Silence. The truck, where was it? He tried to shove himself up, but his right arm wasn’t bearing any weight. He collapsed on his side, rolled over, and tried again. Finally, in the dim starlight, he could see a dark shape further into the brush up ahead. The engine was silent.
I’ll find him. Find him and kill him for what he did. Hedges moved forward, still running on adrenaline and instinct, vengeance his only goal.
With each move came the pain, and that restored him to sanity. He had not covered more than ten feet toward the truck before he stopped, pulled out a cell phone, and dialed 911. In the distance, the sirens were growing louder.
Any moment now. Abraham glanced at his watch again, reassuring himself that they were still not late, that everything was going according to plan. It wasn’t like him to have a case of nerves during an operation. But then again, he usually wasn’t quite so far from the action.
Oh, he had no doubt Jackson could pull off getting the ammunition and weapons. They’d done so too many times in the past. Sure, the Army investigated and tried to crack down, but these military facilities in remote areas of the country were little more than sieves. Firepower leaked out of them and into the surrounding hills, and rather than face the embarrassment, the Army simply marked equipment off as lost, expended, or stolen.
It wasn’t the operation that worried him. It had been the look on his son’s face. He knew Jackson was chafing under the restrictions placed on him, that he longed for greater responsibility within the organization. He had somehow gotten it in his mind that it would take a dramatic gesture to prove himself worthy. Abraham had tried to dispel the notion, stressing the need to remain covert and appear simply as members of the community. While Jackson outwardly agreed with that principle, Abraham knew his son too well to believe him.
Finally, he heard the dull roar of the truck echoing through the mountains. It was coming closer now, approaching far too fast. It was a decent road, but still, a two-ton truck was an unwieldy monster.
Moments later, the truck drove by, traveling at approximately sixty miles an hour down the narrow road. Abraham swore and yanked down the microphone from its mount on the ceiling.
“Red Dog One, this is Red Dog Leader. Interrogative your status?”
There was no answer. He tried again, this time adding, “Report!”
Jackson’s voice answered, unsteady as he jounced around in the truck. “No problems. Go ahead and head out. We’ll rendezvous as planned.”
“Slow down,” Abraham ordered. “You’ll just call attention to yourself going that fast.”
There was no answer. Swearing, Abraham put his truck into gear and headed down the road after his troops. An old Army adage sprang to mind: Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.
Thornburg’s headlights flickered wildly in the rearview mirror and caught Jackson’s attention. He leaned forward to stare at the mirror, and then rolled down the window and stuck his head out. “What the hell is he doing?”
“I don’t know.” Mertz took his gaze off the road in front of him long enough to check the rearview mirror. “Flat tire, maybe. That’s all we need right now.”
“Are there spares?”
Mertz shook his head. “I didn’t notice any.”
Jackson swore quietly. “We better slow down and let him catch up, see what’s wrong.”
The lights careened off the right side of the rearview mirror and disappeared. “Stop!” Jackson snapped. “Damned idiot. Turn around — we’ll have to go back and get him. I think we can get most of his gear on this truck.”
Mertz obediently slowed the vehicle and then started to turn. Alarm bells went off in Jackson’s mind. There was no traffic on the road, no indication that anyone but the kid in the reserve center had seen them. But the other car — what if—? “Pull over.”
He’d made a mistake, perhaps a serious one. What if there had been someone else in the reserve compound? Could they have done something to the second truck? Or had they ambushed Thornburg on his way out? Was that even possible?
He closed his eyes for a moment, ignoring Mertz’s quizzical look. A very long shot, but it was possible. So now what? Could they risk everything to go back and see what had happened to Thornburg?
No. They couldn’t.
Thornburg had probably had a flat tire. That had to be it. But there was a small possibility that he had been ambushed, and that was a chance they could not take. One truckload of weapons was better than none.
“Forget him,” Jackson said finally. He glanced over, and saw understanding dawn on the other man’s face.
“So what do we do now?”
“Turn around and take the alternate route to the east.” Jackson thought furiously for a moment and continued. “On the off chance that he’s been compromised, we’re going to take the long way around. Make sure no one is following us. Then, when we’re sure were clean, we’ll stop at the caves, unload the armory, then head for HQ.” Seeing a look of doubt on Mertz’s face, he said, “There were bound to be casualties, Jack. You knew that.”
Mertz shrugged as though it didn’t matter. “You’re the boss.” He turned the truck around and started back the way they’d been headed.
Jackson smiled. Not the boss. The leader. There’s a difference, and someday you’ll understand that.
SEVENTEEN
“No kidding,” Greenfield said into the phone, and his tone of voice caught Tombstone’s attention immediately. He left the aerial charts he was looking at and walked over to the corner of the room that had been designated as Greenfield’s office. There was a look of concentration on the man’s face as he listened, as though every atom of his being was devoted to straining out every morsel of information from the conversation. His side of the call had that peculiarly stilted rhythm of someone who’s the recipient of news. “Where?” A long pause, then, “When?” Finally, a look of grim pleasure spread across Greenfield’s face and he said, “How do we get there?”
He turned to Tombstone, something in his bearing making him look like a very dangerous man. “We got them. At least part of them. If you still have any connections in the government, you better pull them now. And later on, too, because one very tough, smart cop from Butte just saved us a hell of a lot of trouble.”
Abraham Carter and his men parked their vehicles a safe way from the compound and followed the well-concealed trail back to HQ. As they approached the front entrance, he saw a small figure seated on the porch, alone and apparently unarmed. He motioned most of the men into concealment and went forward with only one other man.
“Hello,” a woman’s voice said, confident and sure of her welcome. “I’ve been waiting for you. I’m Pamela Drake.” Behind her, her cameraman held out his hands, palm up, to show he was unarmed.
Thirty minutes later, after Drake had proffered an entirely fabricated story of her success in locating them, Carter holstered his pistol. “Okay. You’re here. For now.” He turned to face his men and continued. “You all know what we’re up against. There’s a good chance they’re onto us now. Or least, we have indications that they are.” No one questioned that statement. They all knew that the organization far above their level had agents planted in every federal law-enforcement agency.
“You think you’ll have to make a stand here?” Drake asked.