Hold the West Line (Night Stalkers Reload #2)

Chapter 1

You have a visitor.

A crescent moon was trying to punch through the high horsetail clouds that presaged an incoming weather system. Predicted as the first big storm of November, she’d believe it only after it showed up.

A reminder beep. Oh, right. Phone message. She definitely needed sleep soon.

She’d handed off the task of setting surprise traps along their possible routes to her assistant, Lieutenant Colonel Trisha O’Malley.

Not only did her red-headed sidekick possess an evil bent when it came to training, but it would also be good practice for training the commander in her—Emily had taken away half of Trisha’s counterattack forces after her plans were set.

Interestingly, it hadn’t thrown her into one of her normal verbal fits of incomprehensible Boston-accented protests against God, The Army, and whatever else she worshipped.

Instead, she watched Emily steadily for about five seconds, grinned evilly, then headed off while issuing a maelstrom of commands.

Emily would have liked to hear what she had in mind; but Trisha moved at a warp speed beyond her own capacity at the best of times.

Now, with the twenty twin-rotor Chinooks departed, half of the entire regiment’s heavy-assault team—the rest were based in Georgia, Washington State, or currently deployed—the night’s silence unfolded enough to hear the honking of late geese headed south in the overhead darkness.

She didn’t want a visitor.

What Emily wanted to do was go home. But the Montana ranch and her family seemed impossibly far away.

Montana ranch.

Phone message.

Visitor.

She pulled out her phone, though she didn’t remember tucking it away, and checked the message again. The visitor wasn’t here; she’d already figured out that much. Nor at her Fort Campbell office. Oddly, not out on the ranch either, at least not exactly.

Oh right, someone else was telling her she had a visitor somewhere. Not someone telling her—something! The message had been a carefully nondescript alarm from her top-level security alert system.

The message was from inside the secure Tac Room she’d built at Henderson’s Ranch. Someone had entered who wasn’t supposed to be inside there. Only three people other than herself had access to that space—none of whom would be labeled a visitor.

It was the sole office of what they figured was the smallest and least known intelligence agency in the nation—they themselves didn’t know of any smaller ones.

Of course, no one knew about them. Perhaps twenty knew of the room’s existence, but most of them were the family’s ranch hands who didn’t care.

A bare handful knew the room’s purpose, and she kept it that way.

The only likely visitor was former President Peter Matthews, who had set up their agency while he still had the power to do so.

However, Emily knew that her childhood friend was currently in Africa in his “retired” role as Secretary of State, and even he couldn’t open the door.

Deciding that a deserted airfield in the middle of a secure Army base was a safe enough place from which to find out who the hell had showed up in Montana, she first checked the GPS readings of the Tac Room’s three operators.

Two were in the ranch house lounge off the big kitchen; typical for an after-dinner evening.

Lauren was in Hawaii on vacation with her husband.

She called the Tac Room, wondering who had broken in and if they’d answer the phone.

Yet there was no break-in alert; rather, someone had attempted to login on the computer system there—and failed.

Who had slipped in? The US government had spent a lot of money to make sure that was impossible.

Neither Claudia nor Michael could have missed that, unless…

Over a thousand miles west, the evening sun would still be up, shining golden off the first real snow of the season.

The cold-sharpened air would smell of horses and larch pine.

November was incredibly late for the first snowfall, but she loved seeing the seasons brush across the ranch the way they never brushed the DC of her youth or the Kentucky of her present. Hopefully, she would see it soon.

Someone did answer and spoke with no introduction. There was no need for one; she knew the voice instantly.

“Hi, Emily. We need to talk. In person. It’s majorly important.”

The phone fell from Emily’s nerveless fingers. She heard a small tink as the screen cracked on the tarmac.