Page 68 of Constantly Cotton
“Tell me,” he said, ten years of command falling onto his shoulders like a ton of bricks.
“In the cabin, sir,” she said tightly. “It’s not safe out here.”
It was amazing how quickly Jason could move with the right motivation.
JASON HADCotton shower first while Trina briefed him.
“Goldfarb and Klausner moved on a tip-off this morning,” Trina said. “Two soldiers. They’d spotted them on the security feeds of the casino where the ODs happened and one of the liquor-store murders. We tracked the soldiers down to a crappy hotel, and they went to do recon. They got shot at. Klausner was hit. They called me from the hospital. She’s stable but sedated. Goldfarb won’t leave her side, not even to give a statement, and for the same reason you didn’t go to a hospital in the first place. He does not trust local law enforcement, and any communication with Barstow is likely to be compromised. We are not sure if they were tracked down here or—”
“Jason!” Cotton’s voice held the edge of panic.
Jason and Trina met eyes and darted into the bedroom, where Cotton was staring at the monitor on the end table.
Jason had seen it there that morning, and a part of him had mourned that his life was no longer his own, but now he was grateful Cotton was thinking about more than the two of them.
“Oh hell,” Trina muttered. “Shit, Colonel, we need to get you to safety.”
The entire monitor was alight, with three operatives, a woman and two men, closing in on the cabin from different angles.
“That woman is Karina Schroeder,” Trina said dispassionately. “See the bandage on the shoulder? Goldfarb said he winged her.”
“Is there anyone else coming?” Jason asked.
She shook her head. “There was a rockslide south of here this morning.” This happened often—usually when fires had taken out the ground cover and the landscape shifted. Any rain at all could send the roads that carved through the Sierras into a disaster. “The team that was going to accompany us got stranded. It’s why we went in a man light. As forthem, I don’t know. Greta got Karina’s husband, Dietrich. He’s stable and in the same hospital. Goldfarb isn’t going to sleep, I shit you not.”
“So are these the only three we have to worry abou—hey! Did you see that?”
Karina Schroeder and her soldiers were dressed in black. It was probably fashionable mobster wear in the middle of the city, particularly if she was committing crimes at night, but in the daytime in the trees, they stood out in stark contrast to the faded greens and khakis—even on the black-and-white monitors.
But something had moved in the periphery of one of the screens, something Jason had not been able to pin down.
“No,” Trina said. “No, I didn’t see what it was, but—oh fuck. Who is that?”
“No,” Jason said.
“No!” Cotton said.
“What the…? I told them to get us in contact with LEO!”
But Jackson Rivers and Henry Worrall had apparently not been able to make those contacts, because they were driving down the road in a very classy cream-colored Cadillac Seville.
“That’s a nice car,” Jason said, stunned.
“It’s probably John’s,” Cotton said. “His boyfriend was in a car accident and doesn’t move well. Henry works as his driver sometimes.”
“Who’s John?” Trina asked.
“A porn mogul,” Jason told her, because this was his life and he was going to own that. “He’s apparently a very nice guy.”
And then there was a flicker on the monitor again, one that Jason couldn’t make out, and he swore.
“Someone else is out there,” he muttered. “Okay, let’s look at our options.”
“We could escape out the back window,” Cotton pointed out. “Look, they’re moving in on the sides of the cabin. Karina is moving around to the front. See this part of the monitor over here? It’s free. They wouldn’t spot us.”
“But what if there’s another one out there,” Jason muttered, torn. “We only have a guess there were four, and Karina’s husband was wounded. She’s going to be pissed.”
At that point, Jason’s phone rang, and he pulled it out of the running pack at his waist.
