Into the Storm, page 15
She heard more movement and guessed he was searching the one cupboard that was big enough to hide a person. From what she’d seen before he doused the light, the room mostly had open shelves. No doors. No closets. Just one large bay.
Finally, he said, “We’re clear. No one is here. But I’m leaving the light off. If someone is in the vicinity, I don’t want them to see the red glow.”
“I smell gunpowder,” she said. “And something metallic, and epoxy or something equally stinky.”
“You’ve got a good nose. There are several containers of black powder on the workbench. Looks like they were tossed aside after they were emptied. There are metallic shavings farther down on the bench—my guess is detritus from drilling a hole for a fuse.”
“For a fuse?”
“Probably a pipe bomb. Jeb has a large supply of pipes and caps along with his stockpile of black powder.”
“Is it legal? Black powder, I mean?”
“Sure. It’s perfectly legal to own a black powder pistol. It’s harder to buy black powder in quantity, but if he’s been stockpiling for years, he could have acquired quite a lot. It’s shelf stable, highly explosive, and versatile compared to just stockpiling ammunition.”
“Jeb had a bomb-making factory here? Do you think he…was a terrorist?”
“I think he was a hoarder who wanted to defend his property. You said he served in ’Nam. He would know all about improvised munitions. It would be comfortable for him, but also not dangerous to own the pieces when they aren’t assembled. He had supplies at the ready. The lightbulbs are part of the stockpile. File off the top and fill the bulb with black powder. Screw it in a socket, and when someone flips the switch, boom.”
This was a bizarre conversation to be having in the dark, but it also crushed any desire she might have had to try a light switch anytime soon. “Thank goodness the power is out, then.”
She could hear his approach as he moved across the room, finally stopping before her. His touch on her arm was a comfort as she remained sightless. He would guide her through this darkness, as he’d been doing all night.
“The lightbulbs—on the bench—you think someone was making bombs with those tonight?”
“Yes. I think the filament broke a few times—either while the top was being filed off or when soldering wires to the base.”
“Soldering iron. I missed that smell. Or maybe I thought it was singed electronics.”
“Could be both. A motor could have burned out.”
“Why is soldering necessary? And how could he do it without electricity?”
“He made a soldering iron with the car battery, jumper cables, and the carbon rod from a regular household battery. As far as why he needed to solder, the power has been cut from this entire area, so screwing a hundred-watt-bulb bomb into a socket is useless. But if you solder wires to the base, and those wires are connected to a power source, it will ignite the filament and blow the black powder just the same. Making it a portable bomb. Like I said, black powder is versatile.”
She leaned her forehead against his chest, coming into contact with his stiff tactical vest and something hard and metal. The handcuffs? “It wasn’t Jeb who made bombs here tonight.”
“No. It wasn’t. All we can do is hope whoever it was is an ally.”
She raised her head, searching the dark for his features and seeing nothing at all, but she knew he could see hers through the NVGs. “George Shaw. He also served in Vietnam. He did his year, and my understanding is it was a rough one. He’d know how to make improvised weapons just like Jeb. And given their friendship, George knew exactly what Jeb had stored in his carriage house. He probably even had his own key.”
Chapter Sixteen
From Jeb’s property, they hiked more than a mile into the forest south of the lake. This area had no roads. No trails. Nothing but rocks, trees, and endless rain. The tent they’d borrowed was a pale moss green, meaning it would be well camouflaged in daylight, and Xavier would cover it with moss and ferns so it would be indistinguishable from the surrounding area.
They needed a place that was remote and untraceable, so they could both sleep without fear. The hike was slow going because Xavier had to ensure they left no mark of their passage. It was clear exhaustion was overtaking Audrey, but she didn’t utter a word of complaint. She put one foot in front of the other like the soldier she never was.
At last, he found the perfect spot—a narrow valley between two downed trees that were in the process of becoming nurse logs. The tent would just fit between them.
He quickly assembled the structure then turned to Audrey. “Get inside and set up the bed. I’m going to hike back a bit and make sure our trail is completely erased. When I get back, I’m going to cover the tent to camouflage it.” He cleared his throat. “Take care of business before you go inside. I’m going to bury the front in ferns and moss. We need to limit trips outside as much as possible during daylight, just to be safe.”
She nodded.
He set out to cover their trail. He hated leaving her even for this, but he had to be certain no one searching for them would stumble upon their tent. They’d been careful, and he was back ten minutes later. He piled ferns and sticks and moss on the shelter.
“Turn on the red light,” he said as he adjusted the covering then stepped back to view it from a few feet away.
There was no discernible light. He used the NVGs. Nothing.
He stepped closer and asked, “Is the light on?”
“Yes.”
He felt a rush of relief. This was going to work. “Good.”
He took a break to empty his bladder, then returned and piled a wad of moss and ferns across the opening as he joined Audrey inside the narrow two-person tent.
He noticed she’d zipped the sleeping bags together. Good. They both needed the shared body heat.
Audrey sat on one side of the double sleeping bag, her boots hanging off the end. “So—how do we sleep? Do we need to keep our boots and everything but our coats on?”
He paused to consider the question. If she were trained for this sort of thing, the answer would be yes. But she wasn’t, and she was shivering and had been off and on for hours. She needed to get warm, and she needed sleep. The best way for both was to strip down to their base layers so body heat and the warmth from the bag would cocoon them. And the stiff, wet leather boots would be uncomfortable enough to keep her awake, especially if her toes were already cold.
“We’re well hidden, and you need to get warm. Remove everything but the long underwear. Keep your socks on too if they’re dry.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “Good. I’m grateful for these boots, but they’re chafing and uncomfortable at this point.” She set to work removing the boots, followed by her outer layers.
He unclipped his tactical vest and set it aside. He then unholstered the Glock and set it at the top of the sleeping pad before doffing his coat, rolling it up, and placing it over the weapon. He turned to her. “Use your coat as a pillow, but don’t put your gun under it. Not a good idea for you to be taking shots in the dark.”
She let out a whoosh of relief. “I’m so glad you said that. I wouldn’t begin to know what to do.”
He did know what to do, but his standard operating procedure was skewed in this situation. Never in his wildest nightmares did he imagine being on an op on US soil with an untrained civilian as his backup while Russian mercs hunted them.
She rolled up her coat as directed, then finished removing her outer layers.
The long underwear she’d borrowed fit her like a glove, and he was glad she’d worn them for the last few hours. He imagined she’d be blue as a Smurf by now without them.
She placed her outer layers in the sleeping bag and pushed them to the foot. She caught him watching her and said, “Fieldwork trick. They won’t get wet if they touch the sides of the tent and they’ll be warm when I pull them on when we dress again.”
He nodded. “Plus they’re easy to grab in a hurry.”
She burrowed into the sleeping bag as he finished undressing. He copied her actions and rolled up his combat uniform. When he reached to put it in the bag, she took it from him and pushed it to the bottom with her clothes.
Stripped down to his Under Armour, he slid into the double sleeping bag beside her. They were side by side in the small tent, only a dim red light providing relief from unrelenting darkness as rain pattered on the moss and leaves that covered the rainfly.
Bodies at rest at last. He switched off the light.
“I—I need to eat,” she said. “The crackers and cheese I grabbed from the Baldwins should do it.”
Guilt stabbed him. He should have thought of that. They’d been hiking in the cold rain for hours. Not to mention that fear drained energy fast. She needed fuel.
He snapped the light back on and reached for his pack, then pulled out the requested items. He handed her a sleeve of crackers, then plucked his knife from its sheath and cut into the brick of cheese, splitting the plastic and slicing a one-inch chunk in one stroke. He handed her the slice before cutting a piece for himself.
She ate several saltines in a hurry before taking a bite of cheese, eating as if cheddar were an antidote to a poison she’d just ingested. Catching his gaze, she wiped cracker crumbs from her lips, then covered her mouth with a hand and spoke as she chewed. “I hope you aren’t the kind of guy to kick a girl out of bed for eating crackers.”
He gave a half-hearted laugh. “If I ever was that guy, then it’s not who I am now.”
“So I can have cookies too?”
“You can have all the crumbly things you want as long as you’re in my bed.” The words were out of his mouth before he thought about what he was saying.
“You sure about that, Frogman?”
He deserved the bitter tinge to her tone. He cut off another slice of cheese and offered it to her. “Yes.” Might as well go full honest. “I will always want you in my bed.”
She ignored his response and ate the cheese along with more crackers, then reached into the food supplies and grabbed a salami log. She peeled back the plastic wrapping and bit into it instead of waiting for him to slice it. When she was done, she let out a soft sigh as if eating had been a relief. She offered him the salami. “Want some?”
He took it from her and took a bite from the end as she had. He’d needed a protein hit too.
She took a long drink from her water bottle, then said, “Did you ever…consider…what it would do to me? The pain your actions would trigger?”
He cleared his suddenly dry throat and wished he’d taken a sip of water when he had the chance. “Yes. Every step of the way.”
“But you did it anyway.”
Nothing but honesty. “I did it anyway.”
She shifted, putting space between them. He wanted to put his arms around her, hold her close and keep her warm, but he had no right.
“I can’t tell you why I did it. I wish I could. I don’t know if you’d understand, but at least it might make sense. What I did was unforgivable, and for that reason, I’ll never ask for your forgiveness, but I hope someday you’ll understand that it was never about you. Never about us. Never about that night.”
“But you made it about that night.”
“I had to. But I want you to know the night we shared was nothing short of incredible. You are incredible. If my job hadn’t been paramount, I never would have tainted the memory of our night by lying.”
“So you admit you lied?”
“Yes. I said as much before, and when we get out of here, I will tell your boss, ACHP, and everyone who matters to you that I lied. I will own what I did, even though I can’t say why.”
“And I’m just supposed to believe that you’ll do that. You. The one with the history of lying.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if you believe me, but it’s what I’m going to do.”
“And if you did, what will that mean for you?”
“Not sure. I’ll be out of the military. On the extreme end, potentially a dishonorable discharge. Although higher-ups supported the tactic and probably guessed I was lying, so I don’t think it would go that far—unless you pushed for it.”
She raised a brow. “That’s some power you’re putting in my hands. Dishonorable discharge would destroy your whole world.”
“I deserve to be dishonored. I acted dishonorably. I’m horrified by what I did to you. And it shouldn’t have taken this extreme situation for me to get to this point, to see the wrong of it. Even worse, I did it for this”—he waved to indicate the thin sheet of fabric that protected them from a relentless rainstorm—“complete nightmare of a training that has endangered you, my training team, and a platoon of SEALs.”
“I don’t know about the rest of it, but I don’t think you can take the blame for what’s happening here. There was no way to predict any of this. For all we know, Jeb was in cahoots with the Russians.”
He started at her words. “Wait, I know why I suspect they’re Russian, but what makes you think so?” He suddenly realized they hadn’t debriefed about what happened when she was alone in the cabin so many hours ago. All he knew was there were two men, one blocking each door.
She cleared her throat. “The men who came after me in the cabin spoke Russian. At least, I’m pretty sure it was Russian.”
“Any chance you caught some words? Even if you don’t know what they mean, do you remember what they said?” He spoke some Russian. Maybe she heard something that would crack this wide open.
She shook her head. “I have no idea what they said when they were speaking Russian, but I did understand what they said in English.”
“They spoke directly to you?” If they knew she was in the woodbin, why didn’t they grab her?
“No. But one of the men can read and speak English, and I think the other man understood him.”
He jolted. “What? How do you know that?”
She met his gaze in the dim light. “One of them found a letter.” She paused, then added, “He read it aloud.”
“A letter? What letter?” What was she talking about?
“I wrote…you…a letter. In case something happened to me.”
“You wrote me a letter.” He shouldn’t be surprised. Seeing him again and then having the world go topsy-turvy in a lethal way was bound to trigger a need to vent. He deserved every nasty word she’d put to paper. “I hope…I hope it helped you process things.”
“What?”
“I deserve all your anger.”
“I wasn’t venting in the letter, if that’s what you mean.”
“Then what was it?”
Audrey’s hand covered his, and she threaded their fingers together, then she lifted her thermal top and pressed his palm to her belly. She moved closer, twisting to hold his gaze as she pressed his hand against her firm stomach. “Before you came to my office last month…I tried to reach you. The day before. Did you get the message from Jae?”
“Yeah. Someone from the Navy’s regulatory branch tipped you off. You knew what was about to happen.”
“No. I was happy to see you. Remember?”
“That was a front for your boss—”
She pressed a finger to his lips, even as her other hand remained entwined with his. “Shh. I mentioned earlier that if you can’t talk about what you did, then you need to listen. We’ve reached that point in this endless night—or rather, early morning.”
They’d entered nautical twilight. Outside, the sky would have lightened ever so slightly since he’d first climbed into the tent. A new day would dawn in just over an hour.
He held her gaze as he considered her words. “You have something to tell me.”
“Yes.”
She moved his hand, running his palm over her warm belly.
His throat constricted, and his own stomach seized.
All at once, he remembered her sudden nausea in the Baldwin cabin. And the way she’d desperately gobbled crackers and cheese a moment ago. He recognized the symptoms. His sister-in-law had been like that.
He knew what Audrey was about to tell him a heartbeat before the words left her mouth. He would have said it with her, but he’d promised to listen.
“That day, at the office, I was excited to see you, because it meant I could tell you in person that if all goes well, in late July or early August, you’ll be a father.”
His breath thickened in his already constricted esophagus as he tried to take in air and expel it at the same time. Emotion flooded him—horror and joy in equal measure.
Horror at what he’d done to her. She’d reached out to him to tell him she was pregnant with his child, and he’d assumed she’d been tipped off to the coming storm.
But it was the joy that sent the sting of tears to his eyes. And now he remembered the joy he’d seen on her face that morning a month ago. He could see it even now in spite of this terrifying situation. In spite of what he’d done.
He removed his hand from her belly and pulled her to his chest, holding her tight as unstoppable tears spilled down his cheeks.
He was trained to keep his emotional reactions in check. He was a stone-cold operator. But this news robbed him of his training. This night destroyed all his barriers.
Audrey is pregnant.
The nightmare he’d put her through for the last month ran though his mind. All this time, she’d been carrying his child.
“Oh, Audrey. I’m so sorry. I was sorry before, but…” He buried his face in her neck. Words to convey his absolute regret and remorse didn’t exist. He would have to create a new language just for sorrow.
“We’ll sort that out later,” she whispered. “We’ll sort everything later. You don’t need to decide right now if you want a role in this baby’s life. I just wanted you to know. I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you for the last month.”
“I don’t need time to decide anything.” He leaned back and pressed his hand to her belly again. There was a slight bump, her body roughly the same shape as she’d had the night they’d slept together, but where she’d been soft before, now her abdomen was firm.
