Chapter 13
Elena grabbed the barn truck keys from the new office and made her way outside. The cold hit her hard after the warmth of the barn, and she pulled her coat tight under her chin. With gloved hands, she shoved the key into the old truck, and it rumbled to life.
It took her just a few minutes to get to the kennels. Barking dogs greeted her, then Felicity stepped out of one of the chain-link doors, fingers gripping a brown leash. Her auburn hair glinted in the sunlight and her blue-gray eyes narrowed. “What’s going on?”
“Do you have a bomb-sniffer dog by any chance?”
She hesitated. “I do have one in training, but I wouldn’t want to count on him for the life-and-death situation I’ve been told about.”
“Well, we might have to.”
Felicity frowned. “All right. I guess we can see what he can do. I’ve only been working with him for about four months, so he’s still pretty green, but he’s smart and eager to please. Very food motivated.”
“We’ll take what we can get.”
She nodded. “I’ll get Milo.”
“Let’s head to the barn. That seems to be the home base right now, and someone will be staying pretty close to make sure the prisoner doesn’t manage to escape.
” She rubbed her eyes and frowned. “He’s the main reason we need to get off the ranch.
We need to deliver him to the sheriff and bring in reinforcements. ”
“Someone’s attacking the ranch. But . . . why?”
“That’s not completely clear, but they’ve already jammed all the cell signals and Wi-Fi access, supposedly planted bombs around the perimeter.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“Find a way to disarm the explosives and be ready to fight back if a full-on attack comes.”
Felicity met her gaze. “Javier Diaz was in Special Forces. He knows how to do that.”
“He’s also one of the worst PTSD cases here.”
“But he refused to leave, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Said he would help in whatever capacity we needed him. I just don’t want to ask him.”
“Not sure you have a choice. And honestly, I’ve gotten to know him a bit over the last couple months. If you don’t ask him, he’ll be insulted.”
“Ugh.” Elena hesitated. “I don’t know, Felicity . . .”
“At least give him the choice. And if he says yes, then we’ll just have to trust him and, if something happens, work through it with him. If he says no, we’ll figure something else out.”
“All right. It’s the best plan for now. I don’t know how much time we have, but we need to get moving.”
“Then let me get Milo and we’ll go find Javier.”
“He was at the barn. He knows what’s going on.”
“Gotcha. Then let’s bolt.”
Elena drove the truck back toward the barn with Felicity and Milo beside her in the cab. The young dog vibrated with barely contained energy, his nose twitching at every gust of air that filtered through the cracked window.
The dog was a Belgian Malinois with a sable coat and intelligent amber eyes.
His ears stood tall, twitching with every sound.
Still green, still learning, but smart. And hungry for praise.
If he could find the bombs without getting himself or anyone else blown up, she’d heap all the praise she could utter on his gorgeous head.
Felicity had a reward system that worked well for Milo, so she just might employ that too.
They reached the barn and climbed out quickly.
Outside the building, the vets gathered in tight clusters, voices tense, eyes scanning the woods like they expected danger to leap from behind every tree.
She didn’t blame them, because maybe it could.
But they were ready to be told what to do.
How to protect this place they’d come to find refuge in, only to be embroiled in some kind of fight.
The very thought made her want to cry. And fight back. She just needed to figure out how.
“Javier?” Felicity’s voice pulled her attention to the man leaning against the wall near the entrance, his eyes on the mountains in the distance. He turned and nodded, spotted Milo, and the tension in his shoulders eased a fraction.
Well, if Milo wasn’t any good as a sniffer dog, maybe he’d make an awesome emotional support animal. But right now, they really needed him to sniff out explosives. Javier knelt and scratched the dog’s ears, and Milo swiped a tongue across the man’s nose.
Elena approached. “Hi, Javier.”
“Hey.”
“I guess you know about the bombs.”
“Yep.”
“Do you suppose you could . . .” She grimaced. “I can’t believe I’m even asking this, but—”
“You don’t have to. I’ll do it.”
Felicity touched his arm. “But what about—” She bit her lip.
“My PTSD?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been here for eight weeks. I’ve had two hours of counseling every day.
I’ve learned a lot about myself and have a lot of tools in my belt now.
I can do this.” Almost word for word what Jim had said to her down by the lake.
Javier stuck his hands in the front pockets of his jeans.
“If Milo here can find them, I can dismantle them. Hopefully.”
“Hopefully?” Felicity asked.
He shrugged. “Depends on what they’re made of. I was trained by the Army, so the odds are in my favor to know the setup, but no promises.”
“Promises aren’t necessary. Well, just one. If you have any doubts, then leave it alone. We’re not sacrificing anyone here.”
He nodded, but she wondered if he’d really do that. She could only pray so. “Just let me know when you’re ready.”
Inside, David and Sully had a map of the ranch spread over the conference table in the makeshift office.
Sully looked up at their entrance, and she told him about Felicity, Milo, and Javier.
“They’re willing to find the bombs and Javier’s willing to disarm them.
There’s just one very big problem with that. ”
“What?”
“With everything blocked, signal jammers and cell phone jammers, they’ll either have to turn those off to remotely detonate the bombs or they have someone watching who can manually set them off. And, of course, they could have pressure plates. Roll or step on the wrong place and . . . boom.”
“But if they have someone watching and they see Javier . . .”
“Right. So, how do we make all that happen without someone setting them off?”
Sully and David exchanged a look. “We don’t know,” Sully said.
Javier, Felicity, and Milo entered and stood quietly while Elena stared at the map.
A map of vulnerabilities. Every trail, every exit, blocked with the potential to kill.
She shuddered. “If they’re watching—and I have no doubt they are—every move we make could give something away.
I don’t think they know what we know. All they know is we were in the woods when they were meeting and that we ran from them, but they don’t know much of anything else. ”
“They sure didn’t like that we were there, though,” Sully said.
“No, they didn’t. Which is why I think we might have a few hours to get set up. They’ll meet, regroup, replan, and so on. Maybe even wait to see what we do.”
Javier stepped forward. “What if we go at it like they’re watching.
Assume it. But don’t act like we’re searching for anything, we just look like we’re patrolling.
You know, routine security. Milo leads. We walk like nothing’s wrong.
Like we’re clueless. We let him move naturally.
We don’t even need to cover everything, just the spots that are likely to have explosives and a few others.
Milo’s smart. He’ll pick up the scent markers. Or at least we hope he will.”
“He’s still pretty green,” Felicity said with a frown. “But he’s eager to please and loves treats, so . . .”
“He’s better than nothing,” Javier said. “All we can do is try.”
David leaned forward, eyes scanning the map. “We’ll need teams in positions to draw attention away from Milo and Javier. But how can we be sure the teams won’t get shot at?”
“They’ll have to wear vests. Do we have enough?”
“No.” David sighed. “I have some I keep here for when I have to leave and go straight to another security job. There are four in the trunk of my vehicle. That’s not enough. The guys—and ladies—would be sitting ducks. We can’t ask them to do that.”
“Then just a couple of areas,” Sully said.
“The main entrance and the small horse gate at the back that leads to McHugh Highway. I’ll do it.
I have my vest and Piper has hers. After they shot Billy, they shouldn’t be surprised by the vests or the extra caution, so that’s one thing working in our favor. ”
“So, we need decoys while the sweep is happening elsewhere?” Maya asked.
“I don’t know if decoys will work,” Sully said, “but just teams patrolling so everything looks normal. Not like we’re looking for something.”
“And if Milo alerts to something?” Elena asked.
“He’d just sit,” Felicity said. “I’ve trained him not to bark when he alerts.”
Javier nodded. “If he sits, I’ll just pretend like he’s taking a little rest and reward him, then keep him moving.”
David nodded. “If someone’s watching, they’ll be looking for a reaction. Especially if you’re near one of the explosives. No one can react. Not even a twitch. Then we come back at night.”
Silence fell.
“Um . . . night?” Elena asked. “You’re saying come back after dark to defuse live explosives? Without lights?”
“Without visible lights,” David said.
Elena frowned. “Night vision goggles?”
“Exactly. In the dark, wearing the right kind of clothing, we should be basically invisible.”
“Depends on where they’re watching from,” Felicity murmured.
“Well, they won’t be close enough to get blown up, I can guarantee you that,” Elena said. “But what if they have night vision goggles too?”
Sully ran a hand over his chin. “That’s a chance we’re going to have to take. They don’t know we know about the bombs, so . . . I’d say the odds are on our side.” He glanced at Javier. “What do you think?”
“Let’s do it.”
“Okay, so we share this with everyone and let them know we’re doing standard patrols. That shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone watching. Someone did just shoot one of our people. Whoever’s behind this might be more suspicious if we don’t do anything.”