Warrior Mine: A Base Branch novel Read online

  If you needed to hide someone and had a sister willing to rip Mexico from its bedrock and toss it across the ocean to find that person, what better place to hide the person than somewhere she’d never think to look?

  Carlos had been stopped in Tennessee on a simple traffic violation. The officer had hauled him in after running the license of one Charlie Ranger, which showed a federal warrant for his arrest. Those two pieces had been enough for Vail to move, but accustomed to checking and rechecking facts for his teams, he dug deeper.

  Yesterday’s search yielded several other properties the good Charlie Ranger purchased in the States. Houses in San Diego, Tucson, and El Paso tipped the scale from likely to definite in Vail’s mind. Carlos Ruez had been planning something big. And from the way he ran his mouth before Carmen had left—before ripping a hole in his belly and screwing with his mind—he’d guess the crazy son of a bitch still hoped to carry it out. It made sense. He’d given them vital information, which allowed the Base Branch to take out several key Sinaloa facilities. And he bet the information dump had been another strategic move on Carlos’s part.

  Vail placed the glass in the dishwasher and then pulled the topographical map of Kentucky and the cabin plans from the stack. Stiff after being still for only a couple of minutes, he shuffled around the high bar—the only thing that separated the kitchen from the living room, and dining room for that matter—past the fancy sofa and chairs with their accent pillows as the decorator had called them, and stopped at the eight-top dining table he’d never used. Well, he used it. Just not for its intended purpose. Most often he walked around it to the bank of three floor-to-ceiling windows it sat near and propped on the top while he drank his coffee and watched the sun bring the city into focus. This morning it held his gear.

  Guns, knives, an oversized backpack, first aid supplies, boots, a wool blanket, and various camping tools lay scattered across the smooth wood top. Though he didn’t dare put more on the table, save for the two sheets of paper. The narrow metal legs likely couldn’t hold much more. Would the thing hold Carmen with his weight on top and the power of his body thrusting inside her?

  He tossed the pages onto the table, ignoring his burgeoning erection. But really, what guy could look away from his Johnson when it saluted? Not him. He shook his head at the damn fool, who obviously had no sense of self-preservation. The gnarled red skin at his middle caught his eye. Slowly the sex-starved appendage followed logic and, despite the cold, hung low and long between his legs.

  Vail ran his hand over the puckered skin, appreciating that it hadn’t harbored an infection. Unlike two of the five scars scattering his torso. If this shot had been one foot in the grave, those had been body in, lid shut, but for some ridiculous reason the dirt hadn’t piled on top. So, like an idiot set on provoking his own demise, he headed to his bedroom to finish packing, shower, and drive to Kentucky.

  * * *

  It shamed Vail that his own world-class, elite operatives were so easily given the slip. Then again, he went to great lengths to keep the sleek Audi he’d driven out the back gate and right past the agent a secret. They also worked at a disadvantage since they were on alert for people trying to break into the building, not him trying to escape. Add to the fact that no one knew he lived here in the first place and they all thought he was dead, they worked at an extreme disadvantage.

  Glasses and a hat helped conceal his face, but everyone knew his obnoxious truck by sight and sound. The thing gave him away a mile or more down the road with its rumbling engine. Its burnt red paint made it pretty hard to miss too. If training didn’t keep his hand eye coordination on point, parking that thing on a busy street without using the cars around him as speed bumps did. It fit in the city about as well as a straw of buckwheat between the First Lady’s lips. He loved the damn thing and would drive it until the day he died. Judging by the way things were going, that could be any day now.

  The low-slung S5 whispered through the fallen leaves at the roadside and hugged the curves as asphalt hooked through the foothills nearly five hundred miles from his safety detail. He didn’t understand why Khani put them on him in the first place. Neither of them expected Carmen to come finish the job, not that Khani knew it was Carmen Félix-Ruez who’d shot him. She still dug for her own answers and prodded him for information nearly every day, not that she expected to gain anything from him. Yet, if the roles were reversed he’d take the same precautions and hunt for answers just as doggedly.

  East of Morehead, Vail turned south into Daniel Boone National Forest. The road dipped between a valley of matchstick trees. Their thick, supple vegetation had long since changed from green to eye-popping yellows and reds, and covered the ground in a brittle brown blanket. At the top of a low ridge the sparse winter foliage allowed him to see the clear lake to his right. The cabin sat only a mile from the expansive reservoir near the end of one of its near stagnant tentacles.

  Vail hooked left at the next two-lane highway and passed the gravel road that eventually forked and turned to a narrow dirt path leading to Carlos’s newest piece of real estate. With no obvious nooks or side trails to hide his shiny black car where it wouldn’t be spotted a mile away, he continued on toward a convenience store he’d spotted on the satellite feed he studied late last night.

  He’d been ready to leave the city before dawn, but had waited until the commuters trickled out of his building so he wouldn’t draw unwanted attention. It put him arriving a little later than he’d like with the sun already yawning at the horizon. The late February weather threatened snow, filling the air with hazy gray clouds and dimming the daylight that much more.

  Rounding one more bend, a clearing opened in the trees. Light stone gravel that complemented the muted sky filled the lot, save for a slab of neat concrete beneath the building’s awning. Where once gasoline pumps sat, a chunk of raised cement anchored two metal support posts, more rust than white paint coating the surface. A wall of surprisingly clear glass revealed what looked to be an office. Less convenience and more service station, the place hosted two bays with large glass-front doors buttoned low.

  By the time Vail reached the storefront, parked, and straightened from the car, a young man—boy, really—stood, his face nearly smashed against the window, gawking. His side hurt less each day and didn’t cause him pain after sitting for so many hours in a row, but tightness held him stiff as a two-by-four. With the kid’s eyes on him he didn’t try to work out the rigidity. He just tried not to look like a toy soldier when he walked.

  “Can I help you?” the boy—John, by the name embroidered on his coveralls—asked. His light blue eyes never left the sports car. Puffs of steam floated from his gaping mouth and his greasy hand shoved at the spiky blond hair above his forehead.

  “You have an open bay. I’d like to rent it for a couple of nights. A thousand bucks up front and another thousand if it’s here when I get back.”

  That swiveled the kid’s head. His gaze rose to Vail’s. “Two grand? Is something wrong with it? Cause we can fix it. We may seem backwoods, and we are, but I’ve got a computer for diagnostics. I guarantee I could have her purring in no time a’tal’.” His hand left his hair and burrowed into his pocket. A shiver wracked his lanky frame.

  “I’m headed into the woods and want to keep her out of the weather.”

  “Oh, uh…sure. My gramps won’t mind. It’s his place. But…I know we wouldn’t make that much in a week with both bays open. Business just isn’t that steady. These days everybody’s drivin’ a new car.” He rocked on his heels and then hopped, like only a rubber-jointed kid could, toward the building. “I’ll lift the door and you can pull’er on in.”

  “No you won’t,” a worn, yet strong, voice came from the far side of the building.

  The kid stalled mid-step and squinted at the old man barreling around the corner with a tire iron clenched in his sun-leathered grip. “But Grandpa, this guy said—”

  “Get inside and lock the door, John,” his grandfathe
r interrupted.

  A scowl as deep as the San Andreas trenched the man’s brow. His shoulders, wide enough to have done considerable damage in his prime, swayed in Vail’s direction. With the metal weapon, he expected the guy could still bring the hurt to a vast majority of the population. White hair shorn in a military issue high-and-tight gave him an air of authority.

  John squeaked out a confounded, “But…” while he hustled to the door.

  “We don’t need your tainted money. Now, take your car and go.”

  Vail relaxed his stance as much as his body would allow, in an effort to appear non-threatening. As a muscled guy of six-three he’d never had much success blending out in the open. “I don’t mean to offend you. I’d be paying for a service. Just like any other customer.”

  “Kids these days can’t see danger when it’s staring them in the face. He’s smart in every other respect, but I bet my grandson would pet a cobra, if it bobbed its head in front of him. Society’s made them all soft. But I know a threat when I see one. We want no part of what you and your friends are up to.”

  “My friends?” Vail asked.

  “I may be old, but I’m not stupid. Nobody in their right mind would set out to camp in the face of a snow storm. The only place in three square miles of here is Hank Higgin’s old place. Wads o’ cash and flashy cars have no cause in these woods. Damn you dealers. If y’all are cookin’ meth up at Hig’s old place, I don’t want to know. So long as you stay off my property and away from my family. We don’t want any trouble. But, if you’re lookin’ for it, I’ll give it to you.”

  “Oh, I’m looking for trouble. But not from you, sir.”

  The man cocked his head and his murky blue eyes studied Vail from top to bottom. He let the iron hang by his side. “You’re not a cop.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Could be a fed. I’m betting you're ex-military, though I’ve never seen a jarhead make out quite so well.”

  “No jars here, leatherneck. I earned my trident every day. Still do, in a different way.”

  “You a merc?”

  “No. We'll say I’m sanctioned and leave it at that.”

  “You here to take out the trash?”

  “I am.”

  “There’s at lease six of ’em.”

  “How many cars did you see?”

  “Two. Three got outta’ one car. Two outta’ the second, but the way their eyes kept darting back to the thing, I suspect there was more in there.”

  “You have people meeting you, huh?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Damn. I mean, SEALS are good, but not invincible.”

  “I’ll manage.”

  The old man chewed his cheek. His gaze narrowed. “Somethin’ tells me you will.” He waved his grandson from the building. The kid’s hand hadn’t left the lock and his gaze had been riveted the entire time, bouncing between him and his grandfather. John flipped the lock and took a hesitant step out. “Raise the door. Seems Mr….”

  “Tucker,” Vail supplied.

  “Mr. Tucker isn’t quite what I thought he was.”

  “Yes, sir.” The kid moved to do as the man asked, but the pep of his earlier steps had disappeared.

  “Bring your car in and I’ll tell you what I know about Hig’s place. It’s a lot. We’ve been friends since the day we were born.”

  “I’m sorry he had to go into a home.”

  “Age.” The man chased Vail’s words away with a swat of his hand. “No one escapes it, until they die.”

  * * *

  Vail nodded to Gunnery Sergeant John Batten and his grandson and then headed across the street for the overgrown path the sergeant took to Hig’s house as a young boy. As promised, in the time he’d spent reminiscing about the good ole’ days and talking details, the temperature had dropped a good ten degrees, settling it between uncomfortable and freeze-your-nuts solid, depending on the wind. The brisk pace he set and the rising grade of the passage heated him enough he didn’t worry with gloves. His T-shirt, wool sweater, and light jacket were adequate until he bedded down for the night.

  He shivered at the thought of propping against a half-frozen tree for even a minute. Cold had never bothered him. Not one bit. He was a SEAL for fuck’s sake. On assignment he’d taken a polar bear plunge in Russia. In training he’d treaded water for more than twelve hours in the middle of the Atlantic during the dead of winter. But after lying on the concrete in a pool of his own blood, the chill clung like it had seeped into his marrow and turned the stuff to ice.

  The stiffness melted away, replaced by the sure tingle of a thousand needle pricks. At least the burning had faded. An ache still lingered, dull and unobtrusive, but always there. He walked on the edge of the trail instead of weaving through the crop of saplings flourishing in the sergeant’s absence.

  Nevermind the trees didn’t have leaves on their branches, the width of their trunks and spread of their limbs blocked out what little sunlight made it through the cloud. The longer he walked the less and less light peeked through the forest. The thinner the light, the thinner his blood apparently. Blue tinted the well of his fingernails and his lips had taken to quivering twenty minutes back.

  Was this it? What losing a step looked like? How it felt to see everything you’ve spent your life working to achieve slip from your grasp? Sure, he wasn’t in the field anymore. Not much. But was this the beginning of the slow and steady decline to doomsday? If the physical faltered, how soon before the mental? Jesus, he was only forty-fucking-two. But that was only eighteen years till sixty, and then what? Covert. High-stakes. Life-or-death. That’s what he knew. He didn’t know how to do life. Not anymore.

  This weakness stirred an emotion he hadn’t tangled with in quite a while. It bubbled at a simmer for a minute, but quickly turned to an all-out boil. The urge to roar and snarl like a feral beast overwhelmed him. Only years and experience kept the rage inside. If he gave in to the baser instincts, he’d alert the mob to his recon.

  After a while Vail arrived at “the kicker,” as the old man had called it. “You’ll know it when you see it,” he’d said.

  Yeah, no kidding.

  A thirty-foot wall of sculpted rock protruded from the earth like one day it had gotten ambitious and leaped for the sky. It didn’t make it all the way, but it gave commendable, as well as irritating, effort. Vail stepped up to the watercolor wall of tan, grabbed hold with his numb fingers, found a foothold, and poured his anger into the rock.

  Damn Carmen. If she hadn’t shot him, he wouldn’t be here, freezing his sack off and realizing he was closer to the end of his life than he was to the beginning, and that he didn't have much of a life to speak of anyway.

  Sweat trickled down his back. Mid-way up perspiration slicked his palms, endangering his grip. Between each hand hold or finger hold, whichever he could find, he rubbed his free hand down the leg of his charcoal-colored cargo pants. It cost him more time and energy. When he reached fall-and-you-could-die-or-just-lay-incapacitated-until-the-coyotes-or-black-bears-maul-you-to-death height his grip slipped from the tiny two-finger hollow he’d chosen out of necessity to be able to place his big boots against a wide ridge. As his weight swung with the pendulum of his position, jagged rocks scraped like a combination of sandpaper and knives across his left wrist.

  The earth seemed to lunge toward him. No. He lurched toward it.

  His chin grazed the rough outcropping and his shoulder tackled like a lineman. He’d been one, once upon a time, and had never hit anything so immovable. Not even Marv, the three-hundred-ten-pound guard of the Blue Ridge Bobcats. Impact forced the air from his lungs, but that he could live through. As long as he could get his muscles to cooperate. He shoved hard, digging into the solid footing he’d found on the previous position and rammed his shoulder even harder against the rock. Vail Tucker, the human plank. It would be funny. One day. If he made it past today.

  Every bit of fibrous tissue in his body strained against the awkward arrangement. Molecule by pre
cious molecule, air migrated back into his lungs. He used it to fuel his strength. Amazing how he didn’t feel his mending wound at all right now. Adrenaline, what an amazing thing.

  With great care, Vail wedged the heel of his left palm against the sheer rock below his nearly horizontal position. It wasn’t much in the way of security. His blood seeped from the cuts, staining the limestone. It allowed him enough leverage to search for a hold with his right hand.

  A drop of sweat plunged to the ground. He couldn’t see it or the next few that followed, but he knew that wasn’t the only bodily fluid he’d likely leave down there. Finally his fingers found purchase on a jug-sized outcropping. He collected every ounce of bravery he possessed and went for it. In one swift motion his hands joined on the large rough stone and he spread his legs wide, jamming them on either side of the trench.

  No way in hell did the old man climb this trail three years ago. If he did, then Vail had zero qualms about getting older. Seven more feet of carefully placed holds saw him to the top. He wanted to slump back and take a rest on his ruck, not so much from physical exertion as mental. But he pressed on, proving he could take it all and ask for more.

  Fifteen feet from the sheer drop he’d climbed he ran into the trail again. His gaze followed the path that swung in a thirty-foot arc of smooth-footed dirt that pressed against the edge of the cliff and provided a safe, simple way around the deathtrap of a wall.

  “You sorry son of a bitch,” Vail whispered. Despite his sure anger at the sneaky old man who'd led him up the side of a cliff, the corner of his mouth quirked.

  A quarter mile from the cabin, dusk crept to night. Vail struggled to control his trembling body. The T-shirt he’d worn as a layer of protection from the scratchy wool sopped with sweat from his efforts climbing. Now that his blood had stopped churning and his muscles had quit working overtime, the shirt had become a siphon, draining his skin of any heat with its frozen touch.