Betrayal Page 8

  It had started simple enough. “Hey,” Seymour had said one day over coffee. “Guess what I found out.” From that started a conversation about acquired intelligence concerning a foreign power. It transitioned into a “what if” scenario. It was followed by “imagine if”. Ali had played along, sure his friend was just playing the same game many did when fantasizing about winning the lottery. He didn’t think there was anything to it. By the time he realized the other was serious and offering Ali a chance to join the team, it was too late. Seymour had concluded Ali wasn’t going to be a team player, and since Ali knew too much, he had now become a liability. Liabilities could only be handled one way: a bullet through the ear.

  Still, he had not gotten what he expected. He had been tied to a chair, beaten, forced to assure Brett and his team that everything was on the up and up, and set aside before his planned murder just in case he was needed in some way. Ali was sure that time was almost up. Ali had served his part, nothing had materialized where he might still represent some value, and his execution would happen very soon.

  Up until now, he had been biding his time and searching for an opportunity to escape. It had finally presented itself. For the first time since this had begun, his captors had left him alone. There were only two of them now. Seymour and the others had left to continue their mission. Those two were downstairs, probably making coffee or getting something to eat.

  Ali listened carefully for signs of movement somewhere in the two-story safe house. He heard nothing. He knew the house and the location. He had used it once before. He was in a remote farmhouse in West Virginia, not too far away from where Brett and his team called home. It was likely Seymour and his group of criminals had used this place because of its strategic location near the people they intended to mislead.

  They had flown here in a couple of Bell 505 helicopters. One had left long ago. It had ferried Seymour and the others out of here. If Ali’s escape attempt worked, he would commandeer the other and begin his pursuit of his former friend.

  The chair he was tied to was a simple wooden one confiscated from a kitchen table. His hands were bound behind his back with a piece of rope. His ankles were strapped to the front legs of the chair with more of the same. He could move a little, but not much. It would have to do. And he only had one chance to get it right. He rocked forward until he was hunched over, balanced on his feet, the chair suspended in the air below him. He used the little bit of flexibility he had to straighten as much as he could, gritted his teeth, then slammed himself down onto the floor as hard as he could. Nothing happened. There wasn’t even the slightest crack heard in the wooden frame. He cursed silently and rocked forward again, repeating the process. This time there was a slight snap heard as the chair gave against his weight and the sudden impact. He also heard the scurrying of feet on the stairs. He rocked forward a third time, balanced himself upright, and slammed himself down. This time the chair gave in two places. One of the front legs snapped, allowing him even more movement with his feet. He stood and slammed down a third time, this time shattering the chair. He made it to his feet as quickly as he could and charged the door to his room, his hands still behind his back. He made it there just as the door crashed open, a once fellow agent filling the space with his muscled body.

  Ali crashed into him at full speed, leading with his left shoulder, his legs pumping for all they were worth. The man was driven backward, unprepared for the full weight of Ali to ram into him. The man grunted and stumbled with Ali pressed into him and shoving. They hit the railing of the staircase. It buckled instantly and the sound of splintering wood filled the air. Over they went, falling a few feet before slamming onto the steps halfway down. With a crunch of bone, the man below him stopped moving and did a slow, wheezing exhale. Ali rolled off and came to a knee on the step below, looking at his adversary. The agent’s neck was broken, his head shoved against the stairwell wall at an unnatural and gruesome angle.

  Where was the other agent, he wondered? Maybe outside smoking? The man reeked of cigarettes when he had been punching Ali into submission. Ali looked around and found the man’s gun a few steps further down. He sat in front of it and grabbed the butt awkwardly from behind. He didn’t know how he would use it with his hands still tied behind him, but he felt better with it than without.

  He finished the descent of the stairs and listened. Hearing nothing, he ventured into the living room and peeked through the windows. On the far side, he spotted the helicopter and two men walking back this way. Crap, he thought. I thought there were only two. If he was wrong about the number of people still here with him once, might he also be wrong a second time? How many other people were here? He needed to get these ropes off his hands if he was going to stand a chance.

  Ali went to the kitchen next and found what he had hoped for. Sitting on the counter like a golden prize was a set of kitchen knives in a worn, wooden holder. He raced for them, snatched the paring knife from its slot with his teeth, and dropped it on the counter. He spun about, set the gun aside, and fumbled around for a second before his fingers closed around the plastic handle. He reversed the blade and carefully inserted it between the strands of rope around his wrists like he had been taught so long ago.

  He heard the front door open and steps heading this way. Someone mumbled, asking how much longer the other thought they would have to be here. Ali’s jaw tightened and he tried to put as much leverage onto the blade as he could, sawing at his bindings. Closer, the footsteps came. Harder, Ali sawed. And then, he was out of time. First, one agent stepped around the corner. Then, the other. For a moment, neither really noticed he was there standing off to one side. Perhaps, from their peripheral, they assumed him to be their friend. The one who was dead on the staircase. But then, nearly as one, they both saw him and went for their guns. Ali turned sideways, his hands back around the stolen pistol, and began firing from behind his back. A few missed. A few landed. He kept firing, doing his best to visualize where the rounds would go, pulling the trigger over and over again.

  The two agents jerked and spun, doing a weird death dance that people do sometimes when they are shot in multiple locations. Their belly, their feet, their legs, their waist, their chest, his bullets tore into them repeatedly. With every round fired, Ali felt burning gunpowder pepper his back, searing through the thin fabric of his once nice dress shirt. He ignored the pain and kept firing. Seventeen times, Ali pulled the trigger on the Glock behind his back until the slide locked, indicating it was empty. When it was over, the two agents lay on the floor, ruined. Ali wasn’t done with them. Not by a long shot. He stepped up to the closest and stomped down hard on the man’s throat, twice, crushing the windpipe. He repeated the process on the second man, and then stood over them, breathing hard, seething in anger. For a long moment, he stared at them, silently daring them to move again.

  Satisfied they were no longer a threat, he moved back to the counter to finish the task of freeing himself of the rope. It took a few more minutes to slice his way through, then he rifled through the dead men’s clothes, confiscating a new firearm and a handful of mags. He also found his phone lying on the kitchen table. He walked out the front door, heading to the helicopter, dialing a number from memory. Before he could complete the dial, he was shot from behind. The bullet clipped his left ear and Ali pitched into a roll to the right. He came back to his knee and brought the gun up, looking for a target. Coming around the side of the house was a fourth traitor. The man got off a second shot before Ali could draw aim. The bullet took a chunk out of his right shoulder and Ali fell onto his left side. A third round just missed. Ali’s answering gunfire did not, and his enemy toppled into a bush.

  For a while, Ali just lay there in the summer sun, gasping for breath and thankful he was still alive. Rolling over onto his back, he looked up into the blue sky, wishing he could just lay here for a while. Maybe take a nap. But he couldn’t. There was still work to do. Besides, Ali was practically boiling with anger. There was only one way to put th
at fire out. He had heard said that revenge was a dish best served cold. He wasn’t sure where the statement came from, but he was sure they were dead wrong.

  __________

  Abbi was shoved through the front door of the barn and into the bright sunlight of a summer afternoon. It would have been a nice day had not everything in her life gone tragically wrong. Behind her, Bill kept prodding her forward with the toe of his shoe. Even with her hands zip-tied behind her back, she was sure she could pound him into poo. Except, of course, Ted, who was at the rear of the procession, might shoot Cassie.

  They had allowed her to place the baby into a carrier, the kind meant for clipping into a base and seat belting into a car, as well as packing up a diaper bag. She wasn’t sure where they were going, but she knew their intent. DJ and the rest of the team were supposed to have died. Things didn’t go according to plan, and until these idiots were sure her team had been finished off for good, she and the baby were needed as hostages.

  She was instructed to head to the lead SUV, and she did so. In her heart, Abbi wanted to start issuing roundhouse kicks to her captors. But instead of dealing out pain, her legs plodded along through the dust, feeling like lead weights were attached. Halfway to the vehicle, things began to look up. She heard a man’s voice shout, “Hey!” Before she could turn around, there was a single gunshot. When she finished her turn, she saw Ted had dropped the baby carrier and was in the process of falling like a felled tree, the left side of his head a bloody mess. She wasn’t sure where the shot came from, but she wasn’t wasting her opportunity.

  Abbi was a person accustomed to getting things done. She never waited around to be told what to do or hoped someone else would do it. So, when she saw Bill frantically looking for the shooter, she placed the toe of her running shoe under his chin with as much force as she could bring to bear. And since she was always thorough with everything she did, she didn’t assume the man was out of the fight, even though Bill was flat on his back, his eyes rolled back in his head indicating he was unconscious. She threw herself high into the air, rolled to her right in midflight, pointed her elbow as best she could due to her restraints, and collapsed on the man, her elbow coming down on the bridge of his nose. The resulting crunching sound warmed her heart to no end. The act also snapped her plastic restraints.

  “Wow,” a familiar voice spoke behind her. “Hell hath no fury, right?” She turned her head, looking for the speaker, her savior, and found a man she almost didn’t recognize. His face was bloody. His shirt was bloody. His whole body was a bloody mess. Agent Ali stood there, gun in hand, looking down on her with a fondness in his swollen eyes.

  She rolled to her knees and crawled to Cassie, inspecting the child for injury. Other than a few specks of someone else’s blood on her face and clothing, she was fine. Cassie grinned up at her as a snot bubble formed under her nose. She wiped it free with a bit of blanket that had been tucked to one side of the carrier. Abbi didn’t look up at Ali when she spoke. “Half of my team is either dead or injured.” Then she pointed at the open door of the barn. “And they shot Brett.”

  Ali was running then, streaking for the barn. She didn’t have the heart to tell him there was no use. The man who had been like a second father to her was gone. Alive and well one minute, seemingly far from harm's way, and dead the next, still sitting slumped in the chair he loathed so much.

  And then, all at once, as if God had breathed hope into her, things began to look up even more. From the open doorway, the muffled voice of Ali called out to her, hope and panic twisted together in his voice. “I have a pulse!”

  Chapter 9: The Big Reveal

  DJ and the remaining members of his team floated at the rendezvous location for the Vermont. The wait served only to strengthen his foul mood. Cash had been steadily dialing the farm on their satellite phone, attempting to communicate with Abbi and Brett. So far, there had been no answer. This fact wasn’t helping DJ’s mindset either. He was certain failed communication with his wife was a portent of more bad news about to befall his group. He cast his eyes about their Zodiac and considered what he did know, trying to take his mind off what he didn’t.

  Bounder was dead, shot in the back of the head. The young fighter never even had the chance to defend herself. She had never seen it coming. She never had the opportunity to know she had been betrayed by a member of their team.

  Cash was wounded, but not severely. A pressure bandage stopped the bleeding from the bullet hole through a meaty part of his right bicep. DJ had examined it and determined the bullet missed the bone and any major arteries. He also had a grazing wound on his cheek, but it wasn’t deep. DJ doubted it would even leave a scar.

  Coonie had a bullet wound as well. A round had punched through the boat and nicked her left buttock. It wasn’t much to write home about, and she had no problems exposing herself to her team so that DJ could clean it and check it out. It was the only brief moment of humor they had. She had done it with her eyes on the Sheriff, commenting how she had always thought Sam was a pain right where he had wounded her. She had smiled at her wounded teammates when she said the traitor could kiss her hole. She had said it to make Argo smile. It had worked.

  Argo was in bad shape, and DJ was uncertain of the outcome. On examination, DJ found that both bullets tracked into the side of the abdomen running from his left side to his right. There was no exit wound, so this meant the angle had taken a deeper path through Argo’s middle than DJ had hoped. There was nothing DJ could do to make it better. The man was bleeding internally and who knew what organs had been damaged. If the sub didn’t surface soon, DJ wasn’t certain how long the man would survive. The Sheriff needed a surgeon. For now, he was reclined in the boat resting, his eyes closed but conscious. Hang on, buddy, DJ thought.

  It wasn’t clear what Traitor Sam’s play was. Why choose enemy waters to steal the data drive? There were few places he could go and his chances of escape were slim. Was there some plan that DJ didn’t know about? If there was, when had the man had the time to put something in place? It didn’t make sense. He needed more information.

  DJ glanced at Carbon. The hacker wasn’t wounded in any way, physically. Psychologically was a whole other matter. The man sat sideways on the bottom of the boat with his knees bent, leaning against the inflated side. His eyes were glassed over and his head down. While usually out of harm's way, the man had seen some hard times before. He had been nearly killed twice that DJ could remember. But this was different. Argo had saved his life and had paid a price for it. He might die for his act of self-sacrifice. This had to be weighing heavily on the man’s psyche. Yet, if there would be any justice to come out of this, Carbon needed to get his head right and focus. DJ needed his skill set and his analytical way of thinking.

  Cash seemed to be reading DJ’s mind. He leaned forward and snapped his finger in front of Carbon’s face. “Lock that crap down,” Cash commanded. It was uncharacteristic of Cash to show any emotion at all. He was usually as granite-like in his personality as he was in his dependability. “He took a bullet for you. Get over it. Anyone here would do the same. You do his sacrifice an injustice by moping over it. Now, did Sam say anything about why he did this, or did he just start shooting?” Carbon just shook his head and looked at Argo.

  DJ shifted his position to take the sun out of his face. “It doesn’t make sense. He would have to know that every intelligence asset the U.S. has will be brought to bear looking for anyone trying to sell science fiction blueprints on the black market. They’ll find him. He’s a dead man walking. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Cash offered a rebuttal. “Unless he already had an offer.”

  DJ disagreed. “No. There was no time. As soon as we heard about this, we had ourselves on that helicopter and on the way here.”

  Cash nodded in agreement. “So, then agent Seymour had to be in on it. Maybe he’s a turncoat too and privately offered Sam a pile of cash to kill us and take the drive.”

  Carbon spoke up. “Y
ou’re both right and wrong at the same time.” DJ and Cash went silent and stared at the hacker. This was what DJ had been hoping for. Carbon had a talent for puzzling his way through problems, seeing things the others could not. “There’s no top-secret blueprints on that drive. There never was. This was a setup from the very beginning. So, yes, Seymour is in on it. He inserted Sam into the team a month ago when he planned this whole thing. Sam was never looking for a job. He was just playing the game to get to this point.”

  DJ shook his head, trying to follow along but failing. “Wait, how do you know there are no blueprints on that drive?”

  Carbon looked at him, sadness still lingering in his eyes. “Because I managed to break the code and had a peek before Sam ambushed us.”

  It was Cash’s turn to be confused. “But I thought you needed the active brainwaves of that doctor to get inside.”

  Carbon’s voice took a harder edge, anger growing in his voice. “It was all a lie! That’s how I know Agent Seymour, and probably Agent Ali planned this whole thing and put a wolf onto our team. We were never supposed to make it out of this alive. You want to know what was on that drive? I’ll tell you. But I warn you, you’re going to be a lot madder than you are right now. You have any duct tape in that bag of yours? You might want to wrap your head with some. Because when I tell you what it is, your head is going to explode. The tape won’t stop it from blowing up, but you’ll at least have all the pieces stuck to the tape for the doctor to try and put your skull back together.”

  DJ’s voice rose to a shout, snapping at the man. “Enough! What’s on the drive?”

  Carbon smiled, but it wasn’t genuine. “Cryptocurrency. A lot of it. Mountains and mountains of it. All of it sitting in wallets with a text file containing everything needed to use them.”