Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can - By Kat Martin Page 0,74

supremacists.”

“Yeah, and word gets out we’re looking for them, they’ll be ready for us.”

“Are we calling the sheriff?”

“Maybe. I want to talk to Sol, see what he comes up with first. In the meantime, we need a room, somewhere out of town, preferably on the road south. We need a place to stash the gear, use the computer and strategize.”

“Maybe we could drive by the area first, see what it looks like.”

“Hell, no. I’m not going anywhere near those guys with you in the car. Besides, I’ve got a hunch their compound won’t be easy to find.”

As Ben drove through the small rural community, he pressed Sol’s number. “Bushytail Bayou is thirty miles south of—” Ben broke off the sentence and started nodding. Apparently, Sol had already found the location.

“The Braggs are involved in some kind of survivalist group,” Ben told him. Sol said something. “Yeah, definitely not good news. They all live together in some sort of compound. It’s bound to be guarded. I’m going to need to find a way in.”

Sol said something, and a few minutes later, Ben hung up the phone.

“He’s on it. He’s sending area maps and intel. In the meantime, how are you coming with that room?”

Claire looked down at the Google page, open on the iPad in her lap. “There’s nothing out there, Ben. No motel for a jillion miles.”

“Try fishing camps. Lots of water around. People love to fish. See if there’s something with a cabin we can rent.”

She typed in the reference, looked up at him. “I can’t believe it. Uncle Buster’s Cabins. Look’s like it’s on a lake off road 121. They rent fishing boats and there’s a small RV park. If I call from here, we might be able to get something.”

“Sounds good.”

She looked down at the iPad. “From the photos, the cabins look pretty good, but there’s no cell phones, no internet.”

“Sat phone. We won’t be incommunicado.”

Claire leaned back in her seat. They were close. She could feel it.

While she made the reservation, Ben pulled into a rural market to pick up supplies for a couple of days, sandwich fixings and breakfast rolls, a couple of bags of potato chips, some milk. Claire grabbed a bag of raw almonds, picked up some apples and bananas, a jug of orange juice, a six-pack of bottled water.

As they climbed back into the car and Ben pulled out of the lot, she said a silent prayer for Sam. We’re coming, sweetheart. Be strong. Don’t give up. We love you, Sam. Her eyes felt misty, her throat tight when she finished.

Ben reached over and squeezed her hand. “We’re going to find him, Claire. We’re going to bring him home.”

But it wouldn’t be easy. Claire thought of the bullet wound in Ben’s side that was barely healed, and the other scars he carried.

This time her prayer was for Ben.

Twenty-Two

They followed the two-lane road south, moving farther and farther away from Egansville, through a flat landscape of low-lying farms and wetlands. For the first ten miles, there was only a smattering of houses. The next ten were almost completely uninhabited, just miles of farmland on one side, marshy green swampland on the other.

The narrow, overgrown Black Snake River wound along on the west, slithering through a heavy tangle of leafy plants and deep woods like the serpent it was named for.

Ben hadn’t spent much time in Louisiana, but he knew his way around a jungle. The Philippines had been his last mission, a major clusterfuck that had gotten one of his teammates killed and landed him and two other SEALs in the hospital. He’d been there for three months, managed to recover from his injuries, but ended up leaving the teams.

The bayou was a different kind of jungle. And still a lot the same. He’d rather not think about that.

Beside him, Claire sat up straighter in her seat and pointed off to the right. “Look, Ben, there’s the turn to Black Snake Lake.”

He slowed, turned down a bumpy dirt road lined with low-hanging trees and spotted another sign. He took a right that led to Uncle Buster’s, a row of tidy-looking cabins right along the water, each with a small boat dock on piers out in front.

Ben slowed to a stop in front of a wooden building with a sign that read Old Fishermen Never Die, They Just Smell That Way, and climbed the porch steps to the rental office.

“Ben Slocum,” he said to a short, bald-headed man with a round face and a