Kevin’s shrewd gaze studied Caveman so hard he could have been staring at him under a microscope. “Any TBI with your injury?”
“I was shot in the leg, not the head. No traumatic brain injury.” Anger spiked with the need to get outside and breathe fresh air. Not that the air in the loft over the Blue Moose Tavern in Grizzly Pass, Wyoming, was stale. It was just that whenever Caveman was inside for extended periods, he got really twitchy. Claustrophobia, the therapist had called it. Probably brought on by PTSD.
A bunch of hooey, if you asked Caveman. Something the therapist could use against him to delay his return to the front. And by God, he’d get back to the front soon, if he had to stow away on a C-130 bound for Afghanistan. The enemy had to pay for the deaths of his friends; the members of his squad deserved retribution. Only one other man had survived, Whiskey, and he’d lost an eye in the firefight.
The slapping sound of a file folder hitting a tabletop made Caveman jump.
“That’s your assignment,” Kevin said. “RJ Khalig, pipeline inspector. He’s had a few threats lately. I want you to touch bases with him and provide protection until we can figure out who’s threatening him.”
Caveman glared at the file. “I’m no bodyguard. I shoot people for a living.”
“You know the stakes from our meeting a couple days ago in this same room, and you’ve seen what some of the people in this area are capable of. As I said then, we think terrorist cells are stirring up already volatile locals. Since we found evidence that someone is supplying semiautomatic weapons to what we suspect is a local group called Free America, we’re afraid more violence is imminent.”
“Just because you found some empty crates in that old mine doesn’t mean whoever got the weapons plans to use them to start a war,” Caveman argued.
“No, but we’re concerned they might target individuals who could potentially stand in the way of their movements.”
“Why not let local law enforcement handle it?” Caveman leaned forward, reluctant to open the file and commit to the assignment. He didn’t want to be in Wyoming. “If this group picks off individuals, would that not be local jurisdiction?”
Kevin nodded. “As long as they aren’t connected with terrorists. However, the activity on social media indicates something bigger is being planned and will take place soon.”
“How soon?”
Kevin shook his head. “We don’t know.”
“Sounds pretty vague to me.” Caveman stood and stretched.
“I set up this task force to stop a terrible thing from happening. If I had all of the answers, likely I wouldn’t need you, Ghost, Hawkeye or T-Rex. I’m determined to stop something bad from happening, before it gets too big and a lot more lives are lost.”
“I don’t know if you have the right guy for this job. I’m no investigator, nor am I a bodyguard.”
“I understand your concern, but we need trained combatants, familiar with tactics and subversive operations. As you’ve seen for yourself and know from experience, it’s pretty rough country out here and the people can be stubborn and willing to take the law into their own hands. I’m afraid what happened at the mine two days ago could happen again.”
Caveman snorted. “That was a bunch of disgruntled ranchers, mad about the confiscation of their herd.”
“Agreed,” Kevin said. “Granted, the Vanders family took it too far by kidnapping a busload of kids. But they knew about the weapons stored in that mine.”
“Are any of them talking?”
“Not yet. We’re waiting for one of them to throw the rest under the bus.”
“You might be waiting a long time.” Caveman crossed his arms over his chest. “People out here tend to be very stubborn.”
“You’re from this area,” Kevin said. “You should know.”
“I’m from a little farther north, in the Crazy Mountains of Montana. But we’re all a tough bunch of cowboys who don’t like it when the government interferes with our lives.”
“Hold on to that stubbornness. You might need it around here. For today, you’ll be an investigator and bodyguard. Mr. Khalig needs your help. He has an important job, inspecting the oil and gas pipelines running through this state. Contact his boss for his location, find him and get the skinny on what’s going on. You might have to run him down in the backwoods.”
Until he was cleared to return to his unit, Caveman would do the best he could for his temporary boss and the pipeline inspector. What choice did he have? As much as he hated to admit it, they needed help out in the hills and mountains of Wyoming. The three days he’d been there had proven that.
Caveman had met with Kevin’s four-man special operations team members. One Navy SEAL, one Delta Force soldier, an Army ranger and a highly skilled Marine. Ghost, one of the Delta Force men, had been assigned to protect a woman who had been surfing the web for terrorist activity. Her daughter had been one of the children who had been kidnapped on the bus.
Caveman, Kevin and the other three members of the task force had mobilized to save the children and the three adults on board the bus. The bus driver didn’t make it, but the children and the two women survived.
Kevin stood and held out his hand. “Thanks for helping out. We have such limited resources in this neck of the woods, and I feel there’s a lot more to what’s going on here than meets the eyes.”
“I’ll do what I can.” Caveman shook Kevin’s hand and left the loft, descending the stairs to the street below. When he’d entered the upstairs apartment, the sky had been clear and blue. In the twenty minutes he’d been inside, clouds had gathered. The superstitious would call it an omen, a sign or a portent of things to come. Caveman called them rain clouds. If he was going to get out to where Khalig was, he’d have to get moving.
* * *
GRACE SAUNDERS PULLED her horse to a halt and dismounted near the top of a ridge overlooking the mountain meadow where Molly’s wolf pack had been spotted most recently. Based on the droppings she’d seen along the trail and the leftover bones of an elk carcass, they were still active in the area.
She tied her horse to a nearby tree and stretched her back and legs. Having been on horseback since early that morning, she was ready for a break. Moving to the highest point, she stared out at the brilliant view of the Wyoming Beartooth Mountain Range, with the snowcapped peaks and the tall lodgepole pines. The sky above had been blue when she’d started her trek that morning. Clouds had built to the west, a harbinger of rain to come soon. She’d have to head down soon or risk a cold drenching.
From where she stood, Grace could see clear across the small valley to the hilltop on the other side. She frowned, squinted her eyes and focused on something that didn’t belong.
A four-wheeler stood at the top of the hill, halfway tucked into the shade of a lodgepole pine tree. She wondered what someone else was doing out in the woods. Most people stuck to the roads in and out of the national forest.
It wasn’t unusual for the more adventurous souls to ride the trails surrounding
