Tactical Rescue

by Maggie K. Black

  While he deeply disliked the idea of someone creating an anonymous blog to attack the man, he had to admit that going up against a man of that stature could seriously hamper a soldier’s opportunity for advancement or hurt a promising career.

  Or even get him court-martialed.

  He opened the book at random. The words swam on the page.

  Nausea swept over him again. For a long, agonizing moment it felt as if the bunk was spinning. Then unconsciousness hit him like a brick.

  NINE

  Rebecca stood outside the camper and looked down at her stepbrother.

  Seth was huddled pitifully in a dry patch of dirt that was rapidly growing smaller with the encroaching rain. He glanced at the plastic mugs, then turned his back toward her so that she could see the handcuffs. “I’m supposed to drink that how exactly?”

  She sat down on the thin camper step. “Nice try, but I’m not about to free your hands.”

  She set one mug beside her, and held the other one up to his mouth. He made a halfhearted show of trying to take a sip without actually drinking anything. She set the mug back down and leaned against the side of the camper archway. Seth stared out at the rain with an expression that was pathetic, wounded and self-righteous all at once. “I can’t believe you thought I’d kill someone. I didn’t. I downloaded something from a computer. That’s all.”

  And blew up the road, threatened her life and attacked Zack more than once.

  “I’ll ask you again, why is there a dead body in the cab of my truck?”

  Seth shrugged.

  “That man put a gun to my head,” she said. “That man tried to kidnap me. I know he’s a member of some organized crime ring from the former Soviet Union called Black Talon. So, I’ll ask my question again.” She raised her voice and repeated herself, slowly dragging out the words one syllable at a time. “Why is there a dead body in my truck?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on exactly.” Seth turned and looked at her. “I’d never heard of Black Talon before.”

  “Then what were you doing meeting a Black Talon operative in a park after you stole that computer program?”

  Seth ignored the question. “Ivan and his buddy Dmitry in the red van kidnapped me. They drove off into the woods and I figured I was going to die. I figured that was it for me. Especially as I had no clue what had happened to the program they wanted or that Zack had downloaded it onto your laptop. I was just trying to run at that point. Anyway, then some other vehicle, big black one, starts firing at us. More people with bird tattoos shooting at the people with bird tattoos who’d just kidnapped me. Then there was swerving and shouting and glass shattering and trees smacking against us. Dmitry jumps out. I realize Ivan’s dead. Then we crash into the quarry and the truck starts sinking. So, I swim to shore and hide. Dmitry detaches the camper from the truck and tears it up, looking for the computer program. He leaves. I search the camper and when I can’t find it realize I should’ve searched the truck, so I attach your camper to the truck with the winch and try to pull it up. Doesn’t work. I grab scuba gear. I hear someone’s coming, so I hide underwater. That’s where you come in. End of story.”

  There was a finality to Seth’s voice that implied he would’ve crossed his arms if he was able.

  “So, you just happened to end up in the middle of some kind of war between two factions of an Eastern European criminal syndicate who both want what you’ve got?”

  “Looks like it,” Seth said. “Again, I don’t care whether you believe me or not. But I lifted something from a government computer for altruistic reasons. I was trying to help someone. I was trying to right a wrong. Then I finally meet the person I thought sent me to find the program, and she’s shot in front of me. I come running to you, because I’m at my wit’s end about what to do, and you’re the only one who might even understand—”

  “Why? Why would I possibly understand?”

  Again, he ignored her question.

  “And I end up trapped between competing interests who both want something I have in my possession.” He tilted his head back, leaned back against the camper and stared up at the canopy above him. “I never imagined anyone would issue a warrant for your arrest. I did use some of your old email addresses and social media accounts to do some stuff online, when I was trying to talk to my contact without creating a trail. But no one should’ve seen that. Even if they did, I hacked you. You shouldn’t get arrested over something like that.”

  Zack’s watch alarm went off. Guess his fifteen minute cat nap had ended. She pushed the door open a crack, expecting to see Zack sitting up. Instead Zack was lying on the bunk on his back, with his eyes closed and the General’s autobiography lying on his chest as though he’d passed out while reading it. His watch alarm beeped for a full minute, then stopped.

  “Can’t crack your laptop yet, can you?” Seth’s voice dragged her attention back outside. “Neither can I. The only person I thought had the password is the same person who I thought I was meeting, and until recently I thought that person was dead. But now that I know she’s not dead, that changes everything.” And here he actually grinned.

  “I really want to let you in,” he went on. “Believe me, I do. I just can’t trust military boy in there. This secret is too huge. If he knew what I knew he’d probably just suppress it and bury it out of some perverse sense of duty. But you untie me, we get rid of him, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” She picked up the mug that she hadn’t offered to Seth and took a sip. “When we were kids I thought you hated Zack because he was overweight and too emotionally sensitive. Now, he’s strong and successful. I thought he’d be like your ideal of what a man should be. He’s everything you used to want to be.”

  Zack was a lot closer to being like the man whose autobiography now rested on his chest than either Seth or Rebecca would ever be.

  “You wouldn’t get it,” Seth said bitterly.

  “You keep saying that. Of course I wouldn’t get it! The person with the answers can’t stop spouting lies at me. What’s your problem with Zack now? Are you jealous that he’s succeeding in the military, following in the General’s footsteps? Worried that the General’s disappointed you didn’t turn out to be more like Zack?”

  “Stop calling him the General!” Seth shouted, so loudly and angrily his voice seemed to clash with the pounding rain. “It sounds like you think he’s important. His name is Arthur Miles. My father. Your father. And he’s not a hero. He’s just some guy who was good at getting people to do whatever he wanted them to do!”

  “So, you believe he cheated on our mothers.” She took a deep swig of soup to keep her jaw from dropping. “You blame him for the fact your mother left.”

  “My mother didn’t just leave. She vanished from my life!” Seth’s voice was so upset, he almost sounded hysterical. “You think I’m sulky because my father was a bad husband? Wake up, Becs! I was trying to protect my sister. He sent criminals after my sister!”

  Her head ached, with a throbbing pain that somehow seemed to spread into her eye sockets. She yawned. “Your father sent Black Talon operatives after me?”

  “No.” Seth’s face went pale. “Of course, he didn’t.”

  “But you just said he did. Were you trying to protect me from your father?”

  Seth clamped his mouth shut.

  “I didn’t know what I was saying,” Seth said finally, in a tone that seemed to land somewhere being lying and truth. “That’s not what I meant. Obviously, I’m too upset what with being kidnapped by gangsters and then held prisoner by my own stepsister to know what I’m saying.”

  Seth was talking gibberish. As if he was trying to dance in circles around topics of conversation, throwing his words out like sucker punches without landing any of them.

  “What I m
eant to say is that I was trying to protect you from Zack,” he said. “Back in the day, it was obvious Zack had a huge, major puppy-dog crush on my only sister, even though he wasn’t good enough for you. So, I stepped up and showed you what kind of guy he really was. Never imagined you’d go running back to him now.”

  “When did you step up and show me what kind of guy Zack actually was?” she asked.

  No answer. Her throat stung. She took another sip of soup.

  “You’re not making any sense,” she added. “You can’t even stay on one topic for more than a second. If you want to tell me something, just be straight with me and tell me.”

  But Seth had gone silent again. Behind her she could hear Zack snoring softly.

  She finished her soup. The rain fell. The wind shook the trees. The night grew darker. Seth tilted his head back and sang snippets of some old show tunes that she vaguely recognized, stringing them together in a random melody.

  She ignored him. After a while, he went silent.

  “You hate me,” Seth said quietly.

  It wasn’t a question, just a statement. She looked down at her huddled stepbrother. His blond hair was wet and plastered over his forehead like a teenager’s. But the lines around his pained eyes made him look older, tired and weary.

  Lord, she prayed, I’ve tried so many times to forgive him. And now... It’s like my heart doesn’t even begin to know how to start.

  “I don’t want to hate you,” she said. “But maybe I wanted to at first. I didn’t even know how my mother knew General Miles. Suddenly they’re married and I get this bombastic, arrogant brother taking up so much space and making so much noise in my house. It was hard. You weren’t the easiest person to live with.”

  “Ouch.” There was a plainness to the one-syllable word that made her pause.

  She’d expected a pithy comeback or insult, something designed to remind her that he’d always been the popular golden child who’d had friends and sports, who was voted onto student council and played bass guitar in a band. He’d even missed the chance to remind his gangly, clumsy, socially awkward stepsister that she was nothing but a loser.

  “I’m being honest.” She drained her cup and set it down in the dirt. “It’s not entirely your fault. My mom’s health problems didn’t help. You’d just lost your mother and here your father was suddenly remarried. The General was hardly there for any of us. I just wish we’d stuck together instead of you always pushing me away. Brothers and sisters should stick together. At least that’s what you said before you stole my truck.”

  She yawned again. Her brain felt fuzzy at the edges, as if it had suddenly hit her how tired she was, and she needed to sleep immediately.

  “I loved you and hated you and admired you and was jealous of you.” Words kept flowing from her mouth, as if she didn’t know how to stop them. “Right now, mostly I’m ashamed of you. Because you were always so smart, so clever and so strong. You could’ve done anything in your life. Instead you treated everyone around you like garbage when we were teenagers, and then in the end you did less than nothing with your life. You became a criminal. And so, yeah, I wish you’d never become a part of my family, because you’re a terrible excuse for a brother.”

  Seth winced as if she’d just slapped him. Pain filled his eyes. She clasped a hand over her mouth.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I just said that.” Her head felt dizzy. Darkness filled the skies above. She opened her mouth to speak, but her words were swallowed up in a yawn.

  “Ever heard of a girl named Maria?” Seth asked.

  “No...” Her brain was spinning too fast now to make sense of his words.

  “Think, Rebecca! Have you ever heard anyone mention the name Maria?”

  Maria. Maria in the dead of winter. Maria in the snow, snow, snow...

  Seth’s show tunes ditty from before was now spinning in her mind. Her head was really throbbing. Her brain screamed at her that she should be listening.

  The soup. He’d put something in the soup...

  She’d been drugged.

  Her head drooped to her chest. Her eyes began to close.

  “Listen to me, Rebecca!” Seth was suddenly shouting. His voice was strained. “Pay attention! Please!” She jerked her eyes open. “I created that blog about our father. Me! But I didn’t have the information I needed to prove everything I wanted to prove. Needed to prove. But then Maria contacted me and said she could help. She told me there was something on a government computer that would unlock the files I was trying to hack. So I downloaded the file. But I couldn’t open it. Then I went to meet her in the park, only it wasn’t really Maria, and somebody killed her. So I ran. I came to see you because you were decent, and my sister, and I hoped you could help me.”

  There were motions in the trees. Figures were approaching. Men in dark clothes.

  Her eyes drifted shut again.

  “Wake up, Rebecca!” Seth yelled. “Please! You’ve got to wake up and let me go!”

  She needed Zack. Zack would know what to do. Zack would protect her. She turned toward the camper. Her body slipped from the step. She fell into the dirt beside Seth.

  “I’m so sorry, Rebecca,” Seth was babbling now. “I know I messed up. I was hoping if I tricked you guys into drinking the soup, you’d pass out and I could escape. I promise I never meant to hurt you. Remember the sports banquet? Where you thought that Zack stood you up and you got that trophy?”

  Where she thought Zack had stood her up? Of course he’d stood her up. She’d waited for him by the front door for an hour. He hadn’t been there.

  People were running toward them now. Footsteps were coming closer. She tried to lift her head, but it wouldn’t move. She was drifting again, her drugged mind rising to consciousness for fleeting moments only to be pulled back under.

  Her head lolled onto Seth’s shoulder.

  “Remember the trophy!” Seth shouted. “Whatever you do, remember the trophy! Please. No matter what happens next. Remember the trophy!”

  Hands grabbed her body. She was lifted. She was helpless. Unable to move her limbs. Unable to fight back.

  “Hey God, it’s me, Seth,” he prayed. “I don’t know how this prayer thing works. But my sister needs Your help. Just save her, okay? No matter what happens to me. Don’t let them hurt her. Please—”

  The sound of Seth screaming filled the air.

  But the darkness was so heavy, she couldn’t open her eyes.

  * * *

  Rebecca was floating, moving through the air. Voices were talking in a language she couldn’t understand. Seth was shouting, but his voice seemed to be coming from a long way away, and her eyes wouldn’t open. Then she was lying on something soft. It started moving, rumbling. The ground was shaking underneath her face.

  “Rebecca!” Zack shouted. “Rebecca, wake up.”

  She opened her eyes. She was lying alone on the cot of her camper. Her hands were tied behind her back. Her legs were bound at the ankle. Packing tape covered her mouth. She rubbed her mouth against the bunk vigorously, relief filling her chest as she felt it peel away. Seemed their kidnappers had used the cheap packing tape she’d left on the counter. Unfortunately they’d wound it so many times around her limbs that it would take a good sharp blade to get them free.

  She felt around the bunk with her legs. The laptop was gone. The camper rumbled beneath her. Night rushed past the window. They were moving.

  “Zack!” Her eyes scanned the camper in the darkness. “Zack, where are you?”

  “Down here. On the floor.”

  She slid her body over to the edge of the bed and looked down, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Zack was lying on the camper floor, wedged between the counter and the desk. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  “I’ve been a whole lot bett
er. But I’ve also been worse.” His voice was grim. “We were drugged, and hard. They tied my ankles and wrists. Gagged me, too, but I managed to work that loose. Did you see who did this to us?”

  “No. Seth drugged us, but he didn’t kidnap us. He seemed genuinely terrified of whoever it was.” She prayed that Seth was still alive, wherever he was. “Seth told me that Ivan and Dmitry kidnapped him and then other Black Talon people killed Ivan. He thinks that some members of Black Talon are fighting amongst themselves for whatever he downloaded.”

  “It’s entirely possible.”

  Her memory was foggy, though, as though someone had come along and tried to erase from her mind everything that had happened after that second sip of soup. He’d said other things. Important things. Something about the woman in the park and show tunes. But she couldn’t piece her memories together enough to make sense of them. “Where’s Seth?”

  “I have no idea,” Zack said. “The bigger questions now are where are they taking us and how do we get untied before we get there. When we stop moving, I want to be on my feet and ready to fight.” He glanced up at the skylight. “Or better yet, out of here first.”

  She looked around for her clock. Five in the morning. The road was rough beneath them. She could hear rocks kicking up underneath the camper. Tree branches smacked against the window. Wherever they were going, it was definitely off-road. “How long have you been awake?”

  “About two seconds longer than you,” he said. “I’m going to try to find a way to get this tape off. See if you can find anything sharp.”

  She twisted her wrists behind her back. They were so tight she could barely move.

  “Hang on, I’ve got a thought.” She inched to the edge of the bed and started kicking the hard metal edge of one of the brackets she used to convert the cot into the table. The screws had rusted years ago, and the metal had warped and bent over time until it had the unfortunate habit of stabbing her in the shins. She kicked as hard as she could. One end broke free from the wall. She looped the packing tape binding her feet onto the edge of the broken metal and pulled. The tape began to rip. She yanked harder and heard the tape tearing. Then the metal bracket came clear and flew across the floor. “I’m sorry.”