by Rebecca York
Porter cleared his throat. “Permission to speak, sir.”
“Yes?”
“Didn’t you send Gibson over this way?”
Trainer gave him a sharp look. In all the uproar, he’d forgotten one of his men wasn’t accounted for.
“Where is he?”
“No idea, sir.”
“Well, he’d better not get caught by the firefighters, and he’d better have a damn good reason for not showing up.”
“Maybe something happened to him,” Porter said.
“Like what?”
“An accident. Or maybe he met up with Barnes.”
Trainer answered with a curt nod. He was considering the same possibilities.
***
Nothing much had changed since Shane Gallagher had tossed the coffee cup into the trash. He and his partner, Max Lyon, had put their other business on hold, and neither one of them had left the office, even to get something to eat. Neither one of them was hungry, but they’d both eaten some power bars because they might have to split at a moment’s notice if Jack called.
That possibility was seeming more and more remote.
When the phone rang, both men leaped toward the instrument, hoping against hope that it was Jack.
But the familiar number made them both go still. It was Deep Throat, aka Arthur Cunningham, the government operative who had hired them to infiltrate the Real Americans Militia.
“Can we let it ring?” Max asked.
“Bad idea. We’re working for him.”
Max nodded. “Maybe we’ll pick up some information.”
Shane pressed the speaker button so they could both hear.
“Gallagher. I have Max Lyon on the phone with me,” he added.
“What’s going on with Jack Brandt?” Cunningham asked immediately.
Shane hesitated.
“According to my project notes, you were expecting him to report in, right? And I was expecting to hear from you.”
“We were waiting for his call. But he can’t always get back to us on schedule.”
“Have you heard from him?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea what’s going on at the militia camp?”
“No.”
“There was a fire reported in the area.”
Max and Shane exchanged glances.
“What’s your source of information?” Shane asked.
“I’m keeping tabs on the local situation.”
“A fire—where?”
“At the vacation home of a woman named Morgan Rains.”
“Who is she?”
“A college professor. I don’t know much else yet. Except that her house was about a mile and a half from the militia compound, which means that she could have run into Brandt.”
“What else can you tell us?”
“The local fire department is on the way.”
“We’re going down there,” Shane said.
The voice on the other end of the line turned steely. “Stay away from the area,” Cunningham ordered. “I don’t want Trainer to know he’s being observed.”
“He already knows, if he’s figured out that Jack was a plant,” Shane shot back.
“Jack may have gotten away. I mean, why burn the house down?” Cunningham answered.
“You think Trainer did it?”
“You think it’s a coincidence?”
“It could be,” Shane said, but he heard the doubt in his own voice.
Cunningham was speaking again. “Even if he caught Jack poking his nose in where it didn’t belong, that may be the sum total of his information. I don’t want Jack traced back to Rockfort—or to me.”
“You just want us to abandon him?”
“If he screwed up and got caught.”
“He didn’t screw up.”
“We’re just speculating. Nobody knows what happened. Stay out of the area. That’s a direct order.”
“And if we don’t agree with you?”
“There will be consequences.”
When the line went dead, the two Rockfort agents looked at each other.
“We’re just supposed to leave Jack twisting in the wind?” Max asked.
“Maybe that’s what he thinks is going to happen, but he’s dead wrong,” Shane responded. “On the other hand, he’s right about secrecy. We can’t just go charging in there. We need a cover story.”
“Campers? Hunters?” Max asked.
“It’s not hunting season,” Shane responded. “But like you said before, fishing makes sense. We can get organized and drive down there tonight. Then be ready to go to the burned house in the morning.”
“Where’s our starting place?” Max asked.
“Skyline, Virginia. Unless you have a better suggestion.”
His partner shook his head.
***
Jack stood with his back to Morgan, dragging in air and letting it out. He’d dozed off, then awakened with Morgan touching him, sliding her lips against his face and neck.
He’d known she was sleeping, and probably dreaming of her dead husband. He’d known he should wake her immediately, but he simply hadn’t been able to do it. Not right away.
He’d lain still, enjoying the hot sensations coursing through him as she’d made love to him. He’d been caught between wanting it to go on to its logical conclusion and knowing that he would have to stop her before she did something that both of them would regret.
Then her eyes had blinked open. He’d seen her confusion. Her disappointment. Her embarrassment and regret.
He was the wrong man at the wrong time in the wrong place, and he’d better remember that.
He tested his ankle. He’d given it a few hours’ rest and gotten some cold air on it. It seemed better, but he wouldn’t want to press it to the limit at the moment.
Anyway, it was getting dark. Not a good time to travel through the woods, particularly when you couldn’t risk using a flashlight. They’d get out of here in the morning, but tonight he wanted to make sure their hideout was a bit more secure. He stepped outside, glancing up at the thick vines that partially screened the cave mouth.
He went back inside and got one of the knives they’d brought.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure anyone who tries to come in here gets a surprise.” He looked back at her. “But first you might want to go out and find a nearby place where you can pee.”
She flushed, and he was sorry he was embarrassing her again, but they had to take care of practicalities.
“Better than in here,” he added.
“Yes.”
“Don’t go too far. Take a gun, and don’t stay any longer than you have to.”
“You think those men are looking for us?”
“If not now, we have to assume they will be,” he answered.
“They won’t think we burned up?”
“Not if they find the trapdoor to the tunnel. And they have a better chance of doing that if the rain put out the fire.”
She got up and went to her knapsack, rummaging inside and pulling out a small pack of tissues.
“Make sure you bury the used ones under some leaves,” he said.
She nodded tightly, and he watched her disappear around a boulder. She was back in a few minutes.
He followed her example, finding a spot that would give him some privacy while he relieved himself.
When he came back, he got to work on improvising an early warning system.
She watched as he cut some of the vines. Next he found a thin branch and broke off two nine-inch lengths, which he hammered into the ground across the cave entrance, using one of the many rocks strewn around the area. He stretched a length of vine between the sticks, then ran another piece up into the tangle at the top of the cave mouth. After securing it, he searched for rocks about the size of goose eggs, which he salted into the mass of vines.
When he was finished, he ducked back into the cave, being careful not to catch his foot on th
e vine he’d stretched between the sticks.
“A booby trap?” Morgan asked.
“Yeah. If anyone hits that vine on the ground, he’s going to pull on the vertical one and bring the rocks down. That should send an animal running in the other direction. And warn us that a man’s found our hiding place.”
“Good idea.”
“Best I can do without equipment.” He looked toward the cave mouth. “I suggest we move farther from the entrance so that booby trap will give us time to react.”
They picked up the sleeping bag, the packs, and the wet clothing and moved them farther from the cave entrance. Jack shined the flashlight along their path as they went.
When they came to the old campfire, Morgan stared at the charred wood.
“Someone else has been here.”
“Not recently.”
He kept going until he found a spot that was around a bend from the entrance. The wall of rock would block any wind coming from the cave mouth.
After spreading out the sleeping bag again, he glanced at Morgan. Neither one of them had put on their wet jeans. “Get inside to keep warm.”
She slipped inside and picked up the flashlight again.
“Is it all right to have some water?” she asked.
“Yeah. It’s a good idea, actually, unless we’re digging in for a siege.”
“Are we?”
“I don’t think so, but keep the light off most of the time to save the batteries, after we check our bite wounds.”
“Right.” He watched her work in a businesslike fashion as she unbuttoned her shirt and slipped her arm out of the sleeve, obviously trying to expose as little of her front as possible. And he tried to minimize his contact with her skin as he took off the dressing and looked at the bite.
“I think it’s healing okay. Probably we can leave the bandage off.”
“Good.” She sat very still, staring into space as he applied more antiseptic. When she’d put the shirt back on, she said, “Now you.”
He would have liked to avoid having her touch him, but it would be dumb to refuse. Instead of protesting, he took off his shirt, turned, and focused on the wall as she unwrapped his dressing. “I think you’re okay too,” she said with a little catch in her voice.
When she got out the tube of burn salve, he said, “I think we can skip that part.”
“Okay.”
He stood, rolling up the bandages.
“I’m going to see if I can find another way out,” he said. It was a logical next step, but it also gave him a good reason to get away from Morgan, because everything they did now felt much too intimate.
He watched her pull her knees up to her chin and wrap her arms around her legs as he walked away.
Chapter 13
Wade Trainer left a spotter in the woods to keep tabs on the firemen. Then he took the rest of the team back to the RAM compound. He figured that since there wasn’t much for the firemen to do besides making sure the embers were cold, they’d clear out relatively quickly.
Sure enough, his man called an hour later to report that the coast was clear.
“Did the fire marshal show up?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. Sit tight. We’ll be back in fifteen.”
It was just before sunset when they returned. They parked in the woods and walked to the house. Instead of going back through the tunnel, Wade led his men directly to where they’d found the exit that came out in the woods. He examined the trapdoor and the area around it but couldn’t determine if it had been opened recently.
“We’ll fan out,” he said, “and look for evidence that Barnes and the woman escaped. And look for Gibson.”
The men obeyed orders, moving through the woods, looking for clues.
Five minutes later, Jessup called out, “Over here, sir.”
Trainer clenched his teeth. The man was supposed to use the comms unit, but apparently that had slipped his mind.
Trainer hurried toward the sound of Jessup’s voice and felt his chest compress again when he saw what had elicited the shout.
Gibson was lying face down, unmoving on the ground, his body pinned under a dead tree limb.
The militia leader went to him and knelt. When he felt for a pulse at the man’s neck, he encountered only cold skin. And when he lifted one of the man’s arms, he found that rigor mortis had set in. Which probably meant that Gibson had bought the farm not long after they’d started the fire.
“He’s dead,” he informed the men. But the question was, what had happened here?
Trainer looked up, determining where the tree limb had fallen from.
“Get up there and see if it’s been cut or if it’s broken off,” he ordered Jessup.
The man inspected the lower branches which were several feet above his head.
“I need a boost up.”
“Help him,” he ordered Porter.
The other man made a stirrup with his hands, and Jessup stepped in, straining to reach a branch. When he got his hands around it, he pulled himself up, then began to climb.
Halfway up the tree, the trooper stopped.
“You reached the place where the limb fell?” Wade called out.
“Yes.”
“What do you see?”
Jessup inspected the area. “No cuts,” he reported. “I mean, the edge is jagged like it broke off.”
Or was it pulled down, Wade wondered. He wished he could get up there himself, but he had never liked heights. “What about the color of the wood?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” Jessup asked.
“The tree looks like it was dead for a while, and it’s bleached from the elements. What about the place where it broke? Is it the same color?”
“That’s darker,” Jessup reported. “But it’s hard to tell in this light.”
Which didn’t prove anything one way or the other, Wade decided. Obviously the limb had fallen recently—and come down on Gibson. Whatever the reason. Maybe the storm last night had weakened it.
Trainer went back to the body and looked for evidence that the man hadn’t simply been caught in an unfortunate accident. Gibson’s clothing was scuffed up, but that could have happened when the limb fell.
Had the blow from the branch been enough to kill him? Again Wade had no way of really knowing. He could have been hit, then died of internal injuries or something. They could find out if someone did an autopsy, but that wasn’t going to happen, because nobody was going to report the death.
Still, it was interesting that Gibson had been in the vicinity of the man and woman, at least if they had emerged from the tunnel and come this way.
Trainer examined the ground, walking back toward the tunnel exit. About thirty-five feet from the fallen log, he thought he saw where something might have been dragged across the ground, but he couldn’t be sure. And now that the light was fading, he wasn’t sure what else they were going to see. But he had the gut feeling that Barnes and his girlfriend had gotten out through the tunnel, killed Gibson, and kept going.
If Barnes had staged this accident, it would be to keep Gibson from talking. A pretty cold-blooded decision, but he’d always known Barnes was a warrior.
And determined. As evidenced by his escape. How far could he and the woman have made it on foot in the rain, with Barnes still in bad shape from the torture session? Their quickest route out of the area would be the road, where they could hitch a ride. But that would be taking a chance that the militia wasn’t patrolling the highway.
He was pretty sure Barnes wouldn’t take that chance. He hoped not because he meant to find them and bring them back.
***
Shining the flashlight beam from side to side and moving cautiously so as not to tumble into a hidden crevice, Jack walked farther back into the cave, stooping slightly as the roof grew lower.
In the interior he saw some stalactites hanging from the ceiling. And about ten feet from where the ceiling lowered, it opened out again, and he saw some
loose rock and a crevice in the floor. He stooped and slipped the bandages into the opening, using a rock to push them down, hoping they wouldn’t be found anytime soon.
Ahead of him he saw dim light filtering in from above. He moved toward the light source, shining his flashlight beam upward. There was a natural chimney that went up from the roof of the cave. It was about three feet wide, but when he reached up, he found hand- and footholds that he could use to climb.
He wasn’t sure if someone had put them there or if they were natural, but he was able to work his way slowly toward the top, being careful of his ankle. As he climbed, he felt cold air drifting down toward him. But the way wasn’t totally clear. He reached a spot where a boulder partially blocked his upward progress. Moving to the side, he braced his back against the wall of the shaft and worked at the obstruction. It wasn’t firmly in place, and he was able to wiggle it back and forth, thinking that he could ease it down.
Instead it slipped from his grasp, dropping downward and landing with a crash on the cave floor.
Below him he heard running feet, then saw the beam of a flashlight and heard Morgan’s frantic voice as she called out to him.
“Jack? Are you all right? Jack.”
“Stay back,” he shouted down. The big rock had dislodged smaller ones, which were still coming down.
“Where are you?”
“I’m in a vertical tunnel above you.” He switched on his light and shined it down into the cave. “There was a boulder blocking it, and I worked it out of the way. Sorry I scared you.”
“I see it now.”
“There’s more stuff coming down. Stay back,” he warned again.
“I thought something had happened to you.”
“I’m fine. Can you see my flashlight beam?”
“Yes.”
“Are you standing back?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going farther up.”
He worked his way upward again, the sensation of cold getting stronger as he climbed.
It took several more moments for his head to emerge into open air. In the gathering gloom, he couldn’t tell much, but he thought he must be on a ledge above the cave. He wanted to investigate, but it was too dangerous to climb around out there now, especially with one bad leg. Instead he made his way down, wishing he was wearing a pair of pants as his bare legs emerged from the chimney.