Judge frowned. “Why should I trust you?”
Wiley gave a sneaky grin. “You shouldn’t.” He shrugged. “Be there or don’t.” Wiley pushed to his feet. “You said you were interested in finding like-minded people. I believe they’re your kind of people.”
“Can I buy you another beer?” Judge asked.
Wiley shook his head, “I’ve got to go. I hope you make it out there this evening. I think it’ll be worth your while.” Wiley pushed back from the table and straightened.
Judge stood and held out his hand. “Thanks for the beer.”
Wiley left Judge and strode across the barroom toward the front door.
The waitress appeared.
“You know that guy?” Judge asked, nodding toward Wiley’s figure.
“Sure,” she answered.
“Does he come here often?”
She gathered empty bottles from the table beside his. “Some.”
“Do you trust him?”
She snorted. “I don’t trust anyone.”
His attention shifted from Wiley to the waitress. “That's pretty cynical for someone so young.”
“Cynicism goes with experience, not necessarily age.” Her lips twisted. “Besides, I’m not that young.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Her eyebrows formed a V over her nose. “For what?”
He touched her arm lightly. “For whatever experience you had that gave you that level of cynicism.”
Her gaze narrowed to a squint, and she ran her gaze from the top of his head to his boots. “Well, I don’t need your pity.” She leaned closer and lowered her tone to a whisper. “If you’re smart, you’ll run the opposite direction from Wiley.”
As close as she stood to him, he still had to strain to hear her words over the noise in the bar. “Is that part of your experience talking?”
“Maybe.” She gathered her tray and the empties and walked away.
Judge shook his head, wondering what had tainted the woman’s opinion of others so much that she didn’t trust anyone?
With thirty minutes more to kill, he took his seat and slowly finished his beer, keeping an eye out for Wiley. The man had left the bar but might return.
Occasionally, Judge’s gaze followed the waitress who’d given him sound advice to steer clear of Wiley. Unfortunately, he couldn’t. Wiley might be his best link to The Chosen Way. That the waitress didn’t trust him was all the more reason for Judge to suspect he was the right man.
Still, he could be sending him on a wild goose chase instead of the TCW camp. Or he could be sending him into a trap. Either way, he had to keep his wits about him and be prepared for anything.
Even if TCW had looked up his Lucky Lady team, they shouldn’t be able to tie him to them.
Swede had set him up with an entirely new identity, complete with an Idaho driver’s license, truck plates from Idaho and a name borrowed from a man reported missing who’d also attended a training camp for preppers training people in combat-related skills.
If TCW did their homework, they’d find his adopted persona, and he’d fit their profile to a T.
Hopefully, the week he’d spent hanging out in Whitefish would pay off and get him into the camp alive.
Pulling a twenty out of his wallet, Judge laid it on the table and pushed to his feet.
When the waitress glanced his direction, he nodded.
She shook her head almost imperceptibly and turned back to the bar.
Judge left the tavern and climbed into his truck. After backing out of the parking space, he pulled out onto the main road, heading toward Quarry Road with a few minutes to spare.
As he drove out of Whitefish, he glanced in his rearview mirror. No headlights shone behind him. No one was following him but the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He had that creepy feeling that someone was watching him.
He was almost positive he was walking into a trap that could get him killed. Still, he’d take that risk. Hank and his family had been threatened. His wife, Sadie, the beautiful movie actress and Hank’s two small children didn’t deserve to live in fear for their lives. These people had to be stopped and taken out of commission.
The Chosen Way was bad news. Their habit of stealing young men, women and children and brainwashing them, turning them into assassins, had to stop. To do that, they had to take out their leadership.
Apparently, their leadership was so well hidden none of the information available pointed to a single person. He had to be on the inside to find them in the first place and to have even a remote possibility of identifying their leader.
Judge slowed as he neared the turn-off for Quarry Road. Wiley’s instructions were to go to Quarry Road by ten o’clock. How far down the road was he supposed to go? He wasn’t sure.
He turned and drove slowly, looking for an obvious meeting point but arriving at the quarry without encountering anyone. Pulling around to face the road in, he stopped, shifted into park and got out. He looked around, searching for any sign of anybody and careful to stay away from the edge of the quarry pit.
By 10:15, he gave up and headed for his truck. At that moment, headlights shone on Quarry Road, headed his direction, and they were moving fast.
The first set of lights were followed by a second, third and fourth set of headlights. Four SUVs burst into the open and formed a circle around Judge and his truck.
The doors opened on each side of each truck. People jumped out, dressed in black, wearing black ski masks and carrying AR-15s all pointed at him.
Judge’s pulse raced. Too late to back out now. He was surrounded. The only advantage he had was that all weapons were pointed at him. Which meant, if they started shooting, they could hit each other. In other words, they would be stupid to open fire and risk hitting one of their own.
One of the figures stepped forward and walked toward Judge.
Based on the shape of the person’s body, it was a female. She held out her hand as if to shake his.
Judge snorted. “Some welcoming committee.” He reached for her hand.
Her fingers gripped his. Instead of shaking his hand, she held onto it, stepped past him and shoved his arm up between his shoulder blades.
A man stepped up beside him, grabbed his other hand, pulled it behind his back and secured his wrists together with a zip tie.
The female took a black sack out of her back pocket and pulled it over his head. Her fingers hooked his elbow on one side. The man gripped his arm on the other side. Together, they marched him across the uneven ground.
He prayed they weren’t taking him to the edge of the pit to toss him into the quarry.
When they came to a stop, someone put a hand on his head and applied pressure.
“Get in,” the man ordered.
They guided him into a vehicle.
Once he’d settled on a seat, someone jabbed a needle into his arm. Seconds later, everything went black.
Chapter 2
“It’s a mistake to bring new people in at this time.” PJ paced the length of the building. It was much smaller than their previous digs that had been shut down when they’d been raided by members of the security organization, Brotherhood Protectors.
PJ and several others had made it out of the camp before it was overrun. She hadn’t wanted to be captured, not when she still had work to do.