Blake expected that. While Carter talked to him, he brought up the photograph on his cell phone and scanned the images with his eyes. “OK. What else?”
“One of the men in the picture recently committed suicide.”
“Suicide?”
“Yeah. Apparently his wife left him and he jumped off a cliff.”
“A cliff jumper? Why would a man with military experience pick anything other than a gun to kill himself?”
Carter sighed. “My thoughts, too. The last thing to know is that every man received discharge papers within the same month.”
“Dishonorable?”
“No. Just let go.”
“Does that happen?”
“Not often. If at all.”
“Who gave the order for discharge? Maybe the brass knows something.”
“Max is looking into it.”
Blake picked up the picture of the driver. He looked at the picture on his phone again. “Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“This guy…the one who stole the car…he’s in the picture with Neil.”
“What? You sure?” Carter asked.
“Yeah…second guy on the right. Big ears. How did I not see this before now? I need a name. This is our guy. And Neil won’t realize his old friend is behind this.”
“Get Dean on the horn. See if he can track the guy. We have to get to Neil.”
“Colorado is a big state. They could be anywhere by now.”
“You said yourself Neil won’t run forever. He’d find a safe place and fight.”
“I’m going to Colorado Springs. There are nearly a dozen bases there. One of them is going to know something about Neil.”
“I wish I had a better idea.”
“This is giving me more gray hair than my son, Carter. We need to catch a break,” Blake said.
“We know more today than yesterday. We’re getting somewhere.”
“Too damn slow for my taste.”
“Hang in there. Call me if you find out anything.”
They hung up and Blake called his pilot. Then he called Dean.
Gwen calmed her nerves the best she could before she returned to the room where Charles was watching TV. The news program spotlighted two beautiful people who told the fate of the world. Their plastic smiles looked as fake as hers felt. You can do this!
“Did you find a book?” Charles asked.
“Ah…yes,” she lied. “A couple.”
He glanced toward her, but didn’t catch her eyes.
“I noticed a pizza parlor on base and thought it would be nice to have for an early supper. I was going to call and have it delivered but it seems the phone isn’t working.”
Charles twisted his head in a slow and methodical matter. “Pizza?”
She gave a coy smile. “Yes.”
“I think Ruth has the frozen kind in the freezer.”
“Uhm, I suppose that will work. Is there a problem with the phone line?”
He turned his attention back to the TV. “The phone is fine.”
“There’s no dial tone.”
“I believe Neil asked you to avoid calling anyone while he’s away.”
Her skin itched. “I can’t imagine anyone could get to me here.”
Charles focused on the news and for a moment, she didn’t think he was going to say any more on the subject.
“Women don’t know how to take orders,” he said.
“I believe Neil was requesting me to stay quiet for a time. It’s been nearly three days. I’m starting to worry.”
“A woman’s job is to worry. Glad to know you have that down.” His fingers started to tap the edge of the chair.
A proper British cut sat on her tongue but she bit it back. This man wasn’t right in the head. His view on women proved he was the wrong man to protect her. He’d find her useless at some point, or maybe not worthy of Neil and let whoever might want to harm her have free rein.
She backed off. “I am terribly worried. I suppose I’ll help your wife with her garden.”
He nodded toward the TV. “Looks like rain.”
“A little rain doesn’t stop the British from much.” She tried to smile.
“I thought you wanted pizza.”
Lost my appetite. “It’s early.” She turned from the room and felt his eyes on her as she walked away.
Chapter Thirty
It would be suicide to check on the noise. They’d set traps throughout their camp and circled around to them to see if any were tripped. None were. He knew Raven was using psychological bullshit to make them sloppy. The cat and mouse game could go on for a while.
“Anything?” Neil asked.
“Too fucking quiet.”
“Going up.” Neil let Rick know he was moving to his perch. Each time he moved through the forest, he used a different path. Five yards from his destination, he noticed a patch of black feathers. He stopped and turned. He donned his heat-sensitive goggles and scanned the area. At ground level, he didn’t see anything with a body temperature. With the air temperature dropping, it was easy to see a heat print of wherever he’d been. And if he could see the imprint, there was a strong possibility that his enemy could, too.
Which meant he had to keep moving.
“Keep moving.”
“I am.”
Neil scoped out his lookout, didn’t see anything out of place, and moved in. He scanned the forest floor for more feathers and found only leaves and twigs. Once he secured his back against the cliff, he scanned the area below. A heat signature was due east. “Is that you?”
The arm of the heat moved away from the bright middle color and waved. The area was too fucking large. Trees were everywhere. The kind he could hide behind…the kind Raven could hide behind.
A high-pitched alarm went off in his earpiece. “Trip sensor,” he said aloud for Rick’s sake. He turned on his cell and mapped which sensor he’d placed was tripped. “South.” Where the road passed through. They had to be careful. Didn’t want a civilian to stumble upon this little war and get hurt.
“You hold. I’ll look,” Rick said.
The clouds overhead started to darken, destroying the light they had. From the smell in the air, Neil guessed they’d all be wet in a matter of minutes. The thought no sooner left his mind when a clap of thunder reached his ears.
“Great,” he heard Rick mumble.
Neil watched Rick’s movements, and then he saw additional movement. “On your right, two hundred yards.” The heat signature was weak, but whoever was responsible for it wasn’t strolling through the woods on a walk, nor were they walking with purpose.
Rick stopped and ducked. His silhouette nearly disappearing from Neil’s range.
Raven moved north…slowly.
Neil walked along the face of the cliff until he had to move to ground level to intercept.
“I see him,” Rick said.
“Taking position in front of him.” They spoke just above a whisper.
Neil managed a few more yards before he heard Rick say, “He stopped.”
He peered through his goggles and noticed a blurring of heat behind several trees. Only he couldn’t tell if it was Rick or Raven.
“Are you on the move?”
“Yes.”
So the blurring image was Rick. Neil looked north. His target came into range. Then he vanished.
“Sonofabitch.”
“What?”
“He disappeared.”
“I still have visual,” Rick said.
Neil removed the heat goggles and replaced them with binoculars. There, in the trees was his target ducking behind a tree. He was camouflaged so well, Neil hardly noticed him. Camouflage didn’t reduce the heat of the human body, which meant their man had some sort of cloak.
Moving slowly, Neil positioned himself so Raven was between them. “He’s watching you,” Neil told Rick.
“I feel him.”
Neil removed the AK from his back and cocked it.
An
other clap of thunder filled the air; behind it, large droplets of rain followed. Neil used the noise of nature to hide his movements. He managed to get closer.
They all paused.
Raven moved east with the next flash of lightning. Not the direction Neil wanted.
Neil crouched on the ground and removed a detonator from his field jacket. “Stay alert. I’m bringing him back.”
With a press of a button, a smoke bomb went off in Raven’s path.
Their target shifted his body and broke through the northeast flank. Neil rushed to get ahead of him. Behind him, he heard Rick moving.
When Raven neared another diversion, Neil let the bomb go off.
The area started to fill with smoke despite the heavy rain that started to fall.
Neil lost sight of Raven.
“Where is he?” Rick asked.
“Don’t know.”
Neil scanned the area, but on ground level, he couldn’t see jack. It was times like this he wished he were built like a squirrel so he could scurry up a tree and look.
He swiveled around, in case Raven managed to dart by without him seeing. He was about to give up when he noticed a blur fifty yards west.
Right in the face of the cliff. Perfect!
“We’ve boxed him in.”
Gwen bundled into the sweatshirt she owned and used the extra material to hide the fact that she had on a couple of layers of clothing. There was no possible way Neil knew how off his friend was. She’d find a way off his property and manage a phone call at one of the stores on base. Between her brother and Carter…she’d be safe.
Safer than she was here.
She managed to maneuver through the house, placing a couple of snack bars in her pockets in case it proved difficult to wait for her brother. Every squeak in the house made her pause. The television had been turned off and the silence made her shiver.
In the backyard, she found the spot she’d abandoned the day before and pretended to pull weeds and turn the soil. Within fifteen minutes, her back ached from the previous day’s labor, not that it would stop her from acting as if she were settling into the job.
She didn’t need to look to know Charles watched. He wasn’t obvious this time by standing in a window, but she felt his eyes on her nonetheless. Once she’d accumulated a pile of weeds, she gathered them in her gloved hands and acted as though she were searching for a trash can. The side of the house was bare of cans, which she knew from the day before. There was however, a gate, leading to the front yard. She dropped the contents of her hands and eased the gate open. With her path clear, she walked swiftly, avoiding a run. The rock crushed beneath her feet and the sound of soft rain was all that accompanied her.
She smiled, despite the cold.
At the end of the drive, she turned toward the main road and rounded the corner. She peered over her shoulder and didn’t see if he followed her.
Gwen released a nervous laugh and turned toward the road.
Charles stood a few feet away. His clothes wet. “Going somewhere?”
It took every effort not to scream. Not that there was anyone near enough to hear her. And what would she say anyway? “A short walk.” She ignored the fact her hands were still covered with dirty gloves.
His humorless face strode to her. “Alone?”
“This weather reminds me of home,” she told him. “There’s no need for you to come along.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You aren’t dressed for a walk. I won’t be long.” She moved to step around him.
He blocked her path. “No. You won’t.” He reached out and grasped her arm, turning her back to the house.
“Excuse me?” She tugged away from him but his vise grip wouldn’t allow her to move. His fingers dug into her flesh beneath the layers of fabric she wore, and pain shot down her arm.
Charles said nothing as he marched her up his drive and back into the house.
“Release me,” she insisted once they were inside and he’d closed the door behind him.
He twisted the lock and chained the dead bolt, all the while holding her to the point of bruising her skin.
“Mr. Blayney, I don’t take kindly to violence. Release me at once.” Between the cold and wet of outside and the growing concern of what the man holding her was going to do, Gwen began to tremble.
Instead of acting on her demand, Charles shoved her ahead of him down the hall and to a door in the back of the kitchen. Through the pantry was another passage, one she’d hardly noticed before. Behind that was a set of stairs descending to a basement.
Gwen dug her heels into the floor and braced her hands on a doorframe.
“What are you doing?”
“What I was told to do should you attempt to escape.”
“What?” Told to do? What was he talking about?
Charles peeled her fingers off the doorframe. “Keeping you against your will for the sake of our great country.”
“That’s preposterous. I’m not a threat to your country.” Although she might consider bodily harm to the man holding her.
“I don’t know about that. Snooping around my home, finding classified information…”
What information? She’d only found pictures.
“And since you’re practically a US citizen I’m within my rights to hold you against your will.”
Her thoughts turned to Neil. Did he know Major Blayney would hold her like this? The expression on her face must have shown her question.
Charles released a sadistic laugh. “You don’t think he married you because he wanted to, do you?”
Her heart dropped. “Of course he did.”
“You go on believing that.”
Without further words, he shoved her down the stairs and into the lower quarters of the house. Like any basement, it was dark, damp, and smelled of mold. The walls were finished but the dark pegboard was less than comforting. An old sofa sat center room and boxes were stacked along the back wall. There were only a couple of lights above her head and not one window to be seen.
“You can’t leave me down here.”
“You’ve proven you can’t be left to your own recognizance.”
Charles shoved her down and twisted her arms behind her. Dirt from the couch drifted to her nose and made her cough.
“Stop.” She struggled under his grasp but didn’t manage any leverage. She felt the steel on her wrist before she realized what Charles was doing. “This isn’t necessary. Clearly you can overpower me.”
“Neil will not approve of what you’re doing.” She pleaded, using everything she could. “Your wife might come home and find me here.”
“My wife is in Florida searching for retirement houses she’ll never live in. Once she realized no one was dying I needed to give her a reason to stay. You don’t think her leaving was an accident, do you?”
The metal around her wrists clicked into place, but Charles kept his knee in her back, rendering her immobile.
“Why are you doing this?”
“I have my reasons.”
Reasons that had nothing to do with keeping her safe. She kept her head and lay still. She needed to think and plan her escape.
He left her facedown and handcuffed on the smelly sofa.
As she remembered the other precaution she’d done for her own safety, Charles delivered all the evidence she needed to understand his ultimate intent. “Don’t worry, Lady Harrison. As soon as I have word that Neil has been taken care of, I’ll take care of you quickly. Only need to keep you around if your husband outsmarts my man. Leverage. A man always needs leverage.”
She gasped, and Charles shoved something between her teeth to keep her from screaming.
“He worked under the command of Major Charles Blayney. The major still lives on base at Fort Carson with his wife. Word is he keeps putting off his retirement.”
Blake listened to Carter on a phone at twenty-three thousand feet. They were flying over Utah, trying to avoid a storm that was covering t
he Rockies and delaying air traffic due to lightning strikes. Twice his pilot told him they might have to divert south to Santa Fe or north to Cheyenne.
“You think Neil is there?”
“Could be. I’m trying to get you clearance so you can talk to the man. Looks like he was the one who called the discharge of Neil’s troop.”
“So he’ll know who our killer is?”
“Killer?”
“Dean called before I left. Homicide ruled on the neighbors after he called in a military expert.”
“Know something, Blake? All this is starting to sound like a damn conspiracy. Military-grade bugs, wired Jacuzzis that fry those inside…dead birds left as a diversion. I keep coming back to why? Max can’t find a damn thing about an Operation Raven. Brings me to the question of who knew about Raven? Who wants the soldiers that were involved with Raven dead?”
“You think someone is going after all of them?”
“The suicide reported about Neil’s friend had a tidbit in the police report about a dead raven under the body. I have a call in to the local sheriff in Tennessee, suggesting he reopen the case.”
“Anyone ever find the man’s wife?”
“No. The mom filed a missing persons report but nothing has come of it.”
The turbulence in the air dropped the plane a few feet, and kept Blake in his leather seat. “Major Blayney should know about Raven…right?”
“Should. But I doubt he’d say anything to you.”
“It’s a start. Hell, it’s the only lead we have.”
“Call me when you land.”
Blake hung up, more worried than ever.
Chapter Thirty-One
Rick moved in from the south, Neil took the north.
The rain fell in steady sheets, adding to the misery of the situation. Their advance on their enemy moved too quickly. So much so, Neil questioned it.
“Hold back,” he instructed Rick.
“Feels too easy.”
“Right.” He loved the fact that he and Rick had always read the other’s thoughts.
“There’s no way out for him. Not without going through one of us.”
Neil looked behind him for the thousandth time. “Think he’s working with someone else?”
Fiancé by Friday Page 24