldn’t be enough. Then with a ripping sound, it finally came free, throwing them both off balance as it flew upward, sending leaves and other forest debris raining down on their heads, which started Morgan coughing again.
He lowered the door and rubbed her back, feeling her shoulders shake as she struggled to stop making noise.
He kept the exit closed until she had quieted.
“I’m all right,” she said when she was able to speak again.
He hoped it was true. There was nobody out here who could treat either one of them for smoke inhalation.
He steadied himself and cautiously pushed the trapdoor upward again, letting in filtered light, the roar of the fire behind them, and fresh air that was tainted with smoke. They both dragged in several breaths. The oxygen helped clear his head.
“I’m going to take a look,” he whispered.
Climbing up a couple more rungs, he cautiously stuck his head up just far enough to see the area around the trapdoor.
The tunnel exit was screened by brambles and small trees that must have grown up since the escape route was dug. Some of the tree roots pulled free when they wrenched the door open.
Swiveling around so that he could look in all directions, he saw that they had come up behind the rear of the burning house—about fifty yards away from the scene of the action.
Trainer’s troops, dressed in combat gear with guns ready, were standing in a circle, their attention glued to the conflagration. He couldn’t see all of their faces from here, but he could identify all of them by their stance and bearing. Everyone a Trainer loyalist, picked for their ideology. They weren’t here to put out the blaze or save anyone’s life. But what had Jack expected—that the militia leader would have called the fire department?
From Jack’s position, he could see six men. Ryder, Chambers, Salter, Porter, Hamilton, and Jessup. He assumed there were more outside of his line of sight.
Ducking back inside the tunnel, he spoke to Morgan in a whisper. “I’m going out. Keep the door cracked, and keep your eyes on me. When I motion for you to follow, stay low.”
She nodded, and he eased out of the tunnel, keeping almost flat to the ground as he assessed the situation. From below the trapdoor, he could hear Morgan’s harsh breathing.
Satisfied that none of the militiamen was watching anything besides the blaze, he motioned to Morgan. She handed the sleeping bag up first, then flopped out onto a bed of brown leaves, imitating his low profile. Turning, she stared back at the house that was now reduced to flames and blackened timbers.
The sad look on her face tore at him.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “I guess you loved that place.”
“I have mixed feelings, actually.”
The way she said it made him want to know more, but there wasn’t time for any personal discussion now.
They weren’t out of the woods yet, so to speak.
Sweeping his arms along the ground, he gathered leaves and scattere
d them over the trapdoor, trying to make the spot blend back into the rest of the forest floor.
Morgan helped, gritting her teeth, probably to repress another coughing fit. He looked at her with concern, worried about her lungs and worried that she might reveal their position if she couldn’t stay silent.
He pointed away from the house and started to move, easing along on hands and knees. It was an awkward way to travel, and he stopped to rest when they’d put fifty more yards between themselves and the action.
Looking around again, he spotted trouble another twenty-five yards ahead.
When he went stock-still, Morgan looked at him questioningly. He flattened himself against the ground and pointed. Ahead of them was one of Trainer’s new recruits, a tall man in his thirties with sandy hair and pale skin named Gibson. Most of Trainer’s troops had been in the military, but Gibson had been a truck driver who’d lost his job when his long-distance company had to lay off some men. Way behind everyone else in his level of training, he hadn’t spotted them because he was facing away, taking a leak against a tree.
They stayed in position, waiting for the man to finish. He finally zipped up his pants, turned away from the tree, and fixed his gaze toward the house.
Jack looked toward Morgan and saw her face working and her jaw muscles tensing as she tried to hold back another cough. He gripped her hand, wishing there were some way to help her.
She squeezed his fingers hard, and he knew she was trying her best to stay quiet. Her body shook, and she made small choking sounds, but finally she lost the battle to stay silent.
She gave Jack a desperate look as her chest heaved, and a wracking set of coughs shook her.
Gibson went still, then turned, his gaze searching the underbrush, swinging past them as he sought the source of the noise.
It was almost comical to watch his face register surprise and then triumph as he spotted them. Raising his gun, he charged forward toward the people he’d thought were trapped in the burning house.
***
Shane Gallagher crumpled up a paper coffee cup and tossed it toward the trash can with a snap of his arm. It went in, and he glanced up to see Max Lyon staring at him. They were both tough-looking men in their early thirties with dark hair and dark eyes, men you wouldn’t want to anger.
In fact, both were seasoned veterans of police work—Shane with the Howard County PD and Max with the Army.
They were sitting in the comfortable lounge at the back of the Rockfort Security Agency because both of them had given up on productive work the night before.
The offices were located in an upscale industrial park that was laid out in a wooded area on the north edge of Rockville, Maryland, not far from Washington, D.C. Most of the tenants were small businesses, among them a furniture distributor, a computer repair and maintenance company, and a health food distributor; but the location suited the Rockfort men because the rent was low and there was no hassle for parking spaces.
Inside, they’d done extensive modifications. The lounge where they sat had been furnished much like a classic man cave, with tan leather couches and easy chairs, a scarred coffee table, and a neutral rug that didn’t show coffee stains. There was also a small refrigerator for beer and soft drinks. They and Jack Brandt had outfitted it when they started the agency because they’d known they could be spending long hours on the job, and they wanted a place to relax. Next to the seating area was a small bedroom where they could bunk if necessary.
Shane and Max had both been in the office all night, but neither of them had tried to sleep. They were waiting for a phone call from Jack—a call that had never come. There had been no need to stay there, of course. Jack could have called either one of them on their cell phones, but when he hadn’t, they’d agreed to stay together.
Max broke the silence that had stretched into the past few hours. “We’re both thinking the same thing.”
Shane’s attention snapped to his partner. “Yeah.”
They’d been expecting Jack to check in during a ten-hour window—which had come and gone eighteen hours ago.
“He’s in trouble,” Max said.
“Do we call Deep Throat?”
Max shook his head. “He’s not going to help us.”
Deep Throat was their nickname for the man who had come to Rockfort with the offer of a covert assignment.
He’d introduced himself as a government lawyer named Arthur Cunningham. Obviously not his real name. As for his real occupation, they had decided he must work for the CIA since the spy agency was supposed to focus on espionage activities in foreign countries. Because a domestic assignment was beyond their mandate, the job was being offered under the table.
Cunningham had kept his identity hidden and played his cards close to his vest, refusing to give out any details about the job until Rockfort had accepted the offer. Shane didn’t like that approach. He suspected that other security agencies had turned the assignment down flat, but Jack had wanted to consider it.
After the three agents had discussed the proposal, Shane and Max had voted against taking the job. Jack had argued that the money was too good to turn down. And the others hadn’t stopped him from going ahead with the risky venture, because that wasn’t the way Rockfort worked.
“This whole deal was a freaking mistake,” Shane muttered.
“He wanted to do it, and he said he could handle it,” Max answered.
Shane made an exasperated sound. “And we should have talked him out of it.”
“You know he wasn’t going to let us do that.”
Shane answered with a tight nod. “I’d started thinking maybe we were wrong—that it was going okay.”
Max raised his hand in a gesture of frustration. “How did your mom act when you came home way late?”
Shane couldn’t repress a grin. “She’d be mad as hell—and at the same time relieved. Are you saying that’s the way you feel?”
“Yeah. He shouldn’t have pushed it. He should have gotten the hell out of there after six weeks when he couldn’t get any information on Trainer’s target. He probably took some crazy chance and got himself cornered.”
Max climbed out of his chair and walked to the other side of the room, where he stood leaning a shoulder against the wall.
The bond among the three men was strong. They’d gotten caught in a drug raid at a Miami nightclub. After keeping order together all night in a downtown holding cell full of druggies and petty criminals, they got out in the morning and went out for beer. They ended up forming the Rockfort Security Agency because they were all looking for a new way to apply the skills they’d learned in their former careers. When they discovered that two of them were from the Baltimore-Washington area, they picked the Rockville location because it was convenient and because they’d gotten a good deal on the rent.
They’d been together for over a year now, taking cases that had confounded other agencies, and every job had been a success.
Which might be why Jack had thought he could get away with a one-man invasion of the most dangerous militia organization in the country.
Now it looked like the assignment had blown up in his face, unless he was just in a position where he couldn’t check in.
Shane had been thinking all night about how to handle the present situation. “If we try to go in there, and they’re holding him, that could be the thing that gets him killed.”
“And not going in could have the same effect,” Max shot back.
“We have to give it a few more hours,” Shane said.
“We already have.”
Shane answered with a nod.
“And then what?”
They were both silent for several moments, both thinking about how long Jack could stand up under torture. This wasn’t like a TV program. Eventually everyone cracked. Or died.
“I think we’re on our own. Maybe our best bet is to pretend we’re on a fishing trip and see how close we can get to the militia compound.”
“A fishing t
rip. More like a fishing expedition.”
Chapter 8
At least Gibson hadn’t thought to give a shout of alarm to the other militiamen gathered around the burning house. That and his momentary hesitation gave Jack the precious seconds he needed to derail the attack. Ignoring the pain in his ankle, he sprang forward, catching the guy in the legs and bringing him down with a muffled thud in the fallen leaves. As he fell, he was already struggling like a madman to get the gun back into firing position. They rolled through a pile of leaves and sticks, Jack trying to keep the guy from firing, but the militiaman was just as desperate to hang on to the weapon and get off a shot.
Neither of them had a clear advantage. Although Jack was vastly more skilled, he was still suffering from the effects of the fall. Gibson was highly motivated, but his technique was lacking.
As Jack whacked the man’s gun hand against the ground, Morgan dashed in, still coughing and holding a piece of dead wood. She circled the fighters, trying to get a crack at Gibson. Before she could, Jack pounded the man’s head against a rock sticking up on the ground.
As he made a strangled sound and went still, Jack disentangled himself, looking back toward the house to see if anyone had observed the ruckus. As far as he could tell, the rest of the militiamen were still firmly focused on the burning building.
“We have to get out of here,” Morgan wheezed.
Jack knew it wasn’t that simple as he looked from her to the man he’d put out of commission. “Unfortunately, we can’t leave him here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, when he comes to, he’ll run back to the group and tell them he saw us. Then they’ll know we got out of the house somehow. If that happens, we’ll lose any advantage we had.”
“What are we going to do?”
Jack was still thinking aloud. “We can’t shoot him.”
“Hide him?”
Jack shook his head. Earlier he’d told himself he would avoid involving Morgan in what the authorities might consider murder. Now he didn’t see any choice. He was still thinking aloud when he said, “There’s nowhere to hide him, and shooting him would be a dead giveaway. It’s got to look like he had an accident.”