Cindy Gerard - Killing Time

“And this helps me how?”

“This helps because it tells me that whoever it is has major resources if they can protect themselves with this level of sophistication. We’re talking NSA kind of security here.”

He sat up, thought about what Barnes was saying. “So you think we’re dealing with a branch of the government?”

“Or a black ops unit.”

This was not good news.

“While I can’t pinpoint who’s using it or where the activity is based, I was able to capture and trace some of their search threads using a zero-day exploit in their browser.”

“Save the tech talk for someone who appreciates it and cut to the chase.”

“Lawson’s name came up a lot on those search threads. So did Afghanistan and UWD.”

Fuck.

“On a hunch,” Barnes went on, “I started monitoring cell phone transmissions out of the UWD camp.”

“And?”

“There’s been one text per day for the past several days, each time to a new phone number that was disconnected after it was used. Each number appears to have been forwarded to another phone or a series of phones. But the original numbers were all in D.C., and the phone exchange for each call was the Department of Agriculture’s.”

The bastards were real comedians. The Department of Agriculture was a standby beard. But they weren’t as smart as they thought they were.

“Call Lawson. Find out—”

“I just got off the phone with him. He hasn’t contacted anyone in D.C. And control freak that he is, he’s the only one on base with a cell phone.”

“Then who made the call?”

“This is where it gets interesting. Seems Lawson got a couple new recruits this past week. A man and a woman. What do you want to bet the texts were sent by them?”

His heart rate picked up. “Did you get their physical descriptions from Lawson?”

“I did. It’s them.”

“These beefed-up forces make me nervous,” Mike whispered as they hid from yet another traveling patrol. They’d left the mine nearly two hours ago, tripling their return time because they’d run into double the usual number of security details. In another hour and a half it would be daylight.

“The increased patrols have got to be because of the guns,” she whispered as they crouched low behind the food storage building and waited for the four-man patrol to pass. “I’d be nervous, too, if I was sitting on that many dollars’ worth of weapons.”

Mike placed a finger to his lips as the men grew closer, then faded away into the night. Several seconds passed before he tapped her shoulder—time to take off again.

They darted between the shadows and finally reached the rear of the cabin. With Mike taking the lead, they circled around to the front and crept up onto the porch. Eva kept seeing those semis loaded with weapons. She’d never seen so many fricking guns in her life.

The cabin was dark. Eva silently slipped inside and sprinted across the room. She only had one goal—get to the hidden cell phone—but she’d no sooner opened the closet door than a burst of light flooded the room.

She spun around, ready to rail at Mike, but the words died on her tongue.

They weren’t alone—and neither was the man who held the monster flashlight that lit up the room and half blinded her.

Three other men stood just inside the doorway, all of them with rifles shouldered and pointed at them.

Mike looked from Simmons to the other three and slowly lifted his hands in the air. “Look who’s here. The Welcome Wagon committee. Nice to see you again, fellas.”

Simmons ignored him. “Looking for this?” He held up their cell phone, then dropped it to the floor and stomped it with his boot heel. “Whoops. Guess it’s broken.”

Eva glanced at Mike, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Say nothing, his eyes said.

“I always knew there was something off about you, Walker. Oh, wait. Make that Brown.” Simmons walked up to Mike, a self-important sneer on his face. “Not as smart as you thought you were, huh, asshole?”

Mike gave the big man a huge, fake smile and Eva knew he was about to say something that was really going to piss Simmons off.

No, she mouthed.

“And yet, you’re the dumb fuck letting a loser like Lawson run your life. What’s that say about you… asshole?”

Red-hot rage spread up Simmons’s neck, over his face, and mottled the top of his bald head.

“If he fights back”—Simmons handed Bryant his rifle and the flashlight—“shoot her.”

Then he slammed a closed fist into Mike’s gut with a force that doubled him over.

Mike landed on the floor, folded in on himself, gasping for breath. “That… the best you got… pussy?”

Eva screamed when Simmons hauled back and kicked him in the ribs. “Mike, shut up! For God’s sake, shut up!”

But it was too late. Simmons unloaded on him like a bull, blinded by rage and seeing red. By the time Wagoner pulled Simmons off, Eva wasn’t even sure if Mike was breathing.

When Mike came to, it was to screaming pain, a hard floor, a hot, dark room, and a soft woman cradling his head in her lap. “What’d I… miss?”

“Oh, God. Thank God. You’re conscious.”

Even though she kept her voice low to keep from being overheard, Mike heard the fear and the tears. And he hated that he’d put her through it.

“Unfortunately. Yeah. I am.” Everything hurt. Breathing. Talking. Blinking. But most of all, it hurt to know he’d scared her.

“How long?” he whispered, lifted his hand to her face and discovered his wrists were flex-cuffed together in front of him. Bastards had tied her up, too.

“How long have you been out? Hours. Many, many fucking hours. It must be close to noon.”

Okay. Pissed off had officially muscled out worried and scared.

“So what was the plan, Brown? Was there a reason you invited Simmons to beat the snot out of you?”

How one small woman could pack so much venom into a whisper was beyond him.

“Yeah… sure.” He struggled to sit up, sucked in a breath when fire shot through his ribs. “Damned if I can remember why, but I must have thought it was a good idea at the time.”

Actually, he’d wanted Simmons’s focus on him. The big man had been working his way into a mean, dark snit, and rather than take a chance of him going off on Eva, he made sure Simmons unleashed on him.

“He could have killed you.”

Because he heard more regret in her voice than anger now, he figured she’d forgiven him. “But he didn’t. At least not yet.”

“Because Lawson wants you alive.”

He grunted, then regretted it. “For the time being. No doubt he’s got big plans for us. We’ve got to get out of here before that happens. More to the point… we need to head off Gabe and Green.”

The two men would be arriving anytime, unaware that they’d been found out. He couldn’t let them walk into an ambush.

With Eva’s help, he staggered to his feet. Through swollen eyes and a blinding headache, he checked out their prison. Slivers of daylight filtered in through windows that were boarded shut. July heat seeped through the walls, searing and suffocating in the stagnant air. The main light source was from a triangular ventilation grate like the one in the armory, where the back wall met the peaked ceiling. The room was approximately twelve by twelve. Bare-bones construction. Plywood floor, open rafters, and wall studs.

“Do you know where we are?” he asked.

She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her bound hands. “It’s the overflow food storage shed—empty now, but I’m guessing it’s where they keep their winter supplies. Why wouldn’t they have a jail or a brig like any other military operation, since Lawson fancies himself a general?”

He hadn’t wanted to tell her this before, but there didn’t seem to be much point withholding it now. He shuffled over to a wall, leaned against it to keep from keeling over. “Remember my buddy, Bucky? He made it pretty clear one day that I needed to keep my nose clean. You break a rule around here? You cross the boss? One shot. Back of the head. The coyotes eat well that night. There is no discipline. Just death.”

“Well. It’s efficient, I’ll give him that.”

No whimpering. No hand wringing. Way to take it on the chin, Eva. God, he loved this woman.

“How many guards?” he asked.

“I counted six—three at the door and three more stationed around the perimeter of the building. Inside? It’s just you and me and the mice.”

“So… thoughts?” God, his head hurt.

“None that I see working. Even if I could climb up to that ventilation grate and get outside without making enough noise to raise the dead, I’ll never get past the guards. And you? Right now, you’re pretty much worthless thanks to your smart mouth.”