Nick rigged his satellite phone to a small attachment with a blinking green light. He had decided to take no more chances with forces outside his control. He brought the altered phone with him into the room where Rachel and Jean waited.
“Everything’s fine until this light turns red.” Nick showed both Rachel and Jean the phone. “Hit this button if or when it turns red.”
When they nodded their understanding, Nick made the connection. Tim answered the phone.
“Tim, we’ve reached the destination and I’m -”
“Nick, what the hell’s going on!?”
“Like I told Grace last night, we were in danger, and I knew a safe place to go.”
“Let me talk to Kim.”
“Here she is.” Nick handed the phone to Rachel, noting the less-than-friendly tone of Tim’s voice.
Nick pointed at the light again before handing the phone to Rachel, and going into the living room. He switched on the television set, listening with one ear to the conversation in the kitchen. Nick had been reluctant to check the news, more worried than he let on about the Bakersfield incident. As he suspected, grainy videos and camera shots of him in action were highlighting every major news broadcast. He breathed a sigh of relief when it became apparent no one had any clue as to who he was. Rachel came in and handed the phone to Nick with the green light still blinking.
“Wherever you are, stay there, Nick,” Grace’s voice told him. “We’re still compromised. You were right to leave. Did you use any credit cards getting where you were going?”
“No, cash only, everywhere,” Nick replied, glad someone was taking this seriously.
“Do you have enough to stay out of sight for a while?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Can you update us and stay in touch? We’re working all the angles right now, but there’ve been some complications. I’m sorry we dragged your ass into this, Nick; but it seems you’re a lot more than you appear, old buddy. Any thoughts?”
“Like do I have a red cape tucked away somewhere? The answer is no.”
Grace laughed. “No, but I must admit, Tim has come up with some interesting coincidences involving you and your overseas travels.”
“If I keep partnering up with you and Tim, I may not even be alive much longer. Maybe you and Timmy should concentrate more on who’s trying to kill us, and less about bestselling authors, namely me.”
“Fair enough,” Grace allowed. “Maybe you could give us a little more direction, Mr. Big Time.”
“Let me get back to you on that, Grace. Rachel and I are working on a course of action you and Tim would have to be a part of to make it work. How long do you think we need to lay low?”
“Oh, it’s Rachel now, is it? Can you keep your heads down for at least two weeks? We’re close to sealing up our agency and looking for branches into it.”
Nick considered the two-week time frame, glancing over at Rachel and Jean, who were avidly watching news coverage of the Bakersfield stunt. “Two weeks might be doable. Did you make any headway with the shooter from our night on the town?”
“Yeah, about him…ah…he had a little accident, Nick. We -”
“I’ll bet he did.” Nick cut her off. “I hope to hell you’re putting everyone who even sneezed his way under a microscope.”
“Tim and I are out in the wind a bit right now.”
“Well, either start flying kites or get into the cellar kiddies. There’s a storm on its way.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you and Timmy better figure out what line can’t be crossed. We all know there are some bad people involved in this. If the two of you want to stay safe let me know now.”
“Am I ever going to know who the hell you really are?” Grace asked with only a slight trace of resentment.
“Absolutely.”
“Is this your morning surprise? I thought you hated the desert.” Rachel looked around at the forbidding landscape as she walked with Nick, Jean, and Deke away from the Cadillac Escalade, parked well off the main route.
“Did we have to get up before dawn?” Jean added.
Even Deke voiced a quick ‘gruff’.
The dim light barely gave the group enough illumination to walk safely along the mostly level hard-packed surface. They walked together over the desert moonscape with Deke wandering far and wide around them, examining every hole, crevice or shrub. Silence was palpable. The motley group created the only audible sounds while walking along. Nick carried a pack weighing over eighty pounds, with Rachel shouldering a much smaller one.
Nick grinned at his soon-to-be sniper team. “Unfortunately, we need to do this at least every other day until we leave for Florida. I have an area set up already, where we can be relatively certain not to be disturbed, and we won’t start deep frying until later in the morning. I told you it was a surprise because of the way you two are reacting now. Every day we do this, and no one complains, we go to the waterslides in Sin City after we get back. Any complaints, and we sit in the house and mope all day.”
“Waterslides!” Jean yelped, dancing around with Deke joining her, while nipping at Jean’s cuffs.
“That’s a pretty neat bribe. What do I get? Can I go to the casinos?”
“Oh sure.” Nick gestured at the sky in supplication. “I’ll send you over to the most intensively videoed area in all of creation, where security cameras are so high tech, they reproduce themselves every five seconds.”
“Ah…point taken, waterslides it is,” Rachel replied. “Couldn’t Jean and I have waited for you at the house? Devil dog could keep you company.”
“I’m going to train you in spotting and shooting, Wonder Woman,” Nick explained. “Can you get your head around that?”
Nick noticed how Rachel clamped her lips together by force of will, as he imagined every anti-gun, peace at any risk, Kum-Ba-Ya cliche she’d ever heard threatening to pour out of her mouth. Nick saw the inner battle being waged and pulled out the card he had been saving.
“Think of watching Tanus through a spotter scope, knowing he would never order another death ever again. It’s no different than ordering me out in Bakersfield to help the cop.”
“Going on offense has done wonders curing my tendency toward insomnia.” Rachel nodded in agreement. “I’ll do what I can but I hate having Jean with us.”
“Hey!” Jean chirped, yanking on Rachel’s arm. “I’m part of this Terminator team too.”
“I’m going straight to hell,” Rachel whispered, covering her face.
Twenty minutes later as they walked around a small rock formation, Nick stopped. He took off his pack in a spot shaded by the small hill. He pointed across the small sloping valley of sand and rocks to another craggy upheaval of boulders. Nick knew it looked only a few hundred yards away, but in actuality was nearer to a mile distant.
“You’ll be able to see the targets I have set up across the way better once I give you the spotting scope. I have two scopes, Missy Connor, so you’ll be able to watch and spot too.”
“Cool!” Jean exclaimed. “What’s a spotting scope?”
Nick helped Rachel out of her pack, and unloaded the three small cases he had put into it. He opened the larger of the cases and removed the spotting scope.
“This is a Leupold Mark 4 spotting scope.” Nick spent the next few minutes explaining the basics of using it, refraining from burying his audience in details.
Nick gave Jean the smaller, but very powerful, digital range-finding binoculars he had brought along, schooling her on how to use them and estimate distances. Next, Nick unpacked his M107 Barrett.50-caliber long range rifle
