The Fugitive's Secret Child

She’d had to maneuver along a narrow dirt road in her company car to get here. The Ford Fiesta wasn’t made for the sudden dips and dried-out potholes from last winter. Why had she chosen today to take the agency’s small car and not the company SUV?

Because another mission had priority. It wasn’t her job to question her superiors. Yuri Vasin was wanted for a number of crimes, with drug and human trafficking at the top of the long list. Drug runners abounded, and with the current opioid epidemic the US Marshals had a lot of pressure to bring in any drug-related fugitives. Still, the right equipment for the job helped, and someone hadn’t done their homework right. This site was far more rural than the case file had described. She was supposed to be taking him in from a resort hotel room, not from a camping site. Her partner was coming in from the other side of the mountain and waiting to hear from her to bring in backup.

Rechecking her GPS, she confirmed she was in the right spot before she turned her car back around and drove out a mile to hide her vehicle under a pile of woodland debris.

Car in place, walking to building, she texted her partner. His reply was immediate, and predictable.

If it’s ugly, don’t go.

Mike always played the big brother. Or maybe wannabe lover, she wasn’t sure. And didn’t care. She had no interest, no attraction to him.

Roger.

Her military reply indicated she’d received his text. Mike Seabring was a great partner, and she enjoyed working with him. But his protectiveness could annoy her.

It’ll never be like working in the Navy.

More like it’d never be as natural a fit as working with fellow Navy pilots and one special Navy SEAL—had been.

She steered her thoughts quickly away from that emotional quicksand and kept walking. The hike back through the woods would have normally refreshed her. She breathed in the pine scent, hoping to feel revived. But it was too hot and her day was growing too long to feel anything but tired, sweaty and cranky. By the time she reached the clearing again she was ready to get the show on the road. Or more accurately, get her fugitive and take him back to Harrisburg or have Mike do it. She wasn’t in it for the credit—she wanted this bad guy caught and put away, no matter how they had to do it.

Trina adjusted her holster, as it was digging into her waist. She thought about shedding the leather jacket she wore over her body armor and thin white T-shirt. It was too warm for the jacket, but she wasn’t going into a strange building without her weapon, and didn’t want to open-carry her Glock .45, either. She rustled her thick, unruly hair into a ponytail holder she found in the front jacket pocket, needing to feel prepared and without any possible distractions. Vasin’s case file said he’d always gone easily into custody when caught alone, or she wouldn’t have been sent in solo to apprehend him. Mike would be next to her instead of a mile or so out, checking for signs of a perimeter patrol. Still, she never knew what was behind a closed door.

Her practical, steel-toe combat-style boots stirred up the dirt that surrounded the aluminum building, and thin billows of dust rose to her hips. It was the middle of a long, hot summer, and the record-breaking heat had taken its toll on the grass undergrowth. One short spark and this place would become a forest furnace.

She was confident that Yuri Vasin’s arrest would go smoothly, but her instincts were warning her to be on high alert. Whether it was the drive she’d had up here from Silver Valley, the isolated look of the building she approached or just nerves, she didn’t know. Nerves were part of her job—they let her know she was paying attention, aware of her risks. Her stomach started to flip, and she reminded herself that this was supposed to be one of the more routine apprehensions—not that she ever considered catching a fugitive “routine.” But her work had been pretty stable for the past several years, allowing her to be home for dinner most nights. A plus for her and her five-year-old son, Justin, but she’d called him Jake because she couldn’t bear to hear his father’s name on a regular basis.

Justin Berger. It didn’t hurt anymore, most days, when she thought of her little boy’s namesake. Because she did think about Justin every day, the man who’d fathered her son and given the ultimate sacrifice serving as a SEAL in the Mideast. Back in another life, when she’d been a Navy P-8 pilot and had worked with the special ops teams to help root out the bad guys.

Trina physically shook her head as if it’d rid her mind of the errant memories. It was approaching the anniversary of Justin’s death; it was only natural she’d think of him now.

She turned her thoughts back to the present, back to the work in front of her. Arrest Vasin. Call in Mike to take him or get the jerk into the back of her tiny vehicle. She’d place a call to her team manager as soon as either of them had Vasin in cuffs. Take him to the nearest federal facility for processing, which in this case was Harrisburg.

Movement in her peripheral vision made her stop and reassess. A tiny furry creature crawled out from the other side of the building. Phew. A rabbit. She continued forward. But then the creature whimpered.

A puppy. Jake would be elated if she came home with a puppy to add to their growing menagerie at the farmette she’d recently purchased for them in Silver Valley, Pennsylvania.

No way.

Crap. This was not a canine rescue mission. Yuri Vasin was her man, the fugitive wanted for money laundering in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. With new charges of human trafficking coming out of Wilmington, Delaware, this morning.

Vasin was Russian, five feet eleven inches, one hundred and eighty-five pounds. He definitely was not an approximately ten-pound caramel-latte-colored fuzz ball with big brown eyes and large paws on a too-skinny body. As the puppy stumbled along toward her, tail wagging tentatively, its whines turned to yips.

“Shhh!” She had to stop its noise. Bending down, she hoisted the little guy up and went to gently muzzle his puppy snout with her hand. He wriggled his face out of her grasp and licked her chin, his tiny body quivering with excitement. Or maybe relief?

Vasin couldn’t be that bad, not if he had a new puppy. Although he needed to feed the pup more—this little guy was skinny. She looked around, making sure she was still alone. There weren’t any visible cameras on the outside of the building. It looked abandoned, in fact.

Except for fresh tire tracks that ran from where the front door was to the surrounding grasslands. She saw the tracks emerge from the fields, and as she turned the corner with the puppy in her arms, she found the three ATVs that had made the tracks parked alongside the corrugated metal building.

The flips in her stomach turned to alarm bells.

Vasin wasn’t alone.

* * *

Rob lay on the concrete floor of the warehouse and willed his aching limbs to stay still as he listened to Vasin and his men. His labored breathing made it difficult to ascertain the colloquial Russian, but he understood enough of their conversation to know two things.

First, they said they were hiding out in the Poconos to protect Dima Ivanov who was in his “bunker.” That meant that Ivanov was nearby. This was new intelligence that the Trail Hikers didn’t have—they knew he was close but didn’t realize he had a full-on shelter. No one had suspected Ivanov would risk remaining so close to New York City and his usual operation area, not while the heat on him from all federal agencies was so heavy. But most importantly, Rob hadn’t heard the all-too-familiar sneer of Dima Ivanov’s voice, however. Which meant Vasin was running this current op, whatever it entailed. Rob could handle Vasin. Ivanov’s voice was one he dreaded, because he knew if he heard the heavy, smoke-addled voice, Rob would be dead.

The last time he’d come face-to-face with Vasin and his immediate circle, Rob had had the upper hand. He’d been deep undercover and had helped blow the headquarters of a drug and money-laundering operation out of the water, literally. Ivanov had been operating his command center from a yacht in the Atlantic, just off the Jersey shore. Vasin ran the op on land, and Rob’s CIA team took it all down, working hand in hand with FBI, ATF, DHS and local LEAs. Rob had escaped with his life and that of his team’s—except for Jazz.

Goddamn it, he still saw her eyes right before the bullet blew her apart. The shock of losing a teammate never left him. Their memory never faded. But Jazz’s loss had been the impetus for him to try to find closure for the other part of his life, a relationship he could have put to rest three years ago if he’d only had the courage to cross the damned street. To face for the last time the woman he’d loved when he’d still been named Justin.

A shuffle of chairs and rapid-fire Russian conversation filled his ears. No more thoughts of the woman he’d lost to distract him from the pain. He had to interpret their dialogue. His language skills weren’t what they used to be, but they were good enough.

Hell and damnation. They were going to kill him sometime before tomorrow morning. Something about him being in the way of their “most important mission.”

Robert opened his left eye a slit, since their voices came from his right side. He took in racks of weapons, ammo, explosives. Dang, they were loaded for bear. Just who were they expecting, the national guard? He wouldn’t mind a unit to show up and rescue him right about now.

He knew no one was scheduled to come in here until after he’d secured Vasin—the risks were too great. Vasin and his boss Ivanov were known for retribution; last month six ATF agents had been slaughtered in an ambush in Newark, New Jersey. ROC didn’t get its hands dirty, of course, but intelligence had proven it was clearly done on Ivanov’s orders.

The powers that be had decided that taking out Ivanov alone was best to allow them to begin to dismantle the entire North American ROC from the inside out. It was going to take months, even years. Rob couldn’t worry about that—he still had to complete his mission to neutralize Vasin. Somehow, someway, despite all these men around him.

He tested his binds. They’d used plastic zip ties on his wrists, which remained painfully strapped behind him and forced his back into an excruciating arch. His ankles were shackled, probably by chains, judging from the weight holding him down. The victims he’d witnessed captured by the ROC in New Jersey had been similarly restrained. It was signature Vasin. The man was a sadistic sociopath.

Vasin asked for something, then the sound of pounding on a table—a bottle, maybe?

Liquid pouring, a toast. Then another. Then a third. Keep drinking, you son of a bitch.

Fortunately for Rob, Vasin liked his vodka. Judging from the larger size of Vasin’s nose, the obvious veins mapped over it, Vasin’s alcoholism had progressed over the last two years even as his physicality didn’t appear weaker. And it sounded like he wanted to celebrate tonight, before the big party tomorrow—Rob’s murder party.

Steps shuffled on the floor, toward Rob. A solid hit to his chest forced his eyes to fly open.

Vasin laughed and spoke in a flurry of Russian. His spit hit his face with obvious satisfaction. Rob considered it a win that he felt it on his swollen skin. No extensive nerve damage. Yet.

“I didn’t come here for you.” It hurt so much to speak, damn it. Flashes of a previous time at the mercy of captors. He ignored them, fought off thinking about the one sure thing that got him through that torture.

“No, of course you didn’t. You want my boss, no? But you’ll never get him. No one touches Dima Ivanov.”

“Maybe not, but I know who’s coming to get him and all of you, and when.” Another sign Vasin was losing it; he’d said his boss’s name, blatantly unafraid of Rob. Yeah, Rob was a goner—they were going to kill him. Maybe sooner than tomorrow.

Vasin’s eyes narrowed at Rob’s dig, his breathing hitched. Bait. He’d believed the overblown statement.

“Everything you say is a lie. Who do you work for—the same people?”

“Yes.” Let Vasin think he was still CIA or FBI. Vasin had accused Robert of being CIA when they’d blown apart the New Jersey op. There was no reason to correct him. The Trail Hikers were far more clandestine than the CIA, and Rob was certain Vasin and in fact the ROC had no idea who the Trail Hikers were.

“And who are they, your employers?”

Robert stayed silent. He’d never tell Vasin whom he really worked for. Or that he’d been a SEAL. Vasin was smart enough to know that no agent worth his or her training would ever give up their employer.

“Tell me.” Vasin’s meaty fist hit his temple, and an explosion of lights floated over his vision. The blackness threatened, but he hung on.

“Never.”

“Of course you won’t. So tell me, who’s on their way to get us? The bogeyman?”

Hook.

“Two thousand agents. National Guard, DEA, local teams.” The lie came easily even through his aching jaw. Vasin’s breathing increased.

“When?”

“Tomorrow. Before sunup.”

Vasin straightened and turned toward his men, but not before Rob saw the frown drawn on his face. He watched them squirm in their seats as Vasin asked his team if anyone knew about the LEAs. Then he asked how many of the ROC men were expected to arrive over the next day. Rob let go a small, painful sigh when the men stated they only expected a dozen or so.

Vasin lowered his head, and Robert saw the flicker of worry cross the bastard’s face. After what felt like hours, Vasin motioned with his head toward Rob, shouting orders to his goons. “Get him up and let him take a piss. Then put him in the chair at the table.”

He faced Rob again and leaned in, his breath heavy with vodka and bile. “I’m going to let you tell me everything you know. If you’re lucky, I’ll leave you for dead here, before my boss shows up.”

Rob didn’t have to ask what would happen if he wasn’t lucky. Vasin would torture him until he begged to die.

Time to reel the monster in.

* * *

Trina peered around the corner of the building, her weapon drawn. The puppy had given her enough time to see the ATVs before she’d done something stupid and unforgivable for a US marshal: walk into a danger zone uninformed. Someone hadn’t done their job, because clearly Vasin was not alone and all of her reports indicated otherwise. She’d worry about the lack of communication later. Right now she wanted Yuri Vasin in cuffs.

Security cameras were mounted under the roof’s overhang on the four corners of the building; she’d only discovered them once she was up under the eaves herself.

She flattened herself to the side of the wall and started to inch her way back toward the opposite side of the building where she’d noticed the other, probably faux, doors. But she had to determine if she could see inside the structure and make out what the hell was going on. Trina sent a quick text to Mike, telling him to head in. She’d wait for him to apprehend.

As she crept along the twenty yards of solid steel building, she was conscious of the puppy shadowing her, quiet and stealthy. She couldn’t risk the noise of shooing the dog away, and was annoyed that he distracted her at all. Her fingers hit the corner of the building and she made sure the area was clear before she turned the corner and made straight for the doors. The security cameras had to not be working, or she’d have been stopped by someone by now.

When she lined up with the “doors,” her fingertips felt the smoothness of the corrugated steel—and the paint that had been used to create the illusion of entrances. Except in the middle of the one large garage-style door, where she immediately felt the cut of steel-on-steel. An opening. Maybe not one that was used much, but an entrance or exit of some sort. Further inspection revealed a painted-over window. She slipped a razor out of her front pocket. Slowly and carefully scraped away the black pigment. She kept her free hand over the working one—she didn’t want to alert anyone inside with a flash of light. The paint was thick and chipped off in the tiniest of pieces. That was fine. All she needed was a pupil’s worth.

As soon as she had enough of an opening, she stood on tiptoe and looked inside. Shelves, all stocked with what appeared to be cans of paint—no shocker there—and ammo, the boxes emblazoned with US ARMY. It was hard to see much farther than five or six rows of shelving.

Ammo. Crap. She couldn’t see past the stacked army boxes. Double crap. Either this was some kind of clandestine military ammunitions depot she didn’t know about, or she’d been mistakenly sent to get this Vasin dude at his place of business. He was supposed to be alone, separated from the ROC and far from its head honcho, Dima Ivanov. Intelligence reports revealed that Vasin might have had a falling-out with Dima and that’s why he was working alone. That was another factor that supposedly made him an easy suspect to bring in. But it looked like Vasin had decided to protect himself in the process. And whoever was with him in the building.

Trina sank down onto her haunches, lifting her cowboy hat enough to wipe the sweat off her brow and out of her eyes. She had two choices: go in with Mike, or call for backup and wait to go in with Mike.

She sent a quick text to both Mike and their team leader, Corey. They had to understand that Vasin was not alone, and she told them that she needed direction on whether to abort the apprehension or not. While she waited for the return texts, she headed back to the front of the building. Her boss would need exact details for whatever additional law enforcement they sent in, and she wanted to tell him the license plate numbers on the ATVs.

A sharp rustle behind her startled her and she whipped around and trained her weapon on the source. She let out a sigh of relief as it was only the puppy, making funny growling noises as he ran in a circle in front of her. Her relief turned to trepidation as she realized he was trying to tell her something.

“What, boy?” She mouthed the words as the back of her neck prickled. The tiny animal didn’t want her to go any further and was trying to keep her from moving forward. Intuition tightened her gut and her hold on her weapon but as an explosion sounded in the building she realized she might be too late.

Chapter 2

Rob had done it. He’d convinced Vasin that he was worth keeping alive. For a bit longer, anyhow.

It was enough time to get hold of the tear gas that was on the shelf. If that was what was in the box marked US ARMY TEAR GAS, that is. He’d also spotted several box cutters scattered around the shelves.

“I have to piss.” He spoke to the ROC member through swollen lips, dried blood tasting foul from where his teeth had cut through his cheeks with each blow from Vasin earlier. He played along with Vasin’s order to let him use the bathroom.

“No funny business, or phwwwt.” One of Vasin’s men swiped his finger across his neck while his smug smirk dared Rob to challenge him. Rob had no doubt that the finger would become a switchblade with little provocation. He also knew he’d take this little jerk down.

“I can’t go without my hands, man.”

“Let him go, Aleksey.” Vasin’s voice slurred from the vodka, but the thug listened to him nonetheless. Vasin’s word was law, drunk or sober, superseded only by Ivanov’s.

Two clicks of the very knife Rob feared freed his wrists. Painful jolts of pins and needles hit his arms, hands, as his blood flow returned full force. He fought to flex his fingers and roll his shoulders.

“I give you both but you only need one for your small dick.” The man with the smirk laughed at his poor humor. Rob remained silent and waited for the feeling to return to his hands and fingers.

“The bathroom?” He spoke through clenched teeth.

“The bathroom for you is over there.” Aleksey took him past the ammo and to a small latrine, which was little more than a hole in the ground. Nothing Rob hadn’t experienced before.

Aleksey left him alone so that he could walk over to the table where Vasin sat. He shot down a glass of vodka that Vasin had poured for him, his ura an underscore to the laughter and leers at Rob from the other men. That was the Russian military response to a toast, or more historically, a battle cry similar to the U.S. Marine Corps’ oorah. Aleskey, and the others, were trying to intimidate him.

Have your fun now, suckers.

As they mocked him, he mapped out his route and plan of attack. It might be his last. But he’d have accomplished his mission—take out Vasin and in the process, Ivanov. Rob wouldn’t be the one to actually kill Ivanov, but he’d make damned sure the other LEAs knew where to find him with little effort.

Trina.

He couldn’t risk not surviving this mission, after all.

Because Rob knew Ivanov was in this building, or somewhere very nearby. Most likely in a basement. The type of underground, clandestine, over-the-top living structure that ROC was famous for. Ingenious locations with even more clever hideaways.

Rob forced himself to urinate, finding that indeed, he’d had to go. Funny how pain distracted one from basic needs.

“Can’t find it, you capitalist pig?” Vasin laughed and slammed down another empty shot glass. Rob bided his time, acting as if he were fumbling with his zipper.

Truth was, he’d be hard-pressed to re-zip his pants right now with his fingers still so stiff and swollen. But he had enough range of motion to open a box with a box cutter, grab a tear gas canister and launch it. He’d use his teeth to get to it if he had to.

Another boisterous toast. The men clinked glasses and Robert ran.

“The agent!” Slurred words from one of them.

“Don’t shoot him! We need his information!” Vasin unwittingly gave Rob the precious seconds he needed by making the men halt in their tracks.

He grabbed the box off the shelf and heard the yells, the sounds of vodka-hindered feet. The carton opened with little effort, spilling dozens of canisters at his feet. He kicked them toward his attackers as he clutched one, armed it and threw. It landed in the center of the group of four men. Then he shoved against the shelf in front of them as hard as his battered body allowed him to. A loud squeaking rent the air as the metal contraption yielded. He looked at his captors as the canister fell toward them. The men wore various expressions of shock, fear and dread. They reflexively reached for their weapons, despite their boss’s order, as if bullets would stop hundreds of pounds of metal and ammunition aimed at them. It was too late. The shelves came down, and he didn’t stick around to see how many were trapped. The loud crack of the detonator was immediately followed by the appearance of a misty cloud of tear gas. Rob held his breath and ran for the exit.

* * *

Trina texted her boss again with the minimal vital details of her plan and what she expected but still hoped she wouldn’t find in the warehouse. Before she added a third text, he called her.

“Get out, Trina. Don’t go in there alone. One explosion leads to more. Mike is on the east side of the clearing if you need him, but I want you both out of there now.”

She heard her boss’s voice over the Bluetooth connection in her earbuds and let out a sigh of relief. “I was thinking the same thing,” she whispered as she looked at the puppy and decided not to tell Corey that she was taking one thing from this mission—a new family member. She and Jake had the space now, so why not?

“Stop! Where are you now exactly, Trina?” Corey’s sharp query startled her.

“Next to the building. Heading out.” She read off the GPS coordinates, in case Corey had lost her signal. Keeping her voice in a whisper, she crouched down to grab the puppy.