Tactical Rescue

by Maggie K. Black

  She nodded slowly. “I saw the company name on your phone. I’ve heard of them.”

  “Mark’s an old friend of mine. I used to be his bodyguard a very, very long time ago. My grandmother knew his grandmother and set it up. Back then, Mark was just an angry kid who needed someone to run away from. And I was that someone. We became tight. Hang on—”

  He sat up straight and held out the phone. A faint red dot was blipping at the corner of an unmarked lake. “I think we’ve found your truck.”

  * * *

  Zack stared at the blinking dot and traced the route in his mind. Looked like Seth had taken an unmarked, unpaved dirt road that was maybe twenty minutes ahead on their left. Jacques’s truck would never be able to make it and Zack wasn’t about to ask. But Jacques should be able to drop him off within hiking distance.

  Rebecca leaned into him and stared down at the phone. Her body nestled into his shoulder. Dark hair fell over her face. Even lost and bedraggled and after everything she’d been through, there was something captivating about her.

  It was terribly distracting.

  “You put a tracker in my truck?” she asked.

  “No, there’s a GPS tracker in my bag, which I left under the front seat of your truck, and another in my cell phone. The fact they’re both showing the same location is a very good sign.” He leaned past her, showed the screen to Jacques and explained the situation in French. Then he leaned back. “Okay, I’m going to get Jacques to drop me off there, hike in and retrieve our stuff. Hopefully I’ll even stop Seth while I’m at it. I’ve asked Jacques to drop you off at the first town he drives through. There’s about fifty dollars cash in my wallet, which you can have. Plus a credit card for emergencies—”

  “No.” She shook her head. “You’re not just leaving me alone in a truck with a stranger who I can’t even talk the same language as.”

  “Jacques is a good man.” Zack’s voice dropped. His arm slipped down Rebecca’s back. He pulled her in closer. “I trust him. He’ll get you there safely.”

  “But what if Black Talon or someone else attacks us on the road?” she asked. “What if I’m grabbed in whatever small town he drops me off in?”

  Did she think she’d be any safer tracking Seth down?

  The last thing he needed right now was a distraction and a spare person to worry about. Retrieving the stolen material and stopping potential terrorists had to be the top priority.

  “That’s not very likely.” He pulled his arm away, then crossed his arms in front of his chest. “This is small-town Ontario. It’s hardly a foreign war zone.”

  Her lips were set. Her head was shaking. Was he going to have to force her to stay here in the truck?

  The phone began to ring. He glanced at the screen. Blocked number. He glanced at Jacques, who shrugged as if giving Zack permission to answer it. “Hello?”

  “Name, rank and service number?” The voice belonged to Jeff.

  Zack rattled them off. The major sighed. “Location?”

  “Highway Eleven. About twenty-five minutes from South Porcupine. Thirty from the presumed target and the cache.”

  “The target and cache have been located?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you on a secure line?”

  “No, sir. But there are some things I do need to brief you on that can’t wait. I’ve got a good idea where we can find both Seth and the laptop containing whatever he stole.”

  Another sigh. This one sounded far less relieved. “There’s been a lot of pressure coming down from the higher-ups, even more than you’d expect under the circumstances. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it’s been suggested I get you back at base and soon.”

  “Are you revoking my leave?” Zack’s eyes glanced back at the screen. The flashing dot disappeared.

  “I haven’t received that order, yet,” he said. “But, the media is now reporting that the woman Seth Miles shot is dead. They’re still not reporting her name. But unofficially, she’s probably a member of the same organization as the unpleasant criminal duo you ran into earlier today. Not a new one, either. Looks like she’s been working as a member of the Ontario Provincial Police for over two years. Uncertain how she gained that access or where her immigration papers even came from. Her police academy qualifications were fake.”

  Seth’s victim was a Black Talon operative? He didn’t know what was more alarming, that Black Talon might have recruited Seth, or that a member of Black Talon could’ve been hiding inside the Ontario Provincial Police. Either way, that made it slightly more plausible that Seth hadn’t been the one who’d actually shot her.

  “The media is now reporting that a warrant has been issued for Rebecca’s arrest,” Jeff went on. “But I haven’t been able to get external confirmation of that. Seems there’s equal doses of news and misinformation on the airwaves right now, thanks to some anonymous sources. I recommend you take her to a safe location and I’ll arrange transport for the both of you back to base.”

  “Copy that.” Zack’s eyes glanced back at the screen. Still no flashing dot. They were over eight hours’ drive from his base and there weren’t many places for a helicopter to land in forest this dense. But if the dot on the phone had meant what he thought it had, he was so incredibly close to the stolen computer program he could have it safely retrieved within the hour.

  “Until the source of the internal breach is isolated,” Jeff said, “it’s best to assume that no lines are secure, and that no one can be trusted.”

  Which was code for: And I know even more I’m not telling you.

  So, Northern Ontario really was a hostile environment until all this was settled. Anyone with sufficient technical know-how could be monitoring cell phone calls, and the police had already been infiltrated by at least one Black Talon mercenary. Could he really just leave Rebecca in the care of Jacques, have him drop her off at the closest town and expect her to be all right? Zack ran his palm over his eyes. Lord, I don’t know what’s going on. But I could really use Your wisdom.

  “So basically trust absolutely no one, is that what you’re saying?” Zack asked.

  The phone line went dead. Zack couldn’t tell if it was from the cell signal dying or if his commanding officer had hung up. He glanced at Rebecca. “Well, looks like we’re sticking together for now.”

  “Did you just say, ‘Trust no one’?”

  Ah. He probably shouldn’t have said that within her earshot. “Basically. But don’t worry about it. What matters is that we’re heading to your truck together. But you’ve got to let me take the lead here. I don’t want you running at Seth the moment we find him. We know he’s armed. We don’t know if he’s alone. We don’t even know what he’s capable of. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Rebecca said. She leaned forward and tightened her laces. “Although, if you really are trusting no one, are you even sure you can trust your CO? How do you know he isn’t part of this? How do you know he hasn’t been feeding you misinformation or trying to lead you into a trap?”

  Zack could feel his jaw drop. What kind of question was that? A retort flew to the tip of his tongue, but when he glanced at her face, he could tell she was serious. “Because I trust him. There are some people I trust without question. He’s one of them. It’s as simple as that.”

  Jacques dropped them off at the side of the road beside an unmarked dirt track and refused to take the money Zack offered him. Zack’s chest ached to realize Jacques would probably see Rebecca’s picture flashed across the news later in the day and realize he’d given a ride to a criminal suspect, but as he looked into the older man’s kindly, smiling eyes Zack realized he didn’t know what to say to reassure him.

  The truck left. A sigh left his body.

  “He went out of his way to help us,” Zack said, “but he doesn’t know who we are and what we’re in
the middle of. If we recover what Seth stole right now, Jacques might’ve just helped save countless lives and thwart an international criminal plot, and he’ll never know it.”

  They started walking through the woods.

  “Am I right in gathering that General Miles kept a lot of secrets from your mother?” he asked, after a long moment. If he was honest the fact that Rebecca had questioned his trust in Jeff rattled him just a bit. “Is that part of why secrets bother you so much?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “General Miles was definitely very hard to get to know or feel close to. Maybe that’s just a side effect of the job. But it didn’t help that my mother’s relationship with my biological father was shrouded in secrecy. I wasn’t even allowed to ask who he was or where he’d gone, even though she spent my whole childhood anxiously waiting to hear from him. Then suddenly she’d given up waiting for him, married General Miles instead and things got even worse. She never knew where in the world my stepfather was or what he was doing. It’s part of why she got so hooked on the prescription pills that eventually killed her. The uncertainty drove her crazy. She couldn’t handle the secrets. I lived with the General for about five years, my mother lived with him for seven, and still, I don’t know who he really was.”

  That might’ve been the most he’d ever heard her say about General Miles. As teenagers, she’d always changed the topic or just gone quiet whenever he’d babbled enthusiastically about the General’s war record or the operations he could be deployed on. The idea anyone would be anything other than thrilled about living with a decorated military hero hadn’t really occurred to him back then, and he definitely wouldn’t have tolerated hearing anyone bad-mouth someone in the Armed Forces, which was probably part of what’d driven his tensions with Seth. With two parents who’d died in the service, and both an uncle and aunt who’d served, teenage Zack had had a pretty idealized, almost naive view of the men and women in uniform, instead of realizing they were just as human as everybody else.

  Certainly none of the men or women he served with now were perfect.

  “I know you hate that I’m keeping things from you,” he said, including the fact that there was a warrant out for her arrest and that police had been infiltrated by Black Talon. “And honestly, I don’t blame you. Nobody likes it when somebody is keeping secrets. I sure don’t. It still irks me whenever I can tell there’s something going on in my unit that I don’t know about. Because I see all the signs—the glances, the closed doors, the way people hide the screen when checking their cell phones—and I wonder about it just like anyone else. Are we about to be deployed? Is there a new terrorist threat? Is someone planning a surprise party? Remember, I still don’t know what Seth stole.

  “But I’ve accepted that part of my job. I’ve accepted that in this gossip-filled, knowledge-driven culture, I don’t get to know everything. Some things are still private. Some secrets aren’t mine to know.”

  They kept walking. He was thankful she was listening, even if he wasn’t sure how to put his thoughts into words. He’d never actually talked to anyone about this before.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “I just kept a pretty big secret from Jacques, while he might’ve helped me achieve my goals,” he added. “That happens more often than you’d think. There are men and women all over the world who gave me a ride, or offered me a drink of water, or bartered with me for a piece of equipment I needed, or walked with me into enemy territory, or tipped me off to where hostiles were hiding—risked their lives—but who are never going to know the difference they made and what they were a part of. Because I’m the only person who knows, and it would put them in danger if I told them. That’s the part of keeping secrets that gets to me. Not the fact that my superiors can’t tell me everything—like I said, I’ve accepted that—but the fact that I can’t ever tell people how incredibly grateful I am for the huge difference they’ve made.”

  Rebecca didn’t answer and he felt foolish almost immediately for admitting what he had. That what he, Sergeant Zack Keats of special forces, found hardest about his job wasn’t hostile elements, dangerous conditions or the physical toll the job took on his body. No, it was the fact that when he was safely home, after an operation, he couldn’t go back to find some random man on a hillside or woman from a market to give them whatever money he had in his wallet to thank them. Rebecca’s fingers brushed his arm.

  “They know,” she said. He looked down into her eyes. “Even if they don’t speak English. Even if you don’t tell them a thing about who you are or what you’re doing. It shows on your face exactly the kind of man you are and exactly how you feel.”

  There was an odd lump building in the back of his throat and for a moment he had trouble swallowing. And what feelings does she see in my eyes when she looks in my face?

  “Just like I’m sure you know the difference you’ve made in the life of people you’ve rescued,” she added, “even when you don’t know the whole story or what happens to them next.”

  True enough. Like the young, frightened woman he’d extracted from Black Talon’s grip months ago. In her early twenties, with hair the color of corn silk, he’d never learned her real name or what had happened to her once she’d reached Canada, but he’d never doubted the difference he’d made in her life.

  He’d just never thought of it that way before.

  They kept walking down the thin dirt track as it cut back and forth through the woods. Her footsteps moved every bit as silently as his. His ears strained for the sound of danger ahead but heard nothing but the rustle of wind in the trees. The ground sloped steeply beneath them.

  The dirt road turned hard to the right. But a path of broken trees and tire tracks continued straight down the hill ahead of them. It seemed someone had driven the truck off the road and straight through the trees. And not willingly, judging by the spent bullets and shell casings littering the ground.

  They made their way down the hill without speaking. Finally, he could see a break in the trees ahead. There was the faint sound of water lapping and insects humming.

  Nothing that sounded human.

  He stopped walking and held his arm out in front of her.

  “Hold up,” he whispered. “Let me go ahead, okay? Keep me in your line of sight if you can. Stay behind me but don’t come out of the trees until I give you the all clear. If hostiles attack and you hear major weapon fire, make it back to the highway and hide near the spot Jacques dropped us off. I’ll come find you.”

  He half expected her to argue or at least ask questions. Instead, she stood on her tiptoes. Her mouth brushed his ear.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  He stepped through the woods. The trees parted. A huge, abandoned granite quarry cut deep into the ground, filled with dark green water. The camper was parked near the edge of the quarry lake. Bullet holes riddled the aluminum siding. The camper door hung open on its hinges. Glass and spent bullet casings littered the ground. He couldn’t see the truck.

  He crept forward, his hands unconsciously clenching for the weapon he didn’t have. Inside the camper, he found boxes torn open, their contents strewn. Plastic dishes spilled from cupboards. Computer equipment lay smashed on the floor.

  He stepped back and crossed around to the other side of the camper.

  Then he saw her truck.

  It was submerged and sinking nose first into the quarry, with only the tailgate still peaking above the water’s edge.

  His bag. His phone. Her laptop containing whatever it was Seth had stolen.

  Were they all still in the cab of her truck, now sinking underwater?

  SEVEN

  Zack stared at the truck. The water was so murky it was hard to tell how deep the quarry was. For a moment he hoped the reason the truck hadn’t sunk any farther was that the front bumper was now wedged into the bottom of the lake. But then he saw t
he thin, taught, knee-high metal cable that connected the wrecked camper to the sinking truck.

  So the camper had been detached from the truck’s trailer hitch, presumably to stop it from sinking into the water after the truck. Then someone had reattached it using the winch cable on the back of the truck. Had they been hoping to use the winch to pull the submerged truck back up onto the shore? If so, it hadn’t worked. The winch motor wasn’t turning, but he could hear the faint metallic sound of it straining to pull. The camper creaked slightly.

  Whoever was behind this wreck was nowhere to be seen.

  He waved a hand toward the tree line. Rebecca was by his side in seconds. He watched as her gaze ran from her camper to the remains of her truck. Then her hands slid over her face.

  “I’m sorry, Becs. If we don’t detach the winch from the camper, the weight of the truck is going to pull the camper under. But I don’t know how deep the quarry lake is. So I need to swim down to the truck and try to retrieve the laptop from the glove compartment before I detach it.”

  “Is the camper clear?” she asked.

  “Tossed, but empty. Can’t tell if anything’s stolen.”

  She stared at the truck for a long moment. He braced himself, expecting her to start crying or even rush into his arms. Instead, she turned on her heels and ran for the camper.

  “My laptop case is shatterproof and waterproof,” she said. “Really heavy-duty. So hopefully whatever it was you downloaded onto it can still be recovered. Just give me a second to change into my scuba gear and then I’ll dive down for it.”

  The camper inched closer to the shore.

  “No, the truck’s unstable.” He followed her. “The cable could snap. The truck could flip with you inside it. Or the camper could get dragged down and crush you. It’ll be much safer if you stay here and I dive down.”

  She didn’t even turn. “Don’t forget there’s a combination lock on the glove compartment. I’m going to be a lot faster unlocking it than you. The combination’s my birthday. I’ve done it a hundred times.”