Thunder and Ashes Page 25

  It wasn’t long before the rest of them had joined in, using whatever tool they could find. Anna dug with her bare hands, still wearing an expression of frustration and anguish on her face. She felt horrible over not having been able to do anything for Julie when she needed it most.

  It took two hours, but the group finally finished the grave. It wasn’t six feet deep, but it was close. Trev and Mason stood in the hole while Matt and Anna handed down Julie’s body. They laid her gently to rest, head supported on a small cushion of loose dirt. The pair climbed out of the hole and brushed themselves off, looking down at the body beneath them.

  “Does anyone want to say anything?” Trev asked after a moment.

  No one responded.

  “Someone should say something,” Trev pressed.

  Still, no takers. Matt and Junko looked at one another, then down at the ground. Anna’s face was still playing a range of regret and frustration, and Mason—burning in Mason’s eyes was hatred and resolve. None of them looked up for presenting a eulogy.

  Trev cleared his throat.

  “Well,” he said, once more sweeping his cap off his head to hold it over his heart, “If none of you want to say anything, I guess I will. There are two kinds of people in this world, at least in my experience: those that are generally good, and those that are generally bad. I didn’t know Julie Ortiz very well. In fact, I’d only just met her, but in that short time I realized that she was one of those people who was generally good. She didn’t deserve to die this way, just like all the good folks who have died since these bloody-eyed demons first appeared.”

  Junko glanced at Trev out of the corner of her eye, but none of the other survivors reacted to his slip, and she let it go as Trev continued.

  “We’re not just burying a woman. We’re burying a friend, an ally, a trustworthy companion—and that is something that is all too rare in today’s world. Julie, I didn’t know you well, but I can honestly say I will miss you. Godspeed.”

  With that, Trev pulled his hat back down over his head, nodded once to himself, and folded his arms behind his back. The others seemed to feel that Trev’s eulogy was appropriate, and knelt down next to the piles of dirt, scooping handfuls back into the grave. When they had filled in the hole, they piled rough limestone over the freshly dug earth to make certain no roaming animals would disturb Julie’s rest by digging her up, and piled more stones at the head of the grave to serve as a marker. There was no way for them to inscribe her name. Julie Ortiz would rest in an anonymous grave.

  When they had finished, Trev spoke up again.

  “Look, guys, I hate to be the pragmatic bastard, but it’s going to be dark soon. We should get back on the road, keep heading west.”

  Mason looked up from the cairn then and fixed Trev with a stare.

  “That’s a good idea,” Mason said, “but that’s not where we’re going. We’re going east—at least for a few miles.”

  “What?” Junko asked, incredulous. “Backtrack? But we got ambushed back there. You want to repeat—”

  “Don’t think for a second I don’t know what I’m doing,” Mason said, spinning on the young woman with a look on his face that dared anyone to disagree with him. The look in his eyes was murderous. “Those shooters will have radioed back our location, which means Sawyer will be mobilizing to come after us. That’ll probably take him several hours. We have enough time to go back to that Land Rover and still get away clean.”

  “Why?” Juni asked, pressing the issue.

  “Why?” Mason repeated. “You’ll see when we get there. Come on. Get in the truck. Everyone, get in the goddamn truck. Trev, are you with me? Will you take me back there?”

  Trev, with eyebrows raised, was intrigued by Mason’s determination. Though he didn’t feel particularly threatened by the ex-NSA agent, he did feel compelled to comply.

  “I’ll drive you back, top speed,” Trev said, nodding.

  “Good. Let’s get to it, then,” Mason growled through clenched teeth. “I have some unfinished business to take care of there.”

  The survivors loaded back up. Matt sat in the bed as far as he could from the bloodstains Julie had left behind. Anna sat right next to them, staring at the blood and hanging her head. Junko and Trev climbed into the cab together, and Trev started the engine. It sputtered for a moment, churned, and caught, and he quickly put the vehicle in gear and swung it around on the road, heading back the way they’d come a few hours previous. Junko stared out the passenger side window at the cairn of stones that marked Julie’s grave until it disappeared behind a bend.

  In the bed of the truck, Mason was working singlemindedly on his equipment. He was reloading his pistol’s magazine round by round, each bullet making a loud click as it settled into place. His eyes were unfocused, staring through the truckbed, reloading by reflex. Anna studied his face as the truck pulled back onto the interstate. She’d seen that expression twice before: once when Mason had to hold off an attack by NSA agents at the safe-house in Washington, and once more when he’d fought Sawyer in the catacombs beneath the city.

  Mason was running on autopilot, and so far, every time she’d seen him in that mode, people had died.

  It didn’t take long for the truck to reach the spot where the Land Rover had crashed. Even though it was twilight, Mason told Trev to leave the headlights off so any survivors of the wreck wouldn’t be alerted to their presence. When they were half a mile away and the tipped-over Land Rover was visible in the distance, Mason had Trev pull over and stop.

  Mason jumped out of the bed, carrying with him only his equipment belt and pistol. Anna watched him as he walked toward the crash site. Trev opened the driver’s side door to accompany him, but Mason spun around upon hearing the sound and pointed—simply pointed—at the truck. Trev nodded slowly and sank back into his seat, content to allow Mason to run this one solo.

  Anna, on the other hand, wasn’t as willing. She jumped out of the truckbed and ran to catch up to Mason.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as she came up alongside him.

  Mason didn’t answer for a moment. He simply frowned, swatted at a mosquito that was buzzing near his face, and continued his steady walk.

  “What are you going to do?” Anna asked again, this time with more force.

  “I’m going to do what I’m supposed to do in this kind of a situation,” Mason said. “I’m going to interrogate my enemy.”

  “Not like this, you’re not,” Anna said, shaking her head. “You’re in a bad place. You’re going to overreact, you might—”

  Mason moved like lightning.

  He pulled his combat knife free from its sheath, grabbed Anna by the throat, and held the point of the blade less than an inch from her eye. She froze, stiffening up, and felt fear uncoil itself in her gut like an unwelcome alien presence.

  “I am going to interrogate my enemy,” Mason repeated. He said it slowly, word by word, still holding the knife to Anna’s eye. “And you are not going to interfere.”

  Anna watched the point of the knife dance in front of her eyes for a moment, swallowed, and nodded slightly. “All right, Mason. Have it your way.”

  Mason let go of the doctor without another word, sheathed his knife, and continued his walk. Instead of retreating to the truck, Anna found herself following behind him. When Mason glanced over his shoulder at her, she was quick to explain herself.

  “I won’t get in the way,” she said. “But I do want to be there. You need backup. Just in case.”

  Mason turned away from the doctor and lengthened his strides, boots crunching on the gravel shoulder. Though Anna couldn’t see it, he quirked a smile.

  “All right, Doc,” he said. He heaved a sigh as he walked. After a moment, he spoke to Anna over his shoulder. “Look, I’m sorry about the knife thing. It’s just that I—”

  “I know,” Anna interrupted. “It’s been a bad day, and for you, it’s probably reflex at this point. It’s all right. No harm done.”

 
Mason nodded, hanging his head a bit.

  The pair made it to the crashed Land Rover. It still lay on its side, and the engine was still sputtering smoke. The driver’s body was still strapped into its seat. Anna knelt in the grass and looked through the shattered windshield at the body.

  “Looks like your shots killed this one,” she said, staring at the bullet wounds in the man’s chest.

  “Yeah,” Mason said, standing behind Anna with his pistol drawn. “But where’s the gunner?”

  The former NSA agent walked a slow circle of the vehicle, his head cocked slightly to the side, and studied the ground in the dwindling light. He found what he was looking for on his second revolution: a bit of blood staining a blade of grass a rust brown. He picked up another bloodspot a few feet away, and began to follow the trail, moving at a slow, measured pace, eyes fixated on the grass for clues.

  The blood spatters were far enough apart from one another to convince Mason that the shooter—the man who had killed Julie—was in good enough shape to have walked away from the crash, but the blood also told Mason that the man was injured. He wouldn’t have gone far.

  The blood led up to the interstate, and Mason walked halfway across the pavement, following the trail, before he froze in place. He stared off at the thicket of trees and bushes that grew up on the far side of the interstate. Anna, who was watching from the side of the Land Rover, sucked in her breath.

  Whenever Mason froze in place, Anna heard an old rhyme play in her head:‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.’ The ex-NSA agent was uncanny about spotting threats—not that it was any surprise when one considered his background.

  Mason had spotted the shooter. The man lay against a tree on the far side of the interstate, a radio laying in the grass next to his left hand and an MP-5 laying next to his right. For the briefest of moments, Mason thought the man was already dead, but then he saw the man’s head shift, lolling in place.

  “Perfect,” Mason whispered to himself. The shooter was dozing, waiting for a pickup. That meant that Mason had the jump on him—but it also meant he needed to hurry, if reinforcements were truly on the way. He picked up his pace, keeping his pistol aimed at the dozing man. His footfalls were careful heel-to-toe steps, making next to no noise. Anna followed as far as the edge of the interstate, close enough to see what was happening while still being far enough away to allow Mason to do his work uninterrupted.

  Mason made it to within ten feet of the shooter before the man woke. Whether Mason had made some noise to alert him or if the man had just happened to wake up then was unclear, but Mason’s reaction was immediate.

  As the shooter reached for his weapon, Mason closed the distance in three long, swift strides, and kicked the weapon away from the man’s hand. The shooter’s other arm reached up toward his pistol belt, and Mason brought the same leg he’d used to kick away the weapon straight down on the shooter’s forearm. Even from her vantage point several meters away, Anna could hear the snap of the man’s wrist.

  The shooter screamed out loud in pain, clutching at his left hand, now hanging limply from his wrist. Mason wasn’t yet satisfied, and knelt, pinning the man’s legs with his own and shoving the barrel of his pistol into the man’s right eye, pressing in hard. The threat of violence went unspoken. If the shooter tried anything, all Mason would have to do was squeeze the trigger. The man stiffened up, froze in place, and for a moment, only the sound of the shooter’s labored breathing and the distant calls of birds roosting for the night could be heard.

  Then Mason went to work on the man, patting him down and reaching into pouches and pockets, tossing the contents over his shoulder, away from the man. He never took his eyes off of the shooter’s face. Anna watched as the shooter’s gear went flying over Mason’s shoulder. A knife, a backup pistol, magazines, a compass, a map, a PDA not unlike her own—all of these things wound up in the grass a good distance from Mason and the shooter.

  Only then did Mason speak to the shooter.

  “My name is Gregory Mason,” he growled, leaning in close to the shooter’s face and tilting his head to one side. “Do you know me?”

  The man didn’t answer, and instead gritted his teeth and tried to ignore Mason and the pistol barrel being rammed into his eye socket.

  “I asked you a question,” Mason said. Now his voice was deadly calm. “Are you going to answer me? Do you know my name?”

  The man still refused to say a word, looking off to the side.

  Mason’s free hand snaked out and grabbed the shooter’s broken wrist. He squeezed hard, and the shooter screamed aloud in pain again.

  “I don’t like repeating myself,” Mason said. “Do you know my name?”

  “Yes, yes,” the shooter said, gasping for breath. Sweat had beaded up on his forehead and ran down the sides of his face. “Gregory Mason. U.S. Marines. National Security Agency. Wanted for murder and treason. We were assigned to pick you up.”

  “And the woman standing behind me?” Mason pressed. “Do you know her?”

  The man looked up at Anna, swallowed hard, and looked as if he was trying to decide whether or not to answer. He chose the latter, clamping his lips shut and looking away from Mason and Anna once more.

  “Look,” Mason whispered, leaning in close to the shooter’s face. “You can answer all my questions and just ruin my evening—or you can play the hero and make my goddamn day, because by the time I’m through with you, your compadres won’t even recognize you when they come to pick you up. And if they do, they’ll need several little boxes to put all the pieces in—I shit you not. And you remember that little firefight we had earlier? You killed one of my friends in that fight. I’m out looking for blood and you’re the only one around that I can bleed some. So one final time: do you recognize the woman standing behind me?”

  This time the man turned his head to face Mason directly, and spoke in monotone, meeting Mason’s gaze with a stony-eyed stare. “Waters, Desmond, agent with the FBI, 945–23–9199. And that’s all you’re going to get out of me, asshole.”

  Mason grinned. The grand old standard reply to interrogation: name, rank and organization, and Social Security number. It was as good as a “fuck you” to the person asking the questions.

  “All right,” he said, drawing the word out. “What did they teach you about interrogation in the FBI, Desmond?”

  “Enough,” spat Waters, nursing his broken wrist.

  Mason, still grinning, slowly pulled free his combat knife and held it up in front of Waters’ eyes so he could see it.

  “I’m pretty sure they didn’t show you these tricks at Quantico. Now, pay attention, Desmond, because this is going to hurt—a lot.”

  Mason leaned in over the shooter.

  Anna had to look away as the FBI agent’s anguished screams echoed across the interstate.

  1947 hrs_

  Anna had long ago left Mason and the shooter alone, and had wandered back across the interstate to sit in the grass and watch the last crescent of sun disappear over the horizon. Every now and then, a wail of pain drifted to her ears, and she did her best to ignore what was going on across the road from her.

  Finally, the screams stopped, and a few moments later Mason appeared on the other side of the interstate, wiping his hands clean with a handkerchief. He tossed the bloodied cloth away and called out for Anna.

  She pulled herself to her feet and walked over to stand with him. The shooter still lay against the tree, but he wasn’t moving. His head hung limply against his chest and his shirt had been cut to pieces. Even from a distance Anna could make out the thin lines of cuts made by Mason’s razor-sharp combat knife. He’d flayed the man alive, and done God knows what else to him while Anna had been out of their line of sight.

  “I hope you’re not going to give me a lecture,” Mason grumbled.

  “No,” Anna said, furrowing her brow. “No lecture. I understand why you needed to do that.”

  “Thanks,” Mason said. “I want
you to know—it’s not exactly what I call fun. But sometimes—sometimes that’s the only way to get them to tell you what you need to know.”

  “What did he say?” Anna asked, staring at the shooter.

  “Not too much, but enough to give us an edge,” Mason replied. He seemed drained, spent. The rage in his eyes had faded, and he once again seemed to be his rational self. “He admitted he knew you, and that you were his primary target. You were supposed to be taken alive, just like we thought. Then I went into him about Sawyer, the state of things—got some interesting tidbits there.”

  Anna didn’t respond at first. She was still staring at the motionless FBI agent slumped against the tree. “You killed him?”

  “Oh,” Mason said, raising his eyebrows. “Actually, no.”

  The ex-NSA agent turned and walked briskly back toward the shooter. When he’d gone about halfway, he stopped, drew his pistol, and put three rounds into the man’s chest. Agent Desmond Waters jerked as the bullets struck home, then seemed to sigh as the life drained out of him. The corpse slumped down further against the tree trunk and slid off sideways into the grass.

  Mason re-holstered his pistol and returned to Anna.

  “Thanks for reminding me,” he said, as nonchalantly as if he’d just forgotten to put a quarter into a parking meter. “He was dying, anyway. We should be getting along, now. I picked up all of his useful stuff. Did you check the Land Rover while I was busy with him?”

  Anna admitted she hadn’t.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Mason said. “Probably not enough time to give it a search now. Let’s get back to the truck.”

  As the pair walked, Anna cast a glance over her shoulder at the corpse of the shooter. “You said he was talking about the state of the world—what did he say?”

  “We’ll save that for when we get back to the others,” Mason said, grimacing. “But I can tell you now that we were right about them wanting you. They’re after you with a vengeance, Doc. There’s a lot of RumInt floating around about you, apparently—”

  “RumInt?” Anna interrupted.