Page 25 of Once a Hero

If Jake had the one-amber brooch, he’d probably stashed it somewhere else, not on his person. Beatrice didn’t carry the three-amber brooch everywhere with her.

However, if Molyneux’s men caught up with Jake and Earl, they’d try to make Jake turn over the brooches.

“How many people are with you?” Beatrice asked.

“Two. I’m just the driver.”

“Two.” Assuming he was telling the truth.

Beatrice turned to her team members. Raynelle nearly laughed. Kenichi shrugged.

Beatrice guessed they were both thinking the same thing she was. They weren’t sure whether to trust the driver.

“Gag him and throw him in the trunk of his car,” Kenichi said.

“There is no trunk-trunk in his SUV.”

“Then just tie him to a tree.” He laughed. “But we don’t have a rope that long to go around a big old tree. So why don’t we just kill him?”

The driver whimpered. With Raynelle pointing the bullet end of a gun at his forehead, he didn’t dare make a louder sound.

Raynelle rolled her eyes at Kenichi’s silly ideas. She gagged the driver and pulled him to his feet. When they reached Jake’s SUV, she made him get in the back. She tied him up like he was a roped calf in a rodeo.

Beatrice thought that was enough. The driver wasn’t going anywhere. And he was in the FBI agent’s SUV.

Beatrice went back to the van with Kenichi. “What can we use as a splint? Jake’s friend twisted or broke his ankle.”

“We have the first aid kit. That’s all.”

Beatrice climbed into the van. She found duct tape and two travel pillows, which were quite small. She could not find any foam that was small enough to wrap around an ankle. She stuffed the pillows and duct tape into her back pack. And threw in several bottles of water.

Kenichi was suited up and weighed down with ammunition and weapons. He brought extra weapons for Raynelle, who was outside the van.

He gave Beatrice a tiny Glock and an LED headlamp.

Oh, wait. It wasn’t only a headlamp. It projected in front of her a three-dimensional map of the forest.

Kenichi locked the van and they all put on night vision goggles.

“This way.” Beatrice projected the map in front of her.

As Raynelle came close to her, she quietly handed Beatrice a second firearm, the bullpup with the shortest barrel that they had in the van.

Sigh.

At least it was still a Tavor. And her brother had taught her how to use it.

“In my moment of weakness,” Benjamin would tell her numerous times after that.

If Benjamin had his way, Beatrice would never leave Charleston. Sometimes Beatrice wished her older brother wouldn’t hover over her.

The world might be cruel, wicked, and evil, but God was greater still.

Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

The verse from 1 John 4:4 emboldened Beatrice. “Let’s go!”

Chapter Eleven

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