Deep Sky

Travis considered what he’d seen of the cabin’s layout so far. One fact stood out: there was no back door. No easy way in or out but the entry he and Paige had used.

That was good.

He met Carrie’s stare again as he turned his attention to the rest of her binds.

“We can make it out of here alive,” he whispered, “but you have to do exactly what I say.”

As he freed her wrists he began to explain the plan.

Chapter Nine

Every instinct told Dominic something was wrong. The decoy’s decision to use the bathroom was entirely out of line. Granted, she wasn’t a professional at this kind of work—Dominic had no idea where his employers had found her, though without a doubt she’d come from somewhere within their own ranks. Probably high in the ranks. She was someone. Or someone’s sister or mother. They would’ve only chosen somebody whose loyalty was beyond question.

What wasn’t beyond question was her capability. Clearly she had no experience at being a stand-in. Who the hell did, aside from undercover cops and a few deep-cover intel people? It was pressure work of the worst kind. Contrary to what some believed, deception did not come naturally to most people. Even telling a small lie triggered all kinds of stress reactions, and this woman was telling a big one.

For all that, she’d done well at first. Right on script, as far as Dominic could tell. Her job was to get the visitors talking. Get them to disclose what they knew about Scalar—whatever the hell that was—in a setting where they felt comfortable enough to speak freely. Later on, after the team had taken them, there would be time to interrogate them at length, but that sort of questioning was chancy at best; Dominic knew that from long experience. You could torture someone for a computer password or a vault lock combination—information that could be confirmed on the spot—but you could rarely get at their deeper secrets. Broad, general information was hard to extract by brutal means. You couldn’t force the answers when you didn’t even have the questions.

Hence the decoy.

And she’d done fine until the bathroom thing.

Maybe her nerves had gotten to her. Maybe she’d needed a break to rein in the jitters and refocus. Splash some water on her face.

Maybe.

Offhand, Dominic could think of no other reason. If there was another reason, it was something bad. Something very fucking bad.

He spoke into the microphone that extended from his earpiece. “What are you seeing?”

The team leader near the cabin responded softly. “Nothing you’re not seeing.”

“I don’t like this,” Dominic said.

“Same. Standing by—for now.”

Travis finished whispering the plan as he got Carrie to her feet. She winced at the stiffness in her joints but looked steady enough.

Paige was standing in the doorway—Travis realized she’d been there for some time.

“Need me to repeat it?” he said.

She shook her head. “I heard.”

Travis guided Carrie into the hallway and the three of them returned to the living room.

Paige had done a thorough job on the decoy. She lay on the floor at the base of her chair, her wrists tied behind her with one arm of a cardigan, her ankles with the other. The sleeve of a wool sweater had been wedged between her teeth and tied around her head. There was some risk of her waking up and making noise—banging against the furniture if nothing else—but Travis wasn’t worried. One way or another, this would all be over in the next minute or two.

He wondered where the listening device was, but didn’t look for it. It could be anywhere. Under the couch. Tacked beneath the top of the end table.

He spoke at room volume: “She seems nervous, doesn’t she?”

“Probably just caught off guard,” Paige said. “It’s not every morning she gets a visit from Tangent.”

Travis moved silently across to the bathroom. He eased the door open, slipped inside and closed it gently behind him. Then he flushed the toilet, banged the lid down, and turned on the faucet.

Dominic relaxed a notch.

“You hearing this?” he said. The running water was just audible over the feed.

“Got it. Guess she just had to go. Jesus.”

A moment later the faucet shut off and the door clicked open.

“Sorry about that,” he heard the decoy say. Her tone sounded different—probably because of her distance from the microphone. “Please continue.”

The young female visitor spoke. “As I said before, Garner’s death has some connection to Scalar—”

The young woman stopped speaking. Dominic cupped his hand over the earpiece and listened carefully, but couldn’t hear anything happening—any reason for her to have cut herself off.

“What’s going on?” the team leader said.

“Quiet,” Dominic said.

For three more seconds the silence held.

Then the older woman spoke. “Is there a problem?”

Dominic’s stomach tightened. He thought he knew what was coming.

It came.

The young woman said, “You’re not Carrie Holden.”

Fuck.

The team leader spoke up, fast and tense: “Ready to move on my mark.”

“I beg your pardon?” the decoy said.

There was no reply from either the young woman or her male friend. Instead there came a burst of commotion. Furniture sliding. Bodies interacting. Voices raised and jumbled over one another. The male visitor said, “Get her legs!”

“Move now!” the team leader said. “Now, now, now! ”

Two seconds after that Dominic saw the team sprinting into the pool of light in front of the cabin. All five of them, Heckler & Koch automatics in hand, rushing the front door in a tight group. Like a sledgehammer coming down on a knuckle.

Travis gave the end table a kick to create the last of the commotion, then turned and ran for the firing position he’d picked out moments earlier. Paige and Carrie had each already settled into theirs—Paige behind the corner at the hallway’s mouth, Carrie behind the iron woodstove. Carrie had retrieved her own pistol—a Beretta 92FS—during the long silence in the living room.

Travis reached his cover: an island in the kitchen. He dropped to a knee behind it, drew his SIG and leveled it on the door.

Already he could hear the footsteps outside, crunching hard on the exposed gravel. Seconds away.

Three protected shooting angles on a solitary chokepoint, against aggressors who didn’t even expect to come under fire—who expected to burst in on a scuffle among unprepared subjects.

Travis took a breath and steadied his hand on the granite.

The footsteps outside covered the last stretch to the door. Whoever was leading the pack didn’t stutter-step. He hit the lock at full speed and the latch-plate splintered from the frame and the door exploded inward.

Dominic didn’t really expect to hear shooting. The team would seek only to control the situation. At most they’d trigger a few three-round bursts into the ceiling for intimidation, though even that was unlikely. These men were professionals. They knew how to assert themselves without theatrics. And their orders were explicit: take the subjects alive. Gunfire of any kind would be an unnecessary risk.

Dominic’s own orders were in the same vein. His role was to disable the visitors’ vehicle if necessary—one