Fatal Mistake--A Novel Read online

  She didn’t respond. It could be because her ears were ringing from the explosion or she didn’t want to speak. Right now it didn’t matter.

  Static played over his earbud, and he pressed his finger over it until it quieted. He activated his mic. “Alpha Two, report.”

  “We have you on GPS.” Brynn’s voice came in loud and clear, and Cal detected a note of relief in her voice. “We’re a mile due south and exiting the vehicles now. I’ve got County holding the perimeter.”

  Perfect. The last thing he needed was an inexperienced deputy racing in and trying to be a hero. “Bring my vest and long gun, and you better make this the fastest mile you’ve ever covered in full gear.”

  “I thought you were wearing a vest,” Tara cried out. “You need to move to safety. Without a vest he could kill you.”

  He ignored her panic and settled in to wait for his team. “If it keeps you safe, that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

  * * *

  A high, tinny wail sounded through Tara’s head, and she couldn’t breathe. Terror raced along her nerves, and she didn’t feel safe. Not even with the heavy weight of Agent Riggins’s body protecting her from gunfire. No, not Agent Riggins any longer. She’d call him Cal from now on as he’d asked. If a man would take a bullet for her, they should certainly be on a first-name basis.

  The shooting stopped, and she became more aware of him. He felt like a big old security blanket gently cradling her body, his back exposed to a bullet if the shooter started firing again. His life was on the line. A man who sacrificed himself for her, no matter her arguments, which had been many. He’d even brought in his team to help. Or did he have other motives?

  A bad feeling settled in her stomach. She wiggled around and craned her neck to look up at him. To read his eyes. “Did you plan this? Set me up as bait to bring Oren out here so your team could arrest him?”

  “No, of course, not,” he said, and she struggled to hear him through the ringing. “The team is here because I wanted to be prepared in case Keeler followed you again. As it stands, I’m glad I did.”

  Eyes the color of dark coffee riveted to her with an intensity that gave her a glimpse into his world. A world where he’d been a Navy SEAL. The focus and strength he had, the change of his suit to tactical gear, and the corded muscles of his forearm as he clutched his gun all said he was fierce and dangerous. A guy with combat skills she couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  He pressed his finger against his chest.

  “Roger that.” He gave her a terse smile. “We’re cleared for exfil.”

  His military lingo only added to her impression of his incredible skills, leaving her uneasy and in awe at the same time as she waited for direction.

  “Be ready,” he said. “Once the team lays down cover from secure locations we’ll move behind their line. When you hear me say go, I’ll roll off, and you come to your feet. Ignore the gunfire, grab on to my side, and cling to me. Got that?”

  “Yes,” she replied, but she didn’t know if her shaky legs would allow her to move.

  “You can do it, Tara,” he said, as if reading her mind. “I’ve seen how strong you are.”

  She replied with a nod and stared up at his transformation into war hero. He’d sustained a large cut to his forehead with blood running down to his eyebrow.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “No biggie. Let’s just focus on what we have to do.”

  “Right, run through gunfire.”

  “Don’t worry so much.” He gently rested his fingers on her cheek. “This jerk’s no match for our team. Most of us are old spec ops guys. Keeler may have done a stint in the army, but his skills at stalking in the bush don’t come anywhere close to ours.”

  She didn’t mention that, so far, Oren had bested them.

  Suddenly, a barrage of bullets started flying.

  “Okay, we’re a go.” Cal rolled off.

  She jumped up, and he clamped her tight to his side. Then suddenly they were running while bullets flew in all directions. Hitting the ground. Sending up puffs of dirt. His team firing way more bullets in the shooter’s direction.

  He’d told her to ignore the gunfire, but she couldn’t think about anything else.

  The sounds echoed through the trees, and she flinched at each one. She soon tired and lagged behind. Cal wrapped a strong arm around her waist and carried her the final distance to a secured area. He immediately released her, grabbed a vest from the back of an SUV, and strapped her into it before donning one for himself. He adjusted his radio before he inserted earbuds back into his ears and added a helmet.

  “How can you hear me with earbuds?” she asked, suddenly wondering if he’d even been listening to her.

  “The earbuds have microphones that pick up external sounds so we can hear the team and what’s going on in our surroundings at the same time.” He shifted the vest that fit him like a custom piece of clothing while hers hung like sagging laundry on the clothesline.

  She was shaking and wished they were far away from this horrible scene or that he’d take a moment to reassure her. Maybe with another touch of his hand.

  Instead, he picked up a submachine gun and pressed a hand to his chest. “Stand down. Package secure. Brynn, I need you here.”

  Tara had no idea what package secure meant, but the shooting stopped, and a woman soon came out of the brush. Dressed like Cal, she held a matching gun in one hand. In the other, she clasped a large black shield with a clear window in the top. Audio cords dangled from her ears and disappeared into her vest matching Cal’s.

  “This is Brynn,” he said.

  Standing two inches taller than Tara, Brynn had grayish-blue eyes that were direct and held a guarded expression. She’d set her mouth in a grim line. Tara figured the woman possessed skills very similar to Cal’s, but Tara had no idea the role she played on the team.

  Tara looked back at Cal.

  “Stay with Brynn,” he said. “She’ll move you to the command post until I’m free.”

  “Wait, what?” Tara cried out. “You’re leaving?”

  “Keeler.” He gestured over his shoulder.

  Brynn handed her shield to Cal, and the muscles in his arm bulged from exertion. Tara had no idea how Brynn could even hold something that strained his muscles.

  “I have to go.” Cal met Tara’s gaze over the shield. He offered her an apologetic look, and after the beat of a few seconds, he bolted.

  Really? Just like that, he’d gone. He’d promised to provide security for her and not leave her in anyone else’s hands, but they hadn’t even left town, and he’d walked away. Maybe worse, he could be walking into a hail of bullets.

  “Don’t look at him like that.” Brynn gestured for Tara to join her in the SUV. When they were settled, Brynn peered at Tara. “Cal knows you’re safe with me, and after a grueling hunt for Keeler, there’s no way Cal’s not going to be in the fight to bring the creep in.”

  “Trust me, I get it.” Tara swatted the big vest out of the way and buckled her seat belt. “He’s obsessed with catching him.”

  “Obsessed? Maybe…but not in the sense that you know obsessed.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “To me there is. Obsession for me denotes personal gain or satisfaction. Cal isn’t doing this for himself. He’s doing it to keep people alive.”

  “Is he?” Tara asked. “I don’t know him at all, but it seems to me he’s got something to prove and something’s driving him beyond apprehending a killer.”

  Brynn’s eyebrow lifted, but she didn’t respond as she wedged her gun between her knees and turned the key.

  Right. Close down like Cal.

  Try to get personal with either of them and they shut down. The whole team could be like that for all Tara knew.

  Brynn shifted into drive and drew her handgun. She rested it on her lap before looking at Tara again. “Our drive is short, but you may find your adrenaline subsiding and fatigue settling in. I need you to sta
y alert and keep your focus. Eyes open and directed out the window as we roll. If you see anything out of the ordinary, tell me. If I tell you to hit the floorboards, you do so. Got it?”

  “Yes,” Tara answered.

  Brynn gave a firm nod and set the vehicle rolling down the road. Tara kept her focus out the window as instructed and watched the wooded property pass by. A property that for nearly a month had been the closest place to a refuge that she’d found since taking off from the hospital. Now, Oren sat in some tree, firing at this team—at the guy who’d offered his life for hers—and she didn’t know very much about any of them.

  She glanced at Brynn. “I wondered if—”

  “No talking until we get to the command post.”

  Tara wished Brynn had asked nicely, but there wasn’t anything nice about this situation. It was big and nasty and ugly, like a two-headed gargoyle, and Tara wanted it to be over.

  She leaned forward and resumed her watch out the window. Before long they approached a large truck like the ones that delivered packages to her doorstep, but this one held the local sheriff’s office information and emblem on the side.

  Brynn bumped the SUV onto the gravel shoulder and shifted into park. “Wait here.”

  Her handgun outstretched and the submachine gun slung over her shoulder, she came around to open Tara’s door. “Stay by my side and climb into the back of the truck in front of me.”

  Tara followed directions, and Brynn escorted her across the road, standing guard while Tara took the three stairs to the truck. She quickly looked over the space where cabinets lined both walls and cutout sections housed small desks. A deputy with wild red hair sat behind the wheel.

  Brynn brushed past Tara and dropped into a seat behind a laptop. “I’ll have the team’s feed up in a few seconds.”

  Brynn tapped a few keys on the computer and a barrage of gunshots sounded from the speakers. Tara turned her focus to the screen where she saw large maple trees and Douglas firs mixed with quaking aspens, their white trunks vivid in the shadowed forest.

  “Take cover,” Cal called out as the video panned through the trees.

  “Cal’s wearing the camera?” Tara asked Brynn, who nodded. “Is he the leader?”

  Brynn shook her head. “He’s lead on this investigation, but Max White is our leader. He’s back in D.C. watching the same feed.”

  Tara didn’t bother explaining that she’d read about Agent White on the Internet and only wondered about the group coming under fire. “Can they hear us?”

  “I’ve muted our mic to prevent any distractions. I’ll let you know if that changes.”

  Tara listened to the exchange of bullets, heard Cal’s deep breathing and the deafening report of his gun. Oren could kill Cal. Just like that, with one well-placed shot, which Oren had the skills to land.

  Her mouth went dry as she kept her gaze glued to the action.

  The camera panned to the other team members as if Cal had turned. “We’ve got him pinned down. Now it’s just a matter of bringing him in.”

  “Just,” the man sitting next to Cal said, “all depends on his stockpile of ammo.”

  “And on us keeping our heads down until it’s depleted,” a woman’s voice joined in.

  “Don’t even think about going after him, Riggins.” A deeper authoritative voice came over the speaker. “I don’t need a dead hero. I need a living operator.”

  “Max?” Tara asked Brynn.

  She gave a clipped nod.

  Tara stepped back until she could no longer see the screen. If the team leader didn’t want Cal to go after Oren, she didn’t want to see if Cal disobeyed and tried to apprehend Oren like she thought he would do. Gunfire sounded from the speakers again.

  “Riggins!” Max yelled.

  Even across the space she heard Cal’s heavy breathing and the continued gunshots. So he’d gone after Oren. A crazy thing to do, but not surprising in the least.

  The monitor beckoned Tara, and yet she couldn’t make her feet move. She wanted to see the action but couldn’t bear to witness Cal being gunned down.

  The gunfire escalated in quick bursts like a packet of firecrackers ignited at the same time. It could be the team laying down cover as Cal had described them doing earlier, or Oren firing at Cal. Above it all, she heard a rustle sounding like static.

  “Stand down,” Cal called out, and the gunfire stopped.

  The scratching sound grew louder, but she had no idea the origin of the noise. She couldn’t stand back any longer. She approached the monitor where a tree trunk, branches, and leaves holding the distinct shape of a maple leaf slipped past. Cal was climbing a tree. Likely headed for the shooter. For Oren.

  Could the standoff be over? Yes! Her heart soared.

  His movement stopped, and Tara’s breath caught. A gun that looked like the one Cal carried flashed past the camera and the focus of the lens moved up to a man’s feet in scraggly once-white sneakers perched on a branch.

  “Freeze, Keeler,” Cal shouted.

  “What the…” a male responded, the words muffled and barely recognizable.

  “Hand down your rifle, butt first,” Cal commanded. “Nice and easy.”

  A rifle stock slowly lowered in front of the camera.

  “We’re secure,” Cal announced. “Keeler’s ours.”

  A loud cheer went up.

  Tara exhaled loudly, and she noted Brynn did the same thing.

  “So,” Cal said. “You’re going to back yourself down the tree. You can manage that, right?”

  “Yeah, I got myself up here.” The other man’s voice came through loud and clear now. “I can get down.”

  “No, oh, no.” Tara took a step back, her gaze going to Brynn. “The voice. It’s wrong. You’ve got the wrong guy. Tell Cal. This man. The one he captured. It’s not Oren. So totally not Oren.”

  Chapter 10

  Cal punched his fist into the side of County’s command truck that they'd moved to the crime scene. He’d probably startled Brynn and Tara inside, but he didn’t care. He’d failed to arrest Keeler again, and Tara had gotten banged up.

  Double fail. Triple fail if you counted his plan to have Tara safely in D.C. by now, not sitting in this truck in the Oregon boonies while he worked another bomb scene.

  He looked at Tara’s pickup, now a mangled twist of metal with debris littering the road. Tara had almost lost her life, and it was all his fault.

  How had he agreed to let her spend the night in the tower? Hadn’t he learned anything from losing countless women to Keeler’s bombs?

  He should have forced Tara to leave the tower last night, even if he had to carry her out. But he’d let her get to him, and he’d acquiesced to her desire to make her own decision. That wouldn’t happen again. Not even if she thought him controlling and demanding.

  He raised his fist again, but a redheaded deputy stepped from the command truck and fixed his focus on Cal.

  Great, just what Cal needed. A pimple-faced, wet-behind-the-ears deputy giving him the stink eye. At least Max wasn’t here with a ready lecture about Cal climbing the tree.

  Cal swallowed hard and turned to the suspect sitting near the truck’s front bumper. Team ballistics and hostage rescue expert Rick Cannon held his rifle on the cuffed man, his glare even more intense than Cal’s. Team negotiator Shane Erwin stood at attention at the front of the truck scanning the area for any additional threat.

  Kaci had confirmed the shooter was sixty-two-year-old Lonnie Hickson. His address listed him in northeast Portland, but Kaci learned he’d been evicted. He had ground-in dirt on his hands and under his nails, and he wore a pair of jeans that were so dirty they could stand on their own. Cal believed the guy was homeless. He sure wasn’t the kind of person who would own the thousand-dollar Browning hunter rifle he’d been using.

  Stepping to the man, Cal held out his phone displaying a picture of Keeler. “Is this the guy you’re working for?”

  “It’s not a guy,” Hickson said, as if he didn
’t have a care in the world.

  “Then who sent you?”

  “A pretty little lady.”

  “Explain.”

  Hickson peered into the distance, his gaze losing focus. “I was minding my own business outside the Rescue Mission yesterday when a lady paid me a thousand bucks to take a ride with her and fire a few potshots at the girl.”

  “Potshots as in you weren’t supposed to hit her?”

  “Right. Just scare her.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not a killer, man, and wouldn’t have taken her out for a thousand bucks. Or even more money.”

  Cal rarely trusted suspects because most of them lied, but something in Hickson’s tone rang true. Plus, they’d found the cash in his back pocket. Cal doubted he’d legitimately come upon that much money.

  “You got a cigarette?” Lonnie ran his hands over his salt-and-pepper beard that made him look more like Santa Claus than a killer.

  Cal ignored the request. “So you started firing from the gate, then moved to this tree?”

  “Gate? Nah, man. I’ve been here the whole time.”

  Right. Maybe Cal’s belief in Hickson was misplaced. “Then who was firing at the gate?”

  Hickson shrugged.

  “What about the truck?” Cal asked, as Tara had said that a gunshot had hit the truck before the explosion. “You fire that shot, too?”

  Hickson’s head swung side to side, his beard floating in the wind. “Surprised the heck out of me when another shooter got into the game and the truck blew.” He chuckled as if this was a game to him. “Had to hang on to a branch. Thought I was a goner for sure.”

  Had there been another shooter in addition to Hickson? Maybe Keeler or this mystery woman who appeared to be working for him?

  Cal took a step closer to Hickson. “Why would someone walk up to you on the street and hire you for something like this?”

  “Guess she thought I was down on my luck and needed the money.” He held out an arm with a wildly colored tattoo sleeve poking out of a stained T-shirt featuring the Grateful Dead. “Maybe she saw the tat of our flag on my wrist and thought I was a vet who knew his way around a gun.” His puffy lips split in a grin, wrinkling weatherworn cheeks. “Which I am and I do.”