Chapter 8

Chapter

Eight

REMY

N ot tracking Patch and Locke all the way to the mobile unit required discipline. We had multiple SUVs incoming.

"Twenty to twenty-five," McQuade said, his tone dry. "Starting to think someone out there has a hard-on for our woman."

Our woman.

The term implied a great deal of possession. With her sweet taste still lingering on my lips, it wasn't a conversation I wanted to have. Particularly with her rapid exodus alongside our resident thief.

So, I snorted. "Twenty-five? Not really offering much of a threat." I could take that many on my own. "I'm going up. You good down here?"

"Hell no," McQuade said with a smirk as he checked over his weapons, verifying his magazine loads and sliding more into his pockets. "I haven't been good in years."

Another alarm went off. "Hmm, looks like we have more company on the way," I murmured, checking my phone on the way to the roof. Grabbing the drawstring, I pulled the ladder down.

"Ground assault." McQuade checked the weapons he'd lined up on the counter in the kitchen. "Not on the trail?"

At the top of the ladder, I glanced at the screen. As much as McQuade had laid out and prepared for the best avenues of attack for our location, it was still nice to see it confirmed. "Not on the trail. They're coming up from the south. Pincer move."

"Bastards lack any kind of creativity." McQuade's derisive snort needed no other explanation. "Keep them focused on us."

I held up the remote. "Don't get dead."

"You too, mate." His toothy grin was all viciousness with just a scant bit of amusement.

I rolled my eyes and headed up to the roof. I had a lovely perch that allowed me a full 360 view and access to multiple targets. I tucked the ear bud into place. Noise cancellation would let me hear McQuade and shield my ears from the decibels of the rifle firing.

"The party has arrived," McQuade damn near drawled. "Table for five, corner right. Looks like a bunch of irritating bastards."

On my stomach, weapon set, I checked the sight and scratched off two stealthing toward the front of the cabin. Their all white garb let them blend in where the rest of the crew were in black. Interesting.

"Optical illusions. Two tried to jump the line. Two eliminated. Take care of your first guests. I'm on the next wave."

McQuade drew their attention nearly as much as he took down his targets. But it was my job to flush them out of hiding, particularly those who went to ground when the first of their camouflaged people didn't get past me. I was scanning for the three I'd spotted earlier, when I caught one of the SUVs roaming backwards.

"Hmm, someone's walking the check," McQuade practically tsked.

"I see them." Lifting the remote, I set off the first wave of charges. They exploded upwards in sequence, the pattern seeming to increase in speed as it approached the attackers trying to flank us.

Lowering the remote, I sighted the secondary explosive device we'd planted. Like obedient sheep, the freelance guns scattered, following the path I'd left open. In three, two… I squeezed the trigger in between the heartbeats and hit the mark.

This explosion went upward in a plume of displaced snow, and smoke. The snow muffled some of the sound and helped with the shrapnel, but the concussive force they rushed into blew them backwards and took all seven men out.

"Nice," McQuade complimented before he shutdown another grouping who lined themselves up.

"Thank you," I said, evenly, scanning the field for my next shot. The hotheads and the reckless ones were always the first into a fray. Currently, they were all down and removed from the field.

That left us with the cagier, more experienced members of their assault team. The ones who understood the value of patience. A glimmer of light in the distance pulled my attention from what was directly in front of me. I shifted, every so slightly, using the scope to check the farther ranges.

Another flash.

I zeroed in on the location, just a quarter of mile to the southwest. A blue scarf wrapped to a sapling, fluttered faintly in the near nonexistent breeze.

Tracking back from the scarf, I located the faint movement. The sniper had hunkered down. Probably aware that the milky sunlight fighting to penetrate the cloudy gloom of dawn had given him away.

Or at least worried that it had.

Touching my tongue to my teeth, I fired three shots in rapid succession. The first went wide—on purpose.

The second also went wide, but ahead of him instead of behind.

Be cocky, I said internally. The third shot went four inches above that flash of motion.

Keeping watch via the scope, I nodded as the weapon suddenly dangled like a poisonous fruit in the trees.

Gunfire strafed the roof, the bullets chewing up the sealed wood and sending the chips of it flying. The shards peppered me, slicing cuts along my cheek. They might have done more except I wore gloves and a heavy, dark coat that helped me to blend in.

The gunfire came from two separate locations. Smart. An experienced pair, working in tandem to cover each other while keeping me pinned. It was an excellent maneuver. I spared about ten seconds of admiration for them as they got to where I needed them.

Squeezing the button on the remote, I dropped my head for cover as I set off another daisy chain of explosions. Unfortunately for the tandem pair, it effectively ended their pincer move efficiently, if spectacularly.

"Damn," McQuade's voice reached me via some static on the comm. "Clear down here."

I lifted my head and scanned the area. No movement beyond the occasional operative that writhed on the ground. Some of them were in death throes. Most were already there. One or two looked like they were trying to crawl to freedom.

"Baiting the hook," I warned McQuade before I pushed back part of my cover. The movement would catch attention as would me pushing up a helmet.

Had more shooters been present and aware enough to take their shot, the helmet would get attention. Then again, maybe it wouldn't.

"No movement."

"Standby," McQuade answered. A door opened somewhere. The sound was almost violent in the quiet left by the battle's aftermath. With the litter of bodies and blood spilled over the snow, it was a scene of discarded and broken toys. "No movement."

"On three then?" Neither of us were going to move without the other clearing it. The first one up or out would be the most vulnerable.

"One," McQuade said, and I could feel him scanning the area.

"Two," I countered, moving to my knees slowly as I scanned our surroundings. The cabin had taken a beating. The roof's damage was significant. It was a pity. The building held a kind of rustic charm.

"Three." McQuade strode out front, a gun in each hand and I kept watch as he went body to body. "Are we getting takeout?"

I didn't answer right away. We'd discussed some of it. But this was a huge mess to clean up and we weren't going to be able to scrub the whole scene.

"I want to know how they're locating her." They weren't tracking us. If they were, it would shock me. We'd had the trackers removed from her, so how did they keep finding her?

"So takeout then," McQuade said, a faint hum vibrating along the underside of the words. "Any preferences?"

I sighted the man who came up out of the snow behind McQuade, a knife in hand. One shot and down he went. I angled it to go clean. The last thing I wanted was the bullet going through the target to McQuade.

For his part, McQuade jerked as he spun to face the now downed man. He lifted his chin, and I didn't have to be face to face to imagine the scorn in his eyes as well as the irritation.

"You're welcome," I said easily enough.

"Right, thanks mate." He smirked and I rolled my eyes.

Once he'd done a sweep of all those close by, I descended to join him. We had a vehicle to load. More vehicles to destroy too. They'd brought a lot of hardware and firepower.

"You getting the impression they don't want her alive anymore?" McQuade asked as I emptied out the glovebox and the console on one of the vehicles.

None of the men had identification. The cars were even missing VIN numbers and I'd bet my favorite gun, the plates were also fake. The men themselves were generic, size and build suggested military. They were also from a cross-section of ethnicities.

Nothing pointed a finger in a single direction. Smart.

Aggravating, but smart.

"I don't know," I admitted, addressing his question. "Did they want her alive in the first place because of what she took? Or because of who she might have told?"

We didn't have the answers.

With a sweep of my hand, I motioned to the bodies we were going to need to deal with sooner rather than later. "This could also be here to deal with us. They've figured out she isn't alone."

McQuade let out a grunt. "I've got three live ones. You want the pick of the litter?"

I glanced to where he'd secured three men. They all had various injuries. One of them was currently soaking his shirt with blood. He wasn't going to last long. The other two were bleeding but not as heavily.

"If they're just grunts, it's a waste of time." They wouldn't know anything more than their orders.

"True," McQuade said, scratching his jaw. "Let me do a process of elimination. You pack the truck." Without waiting for my agreement, he pulled out a rather large hunting knife and headed straight for the three men.

One of them blanched so hard, I wouldn't be shocked if he'd just pissed his pants. McQuade was in his element as he squatted in front of them and made that huge knife dance. Shaking my head, I finished my inspection of the remaining bodies and vehicles. Even if all I expected to find was more nothing, I refused to leave anything to chance.

The crack of a gun pulled me around. McQuade stared in consternation down at a body. At my look, he spread his arms. "He ate his own gun."

Death before capture? I shrugged. The more I learned about the types of people hired and the things they would do to get Patch back, the more determined I grew to end this threat. Section Five may or may not be government sanctioned, but Patch was never going to be free as long as they were after her.

"I've got two," McQuade said when I finally made it back to him. They were both unconscious, the bleeding had turned sluggish and he'd pretty much stripped them of all clothes before he dumped them into the back of our truck. There was also a dead body inside.

"I thought you said you cleaned him up before." The man had started following Locke on his last trip out for supplies. When Locke hadn't been able to shake him, McQuade met him on the road.

"No," McQuade said, rolling his head from side to side to crack his neck. "I told you I took care of it. Besides, he'll be motivational."

While the colder temps had definitely delayed decomp, the smell was distinctive.

"We need to grab the last of our things."

Then we'd need to scrub the location.

"You first," McQuade said. "Then I'll get mine." Like Locke and Patch, we had our own go bags. I repacked my rifle and made sure to bring ammunition and explosives. The mobile unit was fully loaded, but I didn't want to run low before we linked back up with them.

We also had prisoners to interrogate and they were definitely not going anywhere near Patch. When I returned, McQuade flashed me a feral smile before he jogged back inside. I stored my things in the back of the cab, well away from our prisoners under the hatch. He'd lined the back with sleeping bags and wrapped two of them up in the weatherproof ones.

It would keep them alive. Not pleasantly, but then I found it hard to give a damn one way or the other. My phone buzzed. Another alarm had gone off and McQuade came at a run.

"We've got more company."

That was a problem.

"You were right," I said after McQuade got his things inside and I fired up the truck's engine. I turned to follow the track into the woods, it bounced us all over the place, but we could cut twenty or thirty miles off the route going this way and stay hidden from air support.

"We pulled two trackers out of her," McQuade said. "Then the minute we head back toward civilization they were all over us? Had to be some kind of biochemical tracer they were using. Something on her skin that survived showers."

I grunted. "It's been over a month."

"Agreed and I think it's wearing off. If nothing else, now that we have an idea, we can look at a decon shower. The mobile unit will shield her though."

Another happy little idea he and Locke had come up with. Shielding the interior in case she was transmitting. I loathed the people after her, they were determined.

Too determined.

They were definitely the kind you killed, not just stopped. Because otherwise they would keep coming back.

"You're forgetting something," McQuade said as we bounced down the rutted track to the stream and then back up the other side. There were thumps in the back as our guests rolled around and bounced off the sides.

An explosion echoed behind us. The fireball wasn't quite visible. Though we did catch sight of the red glow after the third one.

"Timers," McQuade grunted. "Nice thinking, mate."

I groaned. "Stop calling me mate."