He was having none of it. He put the whistle to his lips—
But no air would enter it. She’d opened his throat at the center of his Adam’s apple, the blade slicing as neatly through the nylon cord of the whistle’s lanyard as it did the cartilage and tissue of his neck.
He toppled, a confused look frozen on his face.
“Hssssss!” she hissed at the dog. It ran toward the outbuildings, dragging its leash.
Even better, she thought grimly as she hid the bodies under layers of Reaper waste. One dead or missing man would inspire a careful search. Two would be enough of a mystery that the search would concentrate on the missing men rather than a wiry, scuffed-up redhead.
She retrieved her pack from her cache on the hillside and put as much timber and earth as she could between herself and the Kurians.
She dug a shallow pit with her folding camp shovel and surrounded it with the flattest rocks she could take from a watercourse. She set her sole tin pot atop it and started boiling the beans she’d been soaking. It wasn’t an ideal stove, but just as practical as a campfire, and you could see the flicker of flame only by standing over it.
With a little wild mushroom, her beans, honey, and a piece of bacon for flavor it made a decent stew.
A familiar soft step crept up on her campsite.
“You didn’t see the fire, did you?” she asked.
“Smelled your stew,” said Clay, the Wolf who’d crossed the Hoosier forest with her two days ago. “Why aren’t you camping at our rendezvous?”
“I did check it—through my optics. You must have been away. I didn’t remain. Left you a note in the drop that I’d check back for you or another note. If a Reaper grabbed you and started removing digits, there might be a little welcoming party at the spot.”
“The idea doesn’t seem to bother you that much,” Clay said. Poor kid. He’d been a little squirrely ever since they woke snuggled up to each other against the night’s spring chill. He’d brushed her breast, pretending it was an accident. When she didn’t respond, he didn’t press the matter, thank heaven.
Silly. She didn’t do recreational sex, not on a job, not with a comrade. She’d fucked and sucked her way into a few headquarters and pass-only Quislin
g “Green Zones,” but that was business, not distraction.
The Wolf was just a kid. But then, most of them looked like kids to her these days. God, she wasn’t even that old, just into her thirties.
She liked Wolves. They used their eyes, ears, and noses, and fought only when they had no choice, or a strong advantage. They could run all day on a few mouthfuls of porridge.
Wolves listened to reason. Bears did whatever the fuck would lead to the most blood.
She let the kid finish and light his pipe. He looked like a boy playing with his father’s tobacco stand. The pipe had a long plastic stem and the bowl was a rather elegantly carved animal face that she supposed was meant to be a fox; the snout was way too narrow and the ears too wide to be a wolf. The tobacco was rather noxious cheap Kurian Zone ration compared to the rich, aromatic Carolina import that Colonel Lambert, the leader of Southern Command forces in the Kentucky Theater, smoked.
They chatted about what the weather promised over the next few days, and then she broke the news.
“You’ll have to run again, I’m afraid, and find Brigade HQ. The hotel is worth hitting with everything we can put onto it.”
His eyes flared. Eagerness? The Wolf’s buckskin leathers meant he had nothing to prove, at least not to anyone who’d seen his breed cover thirty miles in a day, running and shooting all the way. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Clay said.
“If you’re going to be running all night, I thought it best that you do it on a full stomach.”
“I didn’t have to kill an hour smoking… .”
“Maybe you didn’t, but your digestion did. Take it from me, kid. I’ve struggled with a sour gut for years. Never eat a big meal unless you can rest for a bit after.”
“I could have made the run on an empty stomach,” Clay said.
“You never know when you’ll need that strength, and you’ll be all the faster for it. Get out of here,” she said.
“And tell the major to hurry,” she called at the retreating back.
Within twenty-four hours they had the Bears in place at Staging Beta, the final campsite, just a two-hour fast-march from the hotel. Lambert and Major Valentine had worked the contingencies ever since she confirmed that there was some important activity at the hotel in French Lick and set Clay running with his pipe still warm in his pocket.
It would be her job to lead them to Staging Omega, the point where the Bears would make visual contact with the hotel, for the assault.