SEVEN
Matt Baker looked around the grassy area that served as a picnic area for his office building, making sure that no one had come out of the buildings and was within earshot since he’d first left his office on the fourth floor and made his way down to make this call. His boss has been kind, assuming that he was calling to check on Jessica and telling Matt to take all the time he needed.
He wondered when everyone in the office would stop treating him like some broken, pathetic victim. He wasn’t going to start dancing around the office and celebrating his freedom from Jessica just yet, but it was getting a little tiresome having to acknowledge all the looks of pity and the mock understanding. He’d gone from the guy no one in the office knew to everyone’s best bud. It was annoying, and he knew that it wasn’t genuine. Until his darling wife had gone missing, he’d been invisible. Now that she had escaped what everyone thought was certain death, suddenly he was there.
It infuriated him. If only they knew what kind of person Jessica was and how she was nothing like people assumed. They were always taken in by her beauty and that fake smile of hers. He’d almost been rid of her, and now, he was going to have to wait and see how things went down. He’d felt so trapped in the office, and his nerves were getting the best of him. He’d taken care of her the night before, and he was sure that she was a goner. But a late-night call from his contact still had him on edge, and he was afraid that Jessica had nine lives and no amount of money could make her disappear.
The call had been a surprise, the sound of the phone shattering the silence in the house not long after he’d come home to find that his mother had already put the baby down to sleep and left his dinner on the table. She didn’t say a word when he walked into the house without Jessica, but she didn’t have to. Jessica had been nothing but trouble for both of them, and it was his mother’s idea to take care of her.
Too bad it hadn’t worked.
He was just sitting down to eat when the phone rang, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. The caller ID was a familiar one that sent his heart racing. It was him, and he wasn’t going to be happy.
He answered the phone.
“Did she come back to you?” the man on the phone asked.
“She did, but the FBI got to her first.”
“Did they question her?”
“Yes, but she doesn’t know.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because she got into the car with me when I showed up to pick her up. If she knew, she wouldn’t have gotten into the car with me.”
“Good. Bring her to The Campus first thing in the morning and-”
“She’s gone,” Matt said.
Silence.
“I couldn’t risk her getting away again. I don’t know what I paid you people for, but it wasn’t that. How hard is it to take care of one-”
“Where did you take her?”
“I took her to the woods off Skyline Drive. She’s dead. I left her there for the animals to deal with.”
“You don’t think she’ll be found before then?” the man asked, his voice calm and steady.
His control made Matt’s skin crawl.
“No. I drove down a fire road deep into the woods beyond where the public is allowed to go. No one is going to go that way, especially this time of year.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“It’s taken care of. I’m sure that she’s already half-eaten.”
Matt’s stomach turned at the visual, and he shoved away the plate in front of him. As ready as he was to be done with Jessica and move on, the thought of what was happening to her body made him gag.
Then there was the fact that she’d run off and gotten away from him. She wouldn’t last the night, and her injuries were bad enough that he doubted she got far, but just knowing that she’d been alive when he left her worried him. He knew it was stupid, but he couldn’t help it. She wasn’t invincible, but it had felt like it at the time.
“So, you’re sure she’s dead?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Matt answered a little too quickly.
He took a deep breath, hoping that the truth wouldn’t come out. She was dead; he was sure of it. No one could survive the night in the condition he’d left her in. But she’d surprised him by getting up and running, and she’d managed to get away. It wouldn’t matter. She’d run right into the thick of the wilderness. If the cold didn’t get her, the wildlife would.
He almost started to say something more when the line went dead in his ear, and he breathed a sigh of relief. This was almost over, and by the time Jessica’s body was found-if it was ever found-no one would blame him for moving on. There was nothing to tie him to her death, and there was no reason to think he was anything other than a husband who had been through hell. His ordeal was almost finished, and if he wasn’t careful, he was going to blow it overthinking. Everything was going to be alright. He deserved this new life without the messes that Jessica created. The universe wouldn’t deny him that, and he knew he had nothing to worry about.
***
But across town, the man on the other end of the line was already springing into action. He called over one of the men walking through the control room in crisp black fatigues and combat boots.
“I need you to get a team together to go out in the woods and find someone.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said.
“Jake. Gather up the Elites and take them with you. We let humans handle this before, and they messed up. If word gets out that this one got away twice, we’re going to start losing money.”
Jake nodded, took down the scant amount of information that Matt Baker had provided over the phone and put the paper in his pocket.
“How many, sir?”
“All that are available. We can’t risk letting her slip through our fingers again.”
“Is she alive?”
“He says she isn’t, but Matt Baker is the kind of weasel that pays others to do his dirty work. He might have attempted to kill her, but I heard it in his voice; he dropped her off in the woods alive. There’s no telling what shape she’s in, but I guarantee he didn’t kill her, so be prepared for a live takedown.”
Jake nodded.
“Got it.”
“Don’t leave until you find her. Even if it’s her body. This woman is making a mockery of us, and we need to get her contained and reprogrammed.”
Jake nodded and left without another word. He knew that this was a serious situation, and he wasn’t going to leave the success of the mission to chance. Only the best of the best would do, and he knew exactly which guys he was going to take.
He walked into the rec room, flipping the lights once to get the attention of the men engaged in various activities around the room. Play stopped so abruptly that only the sound of a ball sinking in the corner pocket of one of the three pool tables in the room could be heard. The man standing with the pool cue in his hand smirked almost imperceptibly, but Jake didn’t pay him any attention. He was focused.
“I need the following men to come with me; the rest of you are available to J if he needs you. We don’t have any actives right now, but that can change with one phone call. Be ready, and be alert.”
The large group of men mumbled their agreement, then Jake looked down at the notes he’d scribbled down and looked around the room.
“Caleb, Hank, Derrick, Gage and Tristan, you’re with me. Tom, John, Lincoln, and James, you’re on deck. I may call you from the field if I need reinforcements, so have your bag packed. Everyone else, you’re here at base until you’re needed.”
Jake turned and headed down the hall. He didn’t even wait to see if the five men he’d called on would follow him. They were right behind him, as expected, ready to move.
They filed down the hall as one, and each man slipped into his room as they walked past, grabbing a bag that was already packed and falling back into line so quickly that it was almost as if they’d never broken ranks. Gage jogged to catch up with Jake, falling into step beside his friend and walking close so he could talk without being overheard by the others.
“Do you think it’s wise to have Hank and Tristan on the same team?” Gage muttered under his breath.
Jake shrugged.
“Their issues are not my problem. If they can’t table their feud long enough to do their jobs, then they can both leave.”
“That’s great in theory,” Gage pressed. “But I’ve already broken up a fight today.”
Jake stopped, turning smartly and facing the men.
“We’re going into the wilderness of Virginia. The area we’re covering is mostly off-limits to the public and the terrain is challenging. I expect that any beefs between team members will stay buried and that you’ll exert your energy looking for our target. If you can’t get along, tell me now and I’ll take alternates.”
He looked sternly at the entire group, but he could tell right away that the two men in question knew he was talking about them. Good, he wasn’t here to babysit.
He nodded, and the men nodded back their understanding. Jake knew that didn’t always mean that there wouldn’t be any issues, but he wasn’t interested in worrying about it all right now.
Using his keycard to open the door to the underground garage, he took a key from the guard there and unlocked a harmless-looking Ford Escape with heavily-tinted windows. It was modified, and the engine had been swapped with a more powerful one. It looked like a typical soccer mom SUV from the outside, but it was bulletproof and featured bench seats set sideways to fit more personnel than the five it was intended to seat. The floors opened up, storing ammo and other supplies beneath the feet of the men without any noticeable latches or handles. A quick inspection of the vehicle would lead nowhere, which is exactly what they wanted. The less noticeable, the better.
“We have a few hours before we get there,” Jake said as he started the engine. “If you need to, get some sleep. We have thousands of acres to cover and very little to go on. She was alive four hours ago when she was released to her husband, but a lot has happened. It’s going to take us another five hours to get there, so that will put us arriving a couple hours before sunrise. That doesn’t give her much of a chance, but she’s in good shape, and she’s a fighter. Do not underestimate this woman. She’s escaped before and found her way home.”
“I thought she was weeks into being reprogrammed,” Caleb said.
“She was,” Jake said. “But we’ve dealt with this before. The maternal instinct is strong, and despite our best efforts, getting back to her child kept her going.”
“Can’t we just take the child and take her out of the equation?” Derrick asked.
Jake shook his head.
“That’s not how the law works. It would be easier, but we can’t circumvent laws like that. We have a method, and that’s the way that works. Changing the script now will put our mission at risk.”
The men nodded, but Jake could tell that they weren’t satisfied. They operated outside the law, so kidnapping one more person shouldn’t matter, but it did. They couldn’t risk the attention that grabbing the Baker child would bring. And Mr. Baker would be the first to expose their group, and they would be toast. No, one child wasn’t worth all that trouble, no matter how much extra work dealing with Mrs. Baker was.
The men fell silent, and a quick glance in the review mirror showed that most had chosen to sleep while sleep was to be had. He looked at Gage, whose eyes were locked on the dark road ahead of them.
“I can drive straight through,” he assured Gage. “If you want to sleep, I’ll wake you up if I need a break.”
Gage nodded and, without another word, leaned against the window and closed his eyes.
Jake embraced the silence, using the time alone to gather his thoughts. This newest issue with Jessica Baker had Jake wondering if he needed to consider a different line of work. Were they doing the right thing? If they were, why was it so hard? Targets like Jessica Baker should be grateful for the work that was being done, but most of the time, they attempted to escape. It made things harder than they needed to be, and he’d started thinking that there had to be a better way.
He sighed.
As much as he wanted to live in that ideal world, he knew that just because things didn’t always go as planned didn’t mean that the plan was the problem. They were dealing with humans, and humans complicated things. Matt Baker may have paid to remove his wife from his life, but he wasn’t the real client. The real clients expected results, and they expected Jessica Baker delivered to them in less than a month completely reprogrammed. They had twenty-seven days to find this woman and get her through the program and on her way. He doubted that they were going to meet that deadline, and their clients would be unhappy. They couldn’t risk the ding to their reputation, but the fallout wouldn’t be nearly as bad as it would be if Jessica was actually dead. Like J, Jake didn’t believe Matt Baker, but men like Baker sometimes surprised them. If he had injured her enough that she’d died, or if he’d been successful in killing her, then their timeline wouldn’t matter. They would have to explain to their clients why Jessica Baker had died weeks after being picked up when she should have been safely contained on The Campus with the other targets. Someone had screwed up big time, and Jake was glad that it wasn’t him.
He needed this job, and he cared about the cause. He wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize a system that he believed in no matter how much he questioned their tactics. Their tactics worked, and that’s all that mattered.
Faith in what he was doing renewed, he pressed down the gas and pushed the vehicle until he was hovering just above the speed limit. Even if the car could pass a quick check by law enforcement, he didn’t want to risk it. All it would take was one overzealous cop to ruin their plans, but he was eager to get across state lines and into Virginia. Once they had Jessica, Jake would take his concerns to the boss and perhaps they could come up with a backup plan for women like Jessica, but for now, he was focused on the end results. Those results demanded that he find Jessica and bring her to The Campus to be dealt with, and that’s what he was going to do.