Chapter 19

Nineteen

The patience of the sniper lay in the ability to wait minutes, hours, days, and weeks if necessary for the shot. I could wait an eternity if necessary.

There was a moment of perfect peace found in the seconds between heartbeats, in lining up the target and squeezing the trigger. Profound tranquility that lasts microseconds.

As the hot sticky air wrapped around me like a cocoon, I settled into place. My gun was cool against my fingers. The scope let me isolate my field of vision as necessary. One by one, I cataloged the night sounds and began to eliminate them.

The buzzing of the insects.

The croaking of the frogs.

The singing of nightbirds.

The faint lap of the water.

A distant splash.

Each one identified, then muted. If the sound changed or shifted in some way, I’d notice then. Until then, I didn’t need to be distracted. Sweat trickled down my face. A thin line of Vaseline across my brows kept the perspiration from finding its way into my eyes.

While I settled into place, McQuade and Locke crossed the cracked, dilapidated parking lot that seemed more suited to a strip mall along an interstate than some secret installation.

Then again, black sites never looked like black sites. That was the point.

I studied the lot through my scope. The cameras. They had to have them, just camouflaged well. Nearing the muddy yellow glow cast by one of the lights illuminating the lot, McQuade fired three times before the glass broke and the light went out.

He wasn’t that bad of a shot. Bullet resistant glass used for outdoor lights? If we weren’t already certain the sketchy nature of the location, that would have confirmed it. They were in the first door swiftly after the glass came down.

I debated going ahead and taking out the rest of the lights, but the destruction of the first didn’t seem to alert security. I marked the locations for ease of targeting later, then went back to overwatch on the door.

My awareness submerged, letting me process the sounds around me as I eliminated the ones I didn’t need in order to listen for the ones I did. A car motor approaching? A shift in the breeze? Movement in the water?

Anything that could interfere with me doing my job—I was their exit plan. Time ceased to have any meaning for me. I didn’t need to count the seconds or worry about the passage of time.

Not yet, anyway.

McQuade was excellent at infiltration as well as search and rescue. He had enough skills to assist should Patch be injured. It would do the other occupants of this building a favor if she was in perfect health when she was found.

Locke might not have the weapons training, but he possessed computer savvy and the ability to bypass locks and other security measures. Based on an assessment of our skills, they were the ideal partnership to go in.

Just as I was the one who would make sure their exit was not compromised. Minutes trickled together. At the fifteen minute mark, I registered it and gave myself a brief thirty seconds to roll my head from side to side. Then resumed watch.

Just one minute before the thirty-minute mark everything went to hell. The distant sound of an alarm seemed muffled and the air even heavier. Skating my tongue over my lower lip, I held position.

The alarm could have nothing to do with them.

It could have everything to do with them.

We had one fallback plan if it went to hell. That involved me going for more backup to retrieve her since they would likely be dead.

Nice plan.

It would take too long. I also had more faith in McQuade than Locke did. Or maybe I just understood him better. Both men wanted Patch back. While we may only intersect on that one point, in the Venn diagram of our acquaintance, it was enough to make me trust them and value their retrieval as well as hers.

My internal stop-watch began the countdown. I barely made it past six minutes and the outer door banged open releasing the sound of the alarm which blared even louder, the pop of gunfire, and Locke moving at a dead run with a woman in his arms.

Relief flickered to life within me before I cut away from them to the door McQuade backed out of. He was still firing his gun, then he tossed something before he hauled ass.

The flash-bang went off inside. Seemed almost too easy to pick off the guards who came stumbling out.

Then again, they came out which meant they were going down. I had zero intentions of letting anyone recover to pursue them.

Pop.

Down the first one went.

Pop.

The second.

Pop. Pop.

Third and fourth.

Pop.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Let them serve as a warning to the others who might follow. The alarm suddenly sounded outside, the muddy light went spotlight bright and the lamps seemed to rotate position. They were going to use the light to reveal where Locke and McQuade went with Patch.

I thought not.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

The .308 worked her magic. The lights extinguished as fast as their flare could expand. One went down in a shower of bursting glass and hot wires. When the last one was out, I targeted the door.

Three men had made it out during the distraction. I winged the one farthest forward as he dove for cover before taking headshots on the other two. Their survival rate would go up if they halted pursuit.

The idiots inside seemed to finally get the picture that coming out through their single chokepoint was a dumb idea.

Excellent. I switched weapons, taking the reprieve to launch a few grenades toward the lot. They had to have other vehicles elsewhere or they were bussing in their guards. Cause they had way more people exiting than the vehicles would have accounted for.

My phone buzzed in my back pocket as I reclaimed my rifle. My winged man didn’t let the grenades flush him out. Ice in his veins.

I could respect that.

Another two buzzes. They had Patch at the vehicle. Extraction imminent.

As much as I’d like to play with this shooting gallery, it was time to go. I broke down the guns and repacked them without breaking cover. Then I hugged the weapons bag and rolled down the slight slope toward the water.

I didn’t go all the way, I didn’t have time to deal with the local reptiles. Once I was lower, I rose to my feet and began to run. We’d parked nearly two kilometers away and used the local flora for cover.

They wouldn’t leave the grove until I was in sight. With no lights from the parking lot and clouds having gradually rolled in during the day, I didn’t need to move with the shadows. The whole world was a shadow and my eyes had adjusted.

At less than half a klick away something hot creased my side and I pivoted, siting the muzzle flash in the dark as another bullet whistled so perilously close to my head that I felt the heat of it.

I fired in rapid succession and heard the grunt and collapse of my pursuer.

Then I was running again. Adrenaline sang through me, giving me the speed I needed. McQuade had a gun pointed at me as I descended into the copse.

He nodded and then motioned to the passenger seat. Then he was starting the car. This was the moment where everything could go wrong. I slid my rifle bag into the back and flicked a look at Patch. I couldn’t see anything except long hair escaping the blanket she’d been wrapped in. There was an IV in, already attached to her hand.

McQuade worked fast. Gun in hand, I pulled my seatbelt on. I needed to focus on shooting, not flying out of my seat. As it was, I put the shoulder strap behind me so the lap belt was all that remained. She was with us and safe. I could do a full assessment once we were clear of these assholes.

“Secure?” McQuade checked, his gaze on the rearview mirror.

“Secure,” Locke answered.

“Stay down and cover her.” McQuade said nothing else as he put his foot down and the vehicle climbed back onto the road. We had no headlights and all the interior lights were turned down.

A moving target was harder to hit, especially if you couldn’t see it. The only problem we had was I could hit one I could hear. There was no muffling the engine.

Silence filled the vehicle as McQuade accelerated down the road. I kept one eye on the side mirror. The flames from the fires behind us quickly vanished, swallowed by the darkness.

That didn’t mean they weren’t tracking us.

Tracking her.

Fifteen minutes later, we transferred her into a different vehicle along with the weapons and gear before dousing this one and setting it on fire. I didn’t care if the exterior survived. Destroying the interior would destroy DNA evidence.

It was also my first chance to get a look at Patch. She seemed—tinier than I’d expected. Blonde hair tipped by dark strands like she was letting a dye job grow out added a hint of goth to her.

Or maybe that was the violent paleness to her. If not for the fact her chest rose and fell, I’d be more worried about her stillness. She’d already emptied one banana bag and Locke hung another while I watched.

Thankfully, our second vehicle was loaded with what we needed. The ambulance came fully equipped. The markings all indicated Crimson Stripe Rescues, a nonprofit that deployed to disaster areas in the U.S. These vehicles were familiar in flood zones, forest fires, and landslides or in the wake of hurricanes and devastating tornadoes.

The U.S. certainly possessed a creative variety of natural disasters. McQuade was behind the wheel again. Though he also now sported a red uniform. Troubling to be so brightly colored, but I slid into the back with Locke and pulled out the scanners.

“ETA?” I checked. We were leaving Louisiana.

“Four hours,” McQuade answered over his shoulder. “I can make it faster, but we’ll attract more attention than we want.”

That didn’t require a response, so I didn’t answer. Instead, I ran the scanner over Patch and examined the injuries we could see.

Cigarette burns.

Ligature marks on her wrists and around her throat. The ones on her wrists included deeper lacerations, and scabbed over wounds.

Bruises littered her face, one cheek was swollen and there was definite inflammation around her right eye. Her fingers were…

I reached for her right hand and didn’t think anything about it as I popped the fingers back into place one at a time. Locke winced.

“Fuckers.”

“Agreed.”

She didn’t even twitch. They’d focused their torture—dislocating rather than breaking. Burns instead of scalding. The bruises on her face? Painful but not debilitating.

“We’ll need to check her other joints as soon as we’re fully secure.” We couldn’t afford to do it right now. The scanner let out a little wah-wah as I passed it over her.

It wasn’t until Locke eased her over to tuck her against his chest that I found it. The “clothes” she wore were mostly a collection of rags with a seam.

Her bare ass showed more bruises, long, deep stripes likely created by a cane. They marred down her legs too. I cataloged it and added it to the tab of the people who’d taken her.

“Found one.”

“They fucking tagged her like an animal.” Locke’s knuckles were white, but he braced her with his arms and kept his hands off her.

That was exactly what they’d done. I got a small scalpel out and a kit with some lidocaine. I could at least numb the area before I removed it. I had no idea how deep it was.

The vehicle bounced as I drew up the lidocaine and I spared a glance at Locke who glared toward the cab.

“Keep it smooth and steady, he’s got to cut something out of her.”

“Understood.”

He’d do his best. We all would.

“You got her?” I checked with Locke.

He nodded sharply, a little jerky in his motions.

“A little stick,” I murmured to her. She deserved to know what I was doing. Injecting the lidocaine, I gave her some time for it to start working before I traced the barely closed incision line they’d left behind.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to go too deep to get the tracker. I put it to the side, then closed her up, careful to use skin glue to seal it, then applied butterfly bandages before I taped it up.

Done, I stripped off the gloves before I helped Locke settle her back onto the gurney. She was out. Her expression hadn’t even changed. With care, I checked her pulse. It was rapid.

That was good, right?

“What else is in the IV bag?”

“Not much, but saline,” Locke said. “She looks dehydrated, cracked lips and open wounds on her fingertips. But we have no idea if she’s allergic to anything.”

I glanced to the lidocaine and sighed. “I probably shouldn’t have used it.”

“Maybe.”

“Lidocaine allergies are extremely rare,” McQuade called from the front. “We have epinephrine onboard so we can do something about it. For now, it’ll have to do.”

Yeah. It would. I went back to work, packing away the medical supplies before I dropped the tracker into a thermos and sealed it up.

“We need to dump this,” I called up to him.

“Already looking for a good spot.”

Fifteen minutes later, we left a rest area with the truck pulling out behind us now carrying the tracker in a thermos secured beneath it. McQuade didn’t stay with that road and diverted more toward an interstate now so we could move faster.

Through it all, Patch hadn’t even twitched. I found myself studying her again in the flickers of light now that we’d turned off the lights in the back. The slope of her brow where it wasn’t beaten. The curve of her lips. The lack of expression—or at least the utter stillness of her expression—didn’t sit well with me.

Patch was one of the most vibrant people I’d ever heard.

She should be the same in person. That her light had been so dimmed was on them.

“Did we figure out who they were?”

“No,” Locke answered, in a voice that seemed as troubled as my soul. “We didn’t have time. She was trying to get out when we got in.”

I paused. “You’re sure this is her?”

“She recognized us,” Locke said. “I saw it in her eyes—they’re gray by the way, if you were wondering. But she knew who we were.”

“She spoke,” McQuade added. “She said ‘I’m going to pass out now.’”

“It was rough and she hurts,” Locke confirmed. “But it’s her. It’s our Patch.”

Right. Good.

We had her.