Arizona
Kate sat on the curbside, elbow on her knee and chin resting on her hand. Her clothes had the faint aroma of dried sweat but she wasn’t sure how long it would be before she managed a shower.
She noticed Lyle stepping out of the hotel. He walked across the street toward her, yawning.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” she said.
“Very funny.”
“I haven’t seen anyone tranq themselves before,” she added. “But I guess that’s one way to get a good night’s rest.”
“Har, har,” he said. “You are just so funny.
“You’ll be tired for a while, but it’ll wear off after you have some coffee.”
“Good to know.”
“How are Jack and Marian doing?”
“Marian stopped crying,” Lyle replied.
Kate nodded. “That’s good.”
“Once Jack calmed down, he said he knew what the target was going to be,” Lyle said.
Kate perked up. “Seriously?”
“A city in Texas. Fairly low population.”
“Does he know where they are?”
“No,” Lyle said. “They made him wear a bag before taking him to the warehouse. He was in an abandoned police station, but they were packing up like they were about to leave.”
“Damn,” she replied. “So we know the target, we just don’t know how to stop them.”
Lyle hesitated. “I might have an idea on how we can do that.”
“What?”
“Let me look into it some more, and I’ll get back to you.”
2
The black truck pulled to a stop behind the police station. Francis was outside waiting for them. Victor climbed out into the alley.
“Go inside,” he said to William. “And get Helen and Beck. We’re leaving.”
“Sure,” William said, disappearing into the station.
Victor turned to Francis after he was gone. “What is it?”
In response, Francis handed him a phone. “It’s cued up.”
Victor hit play on it. “…little town called Cottonwood Heights,” Helen’s voice said, tinny on the speakers.
Victor stopped the recording, feeling his body shaking with anger.
“When was this?”
“Not long after you went to get Jack’s family,” Francis said. “We were doing a perimeter sweep.”
“She told Beck?”
“She told Jack as well,” Francis said.
Victor growled and dialed into the phone. “I’m going to have them kill Jack and bury him in the desert.”
“He’s military.”
“He’s a liability.”
Francis didn’t argue. Victor held the phone up, but it kept ringing. After the tenth ring, he yelled and threw the phone into the wall.
“That stupid bitch!”
“They didn’t answer?” Francis asked calmly.
“No,” Victor replied. “They have been compromised.”
“Who do you think it is?”
“I don’t know,” Victor said. “JanCorp has a lot of enemies. We have a lot of enemies. The list is long.”
“Do you want me to check it for you?”
Victor shook his head. “No. The warehouse is gone. Jack is gone. We need to move forward and finish this. We will assume whoever is working against us knows the target, so we’ll meet them there and deal with them.”
“Helen is on the Air Force network now,” Francis said. “Beck helped her breach inside and we can take control of the drones.”
“Did you show Helen the recording?”
“No,” Francis said. “Do you want me to kill her?”
Victor took a deep breath. “Yes. But first, let’s get paid.”
3
Kate brushed the hair out of her eyes, having to pee but knowing it wouldn’t be a possibility just yet. Marian sequestered herself inside the shower as soon as they entered the hotel, and the only positive development in the situation was that she’d finally allowed Jack to come inside with her.
Kate was working on her laptop but gave up hunting for leads and was spending time reading up on any information about Cottonwood Heights. That was the target of the drone attack, but it was a little backwater town.
It was also a long way from any military installations that could deal with the threat.
“Why there?”
“What?” Lyle asked, sitting on the other bed, lost in thought.
“Cottonwood Heights It sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. I know I’ve heard the name before.”
“Maybe they don’t want many casualties,” Lyle replied. “It doesn’t have a huge population.”
She shook her head. “They want to make a big splash,” she argued. “Casualties are their number one priority. The thing I can’t figure out is, who is paying for this?”
“Maybe they want to start a war,” Lyle offered.
“What do you mean?”
“You said JanCorp spent a lot of time working in the Middle East. They weren’t picky about which side they worked for, right?”
Kate felt her eyes go wide. “Oh no.”
“What is it?”
Kate started typing. “The US recruited a lot of locals in the Middle East to help, turning them against their country and government. A lot of them were brought to the US in exchange for what they did.”
“Okay,” Lyle said.
“The highest priority ones are usually given false identities and hidden, similar to witness protection because the people they betrayed back home wanted them dead.”
“We gave them asylum.”
“A lot we abandoned back home because there wasn’t enough money to bring them, but many important or noteworthy ones were brought into the states.”
“You think one of these might be the target?”
“I think it could be several,” she said. “Sometimes groups were moved over together to make it easier to keep track of them and help blend in. They form communities and live in close proximity to their families. It’s a way to get a clean start.”
“Cottonwood Heights,” Lyle said. “You think it’s sheltering Middle Easterners who turned their backs on their nations.”
Kate nodded. “I know it is. JanCorp helped put them there.”
4
“Then why would they want to kill them?” Lyle asked.
“Because they’re being paid. These people are viewed as traitors by some back home, and there is good money in finding and killing them. Victor is working for either a government or a rebel group who wants these people killed, and they want it done in as public a fashion as possible.”
“A public execution.”
She nodded. “They want possible defectors in the future to see the trust cost of betraying their countries.”
“But these are families, right?” he asked. “Not just the people who helped the US.”
“That’s part of the plan,” she said. “Just killing the people isn’t enough.”
Lyle was silent for a long moment. “That’s horrible.”
“But it gives us an idea of what their plan is,” Kate added. “Now we just have to figure out how to stop them.”
