Ranger (The Bugging Out Series Book 5) (29 page)

“Del said we’d lost the ability to sense things,” I said to Elaine, for no reason other than sharing a bit of wisdom from the first friend I’d made after the blight. “That doesn’t just apply to weather, I think.”

I’d told her about Del Drake before. About our bond near my Montana refuge, and our fight against the dictatorial forces building near that once lovely slice of western territory. He’d sacrificed his life to save mine. That was a great gift, without question, but I often thought that the simple things he’d shared with me were more profound, and everlasting.

Now, another friend who’d sacrificed had been taken, but this time that event had unfolded without reason. Or without any reason I could fathom.

“Neil loved you.”

I nodded.

“Grace will be all right,” Elaine said.

Again, I nodded. She would be all right. And Krista. And Brandon. All of us would be. Every single person in Bandon, natives and those who’d come in search of survival, would have the chance for another day, and another, because of what Neil Moore had done. Because of what my friend had kept secret.

Another, though, had revealed secrets, though he’d wrapped them in deceit. He’d offered truths as lies, and lies as truths.

Black is white. White is black.

I doubted that my friend had anticipated what would ultimately happen when he’d offered that warning to me. And I was certain that, in no way, did he have any inkling that a man from his past would appear and be his executioner.

“Ranger meant nothing,” I said, the statement offered to simply let it out. “All that mattered was Neil’s voice. That was what brought Olin here.”

“He meant to kill him all along,” Elaine said, her hand tightening around mine.

She was right. The man, the spy, had been on a mission. How much was fact of what he’d told me, what he’d told us, was impossible to know. BA 412 was real. Neil had confirmed that. The rest of what Olin had shared could be treated as suspect.

“What about the sample?” Elaine asked.

With Schiavo’s blessing, I’d shared that morsel of Neil’s communication with my wife, just as the captain had with her husband, and with Mayor Allen. We were all bearers of that secret now. That some quantity of BA 412 existed, secreted by Neil Moore in a place whose precise location he’d taken with him to the grave.

“It’s somewhere,” I said. “But not here.”

“We’ll never find it,” she said.

“Good,” I told her.

But that response was simplistic, I knew in my gut. It mattered more that
no one
would ever find it.

T
en days after Neil’s death, as Elaine and I slept, the phone rang.

“What time is it?” Elaine asked groggily.

My watch on the nightstand gave me the answer.

“Two forty.”

“Will you get it?”

I planted a quick kiss on the back of her head and swung my legs over the edge of the bed, soles of my feet slapping cool hardwood as I moved from our bedroom to the hallway, and from there to the living room where the offending device continued to blare. There was no urgency about me. The town had settled back into a state of near normalcy. Most of the checkpoints had been deactivated, and only a few patrols journeyed beyond Bandon’s borders each day. We were wary, but not worried.

“Hello,” I said as I lifted the handset.

I expected to hear Corporal Enderson’s voice, or one of the other members of the garrison who were on night watch. Possibly a fence at the livestock pens had fallen, and cows had slipped out. A fire might have erupted. Or a leak might have sprung at one of the oil wells outside of town. There were any number of reports that I, as a member of the Defense Council, might be receiving.

But it was none of those things. It wasn’t even a resident of our town on the other end.

“Hello, Fletch,” Tyler Olin said.

For a moment I could not respond as my brain worked through the possibilities of how the man who’d killed my friend was speaking to me. The most likely scenario involved him accessing one of the deactivated checkpoints whose hardwired phone was still connected. At each such device was a listing of town numbers so that, should a particular need arise, those occupying the facility could reach any person in town. Olin had simply exploited this oversight.

“What do you want?”

“Well, first, I want to say that I’m sorry.”

“Sorry...”

“It doesn’t mean much, I know,” Olin admitted. “But it needs to be said. Just as what I did needed to be done.”

“Killing my friend was a necessity?”

“He was my friend, too, Fletch.”

My fingers drew tight around the plastic handset.

“You didn’t call to apologize,” I told the man, the murderer.

“Where is it?”

“Where is what?”

Olin chuckled softly at my resistance.

“Please, you drive off a superior force with, what, empty threats?”

“Actually, yes,” I told the man, just a morsel of the reply a falsehood.

“No,” Olin said. “No, it doesn’t work that way. Besides, I saw his face.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Our friend, through my rifle scope. He looked surprised. Maybe even frightened. What was it, did you tell him about me? That I’d stopped by?”

I had, and Neil had reacted just as Olin was surmising. But how could the man read the situation so clearly? Was it simply that his training, and the life he’d led, gave him the ability to lay bare the truth of almost any observable event?

“I’m going to hang up, Olin. But first I’d like to give you some advice.”

“Advice? There’s something you can tell me I don’t already know?”

“Yes,” I said. “You should probably run. You should run far. And keep running. Because if I ever see you again, or if I find out you’re somewhere close, I will come for you. And I will kill you.”

There was silence on the other end. I thought that the man was just absorbing what I’d told him. The warning I’d given. The promise I’d made. But the quiet continued. No response came. Not even the sound of breathing.

“Olin?”

But he was gone. I didn’t even know if he’d stayed on the line long enough to hear what I’d said.

“Olin?”

I eased the phone away from my face and stared at it, fingers bearing down harder, tighter, until the handset cracked in my grip.

“Eric...”

I turned to see Elaine at the end of the hallway. She stared at me in the din of the living room.

“Who was it?”

“No one,” I said. “No one at all.”

I hope you enjoyed
Ranger
.

You can learn about my books, release dates, and my occasional newsletter by visiting my website:

www.noahmann.com

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Book 1:
Bugging Out

Book 2:
Eagle One

Book 3:
Wasteland

Book 4:
The Pit

Book 5: Ranger

N
oah Mann lives in the West and has been involved in personal survival and disaster preparedness for more than two decades. He has extensive training in firearms, as well as urban and wilderness Search & Rescue operations, including tracking and the application of technology in victim searches.