Dodging trees, trying to keep her footing firm, she struggled to take painful breaths. They approached quickly, from all sides. Moving as if with one mind, they emerged from the trees two and three at a time, the moon giving enough light to trace their shapes. She was surrounded.
She came to a full stop and raised her firearm. It was illogical, yet still she turned in a circle. She couldn’t possibly aim at all of them. But they weren’t firing at her. They approached carefully, weapons pointed directly toward her, triggers untouched.
They wanted her alive. Otherwise she’d already be dead.
“Dr. Rivener, put down the weapon,” one of the masked soldiers commanded. A voice she recognized well.
Olivia ignored his request.
“Where’s the girl? It’ll be easier on everyone if you just tell us,” he said.
When Olivia’s silence continued, the speaker nodded to the agent to his right, and he signaled to several others.
“She couldn’t have gotten far,” one said, and the group before her trimmed from a dozen to half as groups split off to search for Lucy.
Olivia had never been much for belief, but in that moment, she prayed to God that Lucy had done exactly as she’d asked.
“Dr. Rivener, lower the gun,” the team leader spoke again. “We don’t want anyone to get hurt.” He was taking slow steps toward her.
“Then don’t do this,” Olivia replied. “Please, Seeley, you don’t have to do this.”
The masked man stopped and after a beat of silence lowered his weapon. His men inched forward, their guns still trained on her, and he raised a hand to reassure them. They froze, and he pulled back his dark mask.
Starlight softly lit his face. Olivia knew his square jaw, sharp nose, dark eyes. Strong and symmetrical features that Olivia had always found handsome. The helmet hid his thick black hair.
They’d been teammates. Colleagues. Now they stood as enemies on either side of a war that would change them forever.
Seeley held her eyes for a long moment before speaking. “You know I have to take you in.” His voice was kind though his words were deadly.
“This isn’t right,” Olivia said. “You’re a good man. You know this isn’t right.”
“We have orders.”
“Forget orders. You know her. She’s just a child.”
“Don’t be naïve, Olivia,” Seeley said. “You forget what we were trying to do here.”
“What we were trying to do was wrong. It cost us everything.”
“It doesn’t have to. Lower your weapon. Come in willingly. Hammon is reasonable, and you are an incredible asset.”
“Now who’s being naïve?”
Another moment of silence passed between them, then he glanced left to another soldier. “Take her.”
Olivia took a step backward, gun still raised, as she tried to control the fear causing her fingers to tremble. “You can’t kill her, Seeley. I’ve made sure of it. She’s the only one who knows where the information’s hidden.”
The soldiers all paused. Seeley stared at her as his men waited for orders.
“We both know what’s at risk if anyone gets hold of that information,” Olivia said. “To the Grantham Project, to all those involved, to the country. Kill her and the whole world will know what we did.”
She pictured Lucy one last time. Again she found herself praying redemption was real as she took a breath and resolved her end.
Seeley took a step forward, putting the pieces together a moment too late. He opened his mouth to instruct, maybe even to intervene, but Olivia had already pulled the trigger on her weapon. Once, twice, three times, as bullets exploded from the gun’s barrel and into the soldiers.
They responded in kind. Two bullets sank deep in Olivia’s gut, then a third and fourth in her chest and shoulder. Her final moment was encased in agony as she collapsed to the forest floor and her world went dark.
TWO
“ORDER UP,” A husky male voice barked out the small serving window from his place behind the grill.
Zoe pushed herself away from the long counter where she’d been perched and turned to grab the warm plate that sat on the metal shelf. “You leave off the tomatoes?” she asked as she glanced at the burger and fries that occupied the plate.
“Did you tell me to?” the cook asked.
“Yes, Pete, I told you to,” she replied.
“If you told me, then I did it. I listen.” Pete shot her a playful wink and turned back to the greasy grill that sizzled with raw meat and frying bacon. Zoe lifted the edge of the top bun with a clean knife and saw a large slice of tomato tucked below the layer of iceberg lettuce. She huffed.
She looked up at Pete, who glanced back at her and gave a shrug. “Must not have told me.”
Zoe rolled her eyes, carefully pulled the tomato free, and tossed it in the trash can behind her. “You do stellar work as always,” she mocked. Pete replied with a chuckle, not bothering to give her another glance.
She walked around the edge of the long counter that divided the single-level diner and toward the last booth on the right. It was occupied by a single gentleman, Lawrence Peters, fondly referred to as Lou, who was a regular patron of Eat at Joe’s, the less-than-average dining establishment where Zoe had been employed for the last eight months.
She approached the table with a smile and slid the plate in front of the graying man. His face and hands were permanently stained with grime from twenty-five years of working in coal mines on the outskirts of Sherman, Texas.
“Here you go, Lou,” Zoe said. “I made sure there weren’t any tomatoes.”
Lou glanced up at her, his brown eyes filled with genuine kindness, a quality few people had. He had a way of making a person feel like family with a simple smile. “Thanks, doll,” he said. “You tell Joe I said he should give you a raise.”
Zoe laughed at the thought and shook her head. Joe Brunski, the owner, would rather chop off an arm than pay a penny over what the law required. Zoe was pretty sure the man was constantly scouring paperwork in the back office for a loophole to pay them less, or better yet, not at all.
“If you need anything, you let me know, Lou,” she said and headed back to her usual spot behind the counter. The place was small, eight booths in all, four on either side of the front door. A loud bell clanged with the comings and goings of bodies. A long, thin counter with ten barstools stood opposite the booths, and a small walkway cut the diner in half. When Zoe and Jessie Mack, the only other waitress, were both working, they had to turn sideways to maneuver around one another.
The kitchen was barely big enough for two people, which suited Pete just fine. He preferred to work alone. There were two single bathrooms for paying customers only. Even though Eat at Joe’s sat along US Highway 75 and saw passing travelers, Joe would have none of it. He could sniff out a freeloader like a bloodhound.
“You have to pay to play,” he’d always say. Which didn’t make complete sense, but very little of Joe and the way he ran the diner made complete sense.
The bell over the door dinged, and Jessie walked through, an unfolded newspaper held over her hair. “Man, it’s really coming down out there.”
“Forecast called for rain,” Zoe said.