Brett Battles - No Return

Three men were walking purposefully toward the helicopter.

“Who the hell are they?” Wasserman asked.

“I’ll check,” Jenks said.

He disconnected his restraint, opened the door, and hopped out.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” Jenks said, “but we have a mission that’s supposed to have us in the air right this very minute.”

“Are you Wasserman or Jenks?” one of the men said.

“I’m Lieutenant Jenks. What’s going on?”

The two other men moved past Jenks to the open door of the helicopter.

“Sir, you’ll come with me now,” the first man said to Jenks.

“The hell I will.”

“Sir, if you’d rather, I could place you under arrest right here.”

“Arrest? Who do you think you are …?” He was about to address the man by rank, but realized for the first time the man was not wearing a uniform.

“NCIS, Lieutenant. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

A large man dressed in black stepped out of the darkness and into the headlights. He had to be almost six foot five, and a good two hundred and thirty pounds.

“Who is that?” Wes asked.

Dori remained silent as the man walked up to the front passenger door, opened it, and climbed in.

“Evening, gentlemen,” he said.

“Who the hell are you?” Wes asked. “Dori, what’s going on?”

Forman didn’t give a damn who the man was. He grabbed the door handle and started to pull. But the door didn’t budge.

Wes grabbed at the handle next to him, but his door didn’t open, either.

Dori threw the car into drive, and the Lincoln pulled back onto the road, its speed increasing rapidly, pushing Wes and the commander back in their seats.

“Sorry about the child locks,” Dori said. “But can’t have you accidentally falling out while we’re moving, can we? That certainly wouldn’t be safe.”

Wes started to lean forward, but as he did, the new passenger twisted in his seat, then swung his hand up and rested the barrel of a large pistol next to the headrest.

“Just relax,” Dori said, glancing into the rearview mirror and catching Wes’s eye. “Won’t be long now.”

“Won’t be long for what?”

“What are you trying to pull here, Stewart?” Forman said.

“I’m not trying to pull anything,” Wes said.

Up front Dori laughed, then said something to the new passenger in a voice too low for Wes to hear. As soon as she finished, the man motioned at Wes and the commander with his gun. “Why don’t you two give it a rest,” he said. “We can talk more when we get there.”

“Get where?” Wes asked.

The man simply grinned but said nothing.

Wes looked out his window. Though a half-moon was beginning to rise in the east, it was still too low to provide much illumination. Still, he was able to make out the bulky shape of B Mountain off to the left, and knew they must be on the highway to Trona, the same highway that ran by the Pinnacles, where the crash had occurred.

At first he thought that was where Dori was taking them, though he had no idea why. Unless, that was, she’d turned the tables and was actually working for Forman. But the commander seemed just as out of the loop as Wes felt. Then, just before the highway dipped down into a narrow, rocky canyon that would have taken them toward the Pinnacles, Dori turned onto a dirt road leading southeast into the wilderness.

Wes had been on this road back in high school, but where he’d been heading then and where they were heading now couldn’t be the same, could they? That didn’t make any sense.

Hell, none of it made sense, he thought.

Ahead the road forked. The fork to the right was wider and more traveled, leading to God knew where. The one to the left was in far worse shape and led up into some hills in the east. It was the left fork Wes had gone down last time. And, before she even turned the steering wheel, he knew that was the direction she was going to take this time, too.

The car bounced as it hit a rut, knocking Wes into the commander.

“Hang on, gentlemen,” the man with the gun said.

Wes moved back to his side, then tried to anchor himself with one hand on the door and the other against the roof.

They were going to have to stop soon. The road only went so far. He just hoped when they got to the end there would be other cars, throwing off whatever plan it was Dori and the man with the gun had in mind.

When they took the final turn, Wes’s hopes rose as he spotted something parked up where the road terminated. Maybe it was going to be all right. There were others.

But as the distance closed, his rising hope nosedived. The other vehicle wasn’t a car at all. It was a …

… horse trailer.

The Lincoln lit it up as they drew near. It had been backed in so that its doors were on the far side, away from them. And though it showed signs of age, it wasn’t falling apart, and therefore couldn’t have been out here for very long.

As soon as Dori brought the Lincoln to a stop and turned off the engine, a deathly quiet settled over everything.

Finally she turned so she could look at Wes and Commander Forman. “My friend here is going to get out. He’ll open the door next to you.” She flashed a glance at Wes. “I’ll wait here while you both climb out. And in case you’re thinking of trying something …” She raised her hand in the air. Like her friend, she was also holding a gun, only hers seemed even larger. “Everyone understand?”

“You need to let me go right now,” Forman said. “I’m an officer in the U.S. Navy, and you do not want the kind of trouble we will bring down on you.”

“Have you looked outside, Commander ?” Dori asked. “We’re at least twenty miles from the closest building. Where do you think you would go?”

A superior smirk grew on the commander’s lips. “You don’t think I would have met Mr. Stewart without any backup, do you? I have a tracking chip. Within minutes a naval helicopter full of Marines is going to land. And when they do, if I’m not free, you will not survive.”

“A helicopter full of Marines.” Dori laughed, deep and loud. “You’re a liar, Commander. If that were true, don’t you think your rescue team would be hovering above us right now?” She shook her head. “No. You came alone, thinking you could shut Wes up, because guess what? Turns out Wes was right. You make me sick, Commander. You’re just lucky Wes here sickens me more.”

“What are you talking about?” Wes asked. “I barely even know you.”

“Where’s the chip?” Dori’s partner asked the commander. When Forman didn’t answer, the man leaned over the seat and slammed the butt of the gun against the commander’s cheek.

Forman grunted as he fell back against the seat. “In my shoe.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dori declared.

“I think we should check, anyway,” her partner said.

She shrugged. “Why not? All right, Commander, toss ’em both up here.”

“I will not!”

Dori aimed the barrel of her gun at his chest. “Fine with me. We’ll just take them off you after you’re dead.”

The commander did nothing for a moment, then reached down and removed his shoes. “It doesn’t matter. They already know where I am.”

“Shut it,” Dori’s partner said as he grabbed the shoes.

He then climbed out of the car and dropped them on the ground. A few seconds later, there were two loud gunshots.

“What do you know?” The guy held a shoe in the doorway so Dori could see it. “There was something there.”

Dori smiled at the commander. “They don’t know where you are now.”

“That’s not how that works,” the commander said. “They already know our position. And destroying the chip is their signal to land.”