on a “Sir,” even as he gripped the steering wheel more tightly.
“Yup,” Francisco grimly said. “You’re it, Rossetti. You and Patterson. You’re closest. And I need both of you on this, so don’t mess around. Find him, get him to Burlington—”
“But, sir, if this is just another diversion,” Rio started. This was going to take a solid twelve hours—if they were lucky. And it would take longer if they weren’t.
“I’ve seen a video interview with the girl,” the admiral said. “She’s a friend of Tasha’s, too—Tash likes her. And trusts her. She’s drunk, but it looks like liquid courage, so she could bring herself to ask for help. I think Tedric’s smart, but he’s not that smart. He’s got his buddy’s phone. Find the phone, we’ll find the prince. And if you haul ass, you can still intercept him before he leaves his vehicle and becomes harder to track, on foot in the goddamn mountains.”
“Tracking coordinates received, sir,” Dave reported, pulling open the paper map to have at the ready for when their SAT signal failed—which it would do, probably soon after they started moving toward those same goddamn mountains. “Out to the main road, then north,” he told Rio.
Rio jammed the SUV into gear and floored it. “Hauling ass, sir.”
“Keep me updated, and as tempting as it might be, do not kill the idiot, and do not let him get himself killed,” the admiral ground out, before he hung up.
“And... we just lost GPS,” Dave told Rio as they sped northward into the night. “But it’ll be back.”
“I fucking hate this,” Rio said.
Dave nodded. “I know.”
Chapter Twenty
Thomas was moving fast.
With a four man patrol hot on his heels, he had to be thinking fast, too. He had to be four steps ahead.
Mere evasion would’ve been easy.
Easier.
Three of his pursuers were idiots, with close to zero training. Only one was a real operator—probably Army recon. He was the man Thomas had to work to avoid.
But he wasn’t just evading them in order to hide. He was actively leading them away from the entrance to the pod, so that they wouldn’t find the bulkhead door.
Because if they found the bomb shelter, he and Tash would instantly be in siege mode. They’d be extremely vulnerable, with no eyes and ears to the outside world, and a limited, dwindling food supply.
And that was the best case scenario—assuming that the hostiles wouldn’t be able to figure out a way to cut off their power, which would make them lose their light and heat. A power cut would lose them their water supply, too, since the pump that drew the water from its well was electric.
Although true worst case was that the hostiles would somehow screw with the shelter’s ventilation system, cutting off their air. That would mean game over.
Siege mode was to be avoided at all costs.
All costs.
So even though Thomas’s initial plan, formed when he’d realized he’d walked straight into an ambush, was only partially developed, it had a very solid Step One: Lead these amateur motherfuckers far, far from Tasha and the pod.
He should’ve been more careful.
Although, to be fair, today’s SNAFU had started while he’d been moving through the woods steadily, employing his usual high level of care and stealth as he returned from checking the contact point. In fact, he’d been disturbingly close to the camouflaged-by-brush-and-debris bulkhead entrance to the underground shelter when his SEAL-senses had started tingling. He was being watched and followed.
At first he spotted glimpses of just two of them—clumsy Stooges One and Two. But as he started moving faster—right past the bulkhead—the second pair, Army and Stooge Three, had revealed themselves, because stealth was harder to achieve at higher speeds.
Thomas had led the four-man team due south, careful to stay visible, his mind racing as he got to work on steps two-plus of his plan. The four men were following him. They weren’t trying to kill or capture him for an obvious reason, which was that they hoped he’d lead them to Tasha.
When he was a safe enough distance from the bomb shelter entrance, Thomas finally let himself vanish. Then he circled back around, tracking his trackers for a bit to make sure he was right, and that there really were only four men in this little hunting patrol.
Only after confirming that did he backtrack even more, all the way to the shelter, where he’d opened the hatch and deposited both the rifle and one of the small bags of ammo he’d been carrying in his