Ghost Moon (34 page)

Now came the tricky part. As a wolf, he couldn’t hold the knife tightly enough in his mouth to do what he needed to do. So he set down the knife, then, as he lay on the ground under one of the vans, he said the chant in his head that changed him from wolf to man. Moments later, he was naked, exposed, and praying that nobody was going to look under the vehicle.

One of the dogs growled at him, the hairs on its back bristling.

Jacob spoke to him in a low voice, telling him that everythingwas all right—that he was a man as well as a wolf.

In the middle of his speech, he saw booted feet approachingthe truck and clamped his mouth shut.

He waited with the knife in his hand and his breath frozen in his lungs. When a man bent down to talk to the dogs, he clenched the knife, prepared to strike if the guy bent any lower and happened to see a naked arm or leg under the vehicle.

MINUTES
after Ross had spoken to Jacob, they started gettingready to leave.

“Are we going in as wolves?” Lance asked, then glanced at Caleb before looking away.

Caleb struggled not to let his natural reaction show. “Maybe I can go in as a ghost,” he answered.

“Whatever we decide, we’re going to make sure we’re armed,” Ross cut in. “The colonel’s men will have automatic weapons. So I brought along Uzi’s.”

“Which are what?” Caleb asked.

“Small Israeli-made machine guns.”

“That’s a company? Like Winchester?”

“No, a country. You’d call it the Holy Land.”

“They make deadly weapons
there
?”

“I’ll tell you about it later.”

“Yeah, right.” He shook his head. “I know guys who carriedrevolvers,” Caleb said. “But I never used one.” He started to say tooth and claw were his specialty but choked off the words before they reached his lips.

“With a machine gun, bullets come out in a rapid stream, meaning you have more chance of killing.”

Ross looked at Lance. “Will you give Caleb a quick lessonin machine-gun handling? Then follow us out to Frederick?”

“Yeah,” his cousin answered.

Caleb wondered if he was annoyed at being asked to stay back. But he knew why Ross hadn’t asked Logan. He and Logan still rubbed each other the wrong way.

The others left in two of the SUVs, and Lance took Caleb and two of the Uzi’s down to the firing range.

“In battle, you won’t have ear protectors,” he said. “But we’ll use them now—to preserve your hearing.”

After some instruction, Caleb took the gun and aimed at the target. But he wasn’t prepared for the kick, and his first bursts of bullets went way above the bull’s-eye.

QUINN
kept stifling the impulse to glance over her shoulderas they rode toward Flagstaff Farm. She didn’t like leavingCaleb back at Logan’s house. But she wasn’t going to protest. A firing lesson made sense. Caleb had never shot a modern weapon. He needed to know what it felt like.

Hoping to ease the tightness in her chest, she turned to Olivia, the wife of Sam Morgan, who was sitting beside her in the back of the SUV. They’d all talked about their special abilities at the planning session, and Quinn had been surprisedto hear that everyone in Olivia’s family had a psychic talent.

“Did you ever try to influence another person’s thoughts?” she asked.

“Yes,” Olivia answered, “when Sam and I were under attackfrom the man trying to kill him and dominate me. But that was only one man.”

“Maybe together we could reach more,” Quinn answered.

“If we had time to practice.”

“Open your mind,” Quinn said, “Try to be receptive to me.” Then she flushed, thinking how presumptive she’d been. She was a former slave, and she was giving orders to a woman she’d just met. A woman who had grown up rich, from what she’d heard.

But Olivia smiled at her. “Yes, that’s a good idea.” She reached for Quinn’s hand, leaned back against the seat, and closed her eyes.

Quinn did the same, searching for a link to the other woman. It was crazy, thinking they could do it under these circumstances, but she would try it. Because Caleb’s life might depend on her success. Colonel Bowie had sent men to kill Wyatt Reynolds. And Caleb was in that body now. Bowie was going to react when he saw him again—and it wouldn’t be to stretch out an arm and shake hands. When the colonel looked at Caleb, he was going to see his enemy.

So she strove to make a connection with Olivia. At first she felt nothing.

“Just let it happen,” Olivia murmured.

“Yes,” Quinn answered. She knew from the other woman’s response that she’d felt
something
.

So she tried a more relaxed approach, pretending that Olivia was like Zarah—an old friend.

And in a few moments, she felt the tendrils of the other woman’s thoughts reaching toward her.

She could feel Olivia smile, then hear her mental voice.

AFTER
what felt like centuries, the man moved away, and Jacob let out the breath he’d been holding.

Then he inched toward the right front tire and pressed the point of the knife into the black rubber.

Quickly, he made similar holes in the three other tires. Then he waited, listening.

The hiss of air escaping sounded like the roaring of NiagaraFalls to him. But he hoped it wouldn’t be quite so obviousto anyone passing by.

Of course, there was something he hadn’t thought about. Now that the tires were deflating, the van was pressing lower to the ground, giving him a lot less room.

Would it come down far enough to crush him? He hoped not.

In a low voice, he murmured the chant that changed him from man to wolf again. The change never felt pleasant, but the pain was greater this time because he’d done it so recentlyand because he had to be in such an awkward position.All he could do was grit his teeth and ride above the punishment to his muscles and tendons. When the transformationwas complete, he started to slither out and head for the other van.

But he ran smack into a man who had come pounding towardhim from one of the buildings.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

The man stopped
in his tracks when he saw an animal he hadn’t been expecting. Jacob used that moment of surpriseto spring at him, knocking him to the ground.

Only half his mission was accomplished. He’d disabled one van, but he knew he’d just run out of options.

Hoping he could escape, he took off toward the fence.

“What the hell?” the guy shouted.

Then a bullet hit the dirt behind Jacob, and he sprinted ahead. The fence was in front of him. He’d wiggled under a split rail to get in here. But that took too much time.

Instead, he leaped higher than he ever had in his life, clearing the barrier by millimeters.

COLONEL
Bowie strode across the compound. Every man had his job in the current operation.

“Give the order to move out,” he said to Sergeant Caldwell.

Before the man could comply, the sound of gunfire broke out through the compound.

Eyes blazing, Bowie ran toward the staging area. He’d given explicit orders that shooting around the bomb was dangerous. So what the hell was going on?

Private Pinder was standing with his arms outstretched, a Sig in his hands. Obviously, he’d been firing toward the woods.

“Weapon down.”

To his credit, the man instantly obeyed.

“What’s going on?” Bowie barked.

“The tires on the lead van are punctured. I think a wolf did it.”

Bowie laughed, a harsh sound that held no mirth. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, sir.”

“How did a wolf get past our dogs?” he demanded. But even as he spoke, an image flashed into his mind, an image of a furry body leaping through the window of his quarters and out into the night.

Pinder shook his head, then squatted down and pointed to the closest tire.

Bowie squatted beside him, his eyes going from the front tire to the rear. They were both flat. He cursed under his breath, then lay down on the ground and looked under the vehicle. Sliding forward on the blacktop surface, he stretched out his arm and pulled out a knife, holding it up to Pinder.

“You think a damn wolf was using this thing?”

“No, sir.”

“There’s a sheath under there. Get it.”

Pinder got down and wriggled under the vehicle, no easy task considering that the deflated tires had lowered the van a couple of inches.

He emerged grasping a leather sheath, which he held up to the light, his eyes narrowed.

“What?” Bowie snapped.

“There are teeth marks on it.”

“And?”

He pointed. “Animal teeth marks.”

Bowie stared at the marks. They definitely weren’t human.

He heard an indrawn breath from behind him and saw Spencer standing there. His face had gone white.

“You know something about this?” Bowie snapped.

“No, sir.”

“Then what the hell is the matter with you? Have you turned chicken on me?”

Spencer swallowed, then began to speak in a strained voice. “We saw wolves in the woods, where we left Reynolds.”

“And you failed to mention that fact?”

“It didn’t seem relevant at the time.”

“But you noticed it.”

“Yes, sir.”

He’d like to march the man to the punishment ground, strip off his clothing, and give him enough lashes to make him faint. But he didn’t have time for that now. He had to think. He was poised to pull off the greatest act of patriotism in the historyof the United States—Operation Eagle’s Flight—and he had encountered a setback.

Something had happened. Something he didn’t quite understand.It had started a couple of nights ago. First the dogs had been barking. Then they’d stopped. And when he’d returnedto his quarters he’d seen an animal go out the window.

Was someone using trained dogs to spy on him? A man with a German shepherd partner, like a K-9 team. Or could it be a man working with wolves?

He thought he’d prepared for every contingency. Everythingwas ready to go. And now they had a problem.

Pinder cleared his throat.

Bowie glared at him.

“Permission to speak, sir.”

“Go ahead.”

“I think I winged the wolf.”

“Ah! Good work. Too bad you didn’t drill the man.”

PAIN
stabbed through Jacob’s right front leg. When he spared a glance at it, he saw that it was bleeding.

Damn! The shooter had gotten him.

He kept moving, making for the pile of clothing he’d left in the woods. But one of the colonel’s troops had gotten there first and had picked up his T-shirt, shaking it to see if anything fell out.

Jacob turned and faded into the underbrush, listening to the man shout and another guy answer.

“Hey, over here. Look at this.”

“Somebody stripped out here.”

“Why the hell would he do that?”

“To change clothing?”

“Yeah. Maybe he has on a uniform like ours. Maybe he thinks he can blend in.” The first speaker riffled through Jacob’s belongings. “Here’s a cell phone. And car keys.”

“Radio the colonel.”

“Yeah.”

Shit
, Jacob silently muttered. His wallet was hidden in a special compartment in the car. But the cell phone was bad enough.

He could hear the soldier talking, but not the answers.

“We’ve found a pile of clothing—with a cell phone and car keys.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Should we press redial?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jacob curled into the underbrush, wishing to hell he could contact the other Marshall men. That was out of the question now. But he had a pretty good idea of what they might try to do, and there was one way he might be able to help them.

Eyes closed, he sent his thoughts toward the two dogs still roaming Flagstaff Farm.

Could he reach them? He didn’t know, but he had to give it a shot.

My friends are coming. My friends are coming
, he said, over and over, praying that the message was getting through. The distance might be too far. But he’d already made contact with the dogs twice before. Maybe that connection would let him do it again.

IN
the front seat, Ross stared at his cell phone. “I don’t like it. Jacob hasn’t called in.”

“You think he’s in trouble?” Logan asked.

“Yeah. Unfortunately. Otherwise we would have heard from him.” Ross pulled off the road into the woods. Then he called Lance. “You on your way?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’m parked about a quarter mile from the entrance to the farm. Logan and I are going in as wolves.”

“I’ll join you,” Lance answered. “But then what?”

“We look for Jacob. And we try to figure out how to disableBowie’s men.”

In the back of the vehicle, Quinn cleared her throat.

“What?” Ross asked, and she could tell she’d broken his train of thought.

“I have an idea,” she said. “Maybe it won’t work. But I think I should tell you.”

BOWIE
clicked off. They were making progress. They’d found enough to identify the guy who’d left his clothing in the woods. And his vehicle had to be nearby.

They were also bringing his phone, which should give a list of incoming and outgoing calls.

But top priority was finding the intruder. So was he still on the farm? If so, he was either wearing a uniform like the troops had on, or he was hiding out.

Bowie pulled out his whistle and blew—two short blasts and a long one, summoning the troops to the parade grounds.