Hide and Seek (25 page)

If. If. If. If never changed anything. She refocused her attention. First, she checked the side mirrors again and saw nothing moving behind her. The mirrors were an asset. Next, she scanned the area in front of her and saw only an empty street, although she could see movement of crowds some distance away. For a time she thought the crowds could be their salvation. Maybe they could blend in with the protesters, use them as human camouflage. Now she was having doubts. Her instincts didn’t like the idea. Things nagged her. Things like cell and landline service going out at the same time but radio—and she assumed—television still functioned. Somebody was up to something.

What other choice did she have? Jildiz was having trouble walking more than a block or two. Running was out of the question.

Amelia turned her attention to the handgun she lifted from the attacker in the drugstore. It was a 9mm, semi-automatic, clean, and fairly new. She smelled the barrel. Just gun oil. It hadn’t been fired recently and the previous owner took good care of it. She popped the magazine and took note it was full. She chambered a round, double-checked the safety, then set it on the seat next to her. Again she checked the mirrors and the surrounding area.

The cab rocked as Jildiz rolled over. The curtain separating the cab from the sleeper parted slightly. “You’re still here.”

“Of course, where else would I be?”

“I dozed and had a dream you left me behind.”

Amelia cocked her head to steal a glance at Jildiz. “It was just a nightmare, Jildiz. I’m not leaving you.”

“It didn’t seem like a nightmare. It seemed right. Leaving me was the right thing to do. I told you that in the dream.”

Amelia studied the stick shift and the pedals. “Did my dream self agree?”

“Yes. You said thank you.”

“I’ll have to talk to myself about that. I’m not leaving.” The cab jiggled again. “Hey kid, go easy on the movement. This thing’s suspension was old before we were born. I don’t want our friends to have reason to investigate.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. You didn’t make the truck.” Amelia ran a hand under the dashboard. Her fingers found wires. Wires to what she didn’t know.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m thinking of hot-wiring the ignition.”

“Hot-wiring?”

“I don’t know what the Russian or Kyrgyz word is for it, but it means to start a vehicle without the key, but I have a problem. I don’t know how to do it.”

“That disappoints me. I thought you knew everything.”

“I do, just not how to hot-wire a thirty-year-old truck.”

“They don’t teach that in American schools?” The curtain closed.

“I majored in armed robbery.” Amelia tugged on the bundle of wires. “I have two brothers but both grew up reading books instead of swiping cars for fun. How’s a girl supposed to learn?”

She yanked the wire harness free. Several strands of wire were bound together by electrician’s tape. Someone had been doing home repairs. “Jidiz, is there a flashlight back there?”

“I can’t see much. There’s an overhead light—”

“Don’t touch that. It might give away our position. Just feel around.”

“I can’t find one. I found a . . . fire extinguisher. I’ll never look at these things the same way.”

“You earned a black belt in fire extinguisher. You did a good thing.”

“Doesn’t feel like a good thing.”

“Feelings don’t matter right now. Just survival. We can get weepy later.” Amelia looked around the cab and found a plastic box between the seats. It had a top with hinges. The equivalent of a glove compartment. She opened it: maps, an apple well on its way to cider, and a flashlight. “Found one. Truckers always travel with a flashlight.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I don’t know it either, I’m just trying to convince you I’m smart.”

“I already believe that. Um, won’t we have the same problem with the flashlight as the overhead light?”

“Yes, I’m thinking about that. What about a tool kit? A truck this old has to travel with a tool kit.”

“Nothing. Could it be outside?”

Amelia hadn’t taken time to investigate the truck beyond seeing that the cab was empty and the door was unlocked, but Jildiz had a point. She couldn’t remember where or when but she had seen a compartment on the side of trucks like this. “I’m going to check.”

“Is that wise?”

“Probably not.” Amelia looked at the small overhead cab light, found a switch, and turned it to off. She exited a dark cab into a dark night.

“BOSS, WE GOT COMPANY,
coming up from the south. Street side. Half a klick.” Doc’s voice was calm as if describing a play made on a baseball field.

“Down,” J. J. ordered. He dropped to a crouch then scrambled to the south end of the building. He dropped his NVGs and the world turned digital green. He glanced across the street and saw Aliki’s team spaced along the parapet wall, barely visible in their black helmets and balaclavas.

“Need me, Boss?” The whispered question came from Crispin.

“Negative, stay with the program.”

A mob of fifteen young men and several middle-aged guys moved up the street. Several carried bottles of booze.
A gang of rioters? Looters? If so, they’ll pass by.

They didn’t pass by. They saw the crippled van and slowed, then they did something that chilled the team leader: they split into two groups on a hand signal from one of the older men. Several produced handguns.

Slowly, the armed men advanced on the vehicle. J. J. looked at the roof where the other half of his team took position. He saw Aliki looking back. Neither activated their radios. They didn’t need to. The only solution was to wait. They could dispatch the mob in short order. Truth was, J. J. could do it without help. A simple sweep of his M4 on full auto would leave corpses everywhere. If the rest of his team did the same there would be nothing but human-burger left. That wasn’t their mission. Killing civilians would cause four hundred kinds of trouble. However, should the group turn their attention to the roof, then it would turn into a really bad day.

Wait.

Watch.

Be ready.

“Check north,” Aliki whispered through the radio.

J. J. did and saw another group of about the same size coming their way. He pointed at Doc and motioned for him to check the alley. Doc moved like a cat across the gravel blanket roof. It took only a glance.

“One group, from the south, armed. I make it to be fifteen strong.”

“Roger that. Stick there.” J. J.’s brain spun like a jet engine.
This isn’t coincidence.

Another whispered voice. “Boss, Hawkeye. Got her! Whoa!”

AMELIA SLIPPED FROM THE
cab, and found a small door with a chrome clasp, or what might have been chrome at one time. Definitely a storage locker. A locked storage locker. “Oh sure, leave the cab open but lock up the tool compartment. What kind of moron does that?”

A sound. Odd. Slightly distant. Fuzzy.

She kept one hand on the locker and reached for the 9mm in her coat pocket.

Buzzing. Electric.

She spun and leveled her weapon ready to unleash a body mass shot, but there was no one there. She swept the gun to one side then the other. Nothing. Just the buzzing noise—from overhead. She looked up and saw a small device hovering a couple of yards away and twenty feet high. Amelia snapped the weapon up and sighted on the thing, ready to squeeze the trigger.

She hesitated.
What the . . .

The device dipped its front end then brought it up again as if bowing. Then it moved to the truck, descending to the door. Amelia watched, both fascinated and fearful. It moved from the door then back again, repeating the action several times.

The thing is telling me to get in the truck. How can . . .

It hit her. A surveillance drone. The only question was, was it friendly?

Amelia crawled back into the cab with a big decision to make.

THE KNOCK ON THE
door sounded firm but not intrusive, as if the visitor wanted to be heard but felt guilty about it.

“I’ll get it,” Bartley said and moved from the small kitchen table.

Tess let him. The weeping stopped for now leaving her a husk, weak, and barely able to think. The image of the burned car and corpses repeatedly played in her head, an image that became more graphic with each replay. She no longer saw bodies burned beyond recognition—she saw J. J. Tess considered her imagination an aid in her work. She could read reports about military actions and see them unfold in her mind. There were times when her imaginings resembled hyperreal dreams—something she could live without.

The door released a tiny squeak as Bartley opened it. Tess hoped it was a salesman who could be sent away. It wasn’t. She recognized the voice.

“Chaplain. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Come in, Sergeant Major.”

“It’s just Eric these days.”

“And I’m just plain ol’ Rich.”

Tess rose and stepped to the lobby in time to see two familiar people cross her threshold. Eric Moyer was a man who, although fit, looked a decade older. He wore gray slacks and a blue polo shirt. Next to him stood the behemoth Rich Harbison. His size earned him the nickname Shaq, like the seven-foot one-inch basketball player. The large black man wore a patch over one eye, an eye lost on his last mission.

Willing herself to be strong, to remain composed, to show an emotional stability she didn’t have, Tess looked into the eyes of her husband’s former team leader. “Eric. You didn’t need to come. I know you’re busy.”
Stupid words.
She couldn’t come up with anything else.

“Yeah, I did. I . . . Nothing could keep us away.”

“You two were always J. J.’s friends.” The past tense kicked down the emotional walls. Tears rose. Tears fell. Sobs followed and without quite knowing how, she found herself in the arms of Eric.

He said nothing. No one did. The only sound was the closing of the front door. Minutes had no meaning. The apartment seemed to recede and Tess wondered how many times and how long a woman could cry.

When she looked up she saw tears in the eyes of Eric and Rich, two of the toughest men she knew. Somehow that brought a wave of comfort. “Doesn’t make sense to be miserable in the foyer when we could be miserable in the living room.”

“You were always the smart one of the family,” Rich said. “And J. J. would have agreed with that.”

“Yes he would,” Tess said. “I made him utter that very phrase three times a day.”

They laughed through the tears.

Once in the larger room, Rich moved to Bartley and threw his arms about the man. A taller than average man, Bartley looked tiny in Rich’s arms. “We haven’t forgotten you, Chap. How you holdin’ up?”

“You want the truth or a lie?”

“Nuff, said, sir.”

“You’re no longer in the Army, Rich, you don’t have to call me sir.”

“I am a wonderfully complex man with deeply rooted habits.”

The talk was light but the mood dark. They took seats. Bartley sat next to Tess on the sofa, Eric took a side chair and Rich pulled a chair from the kitchen. The easy chair in the living room remained unused. Apparently, Rich assumed it was J. J.’s. He was right.

“Tess, I have no words. I’ve been on this end of things before but . . . well, J. J. was different.”

There it was again: that horrible past tense.

“We’re here for you, Tess. You too, Captain. You ask, we’ll do. I don’t care what it is.”

Can you bring J. J. back?
Out loud she said, “Thank you. J. J. considered you more than fellow soldiers. You are . . . were his friends.”

Eric teared up again, but kept the grief in check. “My position kept me from getting as close to him as I would like. Oh the pizza parties and barbecues were one thing, but being team leader required I keep a certain detachment.”

“He knew that. His greatest fear was not being half the team leader you were, Eric.”

“I recommended him for the job because I thought he’d be better than I ever was.” He drew a finger under his nose. “I can’t help feeling partly to blame.”

“Why?” The statement stunned Tess. “Because you bumped him to team leader?” She leaned forward. “You know better than that, Eric. He would still have been on the team even if the brass put someone else in your spot. You have no reason for feeling guilty. He died doing something he felt was important.”