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  “There will be a cleanup crew in ten minutes, my friend,” Chase informed him. “They will, I’m sure, have further orders for you. Because of your assistance I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t hire you in some capacity.”

  “Who are ‘they’? CIA? FBI?” The man’s voice had nearly dropped to a whisper as if someone might be listening.

  Chase leaned his head in closer as he noticed Tessa Scott raise a skeptical eyebrow and fold her arms with great irritation across her chest. “I’m not at liberty to say. But we are connected to Home Land Security. Tell them you assisted Captain Chase Hunter.”

  The trucker grabbed his cap and slammed it against his large thigh. “I knew it!” he laughed. “Ain’t that somethin’? Me. Helpin’ Home Land Security.”

  Chase extended his hand. “Its men like you who are our first line of defense. Thank you!” Chase made a point of a vice-like grip that made the trucker whence for a second.

  The thump, thump of helicopter rotary blades reached their ears and in seconds the Sikorsky helicopter landed. Chase never got tired of hearing the Black Hawk swoop in for retrieval. This particular UH-60 had become an integral part of his organization’s every day operations due to its versatility. Chase reached for Tessa’s hand and jerked in the direction of the waiting helicopter. He felt the resistance building in her rigid body. With another tug Tessa began to follow.

  After shoving his gun into the back of his waistband, Chase propelled the injured man forward by slapping him on the back of the head. With an anguished moan the terrorist once again moved with unsteady steps. A team of four men dressed in gray clothing exited the unmarked helicopter and swarmed the scene. With a nod to Chase they sat about the task of making the mayhem invisible.

  Tessa nervously approached the helicopter. Chase understood her senses were on overload. Fear gripped her as another man, dressed in black hopped down from the helicopter to take the prisoner. His menacing appearance halted her steps only to be grabbed and lifted up in Chase’s arms. Carelessly, Chase tossed Tessa into the helicopter where she landed on a now sore hip received during the extraction from the truck. As Chase and the other two men entered the door, she felt another set of hands pushing her into a seat then buckling her seatbelt. She guessed him to be the pilot.

  “Don’t you ever touch me like that again!” Tessa screamed above the rising roar of the helicopter.

  Chase shook his head as he pushed in beside her. “Can’t hear you! Hang on!” He could read lips. He realized his rough treatment had aggravated an already frightened civilian.

  The helicopter lifted and swung around toward Sacramento. Tessa grabbed her stomach then moaned. The terrorist and the man in black sat facing her. Blood oozed from the terrorist’s wounds along his face and arms. With bowed head, his lips moved in some unknown prayer.

  The man in black, however, glared openly at Chase’s other hostage. His crooked smile and narrow eyes feasted on her from head to toe. When Chase gave him a swift kick in the boot, the man in black laughed out loud and winked at her. From that moment on he gazed casually out the window as if they were on a sightseeing tour of California.

  ~ ~ ~

  Tessa’s head began to throb as panic flooded her imagination. Where were they headed? How was she going to reach Robert? A heavy realization washed over her that something had transformed her pastoral life into a nightmare.

  Chapter 5

  T essa sat bewildered and frightened in a room that smelled of mold and bleach. Windowless, the only light in the small room softly glowed from a loose hanging light bulb that barely broke the darkness in her dingy concrete surroundings. The metal table before her was cool to the touch. She couldn’t tell if the room was air conditioned or just cold from being below grade level. Her wooden chair wobbled with the slightest movement. At first she’d tried opening the door only to find it locked as she knew it would be. Wasn’t that how all the crime shows went? They were surely watching her, although Tessa had not detected a two way mirror or video feed. She just knew. So she sat quietly. Planning. Scheming really. How was she going to get out of this mess?

  What about her family? Were they missing her? Could she get a message to them? Why hadn’t she caved in to Robert and gone to Tahoe? At least she’d be safe in the loving arms of her family. Tessa shook the dead weight of regret from her plan. Thoughts of those she loved would confuse what she needed to do to escape.

  Why had she been blindfolded a few minutes into the flight? Tessa could still remember the reassuring words of the man who saved her life as the helicopter had landed. “You’ll be okay, Mrs. Scott. I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re in a safe place. We have to secure the prisoner before we discuss your involvement.”

  She remembered reaching for the blindfold as she tried to push those strong hands away from her arms. Suddenly he’d grabbed both her hands in just one of his. His voice, calm and frosty, whispered in her ear. “Don’t make me tie you up, Mrs. Scott.” Tessa had stiffened with fear, but nodded in defeat. “That’s a good girl. You’ve been through hell today. I promise I’ll make this all go away as soon as I can.”

  Should she trust him? Not likely. But hadn’t he saved her life just a few hours ago? Then the image of him unloading his gun into those injured men flooded fear into her reasoning process. She’d witnessed two murders. How could he be with Homeland Security? She wondered if that trucker survived the “cleanup crew” as the man named Chase had called them.

  The sound of a dead bolt retracting echoed in the room. Slowly, Tessa stood and backed against the wall. Were they coming to make the final clean up?

  In walked the larger than life, her protector, with a slight smile on his wide expressive mouth. His clothes were still dirty and torn from the earlier conflict. He had managed to remove the grime from his high cheekbones. His nose looked like it may have been broken at some time and a small faded scar lay above his right eyebrow. Tessa couldn’t decide if his short hair was black or just dark brown. But when he stepped into the light she saw that it was a little of both. Those wide set eyes were dark chocolate and took her in like a thirsty man in the desert.

  She felt exposed under that gaze as if he were reading her mind. He was over six foot. She’d compared him with her husband’s height earlier. There wasn’t a soft spot on him. It wasn’t hard to remember feeling him on top of her when they’d crashed onto the ground. The memory of the power in his arms as he’d pulled her to safety made Tessa blush now as her eyes examined him.

  “I’m Chase Hunter, Mrs. Scott.” He stood with his feet slightly apart as if inspecting the troops. His hands locked in front of him. “I apologize for keeping you here for so long.” He took a step forward, but stopped when Tessa slid away from him. “I’m afraid we still have some unfinished business.” His smile, although meant to be disarming, only made Tessa shiver with fear.

  “What kind of business?” Tessa pulled back her shoulders as if that might look brave. “I want to go home!”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible.” Chase dropped his locked hands and placed them on his hips. “We need some information.”

  Tessa nodded and moved toward him. “Okay.” Her voice soft and forgiving made Chase smile revealing straight white teeth.

  “Shall we?” He nodded toward the door.

  “Oh no!” Tessa moaned as she batted her eyes quickly.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My contact lens! It fell out.”

  Chase dropped his hands from his hips and looked down at the concrete floor. With both hands Tessa grabbed his shirt and pulled him to her chest. The look of surprise in his eyes was followed by excruciating pain as Tessa rammed her knee into Chase’s groin. When he staggered to stay on his feet, she lifted the rickety chair and swung it into his arched back. With the sound of splintering wood came a curse as Chase fell to the floor.

  Quickly, Tessa darted out of the room and slammed the door shut, making sure it locked before turning to run up the now visible stair
s. Grabbing a broken broom handle propped against the wall, Tessa clenched it tightly like a samurai’s sword.

  Cautiously, she made her way up the dimly lit stairs. She heard the static of a walkie talkie then a man’s voice. Someone waited at the top of the stairs out of sight. Tessa laid down her broom stick on the landing that led up the next flight of stairs. She eased back behind a stack of boxes that created a dark corner.

  “Help! Chase has been hurt! Please, someone!” she screamed, then crouched a little lower behind the boxes. A second later a camouflage dressed man barreled down the steps, to the rescue, only to step on the broom stick handle sending his feet into the air and his head crashing against the concrete step. Tessa could see he was unconscious as she slipped out from her hideout. Retrieving the stick, Tessa rushed up the stairs only to stop and press her ear to the door. Nothing.

  Cracking open the steel door revealed light. Blessed light! Tessa pushed harder on the door and slipped her bruised and aching body into a hallway lined with windows. Distracted by the normal passage of traffic on the nearby street, she failed to notice the man coming through the doors at the end of the hall until his familiar East European voice startled her back to reality.

  “Well, what do we have here?” It was the man dressed in black from the helicopter. He didn’t try to approach her as he folded his arms across his chest. His eyes darted toward the basement doors looking for Chase. “Alone at last.” His voice sounded matter of fact.

  Tessa panicked. Turning her eyes toward the ground-level windows, Tessa knew she had but one option. With all the strength she could gather, Tessa backed up and ran toward the windows, using the broom handle as a javelin. Upon impact the javelin propelled her backwards like a rubber ball. She hit the wall so hard the broom stick flew out of her hands only to be caught in midair by the man in black as he calmly approached.

  “Bullet proof,” he said looking down at her crude weapon, “and broomstick proof.” He smiled wickedly. “And what have you done with Captain Hunter?”

  ~ ~ ~

  Robert looked bewildered at his cell phone, as if doing so would suddenly explain why Tessa wasn’t answering her phone. He wanted to let her know they had arrived safely at the lake and that the kids were just fine. Robert had looked forward to rubbing salt into Tessa’s super mom wounds all day. The kids wanted to tell her all about the boat and picnic and what a great time they were having even though she wasn’t there to weave her spell of magical bliss.

  Part of him wanted to say he was sorry too. Sorry for being such a jerk and insinuating her duties at home aligned with watching the grass grow. He felt exhaustion settling into his body and desperately wanted a nap. But the kids needed supervision down by the lake even if they were just skipping rocks.

  And what was he going to do for supper? Geeze! Why had he ticked Tessa off? This was all his fault, but if he gave in now, Tessa would gloat for the rest of his life.

  He decided he missed that beautiful smile and longed to hold her in his arms as she laughed and teased him. His heart thickened with regret as his eyes looked out at the lake. They could’ve sat out tonight and counted the stars. That always got her in the mood. The thought of her soft naked skin next to his started to make his clothes feel tight and uncomfortable.

  He opened the cell phone one more time. Maybe he would just leave her a message saying the kids missed her.

  ~ ~ ~

  Agent Nicholas Zoric, former Serbian Nationalist, sat on the edge of an empty desk, cleaning his nails with a switchblade knife. He watched with one eye toward the wall of windows that enclosed Director Benjamin Clark’s temporary office. Dressed in a suit and tie, the director paced his generous office before Nicholas Zoric’s friend Chase Hunter. Chase sat in a chair looking up at his boss seemingly unconcerned at the verbal abuse being hurled at him. Nicholas carefully closed his knife and smiled over at Tessa Scott who was handcuffed to a well cushioned office chair. For the last ten minutes she had been eyeing her surroundings, looking for another means of escape, he guessed, with great amusement.

  “What’s gotten into the boss?” Vernon Kemp stopped next to Nicholas and stared nervously into the office where Benjamin continued to beret the team leader at Enigma. “I’ve never seen him in such a rage, especially at Hunter.”

  It was true. Chase Hunter was the golden boy at Enigma, the secretive operational force under the protection of Home Land Security. Cloaked in mystery, only the president and Secretary Tobias Stewart, head of Home Land Security, knew the full extent of their operations. They filled a gap of missing intelligence desperately needed after 911.

  Teetering on misuse of the law, Enigma had been able to gather vital intelligence from not only within the U.S. but the world. Having the uncanny ability to fit almost any profile and assimilate into any population, Chase was the poster child of Enigma. The president’s complete trust in Chase’s operational force never wavered and gave him free reign when it came to national security. Only Tobias Stewart kept Chase from turning the law and intelligence gathering into a legal nightmare. The way to keep Chase in check was to put Benjamin Clark as his superior, the one man that Chase respected as much as the president.

  Vernon shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his ragged jeans. Although some said Vernon Kemp was probably the smartest man in the world when it came to computer technology and artificial intelligence, his appearance implied he was an over aged skateboarder who had dropped by to bum a few bucks from his friends. His hair, red and unruly, fell past his ears. Boyish freckles were evident across his small nose and rosy cheeks. His lopsided smile revealed a bottom row of crooked teeth. Although well into his twenties, Vernon looked like he just graduated from high school. The black glasses he occasionally pushed up on his nose gave Vernon a somewhat geeky look. It wasn’t until you looked into his hazel colored eyes that evidence of a shrewd, almost devilish manipulator materialized. The innocent gamer transformed into a storm trooper with a keyboard.

  With a Ph.D. from MIT in computer analysis and design at the age of twenty one, Vernon quickly came to the attention of the defense department. They hired him immediately to further their work in artificial intelligence. After developing software which would revolutionize the computer industry, Vernon’s work mysteriously disappeared at the Pentagon. Vernon quit his job and became an underground conspiracy theorist and participant in the dark web. Some of the power moguls were so angry at his leaving the Pentagon that a picture of Vernon in the crosshairs of one of their AK47s materialized on one of the conspiracy networks that Vernon liked to frequent.

  Just after President Buck Austin took office he instructed Benjamin Clark to recruit Vernon Kemp for his new secret agency, Enigma. A man like that needed to channel his talent toward helping the good guys especially if he had the Pentagon big shots in a stew. Vernon only came on board after meeting Chase Hunter and being told he could do whatever he wanted as long as it didn’t interfere with national security.

  “What’s the problem?” Vernon glanced down at the grim-faced Serbian.

  The man in black, knew he made him a little uneasy. When a rare smile broke across his thin, narrow face, Vernon’s eyebrows arched. “Chase got bested by a girl!” Nicholas Zoric chuckled.

  Vernon’s eyes widened. “By who?” The Serbian nodded toward the pitiful, ragged woman handcuffed to the chair across the room. Vernon saw the puny figure slouched in the chair with ripped clothing and dirty hair. With a face smudged with blood and sweat, she looked more like a discarded kitten than a saber toothed tiger that could best the great Captain Hunter. He looked around but saw no one else. “Her?”

  Nicholas Zoric nodded as he stood and continued to smile. “She’s my hero.”

  Vernon snickered his usual weasel laugh drawing Tessa’s angry glare. “Introduce me!” Usually Vernon became tongue tied around women. His shyness was legendary. His smooth operator persona evaporated into an awkward stutter when females tried to approach.

  Nicholas pushed Vernon tow
ard the subdued prisoner. “Watch yourself. Her bark is definitely not as bad as her bite.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Benjamin Clark paced before Chase Hunter, livid at the day’s events. Two men down at the scene, a house shot up by unknown terrorists, a nuclear device at large, a cleanup near the Yuba River, and now a seemingly innocent woman involved.

  Chase started to stand. His back ached from the earlier attack by Tessa Scott.

  “Sit down!” Benjamin demanded with the tone of a base drum. Benjamin rarely raised his voice. His hawk-like eyes, narrow nose and stern expression commanded attention whenever he spoke. His soft, firm voice drew more respect than shouting.

  Chase eased himself back down into his wooded armchair, surprised at the anger his boss displayed. It wasn’t often that Benjamin could be read so easily.

  “Can you explain to me how a soccer mom came into possession of a nuclear device created by some obscure terrorist outfit, then managed to knock one unconscious so the two of you could escape?” Chase started to open his mouth when Benjamin held up a large leathery hand for silence. “Then there’s the little, tiny fact,” he held up his index finger and thumb measuring about an inch, “that she managed to trick, and overcome you so she could escape our holding cell!” Chase flinched at the pain he’d felt when Tessa had rammed her knee into his groin. “And dare I forget” he growled, “that she nearly killed one of your men with no more than a broomstick!”

  “How is he?” Chase interrupted with genuine concern.

  Benjamin stopped his pacing and leaned against his desk as he loosened his paisley tie. “Has a concussion. If he hadn’t been wearing his helmet the doctor said he’d be dead!” Benjamin crossed his arms and glared up at the ceiling as if searching for words. “Secretary Stewart wants some answers and fast!”