The Ties That Bind

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“Finally I wasn’t just protecting my backside. I was also protecting yours.”

She pondered for a moment and then looked at him with renewed conviction. “You know, that’s one of the few things you’ve said that I do believe.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you slept out in the living room on the sofa instead of in the bedroom,” she said. “If someone tried to come in during the night, you wanted to be between me and them, didn’t you?”

He nodded, surprised that she had even noticed.

“I don’t trust you,” she said, her tone decisive. “And I don’t think you’ve told me the whole truth. But what I need to know is if you’re here to hurt someone. I’m not just taking you to any village. I’m taking you to my village. If you can’t or won’t tell me the truth about your purpose up here, I guess that’s your problem, but I have to know that you’re not out to hurt the people I care most about.”

“Scout’s honor,” he said without hesitation. “I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

She pushed away from the counter and started walking to her room, but stopped in front of him. Her hip brushed his as she said, “I bet you weren’t ever really a Boy Scout.”

Jason watched the way she walked, her flannel pants perfectly outlining her behind. “No,” he whispered to himself, completing the old joke, “but I got kicked out for eating a Brownie or two.”

JASON WAITED for Tina in the living room. She came out of her room with a bag in tow.

“How soon can we make it to your village?” he asked.

“It won’t take too long—about a half day—but we need to talk to whatever local authorities are here first and turn over those weapons. I imagine that could see us here for an extra day.”

“Why don’t we take them along with us?” Jason suggested. “Then we can report them to the authorities in your village. You probably know them, and my timetable doesn’t get held up. I’m on a bit of a schedule.”

“You don’t have any intention of giving those weapons over to the police, do you?” she asked.

“If you’ll recall,” he said, striving to keep his voice calm, “I didn’t want you to bring them along in the first place. But the answer to your question is no. I don’t have time to deal with local officials right now. You can believe me when I say that those weapons will get turned over to the proper authorities, more so even than the local cops, who would probably just sell them at the next police auction or keep them for themselves.”

Tina didn’t say anything, but Jason could tell she was considering what he said carefully.

“Not to mention,” he continued, “that it’s hard to run an operation like that without it drawing notice, especially in small towns or communities where everyone knows everyone else. The odds are good that someone pretty high up on the law-enforcement side of things around here is on the take, maybe even actively participating, and they are not going to take kindly to our taking away a large chunk of their bread and butter.”

She tossed up her hands in surrender. “Fine, fine,” she said. “But at the least, I want to talk to the local cops in my village. I know them, and I can’t imagine any of them are involved. Fair enough?”

Jason nodded his head in agreement, while thinking about how he could stall her again on the issue once they arrived at her village.

“Can we go, then?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said. “The sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll get there. I’d hate for your timetable to be off by more than a minute or two.” The sarcasm in her voice was cutting, but he ignored it.

Instead, he headed outside, gently pulling her along behind him. “Good deal,” he said. He’d picked up his little motion sensors while she was getting ready to leave and had gathered his own things together. The ATVs were right where they had left them. The town was just beginning to wake up and Jason didn’t want to get stuck answering questions about missing members of the local population. Before he moved the bodies, Jason had done quick scans of their fingerprints and took digital pictures of their faces. When they settled at the cabin he sent them to Room 59 via a satellite uplink from his PDA. The response had been fairly quick. All three had rap sheets that weren’t far from what they had been caught at yesterday and two were from the village that they were currently situated in. Denny had sent a message asking for a mission update as soon as possible.