Threat Warning (26 page)
“Right here.”
“I’ve got a total of eight rooms on either side of the first hall, directly inside the doorway. They’re pretty heavy construction, and they’ve got some heavy locks.” In Jonathan’s experience, people used big locks to secure against big fears—the kind of fears that posed big threats to people like him. In his mind, he could see Venice back in Fisherman’s Cove typing like crazy to document what he was telling her.
“More in a minute,” he said.
Neither of the first rooms on the right or the left bore padlocks, so he targeted those first. The one on the left was locked at the knob; the one on the right was not, so he chose the locked one. There was no way in the world he was going to hang out in an unlocked room, and if the room on the right was supposed to remain unlocked, so be it.
Using his picks, he gained entry in seconds. He was in somebody’s office. The computer and the file cabinets were a dead giveaway. He locked the door behind him and keyed his mike. “Radio check.”
“Not as strong as before,” Venice said, “but I’ve got you.”
“Continuing, then,” Jonathan said. “The hallway on my side terminates in a right-angle turn to the north. I can’t see around the corners, but it looks to me as if this area is designed either as secure office space or secure storage. I’m about to step out to surveil the area now.”
He didn’t wait for a response. Stepping back into the hallway, he turned left and eased quietly down the hall. He moved at a crouch, his M4 up to his shoulder and ready.
The bright light was his greatest immediate hazard. At least they were overhead fluorescents. The shadows thrown by fluorescents were far less prominent than their incandescent cousins.
Jonathan heard voices as he approached the turn, and stopped. If they were approaching him, he was screwed; the mission would come to a violent end right now. As it was, the voices seemed stationary, neither getting closer nor farther away.
With his M4 dangling parallel to his body via its sling, Jonathan moved at an excruciatingly slow pace to the end of the hallway at the turn. He pulled a rubber-handled dental mirror from a pocket in his sleeve—the analog equivalent of fiber optics—and used it to take a look down the perpendicular hallway. He advanced it with the lens pointing toward the floor to guard against an unintentional flash of light, or an errant reflection fairy on the wall.
What he saw made his stomach flip. Two young people, late teens, early twenties—a boy and a girl—stood about halfway down the hall, flanking a heavy door. They both wore holstered sidearms and appeared heavily engaged in a whispered argument, the text of which he couldn’t hear. The girl was the one standing farthest from him, and she was turned so he could see her face.
When he realized that he recognized her, he nearly gasped. That was the shooter from the bridge.
In his ear, Boxers whispered, “Okay, we’re pegging the weird-o-meter up here. They’re changing into robes. Think Klansmen without the hoods.”
Jonathan withdrew his mirror, replaced it in his pocket, and quietly unslung his ruck and placed it on the floor. They needed to be able to watch what was happening in that hallway.
“This is a trial,” Boxers whispered. “But the defendants aren’t present, and there’s not a lot of doubt how it’s going to go.”
“You’re talking a lot,” Venice said. “Are you under enough cover?”
There was a pause. Then Boxers tapped his microphone to say yes.
Jonathan found the wireless camera and transmitter he was looking for in the left-side pocket. He splayed the flexible wire legs that served as a tripod, and he placed it on the floor, using the point of his finger to move it past the angle of the turn. About the size of his thumbnail and black, it would be visible to anyone who looked at it, but if you didn’t know what you were looking at, it could easily be written off as an insect. In fact, he’d had a few of these babies stomped on over the years.
“I’ve got your signal,” Venice said in his ear without him asking. “I see two people standing in a hallway. They’ve made no indication that they’ve seen you.”
Jonathan acknowledged with a tap to his transmit button. What he needed was a way to peek inside that room they were guarding. If the Nasbes were there, and they were together, he’d pull Boxers in, snatch them both, and make a running getaway. But he couldn’t do that with the guards there.
With nothing better to do, he headed back to his makeshift FOB to wait out the next event, whatever that might be.
While he did that, Venice polled them for situation reports. Boxers replied by breaking squelch, and Gail said that she was bored.
Boring was good, Jonathan thought. But he doubted that it would stay that way for long.
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FIVE
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FIVE
The pain in Ryan’s arm had dulled to a low, constant throb, punctuated by occasional jolts of agony when he gave in to the urge to test if it still hurt to move his fingers or wrist. It was a stupid thing to do—it
always
hurt, and why wouldn’t it since the bones were broken?—but he couldn’t resist. It was like testing the wet-paint sign, only with high-voltage paint.
always
hurt, and why wouldn’t it since the bones were broken?—but he couldn’t resist. It was like testing the wet-paint sign, only with high-voltage paint.
The splint and the sling definitely helped. He supposed that he should feel more grateful to Sister Colleen than he did. She showed him kindness that no one else showed, after all, and she liked his muscles. But even if she blew him, there’d be no getting around the fact that she was a flaming nut job.
He refused to believe that they were really going to kill him. That thing with Brother Stephen had been an accident, after all. Wasn’t a broken arm punishment enough? Besides, why go through all the effort to splint his arm if they were just going to murder him anyway?
He tried not to think about what might have happened to his mom through all of this. If they knew about Brother Stephen, then they had to have done something about her. He tried telling himself that it couldn’t be any worse than what Brother Stephen had been trying to do, but he knew that wasn’t true. He’d seen movies, and he’d read books. He knew all about how awful people could be to each other.
For the life of him, though, he couldn’t begin to understand why it was happening to them.
He pushed it all away, because the only way to keep the panic at bay was to keep yourself from thinking about it. Besides, he had a far more pressing matter to address. With difficulty, he rose to his knees, and then to his feet. He walked through the dark to the seam of light he knew to be the door, and knocked on it with his left hand.
“Hey!” he yelled. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
“What do you want?” a male voice yelled, startling Jonathan out of an empty place in his head. He shifted his eyes to the remote image and saw that the sentries at the door down the hall had both turned to face it.
“Well, hold it,” the guard said again.
Jonathan couldn’t hear what was being said from the other side of the door, but the phrase “hold it” could only mean that the prisoner was asking to use the restroom.
The female guard—the shooter from the bridge—sagged her shoulders and said something that Jonathan couldn’t hear, but looked like an argument in favor of bladder maintenance. She held out her hand, and her partner gave her a key.
“Looks like they’re opening the door,” Venice reported from her screen. By giving the updates to the rest of the team, she saved Jonathan possible exposure by being overheard.
The door down the hall opened, and out stepped the young man Jonathan recognized from his picture to be Ryan Nasbe. He was smaller than Jonathan had been expecting, and he carried himself as if he was in pain, sort of hunched at the shoulders, consistent with the broken arm that Kendig Neen had alluded to in his telephone conversation.
The male guard led the way down the hall, directly toward Jonathan’s camera. He looked young, fit, and strong—exactly the opposite of what Jonathan would have liked. He was big enough to block the camera’s view of Ryan until he passed the lens, and that’s when Jonathan got his first solid look at the boy’s arm.
“It’s definitely Ryan Nasbe,” Venice reported. “And his arm is heavily bandaged. Looks like it might be broken.”
“Do you need me, Boss?” Boxers asked, his whisper barely audible.
“Negative,” he whispered.
“I’m on my way,” the Big Guy said.
“Scorpion says negative,” Venice said. “He’ll call if he needs you.”
“We need to take him
now
,” Boxers insisted. “These guys up here just sentenced him to death. Him and his mother both.”
now
,” Boxers insisted. “These guys up here just sentenced him to death. Him and his mother both.”
All of them were past the camera now, but Jonathan could hear them in the hallway outside his door.
“Hold your position, Big Guy,” Venice said. “Scorpion is very exposed. You’ll have no cover.”
A door on the opposite side opened. “Make it fast,” the male guard said.
Jonathan considered firing up another camera so he could peer under his door into the hallway, but decided that it would take too long and risk making too much noise.
“Can you at least close the door?” Ryan’s voice sounded young for sixteen, but Jonathan liked the attitude he heard. He was more impatient than whining.
“Just do what you need to do and get it over with.”
Jonathan realized now that the unlocked door he’d encountered was the bathroom for this level.
“For heaven’s sake,” the female said. “There are no windows in there. Let him go to the bathroom in peace.”
A cell phone rang.
“I swear to God, kid. If you step out of line—if you lock the door or even think an ugly thought, I’m going to bend that break backwards.”
The door closed.
The cell phone’s third ring was cut short. “This is Brother Zebediah.”
Boxers said, “Scorpion, I know you can’t respond, but listen to me.” He was speaking a little louder now, less guarded. That must mean he was no longer directly in harm’s way. “I urge you in the strongest possible terms to take him now if you have a shot.”
Zebediah said into his phone, “I understand. Yes, sir. Right now.”
Jonathan drew his KA-BAR knife from its scabbard on his shoulder. It would take only seconds. At this distance, he could be in the hallway and have both guards bleeding to death in less than three seconds, well before they would be able to process that they were under attack. One slash each across the throat, and they’d fall like big bricks. He’d have Ryan, and they’d be out of here, and then they could sweep in and rescue Christyne.
Brother Zebediah closed his phone—Jonathan could hear the snap of the plastic—and said, “It’s time.”
“Both of them?”
“Both of them. Now.”
Jonathan glanced back at the screen of his PDA.
Both of them.
Christyne Nasbe wasn’t here. They’d left the door Ryan had been imprisoned behind open and unguarded. If she were here, someone would be guarding her.
Both of them.
Christyne Nasbe wasn’t here. They’d left the door Ryan had been imprisoned behind open and unguarded. If she were here, someone would be guarding her.
“One is better than none,” Boxers said in his ear, as if reading his thoughts.
Ryan had never realized just how useless his left hand was to him until he tried manipulating himself to pee. You had the zipper, the underwear and finally the business parts. For a while there, the smart money said that he’d end up letting fly while still inside his trousers, but in the end, he got everything where it needed to be, but without much time to spare.
Then, when he was done, there was the whole matter of reassembling himself. On a different day, it would have been funny. He was smiling, in fact, when he opened the door again and addressed his captors. “Wow, do I feel bet—”
Something clearly had changed. Brother Zebediah looked way angrier than before, and Sister Colleen looked as if she might cry.
Ryan stopped and took a step backward. “What?”
They grabbed him.
The boy yelled, “Ow!” and there was a scuffle on the other side of the door. “My arm! What did I do? Please!”
Jonathan’s fist tightened on the knife handle. The screams were excruciating to hear.
There was more scuffling, and something hit the door to Jonathan’s room hard. He imagined that it was a person, and because it wasn’t accompanied by a shriek of pain, he figured it had to be one of the guards.
“Stop fighting,” Brother Zebediah commanded. “You’re coming with us one way or the other.”
“I’m not fighting you!” Ryan yelled. “You’re hurting me!”
That last part sounded farther away. A moment later, the door at the end of the hallway opened and closed, and then Jonathan was bathed again in silence.
He keyed his mike. “They’re coming toward you, Big Guy. Do
not
take them here. PC-Two is not accounted for. We’ll let PC-One lead us there.”
not
take them here. PC-Two is not accounted for. We’ll let PC-One lead us there.”
“For all we know, PC-Two is already dead,” Boxers said. Then his voice dropped again to a barely perceptible whisper. “I see them. Shit, there’s only two guards.”
“Gunslinger here,” Gail said over the radio. “I’m flooded with guards out here, white side. Soldiers. Whatever. I count fifteen, and many are armed with rifles. I concur with Scorpion. We need to let them go.”
“But I can take them.”
“Stand down, Big Guy,” Jonathan said.
Boxers hissed, “This is a mistake.”
“Stand. Down,” Jonathan said forcefully. “It’s my mistake to make.”
He wondered if the Nasbes would disagree.
Outside, Gail had positioned herself in the trees out front, roughly in the position that Jonathan had held earlier. Once the team was inside, it made sense for her to reposition herself to where the action was. And as the parade of people took to their cars, she realized that it was time to reposition yet again.
She’d been listening to the communications, so she knew that they were taking Ryan Nasbe to his execution. The presence of all the cars indicated that they had to drive to the place of execution, and that meant that she had to follow them or lose them.
She needed to get to the truck. That meant running faster and farther than she had in a very long time, but only after she’d backed away far enough from the house that she could afford to make some noise. She gave it about twenty yards—long enough that she heard the sound of engines starting—and then she started to jog. Having arrived in the daytime, yet leaving at night, she had to guess at her directions until she fished her GPS out of a pouch pocket in her pants. It confirmed that she was right.
Tree branches slashed at her as she sprinted through the night, and bushes conspired to trip her. But for the night vision, it would have been impossible. As it was, her rucksack, with all of its equipment and bulk was making it nearly impossible.
She keyed her mike. “I’m following them in the car. Be advised I’m shedding my ruck in the woods.” As she shrugged out of the straps and let the pack fall to the ground, she punched a button on the GPS to mark the spot so they could come back and get it later, if that’s what they decided to do. Forty pounds lighter now, she was still burdened with her rifle, sidearm and ammunition, yet she still felt light enough to float away.
Between clatter of her equipment and the racket raised by plowing through the underbrush, she knew she was making way too much noise, but she didn’t know another way.
A voice yelled from the dark, “Hey! Stop.”
At the very same instant, Venice said in her ear, “Gunslinger, there’s a sentry on the live feed. He’s very near you.”
Gail’s heart skipped, but she kept moving.
“Stop!” the voice yelled again. “Stop or I’ll shoot you.”
“He’s gaining,” Venice said. “And the cars are loading.”
Jonathan’s voice crackled in her ear: “Turn and shoot, Gunslinger.”
“I swear to God, I will shoot you!” the pursuer yelled.
Gail slid to a halt and turned. The sentry was indeed close, maybe twenty feet away. In the green glow of the night vision, he looked young, but it was hard to assign an age. Early twenties, maybe.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” the sentry asked. His voice cracked, the fear obvious. He held his rifle at chest height, the stock tucked under his armpit. Either he hadn’t been trained, or the training hadn’t stuck.
Gail said nothing.
“Cars are rolling,” Venice said.
“What’s Gunslinger doing?”
“Looks like she’s talking. The guard has her at gunpoint.”
“I said, who are you?” the sentry pressed.
“Gunslinger, Big Guy and I are on the way,” Jonathan said. “We’re clear of the house.”
Gail searched her brain for alternatives. Things were unraveling quickly.
The sentry stopped. “What . . . holy shit, you’ve got a gun!” He shouldered his weapon.
That was it. As Gail dropped to a knee, the sudden movement must have startled the sentry because he fired a wild shot as she swung her M4 up to her shoulder. She fired three times, hitting him twice in the chest and once in the head, the third bullet drilling him after he was dead.
“Shots fired! Shots fired!” she heard in her ear. She thought it was Jonathan, but wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything other than the fact that she’d just killed a young man in cold blood.
The voice in her ear said, “Gunslinger, sit rep.”
He lay so still. Such was the awesome power of a bullet that it could end everything in a fraction of a second, snuffing a life that had barely begun.
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