Текст книги "The Hit"

Автор книги: David Baldacci

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

He flipped his jacket inside out, turning his brown jacket blue. He slipped a ball cap from his pocket and put that on. Sunglasses covered his face.

He hit the street, found a cabstand, and within twenty minutes was on his way out of the city.

He got out of the cab well short of his destination. He walked the rest of the way.

The shoe repair shop was in a blighted area of run-down homes and businesses. The bell tinkled when Robie opened the door. It automatically closed behind him.

He paused, took off his hat and glasses, and looked around. It contained everything that one would expect to see in a shoe repair shop. The only difference was that the gent who owned it did not count on resoling shoes for all of his daily bread.

The man came out from behind a curtain set in a doorway behind the counter. “Can I help—” When he saw Robie he stopped.

Robie came forward and put his hands on the counter. “Yeah, I hope you can help me, Arnie.”

The man was in his fifties with gray hair, a trim beard, and ears that stuck out. He automatically looked over Robie’s shoulder. Robie shook his head. “Just me.”

“You never know,” said Arnie.

“You never know,” agreed Robie.

“You working?” asked Arnie.

“Something different.”

“Gelder?”

Robie nodded. “Could use some help.”

“I’m mostly retired.”

“That’s mostly a lie.”

“What do you need?”

“Jessica Reel,” answered Robie.

“Haven’t heard that name in a while.”

“That status might change. Who were her contacts?”

“Inside you should know, you’re still with the agency,” said Arnie.

“I don’t mean inside.”

Arnie ran a hand along his chin. “Reel is good at what she does. Maybe as good as you.”

“Maybe better.”

“What’s this about?”

“She’s in a bit of a jam. Maybe I can help her.”

“You two worked together,” noted Arnie.

“A long time ago. I’d like to find her.”

“And do what?”

“My job.”

Arnie shook his head. “I’m not going to help you kill her, if that’s what this is about.”

“What this is about, Arnie, is making sure this country is secure. I thought that was the only thing this was about.”

“I haven’t seen her in a long time.”

“But her contacts?”

“You swear to me that you want to help her?” said Arnie.

“If I did swear would you believe me?”

“You have the rep of a straight shooter, Robie. And I’m not just talking at the end of a rifle. But you level with me, maybe I can help you. Those are my terms. If you don’t like them and you don’t have shoes that need repair I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Robie thought this over and decided he didn’t really have a choice. “They think Reel killed Gelder and another operative.”

“Bullshit.”

“Actually, I think she did kill them. But it’s not that simple. Something is going on, Arnie. Something internally that stinks to high heaven. I knew Reel. I trusted her with my life.”

Arnie said, “But if she killed the number two?”

“And in the interest of full disclosure I’ve been tasked to get her.”

“But you’re having doubts?”

“If I weren’t I wouldn’t be here,” replied Robie.

The two men stared at each other across the width of the scarred and stained countertop. It seemed to Robie that Arnie was trying to assess, as best he could, his sincerity. And Robie couldn’t blame him. Sincerity in this business was hard to come by. When you found it you were almost always surprised at your good fortune.

“You might be in luck,” said Arnie.

“Why’s that?”

“It’s a small world I operate in. Not too many players in that world. I won’t say we have reunions, but we do keep in touch. One of us needs help, we call in chits or sometimes we do favors for one another, hoping when the time comes you get a favor in return.”

Robie said, “And how does that help me?”

Arnie said, “Got a call, from another person who does what I do. No names, but he knows Reel. And maybe he just had recent contact with her.”

“What did she want from your friend?”

“A document and an address.”

“What sort of document and whose address?” asked Robie.

“Not sure. I actually couldn’t help him. But I referred him to someone who I thought could.”

“Again, Arnie, I’m not seeing any daylight here for me.”

“There was a name attached to the address.”

“What was the name?”

“Roy West.”

“Who is he?” asked Robie.

“He was with the agency. Small fry, but Reel was interested in him. Interested enough to take a risk in contacting my friend. If she did kill Gelder, they would be putting markers on her known circle.”

“Any idea why Reel is interested in West?”

“No. But the request was pretty urgent.”

“Do you think your other friend was successful in getting this document for her?”

Arnie shook his head. “No way of telling. And don’t bother to ask me to do the same for you. The friend does a favor maybe once every five years. He’s gone back underground. No way to reach him.”

Robie scrutinized the other man. Part of him thought this was bullshit, but part of him thought it actually made sense. Clandestine folks were not exactly retail vendors. Their shops were not open just because you wanted them to be.

“Well, I guess I’ll have to track West and this document down another way.”

“West is in Arkansas.”

“How do you know that?”

“I couldn’t help with the document, but I get a name, I get curious. I checked him out.” Arnie pulled out a pair of glasses and put them on. He turned to his computer, which sat on the counter, hit some keys, and a piece of paper fell into the printer tray. He pushed it across to Robie, who didn’t glance at it before slipping it into his pocket.

“It’s not an address, it’s directions. Complicated ones from what I could see. Just that kind of a place, I guess.”

“I appreciate this,” said Robie.

“I won’t appreciate you, if you’ve been bullshitting me. Reel goes down at your hand, don’t ever come back here.”

“I take it you like her?”

“If she killed them I know one thing. She had a damn good reason.”

“Let’s hope you’re right.”

Robie left and grabbed another cab for the next leg of his journey. It dropped him off two miles from his destination. He hoofed it the rest of the way.

The woods were on his right. He ducked down the gravel drive that cut between the trees and accelerated his pace. The house was a mile back.

His hideaway. His safe haven that the agency didn’t know about.

But Julie knew where it was. So did Nicole Vance. But that was it.

Robie actually regretted their knowing about it, but there was nothing he could do about that now.

He disarmed the security system, ran upstairs, packed a bag, and went out to the old barn next to the house. He unlocked the door and slipped inside. In the single bay of the barn was a pickup truck. It was fully gassed.

Robie pushed aside the hay that covered the floor, revealing a square panel of wood. He lifted this up and hurried down the exposed set of stairs.

He had not built this room under the barn. The farmer who owned it originally had done so back in the fifties, no doubt hoping that a veneer of wood and hay would somehow protect him against a Soviet thermonuclear strike. Go figure.

Robie had stumbled onto it by accident one day while looking through the barn after buying the property under an alias. He had outfitted it with things that he might need from time to time. This was one of those times.

He packed the gear in a large duffel and slid it into the bed of the pickup truck, which had a locking cover. He opened the barn door, drove the truck out, and locked the barn door. He drove out onto the main road and hit the gas.

He hoped for many things from this trip. Most of all he hoped he would run into Jessica Reel. And if he did, he hoped he was ready for whatever she threw at him.

CHAPTER

38

THE OLD WOMAN SHUFFLED THROUGH the security line at the airport. She was tall and thin, her hands covered in age spots. Her back was bent and she seemed to be in pain with each step. Her hair was white and cut short. She stared at the floor as she passed through the magnetometer without it making a beep.

She recovered her bag and kept shuffling.

She rode in coach in a window seat. She stared out the window and didn’t engage in conversation with the passenger sitting next to her. The flight was smooth, the landing unremarkable.

When they arrived the sun was shining and the sky clear. It was a welcome change from wet and cold D.C.

She deplaned and shuffled to a restroom.

Twenty minutes later she reappeared, younger and straighter, and she no longer shuffled. Her disguise was carefully packed away in her carry-on.

She had one bag to claim at baggage. It was a large roller bag, and inside were two metal boxes, both locked tight.

One held two different sets of ammo.

The other held her Glock.

She had lawfully declared it at check-in in her old-lady disguise.

The airline personnel at check-in had merely assumed she was an old woman who liked to protect herself.

There were also a lot of plastic parts and other pieces of metal and springs strewn throughout the nooks and crannies of her luggage.

She picked up her bag and rolled it to a car rental counter. Twenty minutes later Jessica Reel was driving out of the airport in a black Ford Explorer.

Her Glock was in a belt holster, fully loaded and ready to go.

She hoped not to have to use it. Or the other weapon she had brought.

Most of the time those hopes were not realized.

She had perhaps a dozen disguises that her former employers were completely unaware of. She had made certain it stayed that way even when she was working for them. She was not a trusting person—particularly with an employer who would disavow all connection to her if she failed on a mission.

She found the right road and headed west. It was not a populous area. It became even less inhabited with every mile she drove. Following the GPS, she turned off the main road, and ten miles of curves and switchbacks later the GPS failed her. Fortunately she had manually mapped this area previously, and in her mind’s eye she followed the turns on her internal compass until she was about a mile from her destination.

She passed the turnoff she would later take and kept going.

It was time to do some necessary recon.

She followed the road around and then saw another turnoff, which she took. She rode it up as far as she needed to. She had to engage her four-wheel drive to do so, but she came away satisfied. She retraced her route and took the turnoff she had earlier passed. She drove up the dirt and gravel road for about three-quarters of a mile and then stopped.

This was as far as she would go by car. The rest would be on foot.

She opened her luggage and took out all the pieces of plastic and metal and springs. Some pieces were fairly large, others small.

She laid out all the items in the cargo area of the Ford. Her fingers moving with dexterity and precision, she assembled the MP5 submachine gun in a very short time.

She attached the box mag containing thirty-two rounds to the subgun and lifted the strap over her head so the weapon rested comfortably in front of her. She covered up the gun with a long leather duster that reached nearly to her ankles. She put on a cowboy hat pulled low, sunglasses, and gloves.

She could be the female version of a gunslinger going to do battle in the street.

She stared ahead of her, studying the topography, then she started walking. Her pace was unhurried, her gaze swiveling in all directions. Up and down. Side to side. And behind her, all the while listening for any sound that would herald a threat.

She covered the quarter mile, cleared a bend in the road, and stopped. She looked right and left and once more behind her.

She moved forward another fifty feet and then squatted down, took in the lay of the land. Potential threat points were numerous and all fully visible to her.

The house was really a cabin. Felled logs shaved down, their ends tapered, the filling in between solid and new-looking. The door was a sturdy piece of wood. She assumed it would have multiple locks and probably a security system.

No electrical lines out this far. Her gaze swiveled and she saw the diesel generator. But it wasn’t on. It was a backup, clearly.

So where was the primary power?

She drifted to her right to get a better look behind the cabin.

That’s when she saw where a large field of solar panels was arrayed. That was overkill, she thought. Enough energy to power a place ten times this size. There would be underground lines taking the power to the cabin.

To the left of the cabin and fifty yards back was a barn. Solar probably fed that too.

Totally off the grid. Makes sense.

Reel didn’t think there were cows or horses in that barn.

A dusty, late-model four-door Jeep sat in front of the cabin. Local plates. Gun rack in the back with a rifle and scope hanging on it.

She started to move forward, then thought better of it. Keeping behind a tree, she lifted a slender metal object from her pocket, fired it up, and pointed it in front of her at near ground level. The invisible laser lines became visible. Trip field. Alert only? Or maybe booby-trapped.

There could be IEDs all over this place, with the owner the only one knowing where they were.

Reel stayed where she was, contemplating how she was going to pierce this perimeter. There were ways; she just had to come up with the right one.

As she watched, the front door of the cabin opened.

Maybe the problem would solve itself.

CHAPTER

39

IT WAS AN EIGHTEEN-HOUR DRIVE to Arkansas where Roy West had taken up residence. Robie only stopped for gas and to use the bathroom. He ate from provisions he had taken with him from his safe house.

The sun had risen as he pulled to a stop at what he calculated to be five miles from his final destination.

He looked around. He had passed civilization about two hours ago and was officially in no-man’s-land. He hadn’t even seen another house in a half hour. The terrain was both rocky and lush. The roads—well, there didn’t seem to be many of them. And the ones there were had gone from asphalt to gravel and now to dirt.

Robie checked his watch. He had gained one hour by entering the central time zone. He hoped it was worth it. He was tired, but not exhausted.

He rolled down the window and breathed in the crisp air.

He had traveled over mountains and flatlands.

He was back in the mountains.

Arnie had said Roy West had worked at the agency. Reel had apparently been interested in a document that Robie assumed West had authored. This meant something to Reel. Something important.

And where was Reel? Already here?

He looked around again. Lots of places to hide. If the place he was going to was this remote, there was no way he could get to it unseen if he just continued to drive.

So he had to leave his truck behind.

He liked to be on foot better.

A truck was a big target at which to shoot.

Robie parked his vehicle well off the road, changed into cammie gear, and also blacked his face. He slung his gear pack over his bag and set off. He had memorized the directions to West’s house. He was going to treat this like any other mission.

But unlike every other mission, he didn’t have a clear goal when he got to his destination. He didn’t know if West would turn out to be a friend or foe. He had no idea if he had just driven into a trap somehow orchestrated by Jessica Reel.

The terrain was rugged, but he traversed it easily. He had trained for years for missions like this. And even at age forty he floated over the rock and through the hilly terrain with the agility of an elite athlete in his prime.

He counted down the miles in his head. As he drew closer to what might be ground zero his grip tightened on his primary weapon, his sniper rifle.

He had two other weapons in his pack, with enough ammo to take on a lot of guns on the other side. The weapons had been chosen for different scenarios.

His MP5 was for close-quarters battle against superior numbers. Its auto-fire selector could lay down opponents at a ferocious rate.

His Ka-Bar knife was for killing hand-to-hand. He could use it to slice or gut with equal efficiency.

His Glock rode in the shoulder holster. He never went anywhere without the weapon. It was like his third arm.

And he had a special type of ordnance in his gear pack. It was his fail-safe.

He reached a clearing and took the opportunity to snag his binoculars from his gear pack and take a good long look around from the vantage point of high ground.

There was not much around here that he could see other than nature. Then he spied it. A chimney poking out from a break in the trees. There was a dirt road full of switchbacks running up to it. He couldn’t see the house attached to it.

Robie saw no smoke coming from the chimney, but the temperature wasn’t that cold, so someone could still be there without needing to build a fire. And in his mental map that house was his destination, the abode of Roy West.

He kept looking in a wide arc through his optics. He finally set his binoculars down and looked through the scope on his sniper rifle, which was far more powerful than the binoculars.

He wasn’t just looking for West or whoever else might be with him. He was looking for Reel. For Robie was now certain of one thing.

The woman was here.

He could just feel it.

CHAPTER

40

THE MAN STEPPED OUT OF the cabin.

Roy West was around forty, a wick under six feet, and a sturdy two hundred pounds. His fingers were long and leathery, his face the same. A mustache and beard covered his lip and jaw respectively. He had on Army combat boots, jeans tucked into them, a flannel shirt, and a corduroy vest with built-in shotgun shell holders.

He drew a remote from his pocket and hit the button. The laser trip field powered down and disappeared. He had parked his Jeep in a spot that the laser field would not intersect.

From her hiding place Reel watched him approach the vehicle, following every step he took. She had been right, the place was booby-trapped. West was carefully pacing out a zigzag path to the Jeep.

As he touched the door of the vehicle Reel said, “We need to talk, Roy.”

He whirled, the gun appearing in his hand seemingly from thin air.

The MP5 fired on full auto before he could point his pistol at her. The rear door of the Jeep was shredded by the barrage, which pierced the metal and tore up the inside of the vehicle.

West threw himself on the hood of the Jeep.

“Next burst goes into you,” said Reel. “Gun, down. Now. Not asking again.”

West dropped the gun.

“Turn to me, hands over head, fingers laced. Eyes down. You look up, a bullet goes into your right eye.”

He turned, his fingers wrapped around his head, his gaze down.

“What do you want?” he said, his voice shaky.

“Walk over here. Just don’t trip on an IED.”

He looked startled at this comment, but walked toward her, clearing the minefield and stopping two feet from her.

“Can I look up?”

“No. Get on the ground, facedown, arms and legs spread.”

He complied.

She stood within a foot of him but still behind cover.

“I’ve got a guy in the cabin with a rifle trained on you,” he said.

“Don’t think so.”

“You can’t take that chance.”

“Yes I can. I’m standing behind a tree. And if your ‘guy’ didn’t show himself after my bullet barrage, he’s a chickenshit and not worth my time worrying about.”

“Who the hell are you and what do you want?”

“Who I am is irrelevant. What I want to know is this.” She pulled a sheaf of papers from her duster and tossed them in the dirt next to him.

“Can I look at it without you shooting me?” he asked.

“Just move your arms very, very slowly.”

He did so and gripped the pages. He pulled them close and read down the first page.

“So what?”

“You wrote it?” she asked.

“What if I did?”

“Why?”

“It was my job. My old job.”

“I checked into your new job. You run your own militia.”

West snorted. “We’re not a militia. We’re freedom fighters.”

“Who are you fighting for freedom from?”

“If you have to ask you wouldn’t understand the answer.”

Reel frowned. “The big bad government? You live in the middle of nowhere. You have your guns. You’ve got your own place. You’re off the grid. No one’s bothering you that I can see. So what’s the problem?”

“It’s only a matter of time before they come for us. And believe me, we’ll be ready.”

“You know what your paper said. Do you believe it?”

“Of course.”

“You think it could actually happen?” she asked.

“I knowit could. Because we’re so lackadaisical about security. Only they didn’t have the balls in D.C. to admit that. It seemed to me that the higher-ups wantedthe assholes to attack us. One of the reasons I quit. I was disgusted.”

“So you think this is the path to a peaceful future?”

“I never said a peaceful future was the goal. Our havinga future is the goal. You lead by force. You kick the shit out of them. You don’t just sit around and wait for them to attack you. Clusters of powder, we called them. They think security is impenetrable. Well, my paper showed them how impenetrable it was. It was bullshit.”

“So you were tasked to do doomsday scenarios?” asked Reel.

“We had a whole office doing nothing but. Most of the others did the same old crap. Nothing outside the box. They were worried about ruffling feathers. Not me. You give me a job, I do it. I don’t give a shit about consequences.”

“Who did you submit the white paper to?”

“That’s classified,” retorted West.

“You’re not with the government anymore,” countered Reel.

“Still classified.”

“I thought the government was the enemy.”

“Right now, you’rethe enemy. And if you think you’re going to get away from here alive, you’re beyond stupid.”

“You the law out here? You and your freedom fighters?”

“Pretty much. Why do you think I moved here?”

“Who did you submit it to?” she asked again.

“What are you going to do, torture me?” he sneered.

“I don’t have time to torture you. Although you would find it memorable. If you don’t tell me I’ll just shoot you.”

“In cold blood,” he scoffed. “You’re a woman.”

“That should tell you all you need to know to be afraid.”

West laughed. “You think a lot of your gender, don’t you?”

“You were a desk jockey your whole career. You never fired a shot and never had a shot fired at you. The closest you ever got to danger was watching the video feed from a thousand miles away. Did that make you feel like a real man instead of the ball-less punk you really are?”

He started to jump up, but Reel placed a round an inch from his right ear, so close that bits of the hard dirt kicked up and struck his ear, which started bleeding.

He screamed, “You stupid bitch, you shot me!”

“Dirt, not metal. You’d feel the difference. Now spread your legs wider.”

“What?”

“Spread your legs wider.”

“Why?”

“Do it or I promise dirt will not be the next thing you feel.”

West spread his legs wider.

Reel moved behind him and lined up her shot with her Glock.

“What the hell are you doing?” he cried out, panicked.

“Which testicle do you want to keep? But I have to tell you, at this angle, there’s no guarantee I won’t nail both of them with the one shot.”

He immediately snapped his legs together.

“Then you’ll get it right up the ass,” she said. “I don’t think it’ll feel any better.”

“Why the hell are you doing this?” he screamed.

“It’s pretty simple. I asked for a name. You didn’t give me one.”

“I didn’t officially submit it to anyone.”

“Unofficially, then,” said Reel.

“What does it matter?”

“Because it seems that some folks took you at your word and are going to try to do it.”

“Really?”

“Don’t sound so happy. It’s insane. Now the name. I won’t ask again.”

“It was only a code name,” said West.

“Bullshit.”

“I swear to God.”

“Why submit unofficially to a code name? And your answer better make sense or you’re going to need a new way to evacuate your bowels.”

“The person came to me.”

“What person?” she asked.

“I meant electronically they came to me. They somehow found out I had written a comprehensive, groundbreaking scenario. It was vindication.”

It disgusted Reel to see how animated he suddenly was in talking about his “accomplishments.”

“When did this happen?”

“About two years ago.” He added, “Are they really doing it? I mean who?”

“What was the code name?”

He didn’t answer.

“You have one second. Now!”

“Roger the Dodger,” he shouted.

“And why submit to Roger the Dodger?” she asked calmly, keeping her finger on the Glock’s trigger guard.

“His electronic signature showed he had top-top-secret clearance and was at least three levels above me. He wanted to know what I had come up with. He said the scuttlebutt was my plan was revolutionary.”

“How would he have known that if you hadn’t even submitted it to anyone yet?”

The man hesitated and said sheepishly, “Maybe I talked a bit about it at the bar we would go to for drinks after work.”

“No wonder the government kicked your ass out. You’re an idiot.”

“I would have quit anyway,” he snapped.

“Right. To come to a little cabin in the middle of this craphole.”

“This is realAmerica, bitch!”

“Your doomsday paper was pretty specific.”

He said proudly, “Country by country, leader by leader, step by step. It was all in the timing. It was a perfect jigsaw puzzle. I spent two years figuring it out. Every contingency. Everything that could go wrong. Everything was accounted for.”

“Not everything.”

“That’s impossible,” he snapped.

“You didn’t account for me.”

Reel heard the noises before he did. But when he did he smiled.

“Your time is up, little lady.”

“I’m not little. And I’ve never been a lady.”

Her boot came down on the back of his head, bouncing it off the hard dirt and knocking him out cold. She grabbed the pages and stuffed them back into her duster.

Reel retraced West’s safe path to the cabin and gave it the quick once-over. There were stacks of weapons, ammo, grenades, packs of C-4, Semtex, and other plastic explosives. Through a window looking out on the back porch she saw fifty-gallon drums of what looked to be gasoline and maybe fertilizer. She doubted they were for the generator or to grow crops. She figured the barn was probably full of those containers as well.

She also glimpsed detailed plans of attack on major cities in the United States. These folks were domestic terrorists of the worst kind. She grabbed anything that looked like it might be important, including a USB stick plugged into his laptop, and stuffed them in her coat pockets.

She also snagged a couple grenades. A “lady” could never have too many grenades.

She ran back out, raced over to his Jeep, threw open the rear door, and pulled out the scoped rifle and a box of ammo in the cargo pad.

She hustled back to her Explorer, jumped in, and peeled out. But before she got to the main road, she realized it was too late. When she saw what was coming at her, she had no option other than turning around and heading back toward the cabin.

It looked like a few precious seconds were going to end up costing Reel her life.

CHAPTER

41

REEL PUSHED THE GAS PEDAL to the floor and the Explorer roared up the twisting gravel drive. In her mind she was planning her attack. When outnumbered, retreat wasn’t always an option. Superior forces rarely expected an outgunned opponent to charge at them.

Reel wasn’t going to exactly do that. She was going for a modified version of an all-out assault.

She checked the rearview mirror and gauged the distance between her and the massive Denali chasing her. It was full of what she presumed were wackos posing as freedom fighters, and she presumed they were all heavily armed.

Well, she would find out exactly how heavily armed they were in a few seconds. And how well they handled their weapons. She just hoped the feint she was planning worked.

She gained the separation she needed, lowered the window halfway, and skidded the Ford to a stop, leaving it blocking the road. She grabbed the rifle, rested the barrel on top of the half-lowered window, took aim, and shot out the front tires on the Denali. For good measure she put a round through the front grille. Steam started to pour out and the Denali ground to a halt.

The doors opened and men jumped out gripping a variety of weapons.

Pistols and subguns did not concern her. They didn’t have the range to hurt her.

They opened fire but nothing came close to her.

She shot three times and three of the shooters fell, all with nonfatal wounds, which was intentional on her part. She just wanted them out of the action. And there was a sense of fairness as well. She didn’t have to kill them and so she let them live but in no condition to fight.

She shifted her attention to another man who jumped out on the left side of the Denali. He was holding a scoped rifle.

That could reach her. So Reel put him down with one shot to the forehead. He fell backward and the rifle spun out of his dead hands. No one went to retrieve it.

The men, probably wondering what the hell they had gotten themselves into, retreated to the back of the Denali, using the big vehicle as a shield.

But through her scope Reel could see some of them pulling cell phones out.

They were calling in reinforcements.

Ironically, that was what she wanted. It would give her the time to proceed with part two of her plan. She gunned the engine and headed toward the cabin.

A few moments later she skidded to a stop a good distance from the cabin behind a stand of trees and leapt out. She pulled the grenades from her pocket, ran toward the cabin, pulled the pins, and threw the grenades through the structure’s front window.

She was turning back to run to the Explorer when Roy West plowed into her.

Reel managed to keep her feet, but he had one hand wrapped around her throat. He assumed that with his superior size and strength the battle was over.

West could not have been more wrong.

Reel twisted her body to the left, breaking his grip around her throat. At the same time she brought her knee up between his legs, with devastating results. West’s face turned purple, his knees buckled, and he grabbed his crotch. She slammed her right elbow into his left temple. He screamed, gasped, and started to fall away from her. But his foot accidentally hooked her leg and Reel fell too, him on top of her.

Before they hit the dirt the grenades detonated. And so did every other explosive and flammable material in the cabin. The roof blew twenty feet in the air and pieces of wood, metal, and glass became deadly shrapnel flying out in all directions at supersonic speed.