No Fortunate Son (Pike Logan, #7)(98)

Brett snickered, and I realized they’d seen the whole thing. I said, “Let’s go, *s.”

We slid across the stone wall separating the river from the road, and Brett said, “Do you think we should call her for help no matter how this turns out? I mean since you’ll be sleeping in her room and all? Get you some benny points in bed?”

I slid down the riverbank, gritting my teeth.

Retro said, “I’m willing to take one for the team. Act like we needed her help to pull us out of the fire. If you’ll text some pictures.”

He slipped and landed in the water with a splash. A loud one. We all froze, waiting to see if it mattered. Nothing happened.

I said, “You guys through f*cking around? Because we’re about to be in a gunfight.”






69




Seamus paced the kitchen floor, turning circles around the two hooded captives. He said, “Kevin, come on. I’ve had enough. We’ll figure out the ferry procedures when we get there.”

Kevin said, “It’s the connection. It’s slow. Hang on. Just a couple more minutes.”

“You’ve been saying that for a damn hour. You got the ferry tickets and the hotel. Fuck the rest.”

Kevin turned and said, “Yeah, I did, but don’t you want to know the return procedures? We only researched taking ferries into Ireland. You want to show up in England and have our car searched, finding a couple of hooded hostages?”

“It’ll be the same. We need to go.”

“No, it’s not the same. You ever travel to the Continent? And travel back?”

Seamus heard the words and knew he was right. Getting to Brussels or Paris through the Chunnel was a breeze. Getting back was a nightmare of security.

He said, “How much longer to figure it out? How slow can that damn satellite hookup be?”

“Just a minute more.”

Seamus said, “Michael, let’s drug them. Get ’em ready.”

One of the hooded men began to thrash about, and Seamus saw it was the vice president’s son. If he didn’t admire the fight, he would have knocked him out with a boot. But he did.

He grabbed Nick’s head and said, “Stop it. This is going to happen. Don’t make me hurt you.”

Michael knelt over him with a needle designed for a horse, and Nick thrashed again, kicking his elbow and causing the syringe to fly across the room. Seamus snarled, “Have it your way,” and thumped his head into the floor, stunning him. Michael retrieved the syringe and thrust it into his buttocks, through his clothes. He jammed the plunger home. Nick went limp.

Seamus said, “Travis, you want to fight?”

Through his hood, Travis shook his head, trembling. Seamus handed Michael another needle, and the radio crackled.

“Seamus, OP one. I got a couple moving down the road. Coming towards us.”

Seamus held up, then grabbed the handheld radio. “What do you mean, ‘couple’?”

“It looks like a guy and a girl. Coming down the tree line.”

Guy and girl? That made no sense.

He turned to Kevin. “Where is the nearest house around here?”

“At least a mile up the road. It’s all farmland. Nobody uses that dirt track to come and go. All the houses connect to the blacktop.”

“Could they be on it for some romantic f*ck-fest?”

“Yeah. I suppose.”

He keyed the radio. “Let them go. Stay out of sight. Just keep an eye on them.”

The radio call went to a whisper. “They just came into the moonlight. They have guns. They’re walking with rifles.”

Seamus pressed a fist into his eye. Guns? But why would they be walking down the road? If he stopped them, and they were a local couple out doing whatever they were doing, he’d be exposed. No longer hidden, with some clan out to skin him for the scare. Then he realized that didn’t matter. They were leaving anyway.

“Stop them. See what they’re doing. But don’t hurt them. Get them on the ground and see if they’re Serbian. If they are, take them out. If they aren’t, just hold them and call.”

“You got it. Hang on.”


* * *

Jennifer tried to stay in the shadows, tried to match Nung’s walk, but she was failing at every step. The guy was like a cat, having some ability to glide over the ground without leaving a single mark of his passing. After driving past the old water mill, they’d gone another quarter of a mile up the dirt lane with their lights off, then had pulled to the side. Nung looked at her for approval, and she’d nodded.

They’d exited, wanting to walk through the woods to their overwatch position, but had found a small brook running alongside the road, with a briar patch on the far side, like a green fence. They could either penetrate through the tangled brush, fighting their way forward and making a racket, or take the road.

They opted for the road, walking among the moonlight broken by the branches of the overhanging trees. The darkness was oppressive, but using the single-tube PVS-14 she had was like trying to walk while looking through a soda straw. No depth perception, and a conflict when her brain tried to process what it was seeing—one eye outside the green scope and one eye in. It was something she’d wished she’d practiced.

The brook took a bend to the right, and she saw an open field. She whispered, “This is it. We need to find a spot with a field of fire.”