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  Cassie punched him lightly on the arm. “Come on, Jake. Don’t threaten Sam. He’s helping us. Plus, we’d already agreed to waterboard him if he didn’t.”

  Mahegan played along. “Roger. So what’s the location?”

  Sam had already printed out the two pages of information on where the vehicles had entered the Blue Ridge Parkway. They were identical.

  “We’ve got a location,” Mahegan said.

  “If it’s them,” Cassie said. “Maybe it’s just preachers at Bible camp getting their cars fixed.”

  “It’s them,” Mahegan said.

  “They was just joking about the waterboarding,” Ronnie said to Sam. He elbowed him.

  “Like hell. Look at that dude. He don’t joke about much,” Sam said.

  Mahegan looked at him. “You’ve got every employee stuck somewhere. You’ve got every car and truck you’ve worked on stuck somewhere on the highway. Tell me, exactly, what is there to joke about?”

  Sam sighed and looked up at him.

  “Nothing, man. Nothing. I’ve been thinking about sucking the long end of my pistol.”

  “Well, no need to do that. We’ll figure this out. You’ll be okay,” Mahegan reassured him.

  Ronnie had disappeared into the waiting area and came back in a rush, waving his debit card. “Hey man, how come your ATM ain’t working?”

  “Was fine yesterday,” Sam said.

  Mahegan looked at Cassie. They both said, “That’s next.”

  CHAPTER 14

  ZAKIR WATCHED THE ACTION UNFOLD FROM THE ARMED SKUNK Copter drone he kept in the base camp. It was an eight-propeller riot control drone that Zakir had purchased on Amazon.

  The drone was originally rigged to shoot paintballs, but Zakir had Ratta upfit it to fire missiles and .50-caliber bullets. At the moment, though, he was using it to provide intelligence on the local auto repair shop they used to have their vehicles inspected. As he purchased the trucks before Ratta arrived in the base camp, Zakir needed to have the computer systems neutralized so that they were not subject to the very Trojan he and Gavril had planted in the network.

  After returning from the ambush, stowing the Mack truck in its hide position, and defeating the remnant security in the back of the container, Zakir had received a secure message from Gavril that the FBI were tracking Cassie Bagwell’s car, perhaps to warn her that her parents were missing. And he didn’t consider it a coincidence that her car was at the remote garage he had chosen to have their vehicles inspected. To stay off local police radar, Zakir had to have current license plates. So he had picked Jasper’s garage, a one-man operation that he fully intended to shut down today. The presence of Bagwell’s daughter’s car bugged him. She was hunting for her father. The ear patch had led her this far. How good was she, he wondered?

  Zakir’s two-man team approached Jasper’s garage. This impromptu mission was useful because he needed to kill Jasper anyway. Of all the major tasks he had on his to-do list, killing Jasper was at the bottom, but it was still there. The new information about Captain Cassie Bagwell gave him the possibility of a twofer.

  He could eliminate Jasper as a source of connectivity to his operations, and he could deal with Bagwell’s daughter.

  The Skunk Copter hovered just above the tree line and tilted forward, panning its camera at the back of Jasper’s garage and home. Within the camera’s picture, Zakir viewed his two commandos stalking the buildings through a pine thicket. He could see the backs of their heads as they took slow steps down the hill. He noticed the backpack on one of his men, whose mission it was to use the pack contents in the best tactical manner possible.

  The sniper took up a position about one hundred yards behind the garage. The backpack man continued walking to the south and found an old Buick Electra about a quarter mile below the garage. The Skunk Copter showed him unloading the contents of the backpack into the Buick. The commando then hot-wired the car and prepared to drive it toward Jasper’s garage.

  It would be quite the stroke of good fortune to have Captain Bagwell on hand so soon in the operation.

  * * *

  Mahegan and Cassie drove back to Jasper’s shop to return Ronnie to his Chevy Nova. She parked next to the Nova, and they all got out of her Subaru Crosstrek and walked into the garage. They spent a few minutes there looking at Cassie’s phone, studying Google Maps, devising a plan for going to the location and determining how they would approach the church camp, which was their suspected location of the terrorist base camp. Jasper was nowhere to be found. Ronnie walked next door to a small trailer that must have doubled as his brother’s home.

  “We need to get moving,” Mahegan said to Cassie. He looked at her car in the gravel parking lot. The sunshine was a dull blade. Beyond the gravel lot was a hundred yard drop-off that Mahegan had noticed on the drive into Jasper’s garage. The garage was situated on a knoll that jutted northeast above the entrance road, which required a switchback, and below the mountain that angled away to the north, dominant.

  As often happened in his military career, Mahegan felt that if they didn’t move quickly, the situation could slip away from their control. Call it gut instinct or combat awareness, Mahegan sensed that he and Cassie needed to get moving quickly.

  “What?” Cassie asked.

  “We need to roll,” Mahegan said.

  Ronnie came running back from the trailer. “Can’t find Jasper. We may hate each other, but we love each other, too. If you know what I mean.”

  Mahegan nodded. He understood.

  “And, hey, I ain’t no strategic genius, but I think I just heard a car down below. First of all, not many people are moving now. Second of all, he don’t get many customers up this way that I don’t know about ahead of time,” Ronnie said.

  “You have any weapons?” Mahegan asked. Then he looked at Cassie. “Shotgun?”

  “Damn straight. Jasper’s got an AR-15, a Remington shotgun, and a few others.”

  “Get the fifteen for me and the shotgun for you,” Mahegan said.

  “All I’ve got is buckshot. But I’ve got an AR-15 . . .” Cassie said.

  It was too late, though. Mahegan was already moving to Jasper’s home thirty feet away. Cassie’s car was at the other end of the garage.

  The first shot came through from the elevated terrain behind the garage. It was full of trees and thick underbrush, rarely traversed. The rifle shot echoed down the hill as a bullet crashed through the grimy window. The first bullet hit Ronnie in the side. He clutched his ribcage and muttered, “Not again.”

  Wounded twice in combat, the mechanic knelt down and said, “Better get the hell out of here.”

  Mahegan grabbed Ronnie and pulled him out of the line of sight of the window. Cassie had her pistol up and her back to the far wall, waiting.

  “AR-15?” Mahegan asked as he applied a dirty, oil-soaked rag to Ronnie’s side.

  “House. Under the sofa. Got a full mag,” Ronnie said. The bullet had run its course through the mechanic. Blood spread rapidly from his sides. His eyes faded. Having done all he could do, Mahegan sprinted through the side door of the garage that connected to the house. A couple of shots snapped past Mahegan as he entered a single-wide trailer, found the sofa, and pulled an assortment of detritus from beneath the sofa before feeling the reassuring stock of an assault weapon. There was a full fifteen-round magazine taped to the stock. Mahegan was in business.

  Mahegan heard a few pistol shots, assumed they were from Cassie’s weapon, and checked the bedroom quickly. Then the bathroom. Jasper was wide-eyed in the tub with his throat slit from ear to ear. Blood ran down his neck, looking like a bad Halloween costume.

  Two brothers go to war and come back a little messed up but alive and okay. And now they both eat it on the same day. Not right.

  He ran back to the garage where Cassie was in a shooter’s stance, feet spread, arms locked, eyes focused on the car rushing their position.

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  Her shots were well aimed and spli
ntered the glass windshield of the car fishtailing in the parking lot. Mahegan raised the AR-15, flipped the selector switch to single shot, and fired through the shattered windshield at about where he thought a driver and passenger might be. Then he knelt down next to Ronnie and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Ronnie’s blood pooled with the oil and grime of the garage, its blackness stark on the floor.

  “Let’s move,” Mahegan said, standing. He led Cassie out of the garage, past the trailer, and up the spine of the hill. There was a minor trail that led behind Jasper’s garage, up the incline and toward the crest of the hill. Two shots snapped past them, and Cassie said, “Never been shot at until now.”

  “Get used to it,” Mahegan replied. She was to his left, holding her pistol. Mahegan held the AR-15, glad that he had a long weapon to combat whoever had come for them, or more likely, for Ronnie and Jasper. The enemy was erasing loose ends, perhaps those that they didn’t have time to eliminate previously. They found a small bump in the terrain, a rock that had been there for centuries, and Mahegan clasped Cassie’s hand.

  “Hang tight,” he said. Pausing, assessing, Mahegan listened for any anomalies. A car idled in the gravel lot. The wind whistled through the tall pines.

  Then he heard the slightest metallic click. It could have been the turning of a sniper scope dial or the flipping of a selector switch, as he had just done. Regardless, it was from his two o’clock direction. He lifted the AR-15 and sighted along its iron sights, scanning, catching a wink. Maybe the glimmer of a wristwatch, or possibly of a sniper scope, or even binoculars. It was the faintest reflection. But it was something.

  “I see it, too,” Cassie whispered.

  Mahegan put the iron sight where he last saw the reflection and snapped off three rounds. With their position compromised, Mahegan said, “Hunker down behind the rock.”

  But he was talking to himself.

  Cassie was up and running toward where Mahegan had fired his shots. She was sprinting, like a hurdler whipping along a track. She had her pistol up and was firing.

  Mahegan covered her advance, leading her with the AR-15. Waiting. Watching. Wondering what the hell she was doing. Cassie stopped, sucking in deep breaths, about one hundred yards from their rock hide position. He watched her kneel, reach out her hand, and possibly feel for a pulse.

  She looked back at Mahegan and waved him forward.

  Joining her, he looked down at a midtwenties man dressed in olive and black cargo pants and shirt.

  “Wounded,” Cassie said, gasping for air. Next to the man lay a state-of-the-art ORSIS T-5000 sniper rifle with scope. The rifle that had killed Ronnie. He looked at the man’s belt and saw a sheathed knife, its handle still wet with sticky, red residue. The knife that had killed Jasper. Two decent men who had fought for their country and come back to scratch out a living were now dead because of what? The terrorists were covering their tracks? It was D-day and they were eliminating loose ends?

  Everything is happening now. All at once.

  Mahegan was reminded that even planned simultaneous operations were often near simultaneous or even sequential, but rarely did everything happen all at once.

  “Look outward. Pull security while I frisk him,” Mahegan directed. Cassie took a knee, cupping her pistol and scanning in each direction.

  There were two bullet holes—one in the leg, which was probably Mahegan’s shot given the smaller diameter of the wound, and one in the upper left torso, Cassie’s shot. It was a big hole. A sucking chest wound. Mahegan searched the man’s pockets, found a Pop-Tart wrapper, and placed it on the aspirating wound. He slapped the man in the face a couple of times and said, “Talk to me.”

  “Help me,” the man said.

  “You need to help me first. Where is your base camp?”

  “Ask him who his commander is,” Cassie said.

  “Nothing,” the man said. His voice was a hoarse whisper, meshing with the wind.

  Mahegan put his thumb on the leg wound and the man screamed.

  “Tell me something,” Mahegan said. “Where?”

  “Hurry. The car,” the man said. Those were his last words. His head lolled to one side and he stared blankly down the hill where the car sat idle, like an inert bomb.

  Mahegan quickly checked the rest of the shooter’s pockets, and they were unsurprisingly empty. Trained operatives usually sanitized their clothing and equipment prior to executing an operation. Plucking the dead man’s weapon from the grass, Mahegan peered through the scope, assessing the sniper’s perch. Through the shattered window, he could see Ronnie lying dead on the floor of the garage.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Cassie, who followed him back down the path. As they rounded the corner by Jasper’s trailer, the car—which Mahegan could now see was an old Buick Electra—exploded with a fury that he hadn’t seen since Sergeant Colgate’s vehicle burned and spit shrapnel that horrible night four years ago in Afghanistan. The heat licked their faces, and hot metal whipped past them like flung ninja stars. They dove beneath the trailer, avoiding the bulk of the debris. A few seconds later, they were up and running, avoiding bullets coming from somewhere.

  Muzzle flashes sparked like bad fireworks near where they had left the dead foreign fighter. While Mahegan laid down suppressive fire, the commando used cover and concealment to evade and escape into the mountains.

  * * *

  Special Agent Oxendine was frustrated. They had flown over the rest stop but had not seen Cassie Bagwell’s car.

  Oxendine had Setz land the helicopter in the scenic overlook, and he began interviewing people. On his third attempt an elderly couple admitted to seeing a white Subaru with a big man and a woman with short blond hair.

  “They appeared to be together, though,” the elderly woman said.

  “You’re sure you saw both of them and the woman was not under duress?”

  “Well, I can’t be certain, but it didn’t appear so,” she said. Turning to her husband she asked, “What did you think, Eldon?”

  Oxendine looked at Eldon, who had been gazing over the scenic overlook at the colorful array of trees sweeping down into the valley.

  “Looked pretty normal to me, but what do I know. Ain’t nothing normal about a brand-new Honda Civic not working either,” Eldon said. “Should have had one of those Chevy Novas like the fellow with them.”

  “What fellow?” Oxendine asked.

  “Redneck-looking guy they was talking with,” Eldon said. His wife nodded in agreement.

  “Did they leave together?”

  “Appeared that way. They jumped back on the interstate heading the only way you can go,” Eldon said.

  “Thanks.”

  Oxendine jogged back to the helicopter and sat in his command seat. When Oxendine had his headset on, Setz said, “Got another hit on the car. It’s south of here. Parked. Maybe ten miles.”

  “Let’s go, now.”

  Oxendine turned to McQueary and said, “SWAT ready, Q?”

  “Roger that,” McQueary said.

  Then in the distance, a fireball erupted, looking like a mini nuclear explosion boiling into the sky.

  * * *

  “My car,” Cassie said.

  Her white Subaru was charred black on one side and across the roof. She tried the key fob but got no response. She inserted the key in the metallic door lock, then immediately withdrew her hand, singed from the heat.

  “Let me try my side,” Mahegan said. She tossed him the key, and the passenger side worked. He manually unlocked the doors and opened the driver’s door from the inside. Cassie slid in, avoiding the exterior, and pulled the door shut. The car started on the first try, but Mahegan noticed the onboard computer was not displaying in the dashboard. Out of habit, he had been watching the GPS map to remain oriented.

  “Your GPS looks shot,” Mahegan said.

  “I’ve got Google Maps on my phone,” Cassie replied. She used her thumb to access her phone via fingerprint identification, tapped Google Maps, and handed it to Mah
egan.

  “You’re my navigator,” she said as she shot out of the parking lot.

  “Roger. This thing’s just spinning, though. Cell towers maxed out,” Mahegan said.

  “You’ve got the printouts?” she asked.

  Mahegan flashed her the two pages of rudimentary maps that pinpointed the cars operating somewhere just south of the Blue Ridge Parkway and almost due west of Avery Creek, their current location.

  “If we take Route 191 north, we can get on the parkway and find the exit they must have been using. We’ll park up top and walk down with the AR-15 and shotgun,” Mahegan said.

  “Why not the sniper rifle?” Cassie countered.

  “Single shot. Bad condition. Not enough ammo.”

  “Was good enough to kill Ronnie back there,” Cassie said.

  “A blind kid could have made that hundred-yard shot. We’ll keep the rifle as backup, but I’ve got a fifteen-round magazine plus about ten rounds left in the AR-15. How much buckshot do you have?”

  “Two boxes. Twenty-four rounds.”

  “Okay. We stay together and we find your parents,” Mahegan said.

  Cassie dodged stalled cars everywhere on the road. A police officer was trying to wave them down, but Mahegan said, “Keep going. He needs us, we don’t need him.”

  The officer drew his pistol at the same time a helicopter buzzed them from maybe thirty yards away. Mahegan slid the sniper rifle out the car window so that the cop could see it. He lowered his pistol, and Mahegan kept the optic trained on the policeman until they were past him. In the rearview mirror, the cop was shouting into a personal mobile radio that Mahegan doubted would get much response.

  Meanwhile the helicopter made a wide, arcing turn and came back at them. There were six men in black uniforms—three on each side—with their legs dangling from the open door of the aircraft into the breeze. They were carrying long rifles and wearing body armor and helmets.

  “We’ve got a SWAT team above us. Not sure why, but I’m certain they’re not here to help me,” Mahegan said.

  “They may be here to help me, but I don’t want anything to do with them,” Cassie said.