John Gilstrap - Threat warning

Boomer, where are you?

This was never the way it was supposed to have been. Christyne was never supposed to have been the crisis decision maker. She’d married a warrior, for God’s sake. One of the most elite in the world. He was supposed to protect her. That’s what she’d thought when they first married, but that was before the reality hit her. In military families, the trained protector was forever protecting someone else. On the home front, crisis control rested squarely on the shoulders of the spouses, everything from broken bones to broken hearts, leaking water heaters to car repair.

Why, then, shouldn’t it fall to her to deal with carjackings and kidnappings? One day, when all of this Something moved outside the door to her cell.

The door burst open, and people flooded into the tiny space. At first they were invisible in the darkness, but then the darkness erupted in white as brilliant flashlights found her eyes and gouged her retinas.

“Take her,” someone said.

Something hit her hard on her cheek. It ignited a flash of purple.

As the whisper-quiet Agusta Westland helicopter flared to land, Jonathan looked at his watch. Six-fifty-eight. From the ground, darkness still ruled, but on their approach, he noted the redness of the horizon, a harbinger of a beautiful day that would arrive far too soon.

He rode in the back of the chopper, with Gail on his right, and as Boxers went through the shutdown procedures, she shot him a look.

“He really is good, isn’t he?” It was her first time on an op with them, and she seemed genuinely surprised by the professionalism.

Jonathan took the comment more seriously than he probably should have. “Do yourself a favor,” he said. “Never doubt the Big Guy.” His words came out sharply, almost angrily. He’d come to think of it as Boxers’ curse: Big Guy’s size and abrasive manner projected oafishness to some people, a general lack of intelligence. They could not have been more wrong. In Jonathan’s experience his good friend was a brilliant technician and tactician who happened to be larger than most monuments. Fearless and intensely loyal, Boxers had pulled Jonathan’s ass out of the fire-both literally and figuratively-too many times to count.

“I need to go get us some wheels,” Jonathan said when it was quiet enough to be heard.

Boxers gave a splayed five-finger bye-bye wave over his shoulder, like something an infant might do. “Go,” he said. “Gunslinger and I can take care of things here until you get back.” Gunslinger had become Gail’s radio moniker after she shot down a helicopter a few months ago using only a rifle. She had rejected two previous handles that Boxers had tried to inflict on her: G-Girl and Triple-A, for anti-aircraft artillery.

“It shouldn’t take me too long,” Jonathan said. Like his colleagues, he wore woodland camouflage clothing, in part for its utilitarian use in blending with the surroundings, but also to blend in socially. This was deer-hunting season, and as in any rural community, half of the people they encountered today were likely to be wearing woodland camouflage clothing.

Jonathan slung his rucksack over his shoulders, glanced at his GPS to reaffirm his bearings, and then started off on his hike.

As a rule, Jonathan avoided stealing from innocents during missions. Not only did it offend his sense of right and wrong, it also added an unnecessary element of risk. Given all the moving parts in play during an 0300 mission, he didn’t want to risk it all coming apart because a local cop noticed a vehicle from a hot sheet.

Sometimes, though, it couldn’t be avoided.

By massaging her databases and scouring satellite images, and in general working the magic she was famous for, Venice had been able to find them the perfect command post-a dilapidated old house on the grounds of an abandoned mine-but it was way in the boonies. The nearest car listed for sale was fifteen miles away. If they’d had the luxury of time, Venice would have pored through the local classified ads for an appropriate vehicle and worked out a delivery plan using cash and messengers.

Unfortunately, time was the commodity in shortest supply, so that meant thievery.

Jonathan hiked at a brisk pace through the thinning forest, covering the mile and a quarter in a little over a half hour. According to the maps and the imagery, nothing but woods lay between him and this morning’s target, so he could afford to make some noise. As he closed to within a hundred yards or so, he slowed and took the time to survey his surroundings.

A house lay ahead, on the far side of what Jonathan estimated to be six acres of open field. To call it a farm was overstating it, but rows of decaying cornstalks testified to at least a little income from selling produce. Lowering himself to one knee at the edge of the tree line, Jonathan unslung his ruck and pulled binoculars from a side pocket.

A porch light was on, as was a light somewhere in the house, but on the far side. They seemed dim from this distance, making him wonder if the illumination had less to do with someone being up and around than the proverbial light in the window, left on all night to keep the boogeyman at bay.

The target for this mission was the white Dodge crew-cab pickup truck parked in front of the house. He watched the place for a full minute, looking for signs of movement that would make things more difficult. Seeing none, he set off across the field.

Daylight had arrived, though it was still quite dim. Like any Special Forces operative, he hated the daylight. It leveled the playing field too much.

He strolled upright through the dried, sagging cornstalks, making some effort to be stealthy, but not breaking his back over it. He had to assume that whoever lived in the house was awake, and if they looked out the window he wanted to appear to be a wandering hunter with nothing to hide. He figured that he’d be less likely to get shot at this way than if they saw him skulking about.

He covered the distance without incident, walking right up to the pickup, apparently without being seen. From here it would either be easy or get really complicated. He moved to the driver’s door and pulled the latch. It opened. Good start.

Jonathan lifted the Velcro flap from a pouch on his belt and withdrew his Leatherman tool. All he had to do was break the steering-wheel lock, strip the ignition keyway, and then he could be on the road with his stolen vehicle.

His butt had just hit the cushion when a small voice said, “Who are you?”

Startled the crap out of him. He whirled to see a little girl with dark hair standing eight feet away, wrapped in a bulky flannel robe over flannel pajamas and threadbare pink slippers. She had an odd look about her that Jonathan recognized in the dark as the telltale signs of Down syndrome.

“Hi,” he said. He felt his cheeks blushing, partly because he felt embarrassed to have been caught, but also because of the shame he felt for automatically assessing whether or not the girl was armed and posing a threat.

“Are you the repo man?”

“Excuse me?”

“She asked if you are the repo man,” said another voice. This one belonged to a tall young woman dressed similarly to the little girl. She also held a twelve-gauge over-and-under shotgun. It dangled by her side, her finger close to the trigger. “They said they’d be coming for the truck, and Jilly’s been obsessing about it ever since. That’s Jilly, by the way.”

Jonathan forced a smile, his mind spinning at a thousand miles an hour for his next move. Could it really be as simple as telling her that he was here to repossess her vehicle and drive off?

“Well?” the woman pressed. “Answer her. Are you the repo man?”