Page 84 of Thunder Pass

The guard had nearly reached him. Pretty soon he’d be chained up to that iron ring. But he had so many more questions.

“Why are you so hot after finding my father?” he demanded. “That’s why you’re keeping me here, isn’t it? You think my father will come after me. I’m bait. Why do you want him?”

Luke didn’t answer that directly. “I want you to know, you won’t be marrying my daughter. I would never allow her to marry one of your kind.”

“You mean, a mechanic?” Gunnar said dryly.

“I mean someone connected to Anthony Grant. I should have killed him back in Afghanistan.” He spat on Gunnar’s boot, then gave a signal to the guard.

If he got locked up here, he might never get out. Ruth would be on her own, his father would be vulnerable, and Luke would get away with everything.

He rammed his elbow into Luke’s rib and heard the man grunt. He reached behind him and grabbed him in a headlock, then threw him at the guard, knocking them both on their asses.

More guards came running, but Gunnar dropped on top of Luke, rammed his knee into his back, and grabbed his arm, the one that still held the gun. Using sheer force and willpower, he wrestled with Luke until the gun was aimed at the guards, and Gunnar had a finger on the trigger.

“Back away,” he warned them. He kept a heavy knee on Luke’s body.

Luke wheezed at the guards, “Do as he says.”

The guards backed away, but Gunnar didn’t ease up on Luke’s prone body. Beyond not getting chained to an iron ring in the ground, he didn’t have a plan. Making a run for it didn’t seem possible—as soon as he was off of Luke’s body, he’d be a target.

Besides, maybe there was something he could do here in Bad Guy Headquarters. He cast around the Quonset hut for inspiration, and, as always, went right for the machinery first. Generators, computers. Hand-held radios.

That must be how these militia members were communicating with each other. But there were no radio towers out here. They must have set up their own. They could all be using satellite phones, but he hadn’t seen any of those. They probably wanted their own private microwave radio system. If he could find that tower and disable it, their communications would be disrupted.

“Where’s your radio tower?” he growled in Luke’s ear.

Luke had to cough before he could answer. He called to one of the guards, “Vasily, take Gunnar here to the tower.”

Too easy. They probably had a backup system in place. Communications were too important not to.

But they all relied on power. Unless they’d taken the time to put up solar panels, these generators were probably their only power source. And it would take a lot of solar panels and a hefty battery bank to run a tower, which had to operate twenty-four hours a day.

His mission was clear now. Disable the generators and crash their comms. But how the hell was he supposed to do that when he could see three generators right here in the Quonset hut? What would knock three generators offline long enough to mess with Luke’s plans?

He remembered something his father had said. “Be a disrupter. Create some chaos. If you can mess with someone’s plans, there’s likely going to be a snowball effect. You don’t know how things will end up, but neither do they. He who creates the chaos has the advantage.”

At the time, they were sparring, but that advice seemed to apply very well to the present situation too.

Be a disrupter.

He’d noticed a fuel storage tank just outside the Quonset hut, with a stockpile of gas cans piled near it. They probably hand-filled the generators when they were getting low.

He remembered something else he’d spotted near the entrance.

“Listen, I just want to get out of here alive,” he told the guards. “I’ll let Luke go if you give me that four-by I saw out front.”

The guards glanced at each other. They knew, as he did, that the four-by wasn’t working. He didn’t need it to work. He just needed a spark, and he had complete confidence in his ability to get that from any vehicle.

“Well, Luke? You said I had a choice. All you want me for is to get my father out here. Doesn’t seem like it worked. And it won’t. Would you put yourself in danger for any of your sons?”

He knew Luke wouldn’t do it for his daughter, after all.

“Give him the four-by,” Luke growled. “He’s more trouble than he’s worth. But don’t think you’re going to get far on it,” he added. “We’ve got guards everywhere. And they have shoot-to-kill orders.”

“I don’t want to get shot. I have too much to live for. I’m planning to get married.” He grinned as Luke’s face twisted into a snarl. Keeping a tight hold on the gun, he eased his knee off Luke’s back and stood up.

Luke jerked his head toward one of the guards, who beckoned Gunnar to follow him. He did so, gun cocked, maneuvering each step so he never had anyone at his back. It was a tense walk through the Quonset hut, and Gunnar felt the blood pounding through his veins. He wasn’t used to aiming a gun at a human being. He wasn’t used to this kind of gun, since he mostly used hunting rifles, and those only during deer season.

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