Chapter 34 - Anatoli
It was a nice day; the sun was bright and hot, but the air was cool, with a slight breeze.
The perfect kind of day, making it easy to forget Masha and I were on the run and not on a road trip.
Having to steal a car so I could send the guard off in the opposite direction to throw off our tail should have been enough to keep me from forgetting what kind of real danger she was in.
I tried to keep a watchful eye on every car that entered the rest area, but there seemed to be a constant stream going in and out.
There wasn’t much time, and I needed to find a car, and it would be best if it were one that wouldn’t be missed right away.
I wandered up and down the aisle, my attention torn from the entrance to the shop, where Masha and Svet were just entering, to finding a new ride to get us over the border.
All while trying not to look like I was about to steal a car.
A few rows over from where we parked, I hovered near a shiny new sports car that I rejected because the owner would surely have a high-level alarm system set up on it.
I also rejected the next one because I feared it wouldn’t last another fifty miles before overheating.
Then a family got out of a nice, subtle sedan that looked fairly new, loudly discussing what they wanted to order from the restaurant.
Perfect, they’d be in there for at least half an hour, maybe more if they went shopping, giving us plenty of time to be well on our way.
I glanced back at the store, but no one was paying me any attention, so I quickly removed the plates from my new sedan and another car in the next row over and switched them, giving us even more time after the car was reported as stolen.
Hopefully, the person who got the stolen car’s plates wouldn’t notice for days that anything was different about their vehicle.
All that mattered was that I got Masha to my place down in Mexico while I regrouped and put an end to the Collective once and for all.
I was just starting my new car when a squeal of tires had my head whipping up.
A black car was winging out of the parking lot and jetting toward the highway at top speed.
Not the silver car, I told myself as my heart jumped into my throat.
Just someone in a hurry, or maybe they’d just pulled off a beer heist. It wasn’t the silver car that was following us, but was it still familiar?
Masha had been keeping a better eye on the cars around us as we drove, while I consulted the map to find back routes that wouldn’t add too much time to our journey.
Swearing, I left the car running and raced into the store, looking around wildly for Masha or Svet.
My big guard should have stood out like a sore thumb amongst all the milling tourists, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Neither was Masha, though she would have easily blended in better, so I calmed down and walked swiftly through the entire store, asking a few people if they’d seen anyone of her description.
They smiled, not noticing my rising panic, just thinking I was some hapless husband who’d lost track of his wife.
Not that she might have been taken by an enemy bent on killing her.
No one must have seen anything out of the ordinary, either, or surely they’d be making a fuss about an abduction.
It must have been done fast and with surgical precision, but I wouldn’t have expected anything less from the Collective.
It seemed like an hour with my rapidly beating heart in my throat, but I got through the store and restaurant in less than two minutes.
Taking off toward my own car, no longer caring about stealth, I headed in the direction I’d seen the dark car go, but it was no use.
There were too many turnoffs at this junction, and two different highways to get onto.
They could be anywhere by now, and they’d probably change cars soon if they hadn’t already.
I lost her.
Sitting in the safety lane, I pounded the steering wheel once, then stared out the windshield, barely seeing anything through my rage. Until ice-cold fear hit me, making me grip the wheel until my knuckles were white.
I lost her. And with what I knew about the Collective and Julio Santino, maybe for good.
No. That wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter who had her.
She was mine, and I’d get her back, safe and whole.
It didn’t matter that I was on my own, most of my men dead or missing.
There wasn’t a future in my mind without Masha, so the only thing to do was get to work.
Pulling back into the rest area that was like a damn circus, I got a seat in the back of the restaurant so I could use their wifi.
A boisterous waitress came around to offer me coffee and rattle off all the specials in a singsong voice, and it was all I could do to keep from biting her head off.
Instead, I accepted the coffee and snapped open my laptop, turning it away from any prying eyes to begin hacking into the cameras situated in all the corners and over every door. They must have had thousands of people go through this place on a daily basis and had the security down pat.
The only problem was that there weren’t many cameras past the parking lot. We were still a ways from civilization, hours from LA, and still hours from the border. California was a huge place, and I happened to be in one of the empty expanses of it.
Even if I managed to get a better look at the car that squealed out of here with my wife, it would take hours to find any cameras and access their feeds in order to track it.
But it didn’t matter how long it took, did it?
Or that I didn’t have anyone who could split up the workload.
My fury gave me the strength of an army. I didn’t need anyone else.
Just Masha and I were going to get her back.