The Fugitive's Secret Child. Geri Krotow

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СКАЧАТЬ in the country and work for them. He’d grown to like Silver Valley over the past several months, and it would be nice to stay, but he didn’t think permanently living that close to Trina would be healthy, even with closure.

      A gnat flew into his eye, and he swatted it away.

      He wondered why Ivanov was staying inside so much today. Usually he liked to go for a walk, at least twice a day if not more often. That sense of dread Rob identified as his instinct waved a warning flag. Did Ivanov and Vasin know Rob was out here?

      Ivanov had puffed on his cigarette with Vasin and four other men around him, as if he knew he was hunted, that his enemy was close. Of course by now the criminal had to be downright paranoid, considering his constant need to be on the run. Add in his love of women, vodka and tobacco and he probably had at least the beginnings of cirrhosis and lung cancer. Ivanov’s mind and sense of trust in humanity were pretty much shot, Rob figured.

      That Rob understood.

      A glint of metal in the sun was his only warning before the building’s door opened. He took the safety off, positioned his fingers to shoot without hesitation.

      He waited. And waited.

      Nothing. The door was open, but nobody came out. With experience wrought only from years of tortuous situations, Robert ignored his annoyance, his impatience. He could outwait the best of them. As he watched, a tiny figure appeared at the edge of the doorway. An animal? Peering through the scope he discovered he was looking at a puppy.

      A dog? He’d seen a lot of strange things in his years as a SEAL, CIA operative and now Trail Hikers secret agent, but he’d never seen a dog, much less a puppy, around Vasin. Unless it was a guard dog with killer instincts. He hadn’t seen any sign of guard dogs or any strays around this compound of sorts. He swiped at the sweat on his nape, the bandanna around his head unable to keep it as dry as his temples as sweat streamed off him, making rivulets through his sunscreen. He sensed a slight breeze around his neck and shoulders and went still.

      “We meet again, Robert Bristol.” Hearing his name spoken by the all-too-familiar bass voice chilled him to the bone and made him grateful he’d heeded the CIA’s suggestion and changed his name after he’d been presumed dead as a Navy SEAL. The cold metal of a gun barrel pressed painfully into his temple. “Get up slowly, and leave your rifle. You won’t be needing it.”

      Rob did as instructed. He knew the voice, the heavy accent. His captor was no one to brook argument.

      Once Rob was standing, his nemesis shoved the gun more deeply into the side of his head, the pressure making white floaters appear in Rob’s vision.

      “You try my patience, Bristol. Put your hands up and turn around.”

      Robert turned, his arms at shoulder level, dreading whom he’d see.

      “Vasin. Fancy seeing you in the Poconos, of all places. I thought Jersey City was your jurisdiction.”

      “Go to hell, Bristol. Your time is over.” Vasin’s voice pulsated with acrimony as he stared at Rob, surrounded by four henchmen who also carried the best handguns money could buy. Vasin had stayed as lean and lethal as when Rob had tracked him in a CIA operation three years ago, and ended up in actual hand-to-hand with him. It had been a fight that started with knives and ended with several broken bones, on Vasin’s part. Rob had suffered three butterfly stitches over his left eye that one of his fellow agents had tended to on their helo ride out of New Jersey.

      “How’re your ribs, Vasin? I see you can at least breathe again.”

      Rob saw the polished tip of Vasin’s Italian loafer close in a nanosecond before an explosion of pain shattered his vision. His body collapsed with zero fight. A kick to the balls did that to a guy.

       Dirt. The ground is hard. The grass is like straw.

      Thoughts to take his mind off the pain, keep him detached from the anguish to come. Vasin knew a sadist’s way around the human body—what hurt the most, what would elicit a confession the quickest. Rob and cruelty were on a first-name basis. He knew every torture method intimately. So did his bones.

      “Drag him by his feet to the ATVs.” Vasin’s thugs grabbed his legs and started the laborious trek over hardened field grass and mud. Rob sucked in his gut as hard as he could despite the quaking tremors from his groin. It was enough to hold his neck up, away from the ground. Enough to protect it from the excruciating jolts, enough to be able to observe that Vasin and his dirtbags were facing front, not looking at him as they trudged to the waiting off-road vehicles. In an instant he grabbed the knife he’d tucked in his front pocket and threw it with little preparation. His target arched his back and dropped. The man let out a loud whoosh as he hit the ground. Satisfaction cleared some of Rob’s pain-addled vision.

       One punctured lung.

      The second knife was in his left hand, raised to throw it, when one of the remaining men turned and crushed Rob’s arm with one fierce stomp of his foot. Rob saw Vasin’s shoe again through a shroud of unbearable pain before his throat was pressed closed and darkness prevailed.

      * * *

      US Marshal Trina Lopez looked at the map, her phone GPS and the email from her boss. She was four hours into what was supposed to be a two-and-a-half-hour drive, and all of her coordinates indicated she was in the right spot. But instead of a resort complex as described in her target’s case file, she was looking at a warehouse of sorts. A single, nondescript warehouse that in any other part of the country, on the outskirts of a city, would look normal. If it were lined up with other warehouses. If it had trucks coming and going. If it had access to an interstate highway.

      Instead, this building had none of the above. It was in a place she’d expect to see a log cabin, maybe, or some kind of ski lodge. At the base of the mountains in a beautiful, scenic Pennsylvania valley, the desolate building was incongruous with its surroundings. Under the cover of the thick summer foliage, it was no wonder it had looked like just another camping gear storage building. An afterthought of sorts.

      She’d had to maneuver along a narrow dirt road in her company car to get here. The Ford Fiesta wasn’t made for the sudden dips and dried-out potholes from last winter. Why had she chosen today to take the agency’s small car and not the company SUV?

      Because another mission had priority. It wasn’t her job to question her superiors. Yuri Vasin was wanted for a number of crimes, with drug and human trafficking at the top of the long list. Drug runners abounded, and with the current opioid epidemic the US Marshals had a lot of pressure to bring in any drug-related fugitives. Still, the right equipment for the job helped, and someone hadn’t done their homework right. This site was far more rural than the case file had described. She was supposed to be taking him in from a resort hotel room, not from a camping site. Her partner was coming in from the other side of the mountain and waiting to hear from her to bring in backup.

      Rechecking her GPS, she confirmed she was in the right spot before she turned her car back around and drove out a mile to hide her vehicle under a pile of woodland debris.

      Car in place, walking to building, she texted her partner. His reply was immediate, and predictable.

      If it’s ugly, don’t go.

      Mike always played the big brother. Or maybe wannabe lover, she wasn’t sure. And didn’t care. She had no interest, no attraction to him.

      Roger.

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