Hunting Savage Read online

  Nadya relayed her cover story—how she had followed Peter for a day then intentionally bumped into him on the sidewalk outside his business, striking up a casual conversation. She charmed him, and they met the next day for a coffee. That led to Peter asking her to meet him tonight for drinks.

  “I’ll have assets there and a cargo van. We’ll grab him outside his residence. Make sure you keep him distracted.”

  Nadya agreed and shared the address and time she was to meet Peter. Then she ended the call. Her eyes caught Peter’s. She was confident, in stark contrast to his concern and apprehension. “Relax,” she said. “Nothing to do now but wait.”

  A few minutes after 7:00 p.m. Peter greeted Nadya at his door. He smiled warmly and invited her inside. She was dressed for the cool evening temperature, wearing a light leather jacket with fur collar. The short jacket flared in at her waist, emphasizing her shapely figure.

  With the door closed, she silently handed a small note to Peter. Am being followed. They will snatch you on the sidewalk. Don’t resist.

  Peter nodded and threw the paper into the garbage disposal without making any noise. He expected she was wearing a bug, and her actions so far confirmed that suspicion.

  “Let me grab a jacket,” he said. Retrieving a tobacco-brown leather bomber-style jacket from the hallway, he added, “Shall we go?”

  “Sure. I hope the walk isn’t too far. It’s chilly.”

  Peter held the door open for Nadya. “No, not far at all. There’s a popular bar just a block away.”

  They walked side-by-side down the short flight of steps onto the sidewalk. They turned right and completed another half dozen steps when a cloth bag was thrust forcefully over Peter’s head. At the same moment, a gun was pushed hard into his back. He felt the steel barrel digging into the soft muscle alongside his spine. A strong hand was clamped over his mouth. It pulled backwards. Peter tried to correct his balance but was tripped. Without sight and with the gun wedged into his back, down he went, landing hard on the concrete. Hands grasped his arms and legs, lifting him up and then heaving him into a van. Or at least he assumed that’s what it was from the sound of the side door sliding closed.

  He reached for the hood and had his hands slapped away. A cold gun barrel was pressed against his temple. “Leave the hood on,” a gruff voice said. Then hands reached inside Peter’s jacket and frisked him, checking for a concealed weapon. They removed his phone. “Nothing, boss.”

  “Who are you and what do you want?” Peter asked.

  “Shut up!”

  “Where’s Nadya?”

  He was answered with a perverse chuckle. “Don’t worry about your girlfriend. She set all this up. Didn’t you, Nadya?”

  “Just do what they say, Peter. They have some questions for you. Cooperate, and you might live to see another sunrise.”

  The van drove into the night, heading east on Highway 20 toward Burns. The passengers rode in silence. Peter estimated they had traveled for about an hour when the van slowed and turned off the paved highway onto a well-kept gravel road. Potholes and ruts were absent, and the sound of gravel striking the undercarriage was unmistakable.

  A few minutes later, the squeal of brakes announced their arrival. Exactly where, Peter had no idea.

  The side door slid open, and Peter was yanked out. He stood with his arms firmly clasped by two strong men; a third yanked the hood off and then wanded him with a small metal detector. “Clean, boss,” he announced.

  “Well, well. Look who we have here.” Peter didn’t recognize the man standing before him. “Peter Savage. Welcome! My boss has been looking forward to meeting you.”

  “And who would that be?” Peter asked.

  The man smiled. “I’ll let him handle the introductions.”

  “What is this about?”

  “Enough chatting.” He aimed his eyes at the two men holding Peter and motioned with his head. Then he pivoted and strode to the entrance to a large building.

  Peter swung his head from side to side. The night sky was clear, and without any light pollution, the Milky Way was visible. Other than their footsteps crunching upon gravel, there were no other sounds. He estimated they were maybe 50 or more miles outside of Bend—most likely somewhere in the desert of Eastern Oregon as the terrain appeared relatively flat and he could not see any mountain peaks blotting out starlight.

  A sign on the door read PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING. The walls were constructed of concrete blocks and no windows were visible on the forward-facing exposure.

  They entered, Nadya and two guards taking up the rear, and proceeded along a short hallway. Darkened rooms to either side suggested offices or meeting rooms. Near the end of the corridor, the hallway turned a corner to the right and continued a short distance to a double steel door. The doors were pushed open and they entered a dark, cavernous space. Someone flipped on switches and dozens of overhead high-intensity lights clicked on, dim at first, then growing to a brilliant intensity as they warmed up.

  Several square steel posts in the central portion of the space supported roof trusses 20 feet up. Roll-up metal doors were located along opposite walls for access by large vehicles.

  Peter stood there taking it in. Two M113 armored personnel carriers were parked near the large doors, the rear of each facing the entry he had just passed through. The carriers looked like steel boxes on tracks, painted in tan camouflage. Machine gun mounts were on the top of each, but the guns had been removed.

  Yellow tape marked sections of the concrete floor where toolboxes and shelving stacked with parts were located. A forklift was parked off to one side, next to rows of pallets loaded with crates and stretch-wrapped in plastic. Grouped in another area were tools—a lathe, drill press, a horizontal band saw, shear and press brake, and two computer-controlled milling machines.

  “Restrain Mr. Savage to one of the posts.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Ellison,” one of the guards replied. Peter was shoved forward and spun around, his back slammed against the post. With a pistol pointed at his chest, a second guard pulled Peter’s hands behind his back and around the post and slipped a FlexiCuff around his wrists, pulling the restraint tight.

  “What is this place?” Nadya asked.

  “Maintenance shop,” Ellison said. “United Armaments owns 10,000 acres of land out here. It’s surrounded on three sides by BLM land. Ain’t nothin’ but sagebrush and jackrabbits for 50 miles in any direction.”

  “When will I get paid?” she asked. “I’ll want proof of the wire transfer to my account.”

  “Right to business. Okay. When my boss gets here, and is satisfied that you delivered the package, you’ll get your money.”

  “When will that be?”

  “You ask a lot of questions. Well, maybe you can answer some questions too.”

  “Like what? You have Savage. I delivered on my end of the bargain.” Nadya was getting a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. She’d learned to trust the feeling—like a sixth sense—it had helped her to stay alive through too many close calls in Gaza, Syria, and Iran. She casually walked to the side, away from the center of the group of men.

  Ellison tracked her movement. “We’ll come back to the package later. Right now, perhaps you can explain to me how my entire team was either killed or captured in the forest. Richard Nyden was very experienced and a capable operator. He’s been in my employ for many years and has never failed.”

  Nadya continued edging to the side. “I lost my team, too: four Mossad agents.”

  “That’s right, you did. And how is that?”

  “You sent us in ill prepared,” Nadya said. She surreptitiously shifted a hand behind her back. “We should have been better prepared.”

  Ellison snorted a mocking laugh. “Five Mossad agents plus nine of my Guardians—against one man.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at Nadya. “A civilian!”

  He paused and regained his composure. “How is it that you—and you alone—managed to slip away?”


  “Like I told you before—I’m good at what I do.” She felt the grip of her Glock. With her thumb, she flicked off the leather strap holding the weapon securely in its holster.

  Ellison snapped his fingers and six guns were suddenly pointing at Nadya. “You’re not that good. Raise your hands, slowly.”

  Reluctantly, she did as ordered, her eyes darting to Peter and then back to Ellison. “What are you doing?” she demanded, continuing to play her role. “We had a deal!”

  One of the guards approached and felt behind her back. He roughly snatched the Glock and then ran a hand over her pockets until he found her cell phone, taking that, too.

  “Did you really think me so stupid that I’d believe your silly story about how you tricked Peter Savage into asking you out?” He started to laugh. “To be truthful, I’ve never heard such a corny story. Seriously? You bump into a stranger and a day later he asks you on a date?”

  Nadya stared back, hers eyes burning with defiance.

  Ellison continued, “I think we know how you escaped from the mountain. You and Mr. Savage, you made a deal, didn’t you?”

  The ruse was up, and Nadya saw nothing to gain by debating. She remained silent, focusing instead on how to escape.

  “Mr. Savage?” Ellison called.

  “Yeah, I’m still here.”

  “My men tell me that you offered almost no resistance when they grabbed you outside your home. Perhaps you were expecting to be captured?”

  “Oh, sure. You’d be surprised how often someone stuffs a bag over my head and throws me in a van. The novelty has kinda worn off.”

  Ellison motioned with his chin and a guard slammed a first into Peter’s abdomen. He slid down the pole, doubled over as far as the restraints would allow. He coughed and gagged, trying to suck in air.

  With a wave of his hand, Ellison said, “Tie her to the post with her boyfriend.”

  At the point of a gun Nadya was ushered to the post, and her hands were tied behind her back with a FlexiCuff. The super tough nylon was virtually indestructible, and struggling against the bond was only going to shred her wrists.

  “We had a deal!” she shouted as Ellison and his men ambled to the door.

  “Kennor, you stay here at the door. No one enters. Understood?”

  The man named Kennor nodded and stepped through the doorframe, standing to the side. The rest of the men filed through, with Ellison taking up the rear. He stopped and turned back to his captives. “In 90 minutes Mr. Duss will arrive. Then we will all have a nice chat.”

  The door closed, followed by a click as the lock was engaged.

  Chapter 46

  UA Test Range, Eastern Oregon

  April 26

  Ellison was confident—too confident. With Peter and Nadya restrained to the steel post, all they had to do was wait for Claude Duss to arrive on the corporate jet, a Gulfstream G650. The flight from San Jose—a hub for corporate jets for the biggest Silicon Valley corporations—to the test range in Eastern Oregon would be a little more than an hour.

  As soon as Ellison received the phone call that Peter had been bagged, he placed the call to his boss. While Peter was being ferried in the van to the desert test range, Duss was riding in the back seat of a limousine, headed for the airport. UA maintained a staff of pilots 24/7, and the G650 was always fueled and ready for flight.

  Now, with an hour and a half to kill, Ellison and his mercenaries settled in the rec room, engaged in small talk and big plans of what they would each do with the bonus they expected from Mr. Duss. Not only were they delivering Peter Savage—alive, no less—but also the suspected traitor Nadya Wheeler.

  Several minutes passed in silence after Ellison and his men left the maintenance bay. Finally, Peter was satisfied that no one was returning immediately. Having caught his breath and standing again, he addressed Nadya. “Well, that didn’t go as planned.”

  Nadya sighed. She preferred to save her breath for something important to say.

  “I have a plan,” Peter said. “Do you have a knife?”

  Nadya rolled her eyes, but since they were back to back, Peter couldn’t see her expression. “No! I don’t have a knife. And they took my gun and my phone. Any more ideas?”

  “Okay. Plan B. Slide down the pole and reach into the top of my right boot. There’s a Boker folding blade there.”

  “But how… They ran a metal detector over you. How did they miss it?”

  “Ceramic blade and synthetic grip. Almost no metal in the knife.” Nadya was slowly lowering herself, back straight against the pole. Working only by feel, she lifted the pant leg and felt inside the top of the leather biker boots. There, her fingers touched one end of the folding knife. Deftly, taking care not to drop it, she lifted the blade from the small sheath.

  “Okay, I have it.” She pressed up with her legs and slid back up the pole. Peter heard the familiar click as the blade was unfolded and locked into place.

  “I’ll hold my hands as far apart as I can. Please be careful not to slash my wrists when you cut the nylon cuff.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Peter felt her fingers running over his skin as he strained against the plastic tie. And then, with a snap, the tie was severed and his wrists free. Wasting no time, he took the knife from Nadya and cut through the FlexiCuff binding her to the post.

  Peter folded the blade and returned the knife to the sheath inside his boot as Nadya was rubbing the chaffed skin.

  “What about the guard outside the door?” she asked.

  Peter nodded and hustled over to a large tool chest. He opened one draw after another until he found a suitable bludgeon. In this case, a large combination wrench for one inch bolts. Crude, but effective, he thought.

  “I wish we had some firearms,” Nadya said, keeping her voice low.

  Peter hefted the wrench, and then looked toward the two M113 tracked vehicles. “Those have machine gun mounts up top. What do you think they have inside?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Only one way to find out.”

  The two vehicles looked identical. Peter walked to the back of the nearest one. The wide door was secured with a latch. He raised the handle slowly and opened the door, cautiously at first. Fortunately, the hinges were greased and the door opened silently, assisted by hydraulic springs.

  Inside, there were bench seats at each side. Up front was access to the turret and the swivel gun mount. The driver’s seat was also up front. Otherwise, it looked like an empty box. Small metal compartments were mounted to the armored walls, but there were no weapons.

  Peter was about to exit, when he had an idea. He moved forward, close to the instrument cluster at the front. “Nadya, come here please.”

  She crouched to avoid hitting her head and joined Peter. “I think this is the radio.” He was pointing to a black panel with switches and rotary knobs, and what appeared to be a digital display. “Do you know how to operate it?”

  She leaned in closer, running her hand over the controls, as if she was gleaning information by touch as well as sight. “Yes, you are right.”

  She flipped a toggle switch and the panel lit up. The digital display showed a number that Peter assumed was a radio frequency. Nadya turned a knob to the left, the volume control.

  “I’ll raise the antenna,” Peter said and he scurried outside. The whip antenna was folded down, and it was a simple matter to remove the metal whip from a hook and allow it to go vertical to its full height. He scrambled back inside.

  “Is the radio working?”

  “Yes, it checks out fine.”

  “Set it to 156.8 Mhz. That’s the international distress channel.”

  “Yes, that’s right. But how do you know that?” Nadya adjusted a dial until the digital display showed the requested frequency.

  “I hang out with an interesting crowd,” he answered.

  She handed the microphone to Peter. “Just press this button to speak.”

  “Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.” Peter released the button and
waited for a response. Nothing. He tried again. “Mayday. Mayday. We are in urgent need of help. This is an emergency, over.”

  A tinny voice answered. “This is the Crook County Sheriff Department. State the nature of your emergency. Over.”

  Peter handed the microphone to Nadya knowing that a female voice would garner a greater sense of urgency than a male voice. “Tell them where we are and that a fugitive is threatening to blow up the building. Give them my name. Tell them I am wanted by the Bend Police Department. Tell them to speak with Detective Colson.”

  Nadya looked confused, and hesitated. “Just do it. It’s the fastest way to get help here.”

  Nadya’s brow wrinkled as she gathered her thoughts. Before she could speak, the tinny voice came back. “If this is a legitimate emergency, state the nature and your location. If this is a hoax, you are committing a federal crime and will be prosecuted.”

  “I need help. This is not a joke. There’s a man—he says his name is Peter Savage and he is wanted by the Bend Police. He says Detective Colson knows who he is. He’s threatening to blow up the building. Please, send help. I am at the United Armaments facility.”

  “Copy that. State again your location.”

  “I said United Armaments. They operate a facility in Eastern Oregon. I don’t know exactly where it is. I was taken here against my will. I’m in a large maintenance facility. There are tracked military vehicles here. I’m using a radio from an armored personnel carrier.”

  “Copy.”

  “Stay by the radio,” Peter said. “I’m going to try to get a weapon.” He exited the tracked vehicle and silently approached the door. He needed to lure the guard inside without raising so much suspicion that the guard called for backup.

  He grabbed a handful of smaller wrenches from the toolbox and slid beside the door, his shoulder against the concrete-block wall. Satisfied he was ready, he dropped a wrench from waist high. It hit the floor with a metallic clang.

  Peter waited several seconds, but nothing. The double steel doors were sealed well around the edges, no doubt to reduce the sound of mechanics working on vehicles so as not to disturb the people in the front of the building.