The Things We Bury - Part 2: No Big Apocalypse [Completed]

Chapter 5: From the Ashes (Part 4 of 7)

Maxwell's feet slipped in the sun baked dirt, slowing his trudging steps up the embankment. He had to keep his eyes down so the sun, still low in the sky, wouldn't blind him. Setting up on a ridge obscured by the glare of the morning light was one of the many things he was regretting about their plan.

Behind him emergency vehicles swarmed both sides of the border station. The sirens at his back put an urgency into his stride. When he reached the crest, Katie was already in the car with the engine running. Her SOCOM Mk-13 was probably already field stripped and stowed away in the back of the SUV.

She chewed her lip with impatience as Maxwell walked around the vehicle and climbing into the passenger side. He had planned on slamming the door to express his anger, but he didn't even get both feet inside before she peeled out.

"What the hell was that?" he said as he chucked the walkie-talkie onto the dash.

"Can we discuss this later? It won't take them long before they start searching for the source of the shots."

"And whose fault is that?"

Maxwell felt sick. The sight of blood matted blonde hair with brains strewn across the blacktop was still vivid in his mind. The filter of the binoculars did nothing to diminish the severe impact of the sight. The dead girl with half her face gone and the blood streaked cheek of the man beside her with a bullet hole through the left lens of his sunglasses were images that would haunt his sleepless hours.

Katie broke her deep frown to say, "They were almost at the crossing. I had to make a call."

"Your instructions were to wait for me to give the okay."

She had killed them in broad daylight without hesitation, and apparently without remorse.

"They were going to get away. If they had entered Mexico our mission would have gotten a lot harder." Katie leaned forward in her seat to get a better view of the rutted dirt road. Using the controls on the steering wheel, she switched the radio on to end the conversation.

Taylor's Swift's voice filled the car at a high volume. Maxwell used to like the singer's music but after twenty hours in the car with Katie and her fanatical music selection, it had turned into an insidious form of torture. He shut it off before two words could be sung.

"You're one heartless bitch," he said not willing to let it drop. "You and Amy were friends and you didn't even wait for orders to take that shot."

"It wasn't even her." Katie's voice sounded glib like they were discussing a bad play from a practice game.

"But you didn't know that!"

Maxwell had been two seconds too late in hitting the radio button to tell her that their tip had been a false lead-the targets weren't Amy and R.J.

It had been an easy mistake. Whoever had called it in to the hotline couldn't be blamed. A young blonde girl traveling with an older man by bus to the border was exactly the sort of thing they had been on the lookout for. It had even taken Max a couple of minutes of watching them as they waited in line to cross on foot into Mexico, to positively identify them.

Each glimpse of their faces, as they turned toward one another, talking in sporadic bursts, had revealed small details that verified it wasn't distance or makeup, which made them look like strangers. Maxwell was already having his doubts before he noticed the large gap in the girl's front teeth or the fact that she was too old-probably nineteen or twenty. Or that the man had a fresh sunburn turning to an even tan, which seemed to weather his face beyond his years. Upon reflection, they were close to the same age, maybe only five years apart.

Even without seeing those details, their behavior gave them away. It was clear to anyone who knew them that they would never hold hands like that or look longingly at each other in furtive glances. This was a couple new to love.

Maxwell could have called it in sooner but he hesitated, unsure of how much of his conviction was based on the hope it wasn't them. Now he'd probably hear on the news about how two tourists from Nebraska or Kansas had been gunned down.

It was as much his fault as hers. No. He took that back. Katie was much more to blame.

"How can you be so casual about assassinating two innocent people?"

"Regrets are poison to the soul."

"How profound. Let me write that down."

"I made a call in the field. I'd do it again. I thought you'd understand that. As for Amy, she was an assignment. I thought you'd understand that too."

They drove without talking until they hit paved roads again.

"Next time follow my damn orders. I don't feel like leaving a body trail across the Southwest."

"Sheesh, Roger said you were too rusty for field work but I defended you. I said you were cool. Maybe I was wrong. Man, you've grown soft behind that desk."

Maxwell's molars ground audibly at the mention of the sector chief. What did it mean that this little tart was on the first name basis with that toad? Katie Wexler was beginning to feel like a plant. No one had felt it necessary to tell him that she was a trained field agent or an expert sniper when she was assigned to The Music Box. Was she Crandall's inside man, hiding in plain sight with her teenybopper fashion and ditsy mannerisms? A spy among spies?

"If we do find them, will you even be able to take the shot yourself?" she asked sounding like she already knew the answer.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'll take care of it when then time comes. The only difference is I'll wait until it's actually them."

Maxwell was so used to lying it fell from his lips without hesitation. The truth was he wasn't so sure he could. He had come within a breath of confirming the kills as being Amy and R.J., to give them a better chance of escape. But he knew the Agency would have DNA results before the end of the day, then it would be his neck.

This young woman was loathsome to him, but she just might be necessary. In the end, if he really was too soft to pull the trigger, he could let her take care of the odious act.