“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. Best we gear up and get ready.”
Not long after midnight, Lewis half-heard a sound on the cabin’s front porch. She came awake fast, listening. In the two nights she’d been here, she’d had a few animal visitors, foxes or wolves or raccoons. She had to keep a heavy lid locked into place on the trash can to keep garbage from being strewn all over the place. Probably a coon out there trying to get a free meal.
She grabbed the flashlight next to the bed, and the gun that Carruth had stashed under the mattress, an old Beretta 9mm pistol.
Probably, it was a hungry critter, but best she go and make sure.
When she opened the door, she saw a man standing there, dressed in white camo and a hood. She jumped, startled, covering him with the pistol as he pushed the hood back. . . .
“Jay?!”
“Hello, Captain.”
She steadied the gun, kept it aimed at his chest. “How did you find me?” She looked past him, didn’t see anybody else out in the dark.
“I found Carruth’s records, rental receipts for this place. I followed it up. Margo Lane? Come on.”
She shook her head. Amazing. “What, did you think I was just going to . . . surrender because you figured it out? Come out here like the Lone Ranger to take me in? I can shoot you dead where you stand and bury you in the snow. They won’t find your body until spring.”
“You would do that?”
“Did you really think I wouldn’t?”
“Probably not a good idea,” said a voice from behind her. “Do you really think a civilian computer guy like Jay hiked out into the cold Montana woods all by himself?”
She froze, then turned her head, not moving her body.
An older man stood there, also in snow gear, and he had a Colt .45 pistol pointed at her. Not wavering a bit, that gun.
Kent, she remembered. General Abraham Kent. A Marine. They weren’t supposed to be doing this, the Marines.
“And if you think you’re Annie Oakley and you can take me out, I’ve got four crack shots outside with M-16s covering your car, which won’t run right now, both cabin doors, and the windows. I get killed, I’d guess your chances of leaving here alive are close to zero. But if you blink funny, I’ll shoot you, and I don’t think you’re good enough to get me anyhow. Put the piece down.”
“Shit,” she said, letting the gun sag and hang by her side. She released it and it clunked on the rag rug over the wooden floor.
They had her.
She looked at Jay.
“Why are you here? You’re not a field guy.”
“I didn’t want to miss it,” he said. “It was the least I could do.”
“What if I’d just shot you without a second thought when I opened the door?”
“General Kent tells me the ceramic and spider-silk armor I have on under this poncho will stop anything you could have carried to the door. It ought to, it’s heavy enough.”
She shook her head. Damn.
Damn.
EPILOGUE
Fine Point Salle d’Armes
Washington, D.C.
There were half a dozen new faces in the gym. Thorn had put the word out that he was expanding, and Jamal’s success had helped bring in a few more students. It would grow further, he knew, now that he had the time to put into it.
He and Marissa stood off to one side, watching Jamal demonstrate the guard position, the first simple parries, and the basics of footwork.
“He’s a good kid,” she said.
“I think he’s gonna do fine. He’s smart, talented, disciplined. He learns from his mistakes. And I think helping teach these new kids will be very, very good for him.”
“And this is what you want, Tommy?” She gestured around them at the ratty old gym, refurbished but still run-down.
“It won’t always be like this,” he said. “But right now, it fits. And, yeah, this is what I want. Well, as long as you’re a part of the package, but you knew that already.”
She smiled, but then grew serious again. “You’ve officially resigned from Net Force?”
Thorn nodded, still watching Jamal’s retreating back. “There’s no reason for me to stay. We caught Lewis, and they’ll put her in a room so deep it’ll take daylight a week to get there. Nothing else on my plate.”
He sighed, then turned to look at her. “I’m not a military man, Marissa, and I don’t want to be one. My position isn’t really necessary in the new chain of command, but then most of the people who work for Net Force aren’t necessary. There’s too much duplication of effort. Kent commands a Marine unit, though. They can at least find a place to stick him and his troops, those who want to stay. Or he could retire as a general, get a job in private industry, if he wants. Jay probably won’t stick around unless they offer him something he can’t get elsewhere, which they can’t. General Hadden knew all along, I think, that I would be leaving. Sooner or later, it would have come to a pissing match, and I’d have lost. Better to retire a winner in your prime than hang on and get knocked out by some young and hungry fighter on the way up as you are going down.”
He paused again, then asked her, “So, are you okay with this?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t want you to quit for the wrong reasons—ego, mostly—but you make good points.”
“Now and again, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn.” He paused. “You heard that Abe Kent is getting married?”
“No, really?”
“His guitar teacher.”
“Wow, seems like everybody is getting married, doesn’t it?”
He took her hand. “Everybody important, anyhow.”
She smiled at him. “So, Tommy, are we going to live happily ever after?”
He reached up and touched her cheek with his other hand. “Believe it,” he said softly.
And kissed her.
Other titles by Steve Pieczenik
THE MIND PALACE
BLOOD HEAT
MAXIMUM VIGILANCE
PAX PACIFICA
STATE OF EMERGENCY
HIDDEN PASSIONS
MY BELOVED TALLEYRAND
For more information on Steve Pieczenik,
please visit www.stevepieczenik.com and www.strategic-intl.com.
Books by Alexander Court
ACTIVE MEASURES
ACTIVE PURSUIT