Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Canyon) (22 page)

Ty spoke to her softly. “It’s gonna be okay, Claire. Neither of us is new to this game.”

There was something in his voice. Ben took another hard look at him. His eyes were dead calm, and a there was a clarity of purpose Ben recognized in himself whenever he went on a mission.

He turned back to Claire. “If we aren’t back by twenty-four hundred—”

“He means midnight,” Ty said.

“If we aren’t back by then, get in the car and drive to Egansville. Go to the sheriff. Tell him what’s going on.”

Her lips trembled. “You’ll be back.”

“Damned straight we will.” Pulling her into his arms, he bent his head and gave her a quick, hard kiss. “See you later, angel.” He grabbed his gear bag. “Let’s go,” he said to Ty and headed for the door.

Twenty-Four

T
he RV park and the rest of the cabins at Uncle Buster’s were mostly empty. Only a lone fisherman stood on the distant shore along the lake. Making their way to the dock in front of the cabin, Ben dumped his gear in the aluminum boat, Ty jumped in, Ben tossed him his bag, then pushed away from the dock and jumped into the stern to handle the small outboard engine.

As soon as they were far enough away they wouldn’t be seen, they blackened their faces, strapped on black vest armor, pulled camouflage slouch hats down over their eyes and retrieved their weapons.

A few minutes later, the boat slipped quietly into the channel leading into Bushytail Bayou, wider here than it would be farther along the route.

Reaching into his pocket, Ben pulled out an LED flashlight, clicked it off and on a couple of times to test its strength. “If we time it right, the moon will be up when we come out. Should be all we need, but you never know.”

They rode along in silence but for the roar of the engine, top speed seven miles an hour. But as the channel narrowed and started making turns, Ben slowed the motor to a soft purr. A faint sound began to reach him, a muffled jingle coming from the seat in front of him. He slowed the boat even more. “You got change in your pockets?”

Ty shook his head. “Dog tags. Sorry, I’m a getting a little rusty.” He took them off over his head, wrapped them in a handkerchief and stuffed them into his pants pocket. “I like to have them with me on a mission, just in case.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not letting your ass get killed, so you don’t need to worry about it.”

In the dappled sunlight beneath the overhanging trees, Ty’s teeth flashed white against his blackened face. “That’s good to know.”

Ben watched the way Brodie picked up the AR, holding it as if it were an extension of his arm. He remembered the look in his eyes. “Force Recon, right?”

Ty didn’t answer right away, which was an answer in itself. Clearly this wasn’t something that was common knowledge. “It was a while back.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“My time was up. I just... I wanted to see a different side of life. You?”

“Mission went south. Injury drove me out. I never would have left the teams if things had turned out different. I’m okay with it now.”

“Me, too.”

They didn’t say more, just rode in silence through the murky tangle. The channel continued to narrow, clogged with lily pads and downed trees. Jagged, moss-draped branches thrust viciously into the air. They passed wild-eyed egrets and a haughty blue heron standing on one foot in the boggy water a few feet off to the right. The birds took flight as the boat moved past.

Peering through a dense wall of willows, Ben watched for the orange tape he had left to mark the way. He spotted a tiny bit of color, stayed to the right. He had memorized how far it was to the next fork in the channel, the next turn and the next, until they reached their destination. Still, spotting the markers was reassuring.

“Cottonmouth,” Ty said, pointing at a big, pattern-backed brown snake draped over a branch just off to their left. “I got bit when I was a kid. Damn near died. I hate the bastards.”

“Snakes and gators. I’m not fond of either.”

They fell silent again as the boat turned down a nearly impenetrable waterway, and Ben cut the engine. From here on in, they would use the oars in the bottom of the boat to push themselves along, dodging dead trees and rotting vegetation.

Talking ended. They both knew they were getting close enough that if someone was out in the bayou, any sound they made could be deadly. From now on they worked with hand signals only.

More time passed, the boat gliding silently through a tangle of cypress, the water dark and muddy. Ben signaled to Brodie, pointed up ahead, used the oar to drive the boat beneath a drooping willow into a cluster of branches and cattails, hiding it from view. Over to the right, the compound came into view, nine wooden cabins scattered around an open area surrounded on three sides by twelve-foot fences.

Behind the cover of branches and leaves, both men took out their binoculars and scanned the area. Through the dusky early-evening light, Ben spotted Troy and Aggie, working in the vegetable garden. A younger, thinner version of Troy was talking to another man, laughing at something he said.

He heard the sound of gunfire and swung the glasses in that direction. The range he had spotted yesterday was off to the left, out of sight from their current position. He counted shots, figured four or five were men at shooting practice.

Brodie touched Ben’s sleeve, signaled and pointed. He’d spotted Sam about three o’clock. Ben turned his binoculars, saw the boy’s head moving as he worked in the pit where he had been yesterday. Ben’s adrenaline spiked. He brought himself under control.

The pit was only twenty feet from the where the channel curved inland, wrapping around behind the camp. He signaled to Brodie. He’d let the guard make his next round, watch the activity for a while.

Then he’d slip into the water, see if he could get close enough to speak to his son, to get the boy to go with him. If not, he’d have to use the rag in his pocket and haul him out over his shoulder. It would make things a helluva lot harder.

He looked at the sun on the horizon. When he moved, so would Ty, positioning himself to provide cover for Ben’s return with the boy to the boat.

He watched the sun sink lower and both men settled in to wait.

* * *

“Mace says you’re finished for the day.” Aggie walked toward him, motioned for Sam to climb up out of the pit. “Says it ought to be deep enough by tomorrow morning.”

As Sam rested the shovel against the side of the hole and climbed, Pepper woke up from his nap in the shade, stretched and yawned, came to his feet and shook himself.

“You hear me? You just about got ’er done.”

Sam nodded. “That’s good.” One more day and he’d be finished. He wondered what crummy job Mace Bragg would have for him next. Or Troy or one of the others. Sam didn’t much like Pete Bragg, second-oldest, according to Aggie. He was always in a bad mood, always complaining. And there was a big-nosed guy from town named Zeke. He was a real butt hole. Always spouting verses from the Bible and talking about the world coming to an end.

Aggie settled a hand on his shoulder. Her skin was like leather, as rough as any of the men’s. His mom’s hands had been soft and smooth when she touched him, but he didn’t want to think about that.

“Come on. I’ll show you what I found this afternoon.”

He followed the older woman down the trail toward the water. He was so tired it was hard to lift his feet, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

She crouched at the edge of the swamp. “See this right here? Them’s turtle eggs. They’re real good eatin’.”

His stomach rolled. Turtle eggs didn’t sound much better than alligator stew.

“You want me to gather them up for you?” Aggie could have got the eggs herself, he knew. She could do just about anything. But she wanted to teach him stuff so he would fit in and the others would leave him alone.

“That’d be real nice.”

“I need a bucket or something.”

“Walk on back to the cabin and I’ll get you one. Then you can come down and pick ’em up. Just be careful to watch for gators. They love them eggs, too.”

Sam sighed as he followed Aggie back to the cabin. Turtle eggs and alligators. He wondered if his friends back home would believe him if he ever saw them again.

Sam didn’t think so.

* * *

His face mask and snorkel pushed up on his head, Ben sank down in the black, murky water just a few feet from the bank. He had seen the older woman walk up to the pit, heard her conversation with Sam, watched them walk to the bank just a few feet away from where he crouched in the water. Sam would be returning to collect the turtle eggs. This was the opportunity he’d been waiting for.

What he didn’t know was what Sam would do when Ben appeared out of nowhere covered in mud and weeds, looking like some sort of prehistoric monster.

The chloral hydrate was in a plastic bag in his pocket, a last resort he didn’t want to use. But a scream would bring the Patriot army running.

It might get all of them killed.

Standing next to a mossy tree, he used the SEAL technique of making himself invisible in the shadows as he waited for his son’s return. Sam meandered down the path, a bucket in his hand, the black Lab sniffing the path behind him. Ben sank into the water, his eyes just inches away from the turtle eggs. Sam knelt at the edge of the swamp and stared down at the eggs, trying to decide the best way to collect them.

“Don’t be afraid, Sam.” The boy’s head jerked up. “I’m here to help you. Don’t scream.”

Fight or flight. This was the moment. Slipping his hand into his pocket, Ben tried to read the boy’s body language as he silently broke the surface of the water and rose to Sam’s same height. “I’ve come to take you home. Claire’s waiting for you. We just have to get you out of here.”

Sam’s muscles were rigid as he peered through the evening shadows, trying to decide what to do. “I’m your father, Sam. We have to go before they miss you.”

Sam stiffened. “You aren’t my father. My father’s dead.”

“I didn’t know about you. Your mother didn’t tell me. Claire came to find me after your mother died.”

The boy started shaking his head and Ben flicked on the LED light, held it beneath his chin, lighting his face. “Look at my eyes. Same as yours. I’m your father.” The kid’s eyes widened the instant before Ben turned off the light. “Let’s go.”

Sam looked at the swamp and didn’t move. Who the hell would? “There’s alligators and snakes.”

Ben slid his KA-BAR out of its sheath, let Sam see the blade. “Claire says you’re a really good swimmer. I’ll take care of the snakes. We need to go. Now.”

Sam looked at him one final time. Then he stepped off the bank into the water. The black Lab quietly waded in beside him.

Ben shook his head. “We can’t take the dog. He’ll make too much noise. Send him back.”

For the second time the boy hesitated. “Pep won’t make noise. I taught him to be quiet. We play hide-and-seek whenever we get the chance.”

Hide-and-seek.
Finding a place of safety. It made his chest go tight.

The boy’s eye’s filled with tears. “Please, mister. Please let him come with us. Pep’s my only friend in the world.”

Ben’s throat closed up. He’d been there. He knew how it felt to be that alone. “Keep him quiet then. Stay as close to me as you can.”

Sam nodded, his decision made. They moved through the water together, the bottom dropping away, the boy sidestroking, barely disturbing the leaves and algae in the channel. The dog swam along beside the boy through the murky brackish sludge. They were almost there. Ben could see a hint of metal where the aluminum boat waited in the heavy grass and branches up ahead.

They swam beneath the drooping cover of the willow. The boat bobbed just a few feet away.

The sound of gunfire at the shooting range had stopped.

And there was no sign of Ty.

* * *

The guy was big and beefy and he smelled like swamp mud. Ty stood immobile no more than a foot behind him, hidden in the shadows of an ancient, overgrown oak. If the guy started moving away, Ty would stay where he was.

No such fucking luck.
The big guy stiffened, and his head came up. His nostrils flared, scenting the air like a dog. He’d heard something, caught some slight ripple in the usually stagnant water as a few feet away, Ben hauled the boy into the boat, lifted the dog in next to him, pulled himself over the side.

The Patriot’s jaw hardened. As he opened his mouth to sound the alarm, Ty’s arm wrapped around his neck and squeezed, silencing him even as he clawed to get free. An instant later, he went lights-out without a sound.

Ty lowered him to the ground, jerked his hands behind his back, bound his wrists and ankles with plastic ties and slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth.

Dragging him behind a fallen log, he left him there and moved deeper into the swamp, heading along the bank toward the boat, careful to stay out of the moonlight, in the shadows out of sight.

Ben and the kid were in the boat when he stepped out into the open, Ben’s Nighthawk pointed at the middle of his chest. Ben quickly shoved it back into his holster. There was another passenger in the boat, one they hadn’t planned on. Apparently the Iceman had a heart after all.

Soundlessly, Ben pressed the oar against a tree stump and shoved the boat away from the bank, started poling toward deeper water. They needed to get some distance away from the compound before they started the engine—assuming no one discovered Sam missing or found their fallen comrade and shouted an alarm.

Ty used the other oar to pole from the opposite side. The sun had set, but rays of moonlight illuminated the darkness and lit the water with an eerie silver sheen. No one spoke as the boat slid silently along, but the kid couldn’t keep his eyes off Ben. The dog lay quietly, praise Jesus, in the bottom of the boat.

They were about halfway back when the distant but unmistakable roar of an approaching engine reached them. It was still a ways back in the swamp, but moving a helluva lot faster than they were.

Ben fired up the engine.

“Sounds like the party’s about to get started,” Ty said, his smile grim.

“Ty Brodie, meet my son, Sam.”

Sam looked up at him. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

He sat down across from the boy. “That was your dad’s idea. You can thank him later. Right now, we need to get the...umm...heck out of here.”

Ben pushed the speed up a notch. It was dangerous with so many hazards in the water, but the moon gave off enough light to avoid the downed trees and overhanging branches, see the turns up ahead.

Ben was counting off the distances between forks in the channel, keeping to the right, then the left, then another right. Both of them knew the route by heart, and since they were traveling faster than they’d planned, Ty was damned glad they did.

A rifle shot pinged through the air. Then another hit a tree limb and bounced away. Ty reached into his bag and pulled out the AR, shoved in the magazine and pulled back the action. At the first sight of a boat behind them, he laid down a burst of automatic fire that flashed across the water in front it, throwing up a wall of white spray.