"What the--?" She jumped to the right as the ground started moving.
Three seconds later, the rumble stopped and a section of the grassy ground beside the Chevy went flying. Syd shielded her face as a large trapdoor was flung open and something that looked like a refugee from an old Mad Max movie came out. Dressed in a khaki jumpsuit, the man had on a pair of goggles that caused part of his thin gray hair to stand on end. A white scarf was wrapped around his face, and he was covered in dirt.
He glanced at her, then paused to stare at Steele. He pulled the goggles off to show a pair of bright blue eyes ringed by dirt before he tugged the scarf off his lower face to pool around his neck.
"Hey, slick!" he said with a laugh. "Long time no see."
"Hi, Gator," Steele said, extending his hand out to him. "I heard through the grapevine that you were living out here in the middle of backwoods Virginia. So when exactly did you turn into a mole?"
Laughing, Jack scratched his neck before he pulled a baseball cap out of his back pocket. It made a strange crinkling sound as he pulled it on over his head. "Oh, I don't know, about five or six years ago when I was thinking that what with all the new gadgets them bastards had, they could probably see straight through my walls to see where I was. I just couldn't stand the thoughts of it, know what I mean? It's spooky to think that some pervert in Russia could pull up a satellite link to see me doing business on the toilet. I just couldn't take it, so I figured I'd move underground to have my privacy and dignity."
Syd couldn't resist teasing him. "You know they have sonar now that can allow them to see what's under the soil too."
Jack snorted in disagreement. "Not my soil, they can't. I made sure of it. I got me a number of them gadgets on eBay and dug myself down so far under the soil and reinforced the walls to the point they can't see shit unless I let them, and I ain't gonna let them."
Steele grinned. "And that's why we're here. I've got a hired gun dead on my heels, and I need a place to confront him so that no one else has to pay for my sins. I'm tired of him shooting up hotels and giving chase on a city street. It's just a matter of time before some innocent person is in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Jack gave him an arch stare. "A hired gun? Boy, what'cha into now?"
"I wish I knew," Steele said, glancing over at her. "I should have listened to you, Jack. The government got me by the short ones, and they won't let me go."
"See," he said triumphantly. "And you thought I was crazy. Who's the crazy one now, huh?"
"I know."
Lifting his hand to the brim of his hat, Jack scoped out the landscape around them. "Well, if that's the case, you two better come on down before they sneak up on us. Last thing we need is to be caught out in the open like geese with our peckers hanging out"--he paused as he noted her--"not that you have a pecker, ma'am. Just a figure of speech," Jack said as he grinned at her. He paused to frown at her bare feet. "You're not pregnant, are you?"
Syd scowled at his odd question. Was he insinuating she was fat? "What would make you think that?"
He looked down at her bare feet. "Barefoot. Pregnant. Them things go hand in hand, 'cause them pregnant women have feet that can swell up to ten times their normal size. You're not expecting, are you?"
"No!"
He appeared relieved. "Good, 'cause there's enough radon down there to give a fetus three heads. I don't want to be responsible for none of that. I only believe in corrupting the ones what come out of the womb and grow to at least five feet in height."
Syd made a noise of disbelief. "You can keep out the NSA, but not radon? Just how sophisticated is your operation?"
Jack blew his cheeks out. "Radon don't bother me none, and I don't bother it. Me and Cletus done grown immune, but this way I figure if anyone else tries to come after us, they can get infected and have their lungs removed."
She frowned at the name. "Cletus?"
"My best friend."
Good grief, there was another one of him? She wondered if Cletus was watching them from the shrubs.
Steele passed an amused look her way. "Pop the trunk and let me pull out our supplies."
"What supplies?" Jack asked.
"Clothes, weapons."
"You can always go naked, but weapons...those are important, aren't they Mr. I-Can't-Hang-Onto-My-Rifle?" Jack turned toward her with an evil grin. "Did he ever tell you that story of how he lost his rifle even though it was tied to him?"
Syd gave Steele an impish smile of her own. "Yes, he did. He also said you took the fall for him when he paid Smithy back."
Jack went stiff and turned a bit gruff. "I don't know nothing about that. I didn't do nothing." It was obvious he wasn't big on thank-yous, but she could tell that he'd done it all right.
There was something incredibly endearing about Jack. He was like an overgrown kid and a crazy uncle all mixed together. No wonder Steele liked him.
"Hey," Jack said to Steele, "is it just me, or does she really look like that actress, Angelina Jolie?"
Syd cringed. "I do not look like her--she looks like me. Only I'm shorter and fatter."
Jack made a rude noise. "I don't know about the shorter part, but the weight looks good to me. What'cha think, Steele?"
He gave her a hot once-over. "I couldn't agree more, Jack. But watch it. The lady doesn't like being told that."
Jack snorted. "What woman don't like to hear she's pretty? She's not one of them feminists, is she?"
Syd arched a brow. "Is there something wrong with feminists?"
"No, I suppose not. But they're the only kind of women I can think of what wouldn't want to hear they look good. Unless you're just weird or something. You're not weird, are you?"
This coming out of the mouth of Jack? Yeah...
"Not particularly, no."
"Well, good. I got enough weirdness for the lot of us. Don't want to share it." He winked at her.
Laughing, Syd headed for the trunk to pull the suitcase out before Steele could get it.
"I've got it," Steele said sharply.
She gave him a droll stare. "You're shot. I've got it."
"Shot?" Jack asked, his brow creased in concern as he walked over to them. "Where'd they get you?"
"Shoulder."
"Nah," he said irritably, "where were you when they shot you?"
"A hotel."
Jack shook his head and tsked. "I taught you better than that, Slim. What were you thinking by trying to hide out there?"
Steele pointed to her. "I told her it was a bad idea, but it's hard to argue with a woman while you're bleeding."
Jack snorted. "Hard to argue with a woman, period. Only time a man wins with one of them is when the woman is either on TV or dead. I don't supposed you'd want to kill her?"
"Not at the moment."
"Figures." Jack limped over toward her and pulled the suitcase out of her hand. He reached into the trunk for the other suitcase. "Follow me down before anyone else gets shot. Especially before I get shot, 'cause that would just ruin an otherwise nice day."
Syd opened the car door to retrieve Steele's weapon case.
"What have you gotten me into?" she asked Steele under her breath as they followed after Jack.
"Nirvana. With Jack we have a way to ID the hired gun and set up a place to take his ass down."
She hoped so. They needed to get this assignment under way, and the best way was to neutralize the unknown variable.
Jack tossed the suitcases into the trapdoor, where they landed with a solid thud before he crawled into the darkness after them. Syd gave Steele a sheepish look before she followed suit. The trapdoor led to a small elevator-type car. Roughly four feet by four feet, it held the three of them fairly easily. But even so, she felt a bit claustrophobic.
A damp, earthen scent clung to the car, along with what seemed to be wet dog. How weird was that?
"Are you sure about this?" she asked Steele.
"I trust him."
But she noted that his face had its own pallor a
s Jack flipped a switch that closed the trapdoor above them. Lights came on an instant before they fell downward about six feet. Then they moved sideways for a few minutes before descending again.
"Where are we going?" she asked Jack.
"My house. I had it built about three years ago down in these old mining shafts."
Syd was aghast at his mindset. "Aren't you afraid of a cave in?"
"Ah, we all die eventually. At least this way no one has to go to the trouble of burying me." He grinned at her.
She looked up at Steele. "I don't find him funny. Do you?"
Steele laughed. "Relax. If I know Jack, he has more ways to escape out of here than Harry Houdini."
"Yeah, see, and that proves my point. What killed Houdini? A stupid accident. But for one moment of stupidity, he'd have grown old with his Bess and been happy as a pig in shit. Notice I ain't young, and if I die, old Cletus would kick my ass for leaving him all alone down here."
"So your friend lives with you?" Syd asked.
"Of course," he said as if offended by her question. "Where else would I put my dog? See, Cletus has this thing for cheese, but since he has no thumbs he has to have me to give him his cheese on his food every night. If I die, no one else knows about Cletus and the cheese, and poor old Cletus would lose his mind. So I can't die until he does. See how that works?"
Heaven forbid the dog go without cheese. "And how old is Cletus?"
"Two years. So you got at least a decade before you have to worry about me turning suicidal or croaking down here from a cave-in."
She looked over to Steele again. "Does this rationale make sense to you?"
"That's Jack-Logic. It makes total sense."
Well, then, who was she to argue? If it worked for them, it worked for her.
Y-e-a-h...
After what seemed like miles, the car came to a stop. Instead of the roof opening like it'd done on the surface, the side slid open to show her a huge, open room that had to be at least two thousand square feet...of NORAD and considering the fact that she had been to the military underground installation...
"Afraid of nukes?" she asked as she glanced around the computers, which were eerily state-of-the-art.
Jack shook his head. He took the suitcases over to a beat-up brown leather sofa and sat them on it. "Nukes don't scare me. The spooks do. You know they know everything about us now. Where we live, how we shop. Everything. They're going to be bar-coding our clothes soon."
He tapped twice on his head. "Imbedding them RFID chips in our brains so that as we walk around they can have our entire lives at their fingertips. Did you know you can't make a phone call that half a dozen people don't hear first, and you don't even know it?"
Steele gave her an amused look. "Yeah, those spies are everywhere."
Jack snorted. "I know everyone thinks I'm crazy. But I'm telling you, I spent way too many years of my career at the Pentagon. People would die if they knew what I did, and that was years and years ago. I don't want no one to know that much about me. Which is why I left the Pentagon and went back into special ops training. I'd much rather be left out in the dark with nothing but my rifle to protect me. But not even that's enough for them. Hell, no. They still call and bug me with stuff, and that after I retired a year ago." He shook his head. "They never really let you go."
"Yeah, I know," Steele said as he headed for one of the twelve computers Jack had up and running on three long buffet tables. "So what all are you hooked into?"
Jack headed back toward him. "Ever-thing. Who you want to spy on?"
"Need to search police personnel records."
"What state?"
Moving to stand behind the men, Syd cringed at the hopelessness of what they were attempting. How could they find one man out of thousands? "Can we search all?"
"Done." Jack took a seat and pulled his hat off.
Syd arched a brow as she saw the tinfoil that lined it. Oh, don't tell me he's one of those weirdos who wears tinfoil on his head to keep the aliens from reading his mind. "So if you're so paranoid about the Feds, Jack, why do you live this close to D.C.?"
He cast her an offended look. "I'm not one of those psychos who lives out in the woods of Montana, thinking there's some government conspiracy against them. Some of them are just plain weird."
Uh-huh.... She had to force herself not to smile at his indignation.
"Now, I know you think I'm off my rocker, but trust me, I ain't. I like being here so that I can talk to my buddies who keep me tied into the hotbed of everything."
"Such as?"
"Well, shadow agencies and such. There's this one in particular that I like to follow. I got curious about six months ago when I was reviewing the government budget. There was this insurance agency that had a huge budget that just didn't make sense to me. So I did some checking, and sure enough, it was a cover group. Bureau of American Defense." He gave her a penetrating stare. "You ever heard of 'em?"
She didn't answer.
"Yeah. Thought so." By his tone she knew he knew she was one of them.
"I think Joe needs to hire someone else," she said to Steele.
Jack blew air out of his mouth. "He ain't got nothing I want, but that Tee woman...I might be persuaded. I've noticed she spends a lot of money on them high-end dog biscuits. Cletus would probably like some of them too. And that special padded dog bed she bought...well, it could work."
Syd gaped. She wasn't sure if she should be angry at his snooping or impressed. Steele had been right. This guy was a godsend, and they really did need to put him on payroll.
"So," Jack said, changing the subject, "I take it you're looking for someone in particular."
Steele nodded. "But we have no name."
"All right, give me the description."
Syd filled him in on the details while Steele went over to sit in a leather recliner. He looked tired, but still handsome, as he adjusted his seat. She couldn't imagine how much pain he must be in, and yet he said nothing at all about it.
If they weren't being chased, she'd make him go to bed and rest. But what good was that, when he might be forced to get up in just a few minutes to confront who knew what evils would leap out at them?
He lifted a remote and turned on the wall of monitors that showed different angles of the topsoil. Their BMW and the old Chevy were plainly visible on one screen. The highway where they'd entered was on another one, and other areas of Jack's land were equally covered.
"How many acres do you have?" Syd asked Jack while he typed in the information she had given him.
"About a hundred, give or take a few."
Steele laughed as he flipped the monitors from one scene of the property to the next. "Nice setup, Jack."
"Oh, yeah, hit number four on the remote."
Steele did. The center monitor lit up with CNN.
Jack made a frisky sound with his teeth. "You hit eight, and you get the Playboy Channel."
Shaking his head, Steele cast a sideways glance toward Syd. "I better not go there, huh?"
She gave him a hot stare. "Not if you want to keep all parts attached."
Jack made another odd noise--he seemed to enjoy that. "You his woman?"
"No."
"Why not?" he asked as if the thought shocked him.
"She finds me irritating."
Jack scratched his head as he digested that bit of news. "Then why's she here?"
"I've been asking myself that every minute since I met her."
Syd let out a disgusted breath. "I'm his spotter."
Jack looked impressed. "Really? Dayam, boy, my spotter never looked like this. They always picked men to help me line up my sniper coordinates. Who knew they'd be training women one day? Maybe I got out of the Army too soon, huh?"
She met Steele's less than agreeable stare. "I'm sure Steele is thinking he didn't get out soon enough."
Steele didn't comment as Jack continued the search. After a few minutes, several thousand files came up.
"O
h, this is hopeless," Syd breathed as she surveyed the results. It would take days to skim them all. "It's worse than finding a needle in a haystack."
"Hey, Jack? Can you cross-reference those results with a cop who has sniper training who was discharged from duty? One who now resides in the D.C. area?"
"Sure. You know a car make and model? I can cross reference with vehicle records too."
Syd actually got a tingle at that. Could it be that easy? "Black Escalade. 2005."
"Three of them," Jack said a few seconds later. He pulled them up on his monitor.
The first two were African-Americans who were still working for the police force, but the third...
He'd been discharged two years before for a weapons violation. "Steele? You might want to come see this."
Before he could get up out of the chair, Jack sent the picture to the center monitor. "That what you looking for, Slim?"
Steele grinned at the sight of the dark-haired man they'd seen in the hotel. "Hell, yes. Gator, you're a genius."
"Tell me something I don't know."
Syd ignored them while she read the man's dossier. He had been accused of drug trafficking, two assaults on his ex-wife, and shooting an unarmed college student. The last was what had finally gotten him thrown off the Baltimore police force.
But it was the last bit that had her smiling every bit as much as Steele. "It says he's currently employed by our favorite security agency."
"That's our bastard," Steele said in a voice reminiscent of a proud father. "Can you find his current location, Jack?"
"Give me about ten minutes."
Syd watched as he pushed her aside and pulled up enough private records on the man to make Andre proud. But it was his cell phone that ultimately nailed him.
"God love the hot GPS and Nextel," Jack said. "Your friend is in a car about fourteen miles from here, heading this way."
Steele shook his head. "The guy's not that stupid. Everyone knows about GPS trace on a Nextel."
"Yeah," Jack said in an equally sarcastic tone. "And his boss ain't that trusting. Think about it. You have hired killers out there working for you, are you going to leave them alone or are you going to monitor them?"
Syd concurred with that. "He has a point."
Steele snorted. "Yeah, and it sits on his head...covered in tinfoil."
Syd had to cough to disguise her laughter.
Jack was completely offended by his words. "Well, get off your fat, lazy ass, boy, and come see for yourself. I have the ugly bugger right here."