Page 15 of Handcuffed to the Bear

“Look, take it from a guy who’s been in a lot of hairy situations. I’ve seen people pull out saves against impossible odds. Nothing is truly impossible unless you give up.”

“Power of positive thinking. Right. Got it.” But she managed to give him a smile, even if it was stretched a little thin. “Besides, we have one asset other than our brains, right? We have a pair of handcuffs.”

“True.” Jack shook their linked hands, jingling the cuffs. “And the woods are full of tools if you know how to make them.”

“Do you actually have a plan, or are you just acting like you do to make me feel better?”

“I’m developing the glimmerings of one,” Jack said, helping her over a boulder. “Hiding our scent trail is the most important thing to start with. That’s most likely what they’ll be using to follow us.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“Water,” Jack said. “Flowing water will kill the scent better than anything else.”

“I didn’t see any from the hilltop.”

“Maybe not, but there are usually streams in hilly country like this. We just have to find them.”

“How?”

“By listening, for one thing.” He stopped and tipped his head to one side. Casey paused too, holding her breath. All he could hear was the whisper of wind in the trees, distant birdsong, and the little rustles Casey made as she tried to stay still. Jack shook his head and started moving again, taking them down the side of the ridge at an angle towards the saddle where it joined to the next ridge.

“Valleys,” he said over his shoulder to Casey, picking his way around a tangle of thorny scrub. “Valleys and ravines. Water carves them, so it stands to reason there’ll be water at the bottom of them, at least some of them.”

There was a brief silence while she digested this bit of information, during which Jack hustled them around another cluster of boulders, tucked beneath a cape of moss and young trees. Then she said, “You’re notjusta federal agent, are you? No way you learned all this stuff as a fed.”

Jack wasn’t sure how to respond. He knew this topic would come up sooner or later; she was bound to want to know how he learned all the tricks he was going to have to use to keep both of them alive. But he’d hoped she’d have a little more time to get to know him first, because the last thing he needed was Casey being as afraid of him as she was of the Fallons.

His silence, and the signals it clearly sent, made her hand go a little looser in his. “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t bring up something painful. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not really that,” Jack said. “I don’t mind talking about it.”I just don’t know how you’ll react.

“Well, I think I’ve figured out it out anyway. You’re military, right? Or former military.”

“You’re half right. I did a tour in Iraq, yeah. But it turned out life in the Army wasn’t for me. Too many rules, too much ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir’ and having to deal with bureaucratic bullshit. I hated it.”

“So what then?” she asked, holding a branch aside for him.

“You’ve heard of Blackwater, right?”

“I guess so,” she said. “I think I remember news stories about that. Some kind of scandal in Iraq, right? Wait, are you telling me you worked for Blackwater?”

“Not Blackwater specifically, but something similar. After I left the service, a buddy got me a job working for a similar outfit. They’re called private security companies, but what it comes down to is, they’re mercenaries. I was a merc, Casey.”

The look she gave him wasn’t scared or worried, just thoughtful. “I didn’t even know mercenaries were a thing anymore. I guess I think of that as something that went out with the Revolutionary War.”

“Nope, they are definitely a thing. Oh, they have to run around under the radar of the Geneva Conventions and various other international treaties. You can’t just go out and hire yourself a private army anymore. Well, most people can’t. But private armies still exist, and I was part of one.”

“What kind of things did you do?”

This was one area where censoring himself for civilians was second nature. Maybe someday he’d tell her some of the hairier stuff. Avery knew most of it. But not right now. “Guarding places, mostly. The U.S. employs a lot of private security to do things like guard installations and convoys overseas, so they’re not stretched quite so thin.”

“Sounds boring.”

“It mostly was. I mean, like anything else. Moments of excitement punctuated by a whole lot of boring.”

He waited for more questions, but instead she said simply, “Thanks for telling me.”

“You’re welcome. If you want to know more, just ask. I can’t promise to tell you everything, but I’ll tell you what I can.”

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