Page 39 of Running Scared
Dean nodded thoughtfully.“Let’s swing wide, then.”They had extra fuel in Marcus’s trailer, insulated by the cold packs and shaded by the chutes.“It may take us an extra hour, but we can set ourselves far enough from the road to stay hidden and close enough to establish a lookout.And if Bird can aim the infrared distance imaging—”
“We can get a sense for who’s where,” Marcus finished for him.“I like it.Now see,thisis a plan.”
Dean pulled out the infrared gadget and showed Birdie how to use it.Then they turned it off and set it to charge through an outlet in Marcus’s bike’s electrical system, where it fit neatly in a saddlebag while powering up.
“FBI,” Birdie murmured.“Nice.And since we’re coming up with a plan, fellas, I feel compelled to bring us back to what Dean was saying in the beginning.”
Both of them focused solely on the little pilot, all ears.
“First of all,” Birdie said, “since I’m not working on not steering us into a rattlesnake pit or a cactus cluster, I’ve been counting planes overhead—there’s not many.But while I don’t have your far-distance gadgets, Ihaveseen two on a trajectory to land in that direction, which makes me think that place has an airstrip.”
Marcus and Dean exchanged glances.“Promising,” Dean said tentatively.It was, in fact, what he’d been hoping for when he’d broached the subject in the first place.A good plan relied on intel like that.“Anything else?”
Birdie gave an evil smile.“There’s not a thing out there I can’t fly.”There was a pause while that sunk in.“If you two can think of any way to disable those antiaircraft guns, I think I’ve got our exfil.”
Marcus regarded Birdie skeptically.“And you have your new plane?”
Birdie shrugged philosophically.“A little paint, a few screen doors—”
“Some new call numbers,” Dean supplied dryly.
“And a bucketload of revenge,” Birdie finished, happy as a, well,bird.“Let’s see if we can make it so.”
Dean and Marcus both grunted.Make it so?Possibly.But it wouldn’t be easyorquiet.
But then, they sort of owed Birdie, and neither of them liked to leave debts hanging.
“We’ll try to work it into our schedule,” Dean promised.“But if it’s a choice between flying out dead or biking out alive….”
“Oh, alive is definitely preferable,” Birdie agreed, nodding emphatically.
“That’s a priority, then,” Marcus said, and they all took one more swig of water, replaced their helmets and their goggles, and got their asses in gear.
TWO HOURSlater, as it was getting too dark to ride, they found their spot.As they swung wide around the compound, they realized that the desert had a slight rise and steep drop toward the east.They headed that way and found themselves in the shade of a small promontory that rose maybe ten feet above the gentle decline of the desert floor.After shooing out some rattlesnakes and aplethoraof scorpions by focusing the exhaust against the wall and revving the engines, they killed the power and used small shovels to scoop out a shallow trench at the base before using the chutes to cover everything, including themselves, leaving the chute vents as lookout points.
“You sure we got all the scorpions?”Marcus asked as he and Dean lay on their stomachs and peered out of their shelter.They’d left the sides open to ventilate the space, and now that the sun wasn’t beating down on their heads, they did experience some relief from the heat.
“No,” Dean said shortly.“You know the drill.Don’t take off your boots, and sleep with your mouth closed.”
“Sleep, he says,” Marcus muttered, and Dean figured they’d have to take turns keeping a lookout… and guarding the other from vermin.
Birdie, on the other hand, had set the fuel canisters and provision platforms on the ground and curled up in the trailer like a puppy.If Dean or Marcus could have even fit in a space that small, the pilot might have had some competition, but as it was, they let Birdie get all the sleep possible.
It was going to be alongnight.
Neither of them thought about checking in, using their cell phones, contacting HQ or their families.Something out there had shot them down.Someoneout there suspected they were out here.A compound militarized enough to have antiaircraft guns would have a communications center, and it would really suck to give away their location because they couldn’t go twenty-four hours without tugging on their family’s apron strings.
But that didn’t mean Dean didn’tthinkabout Bailey, as Marcus settled down to sleep (with a scarf wrapped around his face and his hands tucked into his sleeves) and Dean took the first watch.
It just meant he didn’t reach for his phone or attempt to call Val or his and Marcus’s AIC back in Austin.
Their AIC was used to not hearing from them anyway, and as Dean settled down to a long night, he knew he couldn’t think of any better place for Bailey to be than with his family.
AT ROUGHLY4:00 a.m., twenty-eight interminable hours of rotating between sleeping and stakeout after they’d arrived, Marcus flicked at the scarf around Dean’s face and then shook him awake.
“Are the scorpions gone?”Dean asked from behind the scarf.Yes, he’d known they were there, but he’d made the scarf tight and kept himself in that half somnolence that had stood him and Marcus so well on previous operations.
“God yes.I have no idea how you just sit there and let them….”
