Warrior Mine (6 page)

“I’m headed into the woods and want to keep her out of the weather.”

“Oh, uh…sure. My gramps won’t mind. It’s his place. But…I know we wouldn’t make that much in a week with both bays open. Business just isn’t that steady. These days everybody’s drivin’ a new car.” He rocked on his heels and then hopped, like only a rubber-jointed kid could, toward the building. “I’ll lift the door and you can pull’er on in.”

“No you won’t,” a worn, yet strong, voice came from the far side of the building.

The kid stalled mid-step and squinted at the old man barreling around the corner with a tire iron clenched in his sun-leathered grip. “But Grandpa, this guy said—”

“Get inside and lock the door, John,” his grandfather interrupted.

A scowl as deep as the San Andreas trenched the man’s brow. His shoulders, wide enough to have done considerable damage in his prime, swayed in Vail’s direction. With the metal weapon, he expected the guy could still bring the hurt to a vast majority of the population. White hair shorn in a military issue high-and-tight gave him an air of authority.

John squeaked out a confounded, “But…” while he hustled to the door.

“We don’t need your tainted money. Now, take your car and go.”

Vail relaxed his stance as much as his body would allow, in an effort to appear non-threatening. As a muscled guy of six-three he’d never had much success blending out in the open. “I don’t mean to offend you. I’d be paying for a service. Just like any other customer.”

“Kids these days can’t see danger when it’s staring them in the face. He’s smart in every other respect, but I bet my grandson would pet a cobra, if it bobbed its head in front of him. Society’s made them all soft. But I know a threat when I see one. We want no part of what you and your friends are up to.”

“My friends?” Vail asked.

“I may be old, but I’m not stupid. Nobody in their right mind would set out to camp in the face of a snow storm. The only place in three square miles of here is Hank Higgin’s old place. Wads o’ cash and flashy cars have no cause in these woods. Damn you dealers. If y’all are cookin’ meth up at Hig’s old place, I don’t want to know. So long as you stay off my property and away from my family. We don’t want any trouble. But, if you’re lookin’ for it, I’ll give it to you.”

“Oh, I’m looking for trouble. But not from you, sir.”

The man cocked his head and his murky blue eyes studied Vail from top to bottom. He let the iron hang by his side. “You’re not a cop.”

“No, sir.”

“Could be a fed. I’m betting you're ex-military, though I’ve never seen a jarhead make out quite so well.”

“No jars here, leatherneck. I earned my trident every day. Still do, in a different way.”

“You a merc?”

“No. We'll say I’m sanctioned and leave it at that.”

“You here to take out the trash?”

“I am.”

“There’s at lease six of ’em.”

“How many cars did you see?”

“Two. Three got outta’ one car. Two outta’ the second, but the way their eyes kept darting back to the thing, I suspect there was more in there.”

“You have people meeting you, huh?”

“No, sir.”

“Damn. I mean, SEALS are good, but not invincible.”

“I’ll manage.”

The old man chewed his cheek. His gaze narrowed. “Somethin’ tells me you will.” He waved his grandson from the building. The kid’s hand hadn’t left the lock and his gaze had been riveted the entire time, bouncing between him and his grandfather. John flipped the lock and took a hesitant step out. “Raise the door. Seems Mr….”

“Tucker,” Vail supplied.

“Mr. Tucker isn’t quite what I thought he was.”

“Yes, sir.” The kid moved to do as the man asked, but the pep of his earlier steps had disappeared.

“Bring your car in and I’ll tell you what I know about Hig’s place. It’s a lot. We’ve been friends since the day we were born.”

“I’m sorry he had to go into a home.”

“Age.” The man chased Vail’s words away with a swat of his hand. “No one escapes it, until they die.”

V
ail nodded
to Gunnery Sergeant John Batten and his grandson and then headed across the street for the overgrown path the sergeant took to Hig’s house as a young boy. As promised, in the time he’d spent reminiscing about the good ole’ days and talking details, the temperature had dropped a good ten degrees, settling it between uncomfortable and freeze-your-nuts solid, depending on the wind. The brisk pace he set and the rising grade of the passage heated him enough he didn’t worry with gloves. His T-shirt, wool sweater, and light jacket were adequate until he bedded down for the night.

He shivered at the thought of propping against a half-frozen tree for even a minute. Cold had never bothered him. Not one bit. He was a SEAL for fuck’s sake. On assignment he’d taken a polar bear plunge in Russia. In training he’d treaded water for more than twelve hours in the middle of the Atlantic during the dead of winter. But after lying on the concrete in a pool of his own blood, the chill clung like it had seeped into his marrow and turned the stuff to ice.

The stiffness melted away, replaced by the sure tingle of a thousand needle pricks. At least the burning had faded. An ache still lingered, dull and unobtrusive, but always there. He walked on the edge of the trail instead of weaving through the crop of saplings flourishing in the sergeant’s absence.

Nevermind the trees didn’t have leaves on their branches, the width of their trunks and spread of their limbs blocked out what little sunlight made it through the cloud. The longer he walked the less and less light peeked through the forest. The thinner the light, the thinner his blood apparently. Blue tinted the well of his fingernails and his lips had taken to quivering twenty minutes back.

Was this it? What losing a step looked like? How it felt to see everything you’ve spent your life working to achieve slip from your grasp? Sure, he wasn’t in the field anymore. Not much. But was this the beginning of the slow and steady decline to doomsday? If the physical faltered, how soon before the mental? Jesus, he was only forty-fucking-two. But that was only eighteen years till sixty, and then what? Covert. High-stakes. Life-or-death. That’s what he knew. He didn’t know how to do life. Not anymore.

This weakness stirred an emotion he hadn’t tangled with in quite a while. It bubbled at a simmer for a minute, but quickly turned to an all-out boil. The urge to roar and snarl like a feral beast overwhelmed him. Only years and experience kept the rage inside. If he gave in to the baser instincts, he’d alert the mob to his recon.

After a while Vail arrived at “the kicker,” as the old man had called it. “You’ll know it when you see it,” he’d said.

Yeah, no kidding.

A thirty-foot wall of sculpted rock protruded from the earth like one day it had gotten ambitious and leaped for the sky. It didn’t make it all the way, but it gave commendable, as well as irritating, effort. Vail stepped up to the watercolor wall of tan, grabbed hold with his numb fingers, found a foothold, and poured his anger into the rock.

Damn Carmen. If she hadn’t shot him, he wouldn’t be here, freezing his sack off and realizing he was closer to the end of his life than he was to the beginning, and that he didn't have much of a life to speak of anyway.

Sweat trickled down his back. Mid-way up perspiration slicked his palms, endangering his grip. Between each hand hold or finger hold, whichever he could find, he rubbed his free hand down the leg of his charcoal-colored cargo pants. It cost him more time and energy. When he reached
fall-and-you-could-die-or-just-lay-incapacitated-until-the-coyotes-or-black-bears-maul-you-to-death
height his grip slipped from the tiny two-finger hollow he’d chosen out of necessity to be able to place his big boots against a wide ridge. As his weight swung with the pendulum of his position, jagged rocks scraped like a combination of sandpaper and knives across his left wrist.

The earth seemed to lunge toward him. No. He lurched toward it.

His chin grazed the rough outcropping and his shoulder tackled like a lineman. He’d been one, once upon a time, and had never hit anything so immovable. Not even Marv, the three-hundred-ten-pound guard of the Blue Ridge Bobcats. Impact forced the air from his lungs, but that he could live through. As long as he could get his muscles to cooperate. He shoved hard, digging into the solid footing he’d found on the previous position and rammed his shoulder even harder against the rock. Vail Tucker, the human plank. It would be funny. One day. If he made it past today.

Every bit of fibrous tissue in his body strained against the awkward arrangement. Molecule by precious molecule, air migrated back into his lungs. He used it to fuel his strength. Amazing how he didn’t feel his mending wound at all right now. Adrenaline, what an amazing thing.

With great care, Vail wedged the heel of his left palm against the sheer rock below his nearly horizontal position. It wasn’t much in the way of security. His blood seeped from the cuts, staining the limestone. It allowed him enough leverage to search for a hold with his right hand.

A drop of sweat plunged to the ground. He couldn’t see it or the next few that followed, but he knew that wasn’t the only bodily fluid he’d likely leave down there. Finally his fingers found purchase on a jug-sized outcropping. He collected every ounce of bravery he possessed and went for it. In one swift motion his hands joined on the large rough stone and he spread his legs wide, jamming them on either side of the trench.

No way in hell did the old man climb this trail three years ago. If he did, then Vail had zero qualms about getting older. Seven more feet of carefully placed holds saw him to the top. He wanted to slump back and take a rest on his ruck, not so much from physical exertion as mental. But he pressed on, proving he could take it all and ask for more.

Fifteen feet from the sheer drop he’d climbed he ran into the trail again. His gaze followed the path that swung in a thirty-foot arc of smooth-footed dirt that pressed against the edge of the cliff and provided a safe, simple way around the deathtrap of a wall.

“You sorry son of a bitch,” Vail whispered. Despite his sure anger at the sneaky old man who'd led him up the side of a cliff, the corner of his mouth quirked.

A quarter mile from the cabin, dusk crept to night. Vail struggled to control his trembling body. The T-shirt he’d worn as a layer of protection from the scratchy wool sopped with sweat from his efforts climbing. Now that his blood had stopped churning and his muscles had quit working overtime, the shirt had become a siphon, draining his skin of any heat with its frozen touch.

Vail took cover behind a wide hardwood trunk. Around him the forest stilled in that lull between the daylight roamers’ bedding and the nocturnal critters’ rise. The bugs sang a repeating chorus, but he blocked it from his mind. His attention focused on seeking out other sounds. Footsteps. The
snick
of a gun being switched from safety. The chatter of men. A phone or television. None of them registered.

Light filtered through the trees dim and distant, but showed exactly where the cabin sat among the trees. His quarter mile estimate had been spot on. With the barest hint of sound, Vail slipped the pack from his shoulders. The right one would bruise like a mother, but there wasn’t anything to do about it. He unzipped the brown leather bomber-jacket one tooth at a time, even though he’d oiled the metal last night. He dragged a fortifying breath, and then he shucked the jacket. Next came the military issue wool sweater and the cotton that turned his skin to gooseflesh. Using the upper corners of the shirt, he soaked up the remaining moisture from his skin. Then he practically dove back into the itchy shirt and jacket, and rolled his eyes at the pansy he’d become.

Keeping the tree between him and the cabin, Vail took a knee and opened the rucksack. His fingers easily found the holster in the blackness. He strapped the drop-rig through his belt loops and around his right upper thigh. The nylon snug beneath his groin, he slid the CZ P Duty into place cocked and locked. A ten-inch fixed blade came next. He glided the tip into its sheath. The knife snugged to his leg just in front of the barrel. He shoved the wet shirt into the pack, hunkered down against the tree, and waited.

S
ophia lay
on the tiny mattress in the tiny room in the tiny cabin in the middle of a big forest. If only she knew where the heck it was, she could sneak a phone and make plans to get out of here. They weren’t careful with many things, but their location hadn’t slipped, yet. It would. Eventually. She could get a phone without even trying. Manny lost his at least twice a day, leaving it on the back of the disgusting toilet or on the lumpy cushions of the plaid sofa and forgetting about it for a few hours at a time. Her legs stretched up the wall. Her hair hung over the opposite side of the bed. She relaxed her feet, letting them fall to the side, and then she pulled them back together. The motion allowed her to play peek-a-boo with the mountain lion in the painting above the bed.

“Now you get ’em. Now you don’t. Now you get ’em. Now you don’t.”

Feet together, her light orange Converses hid the snarling cat, its lean lunging body, and ready claws. In that brief moment the white horse was beautiful, his head held high as he galloped across a meadow. Then she moved her low-tops and the poor thing became breakfast. Sophia’s gaze shot to the dark window. She could open the thing, drop onto the awning below, slip off the edge, and be gone in a minute. Their sentry skills sucked. They’d fall asleep or watch whatever Manny did through the window. Sometimes they’d go in for a pee break and never come back out. But she didn’t have a clue about which way to go and she sure as heck didn’t want to be breakfast for a hungry beast.

She’d grown up outside. This outside had bigger carnivores than hers. Yep, she’d had to contend with scorpions and rattle snakes, but they couldn’t rip your arm from your body while you were still alive to feel it. She’d take her chance with the snakes she knew. And know them, she did.

They had—when her mother wasn’t around to vehemently object—given her piggy-back-rides as a little girl, twirled her around in wide whirring circles when she’d gotten bigger, and stared down boys in the streets when she’d gotten even bigger. And yet, maybe she didn’t know them at all.

That terrible morning they’d dragged her from sleep, from her bed, while she fought and screamed. The dark still scared her. Because of them. They’d nearly suffocated her with a black bag over her head, knotted tight on her neck. They’d tied her hands and legs after she broke Ricky’s nose with her heel and tossed her into the trunk for two long, hot days. She’d been soaked in her own sweat and urine. Curse them all to the devil. They’d laughed.

Tears stung her eyes, but she hadn’t given them the satisfaction of her tears then. She shouldn’t now. That horrid experience seemed a lifetime ago, but had really only been six weeks, if she’d counted correctly. She flipped to her stomach and grabbed the hard-covered book from beneath the bed. The inside cover showed six rows of seven tick marks, plus one row of four. Sophie grabbed the pencil and added a slash across the four straight lines.

She replaced the writing utensil for tomorrow and flipped to her marker toward the back of the thickly piled pages. Father in heaven knew she was bored, if she read a book. To her surprise though, this one was remarkably fitting and had cemented her sanity throughout the long days. Heck, Fernand Mondego in his captivity had given her the idea of tracking the days. His lost hope had mirrored hers on the first sad and scary days, and now, his renewed hope bolstered hers.

The blows on the bedroom door came hard and fast. “Sophia!”

“I’m not hungry.” She stuffed the fright deep inside and was glad to hear it didn’t reveal itself in her voice.

“Open the door or I’m breaking it down,” Manny bellowed.

Sophia shoved the book under the bed and stomped to the door. He hadn’t called for dinner. They usually called from the stairs or, when she refused to come down, left a tray by her door. Her shoes didn’t make quite the ruckus she’d hoped for, so she yanked the door hard and tried to snarl like the lion to show her anger.

Manny’s gun was out of his holster and in his meaty fist. She reeled from the shock and lunged for the window, but his other hand came down hard before she’d completed a step. It bit into her collarbone. He hauled her into the hallway. Her feet went out from under her and she landed butt first on the grimy floor.

“Get up,” he barked.

His boot shoved at her back and she sprawled forward, catching herself on hands and knees. Manny’s hand stayed knotted in her curls. Pain ripped through her neck and skull and she was on her feet. He used it like a horse’s mane, guiding her down the steps. She reached toward the railing for balance, but he maneuvered her like a puppet.

The thought enraged Sophia. Her mother would never allow them to toss her about like yesterday’s garbage, and neither would she. Halfway down she reared back, ramming her head toward his face. She hit something hard—really hard from the
gong
ringing inside her head. His hold on her hair loosened. A heel to his instep set her free. With a firm grip on the railing and two leaps she cleared the remaining stairs, only to find two stares locked on her in wide-eyed bewilderment.

Ricky and Pat both had really big guns in their hands and were cuddled up against the two large window frames in the living room. Whether Manny tackled her on purpose or fell onto her she wasn’t sure. And it didn’t matter when someone that boasted three or four times your body weight landed on top of you. What mattered? Air.

Sophia inhaled, but a vacuum sealed her lungs, refusing to let anything in or out. She lay on the floor, watching the men alternately run from the front to the back, but not seeing them. All she saw were her lungs flat as a sheet from The Count of Monte Cristo.

Two
booms
drew her attention from her panic. Sweet air—dusty air, but sweet all the same—filled her lungs only to lodge in her throat on the exhale. Ricky and Pat joined her on the ground. Unlike her they didn’t fight for air. They no longer fought for anything. In an instant they shifted from living to dead. A bullet, she guessed from the noise and size and shape of the hole in their heads, went from a barrel through their skulls. The end.

Before Sophia could wrap her mind around the jarring concept, a hefty arm snaked around her throat. Again the floor dangled beneath her feet for a moment. And again pain spread through her neck and drummed in her skull.

“Let her go.” A calm, deep voice issued the command.

Though Manny wrenched her head so high it might snap off, she could see the entire room. Two dead men fallen among the cola cans, plastic wrappers, and chip bags they and the others had accumulated over the last two months. Yet, she didn’t see the man who would decide her and Manny’s fates. She knew it and, judging by the way the fat arm smashing her windpipe shook, Manny did too.

“I’ll kill her, if you don’t leave, now. And then I’ll kill you,” Manny screeched. The end of his gun swung from the fractured glass to her temple.

Her entire body seized, as if the tightening of muscles could block out a bullet. She imagined a tiny red circle on her head and the bloody damage it would do flying out the left side of her face. “No.” She meant to scream the word, to heave the breath from the bottom of her toes and roar like a big cat. It came as a strangled whisper, a pitiful cry.

She hadn’t even kissed a boy. She couldn’t die. The metal pressing into her skin said otherwise. Fear paralyzed her synapses. Every self-defense move her mom had taught her froze in mid-fire, rendering her and the skills useless. Her mother would surely die of a broken heart. All because she was too small and weak to defend herself.

While Sophia reeled at her inadequacies and the coming end to her short life, she didn’t notice that the voice remained silent. Not until the bite of Manny’s gun eased its sinking teeth from her skin. Her gaze darted from window to window, but saw nothing through the cracked black glass. Both relief and soul-deep sadness buckled her knees. The crushing weight of Manny’s arm doubled as she sagged. Maybe, if the guy was gone, her uncle’s thug wouldn’t shoot her. But…she’d remain a prisoner.

The man, the voice gave her no reason to think he was any better than Carlos’s gang. Proof of his deadliness lay lifeless before her eyes. She’d only heard the tales of the AFO’s and her family’s apparent penchant for power and violence. Yet, something in his menacing voice said peace. It flared with no south of the border accent, and she guessed it wasn’t another cartel coming to steal her away. Perhaps it was her wild imagination conjuring a rescue from a deranged man’s attack.

“Stand up, damn you. He could still be here.” His arm loosened and his hand dipped below her right pit.

She could breathe. Instead of celebrating, her esophagus convulsed. She wheezed and hacked, her middle nearly jack-knifing from the tantrum.

“Quiet,” Manny growled.

But there was nothing she could do. Just as she no longer had control over her life, she possessed even less over her body at the moment.

Manny still held her in front of him, a human shield for his vital organs. “Callate. Callate.” The force with which he spoke jostled her, but did nothing to stop the coughing. He aimed at the nearest window, stepped forward, and dragged her along. He smashed the barrel into the softness of her neck. “Callate,” he whispered.

Her body responded to the greatest threat, forfeiting the struggle for air. Funny how as soon as it quit fighting the breaths came. Pained and labored, they came.

“You hear me, fucker? I’ll kill her unless you go,” Manny blustered.

“I heard you.” The voice and its quiet, razor sharp menace whispered in their ears. A
crack
of bone followed, and then she was free, stumbling forward. “Go to your room, lock the door, and wait for me.” Somehow she heard his quiet words over Manny’s howl and the deafening
snap
of another bone.

Sophia’s stomach lurched. She’d broken her arm as a little girl and remembered the sounds and pain too well. Despite it all, her hands braced against the couch’s back. She used it as a crutch, towing her shaky frame in the direction of the stairs. The set of ninety-degree angles rose like a mountain before her. One wobbly step at a time she hauled her puny weight higher.

When she reached the last step that would give her a view of the living room she tightened her grip of the rail and turned. Manny and the man were gone. Her gaze swept the room, found two bodies, but they didn’t count. She studied the door. It gaped, revealing the porch and a hint of the dirt and grass that made up the front yard.

Assuming all the other men were scattered corpses around the cabin, she didn’t dare go outside, even if she had the strength to run. Instead she mounted the remaining stairs, walked past her door, and slipped into Manny’s room. With the hallway light burning, Sophia could easily see the cedar chest at the foot of the unmade bed. She swallowed past her sour throat and apprehension, and stepped to the sloped top box.

She heaved the lid and nearly wept. “Not so helpless now,” she said and hardly recognized the voice that breezed through her lips. The pistol was too big for her hand, much larger than the one her mom taught her to shoot, but it would do the job. She hurried to her room, forgetting the lid. Inside, she locked the door and sank onto the bed. She waited. And waited. Eventually, she eased back against the wall, drew her legs up, and rested the gun on her knees.

As her heart settled and her brain caught up with her actions, Sophia stared at the hulking gun in her small hands. She hadn’t even checked to see if it was loaded, she’d just assumed it was. She hadn’t checked the safety or to see if there was a bullet in the chamber.

Lord above.

Sophia pointed the barrel at the floor, wrapped her left hand around the slide, and pulled. Nothing happened. She repositioned her grip, gritted her teeth, and strained with everything she had. The thing budged a quarter of an inch. Nowhere near far enough to do her any good. She flipped on the safety, not that it would matter unless there was a round already in the chamber. But she didn’t want to accidentally shoot herself.

She didn’t want to shoot anyone.

Why was this her life? Self-defense training, firearms safety, target shooting, cataloging her surroundings, checking for concealed weapons, watching people’s hands, meticulous planning for life on the run, imprisonment. Why couldn’t she be normal? Talk on the phone, listen to loud music, hang out with her friends, romanticize about her first kiss.

The first tear fell hot on her cheek, stunning her. She hadn’t cried yet. She couldn’t cry. She had to be ready, prepared for anything. But it was normal to cry, and if she was about to cry, damn it, she wanted to do something normal for a change. With that simple permission her body took over once more, breaking her soul on unyielding fear, sadness, and anger.