*****
Luke Francis caught his flight out of Dulles at seven o’clock in the morning and settled in for the ride. His ascension to the position previously held by General Archer had been smooth. Except for the problems with Bronislov he would have said it had been flawless. As of yet, he didn’t know for sure exactly what the problem might be. Cassie’s message had been cryptic, but he was worried enough to make the trip. Bronislov was an asset he could not afford to lose this early in his tenure. Agents were burned sometimes, and when they did, the fallout was quick and usually painful for those involved. Careers were lost for far less. The plane took off, climbing to altitude. The seatbelt light went off and Francis reclined his seat, opening a folder he carried in his lap. In it was a listing of every known contact of Bronislov in the last six months. If there was a leak, if Bronislov was exposed, Francis wanted to know how. His research into Cassie’s red herring continued the whole flight.
*****
Kohl felt a massive kick in his chest. The blow knocked him back against the bench before he pitched forward and landed on his back. He had enough presence of mind to try reaching across his chest to his own weapon, but he couldn’t make his arm work. He could only stare at the sky, a bright blue palette tinged with a growing dark edge. A figure came into his line of sight, then a face that bobbled crazily at the end of a long string. The dark edges began to creep toward the middle. Cassie leaned down close, reached into his clothes and pulled out the weapon he would never again carry.
“You can blame Luke Francis, Mr. Kohl. I do,” she said as she kneeled down. “You should have left well enough alone.”
Kohl was dying and knew it, but he had enough dignity left to feel ashamed even as he was lying on the ground. He spent his life in dangerous situations, dealing with dangerous men. He should have known better, should have played it smarter. He had been outwitted by a schoolgirl. She was no bigger than a handful. Yet she had lured him in like a professional, taken in him by appearing harmless. Cassie crouched down close, watching, and the morning sky overhead flared into his eyes before the darkness rushed in from the edges and pulled him down.
Across the street, the man in the business suit was standing next to his car. He watched as Cassie stood up, pistol in her hand, and looked directly at him. Slowly, he put his hands on top of the car, turning his head away at the same time. Another shot exploded in the morning air, kicking up grass and dirt to Cassie’s right. The woman with the dog was running right at her. She stopped across the street, leveled the pistol. Cassie hit the ground behind Kohl’s body, bringing up her own pistol. Not wanting to lift her head enough to aim, she rolled back over the edge of the stone steps, falling toward the water. The woman started across.
At the first shot from Cassie, the rifle came out of the bat bag. Ronnie threw himself prone on the far side of the levee. He was a hundred yards out. He watched as Kohl hit the ground. His heart clenched as Cassie stood up, fully exposed against the empty backdrop of the lake. He was watching the man in the business suit when he heard the first shots from the dog-walking woman. He cursed himself for discounting her, swung the Garand left, and almost had his lead right when she stopped at the road’s edge. Ronnie saw Cassie fall away down the steps. The woman start across the road. He pulled the trigger and missed low, sending concrete chips flying. The woman half turned, bringing her pistol up, her mouth half open in a round o of surprise. Ronnie lined up the iron sights and pulled the trigger. He was low again but this time caught her in the leg, blowing out her knee. The impact knocked her head over heels. Blood and flesh exploded in a sweeping arc on the road, her leg dangling crazily from a thread of tendon. Ronnie leveled the sights again, settled in, and put the killing shot into her lower belly.
Cassie heard the first shot from the rifle and popped her head up high enough to catch the results of the second and third. She stood up, watching Ronnie running low across the grass, heading for the water. Across the street, the man in the business suit still had his hands on top of the car. Ronnie reached the road, running full tilt. He was almost on grass again when Cassie saw the man by the car spin. There was a gun in his hand. Too late, she raised her own pistol. The man’s hands were already up. He pulled the trigger and Ronnie went down as Cassie got her shot off late. She took two steps forward and fired twice more. A window exploded in the car behind him. The man took a step
toward Cassie, snapping off another shot. Cassie heard the crack as the bullet passed her right ear. She fired again, caught him in the right side and he bounced against the car and fell forward. His gun scraped across the pavement and into the street. Cassie went down on one knee, took aim, thought better of it, got up and walked to the road, took a knee again and shot him in the top of the head as he was dragging himself toward his weapon.
She turned toward Ronnie,
lying on his side in the grass. He was curled into a ball, the bat bag and the rifle on the curb in front of him. Cassie’s heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t make herself move, couldn’t breathe. Seconds passed, seconds she would never forget. Finally, the spell broke and she was running to Ronnie. Reaching him, she rolled him on his back gently. “Goddamn that hurt,” he said. He sat up and looked at his boot, where the heel was missing. Cassie searched his foot frantically. No blood. She grabbed him by the uniform shirt, pulled him to her and kissed him hard. “Get your ass in the boat,” she said.
*****
By the time Luke Francis and his entourage checked into the hotel it was nearing lunchtime. Francis took a room on the third floor, the window open and facing Canal Street. He unpacked, hanging his clothes in the small closet, changing his business suit for a set of more casual clothes. He planned this visit to be short. Waiting for a call from either Cassie or Ronnie, as if he was at their beck and call, grated on him. They would have to learn their place. It was a delicate balancing act. One of his major assets was in danger, or so he thought. Bronislov was a working source, delivering reliable information on a regular basis. The man was a proven commodity of long standing. Cassie Reynold and Ronnie Gilmore held even more potential, according to Archer. The General always treated them with deference, however he failed to take full advantage of their reported talents. An asset unused was an asset wasted in the mind of Francis.
Standing at the window of his hotel room, he began to run over the possibilities in his mind. Unparalleled power could be his to use. If what Archer said was true. There was nowhere he could not go, no space he could not invade. His ability to discover, verify, and analyze information would have no match. The element of control was the only thing standing between him and that ultimate power. Francis had not been around for the initial discovery of this pair’s talent. Rumors of the carnage wrought by these two kids found its way to his ears, but he gave them little credit. Sometimes it was better to let rumors grow and take on a life of their own, an internal media barrage that tended to enhance a threat or increase an advantage. Archer was capable of playing that angle. There was still some uncertainty. He didn’t know where Bronislov was. He had only the girl’s word that he was on vacation, and only her word that Bronislov now faced a growing threat.
Francis sighed, let the curtains fall back in place across the window. It would pay to be careful. He was certain these teenagers were talented, and intuitive, and he could make use of them. In any case, he had to find out for himself. He would take them into custody. The power to do it was his. More importantly, he had the will. Francis decided at that moment that he would find out just how strong these kids were. He had no doubts about his decision to bring them in and keep them in. They could cooperate or face the consequences. He picked up the phone, ordered lunch through room service, and waited for his meal.
*****
Cassie pushed the throttle to full speed, blasting across the water, heading due north. Ronnie was sitting on the deck, struggling to get his boot off. He finally succeeded, looked at the missing heel, and tossed the boot over the bulkhead. The other one followed right after. He got to his feet and made his way up next to Cassie, sitting next to her on the captain’s bench. The waves had picked up, making the ride choppy and jarring. Wind, and the roar of the engine, made conversation impossible. Ronnie rubbed his foot. He was going to have a hell of a bruise, but he was still feeling the adrenaline surge, the feeling of invincibility. The boat ate up the miles and in a little over an hour they were making the long sweeping arc into Lake Borgne, headed for the camp. It was even rougher on Lake Borgne, and Cassie throttled back some, allowing the boat to roll with the waves. The camp in sight, she trimmed back even more, making a pass a few hundred yards offshore. Satisfied there was nobody around, she turned straight into land, expertly guiding the craft into the slip and killing the engine, gliding the last twenty feet.
“Man, my foot hurts,” Ronnie said, still rubbing his heel. “I’m going to have to get a new pair of boots, too.”
Cassie’s shoulders slumped. She still gripped the wheel, but let her head bow down onto her hands. She had been keeping it together the whole way back, but now in the safety of the camp she let it go, tears running down her face, her shoulders heaving. It was a few seconds before Ronnie caught on.
“Hey, hey,” he said, reaching across and rubbing her shoulders. “It’s not that bad. It’s just a bruise.”
“Just shut the hell up, Ronnie,” Cassie said. She sat up, leaning against the seat. Her face was shiny with sweat, trembling.
“I’m okay. It’s just ... just.”
Ronnie stood up, got behind her and started massaging her shoulders. He could feel the tension there, the muscles hard. Cassie let him continue as she spoke.
“You have no idea how I felt when I saw you go down out there. It was like my heart stopped, you know?”
“I’m sorry. It’s kind of my fault. I let my guard down. When the shooting started, I was watching Kohl to make sure he was down. The guy didn’t move and then the woman started shooting and I kind of forgot about the guy by the car. All I could think about was getting to the boat.”
“Let me ask you a question…” Cassie turned and looked up at him. “Are we doing the right thing? Maybe we should just forget about Francis and take off. We can do it. We have the money Archer left us, new ID’s. We can just take off. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.”
Ronnie didn’t know what to say to that. Cassie always fought for what she wanted. He had seen her do incredible things. To see her questioning herself was something new. Ronnie was always the one that needed convincing to fight. Now he felt differently. They had made it through high school, luckily enough, with few problems thanks to Archer. In the last few months, they had begun a life together and he could see little pieces of it falling in place. Sometimes, late at night, he got glimpses of their future. They could have careers, children, and a home of their own. Seeing her thinking about giving it all up for a life of hiding and hoping churned his insides.
Ronnie squatted in front of her, took her face in his hands. “No,” he said. “Maybe I would have a few months or a year ago, but not now. We have too much to lose. We have my family, we have your family, and more important, we have our family. I think you were right to begin with. How are we going to have kids if we have
worry every day of our lives? We might be able to find some way to live with this thing if we can assure ourselves of some kind of safety. We just dealt with half of our problem. Now we have to deal with the other half.”
He turned, pulled her up by the hands and helped her out of the boat. They hitched off the lines on the bow and headed towards the camp, Ronnie lugging the ice chest full of fish.
*****
“The trick to frying fish,” Cassie said, “is to fry one piece at a time. You have to keep up the temperature of the oil to get it to fry right. Dump too much in at once and you lower the temperature and get soggy fish. Of course, you have to get them breaded with the right combination. Start with the Zatarains in a bowl. Just dump it in. Then you take each piece one at a time and quick-dip it in a mix of yellow mustard and eggs and milk. Don’t coat it too thick.”
Ronnie was doing more watching than listening. He had spent the better part of an hour on the dock, gutting fish and using a thin-bladed knife honed to a fine edge to peel a pair of filets from each. It was slimy work, but he had eventually ended up with a plate of prime filets for frying. He had also ended up with quite a bit of activity in the shallow water where he’d thrown the leavings. First, the smaller fish had come to call, followed by a pair of large blue crabs drawn by the smell of blood in the water. He could see the scavenger’s vague outline on the bottom as they used their claws to tear apart the scraps. Cassie had gone inside while Ronnie did the cleaning, shortly thereafter emerging from the shower. Her hair was still wet; she was wearing a white t-shirt that was clinging in all the right damp places, and a pair of Ronnie’s boxer shorts. Her mood was improving too.
Cassie was moving around the kitchen, talking the whole time, while Ronnie sat at the table. He knew he should be thinking about Kohl and Francis and what came next, but There isn’t any bra under that shirt was the thought that kept pushing into the front of his brain, followed by Francis isn’t going to be easy to get rid of. Then that thought was crowded out by Man she smells good right out of the shower. Ronnie tried to drag his mind back to the problem of Luke Francis when Cassie began to mix the egg and mustard in a bowl and the mixing action had parts of her jiggling in the nicest way.