Chapter 7
SEVEN
Undisclosed Location, Idaho
Noah hiked his backpack higher on his shoulders and stopped for a second.
Four miles in, and he still had no idea how far it was to the house, but he was almost positive some kind of four-legged animal had been tracking him since he entered these woods.
The thing was about fifty feet to his right.
He couldn’t quite see it, hunkered down in the tall brush.
But every time he moved, he would’ve sworn it moved with him.
The sun had set behind the horizon, darkening everything with the orange glow of twilight. In this part of the world, in the height of summer that put the time at close to ten. Hopefully, he’d make it to her house before it was midnight and he wound up stumbling through empty woods in the dark.
Noah glanced at the brush to his right. He didn’t want to run into a hungry animal.
He slid out the phone from his pocket. No signal.
The lane in front of him had to be an old fire road, and to her credit it was maintained. Brush had been cleared from the sides of the road, and the ground between the trees. A wildfire on one side would have a difficult, though not impossible, time jumping to the vegetation on the far side.
That left him walking on barren dirt pocked with gravel and rutted with potholes, wondering if the road would ever end. “Maybe that’s the point,” he muttered.
Great. Now he was talking to himself.
“You did this on purpose.” Maybe she could even hear him. “Anyone trying to reach your house goes crazy before they can even get there, right?”
No answer.
It was another mile at least before the terrain opened up and he realized the road was now a makeshift runway that stretched to the east. On the left side was a huge barn with the doors open, and a small red plane inside.
The structure beside it was a small cabin that had to have been there for over a hundred years.
Nothing about it looked new. Not the yellowed windows, or the porch with a missing beam.
“Your house is gonna fall down with the next stiff breeze.”
“No, it won’t.”
He spun to see her behind him and watched her crack a smile. Noah didn’t want to consider it the most beautiful thing he’d seen in thirty-four years. And certainly, if he did happen to think that, he wouldn’t say it.
What he needed to tell her and the rest of the team was the change in their situation that’d happened at his visit to the CIA. But for some reason, he couldn’t quite make himself say those words, either.
Noah cleared his throat. “You asked me to come?”
Marina had long blond hair that fell past her shoulders, and right now all of it had a pink tint. She wore black cargo pants and a gray T-shirt with a blue denim jacket over it. Sunglasses pushed up on her head. “They made it to the trucks.”
“Good.” Noah nodded. “Where did you come from?”
There were few people in the world who’d ever been able to sneak up on him, and fewer still who lived to tell anyone they’d managed it.
The part of him that had made it through BUD/S, Navy SEAL training, bristled at the fact she could’ve attacked him from behind, but he trusted her enough to know she never would.
Marina smiled wider. “Come on.”
But she stepped to his left and faced back the way he’d come, then let out a series of short whistles.
Noah glanced over his shoulder and saw two Belgian Malinois dogs race out of the woods. One was the animal he’d spotted to his right. “There was a second dog on my left.”
“Platz!” The command was loud, sharp, and higher pitched than the tone she usually spoke with. Both dogs stopped so fast they almost tripped over themselves, lowering with their bellies to the ground. Tongues hanging out.
She raised a brow toward him. “You saw Roscoe?”
“I don’t know that I saw him. More like a sense there was something out there.”
“We’re gonna work on that.” To the dogs Marina said, “Let’s go.” She trudged over the long grass to the open doors of her barn, and the dogs raced past her into the structure.
He followed her in. “That your plane?”
She chuckled but didn’t turn back. “Yes, and I actually have a license.”
“I’ve always wanted to learn.” Noah scanned the terrain, because the alternative was watching her walk. He didn’t need her to look back and see him staring at her. Inside the barn smelled like oil, and something else he couldn’t place. “How do you connect to the wider world from here?”
She led him to a workbench covered with mechanical tools and pointed at a map of the surrounding area on the wall. One specific spot that looked like the top of a mountain. “Defunct military satellite relay station.”
“Sure, that explains it perfectly.” If only he had a simple explanation like that for the fact they were now the Division Zero team. With no pay.
“Probably better if you don’t know the ins and outs.” Marina smiled. “Plausible deniability and all that.”
He returned her smile, but she looked at him funny. “I’m guessing the military conveniently lost track of it?”
“What they don’t miss won’t hurt them.” She ducked through a doorway into a back room, and he followed, trying to forget about the CIA for now.
He found himself in a small office with some dusty papers on the desk and a stack of junk mail next to an aging computer that didn’t look like it had been turned on in a decade.
This could be the nerve center for the defunct military satellite, or whatever it had been, but he didn’t think so.
It was more like a misdirect for anyone snooping around.
The dogs had disappeared.
Marina touched the mouse on the aging computer, sliding her thumb down the left side.
Behind her, a panel in the wall slid back to reveal a tunnel that didn’t belong in a barn.
Over her head, fluorescent lights flickered to life.
The air smelled clean but not in an artificial way.
When the door slid closed behind them, it sealed in a way he knew this place was airtight.
Noah ducked his head and followed her. “Secret nuclear bunker?”
“Something like that.”
Marina wandered down a long hall that descended below ground level, and the air grew colder as Noah followed her. Far enough that his ears popped.
She twisted around. “Now you know where to go when the governments go head-to-head, civilization falls, and we all get caught in the crossfire.”
“I’d say that sounds cynical, but I may take you up on the offer.” They stepped through a doorway into a double-wide shipping container.
“It’s cold.”
“The dogs like it cooler.” She pulled a rolling office chair back and sat at a desk. The computer setup had four monitors, one of which was vertical.
He peered at the screen, which was a satellite image of a vehicle traveling down a barren road. “That’s the boys?”
“They’re almost to the airfield.”
“Good.” Noah looked around.
He spotted a small kitchenette that hopefully vented to the surface, though most of the countertop was behind a curtain that hung from the ceiling.
At the far end was a bed with rumpled covers, and a closed door beyond it to the side that would lead into neighboring container, which had been bolted to this one.
There was plenty down here that he couldn’t see.
What he did leaned heavily toward bookshelves stacked with worn paperbacks and a recliner.
He wondered how she’d managed to bring that down here.
“Surprise, I’m secretly a hermit.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Noah said. “I like the trailer in Key West. But this is…” He turned to find her watching him, a look on her face that seemed to be curiosity mixed with nerves.
Marina was hard to read over the phone, or the comms channel, but in person it was only fractionally easier.
Being expressive wasn’t one of her skills.
But she more than made up for that with what she could do.
He had to remember that and not jeopardize it—all because he had a crush on her and he’d made a dumb bargain with the CIA.
“Do you Air BnB?” he joked. “I need a vacation, and this place…” He lifted his fingers, making an OK gesture. “Top-notch.”
He caught a smile on her face before she turned away.
Noah peeked into the second container and spotted the dogs.
Side by side on cushy beds, one sat alert with his ears up, watching with an intensity that told him there would be trouble if Noah misstepped.
The other lay on his back with his legs in the air, fully asleep up against the wall and already snoring.
He wandered back to Marina, sliding his backpack off his shoulders and changing his mind at the last minute, going to the recliner instead. “Can I check my email from here?”
She leaned back in her chair and nodded. “I can make coffee.”
“That sounds great.”
“Did you swing by and see your family on the way?”
Noah shook his head. “I’m going to try and do that before I go back East.”
“I could fly you. Tomorrow, if you want.” She slid back the curtain, revealing that kitchenette.
Not more than a couple of cupboards and a countertop.
She poured water from a gallon container into a kettle.
Instant coffee. Two mugs. He spotted a small refrigerator under the counter.
A compact-sized air fryer beside an Instant Pot on the counter.
“Do you have running water in the bathroom?”
Marina flipped down the button below the handle and glanced over her shoulder. “Composting toilet.”
He lifted his brows. “And if I want to take a shower?”
“There’s a river about half a mile northwest. There usually aren’t many bears, and the temperature of the water is best described as bracing.”
Noah stared at her while she made the coffee, trying to figure out if that was a joke or not.
“So do you want me to fly you to your brother’s ranch tomorrow?” A twinge of nerves had entered her tone.
“That would be great. Thanks, Marina.” He accepted the black coffee she handed him.
“And thanks for letting me bunk here on the way to see Caleb, because fitting it all into one day would’ve been difficult.
” She’d sounded serious enough he’d asked if she had a spot where he could lay out his bedroll and she’d agreed.
Marina turned back to her computer. “You’re the boss.”
And that’s where it got sticky. Because as she wandered to her chair at the desk, both of them were definitely aware his presence here wasn’t normal for either of them.
He doubted he was here so she could show off her impressive security system—the one currently heavy breathing in the next container—or all the bells and whistles in this place.
He doubted it was even to offer him an apocalypse escape plan.
Noah pulled out his laptop but didn’t open it. “There was something you wanted to tell me?”
Marina turned on her chair to face him, her hands pressed together between her knees. “I actually need your help.”