by Cindy Gerard
“It’s okay.” She breathed deep, marshalling her composure. “My parents and my boss all think I’m on vacation in Italy. But they’ll try to reach me to tell me about the fire. If they can’t get in touch, they’ll panic. I need to tell them.”
Mike looked at Gabe. “Can we make that happen?”
Gabe looked grim. “I think we have to.”
22
He stood in front of floor-to-ceiling windows of bulletproof glass, in a lushly appointed apartment overlooking the sprawling, bustling city. And felt like a fucking prisoner. While five thousand square feet of luxury did not equate to a prison, the fact that he was basically captive here did. He was a captive of circumstance until this Eva Salinas/Mike Brown mess was sorted out and it was safe to resume normal operations. Anyone who might be suspicious of his absence assumed he was on a much overdue vacation in the French countryside.
Twenty stories below, sun baked a pavement lined with compact cars maneuvering the Quebec rush hour like a string of worker ants, all hot-wired to serve their queen. The queen in his world was the mighty dollar. Always had been. Always would be. He was only paid, however, if he kept his suppliers happy. And he could only keep them happy if he didn’t blow his carefully nurtured cover. That cover was his first line of defense.
Because of Eva Salinas, that line was threatening to crumble. Because of Eva Salinas, he was hiding like a common criminal. The rage that indignity dealt him was eclipsed only by his determination to repair the damage before it got out of control.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he brooded about his dilemma. She had to die, of course. Both her and Brown. If Jane had fulfilled her obligation, all of this would be behind him. But she hadn’t, and they’d both paid the price. He’d been relieved when his man had delivered her, weak and in pain, but stoically bearing up, a few hours ago. She rested comfortably now. A doctor had seen her. And he had insisted she take the pain medication, unable to bear seeing her in such agony.
He was not accustomed to feeling tenderness for a woman—for another human being, for that matter. That Jane provoked not only tenderness but an unfamiliar fear of loss was not something he chose to analyze. She mattered in a way that his well-bred wife and pampered children had never mattered.
On an equally disturbing front, neither Brown nor Eva had turned up yet. Which royally pissed him off.
Jaw clenched, he walked to the bar and poured two fingers of whiskey from a $2,500 bottle of Bruichladdich Forty. He savored the first sip, then walked across the Italian marble floor and sank down onto one of a trio of white leather sofas flanking a spectacular saltwater reef aquarium that spanned the width of the room.
A spotted ray—his favorite, next to the stingray from which he’d taken his code name—floated across the panorama, blissfully unmindful of a reef shark skimming along the white sand below him. Flashes of purple, red, and yellow darted by, all fish of various sizes and shapes. The variety of colorful sea life, live rock, and luminous, undulating corals was designed to soothe and mesmerize, but the brilliant spectacle barely registered. He was looking inward. And all he saw was red.
He’d made a huge mistake. He’d attempted to handle Eva’s inquisitiveness by monitoring her activities, waiting for her to back off on her impromptu investigation. He still didn’t know what had set her off in that direction. He just knew it couldn’t be good. And that he’d let sentiment blind him to grim necessity. He’d also underestimated her determination. He would never make either mistake again.
Where the hell had she gone? Where was Brown?
Deductive reasoning pointed to one or both of them returning to the States. Probably D.C. It only made sense. And it only made sense that they were working together—whether as adversaries or allies, time would tell. Either way, they were more dangerous together. Like dynamite was dangerous.
He had to get to them, silence them, before they found out the truth. If that happened, his current problems would look about as lethal as an overdue book fine.
All of his resources were focused on finding them. While he had hoped the team he’d sent to toss her apartment would lead him to her or Brown, or at the very least turn up some clue to what had triggered her investigation into OSD and Afghanistan, they’d found nothing.
Her apartment had been clean, but in case she’d hidden something damaging there, he’d made certain it was destroyed. Because his team was competent, any possibility of determining the fire was due to arson was a solid 95 percent in his favor. An empty apartment, with a coffeepot negligently left turned on or a faulty TV or other small appliance, would be the first place an investigator would look for cause. And the only place when they had evidence that an electrical fire had, indeed, been the culprit.
Regardless, they were still at square one. The only positive note was that if Salinas and Brown had what they needed to expose him, it would have hit the papers by now. He’d have been notified that charges had been filed and an international manhunt would be underway. None of that was in the wind.
Which meant the clock ticked for all of them. If he found them first, they died and he won. He had every intention of winning.
His secure phone rang. When he saw the return number, his pulse spiked. The call was from Mark Barnes, his cyber-surveillance guru. “Tell me you have news.”
“Someone hacked into the CIA database using the Salinas woman’s user ID and passcode.”
That someone had to be Eva or someone acting on her behalf. For the first time since Jane had called to inform him of her failure, he felt some relief.
23
Mike and Eva left Dulles at 8:30 the next morning and after an eight-hour flight with a connection in Denver, landed in Spokane, Washington, around 2:30 p.m. mountain time. The black Jeep Cherokee that was waiting for them was well used and rode like a lumber wagon as Mike drove down Highway 2, heading for Squaw Valley, Idaho, and the UWD compound. If Mapquest and their calculations were correct, they were looking at another hour or so tops.
Beside him in the passenger seat, Eva consulted an area road map. He still couldn’t get used to the way she looked as Maria. They’d done their best to drab her down. Her face was free of makeup. A quick dye job had turned her hair a muddy brown that she’d pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail. And just in case her washed-out jeans, loose blue tank top, and worn tennis shoes didn’t finish the look, they’d given her a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.
In theory, everything combined should have transformed her into the equivalent of a brown paper bag.
Fat chance.
They could shave her head and dress her in a gunnysack and she’d still take his breath away. She was that stunning. Add in the vulnerability factor that the loss of her apartment had triggered, and piggyback that onto a rock-solid—some might call it pigheaded—resolve to see this through to the end… and hell, he was flat-out, un-freaking-believably captivated by everything about her.
Yeah, captivated. Who was he, Lord-freaking-Byron, all of a sudden? He didn’t think in those terms. Hot. Smokin’. Sexilicious. Those were his kind of words. What the hell was wrong with him?
Concentrate, sucker. And cut yourself some slack. Spending hours on end on a plane and now in this vehicle with her didn’t help. Thinking about last night, when he’d wanted to haul his sorry self up off the sofa where he hadn’t been getting any sleep, knock on her bedroom door, and invite himself back into her bed, didn’t help.
Dipstick—party of one. Your table is ready.
He did not get why this woman messed up his head so badly. He hadn’t met a bottle of pisco that screwed him up this much.
But right now, right now, he had to get his head out of his ass, get it firmly in the game, and keep both of them alive.
A deer shot up from a ditch and he had to break hard and swerve to miss it, forcing his attention back to his driving.
“That was close.”
He glanced at Eva, then back at the four-lane highway, glad he was wearing shades so she couldn�
�t read his thoughts through his eyes. Close? She didn’t know the half of it.
“Been a long time since I’ve used anything but a GPS for directions.” Her businesslike tone grounded him to the task at hand.
In keeping with her living-on-a-shoestring budget and with his just-out-of-prison-with-no-work cover, they were running strictly low-tech. They had one buy-minutes-as-you-go cell phone between them, and the paper map since they had no GPS capability.
They also had two handguns tucked in the glove box—a Makarov, the commie version of a Walther PPK that Dan, recently released from the pen, would have bought on the sly and on the cheap, and hers was a Taurus PT92, a reasonably decent version of the handgun that Maria had carried in the Army before she’d separated from military service over a decade ago. They had no doubt that the cell and both guns would have to be surrendered before they stepped one foot into the compound. All fringe groups had a tendency to be a tad bit paranoid, but to come in carrying showed allegiance to the cause. Can we say trigger-happy, ladies and gents?
But without weapons they were toast if things got dicey, because once they hit that compound, they were on their own. The Squaw Valley compound was 540 acres surrounded by mountains and tall timbered forest. The moon wasn’t this remote. There would be no backup team lurking within earshot and no way to get a team anywhere close. Planning was their backup. Luck was their backup. Good acting was their backup. Stupid? Probably. Other options? None.
They did, however, have a contingency plan that had been put into play before they’d lifted off from Dulles, and could potentially even up the odds a bit if push came to shove. They’d flown to Spokane under yet different aliases, then ditched those IDs and became Dan and Maria Walker once they’d landed. As promised, Gabe had everything set up. BOI contacts on the ground had left the Jeep in airport short-term parking, the keys wired under the license plate.
Carrying a small amount of cash and two duffel bags with lightweight black night gear for recon hidden in the lining, a few regular clothes and basic necessities, they’d gotten in their ride and headed toward the Idaho panhandle.
“We stay on Highway 2—we’ll be down to two lanes soon, by the way—and take it all the way to Priest River. Shouldn’t be much more than a half hour. Then it’s only twenty miles, give or take, to the UWD compound.”
Before they went any farther, Mike wanted to check out the gear Gabe had set up for them.
The forest had been cut way back from the highway to make room for power lines and waterways, but when he turned off onto a gravel road less than a half mile later, they were suddenly up close and personal with towering pines, dense forest, and total isolation. A harbinger of things to come.
To make certain no one would see them, he turned onto what looked like a park access road and drove about a tenth of a mile until they were swallowed by trees.
“Let’s see what we’ve got.”
He tossed his shades on the dash, then got out, rounded the vehicle, and opened the passenger-side door. Reaching into the glove box, he dug around under the pistols until he got his hands on the screwdriver he knew he would find there. With Eva keeping watch, he started loosening the screws securing the interior door panel. When he carefully removed the panel and got a look inside, he let out a low, appreciative whistle. “Lord love a duck. Would you look at that.”
Along with an emergency phone they were to use daily to check in with Gabe and a pair of mini night-vision binoculars, both affixed to the metal door with Velcro straps, was a short-barreled M-4 rifle with a seven-inch stock. Two full magazines and several boxes of ammo were also strapped into the door.
“Nice.” He ran his fingers over the stock. “Not for dinking people in the head at five hundred yards, but one of these babies can hit a golf ball at one hundred yards. And up close, the muzzle flash would probably blind God.” He glanced at Eva. “Ever shot one of these?”
She nodded. “Firing range only. But I can handle it.”
He replaced the panel, then quickly checked the driver’s-side door. Two pistols identical to the ones in the glove compartment, plus ammo for both, were fastened inside.
“I think you could call that a very special delivery,” Eva said.
Mike grunted in agreement. “Let’s hope we don’t need to use them.”
After putting the door panel back in place, they headed back to the highway.
• • •
Neither of them had had more than snacks on the go since they’d gone wheels up that morning, and since this might be their last chance to grab a square meal for a while, Mike stopped in the little town of Priest River long enough for them to eat. The Feed Store was a combo restaurant and yes, livestock feed store, and sat right next to the railroad tracks and the Pend Oreille River.
It was a good time to sit down on something that wasn’t moving, take a deep breath, and reassess. A little over a half an hour later, they walked back outside. It was almost four thirty, but he wasn’t worried about losing daylight. In July the days were long, even in the mountain west. But he had done a lot of reassessing over his burger and fries.
He took a good look around him as they walked down Main Street toward the Jeep. They were in a valley surrounded by mountains on every side. In the middle of nowhere. With nothing but our wits and our purpose to get us through what happens next.
This was it, he realized, as he settled in behind the wheel and slipped his dark glasses back over his eyes. The point of no return. He knew that he might not walk out of the UWD compound alive, and he was willing to take that chance—with his life.
But not with hers.
They were 100 percent on their own. The guns had made it real. The isolation as they’d driven deeper and deeper into the panhandle made it clear. No cavalry would ride in at the eleventh hour to save them if things went sideways. Help would be hours away. He was squared away with that. But Eva—God, he never should have let her come along.
Feeling the weight of her safety like an elephant on his shoulders, he made one last-ditch effort.
“It’s not too late.” He looked across the seat at her, wishing that just once, when he looked at her, his heart didn’t jump like a frog on speed. “I can put this off until tomorrow. Drive you back to Spokane tonight, get you on a flight back to D.C. It’s not a problem.”
She already had that closed look on her face.
“Damn it, Eva, listen to me. You don’t have to do this.”
She stopped in the process of buckling her seat belt, lowered her chin to her chest, and let out a heavy breath. After a long moment, she met his eyes. “Take off those glasses so I can see your eyes and know you’re listening.”
He did as he was told, then waited. But not for long.
“I’m only going to say this one more time,” she said with crisp efficiency. “Whatever happens out here, it’s not on you, okay? It’s on me. Going in is my choice. So stop feeling responsible for me. Stop trying to protect me. I can handle myself, but if you don’t start treating me as an equal, this is never going to work.”
Her brown eyes were almost black with conviction, and damn if he didn’t fall a little deeper into whatever mess he was falling into that he refused to give a name.
“And stop calling me Eva,” she added with a glare. “It’s Maria. I may be your loving wife, but you’re indebted to me for getting you an early out and for sticking with you until you got released. And you are definitely not the boss of me. Get used to it.”
The last thing he’d expected to punctuate the end of this conversation was a grin. But damn, if she didn’t worm one out of him.
“Okay, wife.” He shifted into gear, checked in his rearview, and pulled out onto the street. “If it’s not too much to ask, please navigate us the hell out of here, would you? It’s time to get this show back on the road.”
And it was time for him to accept that she was in to stay. She was also right. If they were going to pull this off, he had to stop worrying about her and start workin
g with her.
• • •
“Aside from the fact that this land already belonged to Lawson, it’s pretty clear why he picked this valley as UWD’s base of operations,” Eva said as they drove deeper and deeper into endless stands of tall pine and cedar.
They’d turned off the highway onto gravel several miles ago. Spindly birch and maple trees sprouted up here and there but the ponderosa was king, so towering and dense that in most places sunlight never hit the forest floor.
“You want seclusion and privacy, it doesn’t get any better than this,” Mike agreed.
The five hundred–plus acres that made up Squaw Valley was private land surrounded by the Idaho Panhandle National Forest—unless you were a long time local who still called it by its original name, Kaniksu. This road was the only way in or out, if horsepower under a hood was involved.
“In addition to the Priest River, two creeks run through the UWD property,” Eva added, studying her map. “The Upper West Branch and Good Creek. So there’s their water supply. Where do you suppose they get their power? Generators?”
“Could be. More likely, they’ve tapped into the electrical lines that run along the road. The power company probably wouldn’t even know if they did it.”
“Do you think we can get cell service up here?”
He’d been wondering the same thing. “Guess we’ll find out.” With the size of the mountains they’d been driving through, there were bound to be dead zones.
“I’m thinking it’s a good thing we’re here in July,” Mike said. At Eva’s instruction, he turned off the gravel and onto a dirt road. The power lines that had run parallel to the main road disappeared from view. “Bet this sandy dirt turns into mucky ruts once it starts raining.”
“Slow down a little.” Eva looked from her map and concentrated on the road ahead of them. “We should be getting close to the next turnoff.”
“Within a couple of miles, if those ‘Keep Out’ and ‘No Trespassing’ signs are any indication. Can’t say they don’t give fair warning.”