“Keep ’em where we can see ’em.” Rifleman felt the need to exert his show of power.
With slow, deliberate moves, Eva handed the handguns to Mike, who handed them to Simmons butt end first, to make sure no one got too excited.
“Now your phones.”
Schooling his expression to reluctant resignation, Mike turned over the burn phone.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“How about I check for myself?” Simmons laid his 16-gauge on the hood and walked over to Mike. “You don’t want to know how sorry you’ll be if you’re lying to me.”
Mike assumed the position and gritted it out while Simmons did a rough and thorough pat-down.
He straightened with a grunt. “Now her.”
Mike had a feeling this would be the first of many moments he was going to regret. He lifted his chin toward Eva, motioning her to get out of the car.
In the end, he couldn’t help himself. “Touch her the wrong way and you’re the one who’s going to be sorry,” he warned Simmons when Eva got out and stood by the Jeep. “You can see she’s not carrying.”
It was true. It would have been difficult to conceal much of anything beneath the tank top and jeans.
Simmons searched her anyway and all Mike could do was stand there, fists clenched at his side, and wait for the bastard to make the wrong move. Apparently Simmons was smarter than he looked. He kept it businesslike, short and impersonal.
“Make sure they stay right where they are,” he told Sawed-off when he was finished, then started searching the Jeep.
He popped the hood, checked the trunk, inside the wheel wells, under the seats, then rifled through their duffel bags. All the while, Mike acted bored and irritated. If Simmons found their cache of weapons inside the doors, there wasn’t enough BS in the world to talk his way past it.
“Get back in the Jeep,” Simmons said, satisfied with his search. “Stay right on our bumper. Keep both hands on the wheel—
Mike nodded.
“And stay in the vehicle until you’re told to get out.”
He climbed back into the truck. After a lot of engine gunning and tire spinning, the driver maneuvered the pickup around on the narrow road.
Mike glanced across the front seat to Eva.
She told him, “You’ve got to get used to things happening to me that make you uncomfortable, or you’re going to blow it.”
He would never get used to some knuckle dragger touching her. “Yeah. I know.”
He shifted into gear, face grim, and tailgated the hell out of the truck’s rear bumper. “In the meantime, looks like we’re in.”
So why didn’t he feel like celebrating?
Up close, Mike could read the name on Rifleman’s shirt—WAGONER. With Simmons behind him and Wagoner ahead of him, he walked up seven wooden steps into a log building that looked to be a command center or meeting place.
Double crossbuck doors opened into a wide foyer. The floor was made of rough pine planks. The walls were more of the same, and bare except for two pine picture frames hanging on either side of an interior door that Mike suspected led to Lawson’s inner sanctum.
Both frames were three foot by three foot square. One was a copy of the UWD charter. The other was a photograph of Lawson decked out in standard UWD uniform, posed with an AK-47.
“Sit,” Simmons ordered, then knocked on the door, waited for admittance, and disappeared inside.
Mike sat, slipped off his shades, and hooked a bow into the neck of his T-shirt.
Wagoner took a position with his back to the door, the AR-15 cradled in his arms, the barrel pointed in Mike’s general direction.
It was a nice touch if intimidation was the game, and from what he’d seen of these yahoos, their game was all about intimidation.
He hadn’t liked leaving Eva alone in the Jeep with Sawed-off—Bryant—leering at her, but he had no choice. Counting on her ability to handle herself, he steeled himself for the confrontation to come.
He owed it to himself, to his lost team, and to her to keep it together. Yet when the door opened and Lawson appeared in the doorway it took every shred of his self-control not to launch himself across the room and wrap his hands around the ferret-faced bastard’s neck.
On a deep breath, he rose in a show of respect and swallowed back his disgust.
For a long moment Lawson said nothing, only looked him over as if deciding if he was worth the time it would take to draw another breath.
“It would seem you’ve gone to great lengths to find me,” Lawson said finally.
“Yes, sir. I have.” He infused his few words with just enough humility and respect to show he was aware that he was in the presence of greatness.
Apparently it worked.
“Bring him in,” Lawson told Simmons, then told Wagoner to stay outside and guard the door.
“You heard him.” The barrel of the AR-15 lifted, a signal for Mike to move.
So he did, with Simmons’s shotgun pointing dead center in the middle of his back.
25
Eva drew a deep breath to steady herself. They’d done it. They’d gotten inside the belly of the beast.
She’d watched Mike, surrounded by thugs with guns, disappear into a heavily guarded building an hour ago. She didn’t try to hide the fact that she was worried. She was playing the role of Dan Walker’s wife. And what woman wouldn’t worry if the man she loved had walked into unknown territory so long ago and hadn’t been heard from since?
And it wasn’t entirely role-playing. She wasn’t Mike Brown’s woman, but something was happening between them. Something unexpected and extremely unwise.
She had no idea what that “finish” was going to look like, or even what she
But they were a long way from getting out of here alive. The full-body pat-down Simmons had given her had almost prompted Mike to hurl himself at the guard. Now Bryant, who’d been stationed in front of the Jeep to guard her with his sawed-off shotgun, had more than guarding her on his mind, judging by the look in his eye.
And Mike was inside the big building in the center of the “city” square, meeting Lawson.
The heat didn’t help her sense of apprehension. Here in the middle of the open meadow, the sun beat down on the Jeep’s black roof like a blowtorch.
Sweat trickled down her back and between her breasts. She’d been ordered not to move, and other than opening the door to let some air in, she hadn’t.
“Roll down the window,” Bryant had told her when she’d asked if she could open the door.
“It’s broken.”
That was a lie, but with the weapons and ammo hidden in the door, she didn’t dare roll the window down. Since the Jeep had seen better days and looked the part, he’d finally conceded—thank God, or she’d have had a
