James Axler – Bitter Fruit

“Where?” Conte asked.

Cruse led the way.

The unit of soldiers had been inside the redoubt at the other end of the jump for less than twenty minutes. When they’d arrived, Turley had pointed out the crushed barrel of the .50-caliber machine gun that had been blocking the doors. There’d been no sign of Ryan Cawdor or his people, except for the carbon Whittaker had discovered.

Conte played his flash over the vehicle, raking it from stem to stern. “Is it driveable?”

“Should be,” Cruse replied. “I’ll have to look it over some before I know for sure.”

“Get it done, and let me know.” Burroughs had made sure his team had been cross-trained in a number of areas over the decades, and there wasn’t a man in the group who couldn’t fix most of the vehicles they had. The major bad burned it into memory that without mobility, they didn’t stand a chance of rebuilding the nation.

“Yes sir.”

Conte returned to the main room. He was of average height, but broad shouldered. His blond hair was longer than regulation length, but Burroughs hadn’t commented on it.

Turley was buttoning up his tool kit, a disgusted look on his face.

“What have you got, Mike?” Conte asked.

“Cranky bastard’s still operational,” Turley said, hooking a thumb back over his shoulder toward the mat-trans unit. “But you climb in, you get a one-way back to White Sands. Directional programmings been gutted. Just like I thought.”

“Any idea where we are?” Conte had tried the radio as soon as he’d arrived. Nobody was in range that he could pick up, except for his own people.

“None.” He let out a long breath. His brow was furrowed as he looked up over his cupped hands and lit a cigarette. “No way to tell from this piece of shit, sir.”

“Disable it,” Conte said, “just in case. Even if the unit’s only a receiver with one point of delivery, I don’t care to think about what may come through after us.”

“Yes sir. Hadn’t thought about that.”

“That’s why they made me sergeant.” Conte went into the other room containing the cryo units. He glanced at the dead man. “Wish I knew who the hell you were and what you were doing here. Cut down on some worry.”

A hundred years, he thought sourly, and maybe they had a lead on the information leak they were supposed to have been guarding against in their initial assignment. He went up the ladder to the cave. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to establish a beachhead of sorts wherever they were. It was irritating not to know why. That was one of the reasons Conte had always liked military life everything was pretty much spelled out for a guy, leaving no empty spaces or idle wondering.

He paused in the mouth of the cave and looked at the footsteps only partially covered by snow. Then he lifted his gaze to the valley, sweeping across it. Ryan Cawdor was out there somewhere. It might take some time, but he knew they could track the man down and terminate him with extreme prejudice.

After all, if Cawdor wasn’t going to throw his lot in with them, he was a dangerous enemy of the United States of America. One thing Sergeant George Conte didn’t abide was a traitor.

THERE WERE FOUR WAGS, all four-wheel drive and rigged for off-road travel. Two of them had started their lives as pickups, the third had been a van and the last a military jeep still bearing insignia that had almost faded out.

The jeep was in the lead, bearing down on Jak, Krysty, Doc and the young Celt. Two men rode in the back, hanging on behind a machine gun that was bolted to a crossbar. The whine of the straining transmission drowned out all other noise.

Doc and Krysty went to cover at once, dodging behind trees. Jak grabbed Tarragon and pulled him behind a boulder. His .357 Magnum was settled across the top of the big rock before Ryan had time to draw another breath.

Ryan moved behind a shelf of rock and brought the Steyr to his shoulder, scanning the new arrivals through the rifle’s scope. None of them appeared to be dressed in green, but they weren’t easy-living men, either. Scars and weapons were worn like badges of office.