Elizabeth Heiter - Seized

“Keep us updated,” Gabe said into his mic, which reminded Kyle that he’d gone silent for too long.

“Let’s move,” he whispered, treading carefully from the cover of one scraggly, snow-dusted tree to the next. They didn’t know exactly what they were dealing with here, but what they did know was that survivalists were talented at making booby traps, and cultists were notoriously paranoid. Not a good combination.

Kyle kept up his painfully slow, steady pace until they were close to the large building at the back of the compound. Behind him, Gabe moved just as silently; the only reason Kyle knew he was there was from years of working together.

Finally, Kyle’s hand grazed the solid exterior of the building. Was Evelyn in there? Was she okay?

“Technical coverage coming up,” Gabe whispered into the bone mic at his throat. He slipped a hand into one of the pockets in his flight suit, and then pressed it against the building wall, leaving behind a sophisticated eavesdropping device that actually looked like a fly.

The communications technicians who worked with HRT were not only geniuses, they also had a sense of humor. Too bad that, right now, Kyle didn’t find much of anything funny.

Gabe tapped his arm and Kyle moved around the corner, toward the side where they’d be at the highest risk of being spotted. Kyle watched every step, and nodded his NVGs at a set of deep tire tracks that rounded the bend and stopped near a steel door. Big tracks, probably from a large truck.

He couldn’t keep himself from looking back at the door, and his desire to test the lever made his hands tense around his MP-5. His feet seemed stuck in place as his need to search for Evelyn intensified.

Then Gabe was beside him, pointing forward because this close to the compound they didn’t even want to whisper.

Forcing himself to move, Kyle passed the door, rounding another corner. He almost wished someone would appear outside and engage, so he’d have an excuse to go in there and get Evelyn out.

But the compound remained eerily silent.

Still beside him, Gabe pressed another bug to the wall, moving a little faster now. They needed to place two more bugs, then go back the way they’d come. It would start getting light soon, and they had to be out of here before anyone inside woke up.

Assuming anyone was in there at all. So far, they had no indication of it. There’d been no response to their calls, and the snipers hadn’t been able to pick up anyone at the windows. Shades were drawn over all of them, and it was dark inside, with no hope of spotting even shadows.

Was it possible they’d fled before HRT had landed in Montana?

As Kyle moved away from the building and behind the cover of a tree, Yankee’s voice came over his radio again. “The technical coverage is picking up voices from the building. Head back here, guys.”

Desperate for information on Evelyn, Kyle moved even faster. He told himself to slow down, but he couldn’t seem to do it as he darted from the cover of one tree to the next, following their original route.

Then a hand slapped him hard on the shoulder, and Kyle spun around, his heart thudding a tempo that sounded like stupid, stupid, stupid.

But it was just Gabe. “Sorry,” he mouthed.

In return, Gabe whispered, “Don’t move.” He lifted a fallen tree branch off the ground and held it out a few inches past Kyle’s foot. When he pushed it down, a piece of metal snapped over it, breaking the branch in two.

Bear trap, Kyle realized, nodding his thanks at Gabe. That would’ve done irreparable damage to his foot. And ended his career in HRT.

Keeping watch for more booby traps, Kyle slowed down, feeling antsy every second he wasn’t back in the Tactical Operations Center—TOC—set up outside the fence.

Finally, finally, he followed Gabe back under the fence, then jogged over to the temporary post that would manage tactical decisions. Inside the large tent, his boss looked up, expression grim, at Kyle and Gabe’s entrance.

“What is it?” Gabe asked from behind him as Kyle’s voice refused to work and fear stampeded through his veins.

Yankee put down his earphones and stood, his head skimming the top of the tent. “We’ve got at least a dozen voices inside the compound.”

He moved forward and placed a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “We don’t know any details right now, but they just talked about a dead federal agent.”

4

“You brought this on yourself.”

Evelyn focused hard, trying to bring the world into focus, but pain sliced through her head and Ward Butler seemed to sway in front of her, wavering as if they stood on the bow of a ship. He was still holding his AK-47, and Evelyn felt nauseated as she touched the side of her face, where he’d smashed her with that gun, knocking her out. But first, he’d taken a shot.

The memory rushed over her, the panic of seeing Butler appear in the doorway, having no time to run, nowhere to hide. The horror of watching him spray bullets, of seeing Jen go down. The fear of thinking she was next.

She’d run for Jen, anyway, slipped in her blood and hit the ground hard. That had probably saved her life, because Butler’s next barrage of bullets had gone over her head.

Then he’d strode to her side, and just when she thought it was all over, there’d been a yell and he’d slammed the butt of his AK-47 into her face instead. She had no idea how long ago that had been.

“Where’s Jen?” she managed to ask. Moving her jaw made pain travel down her neck, but she kept blinking and eventually Butler came into focus.

The compound was dimly lit, either darker than it’d been before, or her vision was compromised. The coppery smell of blood was in her nose, the residual taste of fear in her mouth.

“Martinez is dead,” Butler replied, no remorse in his voice.

Evelyn gulped in a deep breath, even though she’d known. Blood clogged in her throat and Evelyn choked on it, realized the inside of her mouth was bleeding badly, that her jaw might be broken.

She tipped her head and spat out blood, got a full breath. “Why?” she rasped.

Butler smiled—a hard, tight, angry smile. “Shouldn’t you be asking if you’re next?”

Before Evelyn could form a response, he stepped aside, and Evelyn’s range of vision widened. She discovered she was still lying on the ground where she’d fallen. She jerked, trying to push herself up as she saw all the blood surrounding her. Jen Martinez’s blood.

It was dried on her arms, soaked through her suit. There was a lot, still sticky in places, but much of it hardened, like a brownish-red cast over her skin.

Just as she was getting off the ground, Butler jammed a booted foot into her chest, knocking her back down. Back into the pool of blood.

Panic burst inside her, a desperate need to move, to escape the feel of another agent’s blood. To escape the fear that she could have prevented Jen’s death, that she’d signed her own death warrant by following Jen here. She tried to ignore it, and instead focus on assessing.

How long had she been unconscious?

She looked around frantically, praying that by some miracle Butler was lying, that against all odds Jen had survived this kind of blood loss, but she wasn’t there. Standing in the doorway where Butler had been when he’d shot her was Rolfe.

“We need this one,” Rolfe said, and his eyes darted to her, lingering just long enough for hope to bloom.

They’d kept her alive so far. It hadn’t been Butler’s idea, because he’d tried to shoot her. And that shout she’d heard seconds before he’d knocked her unconscious teased at the edges of her memory. She had to assume it was Rolfe, asking him to wait. She locked her eyes on him, trying to make a connection.