But he could see no sign of her.
Then he glanced to where he had last seen Grunn go to the ground with the masked man’s partner.
She and her opponent were still grappling over control of his pistol.
At first she had been on top of the man, but he had rolled her and now they were both on their sides, facing each other.
It wouldn’t be long before the man mounted her.
Tom had to get to her.
The Tracker’s hold on him was a jiu-jitsu technique known as “the guard.”
A solid defensive position, should one find himself on his back, but there were ways to pass it.
Tom initiated an escape, but the Tracker had been waiting for that because he immediately countered Tom’s move, trapping Tom’s left arm and beginning the process of applying a joint lock.
Tom countered that by keeping his trapped arm bent and grabbing hold of his left wrist with his right hand.
But as strong as Tom was, fighting against an attempted arm bar was fighting against leverage.
His opponent merely needed to wait for Tom’s arm to weaken and his grip on his own wrist to falter, after which simple body mechanics would result in the man completing the lock and overextending Tom’s elbow to the point of shattering the joint.
From Tom’s bad position on the ground, he could still see Grunn, watched as her opponent took one hand off the firearm and quickly struck her in the face with his fist.
The blow stunned her briefly, and the man used that moment to scramble on top of her, mounting her like a school-yard bully.
Grunn recovered before he could snatch the weapon from her.
They continued their life-and-death struggle, but it was only a matter of seconds before he overpowered her.
Tom could feel the strain on his bicep, and his wrist was ready to slip from his hand.
His only hope was to hear the familiar clacking sound of a suppressed rifle firing.
He knew he was too entangled with his man for him to present a clear target, and though Grunn and the masked man’s partner were also in close proximity, her opponent was better exposed.
Taking him out would free Grunn, who could then take out the Tracker.
This was all that needed to happen, but with every second that passed, Tom’s hope that he would find his way out of this diminished.
He thought of Stella, of not getting to her like he had promised he always would, and felt a rush of anger, which increased to rage as he watched the pistol in Grunn’s hand turn slowly, its muzzle closer and closer to being aimed at her chest.
Despite his rage, and the adrenaline surge it had triggered, Tom was helpless.
Barely maintaining his hold on his wrist, he braced himself for what would follow once his grip was lost.
In that moment, his world would end.
He’d be deprived of Stella, and she would be deprived of him.
He was sweating, his skin slick, and there was nothing he could do as his wrist slipped to his fingertips and the arm he was struggling to keep bent straightened slightly.
And then his hold on his wrist was gone and he felt his arm extend even more, felt the pressure on his elbow begin as his opponent applied torque.
Tom’s arm was almost fully extended, and for an instant he thought he could hold out, maintain this stalemate, but it was a false hope.
His strength suddenly gone, his arm gave out, and he felt a sharp pain in his elbow as the Tracker prepared to apply the devastating lock.
Tom felt a scream building in his lungs when he heard a gunshot.
But it wasn’t the clacking he’d been anticipating.
It was a loud cracking boom.
Specifically, the cracking boom of a .357 Magnum being fired just feet away.
Instantly, the man’s hold on Tom was gone.
It was as if he had evaporated.
Tom slipped free and saw Stella standing over the Tracker, her Smith & Wesson in both hands. She remained poised for a follow-up shot, should it be necessary.
Tom looked at her in disbelief, but there wasn’t time for that. He scrambled to his knees, rising so he could rush to Grunn and grab hold of that weapon before she lost her fight.
But he was too late.
Her opponent had torn the pistol from Grunn’s hand, and sensing Tom’s movement, turned and rose to one knee, quickly aiming at Tom.
The distance between them was maybe ten feet. Point and shoot would be all that was required.
Tom was between Stella and the last of the Algerian’s men.
He heard her tell him to get down, but there wasn’t even time for that. The man was squeezing the trigger, the weapon lined up perfectly with Tom, when Tom at last heard the clack for which he’d been waiting.
He watched the left side of the man’s head explode.
Then his body dropped, the pistol landing unfired on the gravel.
By the time Tom looked toward the SUV, Krista was already hurrying to them, her AR-10 aimed at the downed man.
Tom faced Stella.
She was still holding her .357 in a two-handed grip, the muzzle now aimed safely at the ground.
For a moment all he could do was stare at her.
Once again, because of him, she’d been required to kill.
He could tell by her eyes that the gravity of what she’d just done was not lost on her.
Self-defense or in the defense of another, killing a man wasn’t easy.
Or at least it wasn’t supposed to be.
Stella asked if he was okay.
Tom more read her lips than heard her.
He nodded, then said, “Where’s the girl?”
Stella looked over her shoulder at the corner around which Tom had briefly taken cover.
Valena emerged from behind it but did not move more than that.
Krista had reached them by then, extending her hand to Grunn, who took it. She pulled the injured woman to her feet.
“We need to exfil,” Krista said. “Now.” She spoke loud enough for Tom to hear.
Stella called to Valena, who ran toward her.
Krista told Stella to help Grunn, and Stella hurried to position herself beside the woman, holding her up.
“I’m okay,” Grunn insisted, though she clearly wasn’t. She could barely stand, and her eyes kept blinking.
Valena moved quickly to Grunn’s other side and carefully took the woman’s arm and wrapped it around her own neck.
Tom noted how fast the teenager had moved, jumping in to help without having to be asked or instructed.
She’d seen her share of violence even before her mother had been attacked and killed.
And that only reminded him that, like he had once been, she was now alone in the world.
“Stay with me,” Krista said.
The awkwardness he’d always seen in her was gone, replaced with a sharpness that exuded confidence and efficiency.
She was a person who knew what she was doing, as well as what needed to be done.
A person comfortably in command.
Tom glanced at the battle belt around her waist.
Attached to it were a number of MOLLE pouches, one of which was marked with a red cross, the grips of trauma shears protruding from its top.
A bleedout kit.
The belt also held several magazine pouches, combos that contained both pistol and rifle mags.
And suspended from the belt’s right side and secured to her quad by a strap was a holstered pistol.
Her loadout—choice of gear and placement of it on her person—was that of a patrol soldier.
Krista withdrew the pistol from its holster—a Heckler & Koch .45—and offered it grip-first to Tom.
“The weapon’s hot,” she said.
Despite the fact that she had told him it was loaded, he nonetheless proceeded with a brass check to confirm that a round was in fact chambered.
“I’ll take point,” Krista said to him, her voice raised so he could hear her.
Implicit in her order was that Tom was to cover their escape.
He deferred to her.
And he noticed then that all her piercings had been removed.
Krista led the three women away, and Tom followed.
They passed the shot-up armored SUV, beside which lay Grunn’s two men, Sheridan and DiBano.
Both were dead.
Grunn looked at them as she was moved past.
Tom did the same before he came across the man he had shot and killed from the safe room shooter’s perch.
When Stella reached his pickup, she paused, but Krista kept moving.
Turning back toward Tom, Stella had a confused look on her face. He knew she was wondering why they didn’t take his truck to Krista’s farm.
Tom said to her, “It’s not safe.”
“Why not?”
“It was out of my sight for too long. Someone could have attached a tracking device.”
She nodded, then turned and continued on.
Tom stopped and faced the building behind them.
Engulfed by fire, it would be a smoldering hulk by the time the sun came up.
Right now, though, it gave off a heat that was almost unbearable as Tom watched everything he and Stella had worked for being consumed by flames.
His hearing still damaged, he suddenly detected a faint voice.
Someone was calling his name.
“Tom! Tom!”
He turned to see that Valena was running back for him.
Stella and Grunn were still following Krista, though Stella was slowing and looking back over her shoulder at Tom.
Valena kept speaking, but Tom couldn’t hear her.
It wasn’t until she was right in front of him that Tom could make out what she was saying.
“Sirens are coming!”
Tom glanced toward the road and saw flashing blue and red lights approaching.
Maybe a half mile down the dark road, but moving fast.
Valena grabbed his arm and pulled him forward.
Together, they cleared the border trees and made the open field beyond. Tom slipped his arm free so she could run ahead as he held back and covered their retreat.
It had taken them a minute to cross that field, though, and the farm was still two miles away.
What was slowing them was their one wounded.
Tom caught up with Stella and took charge of Grunn, half carrying her, half guiding her along at a pace faster than she could manage on her own.
He spoke encouragements to her, and she was trying her best, but she was winded and broken and fading fast.
She stumbled several times, requiring Tom to slow till she could find her footing.
Finally, though, he hoisted her into a fireman’s carry and set out on the long haul to safety.
Thirty-Two
Krista drove the Jeep, Stella beside her in the passenger seat.
Grunn was seated in the back compartment, Valena in the rear seat along with Tom, the AR-10 cradled between his legs.
Stella studied the mirror out the passenger-side window, while Krista checked the driver’s rearview mirror.
They were looking for headlights on the dark road behind—anything to indicate they were being followed. It wasn’t until they’d covered a few miles that it was safe to conclude that no one was after them.
Tom had Krista’s bleedout kit and was using the small penlight he’d found inside to check Grunn’s eyes.
The limited dilation of her pupils meant that she was concussed.
He instructed Valena that it was her job to keep Grunn awake.
Valena went right to work, leaning over the backseat and talking to Grunn, rubbing her shoulder, ready to jostle the woman if she began to slip into unconsciousness.
Tom moved between the two front seats. “I need some answers.”
Krista looked at him in the rearview mirror and nodded.
“You’re one of Raveis’s.”
“I was trained at his compounds. But he’s not the one who gave me this assignment.”
“Then who did?”
She hesitated. “Cahill.”
“How did he know where to send you?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you first showed up, when we hired you, how did he know where Stella and I were?”
“I don’t know. I’m just protection. I go where I’m assigned.”
Stella was watching her silently.
It was clear that she was experiencing mixed feelings—gratitude, certainly, but confusion and even a little anger. Tom understood why.
The woman she’d known for nearly two years had been inserted into their lives by the very men they’d done everything possible to elude.
More than that, the employee she had befriended—taken under her wing because she just seemed so awkward and helpless—was far from the stray she had believed her to be.
“Does Raveis know our location?” Tom said.
“I’m not in communication with him.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I don’t know what he knows. If he does, I didn’t tell him.”
“Have you been in communication with Cahill?”
“No. I was only to report to him when and if there was a problem. It was a deep-cover assignment.”
Tom had other questions—countless others—but there was a more pressing matter at hand now. “Where are you taking us?”
“There’s a safe house one hour north.”
“Who knows about it?”
“Just me.”
“Are you sure?”
Krista nodded. “Cahill told me specifically to keep its location from him.”
“Why?” Stella said.
Krista looked at her. “I didn’t ask. I just assumed it was for your protection.” Then Krista said that she needed to collect everyone’s cell phones.
Stella wanted to know why.
Tom answered that it was procedure.
“There’s a Mylar bag in the glove compartment,” Krista said.
Stella found the bag, and Tom collected Grunn’s phone, handed it along with his own to Stella, who added hers to the collection and put them inside the bag.
Krista offered her own phone as well.
Stella said to Valena, “Do you have a phone, sweetie?”
Valena shook her head.
Stella folded the bag closed, effectively blocking any signals from being sent or received by the devices.
“Is there a GPS unit in this vehicle?” Tom said.
Krista answered, “Yes.”
Tom nodded. “Good.”
But he didn’t ask for the device. Instead he touched Stella’s shoulder.
She looked at him for a moment.
Then he sat back in his seat, and they rode on in silence through the last hour of darkness.
PART FOUR
Thirty-Three
The sun was rising when they arrived at their destination.
Tom felt the Jeep slow, turn, and come to a stop.
Only then did he realize that he had drifted off in the rear passenger seat, his head against the window.
Looking out, he saw an old church atop a small hill.
Built of Vermont granite, its two-story steeple stood like a sentry tower above a front entrance of double-arched doors.
Ornately carved doors, fashioned out of a heavy wood.
The rest of the building—a long rectangle with rows of narrow stained glass windows on either side—extended back a good one hundred feet.
Tom quickly studied the surrounding property.
There was a parking lot large enough to hold maybe two dozen vehicles, situated halfway between the back road and the sloping path leading up to the church.
On the right side of the structure was a brief yard; on the left, an old cemetery, its faded, tablet-style stones crooked, its ground uneven.
Beyond three sides of the property was a forest of evergreens and hemlocks.
Tom exited the vehicle first, followed by Krista.
He walked to the front passenger door and opened it, handing the AR-10 to Stella.
She gave him the .357, which he tucked into his jeans at the small of his back and concealed with his sweatshirt.
Krista had removed her battle belt before getting behind the wheel for the hour-long drive, but her HK .45 was now in a paddle holster she wore at the four o’clock position on her right side.
At the same position on her left side was a double-mag carrier.
Tom studied the church. “You own this?”
“No.”
“Who does?”
She hesitated. “A man I know. A good man. He and his wife took me in and raised me. He came from nothing—worse than nothing—and now takes care of people when he can. Young people, mainly.”
“What’s his name?”
“Everyone calls him Mac.”
“I need his full name.”
“Declan MacManus.”
“And where is he now?”
“He and his wife live up north, not far from the Canadian border.”
“So you grew up in Vermont?”
Krista nodded. “One of the conditions Mac had for taking me in was that I had to find an after-school job. I started out washing dishes in a restaurant a lot like yours. After a year I made my way up to kitchen prep, then eventually line cook.”
Tom thought about that for a moment—how perfectly suited she was for this particular assignment—then said, “So, this Mac guy just happens to own an abandoned church an hour from where Stella and I lived.”
“No. I told him what I needed, and he found it for me. He’s done well for himself, buys up distressed properties and sometimes gives them to people to make homes out of. My life would have been very different if he hadn’t taken me in. He’s the reason I joined the military.”
“What branch?”
“Army. I was an MP.”
Tom looked at the church, saying nothing.
He knew too well that what appeared to be a sanctuary could also be a trap.
What offered protection could also imprison.
Krista sensed his apprehension. “No one knows that I’m connected to him,” she said. “Not Cahill, not Raveis, not anyone. This place is safe, I promise.”
It was a moment before Tom spoke again. “How long since you were here last?”
The Rogue Agent (The Agent Series) Page 20