This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Desperate Rendition

John Taylor, Book 11

Copyright © 2024 by Travis Starnes

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-1-960747-16-7

Maps available at

https://tstarnes.com/book-series/imperium/

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

About the author

Also by

Except: Threads of Destiy

Chapter 1

Valencia, Venezuela

A bullet slammed into the stone wall. Tania Laciter, or at least that was the name she’d been going by until about ten minutes ago, barely ducked behind the wall in time, a shower of pulverized rock splashing over her as the bullet smashed into the stone.

Slamming into the wall, she dropped down and pivoted out, her gun coming up in a smooth, well-practiced motion. The mercenary, or at least that was what Tania assumed he was, closest to her and in the line of fire of his buddies, didn’t have time to react as she put a round into his gut, just below where his vest ended.

He cried out and crumpled over, crashing into the pavement. Tania was already moving, ducking back behind the corner as his buddies opened fire, stitching a line of bullets across the wall.

Fucking amateurs.

She bolted, racing down a narrow alley. They weren’t being subtle in their pursuit. Even if she hadn’t heard the shouts, mostly in English, and curses, in a variety of languages, she would have heard the banging of all the shit they’d attached to their web harnesses, making them stand out like sore thumbs and easy to hear coming. They’d almost certainly left their injured man behind. He was the third she’d shot, and she hadn’t noticed their number reduce by more than those that had been injured, so it seemed unlikely they were thinking much about extracting their dead. Who knew? Maybe they had a backup team out there.

Although she didn’t think so. This wasn’t a pro-organization. If they had been, they would have made a better approach and had a net around her before they made their move. Not that she couldn’t have gotten out of it. It was almost insulting, being targeted by such low-class muscle.

Tania was looking ahead of her as she ran. She had to either get out of this alley or find cover because they’d have a line on her in a second. She spotted a dumpster on the right, where the alley took a ninety-degree turn.

She skidded to a stop behind it, dropping into a crouch, her back pressed against the cold, rusty metal. The shouts were getting closer. She risked a quick peek. Two of them. They’d slowed down, probably wondering where she disappeared to, as if behind the dumpster wasn’t the most obvious answer in the world. They were looking around like they expected her to have scaled the walls and was about to drop down on them.

She waited until they were almost on top of her before popping up. The first shot took the lead merc in the throat, just above his vest. His eyes went wide as he clutched at his neck, blood pouring out between his fingers. The second shot hit his partner center mass, slamming him back against the wall.

He wasn’t dead, but this close, he’d be sucking air for the next ten minutes.

They weren’t alone, just the fastest runners. She looked around, trying to find a way out of the alley. She looked around the corner and saw a fire escape. That would work. She sprinted for it, holstering her gun and leaping up, hands grasping the bottom rung. The ladder groaned as she hauled herself up, boots scrabbling against the brick wall.

Shouts echoed from the alley below. Their slower, and less dead, friends had arrived. Tania clambered up the fire escape two metal steps at a time, ducking as bullets pinged off the railing, far too close for comfort.

They were idiots, but not the worst shots.

She grabbed the top of the small ladder and hauled herself up onto the roof, a flat expanse dotted with ventilation units and pipes. Pulling her pistol, she fired a few wild rounds down, just to make them think twice about following her, and dove behind the nearest vent, pressing her back against the sun-warmed metal.

Voices in English and Russian floated up from below. Wouldn’t take them long to follow her up, even being cautious. She pulled her small go bag off her back and the web harness, which she’d grabbed from the guy who’d kicked in the door of her apartment, after which she’d drilled him in the head, off her shoulder and started rummaging around, looking for the supplies she needed, which included one of the grenades hanging off of the web harness.

After a few quick, practiced moves, she had the grenade attached to some wire and to the ladder coming up the side of the building. They might be smart and edge over the top of it carefully, in which case they’d see it in time, but she doubted it. She leaned over and fired off two more rounds. They were halfway up the fire escape and ducked down as best they could.

She couldn’t help but notice that there were only a few of them on the fire escape.

They thought they were smart. They’d sent a few guys up the fire escape to keep her busy, and the others through the building to ‘surprise her.’ She’d have a surprise for them instead as she hooked a wire around the outside of the rooftop access door.

Gunfire laced the edge of the roof, far away from where she was now. They were trying to keep her from taking more shots at them, which meant they were hurrying, trying to beat their friends to the top. Maybe the one who got her would get a bonus or something.

She smiled as she thought about the something she had for them instead. She ran to the far corner of the building and waited, just in case.

The guys on the fire escape made it first, pulling themselves up and throwing their bodies over the edge, trying for speed and the element of surprise, and they did look pretty surprised as a foot caught the wire, pulling the pin of the grenade. The blast wasn’t much, but they were right on top of it, so it was enough to send them over the side. She heard more curses and hoped they’d landed on their friends.

The rooftop access door opened a heartbeat later, followed by the two remaining grenades from the web harness going off with a boom. She ducked down as chunks of roof tile, gravel, and idiots flew over her head or smacked into the air conditioning unit she was hiding behind.

The access door was a smoking ruin, the mercs, nothing more than bloody smears on the rooftop. She allowed herself a tight smile. She did love it when a plan came together. She couldn’t stay up here, though. That was three, maybe four down if one of the other guys on the fire escape caught some shrapnel. They still had half a dozen more men by her count.

Tania sprinted across the roof. The adjacent building was only a few feet away, an easy jump for her. She didn’t slow down, hitting the raised edge at full speed and launching herself into the air.

For a moment, she hung suspended, feeling the wind in her hair, before gravity took hold, and slammed her into the tar and gravel of the next roof. She rolled with the impact and came up running, barely breaking stride. She skidded to a halt at the edge of the roof and looked down at the street. No sign of mercs down there, for the moment, but she did see something. A motorcycle caught her eye. It was parked haphazardly on the sidewalk, a guy in a helmet crouching behind a mailbox next to a scared-looking girl, probably trying to hide from all the gunshots and explosions.

She couldn’t see the keys, but she bet they were still in the bike. Or at least she hoped he’d stopped to chat up some girl before all hell broke loose and had left them there.

Behind her, she heard shouts. They’d made it up to the other roof, following after their buddies. She moved as soon as they started shooting, leaping across the alley and down onto the fire escape on the other side as bullets whizzed through the space she’d just occupied.

She hit. Hard. The feeling traveled up her spine. She ignored it, and leaped over the side, aiming for the next level down on the fire escape. It was a tough jump, but she made it. Barely.

Bullets peppered the brick wall where she’d been a second ago. She didn’t have time to do this one level at a time, but she’d gotten close enough, and vaulted over the edge, rolling with the impact to keep from breaking anything, and coming up on her feet again.

Dashing across the street, she leaped on the bike. The keys were in it. Its owner yelled for her to stop in Spanish as she gunned the engine and roared off down the street. She wove through the traffic, leaning low over the handlebars, making herself as small a target as possible.

The mercs tried taking potshots from up on the roof, but didn’t even come close. Worse, for them, people around panicked, especially after one of them hit a bystander who was trying to hide behind less-than-adequate cover. People were running in every direction now, making it even harder to hit her.

Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder by the second. For once, Tania was grateful for their presence. These guys wouldn’t be operating like this in the open if they had support from the locals. They would have worked with them, had cops with them, when they came through her door. No. They’d have to beat it too.

Not that it mattered. She was blown, and she had a very good idea how. If she was right, it meant she was completely screwed.

She knew she'd need some help to get out of the country, and she had a very good idea of where she could get it!

Washington D.C.

Taylor had just sat down at the bar, looking into the kitchen with his cup of coffee, opening the paper, when the front door opened and Kara came in, hauling a sack over her shoulder.

“You know, for two FBI agents, I’d think you’d have better security. Why’s the door unlocked?”

“This is my security,” Taylor said, holding up his trigger finger and flexing his thumb up and down. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have a perfectly good dorm room at Georgetown? This is the third time this week.”

“Leave her alone,” Loretta called from the couch, where she was trying to get Grace to stop spitting out the green slop her mother was feeding her. “She can visit whenever she wants.”

Kara dropped her bag of laundry by the door, stuck her tongue out at Taylor before going into the kitchen and fishing a coffee cup out of the cabinet.

“Besides,” she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee, “I spent the last year and a half living in a penthouse with a trust fund girl. I’ve grown accustomed to a certain level of comfort, and I’m not willing to give it up just because Mary Jane moved to New York.”

“And whose fault is that? You could’ve stayed here and commuted.”

“Please. I want the full American college experience. Besides, you know you miss me,” she said, taking her coffee into the living room and stopping next to Grace, tickling her chin. “And I wanted to see the little one.”

“You’re welcome anytime, sweetie. Don’t listen to your father.”

“You’re only saying that because she’s following in your footsteps,” Taylor grumbled good-naturedly.

“Don’t hate me because I’m her favorite,” Loretta teased.

They all chuckled, knowing full well Kara made no secret about her preference for Taylor, whose mannerisms she’d started to adopt a little too closely. He actually didn’t think criminal justice was a bad major for her, and there were lots of reasons why she’d be interested in law enforcement. But, after the life she’d had, Taylor sometimes wished she would choose something more … peaceful.

“So, what’s for breakfast?” Kara asked. “I’m starving.”

“You can share Grace’s,” Taylor suggested.

“Иди к чёрту!” she said, setting her coffee down and heading back toward the kitchen.

“I keep trying, but everyone keeps missing,” Taylor said, which got a snort from Kara.

“There’s leftover pancakes in the fridge,” Loretta said, wiping Grace’s face. “How’re classes going?”

“Seminar is boring and I don’t love the WRIT, but intro to justice and peace is really interesting. But why so much math? I don’t need to know math to shoot bad guys.”

“You know it’s not all shooting bad guys,” Loretta said. “Many agents go their whole careers without ever drawing their weapon.”

“That’s not how he does it,” Kara said, pointing at Taylor.

“He is not a good example. And math is important.”

Taylor was about to make another comment when his phone buzzed.

“Taylor,” he said, picking it up and answering it.

“I need you to come in,” Joe Solomon, the FBI director and technically his boss, said without preamble. “We’ve got a situation.”

“Alright, let me get Loretta, and we’ll head over.”

Loretta had looked up at hearing her name and the tone of voice he used, probably figuring out who was on the other end.

“No,” Solomon said. “I just need you.”

“Really?”

Solomon wasn’t Taylor’s biggest fan. The two got along, and Taylor might even grudgingly agree that Solomon wasn’t the worst person to work for, even with his overly developed need to follow procedures. But it was very unusual for him to call just Taylor in, without Whitaker.

“I’ll brief you when you get here. Come straight to my office,” Solomon said and hung up before Taylor could reply.

He stared at the phone for a moment before pocketing it and getting up, collecting his things.

“What was that about?” she asked.

“Solomon wants me to come in. Just me, though.” Taylor shrugged into his jacket. “Said he’ll brief me when I get there.”

“That’s … odd.”

“Yeah, I know.” Taylor kissed her cheek and ruffled Grace’s hair, earning a giggle. “I’ll call you when I know more.”

“Maybe you can offer to help Whitaker out around here a little if you’re going to eat our food and do laundry.”

He’d been going for gruff and stern, but they both knew he was happy she was there.

Kara saluted and said, “Sir, yes, sir.”

Taylor shook his head as he walked out the door, allowing himself a moment to enjoy how good he had it before putting his game face on.

Hoover Building, Washington D.C.

Twenty minutes later, Taylor was walking into the FBI director’s office. Other than Whitaker’s office in this building, since he never had his own, this was probably the place Taylor spent most of his time in the FBI Headquarters.

Although, to be fair, Taylor didn’t spend an exorbitant amount of time here. He tended to ruffle the feathers of most of the rank and file, so they kept him out in the field as much as possible. Which was fine by Taylor.

Taylor didn’t even wait for permission to drop into one of the seats across from Solomon’s desk, earning a slight frown from the director, who was big on professional decorum.

“I know you’ve been looking for her for a long time, so I thought you’d want to know. We found Bonnie.”

Taylor sat upright, abandoning the disinterested slouch he’d taken in the chair, mostly to tweak the director’s nose. He’d been looking for just over a year, ever since she escaped from him after taking out several mob informants. Taylor’s quest had slowed after the first six months, partially because the trail had gone cold and partially because he had a young daughter to focus on.

He’d never fully stopped looking, though. Taylor was very good at finding people, so the fact that the Bureau had found her first was something of a blow to his professional pride.

“Where is she? How the hell did you guys find her? I’ve dug through every inch of her life and I came up with nothing.”

“Truth be told, she called us. She’s offered to provide extensive information on everyone she’s ever worked for in exchange for being brought in safely and put into the witness protection program after she finishes giving her information and testifying.”

“You’re joking, right? Everything we know about this woman says she’d never make a deal like that. She’d never trust we’d agree to it and she’d never turn on her clients. She’s worked for some bad people who would definitely make a play for her if they thought she was going to turn.”

“I get the impression her hand was forced. Whoever Bonnie’s current client is, and she’s said it’s someone high-profile in the U.S. government, has decided it is more cost-effective to kill her rather than pay her. She says it’s someone we’d want to know about.”

“I would have thought she’d go after someone threatening her like that directly. She’s definitely the type of person who doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty. If this person is protected enough, she can’t get to him directly, and he’s in the US government, then he’s pretty high up in it. I don’t see her thinking twice about offing a cop or a judge.”

“That was my first thought, too. While we definitely want her client list and for her to testify against them, our bigger concern is this current client. If we have someone like that, serving in our government, putting hits on people, we need to do something about it. I’ve already spoken to the AG about this, and he’s on board.”

“I get it. It turns my stomach, and I’d make that deal if I was in his place. But if this has all been already decided, why am I here?”

“She’s currently in Venezuela and asking that we extract her. Specifically, she’s insisted that you, and only you, handle her extraction. Apparently, she doesn’t trust anyone else in our government to get her out safely.”

“Why me?”

“We have no idea, but for whatever reason, it was one of the main conditions she had for agreeing to come in. This won’t be an easy assignment. Our government does not have the best relationship with the Venezuelan government at the moment, and they’re definitely not open to having a U.S. agent operating freely within their borders, so you will be there with zero support. She’s also made it clear she does not want the Venezuelans involved in her extradition at all, which could mean she doesn’t trust them to let her reach U.S. soil alive.”

“So, if anything, expect them to make it harder to get her out.”

“Yes. You’ll be on your own out there, John. If you run into trouble, the U.S. government won’t be able to help you. Officially, you were never there.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I had no support. I can handle it.”

“While I have no doubt you can, we need you to handle it without creating an international incident.”

“I’ll try my best,” Taylor said, very specifically not promising anything.

“There’s one more wrinkle. Bonnie says there are already people on the ground there looking for her. From her description, mercenaries or some kind of PMC, but not one we track. We don’t have much in the way of specifics, given the current state of Venezuela and its crime problem, but there are indications that her claims could be true. You need to be extremely careful.”

“I always am,” Taylor said.

Chapter 2

Caracas, Venezuela

It was mid-afternoon when the taxi dropped Taylor off at the address he’d given the driver, a run-down bar that looked like its last paint job was a hundred years ago. The driver had checked with him twice to make sure he meant this address, and again as they arrived, suggesting this wasn’t the safest place for a gringo … or really anyone.

Taylor was sure.

The streets were absolutely packed with people going in every direction, but Taylor definitely did not blend into the crowd. He could feel people watching him. Normally, his attitude would be ‘let them,’ but he could also feel the absence of a sidearm, which was pretty much the same thing as walking around naked for him.

Still, there was nothing to it. The taxi practically shot away as soon as he pulled his duffle bag out of the car and slammed the door shut.

Taylor pushed his way through a door that seemed barely on its hinges and took a second while his eyes adjusted to the dimly lit interior. There were a few scattered patrons nursing beers at tables that had seen a lot of use over the years, while a fan lazily stirred the thick, smoky air.

He could feel the bartender, and several of the patrons, look at him, probably wondering what a gringo was doing there. Taylor ignored them. He saw who he’d come to meet in a far corner, with his back against the wall and his feet up on a chair, a half-empty beer bottle in front of him. He looked up as Taylor approached, a grin spreading across his weathered face.

“John Taylor, as I live and breathe,” Sergeant Emilio Flores, retired, said, reaching out and clasping Taylor’s hand in a firm shake. “Never thought I’d see your ugly mug down here.”

Taylor chuckled, dropping into the chair across from Flores, after pushing his feet off the chair.

“Trust me; I wouldn’t be here if I had a choice.”

“How’d you even find me?”

“Sergeant Franklin.”

“Holy shit! That old goat’s still alive?”

“Yep, runs a mechanic shop in Florida. Plus, he does some occasional moonlighting.”

Flores signaled the bartender for two more beers and said, “Not one of us can stay out of the business, can we? So, what brings you to my neck of the woods? I’m assuming you’re not on vacation.”

“You assume right. I’m here on business. Need to extract someone.”

“I heard you were some big shot fed these days. Kind of out of your jurisdiction.”

“I’m here on my own dime.”

“Uh-huh. Sure,” Flores said. “So who is he?”

“She, not he,” Taylor said, taking a swig of the beer the bartender had just dropped off. “American woman. Caucasian, black hair, green eyes, about five-eight. Goes by a lot of aliases and I’m betting she’s set up a new one here, so no idea what she’s calling herself. She might be on the run and there’s a chance she was involved in some violence or seen around a crime scene recently.”

“The violence wouldn’t happen to include foreign mercenaries, would it?” Flores asked.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know about any white woman, but there’s been this outfit calling themselves Paladin Solutions in town, involved in a couple of shootouts. Gunfights aren’t all that uncommon around here, especially along the border between the various gangs, but a bunch of white guys start shooting, that we notice. It’s been the talk of the town. Well, certain parts of town.”

“Do you know anything about these guys?”

“Not much. Some rinky-dink merc outfit out of Chechnya. I poked around a little when they first started making a scene, just to make sure that they don’t mess with my thing. They’re amateur hour. Did some work for the Russians in a couple of the Stans. Other than that, just hired muscle.”

“So high casualties then?”

“Of course. You know how these guys operate. They’re basically one step up from the fundamentalists back in the sandbox. What’s weird, though, is a bunch of them got scooped up by the police after a nasty shootout a week ago, but they were back on the street a few days later. I mean, this city’s corrupt, but even for Caracas, that was weird.”

“Paying off the cops, or is someone protecting them?”

“Who knows? But I’ll tell you this, amigo; the gangs own most of these streets, and the cops? They’re almost as corrupt as the gangs, just more expensive. So whoever your girl pissed off, they’ve got some serious juice.”

“Well, that’s the best lead I’ve heard so far. It might even lead me to the person I’m tracking. Do you know where I can find them?”

Flores drained his beer, setting the empty bottle down with a thunk. “Yeah, they’ve set up shop in this ratty hotel just outside of town. The place is called the Hotel El Ávila. It’s a real shithole.”

“Alright,” Taylor said.

“Listen, Taylor, I know you’re a tough son of a bitch, but be careful with these guys. Most of them might be amateurs, but their leader, he’s a former Spetsnaz. He’s got a rep for being dumb as a box of rocks, but the man knows how to handle himself in a fight.”

“I appreciate the warning. I have a feeling I’m going to need a gun before this is over, and I can’t exactly go to the Venezuelan government for help. Is there any way …”

Flores waved a hand. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll make some calls, get you set up. But you’re going to owe me for this, Taylor.”

Taylor finished his drink and stood, extending his hand. “I always pay my debts, Emilio. You know that.”

Flores gripped his hand, pulling him into a quick embrace, slapping his back. “I know. That’s why I’m helping you. Take my jeep. It’s the green one out back. Try to bring it back in one piece, will you?”

Taylor caught the keys, “No promises.”

Flores laughed, shaking his head as Taylor turned and headed for the door. The jeep was right where Flores had said it would be, a battered green thing that looked like it was on its last leg. But then, so did half the cars he’d seen so far.

Taylor threw his bag in the back and climbed behind the wheel. The engine sputtered to life on the third try. He pulled out, dodging a taxi and a bicycle.

It wasn’t hard to find the area Flores had mentioned and Taylor parked the jeep two blocks from the Hotel El Ávila, tucking it into an alley between two dilapidated buildings. He grabbed his gear, since anything left in the car in this neighborhood wouldn’t stay there for long, slung his bag over his shoulder, and moved through the streets toward the hotel.

Emilio wasn’t wrong. The place might have been nice when they first built it, probably in the fifties, but it was practically falling apart now, its front faded and crumbling. The only good part about this section of town being so run down was that there were several abandoned buildings facing the hotel that he could use to watch it.

It took a few tries, but Taylor found one he could force his way into without too much obvious destruction. Inside, he found a bare room with a few broken pieces of furniture and a guy sleeping in one corner, which is probably why the door was so easy to open.

Taylor kicked the man in the foot to wake him up and said, “Necesito que te vayas.”

The guy sat up, swatted at Taylor a few times before really looking at him. He seemed like he was going to argue, until he looked up at Taylor’s face.

“Ahora,” Taylor said.

“Okay, okay, me voy. No quiero problemas,” he said, grabbing a ratty backpack and edging around Taylor, trying to give him as wide of a berth as possible before rushing outside.

Taylor watched to make sure he was gone. He wasn’t worried about the homeless guy, who’d probably find another abandoned building to sleep in. Taylor just didn’t love the idea of focusing out a window with some random person he didn’t know in the room behind him. Taking one of the broken chairs and wedging it under the door, just in case anyone else wanted to come in, Taylor dragged the other to a dirty window that faced the hotel across the street.

He settled into the chair, pulling a pair of binoculars from his bag. He trained them on the hotel’s entrance, scanning the area for any signs of activity. The street was quiet, save for a few locals milling around, going about their daily business.

Taylor pulled a camera out of his bag. For what he was doing, he didn’t actually need pictures, and it could have just been habit from working with the FBI, but there was an off chance he might need to get IDs on people and it would be easier than trying to use cell phone pics.

Besides, it let him look at the building up close, and it’s not like he had a rifle and scope with him. At least if someone showed up, he could explain he was just taking pictures.

For ten minutes, there was no sign that this hotel was anything out of the ordinary, not that he doubted Emilio. He’d been on enough stakeouts with Whitaker to know that these things took time. Finally, he got confirmation this was the right place when a black SUV pulled up and four guys in the most obvious tactical gear he’d ever seen stepped out.

One of the main tasks of Army Special Forces is to work with local militaries as advisors, which sometimes meant going around kitted up, usually in war zones, but more often than not, it meant dressing in the same basic style as the local population and trying to blend in as much as possible. Rarely did working in a foreign country mean going around announcing yourself as a military unit. Especially when it was easy to tell you weren’t locals, which these guys, who probably all came from Russia or one of the satellite states, definitely weren’t.

There was one guy in the group that caught Taylor’s attention. He was taller than the others, with a thick black beard. The other guys seemed to defer to him, getting out and scanning the street before he got out and then letting him enter the building first.

Odds were this was the ex-Spetsnaz guy Flores had mentioned. Taylor snapped a few pics of him and all his guys, just in case.

And then it was another long stretch of nothing happening. Hours ticked by, the sun slowly making its way across the sky. Taylor made himself as comfortable as possible, following the tricks he’d picked up from other stakeouts, watching the scene without focusing hard, to keep from tiring himself out, waiting until something happened to start scrutinizing everything.

As usually happened, it went from nothing to something in a flash, when four SUVs pulled up to the front and a dozen plus guys, including their boss, all filed out of the hotel and got into the vehicles. Somehow, they’d found even more equipment to hang off themselves, looking like over-prepped military wannabes you’d sometimes see, who liked to get in front of cameras with every bit of useless hardware their credit card could cover.

They were also very publicly armed, not even trying to hide it. Most of the locals made themselves scarce as they came out.

He couldn’t sit and wait though. Kitted up like this, they were definitely onto something and expected trouble, which probably meant Bonnie.

Taylor grabbed his gear and hurried down to the jeep, which had remained unmolested in its parking space, probably because it was so beat up anyone would assume it didn’t work or wasn’t worth the effort. He pulled out quickly and managed to catch the end of the convoy of SUVs as they roared down the street.

Taylor tried to give them a block lead. The traffic was very light and he didn’t want them to notice he was following, but even light traffic in a place like this was unpredictable and could lead to him being blocked and losing them.

And it wasn’t like he had access to a satellite like he did when working on the books in the US.

At least they weren’t in the city center, where the insanity of cars driving in a dozen directions on just two lanes would have made this much harder. Taylor managed to catch up and keep several car lengths back. It was easier because their cars were noticeably newer and nicer than anything else on the road, including the jeep Taylor was driving.

Taylor was a little surprised they didn’t do anything to check if they had a tail. Admittedly, several of those tactics, like running a light and unexpectedly changing lanes to see if the car behind changed also, didn’t work so well in this scenario, but there were others that would have. Of course, he shouldn’t have been that surprised. Outfits like this tended to believe very strongly in their own competence.

They circled the city, taking what must have been the long way around, although maybe it was faster since they avoided much of the traffic in the city itself. As the cars thinned, Taylor was forced to drop back more. Even if they weren’t taking active measures, if the traffic got light enough, they might notice him anyway. Taylor carefully kept a couple of larger delivery trucks between them, which made it harder for him to see them, but gave him some cover.

Thankfully, when they turned, it was into a deserted construction site without any other cars, making their fancy black SUVs stand out. Taylor passed by it and pulled into a business that looked like some kind of workshop, warehouse, or storage place, he wasn’t quite sure which. It was late in the day, not quite dark yet but getting close, and whoever worked there had already gone for the day.

Taylor pulled the jeep in so he could see through the fence separating the two buildings, but still be mostly blocked from both the street and the construction site.

If this construction site was a front for something, it was a good one. Piles of concrete pipes, stacks of rebar, and mounds of sand and gravel littered the site. A couple of rusting excavators and a cement truck that had seen better days sat off to one side. A few buildings in various states of completion stood in a rough semi-circle. The mercenaries had entered the one that looked like it was the furthest along.

Time ticked by, and Taylor was wondering what this was all about. They’d armed up like they were going to war but then entered an empty building? He was just considering if he should try to edge closer and see what was happening when he heard the snap of gunfire. Single shots at first, mostly lower caliber pistols, with a shotgun mixed in. Then came the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic weapons. Long bursts from someone holding down the trigger, not short, controlled fire.

Probably the mercs. There were some screams and words he couldn’t make out, followed by more gunfire.

Taylor wished he was armed.

Suddenly, the back door of the building the mercs had gone into slammed open, and five men in what looked like shabby street clothes came sprinting out. One was clutching his arm, dark red seeping between his fingers as they scrambled over a dirt berm behind the construction site and disappeared into the buildings beyond.

A moment later, the mercenaries came back out the front door. Five of them, dragging two more who Taylor couldn’t tell if they were injured or dead. They piled back into the SUVs and tore out of the construction site, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake.

Suddenly, it was quiet again, aside from the noise from the street, which rumbled on as if this happened every day.

Which maybe it did.

Taylor waited a few minutes, making sure the mercenaries were gone before he slipped out of the jeep and made his way to the construction site. He kept low, using the piles of debris and equipment for cover as he approached the building where the firefight had taken place, just in case there was someone still inside and they were jumpy.

The back door hung open, splintered wood around the lock a testament to the force used to break it open. Taylor paused at the threshold, listening for any signs of movement inside. Silence greeted him.

He stepped inside, the crunch of broken glass under his boots the only sound. The room was a mess of overturned tables and bullet-riddled construction equipment. Bodies lay strewn across the floor, most of them in shabby street clothes like the men who’d fled.

Taylor moved cautiously, checking each body for signs of life. None. He counted seven in total; all dead from bullet wounds. From their positions, it was clear this had been an ambush, not that it had done these guys any good. The mercs were better armed and wearing armor. They’d scored some hits, based on the two men dragged out of here by their friends, but other than that, it appeared that things had gone south pretty fast.

He knelt beside one of the bodies, pushing back the sleeve to reveal a tattoo on the forearm. A skull with a snake coiled around it. Taylor checked the others, finding the same tattoo on each of them. Gang members, most likely. But what were they doing here, and why had the mercenaries come after them?

Taylor pulled out his phone, snapping pictures of the tattoos and the scene. This was connected, obviously, since the mercs were clearly hired to track down Bonnie, and the way they rolled out, they almost certainly thought she’d be here.

He was stopped from any further contemplation by the sound of sirens in the distance, growing louder. The police responding to reports of the gunshots, no doubt. Time to go.

Taylor slipped out the back, retracing his steps to the jeep. He was behind the wheel and merging into traffic just as the first police car screamed into the construction site, lights flashing.

He still didn’t have a lead on Bonnie, exactly, but these gang members were somehow connected. He just had to find out how.

Chapter 3

After only five hours, Taylor pulled the beat-up jeep back into the spot he had taken it from, next to the rundown bar where he had met Emilio. Emilio had a smirk on his face when Taylor walked back through the doors.

“Back so soon, amigo? Don’t tell me you missed my company already.”

The sun had gone down, but it wasn’t very late, which maybe explained why the bar was less full now than it had been just hours earlier.

“Something like that,” Taylor said, sliding into the chair opposite him.

“I assume something happened to bring you back to me?”

“You assume correctly. I found the guys no problem and staked them out until they mounted up in a hurry and went tearing across town. I followed them to this half-built warehouse. Considering they’re here for the girl I’m looking for, I assume they thought they’d find her there.”

“But they didn’t,” Emilio said, more as a statement than a question.

“No. What they found was a bunch of locals, based on their dress, who opened fire on them as soon as they went into the warehouse. After everything was said and done, I went in to check and found the bodies of several of the locals. The Chechens lost one, too, but they took their man with them. The thing is, these guys all had the same skull and snake tattoo, which naturally suggests they were affiliated. Which is what brings me to you.”

Taylor pulled out his cell phone with a picture of one of the tattoos pulled up and handed it over to Emilio.

“I was hoping you could tell me who these guys are and why they would have set a trap for the mercenaries.”

Emilio frowned as he looked at the picture on Taylor’s phone. “Los Serpientes. Nasty bunch. They run the drug trade in this part of town, plus a little trafficking on the side.”

“Hence the tattoo.”

“Fitting, isn’t it? They’re about as trustworthy as pit vipers. Known for their brutality and willingness to do just about anything for money.”

“But why would they be shooting it out with a bunch of Chechen mercenaries? Doesn’t seem like they’d have much reason to cross paths. It’s not like Paladin whatever is tangled up in the drug trade.”

“Not particularly, no. It doesn’t make sense. The Serpientes stick to their turf. They’ve had some nasty run-ins with some of their larger competitors, so for now, they’ve been happy with just holding their own.”

“So they’re not the biggest player?”

“Biggest? No. Nastiest? Maybe.”

“Well, they’ve got a beef now. Los Serpientes lost five guys to the mercs, at least as far as I could tell. The gang members turned tail and ran, leaving their dead behind.”

“No, that won’t sit well with them at all.”

“Which still leaves me with my original problem. The mercs went to that warehouse looking for Bonnie, that much I’m positive of. If Los Serpientes were there, they must be connected to her somehow.”

“You think she’s working with them?”

“Or they’re working for her. Either way, they’re my next lead,” Taylor said. “Any idea where I can find them?”

Emilio sighed and handed the phone back to Taylor, who tucked it back in his pocket. “They’re known to frequent a bar called El Nido. A real dive. Not a place for tourists and gringos.”

“I’m no tourist.”

“No, you’re not. But these guys … they’re not to be messed with, Taylor.

Emilio reached under the table and pulled out a crumpled paper bag, handing it across to Taylor. “Sig Sauer P226. Couple extra mags and some boxes of ammo. Best I could do on short notice.”

“It’ll do,” Taylor said.

“Seriously though, watch your back out there. Especially if you’re going to tangle with Los Serpientes. I’d hate to have to avenge your death if things go south.”

“I’ll do my best to avoid that. Wouldn’t want you to have to go to all that trouble on my account.”

“See that you do.” Emilio’s tone was light, but his eyes were serious. “Good luck, Taylor. I mean it.”

“Thanks.”

With a final nod, Taylor turned and headed for the door, stepping out into the night.

After all the chasing around, it was well past dark, maybe ten pm, when Taylor finally pulled up outside the El Nido. The place didn’t look like much from the outside, just a squat cinderblock building with a corrugated tin roof. Paint flaked off the cinderblocks in huge chunks, making Taylor think the only thing holding the structure together was the grime and graffiti.

It was also seemed dead, with only a few cars parked on the cracked concrete out front. Taylor stepped out of his jeep and crossed the lot, warily eyeing the people outside leaning on cars. Music thumped through the walls, a deep bass he could feel as he pulled open the door. It didn’t so much swing as grind across the ground, screeching in protest.

Inside wasn’t much better than outside. The bar stood against the back wall, a long, scarred wooden thing that had probably seen more blood than alcohol spilled on it over the years. A few tables dotted the room, most of them occupied, despite the few number of cars outside.

Taylor stopped a few steps in, looking around the room. It didn’t take long for trouble to find him.

“You lost, gringo?”

The man who’d come up to him was a lean, hard-faced guy with prison tattoos crawling up his arms.

“Not if this is the El Nido.”

“It’s the last place you’ll ever go is what it is.”

“Maybe. I’m looking for whoever’s in charge of Los Serpientes. Seeing that tattoo there on your forearm, I assume you know who he is.”

The man made a motion with his hand, and three more guys materialized out of the shadows, all of them sporting Los Serpientes ink.

“What makes you think we’ll take you anywhere but outside, where we can bury your body?”

The man pulled a long-bladed knife from a sheath at the small of his back. Taylor didn’t flinch, didn’t move. He knew how this game was played. Don’t blink. Don’t back down. You had to show their leaders respect, but you couldn’t show fear.

“Because I know about the shootout at the warehouse. I know about the mercenaries and the white woman, and your boss is going to want to know how much I know. And I’m willing to pay for more information.”

“Maybe we just take you hostage, ransom you back for the money.”

“You could try. But the US doesn’t like paying ransoms. They’ll argue, haggle, maybe even let me die before they shell out a dime. Or, you could let me talk to your leader, and I can get you the money tonight.”

That gave the guy pause. They exchanged glances, considering.

“What, you CIA or some shit?”

“Not exactly. But I have contacts who can get you paid. Think about it; your boss would appreciate the easy cash, right? And a chance to get back at those mercenary fucks who shot up your guys. You know I’m not here with them since I didn’t come through the door with automatic fire.”

The leader of the group hesitated, then jerked his head at one of the others. “Go check with El Jefe. See what he says.”

The man nodded and disappeared into a back room. Taylor waited, his stance relaxed but ready, just in case someone did something stupid. It made them nervous, their hands stayed close to their guns.

Finally one of them couldn’t take the tension anymore, seeming to need to find something to do. “Before you go back there, I need to frisk you.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“You think you can come in here and make demands, gringo?”

“I think the US government doesn’t give a shit about some street gang in Caracas. I’m here because I need something from you, not the other way around.”

“You’ve got some balls on you.”

“If I wanted to take you out, I wouldn’t need a gun. I could have a Reaper drone turn this whole bar into a crater.”

The guy tried to stare Taylor down, looking for something, maybe weakness. Taylor didn’t blink. His friends did, though. They looked at each other, clearly realizing they didn’t have as much of an upper hand as they thought they did. Thankfully, before anyone could do something stupid, the guy who left to speak with the boss returned, jerking his head toward the back room.

“Jefe will see you. Come on.”

Taylor followed the gang member into a back room, which had a few couches, one dominated by the guy who was very clearly in charge, with four more of his minions spread around the room. Lieutenants. Guards maybe. A good spread. Taylor thought it unlikely that, if it came to it, he would be able to take them all. At least, not without them getting some clean shots on him.

Which meant he had to play this controlled but aggressively, just like he would with a tribal warlord. Grabbing a chair, he pulled it in front of the leader, completely unconcerned about the others in the room.

“You’ve got a pair of cojones on you, gringo.”

“That’s what he said,” jerking a thumb at the gangbanger who’d intercepted him outside.

The gang leader barked out a laugh, shaking his head. “Alright, tough guy. Where’s this money you’re talking about?”

“I need information, and I’m willing to pay for it. Simple as that.”

Taylor kept his tone respectful but firm, meeting the man’s gaze head-on. The man leaned back on the couch, studying him in turn.

“What kind of information?”

“You were at that warehouse for a woman. I need to know where she is. I’ll give you a hundred thousand US. Half now, half when I find her.”

The gang leader scoffed. “All now.”

“No. Half now, half when I find the woman.” Taylor’s voice left no room for negotiation. “Your deal with her went south, and you had a bad run with those mercs. I’m looking to take this woman out of here, and that will mean fucking up the mercs. You get revenge and easy money without ever having to step out of this room. It’s the deal of a lifetime.”

The silence stretched.

“Two hundred.”

“Deal.” Taylor didn’t hesitate. “Do you have a bank account we can wire it to, or do you want giant bags of money dropped on your doorstep?”

“We’re not amateurs,” the guy said, snapping his fingers and sending a guy to get the account numbers.

From everything Taylor had seen, they were absolutely amateurs, regardless of what kind of bank accounts they had. Which was fine with him. As long as they were mad dogs and were willing to negotiate, he didn’t care.

“Call me when the money hits,” the guy said as his man handed Taylor a slip of paper.

Taylor nodded and stood up, the chair scraping against the floor. He turned to leave, and the gang members parted, clearing a path to the door. Taylor walked out, not even looking at them.

Leaving El Nido, Taylor hopped in the borrowed jeep and started back toward the center of the city where the more upscale hotels were. Normally, he didn’t mind the local flavor, but Caracas was on par with some of the more dangerous cities he’d been to in the Middle East, with kidnappings and theft being pretty rampant.

There were some nicer areas of town, but those were locked down pretty heavily by both private security and what little of the government was still functioning. That meant that, for now, it was the safest place for someone like him.

Besides, the FBI was footing the bill, so he wasn’t particularly worried about the cost. Especially not after he called Solomon and told him the news. The hotel he settled on was a stark contrast to the rest of the city, with the wealthy people inside completely cut off from the grim outside of their little haven. Taylor could only shake his head. This was how places like Caracas happened. Their leaders became so disconnected from the people they governed, and usually stole from, that they didn’t understand them, leading to the inevitable conflict.

Not that it mattered to Taylor. He had a job to do.

Getting up to his room, Taylor pulled out his phone and dialed Solomon’s office. He expected to get routed to the director’s cell phone. Instead, Whitaker answered, surprising him.

“Taylor, everything alright?” she asked, concerned.

“Uhh … yeah. You two are in the office late.”

“Working on some cases coming up for trial,” Whitaker said.

“Don’t let her fool you, she wanted to stay as late as possible on the off chance you’d call. Maybe you should call home more often and the office less often.”

“I like staying focused on the job,” Taylor said.

“That’s what I told him,” Whitaker said. “Have you had any problems down there?”

“Annoyances, really. There’s a mercenary outfit down here called Paladin Solutions that’s also looking for Bonnie. There have been multiple firefights in the streets, and my contact says he’s pretty sure she was involved.”

“How big of a problem is this going to be?”

“I don’t know yet. They’re not particularly good, from what I’ve heard, but they’re well-armed and funded, so whoever’s paying them has deep pockets.”

“Any idea who?”

“My contact doesn’t know, just that they’ve been able to skate out of trouble with the locals. I’m not sure I’ll be able to figure that out without a lot of leg work, and that would pull my focus away from Bonnie. If I had to guess, it’s why they were chosen over more skilled or reputable groups. There are a bunch of these guys working out of the old Soviet bloc, where secrecy is more important than actual skill. Especially since they contract out a lot with smaller dictators to shoot up civilians, so skill isn’t an issue.”

“That’s concerning,” Whitaker said.

“Sure, but it makes sense, since anyone chasing her is someone who hired her in the past, and she was known for her discreet work. It also makes my job a little easier, since they’re not having a good time. From what I’ve heard, they’ve come out on the bottom every time they’ve gotten close to her.”

“Still, I would prefer you find her before they get very many more opportunities,” Solomon said. “They only have to get lucky once and this entire adventure becomes pointless. Do you have any leads on her at all?”

“One. Bonnie hired a local street gang called Los Serpientes to run interference for her. I’m hoping they have a way to get a hold of her.”

“A street gang? You think they’ll be reliable?” Solomon asked.

“Not for free, but they’re for sale. Besides, considering the situation down here, they’re about the closest thing to organized anything. If I was somewhere else, I’d try the locals, but they’re just another street gang here. If we pay them, they’ll get me what I need.”

“Pay them?” Solomon scoffed. “Taylor, we can’t just hand FBI funds over to a Caracas street gang.”

“Joe, if we want to get this girl on a witness stand, we might not have a choice. These guys are my best shot at finding her before the mercenaries do, and the only thing I have to motivate them with is money.”

“Taylor, I …”

“Hold on a second, Taylor,” Whitaker said, and the mic muffled.

Taylor could hear the sounds of talking, but it was muted and impossible to make out, Whitaker’s hand presumably covering the phone.

After a minute, Whitaker came back on. “Okay, what exactly are we talking about here? How much do they want?”

“Two hundred grand. Half up front, half when I find her.”

Another pause, another muffled conversation. Taylor could imagine Solomon arguing, saying it would never happen, and Whitaker trying to reason with him. Taylor wasn’t surprised. He knew this would be a big stretch for the FBI. If it got out that they were sending cash to a street gang, not to mention one in another country, it would smear them, Caldwell, and basically anyone even remotely connected to it.

Then again, it wasn’t like they had a lot of other assets in the country.

After a minute, that stretched on for what felt like hours, the line unmuffled again and Solomon said, “Alright, Taylor. You’ve got your funds. But I want regular updates, and the moment you have her location, I want to know.”

“I’ll do my best,” Taylor said, not committing to anything. “I’m sending you the wire info now.”

“Taylor,” Whitaker said. “Be careful.”

“I always am,” he said, which they both knew wasn’t true, and he hung up.

Chapter 4

The buzzing phone jerked Taylor awake. The phone said he’d been asleep for only five hours, which wasn’t enough, since he had a strong feeling that this day was going to be even longer. It also meant that, had he been a gambling man, he would have lost a fair amount of money.

Before he’d gone to bed the night before, Taylor had sent a message describing, in extreme detail, what would happen if the gang leader took the upfront payment and ran. Even with that threat, he’d been all but certain that the gang would do exactly that.

Instead, his phone read, “The woman will meet you at Mercado Municipal de Chacao. Ten AM.”

Could it be a trap? Sure, although it seemed unlikely to be one set by Bonnie, since she wanted the US government to get her out, which meant she had to take a risk at some point that his being here was on the up and up. There were lots of reasons why a street gang would set up a US agent, though. Maybe sell him out to a larger gang? That was just a guess, but one he had to take seriously.

Taylor did some research on the market. It was a two-story affair mostly for selling foodstuffs, based on his cursory search. The time didn’t look to be just a coincidence or for convenience. From what he could see, that was the busiest time for the market, with lots of people from restaurants and families shopping for their food for the day.

It didn’t surprise him. Bonnie was smart. She wanted the crowd for cover.

Taylor was also cautious, leaving well ahead of time to stake out a good position to see her come in. When he arrived at the market, he parked the borrowed jeep away from the building a bit and approached it on foot, taking a circuitous route through side streets.

Probably overkill, but considering the situation and who he was meeting, overkill was called for.

The market was already packed with vendors, set up with food on display, shouting at the throngs of people already buying or milling around. It wasn’t completely packed, but it would be hard to find her in the crowd.

Taylor kept to the periphery, not stopping, since one person standing still would be very noticeable, playing the tourist, which wasn’t much better since Caracas didn’t get many tourists these days, but it wasn’t like he could blend in completely. Besides, Bonnie would have the same problem.

He bought an orange from a stall, peeling it and taking small bites from its sections as he watched the people around him, searching for a white face in the crowd, even though he was there almost an hour ahead of the meet time. Better to see her coming in than the reverse.

She must have had the same idea, though. He was just taking a big bite of the orange when he saw a tuft of curly black hair moving through the crowd. He couldn’t see her face, and it had been a year since they were in the warehouse where she’d supposedly blown herself up, but he recognized her hair.

Tossing the rest of the orange in the trash and wiping his hands on his pants, Taylor circled, his eyes locked on her hair, catching the occasional glimpse of her face. The mercenaries made the situation believable, but Taylor still couldn’t trust that this meeting was on the up and up and not some kind of trick, so he didn’t plan on having her see him first.

He’d hoped to get up close to her, put a gun on her, and quietly march her out of the market to keep better control of the situation.

That idea went out of the window as soon as he saw the man a few steps away from her, coming out of the crowd behind her. He looked believably Latin and wore jeans and a baggy shirt, dressed like half the men he’d seen in the city.

But it was the boots that gave him away. Nearly everyone here was wearing sandals or ratty tennis shoes. This man wore fairly new and very well-cleaned black Russian-style military boots. The kind popular with private military organizations across the Soviet bloc. In addition to that was the man’s expression. His eyes were locked on Bonnie, and he was smiling as if he was about to win the big game. 

It only took a second for Taylor to realize the gang had played him. They’d sold the information to him and the mercenaries, choosing profit over loyalty to their dead comrades.

Taylor’s hand flew to the small of his back, pulling the borrowed weapon and bringing it up in one motion as the man reached under the hem of his own shirt, almost certainly for a weapon.

Someone screamed as Taylor extended his weapon, drawing Bonnie’s attention. She looked at him as Taylor was looking at the merc, her own hand going for a weapon. Panic flashed across her face as she saw the weapon already pointing her way, almost certainly doing the math and realizing she couldn’t dodge out of the way or shoot him before he shot her.

But he wasn’t aiming at her. His gun cracked, the sound cutting through the noise of the market. The mercenary behind Bonnie jerked, a spray of red covering the people around him as the back of his head exploded. Taylor hoped the punch through didn’t hurt anyone behind the man, but his weapon had already been halfway up, and Taylor couldn’t risk just wounding him.

Chaos erupted. People screamed, scattering in all directions, not bothering to try and figure out where the gunshot had come from. Their panic exposed the guys’ buddies, who were dressed the same way, maybe hoping they could blend in and get the drop on Bonnie, since their previous attempts of going in with guns blazing hadn’t worked.

They’d been well hidden, since half of them were near him, opposite Bonnie. The chaos, however, seemed to throw them, with their focus trying to hold on to Bonnie, confused about their man going down, giving Taylor several seconds as they tracked the shot back to him and realized they’d suddenly become targets for a new player.

Taylor didn’t wait to act. He lunged forward, grabbing the nearest merc and wrenching him to be his human shield as the merc’s friends started to raise their weapons. Seeing their buddy, they didn’t hesitate, sending rounds slamming into him and several bystanders, not caring where their shots went.

Taylor held the man up, returning fire around his body while trying to keep an eye on Bonnie amidst the pandemonium. She had her own gun out now, apparently realizing that Taylor hadn’t been after her at all, and she put the mercs into a crossfire.

They were pushing the men back, but with people and bullets everywhere, there was no way for him to get to Bonnie, at least not without significant risk. In the distance, he could hear sirens, their sound growing louder by the second. The local authorities were on the way, and being caught in the middle of this bloodbath wouldn’t do him any favors.

Taylor looked away for a second to deal with a merc who was getting just a little too close and when he looked back again, Bonnie had disappeared. That made his decision for him. It was time to get out of here, regroup, and try to find her again.

Taylor pushed the dead merc at his friends and broke away, weaving through the terrified crowd, using the chaos as cover. He didn’t look back as he slipped out of the market.

He cursed himself when he got back to the jeep. He’d been so close.

Taylor drove away from the market, keeping his speed down and trying not to seem noticeable in any way as police cars and a few army trucks went tearing past, headed for the market.

Caracas was one of the strongholds of the government, and the army was a presence across the city, but so far he’d mostly seen local police responding to events. The army being here was a big step up, although whether it was permanent or just because someone important finally got involved, it was hard to say. Until he understood the situation, he needed to be more careful about where he got into open shootouts.

Not that the mercs had given him much choice.

They’d also taken away his one solid lead. Bonnie was in the wind again, and there was a chance these guys were hot on her trail. Taylor considered his options for a moment. He had a few, and none of them were good.

The closest thing he had to a plan was to try to pick up the mercs again. They’d managed to find her three times now, and they’d been all over the market. There was a chance one of them had followed her.

Or he hoped they had because otherwise, he was back to the starting point.

Taylor made his way back to the Hotel El Ávila, hoping to set up back where he’d been before. Turning the corner onto the street where the hotel was located, it was evident that wasn’t going to be that easy.

The street in front of the hotel was a circus of flashing lights and uniformed bodies. Local cops and soldiers swarmed the area. Clearly, someone had told them where the mercs were staying. Whoever had been protecting them from the police had clearly pulled some of that protection. There had to be a limit to that protection, and clearly the mercs had reached it.

“Well, shit,” Taylor muttered, pulling over to the curb.

The cops didn’t have anyone in cuffs, at least that he could see, which meant the mercs had managed to pull out before the cops got there or knew it was going to be bad and didn’t come back there. The army was pulling out crates of equipment and probably weapons, which was going to diminish the mercs some.

Taylor sat in his car, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He needed a plan, and fast. The mercs and Bonnie were in the wind, and now the local authorities were swarming the hotel. If he had been here in an official capacity, he would have some more options. But he wasn’t.

He sat and considered. There was always something to go on. No one just vanished. Taylor slapped the steering wheel with a curse and started the engine. He only had one play left … go back to the source. Taylor pulled up outside El Nido for the second time in two days.

Considering they had already sold him out, this was a big risk. There was only one way he could see to play it to get the gang to tell him what he wanted to know, and it wasn’t a great option. If Whitaker was here, she would veto the idea immediately.

Luckily, she wasn’t here.

As soon as he walked into the bar, three gang members were up and in his face.

A beefy gang member stepped in front of him and said, “Where do you think you’re going, gringo?”

Taylor didn’t break stride, his fist slamming into the man’s face in a swift, brutal motion. There was a sickening crunch as cartilage gave way. The man crashed to the floor, blood streaming from his nose.

In an instant, the bar erupted. Chairs scraped against the floor as everyone jumped to their feet, guns drawn.

“Enough!” A voice called out, freezing everyone in place. “I said you wouldn’t be walking out of here if you came back, American.”

The gang leader emerged from a back room, a pistol in his hand.

Taylor raised his hands slowly, tapping his ear. “There’s a Predator drone circling this building, and my people can hear everything happening in here.”

“Bullshit.”

“You already know I’m serious,” Taylor said. “So try me. If I go down, this entire block becomes a smoking crater.”

“You’ll die too.”

“Does it look like I give a shit?” Taylor said, glaring back.

For a long moment, they just glared at each other. The other man blinked first, and then smiled.

“You’re either loco, or you’ve got the biggest cojones on the planet.”

“Both can be true,” Taylor said.

The leader’s laughter grew louder. He gestured towards the back room. “Come on then, big man. Let’s talk.”

“So why have you come back, gringo?”

“To see how good of a payday you got.”

“What do you mean?”

“Getting paid by me and the mercenaries for selling the same information.”

“I never said I wouldn’t.”

“It was implied, by taking my money, that you were delivering her to me. Selling it to both of us meant that she wasn’t delivered to me. But I’m not one to hold a grudge. If you want to make it up to me, just tell me where she is, or at least where the mercenaries are. We’ll call it even. No hard feelings.”

“Pay us again, and you have a deal.”

The odds of Solomon handing over more money were next to none. Besides, he wasn’t going to pay this asshole anymore after he screwed him over.

“You got paid once. You’re lucky I’m back here asking nicely. You don’t want to see how this goes if you make me change my mind.”

Taylor didn’t blink as the guy stared him down. It was a bluff, but only partially. Taylor was willing to screw this guy’s world if he had to, but that would be slow and inefficient. Better to get him to hand over the information willingly.

Thankfully, the guy backed down again. “Normally, I wouldn’t do this without getting paid, but what the hell. These people are assholes and the sooner you’re all out of my shit, the better.”

“Trust me, I don’t want to be here anymore than you want me here. Where are they?”

“My people followed some of their guys to an old inn or compound thing about thirty minutes east, outside of town. I don’t even know if it’s active or they’re squatting, but they’ve had people going back and forth from the hotel to the inn for more than a week, so if they’re not at their hotel, then they’re at the other place.”

“I hope so,” Taylor said, turning to walk back out.

“Don’t come back here, Gringo,” the gang leader called after him.

That’s the plan, Taylor thought.

Chapter 5

The spot the gang leader had pointed out was, in fact, on the far edge of town. When Taylor found it, he could see why they’d want a place like this. Still in the city, giving them access to travel there quickly, but backed away near open land, giving good sightlines. It was also a large, walled house, which gave it an additional layer of security.

Not perfectly secure, of course. For one, the house made up part of the wall, so there were doors to the outside. For another, it was still part of the city, even if on the outskirts, so there were other buildings near it, allowing someone to get close to the building without being seen.

It took some time, but Taylor did find a taller building whose roof he could climb onto so that he could get a look down into the compound, which is really what it was. He waited and watched for almost an hour, until late into the afternoon, trying to get a feeling for what he was up against, and it quickly became evident that he had a problem.

While there could be people inside, it seemed like there might be less than half a dozen people in the entire compound, and only two vehicles. He’d seen more than that at the market, driving to the construction site, and even just in front of the hotel they’d previously been staying at. The most likely explanation was that they were out on Bonnie’s trail.

Which is exactly what Taylor had hoped wasn’t happening.

Taylor was less worried about them getting Bonnie than he was about their pushing her to leave town or give up and go underground. Seeing them in action twice now, he knew they weren’t terrible. They had good unit cohesion and operated as a team, they just overpowered everything, which sounds good on paper, but it made them sloppy as hell. Against third-world armies, it would work, but against someone like Bonnie, it gave her too much room to maneuver.

They could still get lucky. Taylor had learned a long time ago that being good didn’t stop the bullet you didn’t see coming, and if you stayed downrange long enough, eventually, your luck would run out.

All of which meant that he had to find out where they were, and the answer was inside the compound he was watching, since it was clear that no one was planning to leave from there any time soon.

There were some obvious entry points. Over the wall into what looked like the driveway and courtyard was the most obvious, but the big windows of the house looked right at it. It was just too exposed. And he needed to avoid getting into a gunfight. He’d had enough brushes with the locals already. He’d been lucky, but there was no guarantee that luck would hold.

The back door was the next most obvious choice. There were cameras facing it, which was a problem, but it was also right near other buildings and an alley, which would allow him to get close to it.

Any other approach and he’d be in plain sight of the open street.

He wished he’d had someone with him who knew more about these kinds of entries. A SEAL or maybe a Delta Force operator. SF was focused on small unit tactics and interfacing with locals, which didn’t usually include a lot of breaking into locked compounds. And the FBI actively frowned on that sort of thing.

Taylor made his way down to the street and cut across to one of the side alleys that led toward the compound. He stopped just at the edge of the alley, peeking around the corner to get a better look.

He took it back. They may not have been the worst he’d seen tactically, but they were still fucking amateurs. He’d been concerned about getting too close and having them pick him up before he got close enough to the building to scope it out, but there were no cameras pointing toward the alley, even though it was the most likely way someone wanting to assault it would approach the building.

More surprisingly, the cameras didn’t cover each other either. There was one that covered the door, but there weren’t any other cameras pointing toward it, so someone could get to it without being seen. Which is exactly what Taylor planned to do.

Taylor looked around the alley. There was something he used to do when he was a kid, to trick other kids into thinking birds pooped on them. The alley was full of debris, and it didn’t take long to find what he needed. Some dirt, some small gravel, a scoop of water, and a little chunk of drywall that he smashed into as fine of a powder as he could, which he then mixed up in a discarded paper cup.

The result looked reasonably like bird poop. Checking one last time, to make sure no one was really paying attention, he dashed across the street, staying out of the range of the camera and coming up behind it. With a quick glance around, he scaled the wall, gripping a sconce for support. Reaching around the camera, he smeared the mixture over the lens, obscuring its view in a way he hoped they’d write off as just a bird pooping on it.

Assuming no one was looking at the feed when his hand passed over it.

Dropping back down, Taylor quickly picked the lock, which was rickety and didn’t look to have a security system attached to it, and slipped through the door. There was no sign of alarms and he didn’t hear people running, so it seemed he was safe for the moment.

Considering how these guys had done everything else and this was a fallback position, he’d been fairly certain they wouldn’t be prepared for something like this. Especially since they weren’t protecting themselves so much as hiding from the local authorities, who were looking for them because of all the mayhem they’d caused.

Taylor moved carefully through the hallway, gun in hand, listening hard. This was a huge risk, and he knew it. If they saw him and it turned into a shootout, he’d be stuck in a place where he hadn’t studied the layout, outnumbered, and almost certainly outgunned.

Not an ideal situation.

The place was a dump. Crumbling walls, trash everywhere, and signs of overall neglect. Any sergeant Taylor ever served under would have had his ass if he’d let his barracks get in a condition like this. Taylor had worked out of incredibly poor villages, living with families in mud brick huts that had been better maintained.

Approaching a bend in the hallway, he heard voices coming his way. There wasn’t anything to hide behind. Taylor backtracked the way he had come until he found a small bathroom that he slipped inside of, shutting the door. It was a good thing he had, as the voices continued on down the hallway, passing by him. They were bitching about Caracas in general and this place in particular, and it seemed that they’d been sent to clean off the camera, which meant no one had seen him smear the concoction on the lens and that they had bought his ruse. Good, although it wouldn’t take them long to complete that task and would put two guys behind him.

He needed to move fast.

Taylor peeked out and, seeing the hallway was clear, moved faster this time in the opposite direction, checking a few rooms here and there as he went. Plan A was to find something that would give him a clue as to where the mercenaries had gone. Plan B was to grab someone and beat it out of them, but outnumbered like he was, that was a much riskier plan. If it came to gunfire, he wouldn’t be able to stay here, and it would be hard to drag a guy through the city streets to somewhere else to question him without being stopped.

Taylor’s luck ran out as he got to the third room, opening the door and coming face to face with one of the mercs. Thankfully, Taylor had at least been aware that there were people about. It seemed like this guy hadn’t even considered the possibility that someone might waltz into their headquarters and he just stood there doing an impersonation of a fish.

Taylor had his gun out, but shooting was the worst thing he could do right now and needed to be avoided unless absolutely necessary, which meant he had to immobilize him quickly. Taylor was moving the second his brain registered the merc, which was slower than he would have liked but fast enough to beat the guy to the draw.

Taylor reared back and then smashed his forehead forward into the guy’s face, stunning him. It hurt like hell, but it required almost no build-up at all. There was no telling how good his opponent was, and had he tried to pistol whip him, the guy might have managed to block it and force Taylor into a grappling situation.

Which Taylor definitely didn’t want to be in.

Even as he smashed his forehead into the guy’s face, sending him stumbling back and stunning him, Taylor was rapidly assessing the situation and saw almost instantly what he needed to do. As with most PMC guys, this guy was over-kitted, wearing a harness full of gear he wouldn’t need in the field, let alone on base. The room looked like it was being used as some kind of armory, so maybe he was planning on heading out, but it was still too much crap.

One of the things he had on was a cross-chest knife in an unclipped easy-draw sheath. These guys acted like they needed instant access to all of their weapons at every moment, but there was a reason sidearms and knives were snapped down. It made it harder for someone within arm’s length to grab them and use them against you.

Taylor was about to teach him that lesson, although he wouldn’t live long enough to make use of it.

As the guy took a stumbling step back, Taylor reached the guy’s vest with his off hand and pulled the blade out of the sheath. It was an off-hand pull, reversed in an awkward grip, so it would have been easy to knock the knife out of Taylor’s hand, but the headbutt had given Taylor an opportunity.

Taylor didn’t even bother reversing his grip. Tilting the blade up toward the guy’s chin, Taylor stabbed up, sliding the blade into his throat, the well-sharpened edge slicing through skin, muscle, and windpipe with ease before lodging against the spine, stopping its progress.

The guy’s eyes bulged out as he weakly grabbed at Taylor’s hand, more of an automated response than a conscious move. He was already dead. It just took a few seconds for the rapid loss of blood and lack of air to do its work. He locked eyes with Taylor in disbelief as he passed the final seconds of his life before his eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped to the floor.

Taylor pulled the knife out and dragged the guy out of the doorway and into a corner.

The room had a rack with a few rifles on it. Not as many as this kind of outfit would normally carry, but with guys in the field, it made sense. What this room didn’t hold was any kind of clue as to where they were. Taylor looked around the room and was about to give up on it when he heard a burst of static coming from the dead man’s body.

“Pyotr! Get your ass out here. Vulkov is calling for backup.”

Taylor rolled the man over and found a radio clipped to his belt. He needed to move. Taylor thought about hiding the body, but it was pointless. Besides the fact that there were hardly any people in the compound, so they’d be looking for him, there was a giant pool of blood by the door that he didn’t have time to clean up.

He needed to move fast. If they were heading to back up Vulkov, then all he needed to do was follow them.

Of course, he had to get out of this place first.

Taylor was still in the armory, about to leave, when two men came walking past, not running but going at a quick pace.

“Where the hell is Petrov?” one asked.

“Probably taking a dump again. Let’s go.”

Taylor waited until their voices faded before sticking his head out the door. All clear. He moved quickly, back the way he came. There was a chance that when they found Petrov’s body, they would call everything off and look for him, but that was a risk he was going to have to take. Carrying the body out into the streets of Caracas wasn’t exactly an option, and if he hid the body, they’d still see the blood and search for him anyway.

Taylor made it out of the door without running into any more of the men. He did notice his bird poop concoction was gone from the camera lens, which had a clear shot of his face. Between this and the market, they knew there was another player, which could make his job harder down the line.

Not that keeping his involvement secret from them was ever going to be possible, or part of his plan.

Taylor had just made it across the street when he saw a black SUV tear out of the compound, heading past him going east into town. Taylor sprinted to the borrowed jeep, hopped in, and took off after them, hoping like hell they were headed for Bonnie.

Chapter 6

Taylor could hear the gunfire before he rounded the corner, in spite of the midday sounds of the city. The SUV had been driving like a bat out of hell, weaving in and out of traffic, making it hard for Taylor to follow. The only thing that had worked in his favor was that people drove like maniacs in Caracas, so his keeping pace far enough back was unlikely to draw suspicion.

That and the mercs were more focused on their task than on losing a tail. Taylor pulled halfway up on the sidewalk on the inside of the corner, so he could see the street but wasn’t in the line of wherever the fire was coming from.

Four houses down from the corner, several black SUVs were pulled up in front of a worn-down tenement house, with the SUV Taylor had been following heading to join them. There were maybe a dozen mercenaries in the street, peppering the upper floors of the building with bullets while several more were banging away with a metal entry rammer at what appeared to be a barricaded door.

And not making fast progress.

There were also several bodies on the ground next to the SUVs that were already there, which were themselves riddled with bullet holes.

As Taylor watched, muzzle flashes appeared from one of the top windows, dropping another merc. The SUV Taylor had been following screeched to a halt behind their friends’ cars and the guys piled out, firing more shots into the building.

The downstairs door started to give, and it was obvious to Taylor that if she couldn’t get out through the bottom floor, there was only one other way out. He gunned the engine, swinging the jeep into a narrow alley beside the next building over. Tires screeched as he braked hard, jumping out before the vehicle had fully stopped.

He barely paused as he burst through the rickety door into the building, gun in hand. Even as he entered, he could see the mercs break through next door and pile into Bonnie’s building. It was now a race to the roof.

The startled residents, who were huddling on the bottom floor trying to avoid the gunfire, stared at him open-mouthed as he took the stairs two at a time. One of them, an old man, shouted at him in Spanish, but Taylor ignored him, laser-focused on getting up the stairs.

He burst through the access door and onto the roof, skidding to a halt and bringing up his gun as movement caught his attention, a thin figure in a black jacket landed on the far edge of the rooftop, rolling to absorb the impact.

She came up, weapon in hand, pointing her gun at him. He had his aimed at her.

Neither fired.

“You asked for me,” Taylor said. “If I wanted you dead, you’d have been bleeding out in that market. We need to move.”

Bonnie only took a second before she lowered her weapon, and the two of them took off. The mercs were hot on her heels and on the roof before they cleared the access door. Bullets sprayed behind them as they vaulted down the stairs.

Taylor and Bonnie thundered down the stairs, knowing the mercenaries would be right behind them.

“We need to …” Taylor started, but his words were cut short as they rounded a corner and came face-to-face with two mercenaries charging up the stairs.

Time seemed to slow. Taylor’s gun was already up, muscle memory taking over. He squeezed the trigger twice in quick succession. The first merc’s head snapped back, a red mist erupting behind him.

Bonnie reacted a heartbeat later, as the second merc stumbled, clutching his chest before tumbling backward down the stairs.

“Nice shot,” Taylor grunted.

Bonnie didn’t respond, pulling something off her belt and throwing it up the stairs before continuing past the bodies. Taylor wanted to warn her, to tell her that people lived here, but it was too late. The grenade went off, and Taylor picked up the distinct smell of white phosphorus. This whole building would be on fire shortly.

Not that there was anything he could do about it.

They reached the ground floor, the sound of screaming residents mixed with the shouts of the mercenaries above them as they hit the sudden blaze in front of them. If they were stupid, they’d try and jump through the fire, but white phosphorus spit burning chunks for a few minutes after it went off, making it a hazard. If they were smart, they’d retrace their steps and try to make their way back down through the other house.

As Bonnie and he approached the door, Taylor could hear shouting in Russian. Not right outside, but close by, meaning the guys upstairs were yelling at whoever was still outside.

They were going to have company when they opened the door.

“Go,” Bonnie said, seeing him pause. “I’ll lay down cover, then follow.”

Taylor hesitated, “How do I know you won’t just disappear?”

“I called you, remember? Plus, we’re out of time. Now go!”

Taylor gritted his teeth, then nodded. He crouched low and burst out of the door, sprinting for the relative safety of the building’s corner. Gunfire erupted behind him as Bonnie opened up on the men still by the far building, who had already started moving toward them.

Reaching the edge of the building, Taylor spun and brought his weapon up.

“Come on!” he shouted, firing past her.

Bonnie turned and ran, staying low. Taylor continued firing until the chamber clicked empty, forcing the mercenaries to hold their cover.

As she reached him, Taylor grabbed her arm. “Jeep. Now.”

They sprinted to where he’d left the vehicle. Taylor jumped behind the wheel while Bonnie vaulted into the passenger seat. The engine roared to life and Taylor stomped on the gas, tires squealing as they tore down the alley. He yanked the wheel hard, skidding onto a parallel street as the mercenaries came around the corner, sending a wild spray of bullets after them.

Taylor had just started to slow down and was about to make a turn onto another street to ensure he lost them when he saw one of the black SUVs come tearing out of the alley behind them, swerving wildly onto the street. Chaos erupted as civilian cars smashed into each other in an effort to avoid the SUV and ran up on sidewalks causing pedestrians to panic and run in all directions.

“Hold on,” Taylor said, as he smashed the accelerator of the old jeep down and began weaving through traffic.

Even as he caused civilians to lay on their horns and swerve to avoid him, it became immediately obvious this jeep was not a good escape vehicle, struggling to maintain high speeds even as the SUV, now joined by two others a little further back, began to close on him.

Bonnie leaned out the side of the jeep and fired a few times. Considering both the vehicle she was in and the one pursuing them were swerving through traffic, she made some incredible shots, as bullets cracked the windshield of the pursuing SUV.

Unfortunately, that was all it seemed to do, missing the driver, who had been her real target. Taylor jinked left and right, trying to find an option to lose them, since just swerving onto a side street would slow him down more than it would them.

They were persistent and decent drivers, managing to miss the mangled traffic he was leaving in his wake. The SUV continued gaining on him, finally catching up. Taylor was blocked in by a large box truck and, for a moment, couldn’t swerve aside, letting the SUV smash into the rear of the jeep, jolting him and forcing him to grip the wheel hard to keep from losing control.

“Hold on,” he warned, spotting a narrow alley up ahead.

He wrenched the wheel, smashing into two trash cans and sending them careening down the tight passage. Behind them, the lead SUV attempted the same turn but took it too wide and smashed into a street vendor’s cart, scattering some kind of cooked food and metal debris.

The other SUVs had caught up by this point and passed their impaired friend, continuing the chase. Across from the alley, Taylor saw a construction site and decided it was worth a chance. The jeep shot out of the alley, through traffic, barely missing a car occupied by young women who looked wide-eyed as Taylor passed within millimeters of their car.

He had hoped that one of the SUVs would be less lucky and get t-boned as they tried to follow him, but both made it through, as did the now very dented SUV that had pulled away from the remains of the vendor’s cart and rejoined the pursuit, albeit further back.

Workers scrambled to get out of the way as he blew through the chain-link fence that was blocking the construction site from the street. Taylor dodged workers and stacks of construction supplies, looking for something he could use to divert the mercs. The jeep skidded at a sharp angle, creating a shower of gravel, as he turned hard to go between two half-finished buildings.

Bullets zipped past them as guys leaned out the windows, firing wildly. Both Taylor and Bonnie were ducking low in the seats.

One of the SUVs missed the turn, putting it further behind, but the other was hot on his tail and closing. Taylor saw a load of bricks being pulled up to one of the buildings with a long rope tied off, he swerved, taking out the post holding the rope, and floored the accelerator.

Bonnie looked straight up, her mouth agape as a shower of bricks started to come down. Taylor managed to just get past it as the bricks crashed to the ground, smashing into the SUV following them, shattering the front window and causing it to slow down while they kicked the broken windshield out, allowing Taylor to build up a lead as the third, and only undamaged SUV, tried to get around it and continue the pursuit.

Taylor swerved hard, avoiding a parked bulldozer, and crashing through another gate, screeching the tires as he swerved hard to join traffic. The three SUVs were behind them, fairly spread out with the farthest almost out of sight, but still back there.

Taylor could see a freeway ahead and gunned it, taking three lanes at once and drifting slightly as he took the sharp right before gunning it, hitting the on-ramp and getting onto the less hectic freeway.

The SUVs stayed with him.

“Shit,” he muttered. “This was a mistake.”

“They’re persistent bastards,” Bonnie said, looking over her shoulder at them.

He had hoped he would have lost them on that turn, and not losing them made getting on the freeway a mistake. The SUVs were closing the distance between them quickly, and there weren’t enough obstacles to divert them. Taylor started looking for a way off the freeway, but they were on a bridge, and the only way off was a straight drop to the street below.

Taylor whipped around a large truck, trying to put it between him and the SUVs. He lost sight of one, but the other two pulled in tight behind him. One tried ramming him from behind, but at the first tap, the SUV almost lost control and nearly went over the side of the bridge.

The truck had started to slow down and Taylor was planning on steering hard to move into the far lane of traffic, where a small bunch of cars would make good obstacles. He ditched that plan, however, when he cleared the truck only to find the third SUV, the one with the huge dent in the front from the food cart it had hit earlier.

Taylor and Bonnie both braced as it swerved across the path of the truck and slapped into the side of the jeep. Clearly, they hoped to put Taylor over the side of the bridge, but just as it hit them the bridge ended and was replaced by a tall concrete barrier. Sparks flew as the jeep skidded along the side of the barrier.

The merc in the passenger seat lifted his gun, clearly happy to have a clean shot at both Taylor and Bonnie.

Taylor slammed on the brakes and the SUV almost smashed into the wall itself before overcorrecting, fishtailing the other way, and narrowly missing the truck which was desperately trying to get out of this pack of insane cars.

As soon as the SUV was clear, Taylor hit the gas again.

“Hang on,” he shouted as he wrenched the wheel hard, cutting across all lanes of traffic, down a ditch median and up into oncoming traffic. Car horns blared and cars swerved wildly to avoid the jeep. The three SUVs stayed with him, however.

Taylor didn’t leave it at that, though, and continued across the busy lanes of oncoming traffic and off the roadway entirely, down a steep embankment toward a sparse tree line.

“Where the hell are you going?” Bonnie said.

“I have no idea,” Taylor said, braking and holding onto the steering wheel for dear life.

Bonnie turned back and started firing at the SUVs as they came over the hill. This time, she must have hit something because the front SUV veered wildly and started to roll, crashing down the hill, flipping wildly in a tight roll, occasionally smashing into the ground and catching air again.

Taylor turned hard, just keeping their jeep from rolling as the SUV flew over them, missing them by a hair, before smashing into several trees. The other two, who’d been a little further behind, stayed with him though. Bonnie continued to shoot at them, but didn’t have luck with another shot like the first one.

Taylor saw what he was looking for: a thin paved road that had been running parallel to the freeway. He’d briefly seen it when he’d crossed over into the oncoming traffic, and hoped it would take him back into the city. He needed traffic to lose these guys.

Taylor hit the paved road and turned hard, the tires finally getting a firm hold as the rough gravel and dirt gave way to asphalt. As soon as he had control, Taylor gunned it and took off back toward the town. The SUVs had a harder time coming to a stop. They both managed to keep from flying off the roadway and emulating their friend, which had been Taylor’s hope. It did slow them down and they barely managed to avoid slamming into one another.

Taylor made it back into the outskirts of the city and began turning from alley to street and back. The SUVs were behind him and closing, and were managing to make the turns with him. The alleys and streets were just far enough apart that they could either see him or work out where he’d gone each time.

They were both closing in again, to the point where they’d soon be able to try to run him off the road or shoot at him some more. Then he saw what he needed. A large truck was starting to back up and had already crossed half the alley.

Taylor gunned it.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Bonnie shouted. “You’re never going to …”

Before she finished, the jeep skidded through the quickly shrinking open space and shot out the other side. They heard angry shouts and car horns, and watched as the big truck skidded to a halt, but no sounds of a crash followed, which Taylor had been hoping for.

Still, they were clear. In the time it took them to backtrack or for the truck to move, they’d be gone. Taylor began taking rapid, counterintuitive turns to remove any chance that they might be followed, sticking to the outskirts, and heading south. For ten minutes, they rode in silence as Taylor kept swinging almost out of town entirely and then doubling back.

There was no sign of their followers.

“That was fun,” Bonnie said, smiling at him.

Taylor just shook his head at her. “That’s one way to describe it. We need to head to the airport. The sooner I can get you out of here and into federal protection, the better.”

“Agreed,” Bonnie said.

Chapter 7

They both remained alert, constantly glancing over their shoulders, on the lookout for anyone following them, but no one else appeared. Taylor had continued taking a winding path to the airport, just in case, but it seemed like they’d managed to lose them.

After a few more blocks, he finally let himself relax.

“So, who is this high-profile person in the U.S. government you did a job for?”

“Straight to business, huh?” she said with a small smile. “Can’t even buy a girl dinner first?”

“If it was up to me, I’d hand you over to those assholes and let them have their way with you. I’m only here because you’ve managed to convince other people that you’re not completely full of shit. So before I pull over and hogtie you for the Chechens, maybe you should start talking.”

“Still have that stick up your butt, I see. Fine. I was hired to take out some guy named Darryl Casall, who’s apparently a minor celebrity, although I’d never heard of him before getting the contract on him.”

Taylor was vaguely aware of him, but only because he spent time around Washington types, and the guy had made a big splash by beating a popular Democrat in a senate race where the Republican looked weak. Kara was supposed to have dinner with Mary Jane a few months previously, but her friend had been forced to cancel to do some kind of event with her mother because the party was worried about losing a valuable senate seat. For the life of him, Taylor could not remember the name of the person he was running against.

Or at least that’s roughly what Taylor knew from how Kara had explained it to him. Taylor himself didn’t follow politics or celebrities, so almost everyone involved had been an unknown name to him. His name popped up a few months later, and Taylor had remembered him from the earlier event enough for it to register.

“Didn’t he die of a heart attack a few months ago?” Taylor asked.

“Which is what I was paid to make it look like.”

“You gave him a heart attack?”

“Basically.”

“And someone in the government wanted him dead?”

“Yep. I actually didn’t know that at first. Usually, in this line of work, we don’t find out why the person is being targeted. We get a name, some info, and that’s it. Often though, it’s not hard to figure out.”

“Like when it’s a witness for or against the mob,” Taylor said.

“Don’t tell me you’re still sour about that! It was just business.”

“Being shot at doesn’t feel like business.”

“Hey, most of the time I wasn’t shooting at you at all. Had I wanted to drop you, I would have.”

She wasn’t wrong, but it still didn’t do much for Taylor’s opinion of her.

“So, how’d you figure it out?” Taylor asked, ignoring her point.

“So, something that isn’t really talked about in the business, but even though we’re not supposed to care about why someone’s gotten tagged, we often figure it out. It takes a lot of time to follow these people and work out their schedule, especially on a stealth job like this, and we’re people. We can’t help but think about why they may have been selected, what they may have done. Anyway, for famous people, usually it’s about money, but this guy wasn’t rich by any means. At least not to make my fee worth it. His marriage seemed pretty happy and I saw nothing that suggested he was cheating, so that wasn’t likely either. No real business partners, no criminal activity I could find, nothing. Really, the only thing that made sense, the only person who looked like they’d benefit from his death was the guy he was running against.”

“Are you saying a U.S. senator paid to have his opponent killed?”

“He was behind in the polls and it looked like he was going to lose. And these guys have a lot of money tied up in being a senator.”

“But you don’t know for sure?” Taylor asked. “You said you had proof that a government official was behind it. They’re not going to give you immunity for guesses.”

“I know that,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I was willing to let it go, ‘cause what do I care, but the middleman screwed up by naming him when confirming the client was happy with the job. It wasn’t direct, but it was enough to know I was right, and that should be enough for your people. Your tech people should be able to verify the emails, and I can give you the middleman, who knows the guy who hired him. Besides, everything I read about you said you didn’t really care much about procedure and what’s actually legally chargeable.”

“Fine,” Taylor said. “So who is he?”

“Richard Ellsworth.”

As soon as she said it, he remembered that was who Casall was running against. Taylor didn’t know much about politics, but he thought that Ellsworth was somewhat high in the party.

“If the job was successful, why are they after you now?”

“Maybe he found out his contact let his name slip, but who knows? It could have just been Ellsworth tying up loose ends.”

“Does that happen a lot? The client trying to take out the hitman?”

“It’s not common, but it happens. It’s actually more of a risk on smaller-scale jobs. Things high profile like this, and the level I work at, it’s almost never a problem. Which is why I lean toward his guy giving him up. Either way, he’s decided I’m a problem and has the money to try and do something about it.”

“Then why didn’t you just get rid of him? Take him out before he could come after you.”

“You think I didn’t consider that?” she said with a humorless laugh. “Killing Ellsworth would put me on a whole different radar. A candidate was one thing, but an actual sitting U.S. senator. You kill someone like him, and suddenly, every law enforcement agency in the country is breathing down your neck. Not to mention the heat from whoever else might have hired me.”

“Seems like you’ve been holding your own, though.”

“This isn’t the first group our esteemed senator has thrown at me. He’s hired other professionals, too.”

“Really?”

“Not the great ones. They generally don’t go after other professionals. The ones who were willing to take the job, I dealt with. But I can’t keep running. It makes it impossible to work. My other past clients are getting nervous. Some think I double-crossed someone or went to the feds. I don’t know if it’s just the situation or if the senator spread rumors, but the word is out I turned state’s evidence, pushing some of them to take contracts out on me, too. Ironic, that their fear I’d flipped was the thing that forced me to do it.”

“Fine, so you had no choice. But why me? Why demand I come out to get you.”

“Just playing it safe. I didn’t know who the senator had in his pocket, but I was pretty sure you weren’t. You seem like too much of a pain in the ass to be bought.”

Taylor snorted, but didn’t argue. She had a point.

Taylor pulled into the airport and found a spot in the most crowded section. The sun was going down, so it was dark, which meant they’d be harder to spot, at least out here in the open. Looking around the car, he found an old hat Flores had left dropped on the floorboard and handed it to Bonnie.

“Put this on with your hair up under it. It’ll help change the shape of your face,” Taylor said.

“That only works in the movies,” Bonnie said.

“Then why do so many celebrities do it? Besides, we don’t have a ton of choices.”

She made a sound but put the hat on as instructed. It did hide her face a little and made her look slightly different, but she was right, it wasn’t going to fool anyone trying hard to spot her. They got out of the jeep and made their way to the front of the airport, both on high alert. It didn’t seem like the mercs had followed them, but this was an incredibly obvious destination. Thankfully, there was no real sign of them. Getting to the terminal, they both kind of looked away from the pair of police officers by the front door and headed for ticketing.

They’d caught at least a little break, with the airport being completely packed, giving them a crowd to work with. Of course, that also meant a long line to get tickets, which had them standing in one spot. If Taylor had his choice, they’d stay on the move, not that it was that much of an option. The main check-in area was essentially one long hallway with some ticketing counters at one end, a security entry area at the other to get to terminals, and shops in between.

Neither had bags, which would make them stand out. Taylor’s was still in the hotel room, where he’d paid for a few days. He’d be able to call and have them ship him his clothes, which he packed back in his bag before heading out to find Bonnie that morning.

They’d have to use the shops to dump their guns before they went through the checkpoints, although knowing Bonnie, she probably had some kind of small ceramic thing she could sneak through security.

They’d made it almost to the front of the line when Bonnie reached out and gripped his arm hard. Taylor started to turn his head when she squeezed even harder.

“No. Do it slow. Six and four o’clock.”

Taylor turned slowly, leaning into her a little like they were a couple, being as nonchalant as he could. He tagged them instantly. One set of uniformed cops and one set of guys in suits with very obvious bulges on one side of their jackets. Probably some kind of airport security. They were searching the crowd, going from group to group, and it wasn’t hard to guess what they were looking for.

“Shit. Did they pick us up from the shootout at the market?” Taylor said, almost whispering in her ear.

“Or someone gave them my picture. It’s not out of the question that Ellsworth paid off the cops and brought in mercs to make sure he got me. But you don’t bring out this much security just for regular security checks,” she said, nodding slightly in another direction.

Taylor had already picked them up. More uniformed cops and airport security. They were starting to build up, and it looked like they were setting up some kind of perimeter. It wasn’t just for the ticketing area, though, and looking down the long hall, he could see more starting to flank either side all the way to security, which meant if they did know Bonnie was here, they didn’t know exactly where.

“We’re not going to make it through security. If they’re looking for you, they’ve got your picture and your name flagged. Even if we can buy tickets, security will flag you.”

“I have a clean passport that might work. You?”

“Just the one, but maybe they haven’t flagged me.”

“Are you willing to take that chance?” she asked.

Taylor looked at the slowly increasing number of security guys starting to fill the terminal.

“No. We need to get out of here, but the front doors are out.”

There were already six sets of police officers on the front doors, checking everyone who came in or went out. Maybe they got through coming in, but they weren’t going to just dip their heads and be able to sneak out.

“Follow me,” she said, taking his hand and leading him down the center of the hallway, so they were crushed in by people on all sides.

Stopping a few feet from the security check-in line, she let go and put a hand to his chest, telling him to stay there, and moved into the security line itself. Taylor had no idea what she was planning, but considering that she’d managed to stay on the run her entire adult life without being detected, and got out of the U.S. while on multiple federal watch lists, meant that he could give her some leeway.

She bent down to tie her shoe and Taylor saw her lift up her pant leg and slip something that looked an awful lot like a small gun into the palm of her hand before standing back up. In front of her were two guys carrying backpacks who were completely tatted up. Taylor didn’t know South American gang symbols, but if he had to guess, he’d say they were at least affiliated. They looked rough either way.

Which is why it was surprising when she kind of looked off in the distance like she was distracted and then leaned straight into one of them, bumping him hard, stumbling slightly and putting a hand on his shoulder for balance.

In a weird high-pitched and bubbly voice, she said, “Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you there.”

The man’s expression went from annoyed and angry to slightly amused as he took actual notice of her and looked her up and down.

“No problem, gringa. You lost or something?”

“Maybe just a little. I haven’t been to this airport before except when I flew in last week, and I’m trying to figure out the gates. I’m headed back to Miami. Where are you guys headed?”

“You don’t say. Us too.”

“Ohh, are we on the same flight? I’m on … uhh, flight seventeen-ten, I think. Whatever the seven pm one is.”

“Yeah, that’s us too,” his friend said, the two exchanging a glance.

“No way!” she said, leaning hard into the friend who she was still holding onto, her other hand grabbing his backpack slightly as she play-shoved him. “Maybe we can all sit together and have some fun once we’re up in the air.”

“I could use some fun,” his friend said.

“Good. I love Latin men, and you’re both so strong,” she said, letting go of the backpack and reaching over with the hand that had been holding the gun a moment ago to stroke his chest. “I brought my stupid boyfriend on this trip, but he’s been such a drag lately. I was planning on dumping him when I got home, but let me see if I can get rid of him and change seats. Which ones are you guys in?”

She grabbed at their tickets and looked real quick, not taking them out of the guys’ hands.

“Okay. Let me get rid of him and I’ll see you at the gate.”

“No problem,” one of them said, and they were both leering like they’d won a prize.

She gave them a little wave and flounced back to Taylor, pulling him back down toward ticketing away from the guys.

“How’d you know what flight they were on?”

“I saw the ticket one of them was holding. Now shut up and be ready.”

She’d slowed down and was leaning in close like they were talking while the guys made it to the front of the line for security. They both kept looking back over to where she and Taylor were standing, so Taylor tried to look annoyed and not stare too much at them, lest he give away whatever game she was playing.

The guy whose backpack she grabbed walked through the metal detector, which started buzzing immediately. Both guys looked confused as he reached into his bag, trying to figure out what was going on, and coming out with a small gun, looking almost as shocked as the security guys were.

The police at the checkpoint reacted instantly, pulling their weapons and shouting in Spanish. The men who’d been setting up the perimeter around the departures area broke from their position and ran toward the shouting and the alarm.

Bonnie had clearly scoped the place out because as soon as the guards against the closest wall ran off, she yanked Taylor hard as she ran toward a set of doors, saying, “Now.”

It was a good call, as most of the police and security people pulled in by her little stunt had been from this side of the airport. The front door still seemed well covered.

Taylor followed Bonnie through the doors marked as an emergency exit and into a surprisingly dimly lit service corridor. The shouts and noise from the terminal faded as they moved quickly down the tight hallway.

“That was clever,” Taylor said.

“You pick up a few things when you’re always on the run.”

They rounded a corner and practically ran into two more security guys, who were hustling in the other direction, probably toward the commotion at security. This was a secure area, and the way he and Bonnie were running, there was no way to talk their way out of this, even if they didn’t have her picture.

In a flash, Taylor closed the distance to the first guard, pulled his gun, and smashed the butt of it upside the guy’s head, sending him bouncing off one of the walls before clattering to the ground. They needed to take these guys out, but starting a shootout seemed like a good way to tell people where they were. Besides, this was just a guy working his job. No reason to kill him.

Bonnie disabled the other with a lot more style, spinning and kicking out, placing her boot straight in the center of his chest. He was a big guy, but it had enough force to knock the wind out of him. She followed that up with a jab to the throat and then a mean right hook that sent him gasping to the ground. A last kick made him go slack.

There was another exit sign at the end of the corridor beyond the downed guards, and the two of them sprinted for the door. They both knew the sooner they could get out of these tight confines and into the open, the safer they’d be.

The doorway led outside into some kind of delivery or loading area where a chain link fence separated it from what looked like the main part of the parking lot.

“At least we’re close,” Bonnie said.

They started toward the fence when Taylor heard the rumble of a poorly tuned engine. He pulled Bonnie down behind a stack of boxes and containers, pulling her in close. She grunted as she hit the ground and started to complain before Taylor put his hand over her mouth. A second later they caught a glimpse of an open-air cart thing a worker was driving, hauling some kind of container.

They held their breath as he stopped a few feet from them and unhooked it. After what seemed like an eternity, especially considering they’d left two unconscious men in the hallway not a hundred feet away, the guy got back on his trolley and drove away.

“That was too close,” she said.

“No kidding. Let’s get out of here.”

They managed to climb over the chain-link fence and did a fast walk to the parking lot. The last thing they needed to do was actually run, since it would draw attention.

Not that Taylor thought they were going to get away clean.

“Cameras,” Taylor pointed out, nodding towards the surveillance devices mounted on light poles.

Bonnie shrugged. “Not much choice. We had to get out of there.”

They got into the parking lot and sped up, weaving between the cars toward where Taylor had parked the jeep. And where the next bump in the escape plan showed up.

Several of the mercs, some of whom Taylor thought he recognized from the shootout at the boarding house, were at the vehicle, rifling through it.

“Thought we lost them,” Taylor grumbled.

“They had to know this is where we were headed,” Bonnie said. “And they knew what the jeep looked like.”

They slowed their pace, and Taylor started to divert them back toward the airport while he tried to figure out what to do next, when he saw police officers coming from the terminal toward them.

“Great, just what we need.”

The last thing Taylor wanted was to get caught in a shootout in a very public place.

“We can use this,” Bonnie said, grabbing his hand and leading him surprisingly to the police.

As soon as they saw her, the police started shouting and running toward them. Bonnie stopped cold and ran the other way, Taylor hot on her heels. He saw her plan, and it might work.

As they got close to the jeep, the two ducked low, putting cars between themselves and the police, and veered off, crouch-walking to stay hidden as they tried to cut a wide angle left.

This wouldn’t have worked if only the police were chasing them, since it wouldn’t be hard to figure out what they were doing, but just about the time they ducked down, the shouting officers drew the attention of the mercs, who reacted just as stupidly as Bonnie had probably hoped they would. Considering how the mercs reacted the last time they’d run into the locals, it was almost a foregone conclusion how each group was going to react.

Neither side bothered to negotiate or figure out what was happening. Everyone just drew their guns, with the police, who’d at least been ready for trouble, getting off the first shots. The mercenaries responded with their usual wanton destruction, sending a flurry of bullets back that dropped one officer instantly. The remaining cops dove for cover and returned fire.

“Let’s go,” Taylor whispered, already moving.

They made their way low through several more rows of cars, checking handles. It was a long shot, but people were careless. It paid off as one of the car doors Bonnie pulled on opened. She was inside and her hands were already under the dash before Taylor got in. Thankfully, these were all very old model cars without the electronics and fancy anti-theft devices found in newer models.

She had it hotwired and they were pulling out of the parking lot, still staying low, while the shootout continued behind them.

“Let’s hope they’re too busy with each other to follow us,” he said.

Bonnie didn’t respond, her focus on the road as she navigated out of the airport, slowing down as a line of police cars came roaring in from outside of the airport, although if they were in response to the gun at security, the unconscious officers, or the firefight in the parking lot, Taylor would never know.

They drove like people who were trying to get away from a scary situation, just civilians running from trouble. Or at least that’s what Taylor hoped it looked like.

And then they were out, back on the streets of Caracas, right where they’d started.

Chapter 8

Bonnie insisted she had a place to go, but as they neared the outskirts of Caracas, headed out of the city, Taylor became less sure. With the airports off limits, he was a little unmoored, but just wandering the jungles with a mass murderer didn’t seem like the best option he could choose.

Maddeningly, she just kept driving. The outskirts of Caracas gave way to rougher terrain, dusty roads winding through sparse vegetation. Neither spoke much outside of Taylor’s complaints.

The further they went, the harder it was to see as they took narrow roads, although he was being generous calling them roads. Dirt tracks in the jungle were more like it. It would have been precarious during the day, but with the sun down, it was almost impossible to navigate.

As Taylor was about to tell her to just turn around, Bonnie pointed the vehicle down a dirt track branching off the main road. An abandoned farmhouse came into view, its weathered boards bleached gray by years of sun and neglect.

As they got to the building, she pulled around back and parked behind the structure, hidden from the road. Although, anyone just stumbling across this place seemed incredibly unlikely. Bonnie got out and walked up to the side door, produced a key from her pocket, and let herself in. Taylor followed, hand near his weapon, wondering what the hell was going on.

Inside, the farmhouse was musty and dim. Bonnie flicked a switch, and a generator hummed to life, illuminating the space. Shelves lined one wall, stocked with canned goods, water jugs, and ammunition boxes. A battered couch sagged in one corner.

“Safehouse,” Bonnie explained, collapsing onto the couch in a cloud of dust. “Set it up as a fallback.”

Of course, she did. Taylor did a quick sweep of the house, checking windows and exits, but as expected, the place was buttoned up tight.

“What’s the plan?” Bonnie asked from the couch when he walked back into the main room, eyes half closed as she leaned her head against the wall. “I need some rest before we go on.”

Taylor leaned against the wall, considering their options. “We keep moving overland. Try to get out through another city, maybe push as far as Colombia. Hopefully, the senator’s reach doesn’t extend beyond the locals here. I know he’s rich, but paying off half a continent seems a bit of a stretch and a good way for him to get caught.”

Bonnie nodded. “Fine. Wake me in a few hours. There’s food if you’re hungry.”

“Not so fast. Tell me more about the Casall hit. I want details, ’cause this is way beyond what I signed up for.”

Bonnie sighed, pushing herself upright on the couch. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“Everything. Start from the beginning.”

“I’m not sure what else I can tell you that I haven’t already. Ellsworth was careful. Used cutouts and go-betweens to reach me. Wanted Casall gone, but cleanly. No messy bullet holes or ‘accidents’ that’d raise eyebrows. The money was right, so I got to work. Spent a month shadowing Casall. Learned his schedule down to the minute. It helped that the guy was a creature of habit.”

Taylor gave a small gesture of understanding.

“As jobs go, it was actually one of the easiest I’ve ever done. Casall already had a bad heart and was on some pretty serious medicine for it, so that was my in. I reached out to some labs I knew and had them look at the medicine he was taking and then had another one whip up some look-alikes; same size and color and even mostly made of the same medication, but with a few contraindicated ingredients that would not only neutralize his pills but turn them deadly. I even had it checked out to make sure the factory that made these pills had lines with these same chemicals, so if anyone worked out what caused the heart attack, it would lead to them assuming cross-contamination. A lawsuit for the company that made them but … fuck ’em. You have to admit that’s genius, right?”

“You realize how that sounds? You’re proud of how you murdered someone.”

Bonnie just shrugged. “Tell me you never took pleasure in a good shot, even if it ended up blowing a guy’s head off. Don’t get all prudish on me. I was doing my job.”

“They’re not even a little the same.”

“Whatever,” she said, waving a hand. “So Casall had this maid, Jenny, I think her name was. Sweet girl, really, although she owed a ton of money to bad credit card debt. She also really hated her job. Casall might have been a man of the people or whatever, but after watching him for a while, I can tell you he was definitely an asshole. So I approached her on one of her days off, told her I was a private investigator looking into him for possibly cheating on his wife, which he was definitely doing, and I needed to get proof. I offered her a stack of cash to get me into his room so I could ‘plant some bugs.’ She bought it, turned off the security system one day by ‘accident’ and snuck me into the house. I put in a cheapo bug, just in case anyone looked into her story, and switched out the medication in his bathroom. The best part was I put the fear of God in her afterward, about how she’d just broken the law, and I wasn’t going to tell anyone, but she was in as much shit as I’d be if anyone found out what had happened. She was a nervous wreck for days.”

“What’s the point of that if you’re just going to kill him?”

“Because it guarantees her silence. People will do a lot of things out of fear, but they’ll do even more out of relief. When he kicked and it was ruled a heart attack, it meant she was off the hook. No one would be looking into her. She probably thought she’d won the lottery, getting away with it and getting to keep the money. Like I said, I’m good.”

It was well thought out. Taylor had to give her that. Despicable, but the planning behind it was solid.

“If you were good, you wouldn’t have all these people trying to kill you.”

“That’s just some bullshit. I can’t believe his people were so stupid as to let his name slip. I go out of my way to not know who I’m working for, or at least not letting the target know that I know who they are, for this very reason. People who want someone killed and are willing to pay for it get very paranoid. It’s honestly what ends up getting them killed.”

“Fine. The other thing I still don’t get is why me? There are other people you had to know weren’t compromised. I mean, you trust the justice department enough to go into witsec, which suggests you don’t really think he can get someone inside law enforcement to come after you. So this ‘I know you’re not on the take’ doesn’t fly. At least not completely.”

Bonnie shrugged. “I still think he can get to people, but once I spill and enough people know about it, the people inside the government he could buy off will be too worried about it going public. Also, the person in government protection who blew the whistle ending up dead would lead to a ton of investigations, so I think they would abandon him. Before I can give my story … that’s another matter. They’re more likely to want to get me out of the way to keep any of that from going public. So, until I am with a state’s attorney and a bunch of witnesses, putting my story on tape, I didn’t want to give anyone in the federal government my location. Even if they wouldn’t go after me themselves, giving Ellsworth my location would be easy for them. You tracked me before, came closer than anyone else ever has. I figured if I chose you, I wouldn’t have to give up my location and risk compromising myself. And you proved how good you are.”

She gave him a smile that, for her, was probably incredibly genuine.

“You don’t think you’re going to convince me that you’re not a psychopath, do you?”

“You don’t always have to be an asshole, you know. I’m here, putting my life on the line, finally doing the right thing. Give me a little credit. You know, it’s not the glamorous life people imagine. Always looking over your shoulder, never letting anyone get close. Gets lonely after a while.”

“Give it up. You’re never going to get sympathy from me. Get some sleep. I want to be out of here first thing in the morning.”

She shrugged and laid her head back against the wall, closing her eyes. Taylor had the distinct impression that his words had actually stung a little, and that maybe she’d hoped for a different response.

They were up with the sun early the next morning, which was probably for the best. Had he been forced to keep driving those back roads through the night, he would have gotten turned around and ended back in Caracas or crashed into a tree.

And Bonnie wouldn’t have been much more help. She had this one out-of-the-way safe house set up, and one on the other side of town, but that was it. An hour to the west and she was as uninformed as he was, and the path she’d taken them on had gone pretty deep into the backroads of Venezuela. Getting to a major road that would lead them west, either to another city with a big enough airport or Colombia, was tricky. Bonnie did have a portable GPS system with her, but that was only minimally helpful, as it couldn’t actually tell them if the tiny dirt road they were on led back to a major road.

So they’d been forced to wait until daylight, which meant that if the mercs were looking for them, the mercs would have a head start.

Taylor had spent a lot of time leading up to sunrise thinking about what to do next. The closest city with an international airport wasn’t all that far. Valencia was maybe two and a half hours or so by car and was a viable option. Taylor thought it unlikely that the senator would have bought off the local police in multiple major cities as a precaution and even if he’d realized they’d fled town and guessed which one they were heading to, it seemed even less likely he’d have time to put his fingers on the scales of this one before they could get to the airport and onto a plane.

The timing actually made Valencia the most reasonable destination, since there was a chance, although a very small one, that after they escaped Caracas, Ellsworth might have panicked and tried to buy off all the locals in every possible city they might flee to. That would, however, take time, which meant it was more likely that the further away they chose to go, due to the time it would take them to get there, increased the risk of getting caught. That also made crossing the Colombian border somewhat of a problem, although figuring out which crossing they’d take would be tough for the bad guys.

That was assuming Ellsworth didn’t just try and buy off the government itself, which would give him the reach to not have to deal with individual cities, although with the added risk of someone in the U.S. figuring out what he was doing.

Then there were the mercs, who were certainly hot on their heels. They were the opposite problem. The closer a city was, the more likely they’d have to deal with the mercs who would try and intercept them short of their destination or possibly stop them there. Considering all the gunfights they’d ended up in with the local police, Taylor would bet they’d try and stop them short.

If he had to pick, Taylor would rather deal with the mercs over paid-off police or army, so they opted for Valencia.

Of course, they were so deep in the backwoods that two and a half hours was more like four. The first hour would be just bouncing around small dirt road to small dirt road, trying to drive roughly north, with the hopes that they’d hit a major road.

They finally got on the road that would take them to Valencia and started making good time. It was too much to hope for that their luck could continue, however, as Taylor rounded a bend in the road and saw a line of cars ahead, backed up because of some sort of checkpoint.

“Shit. How the hell did he get to the army so fast?” Bonnie said, her hand going to the gun sitting in the middle console.

Taylor reached out and grabbed her hand, stopping her.

“These are locals and there are dozens of guys up there. You’re not going to be able to shoot your way out of this. We also don’t know if they’re bought off by Ellsworth or even looking for us. If they aren’t looking for us now, shooting our way through a government checkpoint is a good way to get them to start. Let’s just see what this is first.”

Bonnie made a noise and it was clear she didn’t really buy that, but she took the gun and slid it under the seat all-the-same. Taylor followed suit, just in case they were forced out of the car and frisked.

They got in line, inching closer and closer toward the soldiers. Bonnie seemed like she was about ready to crawl out of her skin. For a stone-cold killer, she was very anxious. Taylor would have thought someone like her would always be completely cool under pressure.

They finally got to the front of the line where a burly guy with some kind of rank insignia on his shoulder and a thick mustache stepped in front of them, holding up a hand for them to stop.

Taylor pulled the car to a stop at the checkpoint and rolled down his window as the man walked around to the side of the car.

“Documentos, por favor,” he demanded, hand outstretched.

Taylor handed over Bonnie’s forged passport and visa and his very real ones issued by the State Department on very short notice at the request of Director Solomon. It wasn’t that big of a risk, because it was unlikely Ellsworth had been involved in setting up something like this so quickly and even less likely that he would have known that Taylor existed, let alone was involved, but he was still nervous. A diplomatic passport was not something they’d see at a random checkpoint in the middle of nowhere and was going to raise some red flags.

Which meant if he wasn’t on anyone’s radar before, he almost certainly would be now.

“¿Estados Unidos? ¿Departamento de Estado?” the man asked, looking at the passport before switching to English. “Americans?”

Taylor opened his mouth to respond, but Bonnie cut him off, her voice taking on a sweet, excited tone that sounded nothing like her.

“Oh, honey, tell him about your job!” she said, leaning across him. “My husband here works for the State Department. We just got married last week, can you believe it?”

Taylor wasn’t sure what the hell she was doing, but she’d already committed, so all he could do was smile and hope she wasn’t about to screw them.

“I’ve always wanted to see more of South America,” Bonnie continued. “So when John suggested we combine his work trip with our honeymoon, I just couldn’t resist! It’s all so beautiful and exciting.”

“Congratulations on your marriage,” the man said with a thick accent. “But why are you traveling this road? This is not a typical tourist route.”

“Well, to be honest, we got a bit turned around. I wanted to see some of the ‘real’ Venezuela, you know? Not just the touristy spots. I guess we wandered a bit off the beaten path.”

She laughed, the sound light and carefree. Taylor marveled at her ability to switch personas so effortlessly. It was almost unnerving.

“We should have stuck to the main roads,” Taylor said.

The soldier was looking from their documents to them and back again. His face was surprisingly hard to read.

“And what exactly does your husband do for the State Department, señora?”

“You know what? I’ve never really been a hundred percent sure. All I know is, it’s lots of meetings and paperwork.”

“I’m a financial assistant with the export trade mission,” Taylor said, glad he’d at least looked at what Solomon had set up for him, and thankful it didn’t just say ‘FBI.’

She smiled at the guard and placed her hand very high on Taylor’s thigh, rubbing her thumb in small circles as she looked at him like he was the most amazing thing she’d ever seen. It was all Taylor could do not to jump out of the car seat. The soldier looked down, clearly catching the move and seemed to relax a bit, which was probably why she’d done it.

The man stared at her a moment longer before handing their documents back to Taylor.

“You should be careful, señor, señora. There are dangerous men in the area. Russians, I think. Or something like that. They had big fights with police in Caracas. Now they run out here, causing trouble in the countryside.”

He had guessed right. The mercs picked out their next most likely destination and were trying to intercept them and being clumsy as hell about it. They could deal with that. He hoped he had been right about Ellsworth’s limitations, but these soldiers not having them flagged was not the same as Ellsworth not buying off anyone else. Local police would always be easier to purchase, and it was entirely possible the police in Valencia were bought off, even though these guys weren’t.

“Oh my,” Bonnie gasped, her eyes wide with feigned shock. “That sounds awful! Honey, did you hear that?”

Taylor nodded, trying to match her feigned concern. “We’ll be extra careful, sir. Thank you for the warning.”

“Good. Please be careful. It would not do to have Americans kidnapped. You need to go back to a major city where it is safer.” He waved them through.

“We will,” Bonnie chirped, blowing a kiss to the soldier. “Thanks so much!”

Taylor pressed on the gas pedal as the soldiers blocking the car moved out of the way, easing past the checkpoint. As soon as they were away, Taylor picked Bonnie’s hand off of his thigh and pushed it back toward her.

“You are something else.”

“Please,” she said, her entire personality shifting back. “Fooling guys like him is easy. You just have to give them something to look at. What are you so annoyed about? It worked, didn’t it?”

She wasn’t wrong. It had worked. Taylor wasn’t sure why he was letting her rub him the wrong way. He already knew what she was and he knew why this job was important. Her being a sociopath who could lie like that shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise.

And yet it was.

“You know this means we’re going to end up running into those guys before we get to the airport?” Taylor said, switching subjects instead of engaging. “Causing problems almost certainly means setting up their own checkpoints or stopping cars to try and find us. We haven’t seen all that much traffic and this is one of the bigger side roads. There’s a good chance they’ll find us before we make Valencia unless they are completely incompetent.”

“They are pretty bad at their jobs.”

“They’re just undisciplined. They managed to track you down several times while you were waiting on me.”

“You lead them to me one of those times.”

“Yeah, but not the rest. I’m just saying, we’re probably going to end up running into them again.”

“Then we’ll deal with them.”

“Yeah,” Taylor said. “I guess we will.”

Chapter 9

For the next hour, the drive was more or less uneventful. Taylor knew the mercs were out there and hoped they would run into them before they got to Valencia. Even if the locals weren’t bought off, getting into a gunfight in their city would cause the locals to come down hard, which would make getting on a plane difficult.

Taylor was on a straightaway just past a curve, with another one coming up ahead, when Bonnie said, “Shit.”

“What?” Taylor asked, looking in the rearview mirror.

Behind them and closing quickly was a dark-colored SUV. It could be nothing, as those types of vehicles were ubiquitous across the world, but Taylor wasn’t willing to bet his life on it, especially with how fast the SUV was coming up on them.

Taylor mashed the accelerator, wishing they had managed to steal something with a little more pep than the small sedan they’d grabbed. It began to pick up speed, but not as quickly as the SUV was gaining on them. Bonnie already had her weapon in her hand, but they weren’t going to be able to do fancy maneuvers like they did in Caracas to lose them. This was a single four-lane road cut through the jungle, with dense trees on either side. There was nowhere really to go.

Things got worse as they went around the curve ahead of them.

In the center of the road was a large truck, turned to block all four lanes, with its engine cover opened like it was broken down and one tire off on the back.

“It’s a trap,” Bonnie said.

“No shit.”

Taylor wouldn’t have trusted any vehicle blocking the road, but especially one with both engine trouble and a rear flat tire, while a strange SUV barreled up behind him. The mercs might as well have sent invitations letting them know to save the date for an ambush. Not that it was a terrible plan. The truck was well positioned and they’d picked a point with very thick tree cover on either side, giving hardly any room to do anything but flip around, and they’d have the SUV there to stop them.

Unfortunately for the mercs, hardly any room was not the same thing as no room.

“Hold on,” Taylor said, slowing slightly as he slid the car off the edge of the road onto the short embankment that led into the trees, aiming for the narrow space between the truck and the edge of the road. The tires kicked up dirt and gravel as he pushed the accelerator again, trying to squeeze through the gap.

He could hear Bonnie suck in a breath. It really was going to be a tight fit. At least if he was wrong, he wouldn’t be around to know about it.

Thankfully, he hit the spot just right, blasting past the truck through the tiny open space. Unfortunately, the mercs were just smart enough to have thought of that, too.

“Down,” Bonnie shouted, ducking her head down below the level of the window.

Taylor reacted before his brain caught up, which saved his life as he heard a machine gun open fire and bullets slammed into their car, shattering the windows and stitching across the panels. Most penetrated, but the shooter hadn’t thought through his position. He was by the trees, which put him on an upward angle, causing the bullets to punch through the door and up into the ceiling or slam into parts under the chassis and not penetrate.

Unfortunately, one of those parts shot up from below was the engine.

Black smoke began to billow out from under the hood and into the car itself, along with making a grinding sound. The vehicle began to slow as the car started to shed its momentum now that the engine was dead, even as more bullets ripped into the trunk. Worse, one of the tires exploded, causing the metal rim to dig into the dirt and gravel, slowing them even faster.

“Hold on,” Taylor said again as he turned the wheel hard and sent them plunging down the embankment. He saw the spot he wanted. A small section that didn’t have trees so much as thick undergrowth, which the car now tore into. That clear spot didn’t last for long and they smashed into a tree a few feet behind it, but between the gravel, the blown tire, the diagonal path, and the undergrowth, they’d shed just enough speed to keep the impact from being fatal.

They also didn’t hit it head-on, but more like glanced off of it, ripping the front headlight apart, then bounced off a tree on the other side, before hitting a third tree.

It hurt like hell, the seatbelt cutting into him hard as he was jostled from side to side and the airbag smashed into his face. For a second, Taylor was stunned, the world ringing, until Bonnie started clawing at him.

“We have to get out of here,” she screamed as she slashed the airbag away with a knife and cut his seatbelt straps.

“Go. Go,” Taylor said, pushing the words out as he regained his senses and his breath. “I’m right behind you.”

Bonnie didn’t hesitate or look back as she bolted from the vehicle, disappearing into the trees. Taylor pulled himself out of the seat and followed after her, crawling out of the passenger door, since the driver’s side was wedged against a tree, and diving out of the car before taking cover behind a tree trunk.

His thigh hurt like hell from smashing it into the steering wheel and he was going to have a hell of a bruise. After taking another moment to get a hold of himself, Taylor started to move in the direction Bonnie had gone and was now about a hundred feet ahead of him, just visible through the thick trees. He’d only made it a few steps when a hail of bullets sent him scrambling for cover again, rolling behind another tree, the whizzing of bullets only inches above him.

Taylor looked in Bonnie’s direction, who apparently hadn’t been noticed yet. She made a quick few hand signals that said she was going to move around and flank their attackers. She didn’t wait for him to respond, just turned and disappeared completely, going further into the trees.

Taylor hoped she had good luck because they had him pinned down. He began to crawl through the underbrush, keeping very low and using every bit of cover he could to move away from where he’d been hiding as bullets began to tear into the clump of trees he’d been using for cover.

He could kind of see the muzzle flashes but the coverage made it hard to actually see where the shooters were. He crawled in an arc as the fire died down, probably because they needed to see if he was actually there before they burned through all the ammo they had on them.

Through a gap in the foliage, Taylor spotted one of them. They’d spread out, most likely looking for him, which was stupid but worked for Taylor. He waited, steadying his breathing, then fired. The mercenary dropped, a clean headshot taking him out of the fight.

Taylor moved immediately, knowing his position was compromised. As expected, more gunfire erupted, with the shots tearing through where he’d been the moment before, seeking him out.

He was close to another one of them, who was helpfully giving away his position as he blazed away at where he hoped Taylor would be. He couldn’t see the entire man, from his position chest down on the forest floor, but he could see enough of him. Again, Taylor took aim and squeezed off a shot, this time catching the man in the leg, the bullet hitting smack in the middle of the largest part of the thigh. The guy dropped instantly, his eyes locking on Taylor for a moment before Taylor made sure that he would never look at anyone ever again.

Taylor started to roll away but was forced to pull himself up as close to a nearby tree as possible as gunfire cut through where he was sitting. The second shot had been one too many and he hadn’t moved away fast enough. Bullets tore into the thick tree that was the only thing standing between Taylor and death.

He had a rough idea where the shooters were and waited, hoping they continued to be as tactically stupid as they had been up to this point. Sure enough, one fell silent, and then the other, the tell-tale sound of a magazine sliding out of the weapon audible now that the gunfire had ceased.

Had they been smart, they would have rotated firing, so one of them could keep sending bullets downrange as the other swapped mags. Thankfully, they weren’t that smart.

Taylor popped up as one of them started to rack the bolt on his rifle. He didn’t have time to aim and only caught the man’s shoulder, sending him spinning. It wasn’t going to kill him, but maybe it would take him out of the fight for a bit. Instead of finishing his reload and pinning Taylor again, his friend wasted valuable seconds looking at his fallen comrade.

He didn’t pause long enough for Taylor to get his weapon on target and take him down, but he did give Taylor enough time to sprint toward a new position, a depression that might have been a small creek of some kind. Taylor rolled into it and used its lower position to move perpendicular to the last shooter, who was blazing away at the point where Taylor had dropped to the ground again, like he’d have stayed there, just waiting for a bullet to find him.

Idiot.

Taylor arm crawled fast, using the sound of the guy’s firing to tell him where he was in relation to the shooter. There was a brief pause in the gunfire, followed by a clunk and then the fire picking back up again. If he had to guess, instead of reloading, he just grabbed the already-loaded dropped rifle.

Maybe they’d already burned through the easy-to-reach mags. One of the many reasons spray and pray was a bad way to conduct combat operations.

Taylor scrambled up the side of the trench and took a moment to aim. Long enough for the guy to realize he’d been flanked, but not enough time to do anything about it. All he could do was widen his eyes as Taylor punched a bullet through his temple.

He would have preferred a body shot because aim small, miss small was a truism he believed in, but all of these guys were wearing body armor.

For a moment, Taylor held still as he heard the sound of a burst of gunfire, but he couldn’t track down where it was coming from. In heavy trees like this, sound bounced around, making positioning difficult. There was a shot from another weapon, a pistol from the sound of it, and the automatic fire cut off.

Bonnie, he assumed.

The last thing he wanted to do was stumble into where she was operating without knowing where she was. There’d be too much chance for him to accidentally shoot her, or vice versa. Better to head to the point where they both knew they’d eventually find the other, near their crashed car.

Or at least he hoped she’d think to rendezvous there.

Taylor moved through the trees slowly, listening hard, since the dense foliage made it difficult to actually see anything. The snap of a twig was all the warning he had, a heartbeat before a massive force slammed into Taylor from the side, sending him crashing into the ground, his weapon flying from his grasp as he hit the ground hard. Rolling over, he found the giant, bearded face of the merc leader, Vulkov.

A small part of Taylor’s brain was impressed that someone so large had been able to move so quietly. The rest of him, however, was fighting for his life. Vulkov’s face was contorted with rage as he lunged at Taylor, trying to pin him down. Taylor remembered something Whitaker had told him and managed to get a hand inside of Vulkov’s as the Chechen tried to get his meaty fingers around Taylor’s neck.

Vulkov was on top of Taylor, straddling him, using his weight to keep him pinned. Taylor felt the air being squeezed from his lungs as Vulkov bore down on him, as he fought to keep the man’s hands away from his throat. Then, the merc made a mistake.

Maybe because he wasn’t having luck choking Taylor out, his eyes darted to the side, seeing Taylor’s discarded weapon, telegraphing the lunge he planned to make for it as he did moments later. The lunge forced him to lean down and across Taylor, who didn’t hesitate, bringing an elbow up hard into the man’s solar plexus.

The blow pushed him away from the weapon, but otherwise hardly made him flinch. Taylor followed it up with hard punches to the man’s exposed face and neck, trying to do more to keep him distracted while protecting his own head than to actually hurt him, since the leverage was not in Taylor’s favor. All he knew was that he needed to keep the man away from that gun.

One of those strikes got lucky, hitting up into the man’s nose, causing it to explode in a bloody mess. This finally caused the man to react as he rocked back, grabbing at his face.

Taking advantage of Vulkov’s momentary distraction, Taylor bucked his hips and twisted, managing to partially dislodge the mercenary. Vulkov didn’t stay distracted long, quickly recovering and grabbing Taylor by the shirt, hauling him up before slamming Taylor hard into a tree.

Stars exploded in Taylor’s vision as his head cracked against the trunk. He felt Vulkov’s hand finally close around his throat, cutting off his air supply. Through blurring vision, he saw the mercenary reach for something at his belt – a knife.

Taylor kicked out at the man’s leg and managed to make some contact, forcing the man’s hands back up to keep a hold of Taylor as his knee collapsed, but instead of falling back or letting go, Vulkov used his weight to take both of them to the ground, now pressing Taylor against the base of the tree, still squeezing the life out of him, the knife forgotten.

Taylor started seeing black creeping in at the edge of his vision, and knew he was almost out of time. Vulkov had Taylor’s right hand pressed in hard against his chest, choking Taylor out with the other hand, leaving Taylor’s left hand free. He knew he wouldn’t have enough strength in his off hand to pry the big man’s fingers off. He probably wouldn’t have with his right hand either, had it been free.

Instead, he scrabbled against the ground, searching for anything he could use as a weapon. His fingers closed around a fist-sized rock. With all the strength he could muster, Taylor swung the rock, connecting solidly with the side of Vulkov’s head. The mercenary’s grip loosened as he rolled backward.

Taylor gulped in air, wanting nothing more than to cough and let his chest inflate, but he only had a few seconds before Vulkov recovered. Spotting the gun lying half under some leaves and forest debris, Taylor dove for it. His fingers closed around the grip just as he heard Vulkov’s enraged roar behind him.

Rolling onto his back, Taylor brought the weapon up. Vulkov was already in mid-lunge, his face a mask of fury, the knife from his belt now in his hand. Taylor didn’t aim or even think, he just fired.

The gunshot echoed through the forest. Vulkov’s momentum carried him forward another step before he fell to his knees, dropping the knife as his hand went to his neck, blood spurting out through his fingers. Taylor remained where he was, gun trained on Vulkov, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. The mercenary leader gave a final, wet gurgle before toppling over on his side.

Slowly, Taylor lowered his weapon. He pushed himself to his feet, wincing as various aches and pains made themselves known. He approached Vulkov’s body cautiously, keeping his gun ready, but the merc was, thankfully, dead.

Taylor made his way back to the embankment and the crashed car, he was battered but still moving. Thankfully, he did not encounter anyone else, which hopefully meant Bonnie had finished off the remainder of the mercs. He didn’t trust Bonnie as far as he could throw her, but killing was very much the thing she was good at, and he didn’t particularly care what happened to the mercs. They’d made their beds when they took the money and started shooting up markets and occupied buildings.

As he pushed his way out of the underbrush to where the car was, he found Bonnie leaning against the banged-up side.

“What took you so long?” she asked with a small, self-satisfied smile.

Taylor shot her a brief, unamused glance. “Let’s just get out of here.”

He pushed past her and started looking through the car for any useful items, mostly scattered out of the bag he’d grabbed from her hideout. A first aid kit, some water bottles, and a few energy bars. She already had her personal bag strapped to her back, so that was about all they needed.

“We can’t linger here,” Taylor stated, stuffing the supplies into his pockets.

“They helpfully left an SUV on the other side of the stalled truck and I happened to find the keys,” she said, dangling a set of keys in front of him, some blood still visible on the edge of the keyring.

Taylor grabbed them from her and said, “Let’s go.”

Chapter 10

Thankfully, the rest of their trip to the airport was uneventful. Taylor was pretty sure they had seen the last of the mercs. If there were any more of them out there, they would be rudderless without their boss. 

Or at least, that’s what he hoped.

Taylor made his way to the airport, which was smaller than the one in Caracas but still a decent size since it handled some traffic from South America and the U.S. Enough, at least, to make it an option for them.

“I think we’ve finally seen the last of the assholes, and I don’t think Ellsworth will have managed to buy off the locals here, so we should be okay. Just keep your head on a swivel once we’re inside, in case we have to run again.”

“You don’t need to tell me how to do my job, and you’re forgetting Ellsworth might have hired a professional in addition to the mercs. They and the locals aren’t the only things we need to be on the watch for.”

He hadn’t considered that.

“You think?” Taylor asked.

“He hired me, didn’t he?”

That was a good point.

“If he did, why haven’t they shown themselves yet? Wouldn’t we have had to deal with them already?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he hasn’t hired them yet, but I bet once he hears the PMC guys failed, he’ll start thinking about it. Especially if he knows we’re on a plane back to the U.S.”

“You think he’ll hire someone if we do make it back, though?”

“Yeah. Groups like these last guys can’t operate like that inside the U.S.; they’ll draw too much of a reaction. With them gone, it’s a good bet he’ll know you’re involved now and start taking you seriously. If he’d been really smart, he would have started off with a professional, but he cheaped out and went with those idiots instead. I expect there will be someone waiting for us when we get back.”

“Is it possible to hire someone like you that fast?”

“Usually, it takes time, but if he’s desperate and already has connections?” Bonnie said, and then shrugged.

“Shit,” Taylor said, thinking.

The problem was, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do. Once she was turned over to the FBI, she was out of his hands, but even landing at Reagan, it would take some time to get her to somewhere secure.

“Nothing we can do about it now,” Taylor added. “First, let’s worry about getting out of here, then we can worry about everything else. Like you said, he won’t do anything until after he knows his mercs are gone, and that’ll take the day at least.”

“Lot of assumptions there,” she said.

“Yeah, but what other choice do we have? Keep driving? Sit here forever?”

“No, you’re right; this is our best bet. I just want you to be realistic about what we face when we land in the U.S.”

“Yeah,” Taylor said, getting out of the car and checking if there was anything he should take with him. “Let’s go.”

The SUV had been loaded up by the mercs with a fair amount of ammo, some food, and other equipment, plus what he’d salvaged from their car. None of it did them any good once they had to go through security.

They made their way into the airport, both of them with their heads on a swivel, trying to look in every direction on the way in. There were no obvious signs of an ambush, but considering all the bullshit they’d had to deal with so far, Taylor wasn’t sure that meant anything.

The second complication came at the ticket counter itself. He should have known there would be no direct flights to the U.S., but the best he could muster was tickets to Dulles by way of Bogota, Colombia. He got the tickets because, again, what could he do? However, Bogota was a big city and Ellsworth might have connections there. At the very least, once the mercs’ bodies were found, they’d be able to work out where Taylor and Bonnie were headed. From there, it wouldn’t take much work to determine which flight they were on.

Once they got their tickets, they had to get rid of their weapons, since they weren’t going to be able to get through security with them. They took a meandering path through the airport, stopping to look at all of the crap in every single one of the little shops, mostly to buy time until they had to go through security and to their gate, but also to scope out as many people in the building as possible.

There wasn’t any sign of an ambush this time, which Taylor wasn’t surprised about. As with everything else, there just hadn’t been time for anyone to get any kind of response together after they found the mercs’ bodies. Just sorting that mess out alone, finding out who they were, who else might be out here, would take hours all by itself.

Compared to how on edge he was, however, Bonnie seemed almost at ease. Completely carefree.

“How can you be so calm about all this?” Taylor asked as they looked through some crap he’d never buy.

“Because I’m a professional. You actually need to dial back the stressed-out spy routine. You’re practically screaming ‘I’m hiding something’ to anyone paying attention.”

“Everyone’s stressed at the airport.”

“Maybe,” Bonnie shrugged, clearly unconvinced. “But not everyone looks like they’re expecting a SWAT team to rappel from the ceiling at any moment.”

Taylor didn’t respond. He hated that she was right, and how good she was at this.

As the time of their flight approached, Taylor went back to one of the little shops and bought a small bag before finding an isolated, out-of-the-way corner for them.

Putting his magazines and weapon in the bag, he gestured for her to follow suit.

“Any hidden surprises I should know about? Anything that’ll get us flagged?” he asked as she dumped her weapons in with his.

She just gave him a look, like she was offended that he was questioning her abilities. Finding one of the rentable storage lockers, he purchased one and ditched the bag inside.

“Some poor bastard’s going to have one hell of a surprise when they clear out the expired lockers,” Bonnie said, still apparently having a good time with all of this.

Things were starting to go well enough that he’d almost believed they’d hit the end of their speed bumps. He should have known better.

When they reached the front of the security line that led to the gates, they handed over their passports and tickets. A beat passed. Then two. The guard was staring hard at Bonnie’s passport and then at something on the small screen next to him, then back to the passport.

“Is there a problem?” Taylor asked.

“Wait here,” the man said abruptly before getting off the stool he was on and walking over to who Taylor assumed was a supervisor. He could feel Bonnie getting tense next to him, and hoped she didn’t do anything stupid.

If something happened, they could try to talk their way out of it, but if they ran or even walked away, they would have burned themselves completely and there’d be no way back from that. They’d have to drive all the way to another country at that point, if they wanted to get out, and even that would be difficult, since her passport would be flagged.

Worse, he had a sneaking suspicion he knew what was happening. Ellsworth might not have the juice to buy out military and security at every airport in the country, but he might have found a way to still jam them up. If he’d found out the name she was using in country, which was very possible considering how closely the mercs had been able to track her, then he could have gotten her passport flagged.

Taylor could have kicked himself. She’d said she had backup identity documents at the safehouse, but they’d opted to leave those, since she wasn’t as confident in the digital footprint of them, meaning their appearing in the systems that countries used to track visitors and residents. They’d left those documents behind because of that, since the worst thing that could happen was someone finding a second set of documents on her. That would end with them in a South American prison for sure.

The security officer and the supervisor came back to the stand carrying both of their passports. Taylor could see a handful of army guys starting to collect against the far wall where there hadn’t been any beforehand. Bonnie looked like she wanted to make a run for it, and Taylor grabbed her arm to hold her in place.

“Senorita, I am sorry, but you will need to come with us.”

“What’s going on?” Taylor asked, purposefully sticking to English.

“Your friend’s passport has been flagged for additional screening. I understand we are unable to detain you with the documents you have, but your friend is under no such protections. If you will, please wait here.”

The man started to hand Taylor back his diplomatic passport, looking preemptively annoyed. As international airports go, this was a small one, only really servicing other South American countries, so Taylor couldn’t imagine he got very many diplomats through. Maybe there had been a handful of pushy Americans at some point. Bonnie looked equally worried and annoyed. What he really didn’t want was her cooped up in a room, separated from him.

“Wait. Just let’s cool things down a second and let me make a call.”

“Call whoever you want, she’s coming with us,” the supervisor said in Spanish.

“Look, you don’t want to make an incident out of this. You saw my passport, and you can see we’re traveling together. I’m on official business approved through the US State Department. I know that doesn’t mean anything here in your country, but it could mean the beginnings of an international incident,” Taylor said, also in Spanish. “How do you think some bureaucrat will react when he has to deal with the fallout from that? And what do you think he will do to the people who caused what should be a simple situation of two Americans leaving your country into a serious incident? Let’s just be calm. Let us stand over here while I make a call, and you won’t have to explain things to the person far above your pay grade, who’s about to call you on the phone asking why you made this harder than it needed to be.”

Taylor kept his voice level and stayed calm. He could see the security officer getting a little keyed up, ready for an argument, but his boss, at least, seemed to take a pause. He knew the system well enough to know Taylor wasn’t exactly wrong. He gave a nod to an empty part of the wall and Taylor pulled Bonnie over to it, so the line could otherwise keep moving. Bonnie was agitated and clearly wanted to say something, but thankfully, was smart enough to read Taylor’s face and stay silent. The supervisor never left earshot and they’d been placed in a section that put the soldiers between them and the outside.

It was a smart position, at least. Maybe they could make a run for it, but unarmed and facing guys with automatic weapons in the open, he wouldn’t put money on them getting away safely.

Taylor pulled out his phone and called a number he’d programmed in before he left the U.S. It rang a few times until someone picked up, identifying themselves as being with the U.S. mission in Venezuela.

“This is John Taylor. You should have been briefed on my being in the country. I need immediate clearance for myself and a companion to board a flight back to the U.S. We’re being held up at security and her passport’s been flagged. I believe it’s only a hold and not anything more serious. We need it cleared enough for the two of us to get on a plane in thirty minutes.”

“Wait where you are,” the voice said, and Taylor hung up.

The supervisor eyed him as he put his phone in his pocket. For five minutes, then ten, they all just stood there, the time ticking by painfully slowly. Taylor was hoping his hunch was right. It had been only an hour since Ellsworth would have found out his mercs were gone, which wasn’t a lot of time to act.

He would have had to find someone high enough in the government to flag a passport at the national level, in another city, and for that flag to be instantaneous and not have to filter through the levels of bureaucracy. Which meant he couldn’t just have his local cops do it; he needed someone in the government.

Taylor had been in enough third-world countries to know even there, where buying officials was pretty straightforward, it still took time. The higher the person, the more time it took. Ellsworth would have known he was on the clock and had to act fast. He would have found someone low-level. Someone vulnerable to being bought. And he would have asked for something simple for that first interaction, a small flag for something innocuous that could get her pulled aside and detained for a day or two.

Not like terrorism or something that would result in too many questions to his new ally. That kind of thing required more trust, since it could blow back easier. Taylor hoped it was just small enough that a request from the State Department would be enough to ignore it, maybe with an admonishment to never return to the country.

Still, at the ten-minute mark, Taylor felt he was pushing his luck. The supervisor was looking a little fed up and the military guys were eyeing him, like they wanted him to do something or let them go back to their post.

Taylor almost sighed in relief when the guy’s radio sprang to life. The supervisor took several steps back, maybe to keep them from hearing what he was being told, but the deflated look the guy had said everything that needed to be said. He looked like a guy who’d just been overruled.

Finishing his conversation, the supervisor came back and handed Bonnie’s passport to her. “You can go through to your flight, but I would suggest not returning to Venezuela again.”

“Not a problem for me,” Bonnie said, back to her carefree attitude as she took the passport and headed past security.

Taylor thanked him and hurried after her.

That had been way too close.

They made it to their gate, but instead of sitting with the crowd and waiting for the plane, Taylor grabbed Bonnie’s arm and guided her to a quiet corner, away from as many people as possible.

She looked like she was going to ask something, but he held up a finger, silencing her as he again pulled out his phone and dialed another number.

“Solomon,” the voice on the other end answered.

“It’s Taylor. I’ve got the package and we’re coming home.”

There was a pause before Solomon spoke again. “Do you know who the original buyer was?”

Taylor was glad Solomon picked up that he hadn’t used her name or specifics.

“Yeah, and it’s big. Bigger than we thought.”

“Who is it?”

Taylor glanced at Bonnie, who was pretending not to listen. “I’d rather not say on an unsecured line. We’ve run into some issues with the buyer purchasing local government assets here. I think we’ve dealt with it, and we’ll be on a plane in the next twenty minutes, but he’s got juice in the U.S. He may not have anyone in your office directly, but I guarantee he’s got someone in the Bureau, and he’s going to know what plane we’re on and when we land.”

“Does the buyer have that kind of influence to act on that?”

“Absolutely, which means we’re going to need the cavalry in place for when we land.”

“Where and when?”

Taylor gave him the details of their arrival but held back on specifics. “That’s all I can say for now. We’ll fill you in when we’re home.”

“Understood. We’ll be ready,” Solomon said before ending the call.

Taylor pocketed his phone and turned to Bonnie. “Let’s go. Our flight’s boarding soon.”

Chapter 11

Taylor closed his eyes almost as soon as they were on the plane and it was in the air. He’d learned in the service that you never knew where your next bit of shuteye was going to come from, so get as much of it as you could whenever you could.

If anything, his work with the bureau had been even worse. Many of his cases kept him going for twenty or more hours at a time, and this one had been no different. He’d been go, go, go, since the minute he’d touched down in Caracas and he needed some rest. Bonnie wasn’t going anywhere, not sealed in this tube, and she wasn’t likely to kill him in his sleep, considering, and there were no weapons to take from him anyway, so for once, he could sleep without having to worry about her.

Or so he’d thought.

He’d only had his eyes closed for a couple of minutes when she started fidgeting. She’d move this way, then that, forward, back, sit up, push her chair back, buckle and unbuckle her seatbelt. It was endless and half the time she bumped him when she moved. He tried to ignore it, but when it stopped, it only made it worse.

His eyes were closed, but he could feel her staring at him, like she was willing him awake.

He popped one open and confirmed it. She was just sitting there, facing him, her eyes boring a hole in him.

“What?”

“Can’t sleep on planes. Too many people around,” she said, almost nonchalantly, like she hadn’t just been doing a whole jig in her seat.

Taylor grunted. “Then look out the window.”

She didn’t take his suggestion.

Instead, she seemed to take his being awake as some kind of invitation. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something. After our first … encounters, I did some digging. Saw you had an adopted daughter from Belarus. Then, a newborn. How’d all that happen? Seems like you only met your wife five, six years ago.”

“I don’t want to talk about my family,” he said, as firmly as he could to make sure she understood he was serious.

Again, she didn’t take the hint. “Why not?”

Taylor sighed, sat his chair up, and turned to face her. “You’re kidding. Considering who you are and what you do? Why do you even care? We’re not friends.”

“We could be. I actually like you, Taylor. It’s one of the reasons I never came after you, even after I healed from my escape.”

“Great. Thanks. I appreciate you not murdering me,” he said, leaning back and closing his eyes again.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant … you’re not a bad guy. Most people I’ve dealt with, had to go up against, the time someone’s chased me, they were like Ellsworth. They hire idiots. It was … refreshing to face a professional. Though I’d have preferred if you were a little less proficient at your job.”

“I bet.”

“Don’t be like that. I know you think I’m trash, but you know my back-story. How I got here. I didn’t have a lot of choices.”

“You’re joking,” Taylor said, opening his eyes again. “You definitely had choices other than murdering people for money.”

“What, work at some crap minimum wage job? I had to get out of my shitty life. I had skills, and I used them.”

Taylor just shook his head and closed his eyes. What was the point? Bonnie, however, wasn’t giving up.

“Tell me something, Taylor. Those villagers you displaced in Afghanistan, the freedom fighters you killed … how do you think they saw you? Just another Western invader, right? Do you think they’d see you any differently than how you see me?”

“That’s not even remotely the same.”

“Isn’t it? You dealt with terrorists, right? You know what they’re like.”

“You have no idea what I dealt with!”

“I read up on you. I even managed to get some of your redacted files from the DOD …”

“How?” Taylor asked, surprised and a little appalled.

“Doesn’t matter? So yes, I do know what you dealt with. But do you think those guys were born terrorists? Not everyone who fought for him was like the guy who held you. A lot of them were people with grudges, who felt you and the rest of the West forced them into it. I met my share of them and I can tell you they felt as vindicated trying to stop you as you felt trying to stop me. Do you think every village you guys bombed, house you blew up, person you shot was a radical true believer? You guys killed a fair amount of kids, what terrorism did they do? So maybe cut me a little slack. Face it, Taylor. You’ve probably murdered more people than I have.”

Taylor didn’t say anything; he just stared at the seat in front of him. Part of him wanted to fume, to be pissed, but he’d come to terms with a lot of what he’d done already. Was she wrong? No. But war was war. Innocent people got hurt. Trying to say a soldier was the same as a paid killer was ridiculous.

Which made him wonder why she’d hit such a deep nerve.

For a long time, he just stared at the back of the seat, trying to ignore her, trying to put things back in check. He didn’t look at her and hoped she’d decided now that she’d scored some points she could take a nap or something.

Instead, she said, “You talk in your sleep.”

“What?” Taylor said, so surprised by the non-sequitur that he forgot about the earlier slight and turned to look at her.

“At the safe house, when you got those couple of hours of sleep, I could hear you talking. Barking orders one minute, begging the next. Telling someone to stop.”

Taylor turned front again, trying to ignore her. He’d thought he’d stopped. Whitaker hadn’t said anything for a few years and he didn’t really remember his nightmares like he used to. He’d assumed that meant they had gone away.

Or he’d hoped that was what it had meant.

“I also saw your scars when I was trailing you last year. What they did to you …”

“That’s in the past,” he cut her off.

“Is it?” Her eyes bore into him. “Because from where I’m sitting, it doesn’t look like it.”

He didn’t like how much she was getting into his head. It made his skin crawl.

“I’m doing the right thing now,” Bonnie said after a long silence. “That should count for something.”

Taylor studied her reflection in the seat back entertainment screen. He could see the need there, the desperate desire for approval. Or maybe absolution. She was a game player, though. That much he knew. She’d manipulated people professionally for the longest time. He thought he was a good judge, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think he was immune.

“You’re doing it to save your own skin,” he said flatly.

“True,” Bonnie admitted. “But I’m still doing it. My motives don’t change that fact.”

“You want a pat on the back for turning on the people you call corrupt and evil? The same ones you worked for?”

“A lot of bad people are going to get caught because of me.”

“And that makes up for all the innocent people you’ve killed? You don’t get to wipe the slate clean that easily.”

Bonnie fell silent, leaning back and turning to look out the window. Taylor leaned back and closed his eyes. Now, she was the one hurt by the truth of how things were.

But then, why did he feel bad about it?

Taylor managed a little sleep on the flight back, although there was a tense moment when he woke up to find her not in her seat.

He had been just about to notify the flight attendant that he was a federal agent and he had a dangerous prisoner on this flight who had escaped when Bonnie came out of the bathroom. She must have read the look on his face easily, which for some reason he found extremely annoying.

“Did you think I jumped out of the plane? I’m not D.B. Cooper,” she said as she slid back into her seat.

“I was just surprised you weren’t in your seat. I’m not that light of a sleeper.”

“So you thought I sneaked past you so I could get away? Where would I go? You’ve had a busy few days and you’re doing me a favor by even being here, getting me to your people without letting me get killed in the process. Did it occur to you I was just being nice and trying to let you get more sleep before the clown show started?”

He didn’t say anything to that, and she snorted.

“Damn, I know you hate my former profession, but I’m still a person, Taylor.”

“Whatever,” he said, now feeling a little worse about the shot he had taken earlier.

Of course, the very fact that he was feeling any guilt or sympathy for a mass murderer was insane. He kept to himself for the rest of the flight, but didn’t fall back asleep after that. It was boring, since he had brought nothing with him on the flight and the plane safety card only offered so much in-flight entertainment.

He almost cheered when they finally landed at Dulles and the cabin lights flickered on. It was nearly midnight and Taylor was ready to just drop her off and get home to Whitaker, putting this whole ordeal behind him.

“We’re just about done,” Taylor told her, breaking the hours-long silence between them. “There will be an FBI team waiting for you at the gate. They’ll escort you to a safe house. After that, it’s out of my hands.”

“Turning me over to strangers doesn’t sit well. Who knows which of them Ellsworth has in his pocket?”

“Someone I trust will be there,” Taylor replied. “We’ll figure it out.”

“And then what? You just wash your hands of me?”

“Why do you care? I can’t be your shadow for the rest of your life, Bonnie.”

Bonnie made a face, but he ignored her, turning his phone on to see if there were any messages from Whitaker or Solomon as the plane went through its final taxi.

He froze as messages began to pop up.

“What is it?” Bonnie said, maybe feeling his body stiffen.

Taylor didn’t answer. He just stared at a message from an unknown number, the image attached to it making his blood run cold. It showed Kara, bound and gagged, surrounded by armed men in masks. She didn’t look scared. She looked furious.

“Taylor?” Bonnie said again, sounding actually concerned. “What happened?”

“Ellsworth,” Taylor said, handing her the phone to see the message. “He has my kid.”

Bonnie looked at the picture and read the message, although it wouldn’t be hard to figure out what it said. They wanted Bonnie and they’d grabbed his kid to ensure Taylor brought her to them. They wouldn’t hurt her if he did what they said, but if he didn’t, blah blah blah. The usual threats.

The only surprising part in it was the statement that they would know if he went to the FBI, that they had agents inside the bureau who’d be watching. Taylor might normally not have believed that, but a sitting senator having a few agents in his pocket was not out of the realm of possibility, and definitely something he had to take seriously.

Another message popped up as she handed the phone back to him from Joe Solomon telling Taylor they were at the gate and would wait for him to turn Bonnie over, to keep from causing panic by boarding the flight with armed officers.

“That address is on the outskirts of D.C. I think,” Bonnie said, causing Taylor to give her a questioning look. “I’ve used that area before to stash stuff. Probably not a coincidence. They’ve researched my career.”

“Yeah,” Taylor said, non-committally.

He was trying to figure out the play. Turning her over wasn’t going to work, not if Ellsworth’s people found out and it got Kara killed, but neither was just doing what they said.

“What are we going to do?” Bonnie asked.

“We? We’re not going to do anything. There are people at the gate waiting to take you into witsec. I’ll drop you off, then I’ll go deal with this.”

“You can’t just hand me over,” Bonnie said. “You saw the message. They have someone in your agency and they will know if I’m brought in. What are the odds that person is also supposed to get rid of me as soon as I’m in a locked room and alone?”

“I’ve got a friend I trust. She’ll watch you while I take care of this,” Taylor said, praying that he could convince Whitaker to keep her out of the system for a while.

“I don’t know this friend and I definitely don’t trust them. Besides, there’s going to be more than just your friend there. Word will get back. It might save me, but they’ll still hurt your kid.”

“What choice do I have?” Taylor said, trying not to yell and cause a disturbance. “If I hand you over, Ellsworth walks free and I spend a few years in federal prison. But taking you into a situation where you could get killed isn’t an option either.”

“Take me with you. We can deal with these people. You know I can handle myself and you’re going to be out on a limb with this. You’re going to need my help.”

“No way. Taking you along isn’t happening.”

“Think about it,” Bonnie pressed. “A senator with the resources to pull off a kidnapping like this? How many men do you think he has waiting for you? And he knows you’re coming this time.”

Taylor grimaced and tried to think. This was what he was good at. Coming up with solutions outside the box, unraveling these kinds of traps by finding a new angle.

And he was coming up dry.

He could only see three angles, and they all sucked. The best, or at least the most likely to not get Kara killed, was to meet them at the exchange and deal with them, since if he just turned Bonnie over, they would one hundred percent kill Kara.

And she was right. If there was anyone who could help him with this, it would be her. This wasn’t going to end in arrests and convictions. They had his kid. They were dead men just waiting for the bullet to find them.

No matter what he did, there was going to be blowback, though.

“Fine,” he said finally. “But I’m warning you now; if you even think about double-crossing me …”

“Save it,” Bonnie cut him off. “You’re gonna have to trust me, Taylor. At least for now.”

That did not make him feel any better about the situation.

Chapter 12

Washington, D.C.

They slowly made their way off the plane, stuck in the moving mass of people, as Taylor tried to think through options. They had just stepped out of the plane and onto the Jetway when he saw his option.

Grabbing Bonnie’s hand, he yanked her after him, through the Jetway door and down the stairs. She pulled her hand free but saw his plan and ran after him as they hit the tarmac and sprinted down the length of the airport.

“Stay low,” he shouted as they ran behind the wheel of a nearby seven-forty-seven.

They sprinted from plane to plane, using them as cover to get as much distance as possible from their plane, even though it would be fairly obvious where they went. The flight attendants and a dozen passengers had seen them go out the side door.

Shouts, almost drowned out by the sound of the planes, told him their efforts had been in vain. A look back over his shoulder confirmed it. An agent in the typical suit and tie, whch was the uniform of most FBI agents, was standing in the open door of the Jetway, pointing in their direction.

“We need to get off the tarmac,” Taylor said, pulling Bonnie after him, veering toward the building, barely dodging a fuel truck that was driving past.

A baggage handler was standing near a door to the building with a security badge hanging off his vest.

“Sorry, man. National security,” Taylor said.

“Hey,” the guy said, reaching for Taylor, only to find himself on the ground as Bonnie kicked the back of his knee and pushed him, sending the man toppling to the ground.

Taylor swiped the guy’s badge in the card reader, yanking the door open as shouts erupted behind them. They tumbled inside, Taylor slamming it shut. Those following them would have to go around or find someone else with a badge. It wouldn’t slow them down for long, though.

Fluorescent lights flickered overhead as they found themselves in a narrow corridor.

“This way, I think,” Taylor said as he led them deeper into the bowels of the airport.

He honestly had no idea where he was going, but they needed to make it out fast. Solomon or whoever he’d sent was probably already calling for the airport police to start locking the place down.

They rounded a corner, coming face-to-face with a conveyor belt disappearing into the wall. A bunch of workers were standing near the bottom of it, putting bags onto the conveyor, which carried them away. Without hesitation, Taylor hoisted himself up.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Bonnie muttered.

“Move!” Taylor barked.

Bonnie scrambled onto the belt behind him. They crawled forward, the mechanical whine growing louder as they entered the chute.

The belt jerked to a stop almost as soon as they disappeared into the wall, probably because someone hit a stop button. Taylor continued to crawl on his hands and knees through the darkness toward a sliver of light he could see ahead of him, his shoulders scraping against the sides of the narrow passage.

Suddenly, light flooded his vision as he burst into the baggage claim area. The area was packed with people from the last few flights that had landed. Bonnie came out behind him. She looked around for a second as everyone stared at her, and then jumped off the conveyor and ran over to the fire alarm on the wall and pulled it.

“Fire! There’s a fire! Run!” she started screaming.

That broke everyone out of their surprise at seeing them, and maybe explained why two people came out on the baggage conveyor. The crowd of people screamed and began running for the exit.

Taylor jumped off the belt and grabbed Bonnie again, hauling her into the crowd that flowed toward the exit. The fire alarm was turned off before they even got to the sliding doors, but the civilians were already panicked and the alarm stopping didn’t stop the stampede.

A few officers were outside, but there were too many people for them to control and it had happened too suddenly. Cars were zooming by, nearly hitting pedestrians, people were shouting, and it was pure chaos.

Taylor looked back, mostly to see if any officers or agents had made it there, and saw some far back down the hallway that led to baggage claim and the door out to the street.

One of those agents was Whitaker, and the two locked eyes for a moment. He could read her look, silently pleading. Taylor felt a pang of regret, but there was no turning back now. He shook his head once.

She’d have to trust him.

Outside, cars idled in the pick-up lanes, drivers out of their cars trying to figure out what was happening and trying to find their loved ones in the chaos. Bonnie broke from him, running down the line of cars toward the one at the end of the line, with nothing in front of it, blocking it. The driver was a woman standing several steps away from the car, standing on her tiptoes, looking for someone.

Bonnie slid over the closed trunk and stiff-armed the woman as she turned around to the open driver’s door, sending her flying back into the street as people pushed past her, almost trampling her in their flight to get away.

Taylor wasn’t sure he approved, but they didn’t have much choice. They had to get out of the airport before it was locked down. He jumped into the passenger seat just as Bonnie put the car in drive and hit the gas.

They sped away, dodging other cars and people. Bonnie drove like a maniac, getting around the gates and out to the freeway, half the time in the wrong lane, narrowly avoiding other cars.

It worked, though. Within minutes, they were out of the airport and pulling up onto the freeway. She didn’t keep them on it for long, taking the very next exit that led into what looked like a business area.

The airport was still busy with the last planes unloading for the night, but most of the other streets were fairly empty, which didn’t work in their favor.

“We need to ditch this car,” Taylor said.

The woman would have told the first cop she saw. It would take maybe five minutes for Whitaker to figure out what car he was in, know the plates, and put out a BOLO.

“I know,” Bonnie said, almost annoyed with the backseat driving.

She turned down a main thoroughfare that led somewhere into the city, and then made several more turns. Taylor wasn’t sure what she was looking for. He would have gone for some kind of parking structure or apartment complex, but she seemed to be heading toward a more commercial area.

She must have found what she was looking for because she pulled into a darkened strip mall with two cars still sitting in the parking lot, pulling next to a small, very nondescript older sedan.

“Let’s go,” she said, getting out and going over to the sedan.

She had the door open in seconds and was in the driver’s seat by the time Taylor was in, and she already had it hotwired. It was very impressive.

“Where to now?” Bonnie asked.

“We head to the meet. It’s the only place we know where they’re gonna be. Then, we find my daughter.”

They kept their heads down and headed in the other direction, choosing to take the Capitol Beltway around the city rather than go in the direction they came from. Bonnie was good. She kept the car a few miles per hour above the speed limit, so that she didn’t stand out from other cars, but also was unlikely to get pulled over. She did nothing erratic and nothing to draw attention to them.

Now, they just had to get to the address. Taylor finally had a chance to plug the address they sent him into his phone and look it up.

“Take a left at exit nine,” Taylor said.

“Where exactly are we headed?”

“It’s some kind of industrial area. Lots of warehouses,” Taylor said, pulling up information on the address. “We’re headed for one of them, although the map says it’s permanently closed.”

“Makes sense. A good place for a meet-up like this. Big space but indoors so not a lot of eyes, but in a place that gets a lot of traffic.”

“Probably not this late.”

“No, probably not,” Bonnie agreed. “But they’re improvising, and this is probably a location they’ve used and scoped out before.”

Taylor started looking to see if he could find some kind of layout of the site when a call came in. He wouldn’t have needed caller ID to know who it was.

“What the hell are you doing?” Whitaker demanded as soon as he connected.

“I can explain …”

“I sure hope so. Director Solomon is livid. He’s ordered a full-scale manhunt for both of you. You just ran off with a goddamn assassin.”

“You need to get him to call it off. Now.”

“And why would he listen to me? He’s not going to accept my judgment when it comes to you. We’ve burned that bridge enough times, it’s not coming back.”

“They have Kara,” Taylor said.

The line went silent for a moment.

When she spoke again, Whitaker’s tone was completely different. “What do you mean, they have Kara?”

“They have kidnapped Kara. They want to trade her for Bonnie.”

“Who has Kara?”

“Richard Ellsworth.”

“The Senator?” Whitaker asked, both confused and shocked.

“Yes. He hired Bonnie to kill a guy named Darryl Casall, who apparently was looking like he was going to beat him.

There was a pause on the line. “Darryl Casall had a heart attack, Taylor.”

“Yeah, courtesy of Bonnie. She switched out his medication.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yes. Unfortunately for her, she accidentally found out who hired her, and Ellsworth didn’t like the exposure. He brought in a Chechen PMC and bought the local Caracas police to deal with her. We managed to deal with that, but Ellsworth clearly figured out who I was because I had a text waiting for me when I landed with a picture of Kara tied up and surrounded by armed men. They want me to trade her for Bonnie.”

“I’ll have agents …”

“No,” Taylor cut her off. “Ellsworth was explicit. No warnings, no backup. He claims he’s got people in the FBI.”

“That’s a bluff, Taylor. He’s trying to isolate you.”

“Are you willing to bet Kara’s life on that? A guy like Ellsworth definitely has the connections to have someone inside the Bureau. I’m not saying they’re in on the kidnapping, but he could definitely convince someone that there was a reason to keep him informed.”

“Taylor, you don’t even know for sure it’s Ellsworth. All you have is Bonnie’s word.”

“You’re right, but I also can’t afford to ignore it either. Whoever has her brought in a PMC from overseas and bought off an entire city’s police force. Sure, it’s Venezuela’s, but that’s good enough for me, and I’m not going to risk Kara’s life on maybes.”

“You realize that he isn’t just going to let you turn her over and hand Kara back, right? If he was willing to kill his opponent and the assassin he hired, he’s definitely willing to kill you. This is a trap.”

“I do realize that,” Taylor said. “But I can’t let anything happen to Kara. She’s my daughter, Loretta. Her safety is my top priority.”

“I know, but … be careful. And keep me in the loop. I know he said no FBI, but if things go south, you need to get us involved.”

“Sure,” Taylor said, very specifically not agreeing or promising.

Whitaker made a sound that made it clear she understood what he was doing but wasn’t going to fight him on it.

“I’ll talk to Solomon and see what I can do to smooth things over. He won’t be happy, but I think I can get him to call off the hounds. Don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

“Sure,” Taylor said again. “I love you.”

Before she could say anything, Taylor hung up and pulled the maps back up, again searching for a layout of the warehouse.

“If you’re done with family time, we have work to do,” Bonnie said.

“Just drive,” Taylor replied, making it clear he wasn’t in the mood to joke. 

Up till now, this had been an errand. He’d been willing to go get Bonnie, but he wouldn’t have cared if she didn’t make it. Ellsworth made this personal and Taylor was going to make sure he paid for that mistake.

To do that, though, he needed to be prepared.

“We need to make a stop,” Taylor said as he sent out a text.

Bonnie was incredulous. “A stop? Are you kidding me? I thought they had your kid!”

“They do. But I don’t have a gun. Do you?”

Bonnie just shrugged and said, “I figured you’d grab one off somebody when we get there.”

“Yeah, I’m not doing that. If I’m going to go into a situation like this, I’m going in armed, and I’m not going to trust I can get my hands on one before I actually need it. We’re stopping to meet someone who’ll set us up. One of my guys.”

He could see Bonnie thinking for a second.

“The Mexican?”

“He’s from Puerto Rico.”

He wasn’t surprised she knew about Lopez. At the moment, the former private contractor was the only person Taylor worked with, outside of Whitaker. Lopez had run interference for Taylor during the whole incident that had put him and Bonnie up against each other the first time, so of course she’d have tagged him.

“Whatever,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “Your buddies definitely know about your boy. Do you really think they won’t have eyes on him?”

“He knows how to shake a tail. Besides, if Whitaker says she can get the FBI to back off, she will. We’ll be fine.”

Taylor directed Bonnie off the freeway toward a series of buildings he and Lopez knew. It wasn’t well populated or patrolled, so there wasn’t much of a chance of anyone pulling up on them while they got what they needed.

Just in case Whitaker wasn’t successful.

Bonnie pulled the sedan into an empty parking lot of a building that had chain-link fences all around it and signs telling people to keep out. One of the many abandoned buildings on the outskirts of the city.

A single SUV sat near the back, off to one side of the building, outside of the glare of the streetlights and almost entirely in shadow. Bonnie pulled the older car next to it, putting the SUV between them and the street.

Lopez got out of the SUV as they parked and walked around the front while he and Bonnie got out of their car. Lopez came around and intercepted Taylor, grabbing his elbow and pulling him away from the car and Bonnie.

“Boss, you sure you know what you’re doing?” Lopez said, interposing his body between Taylor and Bonnie, who leaned up against the car, arms crossed.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Taylor said, shaking him off and putting a hand on Lopez’s shoulder, redirecting him back toward the SUV. “Just show me what you’ve got.”

Lopez looked back at him one last time, making sure Taylor was serious, and shrugged. That’s what he liked about Lopez. He had the rare ability to just roll with things, instead of having to argue things to death.

Honestly, it was a refreshing change from the Bureau, where everyone had to ask why for every damn thing.

Lopez kept his eyes on Bonnie as he passed her, his hand close to the bulge on his opposite hip. Bonnie clocked it too, because she shook her head and chuckled before pushing herself off the ‘borrowed’ sedan and falling in step with Taylor. They followed Lopez to the back of the SUV. He popped the hatch and pulled a large case toward them, unlatching it and throwing the lid back.

Inside were neatly arrayed weapons. Pistols, sub-machine guns, and rifles. Taylor recognized the crate, because they’d invested in two for his small company. One, he’d gone out of his way to get legal weapons that he or Lopez, or any future guys they might get, could carry on the job. The other crate was held off-site from the warehouse Lopez was currently working out of, and kept just in case. Taylor had been involved in enough borderline encounters over the last few years to know there would be moments when he’d need weapons not easily traceable back to him.

That moment had finally come.

Taylor reached for a Glock, checking the weight in his hand.

“You’re really just taking that?” Bonnie said.

“If we go in waving rifles, it’s gonna start fast. I’d like to leave my options open, and getting lit up the moment we show ourselves isn’t my idea of smart.”

“You know they’re not going to let us walk in and try to talk our way through it, right? They’re going to gun us down the second they see two of us. Besides, they’re not going to have your kid there. I’d put money on it. They’ll be smart enough to hold her somewhere else, in case things go sideways. If you really want to keep your options open, you’ll do just that.”

Taylor grunted, but she was right. Lopez handed him a large duffle bag and he put an M4 and a couple of magazines into the bag. To his surprise, instead of grabbing the other M4, Bonnie went for the Remington 700.

“Options, remember,” Bonnie said, picking up the small hard case in a separate slot and opening it to confirm it was a scope meant for the Remington.

Taylor wanted to argue, but he assumed she knew what she was doing. They both grabbed belt holsters for the side arms, along with several magazines and boxes of ammunition before Taylor pulled the lid of the crate closed.

“We’re going to need your SUV,” Taylor said, looking at Lopez.

Lopez shot a look at the older sedan, maybe wondering why he had to give up his car, but only said, “Sure. I can get a ride.”

“Thanks. When you’re out of here, would you call in a tip about this car, so it can be picked up? We boosted it, and I’d like it to get back to the owner.”

“Softie,” Bonnie muttered, but Taylor ignored her.

“Sure, I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks,” Taylor said, pausing to make up his mind before adding one last thing. “If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow, call Whitaker. Let her know everything and tell her we’re heading to this warehouse.”

Taylor pulled up the map, and handed his phone over so Lopez could copy the address.

“Take the case with you. I don’t want all this hardware floating around, and it was too much of a pain in the ass to get it all together in the first place. Put it back in storage.”

“Sure,” he said, handing over the keys to the SUV.

Lopez pulled the crate out of the back of the vehicle and slammed the hatch down. “Be careful, boss.”

“Always,” Taylor said, getting in the SUV and starting the engine, giving his friend one last look before pulling out and back onto the road.

“You know, he might just call your woman now, right?” Bonnie said as they pulled back up on the beltway.

“He won’t,” Taylor said, not taking his eyes off the road.

“In my experience, everyone’s loyal until they aren’t. All it takes is a little pressure, and suddenly, they’re doing whatever it takes to save their own skin.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re in the situation you’re in. If you had people you could rely on, instead of seeing everyone as the next person you could use, you’d have people to back you up. Instead, what did you get? Backstabbed, double-crossed, and needing someone to save you.”

Taylor must have hit closer to home than he expected because Bonnie’s mouth opened, then closed. For a moment, Taylor almost apologized to her as she glared at him since insulting the person you expected to back you up seemed like a bad idea, but Bonnie just turned to look out the window.

Taylor just kept driving; the only sound in the car was road noise and the soft hum of the engine.

Chapter 13

Bonnie came back alive as they pulled off the freeway and into a maze of warehouses and factories that filled this small industrial area outside the city, craning her neck around, looking from building to building.

“That’s it up there,” Taylor said, pointing down toward the end of the street.

They made it past another warehouse when Bonnie said, “Pull off here. Park around back.”

It was the smart play Taylor thought as he pulled around the building. It would give them some room to operate, scope out how they were set up inside.

“Alright, let’s check it out,” Taylor said as they got out of the SUV.

“I’m not going in with you,” Bonnie said.

“What?”

Taylor tried to read people, to figure out when they would make a move or whatever, but he was frankly flabbergasted. Why would she come all this way just to bail now? It seemed too far-fetched that this was some kind of plot, and she had maneuvered him into being out here.

“Don’t freak out,” Bonnie said, reading him instead. “I saw a skylight up on the roof, and those pictures we saw on the listings page showed what looked like a catwalk. I’m going to go up and come down through the skylight to provide overwatch.”

“No way. No way am I letting you go off on your own while I go in there alone. Not happening. Not with my kid in there.”

“That’s why I’m going to do it. You want to just waltz in the front door? Unless these guys are complete amateurs, they’ll have men on those catwalks. We’ll be walking into a kill box.”

Taylor grimaced. She was right, and the fact that he hadn’t seen it just showed how much their grabbing Kara had messed with him. He wasn’t thinking rationally, and it was going to get him killed. Worse, it would get Kara killed.

“Fine, but don’t even think about …”

“Double-crossing you, or you’ll come after me? Yeah, I get it,” Bonnie said, going around to the rear and pulling out the Remington, attaching its scope. 

Taylor moved up toward the front of the building while Bonnie sprinted across the fence line toward the back of the warehouse. When Taylor looked back, he could have sworn she was giving him a look that he couldn’t decipher, before she disappeared into the shadows.

Taylor was nervous as he walked up to the front of the warehouse, preparing himself. He had been in a lot of intense situations, but he was walking into a trap and Kara was sitting in the middle of it.

When he got to the front, two men in light tactical gear emerged from the entrance. These guys were the opposite of the idiot PMC guys in Venezuela. Everything they wore was practical, not just a catalog of the latest gear from one of the wannabe suppliers. They didn’t bluster or puff up, they just eyed him while sweeping the rest of the parking lot. They were completely calm.

Whoever Ellsworth hired, these guys knew what they were doing.

“Hold up, we need to check you,” the guy on the left said.

“Like hell, you will. I’ve got the girl you want, but I wasn’t stupid enough to bring her with me. Once I know my daughter is here and safe, I’ll go get her, otherwise, the deal is off.”

Taylor matched their energy. Three professionals facing each other down. They looked at each other. He was way off the script, and they were trying to figure out what to do.

One of the guys took a step toward Taylor, who said, “You touch me, and the deal’s off. You kill me, and the cops will find her body in a few days when she runs out of air. Which means you’ll never find the evidence she has on your boss.”

Taylor didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. He stayed calm, looking the guy hard in the eyes, to make sure he got the message. Again, they exchanged glances, with the guy who had stepped forward stepping back again.

“Wait here,” the other one said, and walked several steps away, a hand going to his ear.

He kept in eyeshot of Taylor, smart enough not to leave his partner on his own, but he also didn’t want to have that conversation in close to listening ears.

Even that might have been more than he wanted to share. Taylor watched as the guy muttered into a hidden radio, his expression growing increasingly frustrated. It was clear they hadn’t expected this turn of events. They had assumed Taylor would simply deliver Bonnie on a silver platter. Minutes ticked by while they argued, then waited, then argued some more. Finally, whoever was in charge must have given the word, because the guy made a face and put his hand down, walking back over to Taylor.

“Come on,” he grunted, gesturing for Taylor to follow.

They led him into the warehouse, their weapons now out, but not exactly trained on him. They were trying to walk that fine line between being secure and pushing things too far. The place reeked of industrial chemicals and metal. Enormous pipes and other metal parts were stacked in rows the whole length of the warehouse, which seemed to have been last used as storage for a machining company of some sort.

They crossed through the rows into a more open area at the center of the warehouse, where four men stood around a chair with a figure slumped in it, a hood obscuring the face.

The person in the chair was not Kara. That much was instantly obvious. The woman in the chair was physically much larger than Kara was, both in height and bulk. They at least had the person wearing a t-shirt and jeans, which was plausible as something a teen girl would wear, but the combat boots the person was wearing were not. Kara almost always wore tennis shoes.

The best guess was they had one female member of their team, and they’d been in a rush to figure out something to show him. Why they hadn’t predicted Taylor might show up without Bonnie in tow, and have a plan for that, was mind-boggling to him. It was one of the more obvious likely outcomes.

It also meant they were keeping Kara somewhere else, off premises.

One of the men, standing just behind the woman, spoke up. “Alright, you see her. Now, bring us the girl.”

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll go get her and be back.”

He was outnumbered and possibly alone if Bonnie screwed him. Now that he knew Kara wasn’t there, Taylor needed to get out and figure out his next move.

Unfortunately, something of Taylor’s thoughts must have shown on his face because the guy suddenly pointed at him and said, “Grab him!”

Before anyone could move, there was a deafening crack from somewhere above them. Maybe because it was so unexpected or because no one was hit, everyone froze for a second, most of them looking up, trying to figure out where the shot came from.

Taylor knew where it came from, or was pretty sure he did. It was Bonnie. It was also his chance.

He drove his elbow into the gut of the man on his left, then smashed his forehead into the face of the one on the right while they were distracted. As they staggered back, Taylor bolted between the towering stacks of metal parts.

Their surprise was very brief, and gunfire erupted behind him, bullets pinging off the stacked metal. Taylor sprinted through the maze of industrial metal, keeping his head low.

“Cut him off!” someone yelled.

Taylor pulled his gun and moved around several more stacks, taking several turns to keep his path from being predictable and putting some room between them, to allow him to operate.

He caught movement to his left. Through a gap in some of the pipes, he spotted two of the gunmen. It was a narrow window, but he didn’t hesitate. He lifted up his weapon and squeezed off a shot. It wasn’t a great shot, since he had a limited field of fire, but he hit one of them, striking him in the shoulder. The bullet staggered the guy, but he remained on his feet.

Taylor ducked as a hail of return fire came back at him from the pair, bullets ricocheting off of the metal around him, forcing Taylor to duck and sprint off again, blind firing as he ran across an open section. There wasn’t much of a chance that he would hit anyone, but he wanted to force them to take cover and give him an opening to reposition.

It worked, to a degree, since the gunfire ceased momentarily as the men dove for safety. Taylor used the brief respite to reload, leaning against a pile of parts and peering around it, trying to get an idea of where everyone was when a flash of movement to his left caught his attention.

Turning, he saw a gunman coming around an opposite stack, his gun already up, aiming at him. Taylor started to turn, planning to throw himself to the side in hopes the guy would only wound him.

He didn’t need to.

Before he’d even started to move, a large caliber bullet smashed into the gunman’s chest, taking the guy off his feet.

Bonnie was up there after all, Taylor thought as he scrambled to his feet and started moving again. He’d been lucky that time and didn’t want to push his luck again. Instead of cutting across the main floor, like he’d tried to do a moment ago, he backtracked, heading to the back wall, trying to circle around to the other side of the warehouse.

Taylor edged along the back wall. Not running but steady, his head on a swivel. He had made it to the far end of the warehouse when he spotted movement to his right. Two figures, one supporting the other. The guy he shot in the shoulder earlier.

Without hesitation, Taylor leaned out and squeezed off two rapid shots. The first caught the wounded man high in the chest, above the vest, dropping him instantly. The second sent his friend down after him, gut shot below the vest.

Taylor kept moving. Rounding the corner to start coming up the other side of the warehouse, he nearly collided with another gunman. They both reacted instinctively, their hands shooting out to grab each other’s gun arms.

They struggled. The guy was big and stocky, but Taylor had height on him, which Taylor used, trying to leverage the guy back, as they both tried to get their own gun lined up to pull the trigger.

The other guy shot first, his gun going off and the bullet whizzing past Taylor’s ear. The sound was deafening, and Taylor could barely hear out of his left ear, his entire skull feeling like it was ringing.

He pressed harder as the recoil forced the guy’s gun hand back, moving the weapon further off line. The guy staggered back a step, trying to get control, and Taylor used the moment, driving his knee up, aiming for the gunman’s groin.

The man twisted, partially avoiding the blow, but it threw him further off balance. Taylor seized the moment, slamming his forehead into his attacker’s nose. There was a satisfying crunch, and the man’s grip loosened slightly.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Taylor managed to wrench his own gun arm down and inward. He didn’t have a clean shot, but at this range, it didn’t matter. Taylor squeezed the trigger.

The gun roared between them. The attacker’s eyes went wide as the bullet tore downward, through his body. He stumbled backward, his weapon clattering to the floor.

Taylor didn’t wait to see if the man would fall. He was already moving again.

It was a good thing he did, because the two shots had drawn fire. Taylor dove behind a large metal container, bullets thudding into it. Bonnie fired from above, and the bullets stopped, although, from the sounds of running, it had scattered them rather than hitting the shooters. Taylor could hear one running parallel to him and took off in the same direction, hoping to intercept him.

They reached the far end of the warehouse at the same time, but Taylor was ready this time, already turned and pointing his weapon as the gunman, or woman in this case, appeared, and turned to face him, as if she was planning on running down and flanking him.

She wasn’t wearing any armor, just the t-shirt and jeans that she’d been wearing when she pretended to be Kara in the chair. Her eyes went wide as Taylor pulled the trigger, putting two rounds in her chest.

If he had seen everyone when he entered, then they were almost all gone. Maybe one more person, which he really needed alive, so he could find out what happened with Kara. He hadn’t been able to think about that until now. Six shooters versus just himself was bad odds. He had to whittle those numbers down. With one, he could wing him and beat the answers out of him.

Taylor moved down the rows, looking, but wasn’t finding anyone. He was almost in the center of the warehouse again when a movement startled him. Taylor looked up and saw Bonnie sprinting along the catwalk. The bullets that started sparking off the railing as she ran told him what she was running from, and where the last gunman was.

Bonnie was running out of room and the guy was drawing a bead on her. Taylor cursed to himself. He needed her alive, too. Taylor lifted his weapon and fired three quick shots. The man jerked and then toppled over the railing, hitting the concrete floor with a sickening thud.

Bonnie had an expression on her face before she looked down and made eye contact with Taylor.

Back to ground zero. Again.

Chapter 14

They didn’t have long. Even in a more or less empty industrial district, there was a good chance someone had called the cops and reported gunfire. Worse, he had a bigger problem.

Kara wasn’t here and they didn’t have any survivors, which meant he had no lead to find her. If something happened to her, he’d never forgive himself. There wasn’t time to wallow, though. Taylor moved quickly from body to body, checking for any kind of intel. Mostly, they were clean. No IDs, no helpful notes giving detailed instructions.

There were cell phones, however. It might take some time, but he could dig through them, maybe pull some numbers that would lead him in the right direction. It was his best bet.

After grabbing up several, he climbed up to the railing to where Bonnie still was, leaning over the body of a man that was up there, a large caliber rifle next to him.

She’d been right; they’d had someone up there providing cover fire for them. It also explained that first shot that kicked the whole thing off. She’d taken him out before everything started, which had been the right move.

“We needed one alive,” he said. “How the hell are we supposed to find Kara now?”

“I’d like to note that you killed most of them. But before you get all puffed up and angry, you’re not screwed yet. Your daughter’s probably still breathing.”

“And you know this how exactly?”

“This guy’s name is Fischer. We’ve crossed paths before.”

“So?”

“So, this whole setup is exactly his style. He loves ambushes like this. He also likes to have insurance. He usually keeps his bait alive, gives him options if things go sideways.”

“So he has her held somewhere else?”

“Most likely. Guarded, but alive. This was Plan A. Fischer always has a Plan B.”

“Not that he’ll need it now,” Taylor said, gesturing at the body.

“I’m betting he’s not working alone. They wouldn’t send one guy after me. Besides, if he was alone, he would have sent lackeys to do this, so he could manage the operation.”

“So you’re saying, what? Other people in your profession?”

“Yeah. Probably.”

“Shit.”

“Actually, it’s a good thing, because it tells us how to find your kid.”

“What do you mean?”

“It isn’t a coincidence Fischer is here. We use the same broker, a Brit named Bailey. Whoever your senator is using to make these arrangements probably has only the one contact. So he went back to the well.”

Taylor didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but that wasn’t it.

“Broker?”

“We don’t exactly advertise in the classifieds. Brokers are our middlemen. They find work that suits us and handle the initial contacts. Fischer and I both used Bailey. Fischer was probably his second-best worker, after me of course.”

“So this Bailey would know who else has been hired? Maybe even where they’re keeping Kara?”

“Normally. No. Bailey gets the jobs and makes sure the money is paid, stuff like that. But multiple hitters, he’d have to coordinate. We don’t play well with others.”

“And you think he brought in multiple hitters?”

“With Fischer here on site, yeah. Probably.”

“Then we find Bailey.”

“Yeah. He’s got a place just over the West Virginia border. Tries to keep it quiet, but …” she said, giving a half shrug.

In the pause, Taylor heard the distant wail of sirens.

“Time to go.”

They sprinted for the exit and across the parking lot back to the SUV, Taylor tearing out of the parking lot before Bonnie’s door was even closed.

He could see red and blue lights in the distance as he turned a corner and disappeared into the city, which would make it easier to lose any cops that might choose to follow them than it would up on the freeway.

Taylor circled wide and got back up on the freeway, heading west toward West Virginia. They didn’t talk, which was normal after action like that. There was the comedown as the adrenaline subsided, each close call replaying in their heads as they relived each point where they nearly died.

In the moment you didn’t have the luxury of time to think. You just did. The thinking happened afterward, and no contact was perfect. It was quiet enough that, when one of the purloined cell phones rang, it caused him to jump slightly.

“Twitchy,” Bonnie said with a smirk.

Taylor ignored her and answered the phone.

“Is it done?” A voice said.

American by the sound of it.

“Yeah, it’s done, but probably not in the way you hoped.”

“Who is this?”

“Taylor.”

“Your daughter is as good as dead,” the man said, his voice fading as it sounded like he was pulling away from the phone.

“Wait!” Taylor shouted into the phone. “It’s not my fault. Bonnie went crazy, killed one of your guys at the meet, took his gun, then took everyone else out. I was lucky to get out alive.”

There was a pause, and Taylor waited. “If you don’t have Bonnie, we have no reason to keep your kid breathing.”

“Now’s when you need me even more. I’m the only one who’s ever tracked her down. I can do it again.”

Another pause, longer this time. “One last chance. Call this number when you have her. We’ll give you instructions then.”

“I want proof of life first.”

“Do your job.”

“Only if I know she’s alive.”

Silence, then rustling. “Hold on.”

The background noise cut off, but the line didn’t disconnect. The silence dragged on for what seemed like forever. Then he could hear sound on the line.

“Taylor?” Kara’s voice came through.

Not scared. Angry. Furious. Kara was a fighter, first and always.

“I’m coming for you. Don’t …”

There was more rustling, and then the man’s voice returned. “You heard her. Seventy-two hours, then we kill your kid.”

“I’ll find her,” he said, and they hung up.

Taylor lowered the phone and looked to Bonnie. “Was that Bailey?”

She shook her head. “No, Bailey’s British. But I recognize that voice. Another hitter named Foster. He uses Bailey, too.”

“So that confirms Bailey’s coordinating all this?”

“Looks like it.”

“Then this is the right play. We find Bailey and make him tell us where Kara is.”

“Works for me.”

It took almost six hours to get to Bailey’s, and they split the driving, giving each of them a few hours of sleep. They had slept on the plane, but there was no telling how long this would take, and Taylor was a believer in getting rest whenever he could.

It also seemed that Whitaker had managed to get Solomon to back down for the time being. They passed several troopers on the way to the broker’s, but none came after them. He just hoped Solomon’s patience held because there was no telling how long this would take to unravel.

Bailey lived well off the beaten path, which made sense for someone in his profession. Once off the highway, it was a winding set of side roads, each getting smaller and more rural than the last. Since Bonnie knew where they were going, she drove the second half and surprised Taylor when she pulled off to the side of the small dirt road they had been driving on, well away from any driveways or buildings.

“Here?” Taylor asked, looking around, trying to figure out why she stopped.

“No, it’s about a mile away. We do the rest on foot.”

“Paranoid?”

“Very, and we don’t want to spook him.”

Taylor made his way around to the rear of the SUV and pulled out an M4, handing the other one to Bonnie. A forest like this, far away from other people, was the kind of place for mid-distance weapons.

Taylor let Bonnie take the lead. Taylor would have preferred to wait for the dark instead of charging off into a pine forest that let a lot of light through and made them stand out. But waiting wasn’t an option. The six hours to get to West Virginia was long enough. He wasn’t willing to waste any more of the day before he moved on Bailey.

Bonnie moved slowly and carefully, not dashing through the forest, which was fine with Taylor. He’d rather it take twenty minutes to get to the guy than blunder into a trap.

As if the universe heard his thoughts, Bonnie froze, holding up a hand. She crouched down, gesturing for Taylor to do the same. Her fingers traced a nearly invisible wire stretching between two trees.

Tripwires. Whether connected to explosives or an alarm, it didn’t matter. Either would stop their progress. They avoided it and kept going, but their speed slowed even more as they got closer to the guy’s house, with more tripwires and cameras spread out around the grounds. Some they avoided, others they disabled. After the first five, Taylor started to wonder if Bonnie had been here before, or maybe just scoped out the property because some of the traps she seemed to know about before it should have been possible.

Whoever had placed them had been an expert, and Taylor considered that maybe it was her. If not, she was still doing a better job than any point man he’d worked with before.

Finally, he could make out a small yet surprisingly modern house at the end of a long dirt road. 

Bonnie signaled to Taylor that they would circle around the house. He nodded. Neither spoke. They might have avoided or disconnected the microphones, cameras, and traps along the way, but who knew what they missed? Silence was key.

Taylor waved for Bonnie to take the lead, and fell in behind her as she circled wide, keeping trees between them and the windows of the house. It occurred to him that the modern structure seemed out of place in the dense forest.

Bonnie stopped, waved him in and leaned in close, until her mouth was next to his ear.

“Front’s wired. He keeps the back clear for a quick exit.”

Taylor nodded and gestured toward the house. Bonnie crouched and moved slowly, one foot in front of the other, toward the rear of the house. When they were within a dozen or so steps of the house, Bonnie paused, pointing at cameras on either side of the door. With a series of signals, she made it clear what the plan was. There were cameras pointing at the back door from two directions. There was no way of getting to the door without someone inside seeing them.

Which meant the way to deal with it was to go in fast and hard, allowing no time for the person inside to react.

He only hoped that Bonnie was right, and the back door wasn’t booby-trapped, otherwise the person breaching it would take the brunt of whatever the door was rigged with. For a moment, Taylor considered whether this was Bonnie trying to get rid of him. But she’d had ample opportunity to do that since he found her and hadn’t.

Besides, it was the right plan for the layout, and this guy was the next link to Kara. Bonnie gave him a count, and on three, Taylor leaped up from his crouch and rushed the door, sending it flying open with a single, well-placed kick.

Bonnie moved past him as soon as the door swung open, rushing into the room, her weapon at the ready. They moved through a pristine kitchen, all stainless steel and granite, and into what might have been designed as a living room or dining room, but which had a large desk in its center with what could only be described as a wall of monitors.

Standing up from the chair behind the desk was a heavyset man, frozen in place, holding a pistol, looking down the barrel of Bonnie’s rifle.

“Chelsea?”

“Drop it!” Taylor commanded, moving a few steps to Bonnie’s left.

The man, Bailey, Taylor presumed, slowly placed the gun on the desk.

“Sit,” Taylor commanded, gesturing to the chair with his rifle.

Bailey complied, his eyes never leaving Bonnie. It was as if Taylor didn’t exist.

“I’m sorry,” Bailey said. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“I get it,” Bonnie said, her rifle dipping and her finger coming off the trigger, but only moving it to the outside of the guard. “I get it. Can’t say no to a guy like Ellsworth. How many guys did you send?”

“You know I can’t-”

Bonnie’s finger was back on the trigger in an instant, the barrel dipping down as she fired, putting a round through the center of his foot. Bailey screamed and doubled over, reaching for his injured limb.

“Wrong answer,” Bonnie said coolly. “Let’s try again. How many?”

Bailey’s face had gone pale, sweat beading on his forehead.

“Two,” he gasped. “Just two.”

“Fischer and Foster?”

Another nod from Bailey.

“Fischer had lead on the ambush?”

“Yeah.”

“And Foster’s with the kid?” Bonnie continued.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Ohio. Some property owned by Ellsworth.”

“Is Ellsworth there with them?” Taylor asked.

“No,” Bailey said. “He didn’t tell me, but I’m pretty sure he’s holed up at his hunting cabin. It’s pretty remote, so no one to see … anything, and it keeps his hands clean.”

“Foster still working with the twins?” Bonnie asked.

“Yeah. They’re with him.”

Bonnie nodded, and then seemed to think of something else. “Anyone else you hired that we should know about?”

Bailey hesitated, his little rat eyes swinging back and forth as he tried to think of what to say. Which told them everything they needed to know. Bonnie raised her rifle, aiming squarely at his chest.

“Wait! Wait! Okay, okay!” Bailey said, holding up his hands in front of him as if they could ward off a bullet. “There’s one more. Hotaru. I brought him on for personal security for the senator. In case you decided to go after him directly.”

“Damn,” Bonnie muttered, lowering her weapon slightly.

“What?” Taylor asked.

“Hotaru’s not your average contractor. Most of us work alone or with one or two subordinates, but he works with a pretty large team. There will be a lot of muscle around the senator.”

“We’ll deal with that when we get to it. Kara’s our priority.”

Bonnie nodded, then turned back to Bailey. “Give me the exact locations. For both the girl and the senator.”

“This is a mistake, Chelsea. You know that, right? You’ll be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life,” he said, scribbling locations on a piece of paper by his computer monitor.

“I know,” Bonnie said flatly, watching him as he finished and set the pen down, sliding the paper across to her.

Without warning, she raised her rifle and fired twice, throwing the Brit back hard into his chair, blood blossoming through his shirt.

“What the hell?” Taylor said, his own weapon instinctively coming up and pointing at her.

Bonnie lowered her rifle calmly. “Tying up loose ends. Besides, if we’d left him alive he would’ve called Foster. Your kid would be dead before we got halfway there.”

“You better hope he told the truth. If he lied, we can’t come back and interrogate him more.”

“He didn’t. I know … knew Bailey. He was telling the truth. We don’t have time for this. Foster will try to check in. He might give Bailey a day, tops. After that, he’ll scrub the operation, kill Kara, and call it done.”

Taylor grimaced but said, “Fine. Let’s go."

Chapter 15

Taylor parked the SUV a quarter mile down from the farmhouse, where it was still blocked by a tree line before the ground opened up to the farmhouse and surrounding pastures.

This far out in the middle of nowhere, there were no streetlights, and with the cloud cover above, it was pitch black. Even with that, he could see the path up to the farmhouse had no cover except for a self-standing barn to the left of the surprisingly large one-story farmhouse.

“Looks deserted,” Bonnie remarked. “But it is a trap. They know we’re coming.”

“No shit,” Taylor muttered.

“We should split up, come at them from two directions. In case one of us gets caught in it. Keeps one of us free to back up the other.”

“And give you a chance to screw me over?”

“After everything I have done since we got back to the States, you still don’t trust me?”

“Trust takes time,” Taylor said, but then he paused.

She was right about having a backup. If this guy was as good as Bonnie made it seem, the trap would be well laid and there was a better than even chance that one of them would fall into it.

“But maybe this would be a good first step,” he added.

Bonnie held his stare for a moment, then nodded. “Alright. I’ll create a diversion. You go for the house.”

Bonnie melted into the darkness without another word. Taylor waited, counting off thirty seconds in his head before moving. He kept low, using the overgrown grass as cover as he approached the farmhouse.

There were no visible lights on inside, but if they knew he was coming, there wouldn’t be.

He was about twenty yards out when he spotted it; a thin wire stretched taut across his path, barely visible in the dim light. Taylor froze, studying it. The placement was obvious, amateurish even.

A warning sounded in the back of his head. These guys were supposed to be good, so this was what? A decoy?

Taylor slowed, easing forward, now even more alert for traps. The only reason to have a decoy was so he would get cocky and overlook the next professional one.

He reached the farmhouse, pressing his back against the weathered siding. Taylor edged along the wall until he reached a window. He risked a quick peek inside. The room beyond was dark, but he could make out the vague shapes of furniture. No movement.

He continued on, rounding the corner of the house. The back door came into view. Taylor approached it cautiously. Just then, a loud crash sounded from the far side of the property. Bonnie?

Maybe. Maybe she tripped a trap. Or maybe she was creating a diversion. Of course, maybe it was just an animal knocking stuff over. Taylor reached across, grabbed the door handle and twisted it. Locked.

Holstering his weapon, he knelt down, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a small lock pick set. Whitaker, of all people, had shown him how to do this, he thought as he put the tools in the lock, moving the pins carefully until he felt the satisfying click of the lock disengaging.

Taylor put his tools away before he eased the door open, wincing at the slight creak of the hinges. He pulled his weapon, slipped inside and closed the door behind him. He found himself in a cramped mudroom. The smell of mold and decay was prevalent.

In a crouch, he moved into what appeared to be a kitchen. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink. A half-empty bottle of whiskey sat on the counter.

He heard a noise from somewhere further into the house. A creak. He froze. Taylor pressed himself against the wall next to the doorway leading into the rest of the house. He steadied his breathing, straining his ears as he took a few careful steps into the next room. Nothing moved. The room seemed deserted. Taylor knew the trap was here somewhere, but he couldn’t see it.

He only hoped that if he triggered it, Bonnie was still out there to bail him out.

As if brought on by his own thoughts, a dark shape burst from behind a doorway. Taylor barely had time to register the attack before a fist connected with his jaw. He stumbled back, his gun hand swinging wide.

“Drop it,” a gruff voice commanded from his left.

Taylor’s eyes darted around the room. Two more figures materialized from the shadows, boxing him in. Based on Bonnie’s description, Foster was to his left, a pistol trained at his chest. Presumably, it was one of the twins that mirrored him on the right.

“I said drop it,” Foster repeated.

Three on one. Bad odds.

Taylor dropped his weapon and said, “You still need Bonnie. I brought her.”

“Then where is she?” Foster said.

“I’m not an idiot. I knew you guys would have a trap set for me, and when you had her, my kid was as good as dead. You want her, hand my daughter over. You get her with the exchange.”

“You don’t understand how this works, jackass. You give us the girl, and then we turn your daughter over. But we don’t really need you. In fact, I bet you have her nearby. Which means we don’t need you, doesn’t it?” he said, raising his gun straight out and pointing it at Taylor’s head. “Temi, go kill the kid.”

One of the twins gave a wicked grin and started to turn, heading out of the room.

“Wait! I’ll take you to her!” Taylor said, holding up his hands.

“So we can walk into your trap? I don’t think so. Call her in. If you want your kid, she walks in, hands in the air.”

Before Taylor could say anything, a deafening crack split the air. One of the twins, the one who wasn’t Temi, was thrown back off his feet, painting the wall behind him in red. The man’s body smashed into the wall, sliding down to the floor.

Taylor didn’t hesitate. He dove for the floor, rolling toward his discarded gun. A bullet whizzed past his ear as he snatched up the weapon. He came up firing, squeezing off two quick shots at Foster.

The mercenary ducked behind the door frame followed by shattered splinters as Taylor’s bullets just missed. Taylor scrambled for cover, pulling a small table over on its side and hiding behind it. Bullets followed after him, thudding into the wood.

Taylor was pinned down, with Foster ahead of him, hiding behind a door frame and the other twin to his right, also behind a door frame. Worse, the table Taylor was using for cover only protected him from Foster, not the twin who had a straight shot at him. 

Taylor shot off two rounds toward Foster to keep him pushed back. Suddenly, Temi burst from cover, gun blazing. Taylor rolled right, squeezing off two rapid shots. The first went wide, but the second caught Temi square in the chest. The man stumbled, a look of surprise frozen on his face, just before he crumpled to the floor. 

Taylor was exposed if Foster had come back around. He scrambled back under cover, but Foster had other ideas, as his backup suddenly disappeared, and sprinted further into the farmhouse. 

Taylor charged after him. He didn’t know where he was keeping Kara, but he couldn’t let Foster out of his sight in case he was headed to finish her off.

The chase lasted for one hallway, as a series of bullets missed him by inches, forcing Taylor back behind the doorframe. He could hear footsteps receding and moved forward slowly, gun at the ready, checking the corners carefully as he inched forward.

The house was a mess of clutter, old furniture, boxes, and junk piled everywhere. Perfect cover for an ambush.

As he entered what looked like a study, a bookshelf toppled towards him. Taylor dove to the side, narrowly avoiding being crushed. Foster emerged from behind it, squeezing off two shots. One grazed Taylor’s arm, drawing blood but not doing any significant damage.

Taylor rolled behind the desk, ignoring the pain and popping up, firing back. Foster vanished again.

Taylor had just started to move again when Foster suddenly reappeared, only to be forced back out of the room as the window behind Taylor shattered, a large caliber round tearing through the wall, missing Foster by a breath.

Taylor used the distraction to push forward, managing to get a shot off at Foster as he disappeared around a bend, spinning him as the round cut through the side of his arm. Wounded, but not seriously.

A door banged open as Taylor came around the corner, Foster’s hand on the doorknob. Taylor had been sprinting, his gun at his side and Foster had his coming up. He’d win the draw, so Taylor did what he needed to do.

He kept moving, smashing into Foster, both of them crashing to the floor. Taylor grabbed Foster’s gun hand, Foster grabbed Taylor’s.

Foster smashed his head against Taylor’s once. Twice. Taylor’s hold on Foster weakened, enough for Foster to lift himself up and point his weapon down at Taylor, only to roll aside as another bullet smashed through the window at the far end of the hallway, barely missing him once again.

As Foster rose in a crouch, Taylor pushed off the floor and tackled him to keep his gun from coming up. They crashed through the open doorway, tumbling down a short flight of stairs into the basement. Taylor’s gun went flying, skittering across the concrete floor. So did Foster’s.

He scrambled to his feet, but Foster was quicker. The mercenary grabbed him, slamming him against the wall. Taylor’s vision swam as his head connected with the hard surface. Foster’s hands closed around his throat, choking the life from him. Taylor clawed at the iron grip, struggling for air. His lungs burned as darkness crept in at the edges of his vision.

With a surge of desperate strength, Taylor brought his knee up hard. It connected solidly with Foster’s groin. The pain loosened the mercenary’s grip as he doubled over in pain. Taylor shoved him back, gasping for air. He staggered forward, throwing a wild haymaker that connected with Foster’s jaw. The mercenary stumbled, falling back against a support beam.

Before Taylor could press his advantage, Foster lashed out with a vicious kick. It caught Taylor in the stomach, driving the wind from him. He fell to one knee, struggling to breathe. Foster charged, taking him down. They rolled across the floor, trading blows. Taylor tasted blood when a punch split his lip.

He managed to get on top, raining down blows. Foster bucked, trying to throw him off. Suddenly, Foster’s hand shot out, his fingers closing around the grip of Taylor’s discarded gun.

Taylor dove to the side as Foster fired. The bullet embedded itself in the ceiling. Foster and Taylor both staggered to their feet, Foster keeping the gun trained on Taylor.

“End of the line,” Foster snarled, blood trickling from a gash on his forehead.

“Where’s my daughter?” Taylor demanded, hands raised.

Foster nodded toward the back of the basement, where Kara sat tied to a chair, struggling to get loose.

“First she dies, then you, then I’ll find Bonnie myself,” Foster said, moving the weapon from Taylor to Kara.

Taylor spotted Foster’s dropped gun a few steps away, to his right. The wrong direction. The gun wasn’t on him, but if he dove for it, Foster could easily shoot Kara.

He could dive the other way, intercept the bullet, but that would save Kara for only a few minutes.

A shot rang out, and for an instant, fear gripped Taylor as he saw Kara toppling over in her chair in his mind. His worst fear. And then reality sped up again and Foster fell, his chest exploding, spraying Taylor with blood.

It was so unexpected that Taylor just stood there for a moment, trying to process what had just happened. Turning and looking up the stairs behind him, Taylor saw Bonnie standing at the top of the stairs, rifle in hand.

Taylor ignored her for a moment, rushed to Kara, and wrapped her in a tight embrace. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

She shook her head, burying her face in his chest. “I’m okay. I knew you’d come.”

“I’m so sorry for getting you tangled up in this.”

“It’s okay. I’m just pissed they got the drop on me. But … could you untie me?”

Taylor released her, smiled, and said, “Sure.”

Chapter 16

Taylor held Kara tightly, relief washing over him as he felt her safe in his arms. For a long moment, neither said anything. For a moment, Kara let her tough girl act down and allowed herself to be the vulnerable, scared young adult she truly was.

The spell was broken by the sound of Bonnie’s footsteps coming down the stairs. By the time she got to the bottom, Kara had withdrawn from the embrace and was wiping away her tears.

“Good to see you’re alive and kicking, kid,” Bonnie said.

Kara looked at her and then back to him with a questioning expression.

“This is Bonnie,” Taylor said.

That was enough to get a reaction. Kara had watched Taylor’s obsessive search for Bonnie for almost six months and had heard him talk about her.

“Really?” she said, surprised.

“Yes. She’s why I headed to South America. She’s turning herself over to be a state’s witness. She’s also the reason we found you and she’s the one who shot Foster.”

“Huh. Well, thanks. I guess.”

Bonnie nodded, a hint of … something flitted across her face. Maybe satisfaction.

“I need you to get back to Whitaker on your own,” he told Kara.

“What about you?” Bonnie asked. “What’s your next move?”

“I’m going to have a chat with the senator. Until Ellsworth is dealt with, this isn’t over.”

“Then I’m coming with you. Hotaru’s going to have a bunch of guys; you’re going to need help.”

“No,” Taylor said firmly, shaking his head. “I’ve already put you in enough danger. You helped me get Kara back, and I appreciate that. But you’re needed to make a lot of cases stick, and to put a lot of bad people where they belong.”

Bonnie opened her mouth to argue, but Taylor cut her off.

“I may not be a by-the-book guy,” he said, “but I know that much.”

“I was not done with my instructions. I also need you to take her with you,” he said to Kara, stabbing his thumb at Bonnie. “Take her to Whitaker and make sure none of the twitchier agents shoot her before Whitaker can take charge.”

“Really? You’re going to send me off with your kid?”

“Yes. But let me make something crystal clear for you. If anything happens to Kara, anything at all, there will be no place on this earth where you can hide from me. Understood?”

“Look, Taylor. I am done. I am tired of the life. The constant running, the always being someone else. But even if I wasn’t, it’s not like I can ever go back to it. Once word gets out that I am turning state’s witness, my other clients won’t be able to risk me staying alive. I will be running for the rest of my life. This deal … it is my only way out now. I would not hurt her, you know. That is not … that is not who I am.”

“I hope that’s true.”

“I can take care of myself,” Kara said, reaching down and taking Foster’s dropped gun.

She pulled back the slide, checked that there was a round in the chamber before carefully sliding it back in place and latching the safety, sliding it into her waistband.

“Take one of their cars,” he told Bonnie, holding out his hand for the rifle Bonnie was still holding.

“Sure,” she said, handing over the weapon. “And thanks, Taylor. For everything.”

Taylor nodded and walked out of the house with them, exchanging a last glance with Kara before they headed their separate ways.

Ellsworth’s cabin was in northern Ohio, almost twenty miles outside of the closest town, essentially in the middle of a forest. He owned almost two square miles deep in the forest, ostensibly for hunting. In the center of the property sat a fairly large log hunting cabin, although Taylor was certain it was not like the kind of cabins that ordinary people could afford. For guys like Ellsworth, their “roughing it” homes tended to still be much nicer than the homes that average people lived in every day.

There was a long dirt road that led up to the property off a small country road. Taylor parked well down from that in the early morning hours, crossing Ellsworth’s neighbor’s property through the trees and onto his, since if these guys he had hired were any good they would be watching the private road and have cameras up and down it from where it intersected the county road.

The trees were pretty thick, especially when he got away from the road and deeper into the forest, which made visibility bad. Thankfully, Lopez was on the ball and had some night vision gear in the SUV. It was part of a haul Taylor had funded when he had set up the company, and he had been strapped enough that Lopez had done the best he could, which meant civilian-level equipment. He missed the stuff he used in the service, but it was still better than wandering around in the dark.

Taylor, loaded up with what equipment was still left in the SUV, made his way slowly through the trees, carefully placing each step and listening hard. He could see well enough, his night vision goggles casting everything in an eerie green glow.

He hit the perimeter still far enough from the house that he couldn’t see it yet when he caught sight of a lone guard, rifle held loosely in his hand, walking what seemed to be a circular path around the property as some sort of patrol. He was doing a good sweep, left to right, hold, right to left, and repeat, stopping from time to time to listen.

He was not wearing any gear, probably relying on his natural night vision, which made sense. NVDs limited your peripheral vision and were a pain to wear for extended periods of time, often causing neck pain and sometimes eye strain. You could do it if you were dedicated enough, or if you had a sergeant who rode your ass every time you tried to do a patrol without it, but private guys like this, they would cut corners. Even good ones.

It suggested that they had not gone to full alert. Taylor was still in the window of time they gave him, and they hadn’t realized Foster was dead yet. If they were expecting him, these guys would be better equipped for sure.

Taylor watched him for several minutes, noting the pattern of his movements, shadowing him slowly as he made a wide circuit of the property. When it was clear he was alone out there Taylor began to circle in, getting closer to the guy. When the guard’s back was turned, Taylor closed the rest of the distance in a rush.

His hand shot out, clamping it over the man’s mouth as his other arm locked around the guard’s throat in a vise-like grip. The guard struggled, releasing his weapon to grab at Taylor’s forearm, trying to relieve the pressure that was keeping him from breathing.

More importantly, it was putting pressure on the carotid artery. Cutting off the air supply can take up to two minutes to get someone to blackout, but it only took about eleven pounds of pressure and ten seconds to make someone blackout. The guy did better than most. He made it a full eleven seconds of struggling before his body went limp.

Taylor dragged the unconscious body and the rifle into a thick patch of undergrowth, concealing it from view, just in case someone else was on the same patrol path. He paused, listening intently for any sign that the scuffle had been noticed. The forest remained silent.

Satisfied, Taylor continued his approach, skirting the edge of the tree line where it thinned out enough that the exterior lights from the cabin might make him stand out a bit more. As he neared the fifty-yard mark from the cabin, he spotted another guard standing watch. This one was motionless, attention focused outward.

Taylor knelt for several minutes, waiting to see if he was going to move, but he did not. As with the other guard, he had his gun unslung and in his hand, holding it loosely. These were men who had been standing guard for days and had no credible threat to deal with. Even the staunchest professionals became lax under such conditions.

Taylor drew his knife and ghosted forward, closing the distance inch by agonizing inch. He moved slowly but was ready to dash the final distance if he needed to. The guard remained oblivious, his posture relaxed.

Just as Taylor prepared to strike, a twig snapped somewhere to his right. The guard’s head snapped around, his hand gripping his weapon. Taylor lunged, driving the knife up and under the man’s ribs. The guard’s cry of alarm died in his throat, cut off by the blade piercing his heart.

As Taylor lowered the body to the ground, movement caught his eye. Another guard appeared from the tree line to his right. Probably the cause of the snapped twig. They looked at each other across the distance, and time seemed to stand still.

Taylor’s hand flew to his holster as the guard brought up his weapon, but the guard was slow, maybe stunned to see someone in tactical gear and NVDs standing over the body of his comrade. Taylor’s pistol cleared the holster and got on target first, two loud bangs breaking the silence of the night, sending the guard toppling over backward.

For a heartbeat, the silence returned. But only for a heartbeat. Shouts erupted from the direction of the cabin, followed by the sound of men running his way. Taylor cursed under his breath. So much for the element of surprise.

Taylor ducked behind a large oak as three figures charged through the trees toward him. Taylor waited until they were close, then leaned out, squeezing off two rapid shots. The first guard dropped instantly, a neat hole in his forehead. The second stumbled, clutching low on his abdomen, taking two staggering steps to the left before collapsing.

The third guard made a mistake, hesitating at the sudden attack, giving Taylor the split second he needed. His third shot caught the man in the right hip, spinning him around. As he fell, his trigger finger tightened. A wild burst of automatic fire ripped through the underbrush.

Taylor felt a sharp sting across his bicep. He ignored it, focusing on the wounded guard scrambling away toward the cabin, dragging himself through the underbrush. Taylor brought his gun up, but the man was crawling fast and there were enough trees and bushes in the way to make hitting him difficult, and he was shouting his head off.

Taylor could see flashlights moving in his direction. He couldn’t stay there.

Taylor backed up, moving clockwise away from the dead men, going deeper into the trees, crouched low and using foliage for concealment. He could hear the guards slowing down and fanning out when they got to the bodies. Taylor paused, letting them pass by his position. He counted six men, moving in pairs. Once they were far enough beyond him, he moved forward, closing the distance.

The rearmost pair paused, conferring in low voices as Taylor got close enough to hear.

“I do not like this, man. They said she was good.”

His partner grunted agreement. “Yeah, but there is only one of her. We find her and we end her. Simple as that.”

Taylor’s lips curved in a humorless smile. They thought it was Bonnie. For now that was fine with him. He raised his pistol, sighting carefully through the green-tinged world of his night vision. Two quick shots, and both guards crumpled without a sound.

Shouts of alarm rang out as the other teams realized he had gotten behind them. Taylor was already moving, sprinting through the trees to a new position. Gunfire erupted behind him, cutting a line of destruction through the forest.

Bark exploded from trees. Leaves shredded under the hail of bullets. Taylor kept low, zigzagging as he ran. He heard the telltale zip of bullets passing close by.

He dove behind a fallen log, rolling to his feet on the other side. He heard more shouts, mostly the separate groups trying to coordinate to find him.

Taylor took a moment to catch his breath and check his weapon. Four rounds left in the magazine. Two full magazines left after that. The sounds of their movements grew closer.

Taylor unclipped a flash-bang from his vest. He pulled the pin, counted to two, and lobbed it high over the log. He clamped his eyes shut and covered his ears. The world went white. Even through his closed eyelids, the flash seared his retinas. The concussive boom a moment later rattled his teeth.

The men screamed, giving disoriented shouts and curses. Taylor vaulted over the log, pistol up and tracking. Two guards stumbled about blindly, hands pressed to their eyes. He dropped them both with quick double-taps. As they fell, Taylor was already moving again as he changed out his magazine, sprinting for a cluster of trees he had spotted earlier.

More gunfire chased him, wild and uncoordinated.

Taylor skidded behind the trees just as a fresh volley of bullets thudded into the trunks. He crouched low, controlling his breathing. In. Out. Slow and steady.

“Where is he?” a voice shouted nearby. “Does anyone have eyes on?”

“No idea,” someone else replied.

He peeked around the edge of the trees. Two guards were advancing cautiously. They moved well together, covering each other’s blind spots, but it was hard to cover three-sixty in a forest. They had positioned themselves with their backs to the thick undergrowth. Taylor popped up, dropping them both.

Six more down. He’d been making a ton of racket. He started moving slowly again as he displaced. Whoever was left was coming after him. He had been moving left for a while, away from the original group of three and continued that with the additional six men. If they were smart, they would try to go further left and cut him off.

So he moved right.

Taylor was back to moving quietly, but there weren’t any more shouts. No more sounds of people running. The initial rush of combat had passed and they had gotten smart, slowed down, trying to control the tempo. Hoping he would get impatient and make a big move, exposing himself.

Taylor slowed, keeping low. Now was not the time to act rashly or get stupid. If they went slow, he would go slower. He continued to move to his right. A rustle to his left caught his attention. Taylor froze. He watched as a figure emerged from the darkness, moving carefully.

This guy was better than the others, that was for sure. He was sweeping methodically, weapon sweeping with his eyes, always pointing where he was looking, his feet moving one in front of the other.

The man paused, his head tilting slightly as if listening for something. Taylor held his breath, not daring to move a muscle. After what felt like an eternity, the guy continued forward, passing within feet of Taylor’s position.

As soon as the guy passed him, Taylor made his move. He stepped out from his cover, moving right to get further behind the guy as he raised his weapon. The guy spun impossibly fast. His gun came up as he dropped into a crouch. They fired at almost the same time. Taylor’s bullet went just over him, where his chest would have been. The guy’s shot went wide, to the left of Taylor, where he had been standing a moment ago.

Taylor dropped and rolled behind a large log, bullets ripping into it as he did, the rotting wood still good enough to protect him. The guy was laying down fire, which would have worked if he had backup, but he didn’t. With only one of him, it meant he was just burning ammo. Taylor rolled right, further down the log, letting the guy spray splinters, a full bullet finding its way through to where Taylor no longer was.

When he heard the telltale click of an empty magazine, he made his move. He reared up from behind the log, squeezing off three rapid shots. The guy, who Taylor was starting to think was their boss Hotaru, was already moving, but Taylor had accounted for it this time. One bullet caught Hotaru in the shoulder, spinning him around.

Instead of fighting it and remaining a target, the guy went with the force, allowing himself to be thrown behind some trees. Taylor just started to move forward to finish him off when he heard movement in the trees around him. More guards were closing in, trying to flank his position. He needed to end this quickly.

Taylor stood and fired twice more at Hotaru’s position. As soon as the shots left his gun, he was moving, sprinting to his right.

There was pursuit behind him, but he had bought himself a few precious seconds. He did not want to just run, though. He needed to end this. Taylor pivoted, bringing his weapon up and dropping into a crouch as another guy came bursting through the undergrowth, firing as he came through.

Taylor dropped and rolled, feeling the heat of bullets whizzing past him. He came up on one knee and squeezed off two rapid shots. The first went wide, but the second caught the guard square in the chest. The man stumbled, his rifle clattering to the ground as he fell.

There was not a sound from anyone else after that. Taylor repositioned himself, and listened, but no one was coming. It could be a fake out and they were waiting for him to make the first move, but Taylor didn’t think so. If that one guy was their boss, it meant the others had already come for him and had lost.

Taylor moved toward the cabin and saw two more guys, one standing and one sitting on his butt, legs extended in front of him. The guy on the ground had to be the one he shot in the hip earlier. The wounded man was holding a last line of defense. Taylor pulled off the NVDs and dropped them. He could grab them later, but there were too many lights on around the cabin. They were whiting the optics out.

A pile of split firewood near the cabin’s corner caught his attention. It was not much, but it would have to do. He circled around until it was between him and the two guys. There was no way of sneaking toward it, though. He would need more cover than that. So he sprinted for it. The guards spotted him, opening fire. Wood chips exploded around Taylor as he dove behind the pile.

“I’ll cover you. Move in!”

Taylor did not give him a chance. He popped up and squeezed off two quick shots. The mobile guard went down, clutching his throat, and Taylor dropped down behind the woodpile again as the injured guy peppered it with bullets.

Instead of popping back up, Taylor rolled sideways and fired twice. One hit the doorframe, the other smashed into the guy’s shoulder. The rifle skittered from the guy’s hands as he fell over and started to crawl away from Taylor. He only made it a few inches before he stopped moving, only moaning for another second before going completely still.

Taylor was just standing up when the leader guy he had injured before leaned out of the doorway and fired twice. Both shots went wide, but Taylor dove back behind the woodpile all the same. Taylor remembered the guy, Hotaru, was shooting with his other hand last time, the one he had been hit in.

That explained the wide shots. He was shooting with his off hand.

For a minute, there was no more gunfire. Just as Taylor was thinking about taking a peek, he heard movement and a grunt. Taylor got up on one knee, leading with his gun as he crouched, ready to shoot.

And then he saw the beer bottle sailing through the air, arcing over Taylor’s position. More importantly, he saw the rag sticking out of the end of it, burning.

“Shit!” Taylor said as he rolled away from the woodpile just as the Molotov cocktail shattered against it.

Flames erupted, engulfing the logs in seconds. Hotaru burst from the cabin, pistol raised. Taylor scrambled to his feet, bringing his own weapon to bear. They fired simultaneously. Hotaru’s offhand shot went wide again. Taylor was not even sure where it went. Somewhere in the forest behind him.

Taylor’s bullet went low, on account of the quick shot, but it still hit his target, smashing into his leg just below the knee. Hotaru gave out a cry of pain and fell over; the gun, not held tightly in his offhand, bounced on the ground, landing a few steps away.

Hotaru reached out for it, missing once, grabbing dirt. He reached again … and Taylor’s foot smashed down on it, causing another scream of pain. Hotaru rolled over, looked up, and froze when he saw Taylor’s gun. He put his hands up and looked at Taylor with a pleading expression.

Taylor didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

Hotaru gave one last, uncontrolled twitch and lay still in the dirt. Taylor ignored him. The guy had sold his services to a criminal, and this was what happened.

Stepping over the body, Taylor took two strides toward the cabin door and kicked it in. He moved into the room carefully, but the only person in the main room was Ellsworth, sitting on a couch, trying very hard to project an air of confidence. Taylor had looked up his picture on the plane, but even without that, he would have known who the guy was. He looked like power and money.

It wasn’t just that, though. He was trying to hide it, but Taylor could see the guy was nervous.

“Agent Taylor, I presume.”

“The jig is up, Senator,” Taylor replied coldly. “Bonnie is with the FBI. She has already started handing over evidence of what you did. I know guys like you. If you did this, you’ve definitely done other illegal shit too. No one gets this rich and powerful and keeps it as long as you have without doing something dirty. The FBI is going to dig into your past, and they will find it all.”

“You’re right; I have done a lot of things in my past, but none of that matters. You will call off the investigation before it ever gets there and make sure I do not have any more problems with Bonnie.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I can make you a very rich man, Mr. Taylor. And because if you do not, your wife, that teenage whore, and your spawn will all be dead. And I won’t stop there. Your wife has a sister and I will make sure she is taken care of, too, just to make it crystal clear to anyone else who thinks that they can cross me what will happen if they do.”

“You won’t be able to do much from behind bars, Senator.”

Ellsworth laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “I am a senior US senator, not some common thug. I will be under investigation, sure, but not locked up. They will give me a chance to defend myself. That means time to ensure anyone who might testify against me … well, let’s say they won’t be able to.”

“Things work differently for people like you, is that it?”

“They always have.”

“Then maybe I should just kill you and end it right here.”

Ellsworth laughed again. “You can’t be that stupid. If you do that, the full weight of the US government will come down on you and your wife. They will crush you like a bug. Think about it. Do you really want to pay that price?”

Taylor did not say anything. Ellsworth was probably right. Maybe not about Whitaker, but there would be repercussions. He had already gone pretty far off the rails by not taking Bonnie in, but if he killed Ellsworth … it could mean jail time.

But Taylor also was not the kind of man to back down.

“I have paid worse,” he said, lifting his gun and firing.

Chapter 17

Washington D.C.

Taylor’s back felt cramped, but he wasn’t going to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing him in distress. They were treating him like he was the criminal, instead of the man hiring hitmen to kill political opponents and kidnapping teenage girls. He had been in a holding cell in Atlanta, a Bureau plane in shackles, and then, by his count, six hours in this interrogation room.

He got the transportation. They had appearances to maintain. It was being left to rot in an FBI interrogation room that had him annoyed. Yes, he left with Bonnie without saying anything, but he’d told Whitaker what was going on, and they had Bonnie’s information now. They had the proof of what was happening, and they knew him. They knew he didn’t just go around killing people for no reason.

Thankfully, sitting and doing nothing for hours waiting to be told what to do was a skill he’d mastered in the military. So he sat, hour after hour, handcuffed hands in front of him, staring at the wall.

When the door finally opened, it was Director Solomon who came through, and not Whitaker, who he was hoping to see.

“About damn time,” Taylor said. “Where’s Whitaker?”

Solomon settled into the chair across from him and stared at him for a long moment before saying, “You know she can’t be here, Taylor.”

“Why not? Bonnie got to you, right? She told you about Ellsworth?”

“Yes. She’s already being debriefed and is in protective custody.”

“Then get me out of these cuffs,” Taylor said, holding up his shackled hands.

Solomon considered him for a moment and waved at the one-way mirror. A moment later, an agent came in and unlocked his shackles, taking them out with him.

“And the names on the cell phone you got off Ellsworth?” Taylor asked, rubbing his wrists. “I saw several FBI extensions on there, and he was very clear that he had agents in his pocket. If they’re not found, I’m not sure how protective any custody you have her in will be.”

“Bonnie told us about it and we have started an internal investigation; we have the Marshals involved, just in case.”

“Good, I guess. But you have her, which means you know I did what I had to do. The senator was dirty, Joe. He was coming for me, and he was coming for Bonnie. I did my job.”

“This wasn’t the way to do it, Taylor. There could have been other options.”

“Like what?” Taylor snapped. “This isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with dirty people inside the chain of command. I know what problems that can cause.”

“You know me and you know Whitaker,” Solomon countered. “You could have come to us.”

“And you guys would have compartmentalized it? No. That wouldn’t be procedure. I do know you and I know Whitaker. You would have followed procedure, which is what guys like Ellsworth play off of.”

“That doesn’t mean …”

“What about Caldwell?” Taylor asked, interrupting him. He was tired of this. “I want to talk to the President.”

“She’s not going to meet with you. Not after you shot someone in her party. A key member of it. We’ve spoken with her. She agrees with our plan for you and says she’ll have to distance herself from this situation.”

“So what’s the plan then?”

“Your arrangement with the FBI is terminated. You’re going back to being a regular citizen. You will never again be allowed to work for the U.S. government in any capacity.”

“Now, that isn’t procedure. You’re not going to find I was justified, but you’re also not going to charge me. You don’t ever hedge like that, Solomon.”

“This wasn’t all my plan. There are … factors that have to be considered. There will be a story released about the senator dying in a plane crash. You can never reveal what actually happened or tell anyone the truth. You’ll sign an agreement stating that if you ever disclose the real events, you’ll face life imprisonment.”

“So all the people working for the senator just go back to being invisible? People who sold themselves once will do it again.”

“No. We’ll find them and deal with them. This is a good deal, Taylor. You should take it.”

“What happens to Whitaker?”

“Nothing,” Solomon replied. “She wasn’t involved and she stuck to policy. She keeps her job. This doesn’t affect her position.”

Taylor considered it. He’d done good work with the FBI and he’d found the authority it came with helped him get things done. But he’d also never really planned on doing this kind of work. It had just happened.

“Taylor, you’ve never been happy here anyway. You got roped into it and let us keep convincing you to stay. Take the deal. You’ll be happier anyway.”

“Fine. Give me the papers.”

Solomon pulled some papers out of the bag he had with him and slid them over the table. Taylor didn’t bother reading them. He just signed and slid them back.

“Can I go?”

“Yes. Whitaker’s waiting outside to take you home.”

Taylor just grunted at the man and left the interrogation room. By outside, Solomon meant outside the interrogation room, which was more of an interview room, off a bullpen, and not in some kind of lockup. Whitaker was standing next to one of the cubicles, and Kara was standing next to her.

Kara rushed forward, throwing her arms around him while Whitaker came up much more slowly. They must have been really worried. It was the only time Kara acted like this.

Taylor held them tightly and said, “Let’s go home.”

The End

About the author

Travis writes science fiction, fantasy, and thriller novels (and the occasional coming-of-age story), with the hope of transporting and enthralling readers. Publishing novels since 2015, Travis's passion is creating worlds and characters that live and breathe, and experiencing the joy of those stories with his readers.

When not writing, Travis enjoys connecting with readers and other writers, managing the popular Complete Marvel Reading Order website, where he works on his other passion for comics and graphic novels, and spending time with his family.

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Fanfare

Dissonance

Elegy

From the Top

Center Stage

Imperium Series

Volume 1

The Sword of Jupiter

The Trumpets of Mars

The Sands of Saturn

The Depths of Neptune

The Fires of Vulcan

The Triumph of Venus

Volume 2

The Wings of Mercury

Shattered Lands Series

In the Shadow of Lions

An Ending of Oaths

False Start Series

Second Down

The Veilguard Saga

Threads of Destiny

Stand Alone

Going Home

Except: Threads of Destiy

“Osric? Osric! Damn you, boy, answer me!” 

Osric hurried out from the small back room, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste.

“Sorry, Master Ironhand,” he said, skidding to a halt by the forge.

The burly blacksmith turned from the anvil he had been hammering at and scowled at his young apprentice. Though not an unusually tall man, Ironhand had a presence that could fill up a room. His powerful frame spoke of decades spent shaping metal. For all his size, Osric knew him to be an incredibly gentle and caring man, underneath the gruff exterior.

“Sleeping on the job again?” Ironhand rumbled, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of one meaty hand. “I told you I needed that new stove casing shaped by lunchtime. Edar is expecting his new stove this afternoon, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t ready.”

“No, not sleeping, Master Ironhand. Just fetching some materials from the storeroom. I must have lost track of time.”

“See that it doesn’t happen again. A blacksmith without discipline is no better than a drunken fool.”

Osric ducked his head, abashed. “Yes, Master Ironhand.”

As he picked up the tongs and began working the first iron strip into shape over the forge’s glowing coals, Osric could feel Ironhand’s eyes still lingering on him for a few moments before the blacksmith turned back to his own task.

Truth be told, while he had gone to the storeroom for supplies, he’d taken longer than was really needed. It was the height of summer, and this close to the forge there were times it felt like his skin might boil off. The small storeroom, which doubled as Osric’s sleeping quarters, might not be all that much cooler, but as the sun started to climb in the sky, he’d take it over the forge.

Besides, it wasn’t like it mattered. Yes, Edar needed the new stove, but Osric knew for a fact he ate at the tavern half the time anyway, and it wasn’t like he needed it for warmth. A few hours here or there wasn’t going to kill anyone. Nothing around here was worth getting that excited about.

Life in Eldham was so uneventfully mundane. Day after day, it was the same routine, which for Osric was, wake up at dawn, stoke the forge’s fires, and spend the daylight hours pounding out horseshoes, stove parts, and farm tools.

Osric sighed loudly in spite of himself, prompting Master Ironhand to glance over.

“Something on your mind, boy?” the gruff blacksmith asked.

“I was just thinking,” Osric said as he brought the hammer down again. “Doesn’t it grow tedious just making the same types of things, day in and day out? Horseshoes, stove parts, axes; it’s always the same. I saw that sword you made for that Greenwood Ranger last year. If you went to Wolfsridge, you could be one of the greatest smiths in the Crownlands. People would travel for leagues to get one of your fabled blades.”

Osric lifted up his tongs and jabbed with it a few times, as if it were a sword he could use to vanquish unseen opponents.

Master Ironhand turned to fully face Osric, a frown on his face. “Glory and excitement? Is that what you’re after? Let me tell you, boy, those things are fleeting. What we do here may not seem glorious, but it’s honest work that keeps this village going. A knight’s pretty mail won’t plow the fields or keep a family warm come winter. Don’t underestimate the value of mundane things.”

“I know, it’s just that … I want more. To test myself against true challenges, to see the wider world beyond the forest. I know … I know, I’m an ingrate who doesn’t appreciate how good I have it here.” 

“No, lad,” he said, his expression softening. “Those feelings are only natural for a young man like you. I’ll admit to a longing or two when I was your age as well. You know I trained in Wolfsridge.”

“You trained in the capital? I didn’t know that,” Osric said, lowering his tong-shaped sword.

“Aye, I spent nigh on five years there as a young lad,” he said, getting a faraway look. “My father sent me to apprentice under the master smith, Enthnor.”

“What was it like?” Osric asked eagerly.

Master Ironhand hardly ever talked about his past. As far as Osric knew, he was born with a hammer in one hand, yelling at his mother for taking too long!

“Noisy, crowded, smelly, everything you’d expect of a big city. The capital has ten times the people of Eldham in one of its markets alone. Everyone’s in a hurry to get somewhere or to sell you something. You have to keep one hand on your coin purse at all times,” he said. “But I’ll admit the sights were something. The sprawling markets, the towering castle, the nonstop activity day and night. As a wide-eyed farm boy, it was like another world opened up.”

Osric tried to imagine it, a bustling city packed with exotic wares, grand buildings, and opportunity. It sounded like the polar opposite of sleepy little Eldham.

“Is that where you learned to forge a sword like you made for the ranger?” he asked.

Master Ironhand snorted, leaning a hand against the anvil. “No. Swordsmithing is a whole ’nother skill. But I did pick up plenty working under Enthnor. How to shape a sturdy plow or smooth out buckles. The fundamentals.”

“Why’d you leave?” Osric blurted out. “If the capital was so amazing, why come to somewhere like Eldham? Why not set up a smithy there?”

“Because cities have a way of swallowing your soul, boy. All that rushing about leaves no time to catch your breath. No stillness, no peace. Out here, we’ve got clean air, open skies, and good, honest folk.”

“Boring folk,” Osric muttered under his breath.

“Enough of your grumbling, boy. If you crave adventure so desperately, I’ll send you on one. We’re almost out of limestone dust. Grab the sack and head into the forest to collect as much as you can. Maybe when you get back, you’ll be able to focus on your job and stop daydreaming about adventuring. 

“We’re nearly out, and I’ll not have a useless grindstone in my smithy. Take your pickaxe and fetch enough to fill a sack. And you better not take your time getting back, or it’ll be your hide.”

“Yes, Master Ironhand. Right away,” Osric said, setting his tongs down and hurrying into the back room.

He gathered his tools and a large empty sack before hurrying out the door, not wanting to further provoke the blacksmith’s ire. Walking down the path to the forest, Osric kicked an errant rock. As adventures go, this wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. He went to the forest all the time for supplies, or really whenever he annoyed Master Ironhand a little too much.

“And don’t stop to talk to Talia,” Ironhand called out as Osric left.

Talia Penrose was the assistant and apprentice, of sorts, to Elder Miriam, although what a village elder apprentices someone for, Osric never quite knew. She was also a lot like Osric, in that they’d both been given over by their guardians to be apprenticed. The difference was Osric had lived with his aunt, who shuffled him off to have one less mouth to feed, while Talia’s parents had died in a fire when she was little, and Elder Miriam had taken her in.

Osric liked Talia. She was kind, clever, and maybe one of the nicest people he knew. He enjoyed spending time with her when neither of them had duties, although that was also because there were only a handful of others in their age range that lived in the village proper, and not out in one of the far-flung scratch farms or forest cabins where a lot of the population in this area actually lived. The villagers themselves tended to be much older, closer to Master Ironhand’s age, so as two of the few young adults, they had been kind of thrown together out of circumstance as much as anything else.

Osric hadn’t been intending to sneak off to see her, though. For one, she had her own duties, and she was much more conscientious about doing those than Osric was about doing his, and because he recognized when Master Ironhand was in a mood, he had no intention of setting him off again.

As he entered the cool shadows of the forest, Osric returned to the story he’d been telling himself, imagining himself as a hero on a quest rather than a lowly apprentice on a chore. His pickaxe became a sword, and the rabbit that ran by a fearsome beast, out for blood.

He wasn’t ten anymore, so make-believe wouldn’t hold him for long, but he allowed himself to enjoy the game for a little while, as he dreamed of adventures in far-off lands.

His adventure only lasted as long as it took to get far enough into the forest to find the special limestone rock that Master Ironhand had shown him, which was part of his secret to making good, strong iron. Then, it was the backbreaking work of prying it out of the ground and smashing it into small enough pieces to fit inside his sack.

One time, he’d asked why they didn’t just buy it like they did the iron they bought from the mine, which they had to make a day-long ride to in Tom Sorral’s wagon once every month or two. Master Ironhand had told him that this stone, which they crushed and melted into the slag, wasn’t found in the mines. As far as his master knew, their forest was the only place to find it. It was also why Master Ironhand’s wares were some of the best around.

Setting the nearly full bag down by a stream, Osric knelt down and splashed cool water on his face.

“Some adventure this is,” he muttered to himself.

After a few more moments of brooding, Osric stood and picked up his tools. It didn’t take long to locate another decent chunk of limestone to chip away at.

Osric wedged his pickaxe into a crevice in the limestone and pushed down with all his weight. The rock slowly shifted and cracked, with a few pieces breaking loose. He crouched down and brushed away the debris, then inserted the bar again for another attempt. As he strained against the unyielding stone, his mind wandered once more.

What would it be like to be one of those adventurers from the tales, boldly venturing into the unknown? Slaying vile monsters, rescuing fair maidens, uncovering treasures beyond imagination? Osric was jolted out of his daydream as the rock suddenly gave way and lurched to the side.

“Finally,” he muttered, bending down to inspect the now-exposed cavity.

He froze as his eyes fell upon something within the crevice that glinted in the dappled sunlight. Gingerly reaching in, Osric extracted an intricately engraved metal ring, stunned by its craftsmanship. It somehow looked old. Ancient, even. Yet, it was polished to an almost bright finish. A delicate and highly detailed image sat in the middle, where a gem would otherwise go, depicting some kind of bird in flight, a sword in its talons, and a wreath or halo on its head. Osric wasn’t an expert, but the workmanship was exquisite. He knew what this was, or at least, what it might be.

He’d seen the scribe who sometimes came through town with the tax collectors with a ring something like this. A ring with a pattern, in that case that of the king, set in the middle. Osric had once watched as he talked to Master Ironhand, and when they finished, the scribe wrote out a long document for him. Although Osric knew his letters, he hadn’t paid much attention to the document. He had, however, noticed when the scribe rolled up the document and poured some wax into the seam to seal it, and then pressed that ring into the wax, leaving behind an impression of the symbol of the king. It had struck Osric then because it had seemed important, formal.

This ring was similar to the scribe’s ring, but … more. The detail on this ring put the scribe’s to shame, but it looked as if the purpose was the same. The head of the ring wasn’t all that was fancy and impressive. The scribe’s had been smooth metal aside from the king’s symbol on the top, but this one was detailed across the band of the ring as well, including four tiny blood-red gems just down from the symbol in the middle. Low enough that they would not leave their impression, or at least not obscure the impression of the bird, if it was pressed into wax, but still surrounding it.

Osric reached to pick the small piece of jewelry up and thought for a moment that the gems around the face of the ring almost glowed as his fingers touched it, giving an almost pulsing sensation. It lasted for an instant before the feeling was gone, but Osric knew what he felt. Magic.

He didn’t really understand magic, although he knew that it was used by mages and sorcerers featured in many of the stories he’d heard or read. He didn’t know why, but it was the first thing Osric thought of as he touched the ring and saw that pulse. It felt … otherworldly, and special.

After a moment’s hesitation, Osric carefully picked the ring up. Holding it flat in his palm, he examined it closely, slowly turning the cool metal over in his hand. Although it was clearly very old, it showed no sign of corrosion. Looking into those small gems, they still seemed to have an ethereal glow. As he gazed upon it, Osric felt an inexplicable connection to the artifact. It felt like more than just a ring. It felt … important.

It was both exhilarating and like the treasure he’d been dreaming of, only it was real. Looking around, as if someone was going to yell at him any moment to put it back or call him a thief, Osric slid the ring into his pocket. The forest was quiet. He hadn’t been paying that much attention before, but Osric thought maybe it was quieter than it had been before. Not eerily silent, there were still far-off noises, but … it didn’t feel as peaceful as before.

Osric checked his bag. He’d collected enough stone for Master Ironhand. Maybe not as much as he’d originally intended; but enough, all the same. What he knew was that he didn’t want to stay in the forest any longer. He could feel the ring in his pocket, unnaturally heavy, weighing him down. 

He didn’t want to be out here on his own anymore, but he also didn’t want to put the ring back.

Besides, he wanted to know more about it, and he knew who to ask. Returning to the village, Osric stopped by the forge to drop off the stone he had collected. Thankfully, Master Ironhand wasn’t anywhere to be seen. It was already late in the day, which meant Master Ironhand had most likely gone to the inn, as he normally did. Collecting the stones had been Osric’s only real duty for the day, so he unloaded his limestone, and hurried away. Yes, his life might be easier tomorrow if he started work on the new order of brackets for Farmer Dolan’s new wagon, but he had a mission now, and he wasn’t going to be deterred.

Leaving the smithy, Osric headed to the center of the village, toward the longhouse that sat at its heart. It was the place where the villagers met and partied, where their elders governed and people were married; it was the business part of Eldham. The elders had their own homes, but at this time of day, he knew that Elder Miriam would be there. She was always sitting outside on a small bench, a book in her lap, alternating between reading and watching the people go about their day.

Osric had always been amazed by Elder Miriam. She seemed to have an infinite store of knowledge, and she was as kind as she was wise. She’d always been nice to Osric when he was small, and he still felt a warm place in his heart when he thought of her. Of course, she was nice to everyone, but Osric liked to think that maybe she was a little extra nice to him.

She was, indeed, sitting on her bench, reading, when Osric got to the longhouse. Her silver hair was tucked tight against the back of her neck, as always, probably to keep it from getting in the way of her reading, Osric thought. She seemed to sense him approaching and looked up as he did. Although he’d come to talk to her many times in the past, she somehow realized today was different the moment her gaze hit him. He could see it in her eyes, the way the corners crinkled as they narrowed, like a hawk considering a mouse.

“You had a busy day in the forest?” she asked.

While it wasn’t unusual for Osric to make trips into the forest to collect things for Master Ironhand, he was surprised that she knew that’s where he had been all the same.

“I found something,” Osric said in almost a whisper, leaning closer to her, concerned that someone else might overhear about his unusual treasure.

Elder Miriam raised her eyebrows, the lines on her face deepening with curiosity. Closing her book, she beckoned Osric to sit beside her.

“The forest often holds secrets, Osric, but they’re not often shared lightly,” she said, her voice a soft blend of intrigue and compassion. “Show me what it has given to you.”

As Osric sat down, he hesitantly reached into his pocket. His hand trembled slightly as he carefully drew the ring out, presenting it to her on his outstretched palm. Here, in the sun, the ring’s detailed craftsmanship stood out even more than it had in the shade of the forest. Elder Miriam’s eyes widened slightly as she saw the ring, a mixture of recognition and surprise flickering over her face. She extended a delicate, aged hand towards the artifact, her fingers hovering over it, stopping as if sensing the energy it radiated.

“This is no ordinary trinket, Osric,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. “There is an aura around it, an energy that feels ancient, arcane. Where did you find this?”

Osric didn’t answer right away. A farmer, someone he had known for years, started to walk past, causing Osric to close his fingers around the ring, hiding it from view. Elder Miriam looked around for the first time since the ring appeared, seeming to notice that there were people around them going about their business on the warm summer afternoon.

“Yes,” she said, almost to herself as well as to Osric. “Yes. Come, let’s discuss this further in my cottage, away from curious ears.”

She stood up from the bench, a steadying hand on Osric’s shoulder, and began to walk towards her residence. It wasn’t far, barely a stone’s throw from the longhouse, as befit her status as a village elder. Even with her importance, Eldham was still a very small village, and her cottage mirrored that fact. A quaint two-room structure with a nice garden outside, although Osric knew her neighbors and friends tended to that more than Miriam did these days. At her age, spending time kneeling in the dirt, tending to it, was a bit more than her frail body could handle.

As they walked the village’s everyday sounds faded into a hushed backdrop. He was focused on the ring in his hand, which felt heavier than anything so small had a right to be. He felt as if everyone around them could see it, no matter how tightly he clenched his fist around the metal. It felt as if they could sense its presence, the foreignness of it. He was glad to follow her into her cottage and shut the rest of the world out, away from them. Elder Miriam’s cottage felt like a safe haven, a place free from the prying eyes of the village.

As Miriam opened the door, Talia, who was tidying up books and scrolls when they walked in, looked up suddenly, a surprised expression on her face as Osric walked in behind Miriam. She had probably not expected Miriam home so soon, since she usually stayed by the longhouse until near dark, and almost certainly didn’t expect Osric, who’d normally still be at Master Ironhand’s shop.

Closing the door behind them, Elder Miriam gestured for Osric to take a seat at the small table.

“Osric! What brings you here at this hour?” Talia asked, smiling in a way that made Osric temporarily forget why he had come.

“I found something …” Osric started.

“Talia, would you be a dear and put on some tea?” Miriam interjected, cutting Osric off.

“Yes, Elder,” Talia said, setting about preparing the tea while Miriam cleared space on the table.

Osric opened his hand and carefully set the ring on the table. As she brought the tea, Osric could see Talia trying to peek at what he and Elder Miriam were looking at, clearly interested.

“This craftsmanship is ancient, and these markings,” she said, pointing to the detailed bird with the sword and halo, “they are not any I’ve seen before. I have a faint memory… no, I can’t recall, but I know this symbol is old. I can feel the energy rolling off it. There is powerful magic here. Powerful.”

Shaking a thought away, she pointed at one of the open chairs and said, “Talia, come assist me.”

Talia didn’t bother to sit, moving quickly to stand beside Miriam, looking down at the ring before the elder could even finish her sentence. Sitting back, Elder Miriam’s hands began to move with purpose above the ring. Her fingers traced through the air, forming complex gestures as she began to weave her magic. The ring responded to her motions, emitting a soft blue glow that intensified with each pass of her hands.

After a moment, much to Osric’s surprise, Talia began the same motions, mimicking the Elder, but maybe in reverse. It was hard to tell as he looked from their hands, to their concentrating faces, and back to the ring. It was too much for Osric to take in all at once.

Suddenly, a thin tendril of blue magic extended from the ring, reaching towards Osric and lightly brushing against him.

“This ring,” Miriam said, her voice filled with a mixture of awe and seriousness, “is not just old and powerful; it is connected to you. There’s a bond present such as I’ve never seen before. This is far outside of my understanding or anything I’ve read about.”

Osric, taken aback, could only stare in stunned silence. Everyone knew how wise and knowledgeable Elder Miriam was, so it shouldn’t have come as a shock to learn that she could weave magic. And Talia too! Miriam didn’t even tell her what to do. She just watched what the Elder did with her hands and knew what to do, their combined motions, or power, or whatever, causing the sudden light to appear.

Talia caught Osric staring at her open-mouthed and blushed a little but remained completely focused on her motions, her delicate fingers never stopping their fluid contortions.

His moment of wonder was marred by what the elder had said. Why was it tied to him, and how could someone as wise as Elder Miriam not only not know what it was but say it was outside of her experience? The words filled Osric with dread and gave him far more questions than answers.

Miriam stopped her motions, with Talia following suit a moment later. The blue tendril dissipated as the glow from the ring slowly faded. The Elder looked at Osric, her expression a mix of concern and fascination.

“You must be careful, Osric. A bond like this is rare and can attract unwelcome attention. This ring holds secrets, perhaps even dangers, that we don’t yet understand.”

Osric nodded, resisting the urge to swallow hard, and asked, “What should I do with it?”

For a moment, she didn’t reply, only leaned back in her chair, watching him through the flickering candlelight.

“For now, keep it safe and hidden,” she advised solemnly. “There are people who would do terrible things to possess an artifact as old and powerful as this. We must learn more about this ring and its origins. Until we do, and can figure out a way to disconnect it from you, I’m not sure how much danger getting rid of it or losing it might cause you. These kinds of connections can be powerful and could potentially cause you great harm.”

“So I just… keep it?” Osric asked, a little panicked at what she meant by ‘great harm.’

“Talia and I will research in my books. There may be something in the histories that can tell us what this is. But until we know more, you must tread carefully, Osric. Such items can change the course of lives, and not always for the better.”

Stunned by all of this, Osric carefully picked up the ring, feeling the cool metal against his skin. He could almost sense the pulsing energy that Elder Miriam had mentioned and feel that tendril still reaching out to him. Slipping the ring back into his pocket, he stood up and bowed awkwardly toward her.

“I … um … thank you, Elder Miriam.”

“No, thank you, Osric. Life is so quiet here that sometimes I forget how exciting the world can be, with …” she said, trailing off, not finishing the thought. “Never mind. You go. I’m sure Master Ironhand will have much for you to do in the morning.”

Osric nodded, still feeling shaken by everything that had just happened, and headed for the door. As he stepped outside, Talia gently caught his arm, stopping him in the doorway.

“Osric, wait,” she said softly, looking left and right to see if they were alone as he turned to face her.

“Try not to worry,” Talia said. “Elder Miriam is the wisest person I know. If anyone can uncover the secrets of that ring, she can.”

Osric gave her a small, grateful smile. “I know. It’s just … a lot to take in.”

He wanted to ask her about her knowing magic, about what just happened and what she did, but he didn’t dare. Not out here in the open knowing that both she and Elder Miriam had kept their abilities secret. Besides, he’d had about enough revelations for one night. He didn’t think he could take any more. Talia stepped closer and squeezed his arm reassuringly. He could feel the heat of her body as she brushed against him.

“We’ll figure this out,” she said. “I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Her words sent a rush of warmth through Osric. He reached up and briefly clasped her hand with his own.

“Thank you, Talia,” he said quietly. “Good night.”