“But they’re the enemy,” Jesse protested.
“And my goal is to help them die for their cause. But I still respect them.”
“So, what’s next?” Stephenson asked.
Shadows were getting very long now; it would be dark soon. The explosives were set, the weapons were loaded, and the satellite link was established. His troops and his camp were as prepared as they were going to get. “I guess it’s time to make your phone call,” he said.
Stephenson’s expression didn’t change as he heard the words, but color drained from his face. He turned away and hobbled up the steps into the cabin.
“What phone call?” Gail asked.
“The one that’s going to bring hell to the front porch,” he said. “We alerted Ivan and his gang to our location by using Steve’s credit card at the Wal-Mart back in town. We wanted to get them on the road in the correct general direction. When Steve turns on his cell phone and makes a call, they’ll be able to zero right in on us. We’re at the point of no return.”
Gail cocked her head. “Why are you really doing this?” she asked.
“I’d like to know that myself,” Jesse said. The facial twitch that followed from Gail announced her wish that he would wander off somewhere.
Jonathan wished that himself. “Want to take a walk?” he asked.
“To where?” Jesse protested.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Jonathan snapped. He looked to Gail for her answer.
“Sure,” she said. This time, Jesse read her glare perfectly. He was staying behind.
Jonathan led the way toward the front tree line, his hands in his pockets, his rifle hanging from its combat sling like an exclamation point down the front of his body. When he felt far enough out of earshot, he said, “You go first. Why are you really doing this?”
She chuckled. “You really have the whole story. I didn’t want to get shot tied to a chair. You wouldn’t do the sensible thing and call the authorities, so I had only one choice. I had to pick a side, and as scary and hopeless as you and your little army are, the other side seems worse.”
“I guess next time, you need to listen to Irene Rivers when she tells you to butt out.”
“Next time.”
They walked awhile in silence. “You know we have a chance of winning this thing,” Jonathan said. “A good chance.”
“Okay,” Gail said. Another silence, then, “You haven’t told me why yet.”
Jonathan looked toward the treetops as he said, “The lofty answer is duty. The tawdry one is revenge. Just like any war anywhere.”
Gail wanted more, then realized he’d said a lot. “What did Ivan do to your wife?” she asked.
“He killed her.”
“There’s got to be more than that.”
“There his head. “Nope, those details are mine. You can access the reports when we’re done.”
When they got to the tree line, they hung a left and waded together through the scrub growth on the leading edge. “When we’re done,” Gail said.
“Excuse me?”
“You said ‘when we’re done.’ Are you really going to let Jesse and me go when it’s over?”
He smirked. “The phrase, ‘turn myself over to you’ seems more appropriate.”
She didn’t get it. “You’re really just going to let me take you in?”
He shrugged. “That was the deal, right? You help us fight, and I turn myself in.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Sure it does. A deal’s a deal. You caught me outright. I made mistakes and you capitalized on them. To the victor belongs the spoils.”
Gail stopped. She looked shocked.
Jonathan gestured with his head for them to keep walking. “When there’s a lesson like this to learn, someone needs to learn it. That someone’s me. Like you said, with extenuating circumstances and all, maybe I’ll be acquitted.”
She was still befuddled. “I don’t know whether to believe you.”
“Always believe me. Especially when I make a deal. I’m really not very complicated.”
“How can you speak for your big friend?” she asked.
Jonathan laughed. “I don’t speak for my big friend,” he said. “In fact, you need to leave him alone.”
“Why?”
“Two reasons. First, he didn’t have anything to do with those shootings. All he did was lift me and the kid out of trouble. I did all the shooting.”
“What’s the second reason?”
Jonathan looked right at her. “He’d kill you if you tried.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Night fell inside the lodge a good half hour before it fell outside. They’d carried the kitchen chairs upstairs into the master bedroom and draped blankets to create a lightproof nook in which they could operate their laptop without creating a beacon for the bad guys. The computer was set to continually monitor the SkysEye satellite images of their corner of the world. They’d configured the screen view in such a way that the cabin was in the middle of the frame, with outer margins calibrated to show a one-mile radius from the center point.
“We’ve got a great signal, Mother Hen,” Jonathan said into his satellite phone. “Looks like we’re all set here.”
Back in Fisherman’s Cove, Venice sat in her office scanning her three large computer panels. In the middle, she watched the same SkysEye image that Jonathan saw. On the left screen, she tracked the progress of the Brigadeville caravan as they moved ever closer to her boss’s location. True to his word, Lee Burns had not been able to provide constant video of the vehicles as they moved, but he had been able to mark them electronically by their heat signatures through the SkysEye network. As long as the engines were not stopped for more than a few minutes, and the heat signatures remained constant, their position appeared on her screen as white dots on a map. She kept the right screen available for obtaining further information.
She keyed her microphone. “Scorpion, the caravan is approaching the Wal-Mart now. Ifow that they picked up on the cell phone signal. If they do, they’ll be on you in forty minutes.”
“Roger that,” Jonathan said.
Venice watched her screen as the lead dot stopped in the parking lot of the department store, and then waited as the other seven dots converged. None of them moved.
“Okay Scorpion, they’ve stopped at the Wal-Mart.” Knowing how much Jonathan obsessed about brief radio traffic, she didn’t add her concern that they might not have picked up the clue from Stephenson’s cell phone signal. Since there was no way to tell, there was no reason to say anything.
Her true concern was that they might turn off their engines. As long as the heat signatures stayed at their nominal levels, the SkysEye passive sensors could follow their progress and transmit their map coordinates for interpretation by the computer. If the heat signature changed dramatically-particularly if it cooled-the passive sensor would lose contact, and be unable to reacquire it without re-tasking the satellites, which Lee had already told her they could not do.
Venice had long ago decided’t need the infighting. We’re to the point where you’re either on board, or you’re a liability. Just let it go.”
He sent Stephenson upstairs to monitor the computer screen and take some of the stress off his leg. Then he directed the others to gather all the furniture into a pile in the center of the room downstairs. With the walls free from obstruction, there’d be easy access to the windows, and they’d be able to maneuver quickly in the dark to secure better fields of fire. The windows themselves were all open wide to keep from having to break out glass when they came into service as gun ports. On Jonathan’s instructions, Jesse Collier had fastened all of the doors to
