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He crawled out from under the car.  His ears were ringing from the noise, but he could hear the muffled voices.

Carson’s hand pressed to his rib and, as he reacted to the pain, came away with crimson covering it from fingertip to the base of the palm.  He tried to take in a deep breath, and found a tightness there.  He had no idea if it was damage, if something vital had been punctured, lung-wise, or if his body was reacting to the pain and blood loss by tightening everything up there, to the point it limited his breathing.  If that was a thing.

It was the first time Carson had been shot.  He wasn’t exactly sure what to do, except to keep his head down, aware he was hurt but that the pain would soon come.

The contents of the garage had done more to protect him than the uninsulated walls, which were basically as thick as a two-by-four.  A lawnmower, mounted against the wall, another by the ground.  A metal toolbox, loaded to the gills with rust.

He shifted position, lying low by Highland’s car’s bumper, in an awkward position that leaned hard on his elbow, to use gravity to help him keep pressure on the wound, leaning chest into hand.  His senses felt like he’d been hollowed out and had bag of hot trash dumped through him.  Smoke, foul smells, a ringing and rattling in his ears, sense of touch fucked, vision unfocused.  Even a taste in his mouth.

Palm pressed to wound, his fingers moved a bit, exploring-

It had gone in far enough to the side that it wasn’t a guarantee that it’d have gone through a lung, but it might have clipped a rib.  It had gone in and out, meaning he was only staunching half the wound.  He’d been behind cover- mostly.  It seemed unfair to be this hurt.

He shifted position, a vertigo-like tilt leaving him momentarily feeling like he’d adjusted too far and was about to fall on his face-

The sudden movement of his other arm to compensate made his entire chest hurt, waking up that latent pain.

-But it was only vertigo.

He adjusted so his palm pressed to one end of the wound, the car bumper pressing against the other, and peeled his ears.  People would be coming.  Where was his gun?

Evidence.  This blood getting everywhere was a problem.  Mia would be upset.

Satellites, she’d said.

The problem with his current position was that it put so much onto his elbow.  It made that same nerve that was tied into the ‘funny bone’ start to throb, aching more with each pulse, at the same time his chest was hurting more.

They were still out there.  Still coming.

Gun.

He saw it and picked it up.  There were voices outside.  Easier to hear with the holes in the walls, he mused.  His ears still rang.  Some flashlights shone through gaps in the boards that made up the exterior.

It helped that it was dry inside, helped by the recent lack of rain, and the bullets had kicked up enough dust and grit to help obscure him, and some of that dust and grit was layering his hair, skin, and clothes.

He focused on remaining very still, even as his elbow pulsed with the dull nerve pain, a countdown without numbers before he wouldn’t be able to hold himself up.

There was a sound at the garage door.

Ah, yeah.

The door opened, sliding up along its rollers.  Flashlights shone into the space, but the cloud was still there.

There was no ticking.  It counted down from ten, silent.

Then the garage door springs snapped down, and they pulled the trap down with them- a thin line of cable, each end anchored to a setup on the rollers that kept the door on track, above the parked car, whenever the door was raised.

It banged, with a gunshot-level force.  The mechanism clipped the back end of the car Carson was at the front end of, and jostled it enough he grunted, falling.

He made himself move.

A guillotine of cable that would move at a curved diagonal, from the rollers to the base of the door, with the force of a garage door spring.  Mia had said a garage door spring could carry hundreds of pounds of force.  They only set this trap when they had guests in the bunker downstairs.

Two men cut in half.  A third with the cable halfway into abdomen, halfway into pelvis- it looked like he’d had his gun out in a position that caught part of the force.  He’d hooked on it in a way that left him dangling by his midsection, blood and innards flowing down his back and arms and the back of his legs.

A fourth, maybe one who’d been behind the third, then pushed back when the cable had driven him back a few paces, had fallen to the ground, staring at the gory scene.

Carson was ready with his gun before the man saw him, recognized the danger, and found his own fallen weapon.  Carson didn’t try so much for accurate aim as he pointed in the right direction and unloaded four shots.  Or five.  The man dropped.

He had to shoot left handed with his side hurting like this.  Even shooting with his left hand made his injury at the side hurt.

All four wore body armor, though it didn’t match.  Three had assault rifles.  Three had longer hair that was slicked back.  The one at the rear of the group that Carson had shot didn’t have an assault rifle, but he had a full pack.

Yeah, soldiers from the Kitchen.

He was pretty sure nobody else was close enough to have seen what happened.  Anyone close enough to act or know what was going on would have reacted when he opened fire, coming around one of the corners of the building to shoot at him, at which point he would’ve retreated back inside again.

Carson watched the surroundings as he eased forward, climbed past the cable, and toed a gun further out of reach of the suspended man’s dangling hand.  He grunted as he bent down, then quickly checked.  No wallets.  Some more ammunition.  Keys for a vehicle.

It took work, especially one-handed, but he relieved one man of his vest, keeping one eye out, and an ear out for more trouble.  .  He shrugged into it, cut off a man’s sleeve at the shoulder, pulling it off, then wedged it in between vest and wound, before cinching the straps at the side painfully tight, so the vest held it tight to the wound.

Highland was still drawing most of the attention.

His instincts told him he had a responsibility here.  To support Highland, to get out there.  Some of those, he suspected, were because of movies and television.  That sense of shared brotherhood in a bad situation.

He tried to stay patient, getting his bearings, while the pain was mounting in his side.  Guns put aside.  A resource for later.  The one with the pack… he checked, then pulled out a heavy duty piece of technology, more of a cylinder than a box to be held in the hands.

He aimed it at the trees on the far side, past transformer towers, taller grass, and path.

It took a second to turn on.  It provided night vision, in a staticky-green-and-dark-gray, and, distant, things flared white, with a halo off the side of it, that danced around it as he moved the camera around.  Pieces of the transformer tower that were still reflective.

He could see a drone above the trees, with another white spot and flare toward the base.

Stalking Highland.  It didn’t look like a gun drone, he figured, but he didn’t know what a gun drone looked like.

The heavy and durable construction, the dark green exterior, and the general idea of it- a long-distance viewing device that could see distant lenses and pieces of metal?  It felt military-issue.

Not the most surprising thing ever.

They probably had a few.  They knew that Mia liked her cameras, so they’d checked out possible locations, maybe with these devices first.  Then dogs.  The contact or someone the contact had worked with might’ve known through word of mouth that they used a bunker, and Davie knew what the contact had.

Carson considered his options.  If he went out to where Highland was, he wasn’t sure how much he’d be able to help, especially with this injury, and he could get shot, if Highland shot first and checked who the person that was moving around was.

Better to handle other things.

He went to the hatch, uncovering the keypad, and typed in the code.

Down the ladder, avoiding use of one arm as much as he could, to favor his side, and then down the hall.  Camera checked.

When the camera turned off, he could see his own face.  He wasn’t okay.

He could check the text message from Mia.  It said a lot that it wasn’t coded, nothing fancy done.  She’d sent a text, which might as well have broadcast ‘they know your location already, so I might as well not bother’.

Mia had identified two other rural properties, one bought on the cheap, the other left abandoned by someone who’d gone to fight in Washington and never returned.  Both had bunkers, though only one of those was even partially maintained.  Both had cameras.  Both of those bunkers had seen visitors this afternoon.  Mia had, through that, or by something else, deduced the satellites were in play.

What did that mean?

He sent another coded message to her, then went to the bathroom, trying to see how much blood was still leaking out.  He rinsed his face, again using one hand.  After washing and cleaning his hands, he gingerly relieved the pressure, then moved to the kitchen to try to rinse and clean the wound, because he’d just put dirty cloth against it.  He swayed a bit, moving between the kitchen and main room, to keep an eye on the cameras.

A message came back from Mia.

A map, with a red X, showing a place further down the path.

With one word in the coded message.  ‘Enemy’.

He couldn’t get five minutes to rest and repair.

Armed with an assault rifle and the tube camera, he went back up.

No dogs.  He was thankful for that.  No soldiers.

A background of only silence, punctuated by lone gunshots.

That would have to be Highland.

It was clear Highland was on the move, cutting through woods.  Carson lifted the tube camera, aiming it, and saw a dark blot against the sky.

No flare?  No camera?

He moved further ahead, then tried again.  Two shots in rapid succession.  On the second, there was a bright spot and the circular lens-flare effect around it.

Carson gave it a wide berth, jogging through the trees with just one or two trees between himself and the open area, as he drew closer to the spot on the map.

There.  A parked car, tucked away in a little spot where the treeline wasn’t a straight line.  It wasn’t Drone Man, but it would be a bit surprising if it was, considering the state of the guy.  A slightly overweight woman with light brown skin had a game controller in hand, and was watching a laptop, which she’d placed on her trunk.  A Cavalcanti soldier stood by.

Carson took aim, crouching so he could use one leg for the extra stability, gun braced by one arm to the side, one leg, stock braced against the good side of his chest.

He fired.  It was an automatic three shot burst.

Burst, adjust, burst-

She and her guard scrambled to get clear.  Taking cover by the car.  The laptop fell.

He aimed for it, but considering the distance, it was a long shot.

He did pop a car tire, though.

He measured out the shots, trying to keep her tied up in taking cover and protecting herself so she couldn’t go after Highland.

He reloaded, shifting locations, and pulled out the camera, because it was so dark, without light or streetlight, that he couldn’t see much, and she wasn’t bathed in the light of her laptop screen, anymore.

He saw her, and the soldier- who might’ve been hurt, or maybe she was hurt and the soldier was tending to her.

And there was something to the left.

Highland, with a rifle, lying on his belly, aiming at Carson.

Carson pulled off his smoke mask, hand raised, and shook his head.  The angle wasn’t right for anyone else to see.  Maybe the drone, but the drone didn’t seem to be on target right now.

He raised the camera, and saw Highland moving.

Three flashes total.  The woman with the drones, the soldier, and someone else?

It was a full minute before Highland crossed no man’s land- beneath the wire-less transformer towers, across a field of tall grass and weeds, with dirt paths cutting through it.  A full minute felt like a long time when Carson’s heart was beating as fast as it was.

When Highland came, so did the drone.  Carson pulled his smoke mask back on.

The man turned, raised his rifle, and aimed-

And the drone moved, swerving.

Highland kept the gun held up, pointed, and the drone kept moving erratically, still focusing on him.

He seemed to lose it as he got into the trees.

“Almost shot you.”

“That was the worry.  But I got sent a map with this place as a destination.”

“Our voice on the phone figured out they were here?”

“Seems so.”

“Helped,” Highland said.  He put a hand on the cylinder.  “Well now.”

“You know what it is?”

“Yeah, laser camera.  Range finding, selective imaging to bypass smoke, fog, and other reflectives,” Highland said, lifting the camera up to his eye to see.

“Or catch reflectives.  I think it’s set to spot lenses and cameras.”

“I think you might be right.  This is classified.”

“So, I think, were the gun drones that got stolen.”

“Davie Cavalcanti keeps surprising us.  Think you can draw it away a bit?”

“I’d rather not get caught on camera, if I can avoid it.”

“Take my coat.  Put your hood up.  Keep the mask on.”

Carson nodded.  He winced as he got his arm through the sleeve.

“We’ll get that taken care of soon,” Highland said, noting the injury.

Carson went.  It was so quiet, that as soon as he was out of the trees, he could hear that near-silent drone.  His own huffs for breath, chest tight, and the ringing in his ears from the earlier gunfire almost drowned the damn thing out.  He couldn’t run very fast with a hole in his chest.

A part of him was still suspicious.  He wondered if this could be a long, crazy ploy, with Highland being the real leak, shooting him in the back.  Then he could win Mia over, win Davie’s favor, even give Mia to Davie, in a roundabout way.

Highland would have had other opportunities before now.

But if Highland was waiting, this was the sort of one he’d be waiting for.

I’m wearing a vest, at least.

Carson ducked his head down, and zig-zagged more than necessary.

The gunshot came.

And the drone fell, crashing to the grass behind Carson.

Carson kept moving.  He left it to Highland to pick the thing up, going straight to the bunker.  Rather than have the torturous process of them both going through the hatch at different times, various doors locking until one was closed- Carson had run into that with Mia when they’d been preparing cell three together, he waited outside.  His side in quiet agony, he dragged the bisected and partial bodies into the garage, off to one side.

“This was you?” Highland asked, when he caught up.

“This was me.  Our friend on the phone, technically.”

“This one’s still alive.”

Carson looked.

The cable stretched across the garage door, taut, and the man with the wire partway into his abdomen and pelvis hung there.  Sure enough, he was managing faint breaths, eyes moving.

“Why the fuck can I have a hole in my chest I could plug with a finger, and I’m worried I could bleed out and die, then I see this asshole like this, and he’s alive?” Carson asked.

“Humans are odd like that,” Highland said.  He grunted as he hauled the guy free of the cable, dropping him to the floor.

It looked like the lights went out pretty fast after that.

“Take a punch wrong, fall and hit your head on a hard floor?  Could die right there.  Dead.  Could fall out of a plane, tumble through the air, hit hard ground, and live to tell the tale, because the wind hit you right,” Highland continued.  “What do we do about this cable?”

“Don’t take bolt cutters to it, or you might join one of these guys,” Carson said.  “Give me a minute?  Tidy up here?  And keep your distance.”

“Yeah.”

Carson had to find a screwdriver, go up to the rollers, and unscrew the addition Mia had made, that attached the ends of the wire there.  The moment the screw was released enough, the cable released with a wicked, sharp sound, going slack.  Carson undid the other and tugged the cable free.

“What’s the plan?” Highland asked.

“You got all of them?”

“Pretty sure.”

“The narrative we’re going with, since Bolden put a crossbow bolt through the one target’s head, is that this is purely a revenge thing on the part of our contact’s old friends.  Which is funny because a few of you aren’t and weren’t his friends.  A lot of you are the least likely to be among the names the contact gave to Cavalcanti.”

“Yeah.  That’s still the story, okay.”

“Key thing, we extract our guests, and we torch this.  If you’re caught, Highland…”

“If I’m caught then I’m not walking away, and there’s little to nothing I could say that’s going to save me.  Best way to hurt them is to shut the fuck up, because it gives you and our voice on the phone a chance to get back at them.”

They’d been over this, prior to Bolden invading the Cavalcanti house.

“Like I said before, I owe our voice on the phone a lot.  I’m not betraying her.”

“Good,” Carson said.  “We burn this, burns the evidence and hides details.  The story is, dead man’s switch from the contact got in touch with you all.  Some of you knew about our bunkers.”

“Thin.”

“Well, we’ve got to do what we can do.  The pisser is going to be our captives here.  We don’t have a great place to take them that Calvalcanti doesn’t know about.”

“We’ll have to worry about drones, too.”

Carson grimaced.  Possibly not just drones.  It was an ugly thought.

Carson accessed the hatch, waited for Highland to close and seal it behind them, then they went into the main area.  From there, into the side area with the bathroom, already open first aid kit, and kitchen.

“Let me see,” Highland said.

Carson, having just put fresh bandages in place, was reluctant, but agreed.

Maybe it was a good thing, after all.  There was a lot of blood already.  Enough he felt he shouldn’t be as okay as he was.  Then, sitting down with shirt raised for Highland to work, he realized how infirm he really was.

Highland put a knife on the heating element in the kitchen, then set to work.  Carson grimaced, turning his full focus to the cameras.  The three prisoners were up, agitated by the recent noise from above.  One was shouting, but nothing was reaching them in the main room, or aboveground.  The cameras showing feeds of outside showed nothing.

“M-” he started to say, before shifting to, “Mmm.  She’s replied.”

“Our friend on the phone?”

“Yeah.  Bring it here?”

Nobody was at the house.  Nobody was going after Mia, Valentina, Ripley, or Tyr.  This was all focused on this.  In this, here, they were compromised.

“They say it takes three people to keep control of one struggling individual,” Carson said.

“Thinking about our prisoners?”

“We’ve got to get them out.  Our voice on the phone has an idea about where.  This is going to be a mess.  And slow.”

Highland nodded.

Mia already had an idea.  Carson checked.  Definitely an idea born of a moment of desperation, not brilliance.  An abandoned house in the city, in an area with a lot of abandoned houses, with relatively little foot traffic.

There were a hundred things that could go wrong, there.

Carson loaded up.  Gloves on.  Chains, locks, food, water.

Cell phone jammer.  He grabbed two.

Fuck, he still felt weak.  Swinging the bag around to his shoulder, he found himself unable to get it in place the first time around.  He had to put the bag onto the counter, put his arms through, belt it, and then step away, and it wasn’t that heavy.

Typing a command into the computer, he had a computerized voice announce: “Nicole Cavalcanti.  Stand with your back to the door, arms straight out in front of you.”

“Are we going home?” she asked, her voice coming through the speaker, in response.

He typed, then got up to resume sorting things out while the voice recited: “You are not.  We’re relocating.  You can cooperate and come with, or you can stay, and we will burn this place behind us.  If you do not cooperate, you will be shot dead and left behind.”

“Can I ask where things stand?  Ransom payments?  Were they shooting at you?”

“Stand up with your back to the door.  Arms in front.  I will not ask again.”

She paused, then she stood.

“A bag will be placed over your head.  You will then turn and present your hands for cuffing.”

“I understand.”

Highland handled that.  Nicole was brought through and handcuffed to the back of the couch.  He quickly frisked her.

Moving on…

“Addi Arcuri.  You heard our exchange with Nicole,” the digitized voice recorded.

“I heard the gunfire too!” Addi said.  “I’m not convinced they aren’t coming to rescue us.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Nicole said.

Carson typed, then waited.  “Repeat, Nicole.”

This time he held down the intercom button.

“Don’t be an idiot, Addi!” Nicole said, voice muffled faintly by the bag.

“I think you’re being the idiot, going along with this!”

Addi wasn’t cooperating.  Messy.  He moved on.  “Sara Barese, stand with your back to the door, arms out front and visible.”

Sara did as she was asked.

“Please don’t leave Addi.  Don’t burn her,” Nicole said.

What would Valentina think, after hearing they burned Addi?  It was one thing to hate someone, another to know they’d burned alive.

Sara obeyed the steps and the instructions.  Highland put a bag over her head, and as they’d done with Nicole, put a lock through it so there was just enough slack it wouldn’t choke or obstruct oxygen, but it wouldn’t come past her chin, either.

Laptop, hard drives.  The books.  This place had been meant to be a sanctuary so secure that it would be a fallback if other sanctuaries were breached.  As such, it had their fingerprints in it, in more ways than one.    There were things they’d bought that could be traced back to them.

Even burning this place, and bringing the house down on top of it, it couldn’t be left alone like that.  They’d either have to abandon their old lives, or they’d have to come back and painstakingly re-secure it.

There were three great destroyers of evidence.  Bleach, flood, and fire.  If prompted, Mia would say the best remedy was to not have someone looking in the first place, but that while none of the three was perfect, one was better than none.

Burning made it too hard to fully excavate and explore in an efficient timeframe.  Maybe if they distracted Cavalcanti and any other authorities too…

“Please,” Nicole said.  “She’s my friend.”

He didn’t want to use his voice, or give anything away in the way of accents, so he remained silent.

Hard drives and spare laptop all got removed went into a case.  He had to stick a knife into the laptop that was built into a coffee table to pry it open.  He pulled the hard drive out of it.  Guns had serial numbers.  A lot of them were guns they’d confiscated from clients.

This was such a fucking mess.  Layers of security and obfuscation melting down because of some serious bullshit.

Carson poured the kerosene across the bookshelves.

“Addi, they’re pouring kerosene!  I smell it!”

Awkwardly late, really.  The computers were off.  The only thing with power now was the lights and the cameras and consoles built into the walls of the bunker.  He couldn’t produce a voice without getting his phone out, and his hands were full.

Two would be easier than one.  And one burned alive would leave a message.

Maybe the wrong kind of message.  It’d make the Cavalcantis even less likely to relent.  More driven to investigate, find every answer associated with the burning of one of their daughters.

Almost snarling, Carson stopped what he was doing, cuffed Nicole to himself, then walked, with her stumbling behind, blind and panicked.  Two doors separated them from the cells.  He typed in the code at the one.

Highland, standing by with various bags and pieces of kit, gave Carson a quizzical look.

Carson typed a message onto his phone: “Nicole comes back to the cells.”

“Don’t lock me down here too.  I’m trying to get her to cooperate!”

“Convince her.”

The door opened.  He walked through, Nicole stumbling behind.  He shut it, then went to the next.

Until they were in the cells.

With his foot, he opened the slot for the food.

“Addi?”

“Nicole!”

“Can you smell it?  The kerosene?  They are not kidding!”

“Fuck.  Fuck!”

“They will burn you alive!”

He really didn’t want to, honestly, but managing three prisoners was a nightmare too.

He hated this.  Nicole tried to take a step, jerked, and he could feel his chest seize in pain at being moved a way it didn’t want to move.

“Sorry,” Nicole said, sounding genuine.

“I’ll come!” Addi said.  “Don’t hurt her.”

He used his phone.  The voice was different, tinny.  “Back to the door, arms out front.”

“Like a zombie, Addi,” Nicole urged, from the other room.

Was that a code?  It was a weird call-out.  Maybe she was being goofy in her panic.

“Please,” Nicole said.

He typed, then waited.  “Do not move.”

He opened the door,

Bag over Addi’s head.  He cuffed her to Nicole.

Mia had a set of rules about managing prisoners.  Once they’d secured the three in the van and knocked them so they could handle the fact Nicole had come armed, it had always been a relay.  Always multiple points of confinement.  The layers of cell doors and doors between the cells and the exit worked here.  But while prisoners were in motion, it couldn’t be just the one thing.  So Carson used the hood, and he bound their wrists.  Then, as another layer, once he had them in the same place, he bound them to each other with short lengths of chain.

Once they were in the hallway, he sent Highland ahead.

Highland came back, and motioned.  Ten?  Then a direction, his arm fully extended, finger pointing.  Then a motion, pinky and thumb extended, held to the side of his face.  Phone?

Cavalcanti reinforcements were here, apparently.  Communicating.  They’d gotten here but didn’t have coordination or directions.  They’d gone to where the woman with the drones had been parked, a short distance away, and were now getting told where to go next.

Carson had bound hands in front so they could climb the ladder, and used enough length that they could climb up, one after the other.  Once they were up, though, he attached them to a metal shelving unit, and changed to have them cuffed, hands behind them, shorter connections between each.

Highland, stepping outside, did a check with the camera, then did a walk around the perimeter of the house, pouring out the rest of the kerosene on flammable things and the various bodies or pieces of bodies before tossing the can aside.

Doesn’t help if they have up-to-date satellite tracking.

What a nightmare.  Carson was finding that he could usually take these things in good spirits, remaining light and what he termed effectively detached even when things were bad.  But it was a rarity that he ever actually got hurt.  Especially hurt enough he could have bled out.

It made it harder to be detached, and it badly affected his mood.

He used the library code to send a message to Mia.  They weren’t so tacky as to have Fahrenheit 451 on there.

The sprinkler system would spray flammable fluids.  A timed charge would ignite it.

Highland’s car was riddled with bullets.  Before Cavalcantis could catch up, they quick-marched through the woods.  The girls stumbled over roots and shied away from scratching branches, but Carson and Highland were able to keep them upright and clear.

It wasn’t a short walk, and it was longer with the three girls, which brought its own problems.  The delays were stacking up, and that meant a chance that soldiers could catch up with them.

When they reached the edge of the trees, Carson checked the coast was clear.  Highland used the camera.  Carson ventured out, then checked the car carefully, using the device they’d used to sweep the girls for bugs, checking with eyes and hands in the undercarriage and wheel wells, then he shone a light through.

Highland was nodding, as he realized what Carson was being mindful of.  He gestured while motioning at the car seat.  Like he was pressing down, elbow higher than his hand, with wrist bent, hand flat and facing the ground.  His hand made an ‘explode’ gesture, fingers going from fist to splayed out.

Carson nodded.  That was another step.

“I have to pee,” Addi said.

Highland used his phone.

“Can you hold it one hour?”

“No.”

Highland pointed at Carson, then himself.  A ‘who?’.

Carson had Highland handle it, while he checked the car, and then finally opened the car door.  Nothing under the seat.  No damage suggesting the seat had been cut open.

Really, would they risk it, knowing it might blow up hostages?  Possibly, if they didn’t think the hostages would be moved in these circumstances.

The other girls helped Addi get her pants down enough to do her business, then hiked them back up, with Highland standing off to the side, eyes slightly averted, arms folded, looking impatient.

No whispering, no tricks.

The girls were being good- and they were pretty firmly secured, so even running was a near impossibility.  They’d run into a dozen trees or fall into ditch after ditch before they got to anything approaching civilization.

This was all so much easier when clients or hired agents produced the captives, already bound, with it being a simple process of getting them into a cell, then watching them, and finally releasing and delivering them.

This was the opposite of that.  From secure custody, now compromised, to something insecure, with eyes possibly watching them.

The three girls were put in the back seat.  Highland drove with lights off.  Carson gave instructions, to drive through a farmer’s property.  Onto a rural road.  Then onto another.  In case the more traveled, expected roads had anyone stationed.

Carson typed on the phone, and prepared a coded message to Mia.  When they reached a stop light, he showed Highland.

Cut through the city.

Highland tapped his wrist where a watch would be.  He mouthed words.

Long trip.

Carson nodded.  Long was better than not.  The only issue would be if they got intercepted.

It was another five minutes before they got off the rural road and reached a T-shaped intersection, with both a stop and a yield sign.  He used that moment to communicate to Highland what they were doing, even though there was nothing to stop or yield for.

The man nodded.

The girls were talking, and Carson used the voice on the phone to instruct them to speak louder.  Because whispers were more dangerous.  Cutting from the distant outskirts of Camrose and the city to the downtown area of the city was an hour long trip, more or less.

There were some grumblings about bathroom.  He told the girls to piss in the car if they had to.  They managed not to.  But there were also asks for water – claiming dehydration, that the masks were stifling.  In response to that, Highland himself wanted to stop.  So they parked a distance down the road from a roadside gas station.

Highland said he liked to stop in situations like these, because it made it hard for a tail.

Carson conceded the point, but he also wondered if part of it was that Highland was a smoker who was running low.

If so, he didn’t want to begrudge the man.  It was a small price to pay for a delay.  Out of paranoia, he kept an eye on him.  Making sure no calls were being communicated.

Then back on the road again.  Into the city.  Toward downtown.

The destination was a tunnel.  Out of sight of the satellites.

Highland swerved, then parked at the side of the tunnel.  Car horns honked- it wasn’t that kind of space, where there was a ton of room, turning two lanes into one and a half.

The cars made a lot of noise, honking their alarm.  Highland and Carson remained where they were, tense.  Wary.

Someone, squeezing past, rolled down a window.  Carson reached for his gun.

Hot coffee, thrown onto windshield and hood.

Not a Cavalcanti soldier taking the opportunity to make a move.

Another car came and parked, bumper almost touching theirs.  Mia had coordinated with Moses Murtha, the ex-driver for the Cavalcantis, who’d provided information to support the kidnappings.

Highland and Carson ushered the three girls down that narrow space, hand at the back of necks, to make them stoop down, to get them into the new car.  Moses stood by to help block the view, where the nose of his car dipped down.

Speed was of the essence here.

They closed the door, traded keys, and drove out, merging with traffic.

Moses would drive their car out.

I think I understand you more, experiencing all of this, Carson thought.  The pain.  The worry.  The fact that none of this felt as sufficient as it could be.

When and if they could find an equilibrium again, he wanted to put more effort into the countless small steps.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have additional properties?  Additional measures prepared?  Distractions for pursuers?  Cars waiting in places, for easy trade-offs?

He wanted to embrace his wife, and whisper these things to her in the same way others would whisper sweet intimacies.

The Angel of Death waited a short distance away, and they quickly traded off on a fancy little street outside Little Italy with trees running along either side of the street, foliage knitting together overhead.

The Angel of Death seemed to have some reservations about the prisoners.  Something to talk about another time.  Carson made a point of showing care and consideration for the girls, protecting their heads as they quickly got into the next car.

It wasn’t a far drive to the location Mia had highlighted.  Carson parked.  Highland broke in, and they led the girls inside.

He prepared a coded message for Mia, using the library again, letting her know, referencing Bolden.  If Bolden was incapacitated, maybe they could keep the man useful by parking him here, as an extra set of eyes and a possible gun.

He wasn’t sure whether to read the lack of response as a problem, as Mia being under the weather, or a rejection of his idea.

The house was built to have multiple residents with their own space and one common living area.  Three tiny bedrooms, three tiny bathrooms, a downstairs living area and common kitchen, with no furniture, and an upstairs living area with a couch and armchair that nobody had cared enough to carry out.

He tried a tap and was surprised to find it had life in it- the water was a red-brown, but it ran enough for toilets to flush.

Magic from Mia, maybe?

He chained the three girls to the railing of the staircase, then separated them one by one, working with Highland to move them.  Each one to a bathroom.  Highland started to chain one around the base of the toilet, and Carson stopped him.

Toilets were fixed to the ground with wax seals.  Enough vigorous side to side motion, they could be toppled, the chain slipped free of the base.  If the chain was tighter than that, it could still be dragged or pushed with enough sustained effort.

The sink with its exposed piping below was better.  So he did the toilet and the sink.  Two chains for one captive.  One from wrist to sink.  One from neck to toilet.  The tub, though stained with age, could have some blankets and a pillow tossed in it.  The toilet worked.  Food and water was set in reach.

“I am unlocking the hood over your head for ease of breathing, eating, drinking,” he used the phone to tell Nicole.  “Do not remove it while I am here.  If we knock on the door, you put that on.  If ever you see our faces, you will not leave alive.”

“I understand.”

Upstairs were two more rooms that allowed for similar setups.  One had a shower stall only suited for standing up.  Addi had pissed him off, being uncooperative, so she got that one.

They got the same instructions.

There were a thousand things that needed accounting for, here.

“I don’t like that we can’t easily watch all three rooms.  If I’m sitting on the stairs, sure,” Highland murmured.  “But I can’t sit on a stair for hours on end.”

“For a few hours.  I’m going to go, check in, get supplies and things to make some quick modifications to the space.  How crazy will it drive you if I put bells on them?”

Highland snorted.  “I can handle bells.  Can’t say the same for Bolden if you get him in here to help keep watch.”

“Their hoods are off, so keep your mask on while moving around.”

“Yeah.”

After the bunker, this felt so inadequate.  And it was an expensive inadequate- they’ had to hire two people to do car changes.  Not knowing the full limitations of what Davie was doing to track them made it worse.

Mia was going to be in such a miserable mood.

He drove back, mind whirling, thinking through all the things they needed to do to secure a location like that.  Cameras would be ideal.

Clothes and supplies for the captives.  Tampons.  Toothbrushes, soap.  More water, in case the taps kept spitting out rust.

He needed the Angel of Death to check his side, too.  She was the closest thing they had to a back-alley doctor.

It was almost dawn.  He pulled up to the house, and let himself in.  Could or should he take a nap?

“Good morning, honey.”

A voice that wasn’t Mia’s.  Carson’s hand reached for the gun.  Then he stopped short.  A good thing too, considering more than one gun was trained on him.

Davie Cavalcanti was in their home, sitting in their living room.  Mia sat across from him on the couch.  Two soldiers stood by, backs straight, guns aimed at Carson.

“How was your night?” Davie asked, his tone lightly mocking.  “Would you like coffee?  Breakfast?”

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