“How’re your ribs, Vasin? I see you can at least breathe again.”
Rob saw the polished tip of Vasin’s Italian loafer close in a nanosecond before an explosion of pain shattered his vision. His body collapsed with zero fight. A kick to the balls did that to a guy.
Dirt. The ground is hard. The grass is like straw.
Thoughts to take his mind off the pain, keep him detached from the anguish to come. Vasin knew a sadist’s way around the human body—what hurt the most, what would elicit a confession the quickest. Rob and cruelty were on a first-name basis. He knew every torture method intimately. So did his bones.
“Drag him by his feet to the ATVs.” Vasin’s thugs grabbed his legs and started the laborious trek over hardened field grass and mud. Rob sucked in his gut as hard as he could despite the quaking tremors from his groin. It was enough to hold his neck up, away from the ground. Enough to protect it from the excruciating jolts, enough to be able to observe that Vasin and his dirtbags were facing front, not looking at him as they trudged to the waiting off-road vehicles. In an instant he grabbed the knife he’d tucked in his front pocket and threw it with little preparation. His target arched his back and dropped. The man let out a loud whoosh as he hit the ground. Satisfaction cleared some of Rob’s pain-addled vision.
One punctured lung.
The second knife was in his left hand, raised to throw it, when one of the remaining men turned and crushed Rob’s arm with one fierce stomp of his foot. Rob saw Vasin’s shoe again through a shroud of unbearable pain before his throat was pressed closed and darkness prevailed.
* * *
US Marshal Trina Lopez looked at the map, her phone GPS and the email from her boss. She was four hours into what was supposed to be a two-and-a-half-hour drive, and all of her coordinates indicated she was in the right spot. But instead of a resort complex as described in her target’s case file, she was looking at a warehouse of sorts. A single, nondescript warehouse that in any other part of the country, on the outskirts of a city, would look normal. If it were lined up with other warehouses. If it had trucks coming and going. If it had access to an interstate highway.
Instead, this building had none of the above. It was in a place she’d expect to see a log cabin, maybe, or some kind of ski lodge. At the base of the mountains in a beautiful, scenic Pennsylvania valley, the desolate building was incongruous with its surroundings. Under the cover of the thick summer foliage, it was no wonder it had looked like just another camping gear storage building. An afterthought of sorts.
She’d had to maneuver along a narrow dirt road in her company car to get here. The Ford Fiesta wasn’t made for the sudden dips and dried-out potholes from last winter. Why had she chosen today to take the agency’s small car and not the company SUV?
Because another mission had priority. It wasn’t her job to question her superiors. Yuri Vasin was wanted for a number of crimes, with drug and human trafficking at the top of the long list. Drug runners abounded, and with the current opioid epidemic the US Marshals had a lot of pressure to bring in any drug-related fugitives. Still, the right equipment for the job helped, and someone hadn’t done their homework right. This site was far more rural than the case file had described. She was supposed to be taking him in from a resort hotel room, not from a camping site. Her partner was coming in from the other side of the mountain and waiting to hear from her to bring in backup.
Rechecking her GPS, she confirmed she was in the right spot before she turned her car back around and drove out a mile to hide her vehicle under a pile of woodland debris.
Car in place, walking to building, she texted her partner. His reply was immediate, and predictable.
If it’s ugly, don’t go.
Mike always played the big brother. Or maybe wannabe lover, she wasn’t sure. And didn’t care. She had no interest, no attraction to him.
Roger.
Her military reply indicated she’d received his text. Mike Seabring was a great partner, and she enjoyed working with him. But his protectiveness could annoy her.
It’ll never be like working in the Navy.
More like it’d never be as natural a fit as working with fellow Navy pilots and one special Navy SEAL—had been.
She steered her thoughts quickly away from that emotional quicksand and kept walking. The hike back through the woods would have normally refreshed her. She breathed in the pine scent, hoping to feel revived. But it was too hot and her day was growing too long to feel anything but tired, sweaty and cranky. By the time she reached the clearing again she was ready to get the show on the road. Or more accurately, get her fugitive and take him back to Harrisburg or have Mike do it. She wasn’t in it for the credit—she wanted this bad guy caught and put away, no matter how they had to do it.
Trina adjusted her holster, as it was digging into her waist. She thought about shedding the leather jacket she wore over her body armor and thin white T-shirt. It was too warm for the jacket, but she wasn’t going into a strange building without her weapon, and didn’t want to open-carry her Glock .45, either. She rustled her thick, unruly hair into a ponytail holder she found in the front jacket pocket, needing to feel prepared and without any possible distractions. Vasin’s case file said he’d always gone easily into custody when caught alone, or she wouldn’t have been sent in solo to apprehend him. Mike would be next to her instead of a mile or so out, checking for signs of a perimeter patrol. Still, she never knew what was behind a closed door.
Her practical, steel-toe combat-style boots stirred up the dirt that surrounded the aluminum building, and thin billows of dust rose to her hips. It was the middle of a long, hot summer, and the record-breaking heat had taken its toll on the grass undergrowth. One short spark and this place would become a forest furnace.
She was confident that Yuri Vasin’s arrest would go smoothly, but her instincts were warning her to be on high alert. Whether it was the drive she’d had up here from Silver Valley, the isolated look of the building she approached or just nerves, she didn’t know. Nerves were part of her job—they let her know she was paying attention, aware of her risks. Her stomach started to flip, and she reminded herself that this was supposed to be one of the more routine apprehensions—not that she ever considered catching a fugitive “routine.” But her work had been pretty stable for the past several years, allowing her to be home for dinner most nights. A plus for her and her five-year-old son, Justin, but she’d called him Jake because she couldn’t bear to hear his father’s name on a regular basis.
Justin Berger. It didn’t hurt anymore, most days, when she thought of her little boy’s namesake. Because she did think about Justin every day, the man who’d fathered her son and given the ultimate sacrifice serving as a SEAL in the Mideast. Back in another life, when she’d been a Navy P-8 pilot and had worked with the special ops teams to help root out the bad guys.
Trina physically shook her head as if it’d rid her mind of the errant memories. It was approaching the anniversary of Justin’s death; it was only natural she’d think of him now.
She turned her thoughts back to the present, back to the work in front of her. Arrest Vasin. Call in Mike to take him or get the jerk into the back of her tiny vehicle. She’d place a call to her team manager as soon as either of them had Vasin in cuffs. Take him to the nearest federal facility for processing, which in this case was Harrisburg.
Movement in her peripheral vision made her stop and reassess. A tiny furry creature crawled out from the other side of the building. Phew. A rabbit. She continued forward. But then the creature whimpered.
A puppy. Jake would be elated if she came home with a puppy to add to their growing menagerie at the farmette she’d recently purchased for them in Silver Valley, Pennsylvania.
No way.
Crap.