Sold Out (Nick Woods Book 1) (24 page)

Chapter
68

"We
got photos," Allen proclaimed.

"You're
shitting me," Nick said.

"Nope,
plenty of them. And there's even coordinates and a map of where the two
are."

"Get
out of here," Nick contended, standing up from the prone. He'd been
"snapping in" with his rifle -- at least that's what he'd told Allen
he was doing -- but in truth he'd been just pulling the trigger and re-cocking
it, completely lost in thought. He'd been missing Anne more and more, and he
wondered what he'd do if he survived this mess. Even scarier, he wondered if he
even wanted to survive it.

Allen
analyzed Nick's face as he climbed to his feet. No doubt about it, the days of
waiting had taken a toll on Nick. He seemed grumpier and angrier than he
normally did. And while he wouldn't say it, Allen knew he was missing his wife.
And he knew more than anything else that Nick needed to see a counselor. The
man had so many demons running through his head, and that was before Anne had
been gunned down.

Nicked
stopped halfway to him. "What the hell you looking at like that?"

"Nothing,"
Allen said. He reached for a cigarette and lit it. "Check out these
photos. These are definitely photos of the guy named, 'Whitaker,' who
interrogated me. And this is definitely the NFL linebacker-sized dude who was
with him. It says in the email that this guy's name is Tank. And here's the
cabin's location. It's near your old stomping grounds."

The
two spent a half hour looking over the photos. Zooming in and looking for any
sign of manipulation. And then they began scoping out the cabin. The cabin lay
outside Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and backed up to the Great Smoky Mountains
National Park. Whoever had built it had buried it by itself literally ten miles
from the nearest other dwelling.

Allen
spent ten minutes using satellite shots from Google Maps and Bing to study the
cabin and the woods all around it. There was only one road to it, and it turned
into a dirt road more than two miles from the cabin.

"Awfully
isolated," Allen noted.

"It
is."

Chapter
69

Whitaker
and Tank arrived at the cabin exhausted. The planning of the abduction of
Jennifer and all the driving toward (and back from) New York left them spent.
And worrying about the likely end of their careers, if not their lives, had
emotionally drained them.

On
top of all this, their senses had been working overtime, as well, because both
knew deep down that their lives could be taken at any moment. They faced as
great a danger from Sen. Gooden (maybe greater) than they did from Nick and
Allen.

They
sat in the car, watching the cabin with slight unease.

"Gooden
said there'd be no one here, right?" Tank asked.

"Right,"
Whitaker affirmed.

"Then,
let's enter weapons drawn just in case," Tank said.

Whitaker
nodded. They exited the vehicle, yanked out pistols, and glided toward the
front door. Whitaker stood to the side of the door -- in case someone shot
through it -- and used the code he'd been sent to unlock the key-panel lock.

As
soon as the door unlocked, the two burst into the room. Whitaker went right,
and Tank cut left. They cleared the two corners of the room first and then
turned away from the wall toward the inside of the room, which they both
immediately recognized as a living room. They scanned the ceiling and moved on
to the next room, the kitchen.

Room
by room, the two cleared the cabin silently. They checked the closets, the
crawl spaces, and underneath the beds. The cabin had no attic, so without a
word, they immediately checked for sensors, listening devices, and cameras.
Forty minutes later, they felt safe talking.

"Nothing
seems out of the ordinary," Tank said.

"I
know, and that worries me more," Whitaker replied. "Hasn't been that
long ago that we were both relieved of our duties, thrown to the side, and
assigned tracking bracelets."

"Good
point."

"Let's
check the woods for a sniper. We move fast and zig and zag, so they can't get a
clean shot on us. If one of us gets hit, the other runs for it if he's not
close enough to take the sniper out. And don't go for the car. They'll be
waiting for us to do that. Whoever survives the shot takes off at full speed
into the national park and emerges days later as far away as possible. Maybe
even a week. With a pistol, the survivor ought to be able to kill something to
eat and extend the time he can hide out."

"Sounds
like a game plan. I'm ready when you are."

Whitaker
nodded and walked to the back door. Tank stacked against him, and he ripped
open the door and sprinted away from the cabins and into the woods. They rushed
from tree to tree, zig zagging and darting about like two mad men in the sights
of someone's scope.

Thirty
minutes later, they ended their search of the woods around the cabin. No sniper
or sniper teams stalked them from afar. Nor had they seen any sign of men
crawling or lying anywhere.

"What
now?" Tank asked.

"We
see if the fridge is stocked with something stiff worth drinking."

"I'm
down with that," Tank said.

Chapter
70

Nick
Woods worked his way forward. He wore the ghillie suit he'd picked up off the
dead sniper inside Camp Lejeune. As he'd known, the blood had dried and left
some darker spots. It still blended perfectly, and it was a great ghillie suit.
Its owner must have spent weeks and weeks on it.

In
the movies, sniper work is sleek and sexy. But the reality couldn't be further
from the truth. It's slow, methodical, and painful.

Nick
moved slower than a snail, and his senses tried to pick up even the slightest
thing that might be off. Both he and Allen had worried this could be a trap,
but both also had a gut feeling that it wasn't. That this was what they'd been
searching for so hard, and it'd been handed to them in quite the surprising twist.

As
a precaution, in case it was a trap and Nick was taken alive, Allen agreed to
pack and leave the hotel room he'd been staying in. That way, worst case
scenario, Nick couldn't give up his location even if tortured. Nick
honest-to-goodness didn't know where Allen was heading.

But,
Nick couldn't think of that right now. His entire focus was on sensing anything
that might be wrong. Sometimes it was a sound. Sometimes a shape. Sometimes a
feeling.

Yet
nothing felt wrong at all. Nick felt more nervous in his hotel room than he did
out here. But, he wanted to be thorough, so he crawled, slid, and scooted
around the woods he'd approached from.

Convinced
it was clear, he started to work in a 360 around the cabin. A single truck -- a
gray Toyota -- sat in front of the cabin, which was connected to civilization
by a dirt road that was covered in leaves. Nick knew if it had been used much,
it would have been muddied or hardened by dirt. But, it lay flat with the
forest ground, lacking ruts and covered by leaves, a barely used trail to a
barely used cabin.

Nick
also noticed the cabin had no power. Just a rough outpost powered by generator
and without a satellite antenna in sight. That probably meant the place had no
communication, but Nick couldn't be sure. These days there was cell phone
service just about everywhere. Nonetheless, this was deep in the mountains and
miles from a single-lane road, which itself was about fifteen miles from other
homes. So, there was a chance the cabin had no way to communicate outside.

Nick
completed his reconnaissance and left the area. He needed to re-coordinate with
Allen and find out where their new hotel room was for the night. Then, it'd be
planning an assault and hopefully the end of Whitaker and Tank, assuming those
were their true names.

Chapter
71

Whitaker
and Tank left the cabin again. They drove down the nearly invisible road with
weapons in their laps and senses at caveman-like intensity.

"What
if we don't hear from Gooden today?" Tank asked.

"We
give him one more day if we don't," Whitaker said, tapping his fingers on
the steering wheel. "We should also consider the idea that if we don't
hear anything tomorrow, then we probably ought to make a break for it. Cut off
the ankle bracelets and run for our lives."

"Agreed,"
Tank said. He gripped the stock of his MP5 and said, "And heaven help the
assholes who try to stop us."

Two
hours later, they returned to the cabin. Gooden himself had called them today
-- not just an aide -- and he'd told them they'd almost nailed down Nick and
Allen's location. They had it down to within three blocks, and according to
their information, Nick and Allen were still in Gatlinburg -- a small city just
twenty minutes from their location.

So,
they had stopped for a pizza and rented a hotel to get real showers in before
heading back with additional grocery supplies. They knew how to hurry up and
wait, and if they needed to camp out another night, they could make do with
canned goods and cards for entertainment. It was the life of soldiers around the
world.

Chapter
72

Meanwhile,
just a short distance from Whitaker and Tank, Nick and Allen finished making
their plans.

"You
can do this, right?" Nick asked.

"Yes,"
Allen said. He had an MP5 in his hands and was holding it about like a recruit
would. Nick had shown him how to use it before and had just showed him again.
Making sure he knew how to release the magazine, yank the bolt back, and know
the various selector switch settings -- semi, three-shot burst, and fully
automatic.

"Let's
go through your drills again," Nick said.

Allen
did, and feeling more comfortable with his abilities, Nick helped him load up
his six 30-round magazines. Then he and Allen packed up everything else and
loaded it into their car. They carried the rifle to the car by putting it in an
old seabag, with clothes stuffed around it.

They
left the small town they'd holed up in wearing their civilian clothes. Two
miles away from the nearest building, they pulled onto a dirt road and drove
back a hundred yards out of view. They changed into camouflage -- Allen, into some
basic hunting stuff they'd bought at Walmart -- and Nick into his Marine
ghillie suit.

Nick
backed the car up the dirt road and pulled back out. They were mission “go”
now. They knew if a cop got behind them they were screwed, but it was a chance
they had to take.

They
drove the remaining distance to the dirt road that led up to the isolated
cabin. Nick eased his car up the dirt road and when he could no longer see the
road behind him, he let the car coast to a stop between two stout trees. He
didn't touch the brakes so they wouldn't squeal. With thick woods on both sides
of the drive way, they'd effectively trapped Whitaker and Tank inside the
woods. Even if the two men got away from the cabin, they wouldn't be driving
away. They'd have to hoof it out on foot, and Nick felt certain they wouldn't
get away from him in a one-on-one
fight in the woods. Especially
since he had the great ghillie suit he'd taken off the dead sniper.

Nick
and Allen exited their vehicle and grabbed their weapons. They pushed the doors
closed so the interior light wouldn't run down their car battery, but did so as
quietly as they could. Then Nick crossed in front of the car and entered the
woods, Allen following.

Nick
walked point silent and smooth. He crept through the woods, his heart beating
through his chest and sweat dripping down his face. This was finally it.

Was
it a trap? Could there be sensors that might detect them? A satellite looking
down from space with thermal cameras? Three helicopters loaded with heavily
armed commandos waiting to swoop in? Or, maybe in the air already on the way.
He paused and looked up, listening as hard as he could.

He
swallowed hard and remembered that at this point, it lay in fate's hands. If
this was a trap, then they were dead. If it wasn't, they had a chance.

He
glanced back at Allen and saw the man looked focused, though nervous. Nick had
told him going in that his only job was watching his step and being quiet. True
to form, Allen kept his head lowered, eyes on the prowl for branches or sticks
that would snap and sound louder than an alarm.

A
little more than an hour later, Nick had placed Allen in a position facing the
back of the house. Allen lay behind a thick pine tree, his MP5 aimed at the
rear door.

Nick
snapped his fingers lightly, and Allen looked up. Nick pointed at the MP5's
magazine, and Allen nodded. He laid out the five remaining magazines in front
of him.

Nick
gave him a thumbs up and a smile, and Allen smiled back. The mission was about
to go down, and since Whitaker and Tank's truck sat outside, then this would
likely end the cat and mouse game the four had been playing for weeks now.

Nick
glided away from Allen, moving deeper into the woods before circling back
around to the front. Getting seen now would be about the most stupid thing he
could do, and since the cabin had plenty of windows, it was a distinct
possibility.