After giving the other women instructions on how to tell which berries were ripe, Leah kept a sharp eye out for bears while they picked. For what good advanced warning would do. Either a black or grizzly bear could outrun any human over a short distance, should it feel inclined.
She ignored TJ, even when he wandered by her.
Otherwise, as she plucked berries and dropped them into a plastic bowl, she pondered the others, starting with him and Shelley.
If he wasn’t such an unpleasant man, TJ would have been attractive: tall, broad-shouldered, fit. He walked like an athlete, had medium brown hair and hazel eyes. His nose had clearly been broken at some point, which didn’t detract from a handsome face...except she couldn’t help thinking he’d probably deserved to be slugged. She was ashamed to find she actually hoped that was what had happened, rather than a collision on a soccer field or a baseball pitch delivered too high.
She had only enough abstract knowledge about the dynamics in abusive relationships to understand why Shelley stayed with him. Real understanding eluded her. The dullness in that poor woman’s eyes, her body language, the way she cringed whenever TJ came close... Leah would be willing to bet Shelley had grown up abused as a child, too, or at least watching her mother being hit by her father, or even by a succession of men. If somehow she escaped TJ, the odds were good she’d find another abusive man.
Jennifer was deferential around Tim, but not scared in the same way. Helen lit up when she saw Dirk. Lisa Dempsey... Leah was less sure about her. She wouldn’t think of challenging Del or any man, but Leah had heard Lisa talking comfortably to him a few times, and his low voice as he actually talked to her, too.
It felt weird to imagine them all under arrest, diminished by convict uniforms and handcuffs, the women seeing their men only through glass if they stuck by them at all.
Shelley would, Leah knew, and Helen, too. The others...she was less sure.
How on earth had all these men gotten sucked into an objective so horrifying? She wanted to be able to hate them all, but discovered it wasn’t that simple. Colonel Ed Higgs, she could hate. He’d dreamed up this evil, a betrayal of the nation that he had supposedly served. He’d recruited all these guys, who were fearful of a changing America but not necessarily fanatical until then. He could coolly and with a secret smile say, Shame about Joe, when he had ordered him to be executed.
Rick Metz...lacked personality. Did he need to be told what to believe? Maybe he’d been at loose ends until Colonel Higgs gave him a clear objective and whatever nonsense justifications he used.
She sifted through the names of the men she knew best, finding it harder than it should be to label them evil, or even bad. Del Schmidt pretty much ignored her, and Lisa sometimes shrank from him. Beyond that, he mostly seemed decent. He’d been courageous defending her. Same for Garrett Zeigler and Shawn Wycoff.
Except...she wondered if any of the three had been thinking about her. Maybe all they’d been doing was currying favor with Spencer while Shawn at least could enjoy poking a stick at Joe.
Dirk Ritchie seemed downright nice.
Arne Larson wasn’t nice; Leah remembered him slamming her against the wall and groping her while leering. And she hadn’t forgotten how brutally TJ Galt had tackled her when she tried to escape, slugging her before hauling her back to face Higgs, their unlikely alpha wolf, without a semblance of gentleness.
Gee, could that be why she hoped someone had, once upon a time, slugged him hard enough to permanently dent his nose?
There were others she definitely didn’t like, and a whole bunch who treated the women as if they were barely useful. Did they really feel that way? Or were they just blending in, the way school children were sometimes cruel because they didn’t have the courage to stand up and say no?
Spencer must know them all a whole lot better than she did. Did he regret what would happen to some of these men? Or had he become inured from previous undercover investigations? Nobody was all bad or all good; she did believe that. Even though Spencer must use people he was investigating to achieve his objectives, he’d have to stay focused on the crime they’d been willing to commit—or were willing to commit, in this case.
“Leah!” A heavy hand gripped her shoulder and spun her around.
Wide-eyed, righting her bowl before the berries spilled, she realized it was TJ.
“What were you doing, spacing out?”
She knew what she had to do. Bow her head, hope her hair fell forward to partly veil her expression and grovel. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I...I was worrying about bears.”
The other women stole surreptitious glances at their surroundings.
“Their bowls are full. Yours is, too,” he said impatiently. “Time to get back. This is a waste of my time.”
Except she knew perfectly well that all he’d do once they got back was lean against the wall in the kitchen and watch them with both contempt and suspicion.
She bobbed her head and hurried toward the lodge, Lisa and Shelley keeping pace with her, TJ silently following. So much for using a berry-picking expedition to make a run for it. That scheme had been downright delusional.
FROM PARTWAY DOWN the table during dinner, a low voice carried to Spencer.
“...get down where I can have internet access...”
He didn’t turn his head, making himself depend on peripheral vision. For once Higgs hadn’t taken a seat near him. Instead, he’d grabbed a place beside Tim Fuller, and they’d had their heads together ever since. Damn. Had Fuller and the others gone to Bellingham at all?
“Don’t like losing you for two days...” Higgs’s voice got drowned out. Surfaced again. “...think it’s important enough.”
Fuller’s fervor made the hair rise on the back of Spencer’s neck. Probably whatever nugget of information he so eagerly sought had nothing to do with Spencer or Leah—but there was a lesser chance that it did.
Higgs seemed unconcerned, though. Even talking quietly, his enthusiasm could be heard. “...more like the SAKO TRG 42...big jump forward from the...”
Spencer couldn’t hear the rest, but didn’t need to. The SAKO TRG 42 was a Finnish rifle, much admired among the sniper community. He knew guys who’d sworn by it. Except for the unusual stock design, which did indeed remind him of the SAKO, he couldn’t say anything special had jumped out at him about this latest weapon sent to army spec ops for experimentation. Arms makers did that often. Most of those rifles didn’t prove themselves any better than what snipers were currently using or regular infantry carried.
When Higgs called down the table, “You handled that baby, Spencer. Tell Fuller what you thought.”
Spencer dredged up a few admiring comments that got all the men excited, even though most of them lacked the skills to take advantage of a cutting-edge weapon.
What worried him more was the disappearance this afternoon of two of the men along with Higgs. Spencer had seen them coming out of the makeshift armory, expressions satisfied. He knew from background checks that Ken Vogel had spent a decade on a police bomb squad, while Steve Baldwin had been expelled from Stanford’s physics program for reasons no one had wanted to talk about. Another Ph.D candidate had hinted that he’d been caught walking out with materials too dangerous to let out of the secure labs.
Spencer knew how most of these men had hooked up with Higgs: the internet. As fast as one fringe site that urged violence and revolution was shut down, another popped up. Like recognized like. He’d also done enough research to know that quite a few members of the group had been at a crossroads in their lives when they saw an opportunity that gave them a sense of purpose.
Baldwin was one example. No other grad program would take him. He must already have been working out what he could do with his knowledge, education and possibly some stashed-away dangerous material. Vogel had just gone through a divorce during which his wife claimed he abused her and the children. His visitation with those kids was to be supervised. He’d have seen that as an unforgivable insult; not only an attempt to humiliate him but also to steal his children.
Higgs, of course, had been forced out of the military for his views. Likewise, Arne Larson, given a dishonorable discharge that would limit his job opportunities.
And so it went. TJ Galt had had an unapologetic, vile presence on alt-right websites for several years.
Spencer had to make guesses about a few of them. Leaving the military to find themselves qualified only for poorly paid, low-end jobs, maybe. Don Durand’s wife had left him, too. Dirk Ritchie’s father had disowned his “embarrassment” of a son.
Yeah, most of these guys had been desperate to latch on to something that would salvage their self-esteem, make them feel important. Not hard to understand.
They wouldn’t like prison, he thought grimly.
Even if he was knocked out of the equation, the investigation had been going on long enough, and these men, the pawns, would go down. It would be a shame to see them taking the fall for the scum financing Higgs’s great dream, or stealing munitions from the United States.
Dinner was ending, people drifting away as the women cleared the table. Spencer took his time finishing a sizeable piece of Leah’s cake and his third cup of coffee. When Higgs, bringing his own coffee cup, slid down the bench to join him, Spencer said, “Did you see Durand today at the target range? He’s showing a real knack.” Which was, unfortunately, true. “I may try him out at two hundred yards tomorrow. Get him working on positional shooting. It’s never safe to assume you can settle in prone and not have to move. Plus bullet trajectory, zeroing in and understanding his range finder.” He paused. “Is there any reason to focus on night observation devices?”
“Shouldn’t think so.” Higgs mulled that over. “If we have time, it probably wouldn’t hurt.”
Apparently, the plans were still in flux. Or else Higgs knew his small army might find themselves pinned down into the night.
Spencer nodded.
Looking frustrated, Higgs asked, “Is Durand the only one with sniper potential?”
Spencer waggled a hand. “Jason Shedd is getting there. He wasn’t a hunter and didn’t have comparable experience to the others with a rifle coming in, but he does have patience, an understanding of things like bullet trajectory, and a soft touch. He just had further to go.”
“Given his experience as a mechanic, some of that makes sense.”
“You don’t mind me cutting the two of them out of the herd for more intensive training?”
“No, I’m lucky to have you. Originally, I thought I had two other former snipers on board, but one of them...” He shook his head. “Art Scholler. He was too glib. I got a bad feeling.”
“You think he wanted in undercover?”
“Yeah.”
Art Scholler was FBI, although of course that wasn’t his real name. Spencer had been brought in when Art got cut off cold.
“The other guy?”
“Didn’t think he’d take orders. The guy had serious issues.”
Spencer grunted. “After enough deployments, a lot of men bring home a cargo plane full of issues.”
The colonel grimaced. “True enough. The anger is useful. The rest of it gets in the way.”
From a man who’d been a member of the “Chair Force,” Higgs’s know-it-all attitude rubbed Spencer the wrong way. He knew plenty of airmen who’d been in war zones, but Higgs didn’t impress him as one who’d gotten his hands, let alone his boots, dirty. As usual, he stayed agreeable and emphasized how invested he was as they discussed problems concerning a couple of other men on the team, including TJ Galt.
“He makes me think of a pit bull trained for fighting. Keeping him on a leash takes some effort,” Higgs observed.
The guy did have a gift for reading people, which wasn’t uncommon in predators. Talk about useful skills. In this case... Galt made no effort to hide his anger. If he had PTSD, it likely dated to his childhood. Spencer hadn’t uncovered any adult trauma that would explain it.
They parted amicably, which didn’t entirely settle the uneasiness Spencer felt, awakened by the half heard conversation. All he could do was pack it away with all his other worries. The weight of them, he thought, was like the kind of hundred-pound pack he’d once thought nothing of hefting. The cargo plane...well, he had other issues, too.
THE NEXT DAY passed in what Leah thought of as deceptive peace. Tim Fuller took off on some errand of his own, which surprised her. This was the first time since she’d been here that any of the men had left alone. Had he been sent to make phone calls for Higgs? Or might he have something personal he had to take care of? She had the uncharitable thought that he could have a meeting with his parole officer.
Along with the other women, she baked, cooked, cleaned and waited on the men. Her real life had come to be out of focus enough to seem hazy. She told herself she was better off that way. She was surprised when she counted back to realize she’d been here nine days. It seemed longer. Well, she couldn’t afford to dwell on resentment or have an outbreak of rebellion.
Spencer couldn’t afford for her to blow it, either. She suspected he was hurting a lot more than he let on, especially once he joined the other men. His eyes met hers briefly before a large group left for the shooting range. She read reassurance in that instant, but who knew?
In a few minutes the quiet would be shattered by the nonstop barrage. Were these guys really getting a lot more accurate, or were they just wasting ammunition and scaring wildlife for a mile or so around? It spoke to the isolation of the resort that nobody at all had heard the gunfire and reported it to the county sheriff’s department or a ranger.
At lunchtime the men inhaled cheeseburgers, baked beans and apple pie à la mode. During the afternoon they seemed to break up into smaller groups for—who knew?—hand-to-hand combat training, lessons on stealth?
Or were some of them building a bomb?
That made her shiver.
Dinner was Jennifer’s lasagna, loaves and loaves of garlic bread, and a grated carrot and raisin salad Leah made. It was sweet and substantial enough to appeal to men who wouldn’t touch a green salad or plain broccoli, but still mostly qualified as a vegetable.
As if she cared about their nutritional intake. But everything she could do to blend in, to make herself valued, was good.
She was first setting out serving bowls when Tim Fuller walked in. Higgs didn’t notice at first; Tim ended up sitting at the far end close to the women. The colonel glanced that way but didn’t comment.
In her intense dislike, Leah thought, too bad the mythical parole officer hadn’t found cause to lock up Tim and throw away the key. She must have smiled, because she discovered he was looking at her with an ugly expression. He and TJ Galt were two of a kind. With Joe Osenbrock, they’d made a vicious triumvirate.
With dinner over, Spencer stayed at the table with his usual refill of coffee, tonight talking to two men she hadn’t had much to do with. Jason something and... She couldn’t remember the other man’s name at all.
The swelling in Spencer’s face was going down, she noted, but the bruises had turned a multitude of colors. As she poured coffee from the carafe into Jason’s cup, Spencer was saying something about wind, his speech much clearer than it had been even that morning.
The three of them weren’t alone; a bunch of the men lingered, happy to hang out with friends, she gathered. During her last trip around the table to refill coffee cups, she shivered at the way several of the men watched her. She wasn’t afraid of them, exactly—certainly not with Spencer present—but she could tell what they were thinking, and it gave her the creeps.
If there was another demand for more coffee, one of the other women could handle it. Clearly, Spencer wouldn’t be ready to go for a while yet, so once she put leftovers away in the commercial refrigerator, she borrowed a sweatshirt hanging on a hook and slipped outside. She’d stay close to the door so she could hear Spencer calling for her. She knew eventually someone would notice she was out here. Sometimes, the other women took breaks like this, only to be chased inside when one of the men came to check on them.
The crisp evening air felt good, and when she tipped her head back, she saw the first stars appearing against a deep purple sky.
It had to be a lot later than usual, to be already getting dark. Fine by her; her new domestic tasks didn’t exhaust her, but she’d barely sat down today except for perching on the bench to gobble each meal. Besides...she’d seen a glint in Spencer’s eyes when his gaze strayed her way while she was wiping down the table. If he was feeling better enough...
Uncle Edward had built a couple of crude benches back here, wide boards laid over cut-off tree stumps. She chose one and sat, knowing she was almost hidden in the shadow of a cedar that would soon have to be cut down if the lodge was to survive. The roots probably already burrowed beneath the foundation.
Male voices drifted to her, abruptly becoming louder. Leah stiffened, ready to hustle back in the kitchen door if they came any closer.
One of them was Ed Higgs’s, she realized.
“You’re sure?” It was a demand; he didn’t want to believe whatever he’d been told.
“Positive. It took some serious searching, but I found a picture. He was coming out of a courthouse, wearing the typical FBI getup.”
She quit breathing. Oh no, oh no.
Tim Fuller was ebullient, really glad to be able to bring down a man he’d deeply resented. “You know,” he continued, “black suit, white shirt, shiny black wingtips, blue tie. He was identified as Special Agent Alex Barr. Chicago office then. Now, I don’t know.”
“God damn.” Anger threaded Higgs’s weariness. “I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it,” Tim said. “I printed the picture. Left it in my cabin.”
Leah rose to her feet and began feeling her way toward the two steps up to the kitchen door. She stopped just short. No—the minute she opened it, light would spill out. Slip all the way around the lodge, she decided. Spencer might have only minutes.
The last few words she heard before going around the corner of the old log building were “no choice.”