by CW Browning
“She's nothing if not unpredictable.”
Blake nodded and they ate in silence for a minute. Then, with a sigh, he set down his fork.
“How's that bookshelf coming?” he asked pointedly.
Michael glanced up with a grin.
“It's almost finished,” he answered. “You want to see it?”
Blake already had his beer in hand and was halfway across the kitchen before Michael got up from the table. Michael shook his head and followed him to the door on the far side of the kitchen that led into the garage. Blake opened the door and went down the steps into Michael's wood-working space.
Michael followed, closing the door behind him and flipping on the lights. Two saw horses were in the middle of what used to be the garage and a fresh smell of sawdust filled the air. Laying across them was a full-sized pine bookshelf, finished and sanded, waiting to be stained.
“If your paranoid self can keep this room free of bugs, why can't you do the same for the rest of the house?” Blake demanded, crossing over to a saw bench and pulling out a stool to sit on.
“I could, but it would take too much time,” Michael retorted. “It's easier to sweep one room than a whole house.”
“Fair enough,” Blake admitted, seating himself. “Now that we're free from the extremely unlikely threat of listening ears, you don't think it's suspicious that Viper is back stateside when you think you've uncovered some kind of plan to attack the US?”
“I didn't say it wasn't suspicious,” Michael pointed out, pulling out another stool, “but she's not telling me anything.”
“But that's why you took a trip up there to see her, isn't it?” Blake asked. “You wanted to know if she was there.”
“Guilty.” Michael raised his beer to his lips.
“And?”
“She's there.”
Blake sipped his beer, watching Michael closely.
“That's it? That's all you have to say?” he asked.
“What do you want me to say?” Michael asked with a shrug. “I don't believe in coincidences, especially when it comes to her. When something happens, she's always in the middle of it. But I don't even know for sure that something is happening. I could be overreacting to a series of harmless events, and she could be home on vacation.”
“And I could be Peter Pan,” Blake muttered. “Are you going to fill me in on why, exactly, you think terrorists are going to attack the East coast?”
“Nope,” Michael answered cheerfully. “When I have something concrete, I'll let you in on it. Until then, it's safer for you to be in the dark.”
“You realize that's the dumbest thing you've said to me yet, right?” Blake demanded. “We were in Afghanistan together. We bled together.”
“Actually, I bled and you watched,” Michael pointed out, lifting his beer to his lips again.
“I was tied to a tree! What was I supposed to do?”
They fell silent, sobering as they remembered those days five years ago in the mountains halfway around the world.
“If you need anything, you'll ask?” Blake finally asked, glancing at his old friend.
“Of course.”
Chapter Ten
Alina turned onto a dark, unmarked road that disappeared into the woods and switched on her high beams. Surprisingly, the road widened a few feet into the trees and she glanced at the silently flashing dot on her Nav system.
“Does John know that you have a tracking device on his car?” Stephanie asked, looking out the window at the tall, imposingly dark pine trees. Alina glanced at her with a faint smile and Stephanie shook her head with a reluctant grin. “Fair enough. I suppose I can assume that you have one on mine, too?”
Silence greeted that and Stephanie sighed. She had her answer.
“I'll pull into the trees and we can walk the rest of the way,” Alina said a moment later, taking her foot off the gas.
“What do you think he's doing?”
“I have no idea, but there's no need for him to even know we're here if he's just looking around,” she answered, guiding the Shelby off the road and into the trees.
“You think I'm over-reacting, don't you?” Stephanie asked, wincing as the Mustang rolled into a deep crater between two trees.
“I think you're being yourself,” Alina replied obscurely, pressing the gas and wishing she'd brought the Jeep instead of the sports car.
The powerful engine roared and the sports car surged out of the hole and back onto somewhat level ground. Once they were out of the unexpected crater, Alina cut the engine and the lights and they were plunged into the kind of absolute darkness only possible deep in the Pine Barrens.
“God, it's been years since I was out here,” Stephanie murmured, opening her door and climbing out. “Remember when we used to come out here searching for the Jersey Devil?”
“Unfortunately.”
Alina got out of the car and pulled a thin Maglite out of her jacket pocket. She switched it on and aimed it onto the pine-needle carpet beneath her feet.
“We did some dumb stuff, didn't we?” Stephanie asked, joining her in front of the car.
“We were young,” Alina answered, shining the light around briefly before starting in the direction the tracker indicated. “Young people do dumb stuff.”
Viper moved silently through the underbrush, weaving through the ancient pine trees with a steady confidence born of training. The night didn't bother her. In fact, she welcomed the darkness. This was where she was comfortable. This was where she excelled.
“What's that sound?” Stephanie whispered a few moments later, pausing behind her to listen.
Viper stopped behind a tree and glanced back at Stephanie. She heard the muffled sound filtering through the trees a few seconds before and everything suddenly made sense.
“Cars,” she answered shortly.
Stephanie stared at her while she strained to hear.
“Are you sure?” she whispered. “It sounds like...rumbling.”
“It's the engines,” Viper told her, beginning to move again.
“John's watching a street race?” Stephanie asked, following again.
Viper resisted the urge to roll her eyes and instead moved silently through the trees. Sometimes, her friend took a while to grasp the obvious. In her defense, however, Stephanie's very survival didn't necessarily rely on her ability to process information and react within seconds. Viper's did.
The rumbling grew louder and took on the distinctive sound of idling engines as they grew closer to the gathering deep in the Pine Barrens. Light began to pierce through the darkness, reflecting off the tree trunks and beckoning them forward. Viper moved through the trees, her eyes searching the darkness for threats and her ears tuned to the forest around her. The further they went, the more distinct the sounds filtering through the trees became, taking on the form of revving engines and the occasional backfire from an exhaust enhancement. Then, suddenly, there was the road.
Slicing through the trees in a straight line, the black hardtop gleamed in the night, reflecting the glow of headlights from a quarter mile away. Viper slipped behind a tree into the shadows and motioned for Stephanie to do the same. Peering around the tree, she watched as two figures moved across the road a few yards away. They were marking the finish line with fluorescent spray paint, their heads down as they walked a straight line across the road. A little further down, standing in the trees, a lone figure stood watching. Viper watched him speculatively as the two finished marking off the line. When they were done, they flashed a light at the lone figure, who turned and flashed another light to the starting line.
“They're racing out here?” Stephanie demanded in a hushed voice. “Are they insane?”
“It's the perfect spot,” Alina answered absently, listening as the two cars at the starting line revved their engines. “Out in the middle of nowhere, no one to see or hear, and no cops.”
“But it's dangerous!”
Alina glanced at her in amusement.
“Really, Steph, sometimes I wonder how you carry a gun,” she murmured.
“Responsibly,” came the tart answer, drawing a short laugh from Viper.
They fell silent as the two cars a quarter mile away suddenly erupted off the line, engines roaring, and shot down the road towards them. Round bursts of light rapidly took on the form of headlights attached to metal bodies, heralding the approach of powerful engines. Alina watched as the metal forms became clear outlines of a GTO and a Chevelle, running neck and neck down the quarter mile. About halfway, the GTO surged forward and the racer in Alina knew the driver had hit the nitrous. She shook her head. The Chevelle was done. Her opinion was confirmed when the GTO crossed the fluorescent line half a car-length ahead of the Chevelle.
The cars roared past where Alina and Stephanie were concealed in the trees, their brake lights glowing red in the night. Cheering erupted from the other side of the road at the finish line and money exchanged hands between the spectators. Alina smiled faintly. Nothing had changed much in the years she'd been gone. The racing scene was still the same.
“I don't see the fascination,” Stephanie whispered from behind her tree.
“It's an adrenaline rush,” Alina answered absently, watching as the two cars disappeared into the darkness, their tail lights fading from view. “Kind of like jumping out of planes.”
“Doesn't seem like much of a rush to me,” Stephanie muttered. “Just when they get going, they stop.”
Alina watched as two more sets of headlights appeared in the distance at the starting line, the engines revving in the night. Someone flashed the flashlight from the midway mark, and an answering light flashed near the starting line.
The two cars shot off the line, flying down the stretch of road towards them. Alina watched as the headlights went from pinpricks to round shapes. Her eyes narrowed just slightly as the dark cars roared down the road. She recognized the headlights on the left, knew their shape and remembered the hue of the light. Even before the sounds of the engines could distinguish themselves, she knew without a doubt that it was a 1979 Firebird on the left.
Alina watched as the cars hurtled closer, the final stretch of road before the finish line ahead. The engines were loud now, both screaming near the red line as the drivers tried to squeeze the absolute maximum amount of horsepower to help them across the finish line.
“Isn't that...”
Stephanie began to whisper but Alina waved her hand sharply to silence her, watching the evenly matched cars keep pace with each other. It was going to be close. Neither driver had hit the NOS yet, and they were neck and neck.
Then, suddenly, they weren't. Inexplicably, John fell back as if he had taken his foot off the gas. Alina frowned sharply, her eyes drawn to movement in the beams of the headlights. There, caught on the edge of the road, was a young deer. It froze in the white light, turning its head toward it, poised for flight.
It happened so fast Alina didn't have time to take a breath before the deer darted the wrong way in confusion, straight into the road in front of John's car.
The sound of tires screeching on the pavement was hideous as both John and the other driver slammed on their brakes. Headlights became a blur of white light as the deer frantically darted halfway into the road, only to turn and try to run back the other way in terrified confusion.
Without a thought, Viper moved out from behind the tree and blended with the darkness around her. Making a movement with her lips, she let out a noise that made the panic-stricken deer look through the trees directly at her. Without missing a beat, it bounded out of the lights and into the darkness and safety of the trees, heading straight for Viper. Moving swiftly, she backed further into the shadows, drawing the terrified animal away from the light and noise behind it. As the deer galloped to safety, Viper raised her eyes and watched as chaos erupted in the road.
Both drivers were fighting to maintain control of their cars, and John seemed to have his under control when it suddenly wrenched to the right. The deafening sound of a tire blowing out ripped through the air and echoed around them. John lost control and, as the deer shot past Viper and disappeared into the night, the Firebird spun around and off the road, hitting a slight ravine. The good, front left tire went into the ditch and the combination of speed and gravity pulled the right tires away from the ground.
Alina watched as the Firebird flipped over in sickeningly slow motion and slid sideways into a tree, upside down. Smoke from the tires poured out around the vehicle as glass shattered and the awful sound of metal crushing inward echoed through the trees.
Alina started forward, but Stephanie was already crossing in front of her, running to the upside down, crushed Firebird. The wheels were still spinning when she got there and Viper stopped, watching as Stephanie tried to open the driver side door.
“John! Oh my God, John!!!!”
Stephanie's panicked cry sliced through the fog of shock enveloping Alina and she blinked once, staring at the mangled mess that was the Firebird. The doors were crushed in and the glass had shattered when the car rolled and slammed into the tree. The passenger side of the car was lodged against the tree, and Stephanie was trying in vain to get the driver side open to get to him. If he was still alive, John was trapped inside a steel trap.
“Somebody help me!” Stephanie yelled, giving up on trying to get the door open. She kicked away what was left of the glass in the frame and dropped to the ground. Pulling a flashlight from her jacket pocket, she shone it into the car. “Oh my God.”
From somewhere deep inside her, Viper's training took over. She faded deeper into the shadows, her eyes turning from the wreck in front of her to the commotion in the road. The probability of John walking away from that was slim. Her professional mind knew that, and she mechanically turned her attention to her surroundings in a futile attempt to suspend the inevitable. The other driver had come to a stop and was jumping out of his car, running toward the accident. Several other figures appeared from the trees on the other side of the road, running to help Stephanie. Viper noted all of them, then turned her head when something else caught her attention. A broad-shouldered figure moved out of the shadows across the road, standing off to the side and watching the drama unfold.
“We gotta get him out of there before something sparks!” someone yelled, joining Stephanie. “This is what happened to Dutch!”
Viper studied the silent figure across the road. He was encased in shadows as deep as her own, but he was definitely watching the drama from a safe distance, making no attempt to aid in the recovery. Her eyes narrowed as a crowd started to grow on the road beside the overturned Firebird; yet, the silent figure remained in the shadows.
“Is he breathing?”
“I can't reach him!”
“My God, that's a lot of blood!”
Viper glanced at the car. Several flashlights were illuminating the wreck now and she caught sight of blood splatter on the inside of the windshield. John's chances slipped lower. Remaining concealed in the shadows, she absorbed that knowledge even as her brain unemotionally processed the noise from the panicked rescue, filtering out the inane exclamations and focusing on the voices that seemed to be making sense in the chaos.
“We have to get the door open. Someone get me a crow bar!”
“We don't have time!” Stephanie's voice made it through all the voices to Alina, breaching the emotionless shield of Viper. “Break the windshield. We can reach him that way.”
“She's right,” someone else agreed.
Seconds later, three men started kicking the windshield. Already weakened by web-like cracks from the crash, after a moment, the glass crunched and imploded.
“Ouch!” One of the men yelped and grabbed his leg, jumping backwards as blood seeped through his jeans. “Dammit!”
“It's OK. We got it!”
Viper watched as Stephanie and another good Samaritan cleared away the glass from the frame. A moment later, the driver of the other car crawled halfway into the Fi
rebird. Alina ached to rush over and help, but Viper kept her in the shadows. She couldn't be seen here. Something wasn't right. All her instincts were pushing her deeper into the welcoming shadows, concealing her from invisible eyes.
“Can you get him out?” Stephanie demanded, pulling her cell phone out of her jacket pocket.
The answer was muffled and incoherent, but a moment later, the driver started backing out, hauling John out slowly. Two others stood, poised to help as soon as there was enough room. Stephanie hit speed dial on her phone and raised it to her ear.
“Is he breathing?” she demanded.
There was no answer.
Viper raised her eyes slowly and turned her head to look at the silent stranger. He was still watching from the shadows. As Stephanie's question floated on the breeze, Viper watched him straighten up and tuck his hands into his jacket pockets. Turning, the stranger disappeared into the trees. After one final glance at the men working to extract John's body from his Firebird, Viper turned and melted into the shadows.
Moving quickly, she ran parallel with the road, heading back to where she left the Shelby. She just reached it when an engine roared to life on the other side of the road. Her eyes narrowed and Viper moved silently forward until she crouched in the darkness behind a tree.
A Camaro emerged from the trees and pulled into the road, turning away from the crash site. Viper pressed her lips together grimly and watched as orange flames rolled past her, heading toward the main road.
Harry sipped his scotch and leaned his head back on the recliner, closing his eyes. The Nationals game was on TV, the sound droning quietly into soothing background noise as he took a deep breath. The sun was fading outside and traffic was slowing as the day drew to a close. As the city outside prepared to settle in for the night, Harry's mind kept turning over everything he uncovered over the past twenty-four hours.
When Charlie called, Harry knew it would never lead to anything good. It was the nature of the beast that he and Charlie had created with the Organization. However, lately, it seemed to be getting worse instead of better. All the agencies were faced with the impossible task of trying to perform their jobs with their hands tied behind their backs, and the Department of Homeland Security was no exception.