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CHAPTER6
Leslie was doingher best to make herself as small as possible, pressed up against the wall of the cave where Stryker had dumped her after dragging her inside. She’d tried to scream, but after he backhanded her, she decided to keep her mouth shut. No one would hear her, anyway, and the side of her face stung like crazy. Then they’d just shoved her in next to one of the huge trucks and ignored her as others ducked under the door into the cave. They probably figured she had no place to go and they’d deal with her after they took care of business. They were certainly right about that.
She did her best to make herself as small as possible, hoping the big trucks were effective camouflage. She had finally managed to stop shaking and concentrated more on making herself as invisible as possible. Right at the moment, they seemed too engrossed in their situation to be paying attention to her. Thank god.
She had no idea who these men were, except she just knew they weren’t your average bad guy. There was a hardness to them, a lack of compassion that scared her, but she had to somehow get past that. She’d realized the trucks were filled with explosives, and more were stacked on the floor ready to be loaded. And through the open rear door of one of them, she saw open cases of weapons. Very. Big. Weapons. She listened as hard as she could to try and figure out what they were going to be used for.
She had absolutely no idea how she was going to get out of here, but as long as they didn’t focus on her, she might be able to figure something out. Somehow, she had to get word to Brotherhood Protectors that disaster was getting ready to happen. Besides, she was pretty sure by now, Beck would be pissed off at her for just taking off and would have people out looking for her.
At least, she hoped.
Now, she watched Vern pacing back and forth in the cave, his thick black brows drawn together in a deep scowl. Deep grooves cut into his face, and he was definitely disturbed. No, not disturbed. Angry. She could see he was doing his best to keep himself under control and not lose it in front of the others.
“You think you really should have gone out there for another look?” Stryker finally asked. “What if someone spotted you?”
“I had to satisfy my curiosity,” Vern told him. “See what this is all about. We can’t afford some asshole to stumble on us right now and blow this whole thing to kingdom come. There’s too much riding on it.”
Stryker shrugged. “If you say so. But I thought invisibility was the key until the big event.”
“And I discovered something,” Vern told him. “I finally got information on who this Hank Patterson is.”
“How the hell did you do that?” Rusty demanded.
“I reached out to my contacts, and someone came through. This guy runs a black ops and security organization back in Montana where he took down a group like us but smaller. If they’re here for us, we have a problem.”
“They haven’t come after us yet,” Stryker pointed out. “This may just be a rotten coincidence.”
“So who is he?” one of the men asked.
“Hank Patterson. He runs something called Brotherhood Protectors. These guys think they’re god and want to rid the world of people like us. Good thing I have these super-powerful binoculars so I can keep an eye on things. We have to be extra careful how we make our exit here. Maybe even do it at night.”
“You’re shitting us.” The blond man stared at Vern.
Leslie had learned his name was Rusty. It appeared they’d all chosen weird names, maybe to adopt the powerful image of Special Forces. But he looked more like a vulture the way he was studying Vern.
“I shit you not, so don’t get too comfortable. We need to be even more alert now.”
“Well,this mountain is pretty well camouflaged,” Stryker reminded him. “You can’t see the entrance to our location unless you’re really looking for it. Even then, it’s a bitch to get to. And those boulders look like they’re there permanently. We did a good job setting this up.”
“Yes, we did,” Rusty agreed.
“This situation is too critical to overlook even the smallest thing.” Vern let his gaze roam over the group assembled in front of him. “And I had to make sure none of you dummies tossed cigarette butts out of your windows again. That was a stupid thing to do. What were you guys thinking? How could you be so stupid?”
He waited, but no one said a word.
“Well? You don’t need to be smoking around explosives anyway.”
“Vern.” The man who’d committed the sin shook his head. “No one is riding this road anyway, not since the last tourist ‘accident.’ And it’s been forever since we had any traffic at all.”
“Well, now we’ve got a whole crowd within spitting distance, and that changes everything. We can’t take any chances.” Vern bit down on his rising temper. It was obvious he was struggling to control himself. “No more smoking. Anywhere. Once we accomplish our goal, you can find a place and smoke your lungs out if you want. We’re just lucky there’s no traffic on this road right now.”
“One person decided to take a ride up here,” Stryker reminded him and nodded at Leslie.
Vern looked over at her as if he’d just remembered she was there. A smile crept slowly over his face.
“So she did. How lucky for us. If it comes to it, she may just be our ticket out of here.”
Leslie tried to make herself as invisible as possible. Again, she had to find some way out of this.
“She didn’t just show up here all on her own, you know,” Vern pointed out.
“I’d say she’s part of that group on the mountain, the damn Brotherhood Protectors who showed up out of nowhere.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I knew something was off with that group. They don’t look like tourists out playing trailblazers for the day, or anything remotely resembling it. And they aren’t.”
“So what?” Stryker frowned. “We’ve handled people like that before. Right? And we’ll do it now.”
“We’re going to have to make our move at night, when it’s dark. And drive this road without lights. And keep an eye out for them. Fuck.” Vern’s displeasure was evident in the bitterness of his voice. “Let’s finish loading the trucks and be ready to roll no later than midnight. We have to reduce the number of vehicles for each run, which means more groups, so let’s get our act together here.”
“How are things going at the target site?” Rusty wanted to know.
