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Alina turned onto a dark, unmarked road that disappeared into the woods and switched on her high beams. Surprisingly, the road widened a few feet into the trees and she glanced at the silently flashing dot on her Nav system.
“Does John know that you have a tracking device on his car?” Stephanie asked, looking out the window at the tall, imposingly dark pine trees. Alina glanced at her with a faint smile and Stephanie shook her head with a reluctant grin. “Fair enough. I suppose I can assume that you have one on mine, too?”
Silence greeted that and Stephanie sighed. She had her answer.
“I'll pull into the trees and we can walk the rest of the way,” Alina said a moment later, taking her foot off the gas.
“What do you think he's doing?”
“I have no idea, but there's no need for him to even know we're here if he's just looking around,” she answered, guiding the Shelby off the road and into the trees.
“You think I'm over-reacting, don't you?” Stephanie asked, wincing as the Mustang rolled into a deep crater between two trees.
“I think you're being yourself,” Alina replied obscurely, pressing the gas and wishing she'd brought the Jeep instead of the sports car.
The powerful engine roared and the sports car surged out of the hole and back onto somewhat level ground. Once they were out of the unexpected crater, Alina cut the engine and the lights and they were plunged into the kind of absolute darkness only possible deep in the Pine Barrens.
“God, it's been years since I was out here,” Stephanie murmured, opening her door and climbing out. “Remember when we used to come out here searching for the Jersey Devil?”
“Unfortunately.”
Alina got out of the car and pulled a thin Maglite out of her jacket pocket. She switched it on and aimed it onto the pine-needle carpet beneath her feet.
“We did some dumb stuff, didn't we?” Stephanie asked, joining her in front of the car.
“We were young,” Alina answered, shining the light around briefly before starting in the direction the tracker indicated. “Young people do dumb stuff.”
Viper moved silently through the underbrush, weaving through the ancient pine trees with a steady confidence born of training. The night didn't bother her. In fact, she welcomed the darkness. This was where she was comfortable. This was where she excelled.
“What's that sound?” Stephanie whispered a few moments later, pausing behind her to listen.
Viper stopped behind a tree and glanced back at Stephanie. She heard the muffled sound filtering through the trees a few seconds before and everything suddenly made sense.
“Cars,” she answered shortly.
Stephanie stared at her while she strained to hear.
“Are you sure?” she whispered. “It sounds like...rumbling.”
“It's the engines,” Viper told her, beginning to move again.
“John's watching a street race?” Stephanie asked, following again.
Viper resisted the urge to roll her eyes and instead moved silently through the trees. Sometimes, her friend took a while to grasp the obvious. In her defense, however, Stephanie's very survival didn't necessarily rely on her ability to process information and react within seconds. Viper's did.
The rumbling grew louder and took on the distinctive sound of idling engines as they grew closer to the gathering deep in the Pine Barrens. Light began to pierce through the darkness, reflecting off the tree trunks and beckoning them forward. Viper moved through the trees, her eyes searching the darkness for threats and her ears tuned to the forest around her. The further they went, the more distinct the sounds filtering through the trees became, taking on the form of revving engines and the occasional backfire from an exhaust enhancement. Then, suddenly, there was the road.
Slicing through the trees in a straight line, the black hardtop gleamed in the night, reflecting the glow of headlights from a quarter mile away. Viper slipped behind a tree into the shadows and motioned for Stephanie to do the same. Peering around the tree, she watched as two figures moved across the road a few yards away. They were marking the finish line with fluorescent spray paint, their heads down as they walked a straight line across the road. A little further down, standing in the trees, a lone figure stood watching. Viper watched him speculatively as the two finished marking off the line. When they were done, they flashed a light at the lone figure, who turned and flashed another light to the starting line.
“They're racing out here?” Stephanie demanded in a hushed voice. “Are they insane?”
“It's the perfect spot,” Alina answered absently, listening as the two cars at the starting line revved their engines. “Out in the middle of nowhere, no one to see or hear, and no cops.”
“But it's dangerous!”
Alina glanced at her in amusement.
“Really, Steph, sometimes I wonder how you carry a gun,” she murmured.
“Responsibly,” came the tart answer, drawing a short laugh from Viper.
They fell silent as the two cars a quarter mile away suddenly erupted off the line, engines roaring, and shot down the road towards them. Round bursts of light rapidly took on the form of headlights attached to metal bodies, heralding the approach of powerful engines. Alina watched as the metal forms became clear outlines of a GTO and a Chevelle, running neck and neck down the quarter mile. About halfway, the GTO surged forward and the racer in Alina knew the driver had hit the nitrous. She shook her head. The Chevelle was done. Her opinion was confirmed when the GTO crossed the fluorescent line half a car-length ahead of the Chevelle.
The cars roared past where Alina and Stephanie were concealed in the trees, their brake lights glowing red in the night. Cheering erupted from the other side of the road at the finish line and money exchanged hands between the spectators. Alina smiled faintly. Nothing had changed much in the years she'd been gone. The racing scene was still the same.
“I don't see the fascination,” Stephanie whispered from behind her tree.
“It's an adrenaline rush,” Alina answered absently, watching as the two cars disappeared into the darkness, their tail lights fading from view. “Kind of like jumping out of planes.”
“Doesn't seem like much of a rush to me,” Stephanie muttered. “Just when they get going, they stop.”
Alina watched as two more sets of headlights appeared in the distance at the starting line, the engines revving in the night. Someone flashed the flashlight from the midway mark, and an answering light flashed near the starting line.
The two cars shot off the line, flying down the stretch of road towards them. Alina watched as the headlights went from pinpricks to round shapes. Her eyes narrowed just slightly as the dark cars roared down the road. She recognized the headlights on the left, knew their shape and remembered the hue of the light. Even before the sounds of the engines could distinguish themselves, she knew without a doubt that it was a 1979 Firebird on the left.
Alina watched as the cars hurtled closer, the final stretch of road before the finish line ahead. The engines were loud now, both screaming near the red line as the drivers tried to squeeze the absolute maximum amount of horsepower to help them across the finish line.
“Isn't that...”
Stephanie began to whisper but Alina waved her hand sharply to silence her, watching the evenly matched cars keep pace with each other. It was going to be close. Neither driver had hit the NOS yet, and they were neck and neck.
Then, suddenly, they weren't. Inexplicably, John fell back as if he had taken his foot off the gas. Alina frowned sharply, her eyes drawn to movement in the beams of the headlights. There, caught on the edge of the road, was a young deer. It froze in the white light, turning its head toward it, poised for flight.
It happened so fast Alina didn't have time to take a breath before the deer darted the wrong way in confusion, straight into the road in front of John's car.
The sound of tires screeching on the pavement was hideous as both John and the other driver slammed on their brakes. Headlights became a blur of white light as the deer frantically darted halfway into the road, only to turn and try to run back the other way in terrified confusion.
Without a thought, Viper moved out from behind the tree and blended with the darkness around her. Making a movement with her lips, she let out a noise that made the panic-stricken deer look through the trees directly at her. Without missing a beat, it bounded out of the lights and into the darkness and safety of the trees, heading straight for Viper. Moving swiftly, she backed further into the shadows, drawing the terrified animal away from the light and noise behind it. As the deer galloped to safety, Viper raised her eyes and watched as chaos erupted in the road.
Both drivers were fighting to maintain control of their cars, and John seemed to have his under control when it suddenly wrenched to the right. The deafening sound of a tire blowing out ripped through the air and echoed around them. John lost control and, as the deer shot past Viper and disappeared into the night, the Firebird spun around and off the road, hitting a slight ravine. The good, front left tire went into the ditch and the combination of speed and gravity pulled the right tires away from the ground.
Alina watched as the Firebird flipped over in sickeningly slow motion and slid sideways into a tree, upside down. Smoke from the tires poured out around the vehicle as glass shattered and the awful sound of metal crushing inward echoed through the trees.
Alina started forward, but Stephanie was already crossing in front of her, running to the upside down, crushed Firebird. The wheels were still spinning when she got there and Viper stopped, watching as Stephanie tried to open the driver side door.
“John! Oh my God, John!!!!”
Stephanie's panicked cry sliced through the fog of shock enveloping Alina and she blinked once, staring at the mangled mess that was the Firebird. The doors were crushed in and the glass had shattered when the car rolled and slammed into the tree. The passenger side of the car was lodged against the tree, and Stephanie was trying in vain to get the driver side open to get to him. If he was still alive, John was trapped inside a steel trap.
“Somebody help me!” Stephanie yelled, giving up on trying to get the door open. She kicked away what was left of the glass in the frame and dropped to the ground. Pulling a flashlight from her jacket pocket, she shone it into the car. “Oh my God.”
From somewhere deep inside her, Viper's training took over. She faded deeper into the shadows, her eyes turning from the wreck in front of her to the commotion in the road. The probability of John walking away from that was slim. Her professional mind knew that, and she mechanically turned her attention to her surroundings in a futile attempt to suspend the inevitable. The other driver had come to a stop and was jumping out of his car, running toward the accident. Several other figures appeared from the trees on the other side of the road, running to help Stephanie. Viper noted all of them, then turned her head when something else caught her attention. A broad-shouldered figure moved out of the shadows across the road, standing off to the side and watching the drama unfold.
“We gotta get him out of there before something sparks!” someone yelled, joining Stephanie. “This is what happened to Dutch!”
Viper studied the silent figure across the road. He was encased in shadows as deep as her own, but he was definitely watching the drama from a safe distance, making no attempt to aid in the recovery. Her eyes narrowed as a crowd started to grow on the road beside the overturned Firebird; yet, the silent figure remained in the shadows.
“Is he breathing?”
“I can't reach him!”
“My God, that's a lot of blood!”
Viper glanced at the car. Several flashlights were illuminating the wreck now and she caught sight of blood splatter on the inside of the windshield. John's chances slipped lower. Remaining concealed in the shadows, she absorbed that knowledge even as her brain unemotionally processed the noise from the panicked rescue, filtering out the inane exclamations and focusing on the voices that seemed to be making sense in the chaos.
“We have to get the door open. Someone get me a crow bar!”
“We don't have time!” Stephanie's voice made it through all the voices to Alina, breaching the emotionless shield of Viper. “Break the windshield. We can reach him that way.”
“She's right,” someone else agreed.
Seconds later, three men started kicking the windshield. Already weakened by web-like cracks from the crash, after a moment, the glass crunched and imploded.
“Ouch!” One of the men yelped and grabbed his leg, jumping backwards as blood seeped through his jeans. “Dammit!”
“It's OK. We got it!”
Viper watched as Stephanie and another good Samaritan cleared away the glass from the frame. A moment later, the driver of the other car crawled halfway into the Firebird. Alina ached to rush over and help, but Viper kept her in the shadows. She couldn't be seen here. Something wasn't right. All her instincts were pushing her deeper into the welcoming shadows, concealing her from invisible eyes.
“Can you get him out?” Stephanie demanded, pulling her cell phone out of her jacket pocket.
The answer was muffled and incoherent, but a moment later, the driver started backing out, hauling John out slowly. Two others stood, poised to help as soon as there was enough room. Stephanie hit speed dial on her phone and raised it to her ear.
“Is he breathing?” she demanded.
There was no answer.
Viper raised her eyes slowly and turned her head to look at the silent stranger. He was still watching from the shadows. As Stephanie's question floated on the breeze, Viper watched him straighten up and tuck his hands into his jacket pockets. Turning, the stranger disappeared into the trees. After one final glance at the men working to extract John's body from his Firebird, Viper turned and melted into the shadows.
Moving quickly, she ran parallel with the road, heading back to where she left the Shelby. She just reached it when an engine roared to life on the other side of the road. Her eyes narrowed and Viper moved silently forward until she crouched in the darkness behind a tree.
A Camaro emerged from the trees and pulled into the road, turning away from the crash site. Viper pressed her lips together grimly and watched as orange flames rolled past her, heading toward the main road.
Harry sipped his scotch and leaned his head back on the recliner, closing his eyes. The Nationals game was on TV, the sound droning quietly into soothing background noise as he took a deep breath. The sun was fading outside and traffic was slowing as the day drew to a close. As the city outside prepared to settle in for the night, Harry's mind kept turning over everything he uncovered over the past twenty-four hours.
When Charlie called, Harry knew it would never lead to anything good. It was the nature of the beast that he and Charlie had created with the Organization. However, lately, it seemed to be getting worse instead of better. All the agencies were faced with the impossible task of trying to perform their jobs with their hands tied behind their backs, and the Department of Homeland Security was no exception.
Harry lifted the scotch to lips again, opening his eyes and staring at the ceiling tiredly. When Charlie asked him to move over to DHS to help locate a corrupt and traitorous agent, Harry went willingly. He knew that he would hate DHS, and he did, but he went knowing Charlie needed someone he could trust working stateside while the Organization focused on the very real and very dangerous monsters threatening the US from around the world. Last summer, when Viper led them to the head of the traitorous ring, Harry began to hope his time in DHS had proved fruitful at last.
The past twenty-four hours had shown him how much more still had to be done.
Charlie was concerned with the lack of security within the agencies, and how that was exposing his agents overseas. When he came to Harry the other day, Charlie had proof Viper had been targeted with information that no one outside the Organization should have access to. He believed the threat was still inside Washington. Harry was inclined to agree.
The sound of the doorbell brought Harry's head up and he glanced at his watch in surprise. It was coming on for ten o'clock and he was not expecting anyone. He swung his legs down and set his scotch on the end table next to his chair. Standing, he grabbed his cane and leaned on it heavily for a moment before moving across the living room to the box on the wall connected to the access box at street level.
“Yes?” Harry barked into the box.
“It's me.”
Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise and pressed the button to unlock the front door at the bottom of the stairwell. He stood at the top of the stairs and watched as a shadow fell across the bottom steps.
“I've heard when you come visiting after dark, it never ends well for the visitee,” Harry called down the stairs.
A soft chuckle escaped from the alcove and Charlie appeared on the stairs.
“Rest easy, old friend,” Charlie retorted, mounting the steps to the living room. “It's still early.”
Harry grinned and held out his hand as Charlie reached the top of the stairs.
“That's comforting,” he murmured.
Charlie flashed one of his rare smiles and grasped his hand in greeting before glancing around the sparsely furnished living room.
“Still haven't decorated, I see,” he said.
“Still hoping I won't be here long enough to warrant decorating,” Harry retorted, turning to head into the living room and back to his chair. “Care for a drink?”
“Thanks, but no.” Charlie advanced into the living room. “I have other stops when I leave.”
“Then what brings you to me?” Harry asked, sinking back into his recliner.
“I think we potentially have a problem on our hands,” Charlie told him, crossing to the fireplace near Harry's chair and resting his arm on the mantle.
“I'm really starting to dislike it when you say things like that,” Harry muttered. “Your idea of a ‘potential problem’ generally keeps me awake for weeks. I'm still working on the last ‘problem’ you dropped on me.”
“How's progress on that?”
“Not good,” Harry answered bluntly. “I'm starting to think you're right, but I need more data. I'll let you know when I have something that makes sense.”
“I appreciate that, Harry,” Charlie told him, a rare note of sincerity lacing his tone.
Harry glanced up at him in surprise before his eyes narrowed slightly and he reached for his scotch.
“Tell me about the newest problem,” he said. “I might as well face it head on.”
“We might have an issue with Viper,” Charlie said, looking down at him.
Harry raised an eyebrow questioningly.
“In what way?”
“I understand there was an accident tonight,” Charlie said slowly, picking his words carefully. “A car accident.”
“Not her?” Harry asked in alarm, pausing in the act of raising his scotch to his lips.
“No, not her.” Charlie cleared his throat. “John Smithe. Viper installed tracking devices on both his and Agent Walkers vehicles, at my request. Until we know just what we're up against and how far it's spread, I'm not willing to leave anything to chance, and that includes the FBI. An hour ago, Agent Smithe's device registered an extreme heat signature. It triggered an alarm and we pulled satellite images.”
Harry stared at him for a minute, then pressed his lips together briefly for a moment.
“How bad?”
“Bad enough.”
Harry sipped his scotch thoughtfully.
“I understand your concern,” he said after a moment, “but I'm not sure I share it. Viper laid John to rest years ago. Any involvement she has with him now is simply incidental from his association with Ms. Walker. I don't know that we have to be concerned with a distraction factor.”
“I would agree wholeheartedly,” Charlie replied, “if there wasn't more.”
Harry glanced up in resignation, waiting.
“It wasn't an accident.”
Harry exhaled and finished his scotch in one swallow.
“Of course it wasn't,” he muttered. “Was he the target?”
“Oh yes.”
“Does she know?”
“She will soon enough.”
Harry got up and moved over to a sidebar to pour himself another scotch.
“Now, that's a problem. Ms. Walker?” Harry asked over his shoulder.
“Not involved yet, but she will be,” Charlie answered.
“Yes,” Harry agreed, pouring a hefty portion of the amber liquid into his rocks glass. “That woman’s a bull terrier. Actually, she's one hell of an investigator. I wouldn't mind having her on one of my teams.”
“A very laudable thing, except when it pertains to my assets,” Charlie retorted brusquely. “The last thing I need is Viper's mission being compromised because Ms. Walker uncovers something above her clearance level.”
“Is that a possibility?” Harry turned to look at Charlie.
“With her?” Charlie shrugged. “As you say, she's one hell of an investigator.”
“If Ms. Walker accidentally becomes involved in this, we'll have an even bigger problem on our hands than John Smithe getting banged up,” Harry mused. “Remember what happened when Regina went after Ms. Walker?”
“Vividly.”
“That's the only time I've seen Viper get reckless,” Harry continued thoughtfully, moving back toward his chair. “In fact, the only time she shows any signs of emotion is where those people are concerned.”
“Precisely.” Charlie watched as Harry eased himself back into his recliner. “Viper's only weakness is her absolute loyalty to those she considers family. For better or worse, we're stuck with Ms. Walker and Co. as added complications.”
“I wondered when she was in the training facility if her past would come back to haunt her,” Harry murmured. “She buried it so successfully that I did think...” He paused and sipped his drink. “Still, I suppose some ties are as strong as duty.”
“I don't need to tell you what will happen if Ms. Walker becomes a target again, especially after this accident with John,” Charlie said.
Harry waved a hand impatiently.
“No, no, of course not,” he replied. “I'll take care of it to the best of my ability.”
Charlie nodded and straightened up.
“I know you will,” he said with a faint smile. “We need Viper. There can be no distractions.”
“Agreed.”