Rachel Lee - The Hunted

“Ah.” He sat back, savoring a mouthful of salmon. “Gangs, huh?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Once they knew I wasn’t a cop and wouldn’t rat on them, they were okay.”

“And fires? Did you actually walk into a building on fire? This I gotta hear.”

At that she had to laugh, despite everything that seemed to be squeezing the joy out of her. “Well, yes. But it was actually a burning room. I suited up and everything.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“That it was one of those practice rooms.” She laughed again. “It’s like a big trailer. They have gas jets shooting fire, stuff burning, all so guys can get used to the difficulties. Even suited up, it was so damn hot in there I could barely stand it. And the equipment weighed a ton. One of the guys had to help me move.”

“And why did you do this?”

“For a story.”

“You’ll do anything for a story, I take it.”

“Well, you know, there were a whole bunch of us media types there. The chief was showing off the room and how they use it. And when he asked if one of us wanted to try it, I was the only volunteer. God, did I have those firefighters laughing. They walk around in that gear as if it’s nothing, and I could barely stand up once they got me into it. But it was instructive, too. All that protection and I still felt hot enough to burn, and the smoke made it nearly impossible to see. Believe me, I wasn’t in there long before they helped me out.”

“That’s a rough job.”

“You don’t know how rough until you’ve done a training exercise with them.” She shook her head. “I had a lot of respect for those guys beforehand, but after that, I’d give them all a medal.”

Jerrod laughed again. “You lead an interesting life.”

“Sometimes. Like any other job, there’s a lot of humdrum.”

“But you like it.”

“I love it.” The statement was unequivocal. “And at least I don’t have to cover auto accidents and plane crashes anymore. Nothing can prepare you for that smell.”

He nodded. “I know what you mean.”

She looked at him, studying him. “I guess you do.”

“So you’ve really walked into a forest fire?”

“A TV cameraman and I wanted to see what it was like. So we wandered off down this forest road.”

“And?”

“It wasn’t what I expected. This loud roar of rushing air being sucked in, and yet it’s…cold. I don’t know if it was the smoke blocking out the sun or the draft from the fire itself. Maybe both.”

“I hope you don’t plan to do that again.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“Still…”

“We came back fast, and we didn’t go that far.”

He seemed to study her for a long moment. “What part aren’t you telling me?”

“You mean, the part where we were walking back and the fire jumped across the road?”

“No!”

She nodded. “Yeah. For a few seconds all I could see was fire. Everywhere. But it was arching through the branches overhead. Not down to ground level yet. We ran like hell, and the next thing you know it was behind us. It was way cool.”

“Cool? You are an adrenaline junkie.”

She rose from the chair and began pacing, unable to hold still despite the jackhammer in her head.

“Y’know where the real adrenaline rush is?”

“Tell me.”

“Writing the piece up under deadline. Racing the clock to get the front page done when the people down in production are screaming for the layout and everyone around you is yelling at someone because they need some little tidbit to finish what they’re working on. TV blaring so if the world comes unglued we’ll know it, plus so we know what the Barbie-and-Ken world are saying about the story. It’s barely controlled chaos, a dozen blindfolded foxes chasing chickens around the same yard, knowing Farmer Time is just around the corner with a shotgun and that’s why they call it a deadline. That’s the real rush.”

She realized she’d been talking a blue streak, and sat down and went silent for a moment. He was eating his salmon, yet she knew he’d taken in every word. Finally he looked up. “I knew guys like you in special ops. The crazier it got, the more they felt at home.”

“But not you?” she asked.

His eyes took on a faraway, haunted look. “Nah. I couldn’t feel at home when I was holding an artery closed, trying to keep a buddy alive until the evac team got there. All that training and discipline and focus, and y’know what I was thinking at that moment?”

“No,” she said, and forced herself to down a spoonful of soup.

“That he and I wouldn’t be shooting hoops anymore. That’s what we’d done, last thing at night, every night. There was a basketball net in the hangar back at base, and every night, we’d wind down from the shit by playing three-on-three or H-O-R-S-E or just whacking the damn ball off of the backboard until the world no longer seemed so…loud. No way we were ever going to do that again, not with his leg hanging by a tendon and me pinching the femoral artery so he wouldn’t bleed out. That’s when I knew I wasn’t like you, that I couldn’t shut everything out and learn to love the chaos. That’s when I knew I had to get out.”

Her soup had lost its appeal. She pushed the bowl aside and looked at him. “I know. Kind of. Some stories still give me nightmares. Ever since a plane crash I covered, I still can’t eat spaghetti. A county commission meeting may be boring, but at least I know that after the deadline rush passes, I’ll sleep.”

He nodded, but offered nothing else in return. She fell silent, then got up and began once again pacing the room, hating this caged feeling, hating the notion that her movements were limited because someone was after her. They really wouldn’t go far enough to kill her—would they? It was like a bad movie. Reporters didn’t get killed for doing their jobs.

But this story…Something inside her seemed to freeze. Maybe some stories were worth killing over. Maybe this was one of them. It was certainly worth dying for.

“What are they after, Erin?” Jerrod asked quietly behind her.

She paused, then wrapped her arms around herself. She realized that someone else had to know. In case…This was too important. If something happened to her, someone else had to be able to pursue this, and who better than an FBI agent? She decided to take the leap of faith.

“I think Mercator’s in the white slave trade.”

Seconds ticked by in silence. Then he said, “You think, or you know?”

“I knew most of it. I needed confirmation.”

“Jesus.” He was quiet for a little longer. “And they took everything you had.”

She faced him. “I’m not a bimbo. When I work on a story this big, I keep backups.”

“So they didn’t get it all?”

She almost forgot and shook her head, but caught herself just in time. “I send everything I get to an anonymous e-mail account.”

“Could they trace it from your computer?”

“Not unless they’ve been following me. I used cybercafés all over town. I guess at some level I was already paranoid.”

“Not paranoid,” he said. “Careful. There’s a big difference. So…what do you know?”

“I had a source. Inside Mercator, I think, but I’m not positive.”

“Then he’s in their crosshairs, too,” Jerrod said.

She shook her head. “Maybe not. I hope not. After our first contact, I never dealt with him on my work or home machines.”

“Why did he contact you to begin with?”

“He saw the story in Fortune. He said I’d caught the jaywalkers and missed the killers.”

“He said that?”

“Word for word,” she said. “He said it was one of the perks Mercator offered for some customers. Buy Mercator’s stuff and they’ll get you a girl.”