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Come on out, Ivanov. Rob forced his muscles to relax and drew upon years of experience as he waited for his prey. If he could disable the son of a bitch and his guards, allowing for law enforcement to come in and apprehend the criminals, he would. If not, he’d at least take out Yuri Vasin, who was responsible for ordering hits; nearly two thousand deaths were known. Countless victims’ bodies would never be found. One of Vasin’s main trademarks was leaving no trail of human remains. Vasin didn’t care about getting credit for a hit.
Hot summer sun beat on the back of Rob’s neck and through his drab olive T-shirt and cargo pants. The Poconos were beautiful when snow covered, or drenched in green as they were now. But the July humidity was oppressive, soaking his clothes after only an hour on target.
He’d thought Ivanov would have shown his face by now. There’d been no sign of him since last night, when Rob spotted him taking his last smoke break before bed, around nine o’clock. He knew Ivanov chain-smoked and had come out for fresh air, a risk when he had to know he was a wanted man. Ivanov and Vasin had been surrounded by guards. If Rob wasn’t on such strict orders from Trail Hikers headquarters in Silver Valley to keep collateral damage to a minimum, he’d have taken out both monsters and their thugs in that moment. His mission was to disable Ivanov and Vasin, call in other law enforcement agencies, or LEAs, and then get the hell out of Dodge. Typical of a Trail Hikers op, there were to be no fingerprints of his government shadow agency’s involvement.
Rob liked to think of Trail Hikers as the helping hand for all other LEAs, national and local. A Trail Hikers agent enabled an FBI agent, state trooper, sheriff or local cop to come in and finish the job. And take credit for it.
The real reason he’d gone with Trail Hikers instead of another shadow agency was for his mental health. After three years of ignoring the regret of not crossing the street to let Trina Lopez know he’d lived, he’d sought counseling six months ago. And discovered he still needed to finish what he’d tried to do in Norfolk. Trina was with the US Marshals in Harrisburg, and Silver Valley was only twenty minutes away across the Susquehanna River. He’d made the move to Silver Valley a month later, so that he could face her again, put to right the lack of initiative on his part three years ago. As far as he knew she was still with someone else, had her own family, but he still needed some kind of closure, if only to wish her well. It was for his own sanity.
The beauty of Trail Hikers was that he could live anywhere in the country and work for them. He’d grown to like Silver Valley over the past several months, and it would be nice to stay, but he didn’t think permanently living that close to Trina would be healthy, even with closure.
A gnat flew into his eye, and he swatted it away.
He wondered why Ivanov was staying inside so much today. Usually he liked to go for a walk, at least twice a day if not more often. That sense of dread Rob identified as his instinct waved a warning flag. Did Ivanov and Vasin know Rob was out here?
Ivanov had puffed on his cigarette with Vasin and four other men around him, as if he knew he was hunted, that his enemy was close. Of course by now the criminal had to be downright paranoid, considering his constant need to be on the run. Add in his love of women, vodka and tobacco and he probably had at least the beginnings of cirrhosis and lung cancer. Ivanov’s mind and sense of trust in humanity were pretty much shot, Rob figured.
That Rob understood.
A glint of metal in the sun was his only warning before the building’s door opened. He took the safety off, positioned his fingers to shoot without hesitation.
He waited. And waited.
Nothing. The door was open, but nobody came out. With experience wrought only from years of tortuous situations, Robert ignored his annoyance, his impatience. He could outwait the best of them. As he watched, a tiny figure appeared at the edge of the doorway. An animal? Peering through the scope he discovered he was looking at a puppy.
A dog? He’d seen a lot of strange things in his years as a SEAL, CIA operative and now Trail Hikers secret agent, but he’d never seen a dog, much less a puppy, around Vasin. Unless it was a guard dog with killer instincts. He hadn’t seen any sign of guard dogs or any strays around this compound of sorts. He swiped at the sweat on his nape, the bandanna around his head unable to keep it as dry as his temples as sweat streamed off him, making rivulets through his sunscreen. He sensed a slight breeze around his neck and shoulders and went still.
“We meet again, Robert Bristol.” Hearing his name spoken by the all-too-familiar bass voice chilled him to the bone and made him grateful he’d heeded the CIA’s suggestion and changed his name after he’d been presumed dead as a Navy SEAL. The cold metal of a gun barrel pressed painfully into his temple. “Get up slowly, and leave your rifle. You won’t be needing it.”
Rob did as instructed. He knew the voice, the heavy accent. His captor was no one to brook argument.
Once Rob was standing, his nemesis shoved the gun more deeply into the side of his head, the pressure making white floaters appear in Rob’s vision.
“You try my patience, Bristol. Put your hands up and turn around.”
Robert turned, his arms at shoulder level, dreading whom he’d see.
“Vasin. Fancy seeing you in the Poconos, of all places. I thought Jersey City was your jurisdiction.”
“Go to hell, Bristol. Your time is over.” Vasin’s voice pulsated with acrimony as he stared at Rob, surrounded by four henchmen who also carried the best handguns money could buy. Vasin had stayed as lean and lethal as when Rob had tracked him in a CIA operation three years ago, and ended up in actual hand-to-hand with him. It had been a fight that started with knives and ended with several broken bones, on Vasin’s part. Rob had suffered three butterfly stitches over his left eye that one of his fellow agents had tended to on their helo ride out of New Jersey.
“How’re your ribs, Vasin? I see you can at least breathe again.”
Rob saw the polished tip of Vasin’s Italian loafer close in a nanosecond before an explosion of pain shattered his vision. His body collapsed with zero fight. A kick to the balls did that to a guy.
Dirt. The ground is hard. The grass is like straw.
Thoughts to take his mind off the pain, keep him detached from the anguish to come. Vasin knew a sadist’s way around the human body—what hurt the most, what would elicit a confession the quickest. Rob and cruelty were on a first-name basis. He knew every torture method intimately. So did his bones.
“Drag him by his feet to the ATVs.” Vasin’s thugs grabbed his legs and started the laborious trek over hardened field grass and mud. Rob sucked in his gut as hard as he could despite the quaking tremors from his groin. It was enough to hold his neck up, away from the ground. Enough to protect it from the excruciating jolts, enough to be able to observe that Vasin and his dirtbags were facing front, not looking at him as they trudged to the waiting off-road vehicles. In an instant he grabbed the knife he’d tucked in his front pocket and threw it with little preparation. His target arched his back and dropped. The man let out a loud whoosh as he hit the ground. Satisfaction cleared some of Rob’s pain-addled vision.
One punctured lung.
The second knife was in his left hand, raised to throw it, when one of the remaining men turned and crushed Rob’s arm with one fierce stomp of his foot. Rob saw Vasin’s shoe again through a shroud of unbearable pain before his throat was pressed closed and darkness prevailed.
* * *
US Marshal Trina Lopez looked at the map, her phone GPS and the email from her boss. She was four hours into what was supposed to be a two-and-a-half-hour drive, and all of her coordinates indicated she was in the right spot. But instead of a resort complex as described in her target’s case file, she was looking at a warehouse of sorts. A single, nondescript warehouse that in any other part of the country, on the outskirts of a city, would look normal. If it were lined up with other warehouses. If it had trucks coming and going. If it had access to an interstate highway.
Instead, this building had none of the above. It was in a place she’d expect to see a log cabin, maybe, or some kind of ski lodge. At the base of the mountains in a beautiful, scenic Pennsylvania valley, the desolate building was incongruous with its surroundings. Under the cover of the thick summer foliage, it was no wonder it had looked like just another camping gear storage building. An afterthought of sorts.
She’d had to maneuver along a narrow dirt road in her company car to get here. The Ford Fiesta wasn’t made for the sudden dips and dried-out potholes from last winter. Why had she chosen today to take the agency’s small car and not the company SUV?
Because another mission had priority. It wasn’t her job to question her superiors. Yuri Vasin was wanted for a number of crimes, with drug and human trafficking at the top of the long list. Drug runners abounded, and with the current opioid epidemic the US Marshals had a lot of pressure to bring in any drug-related fugitives. Still, the right equipment for the job helped, and someone hadn’t done their homework right. This site was far more rural than the case file had described. She was supposed to be taking him in from a resort hotel room, not from a camping site. Her partner was coming in from the other side of the mountain and waiting to hear from her to bring in backup.
Rechecking her GPS, she confirmed she was in the right spot before she turned her car back around and drove out a mile to hide her vehicle under a pile of woodland debris.
Car in place, walking to building, she texted her partner. His reply was immediate, and predictable.
If it’s ugly, don’t go.
Mike always played the big brother. Or maybe wannabe lover, she wasn’t sure. And didn’t care. She had no interest, no attraction to him.
Roger.
Her military reply indicated she’d received his text. Mike Seabring was a great partner, and she enjoyed working with him. But his protectiveness could annoy her.
It’ll never be like working in the Navy.
More like it’d never be as natural a fit as working with fellow Navy pilots and one special Navy SEAL—had been.
She steered her thoughts quickly away from that emotional quicksand and kept walking. The hike back through the woods would have normally refreshed her. She breathed in the pine scent, hoping to feel revived. But it was too hot and her day was growing too long to feel anything but tired, sweaty and cranky. By the time she reached the clearing again she was ready to get the show on the road. Or more accurately, get her fugitive and take him back to Harrisburg or have Mike do it. She wasn’t in it for the credit—she wanted this bad guy caught and put away, no matter how they had to do it.
Trina adjusted her holster, as it was digging into her waist. She thought about shedding the leather jacket she wore over her body armor and thin white T-shirt. It was too warm for the jacket, but she wasn’t going into a strange building without her weapon, and didn’t want to open-carry her Glock .45, either. She rustled her thick, unruly hair into a ponytail holder she found in the front jacket pocket, needing to feel prepared and without any possible distractions. Vasin’s case file said he’d always gone easily into custody when caught alone, or she wouldn’t have been sent in solo to apprehend him. Mike would be next to her instead of a mile or so out, checking for signs of a perimeter patrol. Still, she never knew what was behind a closed door.
Her practical, steel-toe combat-style boots stirred up the dirt that surrounded the aluminum building, and thin billows of dust rose to her hips. It was the middle of a long, hot summer, and the record-breaking heat had taken its toll on the grass undergrowth. One short spark and this place would become a forest furnace.
She was confident that Yuri Vasin’s arrest would go smoothly, but her instincts were warning her to be on high alert. Whether it was the drive she’d had up here from Silver Valley, the isolated look of the building she approached or just nerves, she didn’t know. Nerves were part of her job—they let her know she was paying attention, aware of her risks. Her stomach started to flip, and she reminded herself that this was supposed to be one of the more routine apprehensions—not that she ever considered catching a fugitive “routine.” But her work had been pretty stable for the past several years, allowing her to be home for dinner most nights. A plus for her and her five-year-old son, Justin, but she’d called him Jake because she couldn’t bear to hear his father’s name on a regular basis.
Justin Berger. It didn’t hurt anymore, most days, when she thought of her little boy’s namesake. Because she did think about Justin every day, the man who’d fathered her son and given the ultimate sacrifice serving as a SEAL in the Mideast. Back in another life, when she’d been a Navy P-8 pilot and had worked with the special ops teams to help root out the bad guys.
Trina physically shook her head as if it’d rid her mind of the errant memories. It was approaching the anniversary of Justin’s death; it was only natural she’d think of him now.
She turned her thoughts back to the present, back to the work in front of her. Arrest Vasin. Call in Mike to take him or get the jerk into the back of her tiny vehicle. She’d place a call to her team manager as soon as either of them had Vasin in cuffs. Take him to the nearest federal facility for processing, which in this case was Harrisburg.
Movement in her peripheral vision made her stop and reassess. A tiny furry creature crawled out from the other side of the building. Phew. A rabbit. She continued forward. But then the creature whimpered.
A puppy. Jake would be elated if she came home with a puppy to add to their growing menagerie at the farmette she’d recently purchased for them in Silver Valley, Pennsylvania.
No way.
Crap. This was not a canine rescue mission. Yuri Vasin was her man, the fugitive wanted for money laundering in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. With new charges of human trafficking coming out of Wilmington, Delaware, this morning.
Vasin was Russian, five feet eleven inches, one hundred and eighty-five pounds. He definitely was not an approximately ten-pound caramel-latte-colored fuzz ball with big brown eyes and large paws on a too-skinny body. As the puppy stumbled along toward her, tail wagging tentatively, its whines turned to yips.
“Shhh!” She had to stop its noise. Bending down, she hoisted the little guy up and went to gently muzzle his puppy snout with her hand. He wriggled his face out of her grasp and licked her chin, his tiny body quivering with excitement. Or maybe relief?
Vasin couldn’t be that bad, not if he had a new puppy. Although he needed to feed the pup more—this little guy was skinny. She looked around, making sure she was still alone. There weren’t any visible cameras on the outside of the building. It looked abandoned, in fact.
Except for fresh tire tracks that ran from where the front door was to the surrounding grasslands. She saw the tracks emerge from the fields, and as she turned the corner with the puppy in her arms, she found the three ATVs that had made the tracks parked alongside the corrugated metal building.
The flips in her stomach turned to alarm bells.
Vasin wasn’t alone.
* * *
Rob lay on the concrete floor of the warehouse and willed his aching limbs to stay still as he listened to Vasin and his men. His labored breathing made it difficult to ascertain the colloquial Russian, but he understood enough of their conversation to know two things.
First, they said they were hiding out in the Poconos to protect Dima Ivanov who was in his “bunker.” That meant that Ivanov was nearby. This was new intelligence that the Trail Hikers didn’t have—they knew he was close but didn’t realize he had a full-on shelter. No one had suspected Ivanov would risk remaining so close to New York City and his usual operation area, not while the heat on him from all federal agencies was so heavy. But most importantly, Rob hadn’t heard the all-too-familiar sneer of Dima Ivanov’s voice, however. Which meant Vasin was running this current op, whatever it entailed. Rob could handle Vasin. Ivanov’s voice was one he dreaded, because he knew if he heard the heavy, smoke-addled voice, Rob would be dead.
The last time he’d come face-to-face with Vasin and his immediate circle, Rob had had the upper hand. He’d been deep undercover and had helped blow the headquarters of a drug and money-laundering operation out of the water, literally. Ivanov had been operating his command center from a yacht in the Atlantic, just off the Jersey shore. Vasin ran the op on land, and Rob’s CIA team took it all down, working hand in hand with FBI, ATF, DHS and local LEAs. Rob had escaped with his life and that of his team’s—except for Jazz.
Goddamn it, he still saw her eyes right before the bullet blew her apart. The shock of losing a teammate never left him. Their memory never faded. But Jazz’s loss had been the impetus for him to try to find closure for the other part of his life, a relationship he could have put to rest three years ago if he’d only had the courage to cross the damned street. To face for the last time the woman he’d loved when he’d still been named Justin.
A shuffle of chairs and rapid-fire Russian conversation filled his ears. No more thoughts of the woman he’d lost to distract him from the pain. He had to interpret their dialogue. His language skills weren’t what they used to be, but they were good enough.
Hell and damnation. They were going to kill him sometime before tomorrow morning. Something about him being in the way of their “most important mission.”
Robert opened his left eye a slit, since their voices came from his right side. He took in racks of weapons, ammo, explosives. Dang, they were loaded for bear. Just who were they expecting, the national guard? He wouldn’t mind a unit to show up and rescue him right about now.
He knew no one was scheduled to come in here until after he’d secured Vasin—the risks were too great. Vasin and his boss Ivanov were known for retribution; last month six ATF agents had been slaughtered in an ambush in Newark, New Jersey. ROC didn’t get its hands dirty, of course, but intelligence had proven it was clearly done on Ivanov’s orders.
The powers that be had decided that taking out Ivanov alone was best to allow them to begin to dismantle the entire North American ROC from the inside out. It was going to take months, even years. Rob couldn’t worry about that—he still had to complete his mission to neutralize Vasin. Somehow, someway, despite all these men around him.
He tested his binds. They’d used plastic zip ties on his wrists, which remained painfully strapped behind him and forced his back into an excruciating arch. His ankles were shackled, probably by chains, judging from the weight holding him down. The victims he’d witnessed captured by the ROC in New Jersey had been similarly restrained. It was signature Vasin. The man was a sadistic sociopath.
Vasin asked for something, then the sound of pounding on a table—a bottle, maybe?
Liquid pouring, a toast. Then another. Then a third. Keep drinking, you son of a bitch.
Fortunately for Rob, Vasin liked his vodka. Judging from the larger size of Vasin’s nose, the obvious veins mapped over it, Vasin’s alcoholism had progressed over the last two years even as his physicality didn’t appear weaker. And it sounded like he wanted to celebrate tonight, before the big party tomorrow—Rob’s murder party.
Steps shuffled on the floor, toward Rob. A solid hit to his chest forced his eyes to fly open.
Vasin laughed and spoke in a flurry of Russian. His spit hit his face with obvious satisfaction. Rob considered it a win that he felt it on his swollen skin. No extensive nerve damage. Yet.
“I didn’t come here for you.” It hurt so much to speak, damn it. Flashes of a previous time at the mercy of captors. He ignored them, fought off thinking about the one sure thing that got him through that torture.
“No, of course you didn’t. You want my boss, no? But you’ll never get him. No one touches Dima Ivanov.”
“Maybe not, but I know who’s coming to get him and all of you, and when.” Another sign Vasin was losing it; he’d said his boss’s name, blatantly unafraid of Rob. Yeah, Rob was a goner—they were going to kill him. Maybe sooner than tomorrow.
Vasin’s eyes narrowed at Rob’s dig, his breathing hitched. Bait. He’d believed the overblown statement.
“Everything you say is a lie. Who do you work for—the same people?”
“Yes.” Let Vasin think he was still CIA or FBI. Vasin had accused Robert of being CIA when they’d blown apart the New Jersey op. There was no reason to correct him. The Trail Hikers were far more clandestine than the CIA, and Rob was certain Vasin and in fact the ROC had no idea who the Trail Hikers were.
“And who are they, your employers?”
Robert stayed silent. He’d never tell Vasin whom he really worked for. Or that he’d been a SEAL. Vasin was smart enough to know that no agent worth his or her training would ever give up their employer.
“Tell me.” Vasin’s meaty fist hit his temple, and an explosion of lights floated over his vision. The blackness threatened, but he hung on.
“Never.”
“Of course you won’t. So tell me, who’s on their way to get us? The bogeyman?”
Hook.
“Two thousand agents. National Guard, DEA, local teams.” The lie came easily even through his aching jaw. Vasin’s breathing increased.
“When?”
“Tomorrow. Before sunup.”
Vasin straightened and turned toward his men, but not before Rob saw the frown drawn on his face. He watched them squirm in their seats as Vasin asked his team if anyone knew about the LEAs. Then he asked how many of the ROC men were expected to arrive over the next day. Rob let go a small, painful sigh when the men stated they only expected a dozen or so.
Vasin lowered his head, and Robert saw the flicker of worry cross the bastard’s face. After what felt like hours, Vasin motioned with his head toward Rob, shouting orders to his goons. “Get him up and let him take a piss. Then put him in the chair at the table.”
He faced Rob again and leaned in, his breath heavy with vodka and bile. “I’m going to let you tell me everything you know. If you’re lucky, I’ll leave you for dead here, before my boss shows up.”
Rob didn’t have to ask what would happen if he wasn’t lucky. Vasin would torture him until he begged to die.
Time to reel the monster in.
* * *
Trina peered around the corner of the building, her weapon drawn. The puppy had given her enough time to see the ATVs before she’d done something stupid and unforgivable for a US marshal: walk into a danger zone uninformed. Someone hadn’t done their job, because clearly Vasin was not alone and all of her reports indicated otherwise. She’d worry about the lack of communication later. Right now she wanted Yuri Vasin in cuffs.
Security cameras were mounted under the roof’s overhang on the four corners of the building; she’d only discovered them once she was up under the eaves herself.
She flattened herself to the side of the wall and started to inch her way back toward the opposite side of the building where she’d noticed the other, probably faux, doors. But she had to determine if she could see inside the structure and make out what the hell was going on. Trina sent a quick text to Mike, telling him to head in. She’d wait for him to apprehend.
As she crept along the twenty yards of solid steel building, she was conscious of the puppy shadowing her, quiet and stealthy. She couldn’t risk the noise of shooing the dog away, and was annoyed that he distracted her at all. Her fingers hit the corner of the building and she made sure the area was clear before she turned the corner and made straight for the doors. The security cameras had to not be working, or she’d have been stopped by someone by now.
When she lined up with the “doors,” her fingertips felt the smoothness of the corrugated steel—and the paint that had been used to create the illusion of entrances. Except in the middle of the one large garage-style door, where she immediately felt the cut of steel-on-steel. An opening. Maybe not one that was used much, but an entrance or exit of some sort. Further inspection revealed a painted-over window. She slipped a razor out of her front pocket. Slowly and carefully scraped away the black pigment. She kept her free hand over the working one—she didn’t want to alert anyone inside with a flash of light. The paint was thick and chipped off in the tiniest of pieces. That was fine. All she needed was a pupil’s worth.
