“Doesn’t seem to want to cooperate, sir,” five said.
“Take him to the guardhouse and put him on the camera,” Tucker said. “I want to see his face.”
“Roger,” five said, then to the others, “Let’s move.”
Ten feet from the top of the hill, Quinn heard yelling coming from the other side.
“Nate?” he said.
No response.
He scrambled to the crest on all fours, crawling over the rocks and stopping only when he had a shielded position from which he could see what was happening.
At the base of the hill was a fifty-foot-wide gap of scattered boulders and sand. And standing in the middle of it were five men. Five armed men, Quinn noted. They stood in a loose circle around a sixth man who lay on the ground.
“Nate?”
Still nothing.
Quinn pulled out his binoculars and aimed them at the group. It was apparent the guards were not happy with the guy they were surrounding. Several aimed their weapons at him.
“Get the fuck back on your feet and tell me your name,” the guard closest to the man’s head yelled.
As the man stood up Quinn trained the binoculars on him, knowing what he’d see.
Only he was wrong. The captive wasn’t Nate.
“Nate,” Quinn said. “Where are you?”
The response came in two short, low bursts. “Can’t. Talk.”
Quinn swept the binoculars back toward the hill he was on, but didn’t see anything. He tried again, this time turning on the thermal-imaging overlay first. Unlike before, this time two small ovals stood out. They were poking out of the back of a crevice created by a couple of the large rocks that were leaning together.
“Tap your toe,” Quinn said.
“What?”
“Tap your toe.”
Quinn watched as one of the ovals moved upward, then tapped back down against the rock it had been lying on.
“I can see your feet.”
“You can see my feet?” Nate whispered.
“Just me,” Quinn said. “They don’t have an angle on you.”
Quinn returned his gaze to the group in the clearing. Who the hell was the guy they had caught? Was he out here alone? Quinn sensed he must be, because they had seen no sign of anyone else. One man, okay. Maybe Quinn could account for having missed a single person,
What were the guards thinking, though? They had to be wondering if there were more people out here. If they started looking, Quinn and Nate were going to have to make a serious effort not to be found.
Down below, two of the security men had hold of their captive, while a third was saying something, this time his voice too low to be heard. A few seconds later, they started walking as a group in the direction of the guardhouse.
“We’re moving,” Quinn said.
“Back to the car?” Nate asked.
“No. We follow.”
“What about the sensors? We’ll trip them.”
“I know,” Quinn said. “Wait where you are. I’m coming to you.”
Quinn took two chances. First, he decided that any motion sensor alarms they might set off would be attributed to the group with the prisoner. Since no one had come looking for them, that part seemed to have worked fine. Second, he decided to see if they could get to the guardhouse before the others. He figured that by keeping close to the fence, the guards wouldn’t notice them as they passed in the darkness. That, too, had paid off.
A ridge of stones standing upright like a collection of monoliths less than a hundred feet from the concrete structure acted as perfect cover. Quinn found a gap between the rocks that gave him a good view of both the guardhouse and the short valley that led up to it.
“Don’t know if this is the right time to mention this or not, but we’re kind of trapped here, aren’t we?” Nate said. “I mean, when we head back, we’re going to trip the sensors again. And this time I don’t think they’ll ignore it.”
“We’re not going back,” Quinn said. “At least not yet.”
“Wait, we’re going to try to get
“Maybe.”
“Didn’t you promise Orlando this was just a simple recon, and we wouldn’t be doing anything that could get us into trouble?”
“I guess I was wrong.”
The truth was Quinn hadn’t planned on making an incursion at all, but the opportunity presented itself, and instinctively he realized it might be their best chance at getting in. In his job, listening to those instincts wasn’t a luxury. He trusted them, and this time they had said, “Move!”
From the left, toward the other end of the valley, there was the sound of several footsteps. The others had arrived.
Quinn peeked between the rocks at the guardhouse. The door had opened halfway, and there was the shadowy form of a man standing just inside. As Quinn angled to the right so he could get a look at the guards, he pulled out his camera phone. They had closed into a tight group around their prisoner. Quinn snapped several photos as they approached the guardhouse. Once everyone was inside, he chose the best pics and attached them to a hastily prepared email.
Need ID on man tied up.
He started to address it to both Orlando and Peter, then changed his mind and sent it to Peter only. Best to let Orlando relax and not worry.
“You’ve been checking for sensors?” Quinn asked Nate.
His apprentice nodded. “They were placed about every fifty feet through the hills, but the last one’s more than a hundred feet back there.”
“So there’s none up here?”
“I didn’t say that. I just meant I hadn’t seen any more.”
The lack of sensors this close to the guardhouse made sense. If there had been any, every time a guard went for a walk or to relieve himself the alarm would sound. That was an annoyance no one would want to deal with.
“Okay,” Quinn said. “As close as we can get.”
He stepped out from behind the rock and hoped to God that he was right.
CHAPTER 28
“I see them,” Base said.
Tucker picked up his radio. “About fucking time.”
It was unfair, he knew. The rocks out there were a bitch. But dammit, he hating waiting this long. He wanted to know who was sneaking around their operation, and what he wanted.
Two minutes later, Base said, “Ready for video hookup.”
Tucker already had the video window open on his computer. The light level was a little low, but he could still make out several of his men moving around in the background. Then a face appeared on the screen. Tucker
