"Why not?" He looked at Price. "We got the contract, didn't we?"
"Yeah, but you made the bank president's tech guy look like a moron."
"He is a moron." Tweeter frowned. "Asshole got the job due to nepotism. He's the bank president's nephew. Keely and I always do first-and second-level runs on all potential clients and key employees to make sure we know to whom we're providing top-notch security." Tweeter shook his head. "The supposed tech guru I just insulted didn't finish his degree and the classes he did take, he flunked. He might have some self-taught basic skills to fool his daddy, but he doesn't have the skill set to run our software, let alone tell me how to secure their computers. And his uncle knows it. The old man winked at me."
"He did?" Price grinned. "I didn't catch that. Okay, so what do you think his uncle—"
"Price. Tweeter. Location?"
Ren's voice was terse. Something was up.
"We just took off. Maybe an hour out from Sanctuary," Tweeter replied. "What's up?"
"Need you two at Grangeville Air Center, ASAP. DJ took the Hawk to transport Tara in response to a call from the base manager. We just received an emergency signal from DJ's phone. No other communications yet. Neither of them are responding to our calls. Go in locked and loaded. My team's getting ready to take off. How's your range?"
"We can make it easily," Tweeter said as he programmed in a new route and began to make the turn to head southwest from their current position. "I can be on site in a half hour, twenty minutes if I push it."
"Push it. We're not getting any response from GAC Operations, either. State police and sheriff deputies are on their way, but they're spread thin as always. We're closer," Ren said.
"Roger that. Out," Tweeter replied.
Price looked at his friend. Tweeter's jaw clenched and unclenched, but his hand was steady on the cyclic. He knew how the man felt. Their women were in some kind of danger and they weren't close enough to protect them.
"They'll be fine." Price said it out loud as if the words would make it so.
"I told her to take a nap." Tweeter blew out two breaths for every one he took in. "Fuck."
"At least they're together," Price said.
While Tara had done as asked and had someone with her, he couldn't think of a good enough reason for her not to wait for him so he could go with her. Of course, what he considered a good reason and what she considered a good reason might not align. He'd been highly aware the limits on her movements while Gaither and Miller were at large were frustrating for her. She'd understood why the restrictions had been put in place and hadn't tested them. So, whatever reason she'd left Sanctuary with DJ as backup had to be a good one.
He continued, "They're kick-ass former military. Whatever's happening, they'll do what they need to do to survive."
"Yeah." Tweeter looked grim. "If I know my woman, she'll head for high ground and shoot anyone looking cross-eyed at her."
"Tara would, too." Price gave a harsh cough of laughter. "Wonder if our women will leave us anything to do?"
"If they were fully armed," Tweeter grunted, a pained sound, "probably not. But all I can think of is that my wife's pregnant and would only be carrying a handgun and her favorite knife."
Price frowned. "Yeah. They wouldn't be expecting trouble at the Center. If the call Ren mentioned was a ruse, they could be outnumbered and outgunned."
Tweeter's response was to push the helicopter faster.
* * * *
Fifteen minutes post-emergency signal, GAC barracks
"Shit, DJ." Tara walked up to the man that both women had hit with their knives. Tara's had hit the guy in the side of his throat as he'd turned toward her. DJ's had gone into his left eye. The single shot he'd gotten off had gone into the ceiling as he fell, dying, to the floor.
"I want my knife back, Tara." DJ placed a hand over her stomach and swallowed. "But I might throw up." She looked up, a frown creasing her forehead. "I'm not usually so squeamish, but—"
DJ went pale green, turned, and threw up in a hamper placed along the locker room's back wall.
"I'll get your knife and mine." Tara pulled them out of the dead man and had to swallow back the bile threatening to erupt. She grabbed some towels from the stacks on a nearby shelf and wiped down their blades, then tossed the dirty towels in the corner. She placed another towel over the guy's head, so neither of them would have to look at the mess left behind. "You okay?"
"Uh-huh." DJ took the clean towel Tara handed her and wiped her mouth. Then she took her knife and slid it into the sheath hanging from her belt. "You think there are any more bad guys running loose in the building?"
"Nope. We'd be dead if there were." Tara moved to the shelves and pulled a bottle of water from the supplies there. "Here, wash your mouth out and hydrate. I need to check out the shower room. Looks as if the Center personnel were herded there and restrained." She looked at DJ's pale face. Tugging on her friend's arm, she led her to the bench in front of Tara's locker. "Sit here. Let the nausea die down. I'll be right back."
"I smelled blood. Lots of it."
Tara nodded. "Yeah. Some might need some field medicine." She hoped the bodies she'd seen were still alive. "There should be a First Aid kit in the storage cabinet. I'll do what I can and come back. We should be safe here for a bit."
"Tara, I can—"
"No. You look paler than the shower's white subway tiles." Tara gave DJ's shoulder a squeeze and left.
Walking into the shower room, Tara turned on the lights. Not a single one of the ten men lying on the floor responded to the change. All were restrained—ankles zip-tied together and hands zip-tied in front of them.
She checked the ones with signs of blood, first. Gunshot wounds and some knife wounds. None looked fatal, just messy. Someone had obviously taken the time to treat the wounds by packing them with gauze, but some had continued to bleed enough that the air was rife with the smell. Tara spotted the opened First Aid kit on the floor near a couple of plastic chairs.
Someone had also given all ten men something to knock them out. She checked pulses, counted respirations, and checked eyes. Then she tried to rouse each of them. No response.
Shit.
"Tara!" DJ called out. "I'm coming in. Sweet Jesus, are they all dead?"
"No. Drugged. Pupils are constricted. Blue tint around the lips and fingernails. Cold, clammy skin. Slow heart rate. Respirations are depressed. I can hear gurgling sounds on some of them." Tara looked around and spotted a syringe under a sink. She used a paper towel and picked the syringe up. "I'm betting Gaither had them injected with an opioid, probably Fentanyl. His brothers liked to cut their crystal meth with it."
DJ sat on a bench in the shower room and began unloading the First Aid kit. "No Narcan."
Tara teethed her lower lip. "If it was Fentanyl, they need emergency care. All the wounds look survivable, but the drug—" She didn't need to finish the thought. DJ would know as well as she did that these men could just stop breathing and they couldn't do much about it until backup got there. "Let's cut off these zip-ties and make the guys as comfortable as we can. There are some blankets in that cabinet. Let's try to keep them warm. I'll up the thermostat to warm the air up."
After she and DJ had done what they could, Tara stalked back into the locker area with DJ on her heels. She stopped in front of her locker and punched in her pass code with vicious jabs. "Gaither is going down."
And she didn't particularly care at this point how he went down, except it had to be hard.
"We'll get the fucker. I'll call Ren and give him a sit rep." DJ held up her sat phone. "There are messages."
Back to the business at hand. Staying alive and letting their backup know what was going on. Yeah, Tara could handle that, because she couldn't do one fucking thing to help the men lying on the shower room floor.
"I bet most of them are from Tweeter," Tara replied as she messed up her pass code and had to start all over again.
Take a deep breath and focus, Tara.
Good advice, but she was just so mad and hated feeling useless.
"You'd win that bet." DJ gave her a commiserating look as if she knew exactly how Tara felt. "Ren. We're alive and undamaged. Gaither and his men set a trap for Tara. It failed. We have ten Center personnel, some have wounds but those look to be non-life-threatening. They've been drugged and Tara thinks they were given Fentanyl, so we need medical care for these guys ASAP."
Tara finally got the code entered properly and pulled the lock off.
"We also have two dead bad guys and three wounded ones inside the barracks. And we have at least four, maybe more, bad guys outside the building. So far they haven't been able to get inside." DJ paused and uh-huhed several times. "We're going to the roof. Okay, boss. I won't shoot anyone else unless they're trying to get into the building. Ace is flying the Bell? Uh-huh, didn't think of that. I'll ask. Tara?"
Her hand over the locker door handle, Tara looked over at DJ. "What?"
"Ren wants to know if the building roof could handle the weight of the Bell landing on it."
"Yes. This used to be a National Guard armory. They landed choppers on it from the stories I've heard."
DJ gave her wide smile. "Did you hear that, Ren? Tell Ace I'm fine. Tell Price Tara's fine. They don't need to call. We'll be too busy setting up. Okay, we'll see them on the roof. Roger that. Out."
"How far out are the guys?" Opening her locker, Tara pulled out the sniper rifle case, an ammo bag, an assault rifle, a Ruger, a Ka-Bar knife, and a set of binoculars. She then pulled a duffle out and loaded everything into it, keeping out only the assault rifle, several magazines for it, and the sniper rifle case.
"Ren said Ace was pushing it. So maybe twenty minutes, tops." DJ watched her pack the duffle. "Looks as if we now have the kind of firepower we'll need to hold the building."
"And to cover our men from being shot out of the air." Tara added a couple more bottles of water, a couple of PowerAdes, and some granola bars to the duffle for DJ. Pregnant women needed fuel and fluids.
"DJ, could you take the sniper rifle case, please? I've got the rest of this. Let's get set up on the roof and see what we can see." Tara cast a glance at the shower room.
"We did what we could. Ren will make sure the EMTs bring what's needed." DJ took the rifle case and slung the strap over her shoulder. "Go on. I'm on your six."
Tara nodded and led the way out of the locker room and to the end of the building where the exit to the roof was located. They took a narrow flight of stairs to the opening onto the roof. She turned. "Wait here until I clear the roof. Never know, the creeps might've thought about securing the high ground."
She hoped not.
Opening the door to the roof, she slipped out. The sun had gone under some clouds and the air was cooler than when they'd arrived—God, had it only been twenty-five minutes or so ago? Seemed like forever. She inhaled. There was a hint of smoke from the fires burning in the distance. Still, being outside felt good.
Line of sight showed no one on the roof. It was a big roof, and the only real places to hide were near the roof entrance and a storage unit attached to one side of the small hut covering the roof access. She could see the old landing circles for choppers.
"Roof is ours." She waved DJ through.
"Damn straight, it is." DJ knelt by the door and began putting together the sniper rifle. "I'll set up at the far front corner. That way I can cover the ground between this building and where we parked the Hawk and all of the front lot."
Tara shut the roof door and blocked it from the outside with some extra cinder blocks that normally were used to keep the door open when the hotshots and smokejumpers used the roof for communal cookouts. For a second, she stared at the blocks and wondered if the ten men lying in the shower room would survive to have a beer and some BBQ with their peers ever again. A sick feeling in her stomach told her the chances of them all surviving were getting slimmer every second that passed without the proper treatment.
"Tara?" DJ touched her arm. "Are you okay?"
"I'm pissed off. Other than that, I'm fine." Tara took a couple of breaths and concentrated on unclenching her jaw. "The blocks will slow anyone down trying to come at us from inside the building. This roof doesn't have the cool curtain walls Ren had installed on top of Ma's and Carmela's. So we're going to need to stay really low."
"I noticed. Good thing I'm not showing yet. Guess I won't be able to belly crawl much longer," DJ said, a rueful tone in her voice. "Ace was right when he said I needed to cut back on ops where shooting was involved."
"You can stay by the door," Tara offered. "I'm a decent shot."
"Oh no. I want these assholes in my sights, especially since our men will be flying into potential ground fire." DJ muttered, "If I'm going to catch hell about this cluster, I might as well catch hell for giving a hundred percent."
"I won't let Tweeter yell at you," Tara assured her. "You were just backing me up."
"Well, you can try. Besides, you'll be too busy listening to Price lecturing you." DJ gave her a knowing look. "They'll yell and get all growly because they love us. Then they'll take us to bed and make love to us until the taste of fear leaves their mouths and the adrenaline is out of their systems. And they'll still love us."
DJ was a very wise woman.
"Seems like only yesterday we were doing the same damn thing at Carmela's." Her friend went to her stomach, cradling the sniper rifle in her arms, the rifle bag slung over her back, and began to move toward the far left, front corner of the building.
"Yeah, and then as now, this is all on Gaither's head and his need for revenge." Some men just sucked bilge water.
Tara dropped to her stomach and followed DJ, dragging the duffle holding the rest of the gear with her. At least this time, unlike at Carmela's, her wound didn't give her fits. This roof was also blessed with a smooth surface, so there were less chances of abrasions.
DJ positioned the bean bag to brace the rifle's barrel, then placed the weapon and gave it an almost affectionate pet. "You take good care of your equipment."
"Habit," Tara replied.
"A good one to have." The blonde took position and used the gun's scope to check out the area. "Ah, there's movement in one of the hangars. They're getting one of the tractors, just as you said they would." She hummed. "Easy shot. I'll put a scare into them when they drive that sucker out of the hangar."
Tara smiled at her friend's cocky tone. "Yeah, I wonder why Gaither thought we wouldn't fight back. The four downstairs were sure as fuck shocked when we came in shooting."
"Tara, these asshats are the type who believe the little woman is supposed to stay at home, preferably naked, cooking and cleaning while waiting to service their man's every sexual need. Women in their worldview wouldn't know how to fight back. And if they did, the men would punish them for it."
DJ's words struck a raw nerve. Cold sweat broke out on Tara's back as she froze and recalled Miller beating and raping her restrained body as punishment for her not being a proper woman. She whimpered and fought the darkness those images and the remembered pain always brought.
Not now.
"Oh, shit. Tara." DJ's voice seemed to come from a place far away and growing farther.
Hands touched Tara's face, making her jerk and cry out.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck. Tara. Come back." DJ's voice was stern, harsher than Tara had ever heard it. "Stick with me. Fight it. Dammit."
DJ's tone and touch finally did the trick.
"I'm fine. Sorry." Tara covered one of DJ's hands. "Thanks. I forget, then—"
"Shit. No apologies. I have those kinds of moments, too." DJ touched her forehead to hers. "You with me?"
"Yeah." Tara swept away a tear DJ had shed for her. "Snipe the shit out of them. I'll use the binocs and check the backside of the building."
"Gaither's men weren't prepared for us to fight back. But still, they
could've easily taken us out as we arrived. So, why didn't they?" DJ settled back into place.
"They didn't count on you being with me—and we flew. The guys outside weren't in position to take us out," Tara speculated, as she crawled toward the back of the building with the assault rifle slung across her back. "Since Gaither's murder-for-hire scheme to kill me and Fee didn't pan out, I wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't already planned to try to take us out at places we frequent. I'd been known to come here—alone and usually by road—quite regularly, but now that I'm no longer with the Forest Service—Shit, Fee!"
"Double shit. I'm on it." Several seconds passed before DJ said, "Ren. Where's Fee? Thank God. Yeah, yeah. I'll never underestimate you or Trey again. We're good. Nice view from the roof. Gotta run. They have one of the tractors from the helicopter hangar and are heading toward our building. Hell, yes, I'm gonna stop them. See ya soon. Roger that. Out."
"What did Ren have to say?" Tara glanced DJ's way.
"To kick ass." DJ smiled, the kind of smile the Grinch had when he was thinking of ruining Christmas for Whoville. "Okay, I'm gonna kill me a tractor. That ought to make the guy driving it shit his pants."
Tara snickered at the glee in DJ's tone. "It would me." She put the binocs to her eyes and searched behind the barracks. "No suspicious movement back here. In fact, nothing moving at all." The area was wide open with landing areas, the training track, and jump towers. "Nowhere to hide really. I'll check the other side of the building."
She crawled over and again saw nothing. All the action was at the front…for now. Things could always change on a dime—and often did.
The sound of the sniper rifle reverberated through the air. Tara crawled toward DJ.
"We now have one dead tractor," DJ said. "The driver's running back to the safety of the hangar." Another shot rang out. "Thigh. That should slow him down."
Tara reached DJ's side and used the binocs to get a better view of what was happening on the ground. "Two guys came out to get him."
The two men fired wildly at the roof. Tara and DJ flattened and covered their heads.
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