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Judge followed Hank out into the open.
The sun had yet to rise, but there was enough predawn light that he could see the camp he’d been in for the past few days. The buildings were the same but looked different, with no recruits moving around them, practicing hand-to-hand combat skills, knife throwing or exercising. It was a ghost town with nothing but the ruts left in the mud to indicate anyone had been there.
The team walked out of the camp and through the gate Judge had driven through under fire. If not for the empty shell casings left on the ground and memories of PJ running alongside him through the confidence course, he would have been convinced it had all been a bad dream.
They made it back to the SUVs, stripped out of their gear, stowed their weapons and climbed in. Hank drove the SUV Judge had driven from the airport. The ride back to Kalispell was completed in silence.
Judge scoured the roads and turnoffs, wondering if TCW’s backup site was nearby, maybe hidden in the forests and mountains, much like the one they’d just left. If so, perhaps he should stay and search the vicinity.
“They could have gone anywhere,” Hank said as if reading Judge’s mind.
The sun was fully above the eastern horizon when they reached Kalispell.
Hank had the SUV Boomer drove stop to grab breakfast for the team from a fast-food restaurant while Hank’s vehicle continued to the airport. Judge covered his face through town. If TCW had left behind spies, he didn’t want to be seen and didn’t want his connection to the Brotherhood Protectors to get PJ into trouble.
At the airport, they drove onto the tarmac and boarded the plane. Boomer’s SUV arrived shortly afterward. Once the team was on board, the plane took off, heading back to Bozeman.
The farther away from Kalispell and the camp where he’d met PJ, the more Judge second-guessed his departure from TCW. He should have convinced PJ to come with him or found a way he could have stayed and still saved Mud.
The fact was, PJ hadn’t wanted to leave TCW. What she had left to do was a mystery to Judge. One for which he might never learn the answer.
He settled back in the airplane seat, closed his eyes and tried to sleep, exhausted from being up all night and from the stress of leaving the camp and PJ.
As he drifted off, his last thought was that he would continue to look for PJ. And he would find her.
* * *
PJ rode in the back of an old Army surplus deuce-and-a-half truck with a canvas cover stretched over the bows. Soaked to the skin from packing up camp in the rain, she didn’t mind being crammed in like sardines, body-to-body with other recruits, all trying to stay warm.
They’d gotten good at packing up camp and moving, leaving nothing behind that could be used to trace them. Every piece of equipment had a place on a truck. Recruits, trainers and leaders pitched in, broke them down and moved the equipment and furniture so quickly, their camp was cleared in less than four hours.
People, along with their personal belongings, packed in next to the equipment, finding whatever space they could occupy for the long, bumpy ride to their next location.
Since the FBI, DEA and Brotherhood Protectors had been after them, they’d had to move several times over the past year, losing more and more of their numbers in raids.
This move wasn’t because of a raid but to circumvent the possibility of a raid due to two members of their community leaving without permission.
Bones had given PJ just enough of a sedative to knock her out but not so much that she was unconscious for long. She was already coming to when Tiberius and other leaders responded to Bones’ cry of alarm.
While everyone else was mobilized to break camp, PJ, still groggy from the drug, had been interrogated for a full thirty minutes.
She’d had the mental capacity to stick to the story she’d concocted, claiming she’d tried to stop Judge from taking Mud and breaking out of camp. Between the knot on her forehead, busted lip and being unconscious, she’d sold them on the lie and went to work, proving she was part of the team by working alongside the others to get everything loaded and out of the camp in record time.
All the while, she’d thought about Judge, praying he hadn’t been hit when he’d busted through the guards and the gate. She prayed Mud had gotten the medical attention he’d needed in time.
As cold as she was, her heart warmed at the memory of that last kiss. Whomever Judge really was, he hadn’t belonged with The Chosen Way. She hadn’t been able to ask him why he’d come. Deep down, she knew he was one of the good guys. But as a good guy, he hadn’t been able to get back to the camp with enough cavalry to save the day.
Even if he had, PJ wouldn’t have gone with him. Augustus had gone shortly after his speech. He hadn’t been among them as Judge had made his escape, and he hadn’t returned to help move camp. The man was slippery, able to evade every raid as if he knew they were coming.
PJ wondered if she’d ever get close enough to the man to take him out. Being confined to a camp wasn’t helping. She needed to be outside the fences. The only time she’d been allowed outside the perimeter had been in the company of Wiley at the bar or when she’d been tasked to kill someone.
She must have fallen asleep sitting up.
When the truck came to a jerking stop, PJ almost slid out of her seat.
They’d arrived at their alternate location. The sun was up and shining.
Everyone piled out of the trucks, tired and hungry, knowing they wouldn’t eat until they’d unloaded everything, including the mess hall equipment.
