Recon

by David McCaleb

  Lam had cut off the electricity to the tower at a big green box outside that same hut. He’d said the legs of the structure were part of the antenna, putting out a hundred thousand watts. Not that Scrugs cared about the harm radio waves could do. He was dying, not being paranoid like Lam always suggested. The doc at the Veterans’ Hospital had finally figured out the reason for Scrugs’s heartburn. Stomach cancer. Inoperable. Four months to live. What a kick in the balls.

  Glancing down, he searched the base of the other towers, trees, and buildings that dotted the “antenna garden” as Lam had called it, looking for any signs of movement. Scrugs had no problem shooting someone if it meant protecting Lam or his new friend. But if a technician working on radio equipment spotted him doing it, Scrugs would spend the final few months of his life in jail. But no one was moving this morning.

  He reached over his head, gripped the long barrel of the old anti-tank rifle, and pulled it from the straps that secured it to his tactical pack. The weapon was a monster, almost forty pounds, but lighter than one would expect from a tool meant to take out armor. He clipped a strap to the antenna a few feet above and used it as a sling to rest the barrel. Not the most stable support, but it allowed him free motion to cover a wide field of fire. Plus, horizontal bars stuck awkwardly from the antenna above his head, making the extra limb of the weapon look fitting.

  His wheezing from the climb subsided, and he pulled the stock tight to his shoulder. The cheek rest was nothing but a flat square of metal whose chill goose-pimpled his face. As he leaned into the scope, the road below shot into clarity. He swung the weapon to both sides, testing where he could aim without repositioning. His field of fire was a full 180 degrees, to the pine-covered ridge a thousand yards north, and the entire gully between. The slope of the small valley was shallow, and natural cover grew unimpeded. A trained soldier might even walk through undetected.

  A tower of similar height stood no more than a hundred feet to the side with huge white funnels bolted to it. Scrugs had wanted to climb that one since it had a larger platform, but Lam had said he didn’t know how to lock out the power. And Scrugs didn’t protest once the mechanic mentioned the possibility of his nuts getting fried. He was dying, but still had plans for Saturday evening.

  Where was Lam now? Lifting his head from the scope, Scrugs searched northerly, outside the perimeter road that surrounded the thirty-five acres of mountaintop real estate. He noticed his friend stepping slowly as he descended a narrow rock trail, placing boots on either side of a shallow V-shaped washout, making his way to the opposite ridge.

  Spotting was one thing Scrugs was good at. He’d enjoyed better than twenty-twenty vision since he’d been a kid. Maybe turkey hunting in Tennessee as a teenager had trained it into him, or his time in ’Nam as air cavalry. Either way, somewhere he’d developed the ability to notice the slightest motion in the wild. His mind would filter out the swoop of a bird, and the skittering of a squirrel, and the waving of grass in a breeze. But if a single tuft parted unnaturally, indicating an unseen danger lurking near the roots, his eyes would lock onto the spot immediately.

  He unbuttoned a shirt pocket and lifted out a heavy brass cartridge the size of a bratwurst. He frowned as he noted the black tip and red band encircling the bullet. In his haste out the door, he’d grabbed the weapon’s original armor-piercing incendiary rounds. For hunting elk, he used aftermarket solid brass projectiles, lathe turned to match standards, though he hadn’t had a chance yet to take down an animal with one. Instead, these bullets had been manufactured well before Scrugs had even been born, meant to bust through armor and catch fire to fuel tanks or ammunition. Worst part was, they cost fifty dollars a pop.

  Oh well. Bullets were useless, except for the split second they were screaming through the air. He slipped it into the rifle and, with the clunky awkwardness inherent to most Russian weapons, locked the bolt forward.

  A flash of movement in his periphery. Someone had just run across the access road and was huddled behind a black boulder. He swung his rifle toward it and peered through the scope. His X hovered over copper-colored hair. He snatched a Motorola two-way from his vest. The device had proven most useful, much of the radio chatter since yesterday being unsecured since the feds were communicating with local police. He pressed Transmit. He’d agreed with Lam to pretend to be some sort of tree-hugging nature spotter in case the FBI overhead. At Scrugs’s suggestion, they’d even set up code words.

  “Elk spotted eight hundred yards west of your position, heading east, crossing the road.” Where was the kid? Hidden close? The hair color had to mean this guy was Red. But he seemed to be waiting. If he moved another twenty yards, he’d be into thicker forest and harder to track. “Take your camera and move fast. Looks like your lone bull.”

  Chapter 26

  Stump

  Red crouched behind the blackened boulder, which had charred coals piled up around its base. Listening, his movement hadn’t seemed to have stirred any unwanted attention. The team pursuing them wouldn’t want to venture so close to a military installation. Maybe Yoga was the last challenge he’d have to face. Once through the shallow gully ahead, the journey’s end was only a half klick downhill. From Cheyenne Mountain, he’d be able to contact the Det and this hellish vacation would be over. He’d take work over this any day. At least then his team was the aggressor and he could stack every conceivable detail to his advantage. Like Jim, his prior commander, had always liked to say, “If you’re ever in a fair fight, your tactics suck.”

  Directly across the dusty pink gravel road Penny crouched behind a sedan-sized mound of cheatgrass. Its heavy seed heads curled and hung limp; their flowing tan whiskers waved over her head. Honeysuckle scent drifted in the breeze. Her gaze was locked with his, waiting instruction.

  She’d been such a trouper. The thought of finally getting her to the air base stirred relief. The blurry shadow of a soaring bird passed between them on the road. These two worlds weren’t supposed to intersect. He’d always been able to flip a mental switch as a soldier, enjoying being a dad to the kids in one world, morphing to operator when working for the Det. It was what his own father, Tom, had taught him when he’d tried out for the JV football team as an adolescent. “Once you step over that chalk line onto the field,” he’d said, “you leave yourself behind. Become another man. The meanest sonofabitch on the field.” His father’s smile had been tight and wicked as he’d rested a hand on Red’s shoulder. “That’s the one place it’s OK to forget that shit about being nice and playing fair. Let out the wild man everyone else wants to bury. I know he’s in you. Get to know him. Make friends.”

  Now he considered the conflict between the outside husband and father, and his own inner wild man. An operator. Though Lori had been dragged into this world before, he’d been able to shelter the kids from it. But now Penny was wandering out in the field, innocent and oblivious.

  He stared at her knotted pigtails, hanging like the heads of cheatgrass. Was she going to stay his little girl, or had this stirred a wildness inside her? Would she begin to distance him now, knowing who he really was?

  Red had certainly done that with his father. The man had been a FiSTer in Vietnam for two years, a forward artillery observer, but the only evidence of his service was a Purple Heart his mother had placed on the mantel and a twitch in one eyelid from viral nerve damage. His feral temper could flare like the flash of a mortar shell.

  Was there a point at which Red would no longer be able to switch back as well?

  Lori waved, and he blinked, drawing his thoughts back to the present. Glancing at Penny, he curled fingers in a come here gesture. She rose to a crouch and crossed the road in a side step, feet pointing parallel like he’d told her. Her legs crossed each other, weaving the way his old coach used to make them run in football warm-up drills.

  She knelt behind the boulder at his feet and sucked in a few deep breaths. “Did I do good?”


  A shiver climbed his neck.

  Lori followed, brushing away their steps with her grass-clump broom. Still, if anyone was looking they would spot the band of swept road. A gust rustled through branches, or was it the distant rumble of an engine echoing across the gully? A motor. Red searched the sky, but only a few contrails of high airliners were visible. No rotor slap, so it couldn’t be a helo, and no prop whine. So probably not a drone. Must be a truck coming up the road.

  He turned and limped between white trunks of aspen. “Quick. Follow me.” Another twenty meters and he knelt behind a bleached rock. He didn’t know what to expect. Even if it was just a utility truck, climbing the mountain to work on the radio towers, he wouldn’t flag it down. They’d come so far he wouldn’t chance it now. Operatives could be disguised as anything, including electricians.

  Lori gazed over the rock next to him. “We should keep moving. Who cares what comes up the trail? Another half hour and we can be inside the base.”

  Thin slices of the road were still visible between the trees. Trodden grass marked their path from the aspens. The motor echoed louder. Among the peaks and cliffs, sound direction was difficult to determine.

  Penny slipped her hand inside his own. Her fingers were crusted in brown dirt, and the purple nail polish was half scraped from her thumbnail.

  “Let’s take a breather here,” he said. “Stay low. Once whatever passes, we’ll get moving again.”

  Tires crunched over gravel just beyond the aspen curtain. Yellow flashed between the tree trunks as a vehicle braked to a halt. Had the driver seen their brushed path across the road?

  Red drew his Sig from under his shoulder, and Lori aimed her .357 toward the aspen, crouching and resting a wrist upon the boulder. Hinges growled as doors creaked open. He thought he made out a pickup, but trunks and leaves blocked clear sight.

  “Mr. Harmon!” shouted a male voice, intonation young. “Mr. Harmon! I am Special Agent Stump with the FBI, out of the Denver field office. We’re here to get you to safety.”

  Like hell. Stump? What self-respecting agent would keep a name like that? He ought to shoot the bastard just for not making up a better alias.

  “Mr. Harmon. My instructions are to take you and your family to the Twenty-First Security Forces Squadron at Peterson Air Force Base, where you will be met by members of your unit, reunited with the rest of your family, debriefed, and carried home.”

  Red glanced at Lori. “This guy’s a fake. He’s not asking for authentication.”

  Lori curled her lip in a confused look.

  “There’s a protocol to this. A rescue team asks for an authentication word, to make sure they’re not picking up an enemy.”

  Lori spoke in a hushed whisper. “These guys are FBI, not pararescue. They don’t know your exfil secret handshake.”

  “Mr. Harmon, I know you can hear me. You were taped on security video at Pikes Peak. The man you shot was a fugitive of the FBI, so we were called in. In an effort to identify you, our agency sent the video to other government offices and your organization contacted us. We’ve been tracking your movements by thermal imaging drone for the last hour. That’s why we’re here, and how we know you’re just inside these trees. Please, let us help.”

  Lori shrugged. “The Det probably didn’t even think of giving them your code word.”

  For a split second, he caught the glow of a phone screen between trunks. The man seemed to be walking away from the truck. “If he comes any farther, they might be trying to flank us,” he whispered.

  Lori’s breath was hot on his cheek. “Friend or foe, they know where we’re at.”

  “I can’t outrun them, but you and Penny can.”

  “Mrs. Harmon, I have your supervisor, Stacy Giles, on the phone. She can vouch for us.” Dry leaves crunched as Stump walked toward them. “I’m going to leave it just inside the trees here. You can talk with her. Then we can get going.”

  Stump stepped slowly through the aspens, hands raised. In one palm was a small gold shield, his creds. In the other a phone. He wore tight blue jeans with cowboy boots and a brown T-shirt. Must’ve been called in on short notice. Even with the two-inch heel, the man barely broke five feet. Red wasn’t even as tall as Lori, but Stump would never have made agent if the FBI still enforced a height requirement. A wedding band encircled his ring finger. If he was for real, this guy should’ve taken his wife’s name. Red kept the blade of his front sight in the middle of Stump’s chest.

  Just inside the line of trees the agent gently placed the phone upon the grass, then turned and stepped back toward the road. Red stared at narrow openings in the trees, ensuring both men were next to the truck. Yoga had been tracking them by thermal image. Commercial drones with the technology were readily available, used for wildlife surveys. If these guys were operatives, they could’ve dropped off an entire team just up the road. They could be encircling them now. Maybe Stump was stalling while an ambush closed in.

  Red glanced about, but couldn’t see more than a hundred feet in any direction through the scrub oak and aspens. A flash of black jeans toward the truck and Lori was running to the phone, bent low. She snatched it from the grass and ran back behind the boulder.

  “That was stupid!” he snapped.

  She put the phone to her ear. “He knew my boss’s name. It’s worth the risk.”

  Red flashed his gaze around the perimeter. Still nothing.

  Lori crouched behind the rock. “Stacy?... Yes, we’re OK. Red’s OK too.… Listen, this Agent Stump… OK.” She gave a thumbs-up, and Penny silently clapped her hands. Lori held up a finger. “One more thing. Last month’s surveillance on Abu Sayyaf in Canada. What was the transaction amount we tracked?”

  Impressive. Even if she recognized her supervisor’s voice, she was validating her identity. If Mossad was behind the operatives chasing them, they could have the intelligence and resources to impersonate her boss. The technology to accurately mimic a voice had been around for a decade. But one couldn’t pretend to know a transaction amount that only Lori and her boss would remember.

  She pressed End and blew a sigh. “Stump’s for real.”

  “Can I shoot him anyway?”

  Lori stood and cupped her hands next to her mouth like a bullhorn. “We’re coming out!” She gripped Penny’s wrist and started around the rock.

  Red hurried to take lead, pistol still in his grasp but hanging beside him. Too much had gone wrong to drop all defenses now. He squinted at the sun, the burned creases in his forehead stiff as cardboard. As he wove through the aspens, a breeze cooled his cheek. Stump was standing in front of a yellow Nissan SUV, a stick-figured family on the side window indicated the driver had four kids, two cats, and a dog. Must be the agent’s private vehicle.

  Another man, dark black skin, taller and bulkier than Stump, stood in sandals and cargo shorts near the rear of the vehicle. Not the size of the Jamaican, but his eyes were just as bright white. He stepped closer and stretched an arm to the three of them, bottles of water in his grasp. The safety seal cracked when Red twisted off the top.

  Sandals shrugged off a gray backpack. “I’m a medic. Anyone injured?” Slight Southern accent. Georgia maybe.

  Penny was chugging her bottle. Water spilled from her lips as she pointed to Red. “Dad got shot in the butt.”

  Red took a swig, keeping an eye on Stump. “I’m OK till we get to Peterson.”

  “Mind if I take a look?” Sandals stepped closer.

  Red raised his pistol to the man’s face. “I said we’re all OK till we get to Peterson. Where are your creds?”

  Sandals’ hands went up, but he didn’t flinch. This wasn’t the first time a man had a weapon trained on him.

  “Red!” Lori yelled. “His badge is on his belt. These guys are here to help.”

  Sandals slowly turned sideways, pointing down with one finger to a shiny e
agle atop a shield clipped to his waist. How’d he miss that? It had only been two days since ascending Pikes Peak, but it felt like a week. No sleep. A long hike. He’d been through worse, but fatigue was starting to dull his mind.

  Maybe these guys were for real. Maybe they were going to take his family to Peterson Air Force Base. And the Det would have them on a plane in hours. Like breaching a locked door, you never knew what to expect on the other side. But to get through, you had to expose yourself. He lowered his pistol.

  * * * *

  Penny studied the white-lined stick figures of people on the window of the yellow truck. She’d told Mom and Dad they should get some like it for their car. Her family was big enough, and she was the oldest. Jackson and Nick were a lot younger. But Mr. Stump’s family was bigger. Four kids, not three. The tiny outline of two cats and dog stood next to the youngest. She’d asked her parents for a cat before, but Dad had just laughed. He hated cats, or pretended to. And Mom had said maybe, now that they’d moved “out into the boonies,” as she liked to call it. Penny missed having neighbors close like at their old house, but enjoyed the dream of putting up a fence around their huge backyard and buying a horse. Now would be a good time to ask Mom and Dad for a cat. Or maybe a horse, and they’d settle for a kitten.

  The smallest kid’s stick figure had a dress. She was the only one. Poor girl, having three older brothers. Penny had it bad enough, with two younger ones. At least she could tell them what to do.

  Mr. Stump had his phone to his ear. He opened the driver’s door and sat behind the wheel. “Let’s get you guys outta here. Sorry for the mess on the floor. They called me down from Denver stat, and I was already in Castle Rock, so I just came in what I was driving. You can throw anything in the way into the back.”