Seized

Basically it was a clusterfuck. No one knew anything useful, they couldn’t talk to the cultists—who might or might not be terrorists—and they couldn’t storm the place.

As he stood, Kyle swept the area in front of him, using his night-vision goggles. Fog had crept in, meaning his NVGs were set to Active, so they could bounce an infrared light off any objects in front of him.

Without that, he couldn’t see much of anything. But if the cultists had their own NVGs—which was entirely possible with a group of survivalists—they’d be able to see the beam. They’d be able to see him.

Worry about what you can control, Kyle reminded himself as he inched slowly forward through the dry, stiff pine needles and a layer of frost. Every step was precise, careful, silent. The survivalists might have the equipment, and they might be practiced at living off the land, but they didn’t have his training.

Snipers were in position on the peak behind the compound, with eyes on the tower, which had remained empty so far. HRT was acting on the assumption that no one knew they were trying to get a closer look.

“We think we’ve got another agent inside.” That was the voice of Sam “Yankee” McGivern, the Assistant Special Agent in Charge who ran HRT. His tone was dire and he paused long enough that Kyle froze.

“Mac,” Yankee continued, “the warden over at the prison just called BAU. Evelyn’s rental car is still in the lot. One of his guards saw her get in Jen’s vehicle hours ago. She never made her plane.”

Dread rushed over him, but he shoved it back and kept moving, until he was behind the cover of a pathetic-looking fir tree. “Anyone been able to reach her?”

“No. We’re not getting anything from Jen’s phone, but Evelyn’s cell pings off a tower around here, and we’ve got a lock on Jen’s vehicle, a few miles away from the compound. We just sent agents to check it out.”

“Okay,” Kyle said, instead of the string of curses he wanted to let loose. Mind on the mission, he reminded himself.

He understood why Yankee had wanted him, in particular, to know. Every one of his teammates, listening on the call, would realize why Yankee was telling him, too. From the second he’d met Evelyn, a year and a half ago, he’d been drawn to her. Initially it was because she was so serious, so focused on work and nothing else, that he couldn’t help teasing her. But her allure had soon become very different.

It had gotten so bad that even his boss knew he was interested—how could he not, when Kyle found regular excuses to jog over to the BAU office at Aquia to see her? What none of them knew was that, finally, Evelyn was interested in return.

She was the one who’d wanted to keep the fact that they’d started seeing each other three months ago a secret. Agents in the Bureau could date, but they couldn’t date and work in the same squad. And although BAU and HRT were different units, they traveled together regularly for critical missions.

The rules there were murky; Evelyn’s determination to protect her job above all else was not.

Or at least it hadn’t been, for most of the time he’d known her. Ever since they’d returned from solving her friend’s case, she’d slowly begun to lose the intense drive that had drawn him in from the second he’d met her. Her boss had been giving her bullshit assignments, but the old Evelyn would have fought him on it. The new Evelyn just took them. Lately, he hardly recognized her.

“Keep us updated,” Gabe said into his mic, which reminded Kyle that he’d gone silent for too long.

“Let’s move,” he whispered, treading carefully from the cover of one scraggly, snow-dusted tree to the next. They didn’t know exactly what they were dealing with here, but what they did know was that survivalists were talented at making booby traps, and cultists were notoriously paranoid. Not a good combination.

Kyle kept up his painfully slow, steady pace until they were close to the large building at the back of the compound. Behind him, Gabe moved just as silently; the only reason Kyle knew he was there was from years of working together.

Finally, Kyle’s hand grazed the solid exterior of the building. Was Evelyn in there? Was she okay?

“Technical coverage coming up,” Gabe whispered into the bone mic at his throat. He slipped a hand into one of the pockets in his flight suit, and then pressed it against the building wall, leaving behind a sophisticated eavesdropping device that actually looked like a fly.

The communications technicians who worked with HRT were not only geniuses, they also had a sense of humor. Too bad that, right now, Kyle didn’t find much of anything funny.

Gabe tapped his arm and Kyle moved around the corner, toward the side where they’d be at the highest risk of being spotted. Kyle watched every step, and nodded his NVGs at a set of deep tire tracks that rounded the bend and stopped near a steel door. Big tracks, probably from a large truck.

He couldn’t keep himself from looking back at the door, and his desire to test the lever made his hands tense around his MP-5. His feet seemed stuck in place as his need to search for Evelyn intensified.

Then Gabe was beside him, pointing forward because this close to the compound they didn’t even want to whisper.

Forcing himself to move, Kyle passed the door, rounding another corner. He almost wished someone would appear outside and engage, so he’d have an excuse to go in there and get Evelyn out.

But the compound remained eerily silent.

Still beside him, Gabe pressed another bug to the wall, moving a little faster now. They needed to place two more bugs, then go back the way they’d come. It would start getting light soon, and they had to be out of here before anyone inside woke up.

Assuming anyone was in there at all. So far, they had no indication of it. There’d been no response to their calls, and the snipers hadn’t been able to pick up anyone at the windows. Shades were drawn over all of them, and it was dark inside, with no hope of spotting even shadows.

Was it possible they’d fled before HRT had landed in Montana?

As Kyle moved away from the building and behind the cover of a tree, Yankee’s voice came over his radio again. “The technical coverage is picking up voices from the building. Head back here, guys.”

Desperate for information on Evelyn, Kyle moved even faster. He told himself to slow down, but he couldn’t seem to do it as he darted from the cover of one tree to the next, following their original route.

Then a hand slapped him hard on the shoulder, and Kyle spun around, his heart thudding a tempo that sounded like stupid, stupid, stupid.

But it was just Gabe. “Sorry,” he mouthed.

In return, Gabe whispered, “Don’t move.” He lifted a fallen tree branch off the ground and held it out a few inches past Kyle’s foot. When he pushed it down, a piece of metal snapped over it, breaking the branch in two.

Bear trap, Kyle realized, nodding his thanks at Gabe. That would’ve done irreparable damage to his foot. And ended his career in HRT.

Keeping watch for more booby traps, Kyle slowed down, feeling antsy every second he wasn’t back in the Tactical Operations Center—TOC—set up outside the fence.

Finally, finally, he followed Gabe back under the fence, then jogged over to the temporary post that would manage tactical decisions. Inside the large tent, his boss looked up, expression grim, at Kyle and Gabe’s entrance.

“What is it?” Gabe asked from behind him as Kyle’s voice refused to work and fear stampeded through his veins.

Yankee put down his earphones and stood, his head skimming the top of the tent. “We’ve got at least a dozen voices inside the compound.”

He moved forward and placed a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “We don’t know any details right now, but they just talked about a dead federal agent.”

4 (#ulink_34a9a86f-2e80-5497-a75c-db08ec7e38f0)

“You brought this on yourself.”

Evelyn focused hard, trying to bring the world into focus, but pain sliced through her head and Ward Butler seemed to sway in front of her, wavering as if they stood on the bow of a ship. He was still holding his AK-47, and Evelyn felt nauseated as she touched the side of her face, where he’d smashed her with that gun, knocking her out. But first, he’d taken a shot.

The memory rushed over her, the panic of seeing Butler appear in the doorway, having no time to run, nowhere to hide. The horror of watching him spray bullets, of seeing Jen go down. The fear of thinking she was next.

She’d run for Jen, anyway, slipped in her blood and hit the ground hard. That had probably saved her life, because Butler’s next barrage of bullets had gone over her head.

Then he’d strode to her side, and just when she thought it was all over, there’d been a yell and he’d slammed the butt of his AK-47 into her face instead. She had no idea how long ago that had been.

“Where’s Jen?” she managed to ask. Moving her jaw made pain travel down her neck, but she kept blinking and eventually Butler came into focus.

The compound was dimly lit, either darker than it’d been before, or her vision was compromised. The coppery smell of blood was in her nose, the residual taste of fear in her mouth.

“Martinez is dead,” Butler replied, no remorse in his voice.

Evelyn gulped in a deep breath, even though she’d known. Blood clogged in her throat and Evelyn choked on it, realized the inside of her mouth was bleeding badly, that her jaw might be broken.