Twenty-Three
The sun had come up, but it was still early. Across the lake, a bank of clouds loomed on the horizon, but so far the sky was clear. Claire was in the shower. Ben tried not to think of her naked, of how good it had been last night. And again this morning.
He was beginning to know her, to understand her needs. He was beginning to realize she was an even more passionate woman than he had imagined.
He liked that about her. Hell, he liked way too many things about Claire.
The coffeemaker gurgled, signaling the pot had finished brewing. He poured himself a cup, walked over to the little table, turned on the computer and brought up the maps Sol had sent yesterday. He wanted to review each twist and turn along the route, memorize each meandering tributary that led to a dead end.
It was like a maze in there, with only a single, nearly unnavigable route of entry and escape. It was the reason the Bragg brothers didn’t worry about guarding that side of the compound.
Ben planned to go in again this evening. He had timed the guards’ rounds, knew they changed shifts on the hour, watched the men’s daily routine. They took their survival efforts seriously and everyone did their part. Sam was only nine years old but he was expected to work like a man.
Ben thought of his own childhood. He had gotten a job in the steel mill as soon as he was legally old enough. It was backbreaking labor, but he had been twice Sam’s size and eventually he’d won the respect of the men he worked with. The hard labor had been good for him, had motivated him to go to college, then join the navy.
But if Bragg kept Sam in the compound, he wouldn’t have the opportunities Ben had had, wouldn’t have the chance for any kind of a normal life. And he would suffer the same lack of love Ben had known as a child.
He looked down at the map on the computer screen, added the information he had gleaned last night to the drawings he had made. He needed to find a spot on the bayou side of the compound where he could talk to Sam alone, get him away from the others, into the boat and out of there.
He badly needed backup, but Trace was out of town, Jake was working a protection detail and Alex was still on his honeymoon, off to Rio de Janeiro now, according to Sol, for the next few weeks.
He took a sip of coffee. Claire was right. Nothing better than a hot cup of java in the morning.
His sat phone started ringing. Ben reached over and grabbed it. “What’s up?” he said to Sol.
“I’ve got a present for you, something you’re going to like even better than the candy info.”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“Backup. Guy by the name of Tyler Brodie. Says he’s Johnnie Riggs’s partner. Says he worked with you in L.A.”
“That’s right. Ty’s a good man.”
“Brodie called looking for you. He was in Dallas for a funeral. Annie put him through, and when he asked about Sam, I told him you’d found him in Louisiana and were trying to bring him home. I happened to mention that you could use some help and the next thing I knew, he was driving his rental car from Dallas to Egansville.”
“Happened to mention?”
Sol chuckled. “The map and aerials told the tale. Getting your kid out of that bayou isn’t going to be easy.”
Ben felt the pull of a smile. “I really do love you, kid.”
Sol laughed. “It’s a seven-hour drive from Dallas. Brodie left last night. I’m surprised he isn’t already there.”
A rat-a-tat sounded at the door. “I think maybe he is. Thanks, Sol, you’re the best.” Ben hung up and went to the door. On the other side of the peephole, tall and rangy, dark-haired and pretty-boy handsome, Tyler Brodie looked more like a college kid than a former marine.
Ben felt a sweep of relief as he opened the door. “Man, am I glad to see you.”
Brodie yawned. “I got in about two and needed some shut-eye. Old guy in the office rolled out of bed to rent me a cabin. I’m in number eight, right next door.”
“Come on in.”
Brodie sniffed the air. “Coffee. Smells great. I could sure use a cup.”
“You got it.” Ben walked to the counter, poured a mug and handed it to Ty. He took a sip just as Claire opened the bathroom door and stepped out in a skimpy white towel.
“Oh, my God—Ty!” Her hold on the towel went tighter. “What in the world are you doing here?”
Ty grinned. Ben didn’t miss the way his eyes ran over Claire’s half-naked body. “Just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by.”
Claire laughed.
“Why don’t we go outside so the lady can get dressed?” Ben suggested, nudging Brodie firmly toward the door.
“Yeah. Sure. Good to see you, Claire.” They walked out on the porch and Ben closed the door.
“Sol told me she was with you,” Brodie said. “I...umm...didn’t realize the two of you were involved.”
“We’re not involved. We’re working together to find my son.”
He glanced back at the closed cabin door. “Nice work if you can get it.” Clearly he hadn’t missed the one unmade bed. Ben tried not to think of Claire bent over the mattress and him hard inside her, but his blood moved south just the same.
“I wish to hell she was back in Houston,” he said, “but this is one woman who doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“I could tell the boy meant a lot to her.”
Ben nodded, glad to move on to a different subject. “You sure you want in on this? I counted fifteen members of the Bayou Patriots prowling around in that camp. Could be more by tonight. Good chance the guy’s there who shot me in El Paso. To say nothing of alligators, cottonmouths and rattlesnakes. It’s not going to be any walk in the park.”
Ty glanced off toward the lake and the low-lying swamps around it. “Just makes things interesting. I was in Texas for my uncle’s funeral. I’m damned glad to get away from all the gloom.”
“Sol mentioned the funeral. Sorry about your uncle.”
He shrugged his wide shoulders. Ty was lean and lanky, but his body was rock-solid hard. “Uncle Jim was sick a long time. In a way it was a relief. My dad passed some years back, but my mom was there with her second husband. The rest of the family was there—aunts, uncles, my three cousins down from Alaska. I needed a diversion.”
Ben followed Ty’s gaze out over the lake toward the bayou. “May be way more than that, but I’m damn glad to have you.”
“Bad news is I didn’t bring my weapon. It was too much trouble to get through airport security, and I didn’t think I’d need it. Sol says you wouldn’t have come out here without guns enough for at least the two of us.”
He thought of the stash beneath the bed. “Weapons aren’t a problem. Unfortunately, we can’t just go in there blasting away. We trespass on their property they’ve got a right to defend themselves.”
“One of them shot you. Another one stole your kid. They come after us, threaten us, the game changes.”
“That’s right. I’m not taking another bullet. But we have to be careful. We start shooting, Sam might end up dead.”
Just then the cabin door swung open. “I’m dressed,” Claire said brightly, looking fresh and pretty in khaki cargo pants and a white shirt, her dark hair pulled back, the way she usually wore it. “You guys can come on in.”
Ben let Ty walk in front of him into the tiny cabin. Reaching beneath the bed Claire had hastily made in a failed attempt to hide the fact they were sleeping together, Ben pulled out the canvas bag that held his weapons and unzipped the top.
Brodie whistled. “Looks like you came prepared, all right. That AR looks mighty fetching.” He had a slight drawl Ben had noticed before. It was more pronounced now that he was home.
“She’s all yours and that Beretta nine mil, if you want it.”
“Sweet.”
“Now all we need to do is figure a way to get through four miles of bayou without being seen, get Sam away from at least half a dozen armed men and find our way back through the swamp in the dark without getting lost.”
Ty just grinned. “Sounds like a good time to me.”
* * *
“Get back to work. You been loafin’ long enough.” Mace Bragg stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at Sam where he sat in the shade eating some jerky and a piece of Aggie’s bread. Mace was big. He had dirty brown hair down to his shoulders he tied back with a piece of leather, and sometimes he got food in his beard.
Aggie said he was the oldest. He sure was the meanest. He’d been spittin’ mad the night Troy and Duke had brought Sam into the camp. Mace said it was a stupid thing to do.
But Troy said Sam would be a big help to Aggie. He said she’d always wanted a kid and now she had one. Aggie didn’t have a husband anymore. She’d told Sam her Dooley had been killed in a hunting accident ten years ago.
Sam started walking ahead of Mace, Pepper dogging his heels. Dogging. At home he would have laughed at the joke he’d just made. It didn’t seem funny now. He followed Mace to the pit he was digging for a new outhouse. The old one stunk something awful and it was full of flies and there was a spider in the corner. At least the new one oughta smell better.
As he headed down the path, he glanced at the tangle of vines and muddy, slow-moving water at the edge of the compound, and a shiver ran through him.
There were all kinds of scary creatures in the swamp. Besides the ugly snake he’d seen, there were big hairy rats, and hornets’ nests as big as basketballs. Last night for supper, Aggie fixed a kind of stew called gumbo made with alligator meat. Yuck.
It didn’t really taste that bad, he just didn’t like to think of eating something that looked like a giant lizard. Or getting eaten by one if he ever got brave enough to run away.
Yesterday Troy’s youngest brother, Luke, had shown him a gator he said was twelve feet long. It just lay there pretending to be a log, its beady eyes watching as it waited for some poor animal to get too close.
Sam jumped down in the hole and wiped his hands on his jeans. They were so dirty they were stiff, but Aggie only washed once a week, in some kind of old-fashioned white machine with a roller that squeezed the water out of the clothes.
Pepper lay down in the shade a few feet away as Sam picked up the shovel and started digging. The blisters on his hands had broken yesterday. Aggie had put on some kind of gross-smelling salve but now they were bleeding again.
“Boy’s doin’ the best he can,” Luke said as he walked up next to Mace. He was tall but kind of skinny, the nicest of the Braggs. Him and Aggie. “He’s new to all this, ya know.”
“What I know is that fool of a brother of yours should never have brung him here in the first place. Now we’re stuck with him. One more mouth to feed.”
“Sam carries his weight.”
“Maybe so, but he ain’t real kin. And look at them eyes. Spawn of Satan, you ask me.”
They went on arguing but Sam stopped listening. Instead, he imagined taking a long hot shower, like when he came home from an afternoon at the beach with his mom and Claire. If he closed his eyes, he could almost see the ocean, listen to the waves.
Mace leaned down and cuffed him. “Pay attention. I got more work for you when you’re finished.”
Sam swallowed. The beach was a million miles away. He might never see the ocean again. Maybe when he got bigger, he’d be strong enough to make it out of the bayou.
The trouble was, if the swamp didn’t kill him, Mace Bragg would.
* * *
Ben and Ty spent the morning and early afternoon going over the maps and details of the mission, Ty memorizing the route so he could find his way out if something happened. Ben had drawn diagrams of the compound, the layout, the perimeter fencing. They’d discussed the guards, the shift changes, the way the bayou wove around the camp on one side.
The narrow channel was the way in, and the only way out. The biggest problem was finding a way to get to Sam. Since he didn’t seem to be part of a regular routine, they would have to play it by ear.
Brodie swallowed the bite he had taken of the ham sandwich Claire had made for lunch. “Sam doesn’t know you, right? How are you going to convince him to leave with you?”
That was the reason they were going in before dark. Ben was hoping he wouldn’t have to go into the cabin to bring Sam out. He didn’t know how many people would be sleeping in there with him, how many he would have to deal with. Better to get the boy in the boat of his own free will and get the hell out of Dodge.
“Talk to him if I can. Claire says he knows his father was in the military. He was proud of that. Claire thinks he’ll be more than ready to leave. I’m hoping once he knows who I am, he’ll come without making trouble.”
“And if he won’t?”
“Knockout drops. I’ve got a mild dose of chloral hydrate on a rag in a plastic bag. All I have to do is get close enough.”
Once they reached the target, he’d approach the compound by water. His snorkel was in his gear bag. Ty would serve as lookout and provide cover if needed, hopefully without actually having to kill anyone. Not that he would mind personally popping Duke Hutchins or Troy Bragg.
Satisfied with the plan they’d come up with, after lunch Ty took his weapons and returned to his cabin. Wanting to be in top form for the mission, both of them slept for a couple of hours. Claire curled up next to Ben on the bed, but Ben didn’t think she ever fell asleep.
The day was creeping toward time for the evening rendezvous at sixteen hundred—4:00 p.m. With the small outboard and difficult terrain, it would take at least an hour to reach the compound, longer coming out in the dark.
Ty rapped lightly, then opened the cabin door. Dressed in dark green camos and heavy military boots, a KA-BAR knife strapped to his thigh, he carried a canvas bag that held his weapons and gear.
He didn’t look too young or too pretty anymore. He looked like a marine, a hard, determined man capable of getting the job done. Ben stepped back, inviting him inside. “You always fly with your gear?”
“After I talked to Sol, I paid a late-night visit to an army surplus on my way out of town. I took what I needed, left the money on the counter.”
Ready to go himself, Ben set the sat phone on Vibrate and stuffed it into his camouflage cargo pants. He turned to Claire, who stood silently, her face pale and her hands trembling slightly.
Ty spoke to her softly. “It’s gonna be okay, Claire. Neither of us is new to this game.”
There was something in his voice. Ben took another hard look at him. His eyes were dead calm, and a there was a clarity of purpose Ben recognized in himself whenever he went on a mission.
He turned back to Claire. “If we aren’t back by twenty-four hundred—”
“He means midnight,” Ty said.
“If we aren’t back by then, get in the car and drive to Egansville. Go to the sheriff. Tell him what’s going on.”
Her lips trembled. “You’ll be back.”
“Damned straight we will.” Pulling her into his arms, he bent his head and gave her a quick, hard kiss. “See you later, angel.” He grabbed his gear bag. “Let’s go,” he said to Ty and headed for the door.