––––––––
The crosshairs in the scope hovered a few millimeters above and to the left of the center of the target. They jiggled ever so slightly.
Bree Manning slowly exhaled, held her breath for a full second, and then squeezed the trigger.
The rifle kicked back against her shoulder.
An echo reverberated through the open range and surrounding forest.
Bree sat the butt of the rifle down on the shooting table, the barrel held in the air by the attached bipod. After pulling off a pair of earmuffs, she leaned over and peered through a spotting scope.
“Not bad,” she whispered.
The bullet had hit the target an inch high and a half an inch to the right. Considering the shot had been from two hundred and fifty meters away, and in moderate wind, she couldn’t complain too much.
No one else was at the outdoor shooting range so early in the morning, which was just the way she liked it. Most people weren’t crazy enough to wake up and practice their craft at the ass crack of dawn. It worked for her though, because she didn’t have any hunters or wannabe tough guys hitting on her.
The range was little more than a long field with targets at one end and a pavilion with five shooting tables under a tin roof at the other end. It was plain, simple, and private—exactly what she desired.
Bree slid off the stool and jogged to a grassy area to her left. Her Ford Bronco sat in the early morning shadows, parked beside a gravel driveway that meandered through the woods to the range.
The whoop of a distant helicopter crept over the trees.
After warming up with a couple of knee raises, Bree sprinted thirty meters, spun around, and ran back.
She repeated that process three more times.
Sweat beaded her brow, covered her back.
Her breathing grew labored.
Heart raced.
Bree jogged back to the rifle and secured the butt against her shoulder. She looked through the scope, sighted the target.
The reticle jiggled much more than in her previous shot. There was no chance Bree could hit the target with her pulse jackhammering.
The helicopter drew closer, the drone of the rotors growing louder.
Taking three deep breaths, she forced herself to relax. She focused on calming the reticle, her concentration blotting out birds chirping in the forest and the increasingly annoying helicopter.
She exhaled slowly.
Held her breath.
Squeezed the trigger.
As she looked through the spotting scope, the clamor of the helicopter grew to surprising levels. The thing was flying low. Much too low considering where Bree was at the moment.
The only time aircraft flew at such elevations in that neck of the woods was when the DEA was searching for pot plants.
Even though she was curious to see what kind of bird was buzzing the treetops, Bree had to see where her shot hit.
“Boom.” She made a fist, pumped it.
The bullet had hit three inches left of dead center.
Not too shabby. There was room for improvement, but no one would have considered that a bad shot. She stood and quickly walked out from under the pavilion. Wind and dust slammed into her face as she looked up and saw the helicopter fifty meters above her and descending.
The damned thing was going to land on the range.
“What the hell?” Bree held a hand up, shielding her face.
The black helicopter lacked any kind of identifying markings on the side or tail. The plain appearance of it didn’t sit well with Bree. Its skids sat down gently in the grass. The engine began to slow down, the racket easing up a bit.
After several seconds, the back door slid open and a man in a suit stepped out. He jogged toward her in a hunched position, eyes squinting against the wind swirling around him. As he drew near, he motioned for her to walk with him over to the pavilion.
Bree considered refusing to do anything he asked unless she saw some identification, but she decided against it. She’d always been a slave to her curiosity and needed to know what was going on.
They walked over to where her rifle sat, its barrel pointing to the sky. The sound of the helicopter quieted down to a loud purr. They stopped beside her table and faced each other.
Bree quickly scanned over the man.
He wore black, slightly scuffed shoes. His off-the-rack brown suit seemed about a size too small around the chest. The way his neck, chest, and shoulders bulged pointed to a lot of time slinging iron around. The early morning sun gleamed off his freshly shaved head.
He wore sunglasses that concealed his eyes.
Bree could recognize a detective a mile away. She’d known a lot of them in her day. They had a certain cadence to their walk, a degree of intensity to the way they surveyed their surroundings. The question burning in her mind was why a cop would be riding around in an unmarked helicopter.
Her eyes finally settled on his left wrist. A scar ran down the back of his hand, another traced along the center of his thumb. Pink, shiny flesh covered the part of his wrist she could see. Something bad happened to him not too long ago.
While she examined him, he returned the favor. Though she couldn’t see his eyes, his head had tilted as he looked her over.
He asked, “Bree Manning?”
“Why do detectives always start with questions they already know the answer to?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I get that you do it to perps in the hope they’ll trip up on some little detail, but why does that always bleed over into your regular conversations?”
“Another smartass. Just what I need.” The bald man grinned. “I like you already.”
“Yippee.” Bree arched her eyebrows. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Well, I didn’t realize that we wore our interrogation tactics on our sleeves.” He nodded his head back at the helicopter. “But in my defense, this is obviously anything but a regular conversation.”
Fair point, Bree thought. She stared at him, waiting to hear what he actually wanted.
“You spent four years writing tickets and arresting drunks with the Philadelphia P.D. and another two as a S.W.A.T counter-sniper.”
Bree’s eyes narrowed. “That wasn’t even a question. Now you’re just reading me my resume.”
The bald man’s grin faltered. “It’s a little early to be at the range, isn’t it?”
“Never too early for hard work. How about we skip the small talk and you tell me why you just landed an unmarked helicopter in the middle of nowhere to talk to me?”
“I have a few questions for you. Depending on how you answer them, you might get a job offer.”
“I have a job.”
“Do you?” The bald man stepped back, inspected her setup on the table. “We’ve been told that you’re under suspension pending an investigation into you firing into a crowd of people. Against orders.” He bobbed his head at the rifle. “Nice. That a Remington 700P?”
Bree ground her teeth. “I had the shot, so I took it. That psycho would have killed the hostages if I didn’t.”
The shooting had occurred a month ago. Bree and her team had responded to a hostage situation at a used car lot of all places. The perp had surrounded himself with hostages to keep from getting shot. Strict orders had come down to hold fire. The hostage-taker had grown more agitated by the minute and was about to murder an elderly woman when Bree had taken the shot.
She’d put him down with a bullet to the heart.
Saved a few lives.
And been suspended for her efforts.
They’d said something about her putting civilian lives in unnecessary risk. But she knew that wasn’t why they were pissed. She’d disregarded a direct order, and that couldn’t be allowed.
The detective bent down and looked through her spotting scope. He whistled. “Nice shooting. What is that... two hundred yards?”
“Two-fifty. Who in the hell are you?”
“Detective Andrew Lloyd. Call me Drew.” He straightened out, leveled his gaze on her. “Have you heard of me?”
Bree thought about it for a moment. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“I was in D.C. the day the president was shot. I helped take out the terrorist involved.”
Memories clicked into place. Bree recalled the press coverage. She’d seen the detective’s face all over her television for a week or two. He was a Baltimore cop who had somehow gotten involved in an assassination attempt in Washington D.C. How or why he’d been there had never been fully explained as far as she knew.
“Okay,” she said. “What do you want from me?”
“We’ll get to that in a minute.” Drew lifted his sunglasses, placed them on his head. His eyes were hard, intense. “Why did you take that shot? You could have missed. Maybe hit the people you were trying to save.”
“I already told you—he was going to kill the hostages. And I don’t miss.”
“But you had to know they would have your ass in a sling for disobeying orders.”
“So what? I didn’t become a cop to sit by and watch people get killed because some asshole downtown is afraid of the city getting sued.”
Lloyd kept watching her. “Why SWAT?”
“Because I’m good enough.”
“It’s tough for a woman to get to your position.”
“So I’ve been told.” Bree looked back at the helicopter. The rotors had slowed. “Look, if you’re going to keep beating around the bush rather than tell me what you want, then you can just get back in your bird and fly your ass out of here.”
“Is that a fact?” Lloyd chuckled.
“That’s a fact.”
“What if I told you that there was a job where you could save a whole lot more lives than a handful of people in a car lot?”
“Sure thing, buddy.” It was Bree’s turn to laugh. “I heard the hero speech at the academy too. Save it for the young and gullible.”
Drew unbuttoned his suit, took the coat off. Without the jacket on, his chest and shoulders looked even thicker.
Bree tried not to stare too much.
After undoing his left cufflink, Lloyd slid his sleeve up, exposing his mangled hand and wrist. He held it up in front of his face, slowly twisting it around. “I saw you checking this out.”
“Gnarly.” Bree squinted at the pink flesh. “How did that happen?”
“Arthur’s Creek.”
Bree’s eyes widened. “You were at Arthur’s Creek? During The Massacre?”
“I was.” Drew pulled his sleeve back down. “I’m still having a bit of trouble with the nerves in my hand, but the rehab is coming along.”
The way he casually spoke of such a horrible wound made Bree wonder just who this Detective Andrew Lloyd really was. What kind of cop was involved in stopping presidential assassinations in a city outside his jurisdiction? How could he go from that to being present during the Arthur’s Creek Massacre? Those were the two biggest stories of the past year. Hell, the country had damn near flipped upside down after each of them.
Bree had stopped carrying her cell phone after the Arthur’s Creek insanity. Most people had. Something about unwittingly turning into a crazed psychopath had turned her off from technology lately.
She said, “You have my attention.”
“I can’t go into too many details here. If you decide to come with me, you’ll be fully briefed later today.”
“Go with you where?”
“That’s classified. No one can know where you’re going or even that you’ve left. You’ll be stationed with us, working with a small search-and-rescue team, until our mission is complete. That could take anywhere from a few weeks to several months.” He held up a hand. “And no, I can’t tell you what the mission is.”
“You can’t tell me where I would be going, why, or even how long I’d be there? And I’m supposed to agree to this? What kind of idiot would say yes to such a stupid proposal?”
“Eight idiots so far, myself included.” Drew shrugged the jacket back over his thick shoulders. “It’s dangerous, highly classified, and... bizarre. The pay isn’t that great, and there aren’t any medals waiting for us at the end of this. But if you want to make a difference, a real difference, then this is your chance. We’ll also take care of your little problem with the city so you have a job to come back to.”
Bree studied her feet. What the detective was proposing sounded moronic. And dangerous. No one built a team like that. Even still, Bree had to admit that she was intrigued. The madness that went out over the cell signal in West Virginia had spiraled the country, and most of the world, into a blind panic. A lot of innocent people had been slaughtered during, and after, the cell phone call from hell.
If there was any chance that she could be a part of the solution to whatever problem had caused The Massacre, then how could she say no?
“How long do I have to decide?” Bree asked.
Drew looked over her shoulder, made a twirling motion with his finger at the helicopter pilot. “About two minutes.”
“Jesus.” Bree ran a hand through her red hair. “Can I ask a few questions first?”
“You can ask. I might not be able to answer, but you can ask.”
“Why me? I’m not some kind of Special Forces badass.”
“We have our reasons. Those will be explained in a debriefing later today. Should you accept, of course.”
“Later today? If I say yes, then we’re leaving right now?”
“Yup.” Drew shrugged. “I know it sucks, but secrecy is of the utmost importance for this op. We can’t have you asking around and throwing up potential red flags.”
“Red flags to who?”
Drew just stared at her.
“Fine,” Bree grunted. “But if I say no, then I’ll just go home and start digging things up about you. How is that any different?”
“You don’t know a damn thing about what we’re doing, except for my name and the fact that I was in Arthur’s Creek when the shit hit the fan. That won’t do much.”
Bree suppressed the rising level of frustration bubbling inside her. Nothing about her current situation had a semblance of fairness to it. She’d wanted to help people, to serve and protect and all that jazz. Now she might have a chance to make a real difference, but she had no time to contemplate the ramifications of accepting whatever it was the detective was offering.
The helicopter grew louder as the rotors picked up speed.
“How did you get wrapped up in all of this?” Bree asked.
“Through a friend.”
“Some friend.”
“Tell me about it.” Drew nodded at the pilot, held up a finger. “Time to decide, Manning.”
“One last question. Do you know who sent the cell phone signal in Arthur’s Creek?”
Drew held her gaze. “Yes.”
“I’m in.” Bree set her jaw. “When do we start?”
“Right now.”