In Too Deep(62)

Today was an important day.





Chapter 35





Melina




You'd think that with it still being early fall or late summer, depending on how you wanted to look at the calendar, that it would be warm at night. The truth was about as far from that as you could think. The night wind had an edge to it coming off the mountains only a few miles away, and I shivered in my light sweatshirt.

"You're sure everything will go okay?" I asked for what had to be the fifth or sixth time. We were out in the country, a little east of the airport in the area that was in between Truth or Consequences and Elephant Butte Reservoir. It wasn't even a road in my opinion, but more of a dirt track that wound its way through the desert. It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere.

"We have a good plan," Cam reassured me. "I'm encouraged by the fact that he didn't try and cut the timeline, catch us by surprise."

"Would you have really been caught off guard by that?" I asked, thinking of how the week had been. While there hadn't been any overt change in the way Cam and I did things, there was a sense of underlying tension as we prepared for this meeting. Cam had spent time each evening going over little things with me, trying to help me learn what I needed to know. "I have the feeling you rarely, if ever, get caught off guard."

"Oh, I don't know. You catch me off guard all the time," Cam said with a laugh. "But it's always in a good way."

I blushed, turning away. Unfortunately, that made me look at the items sitting on the tailgate of Cam's truck, and my good feelings evaporated in the chilly wind. It's kind of hard to have good feelings when you see a shotgun, an M-16, and a laptop computer sitting out. We were purposely a few minutes early for our midnight meeting. "What time is it?"

"Eleven fifty-seven," Cam said, glancing at his watch, one of the military type models that has a glow in the dark analog face. I'd never seen him wear it before that night, and I understood why. Even with the nearly full moon overhead in a clear sky, it is dark out in the country at night. You don't realize what darkness means until the closest artificial light you can see is a mile away.

I saw another set of lights approaching and knew it was who we'd been waiting for. Cam picked up the M-16 while I picked up the shotgun. I was inexperienced with both, but I had a better chance with the shotgun. I picked it up and double checked that the safety was off. There was already a shell in the chamber, and I was in point-and-shoot mode now. I made sure to remember the safety rules Cam had drilled into me, with the most important being never pointing the barrel in any direction except one that I wanted to shoot.

The man Cam called Senpai was driving an SUV, but I couldn't really tell much about it in the darkness. As the lights swept over us, Cam waved curtly, staying behind the bed of the truck. I was on the other side of the truck, where the angle of our parking job gave me a little bit more cover and protection. Neither of us were pointing our weapons at the vehicle, but we kept them visible. We didn't really have a reason to trust this man.

"Cam," the man said, getting out of the SUV. "This is a little cloak-and-dagger even for you, isn't it?"

"You know where I live, you have my phone number, but that doesn't mean I'm going to invite you into my house," Cam said. "Cut the lights, I can't see shit. Leave the running lights on, though."

Senpai did as asked, and the area between our vehicles as cast into a ghastly mix of red from our tail lights. He left the dome light on in his SUV so we could see that the vehicle was empty. Of course, someone could have been coming cross country after us as well, but paranoia only takes you so far before it becomes paralyzing. That was another one of Cam's lessons.

"Is that what I think it is?" Senpai asked, pointing at the silvery lid of the laptop. "I've never seen it up close."

"It is," Cam said. "You want to take a look?"

The man did, and as he approached I saw that he was a bit older, maybe in his late forties or early fifties, with a nondescript look that meant he could blend in just about anywhere. Still, he had a certain hardness to his body language that said that he wasn't a man to be trifled with. "How can I know this is the real thing?"

"I brought along my satellite network hookup," Cam said. "If you want, you can get on the system and check out some information."

"You know this could just be a very elaborate fake," the man said after some investigation. "How can I trust that this is the real thing?"

"The same way I can trust that you don't have a squad of Delta Force coming through the desert to try and shoot me," Cam said. “I can’t, not completely.”

Senpai nodded and stepped back while Cam shut down the computer. "Cam, you having that thing . . . it scares a lot of people, as I’m sure you know."

"You've been telling me that for years now," Cam replied. "But I still have it. What's changed that brings you out here to the middle of New Mexico? Last I had checked up on you, you were enjoying life in the Virginia hills."

"You tore a swath through the community that seems to be growing every day," he replied. "Three of the biggest players in the game are ruined, you know."

"And an innocent teacher is dead, you arrogant *," I spat at him. “Was her life somehow worth less?"