Hereafter Read online

  Hereafter

  By

  C.K.Crigger

  Text copyright © 2016

  C.K.Crigger

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Art by

  Todd Aune

  used by permission of Books In Motion audio publishing

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 1

  October 31, 2015

  Stakeouts. God, how she hated stakeouts. What a crappy way to spend Halloween night.

  Twitchy as a small dog lost in an alligator swamp, Border Patrol Agent Lily Turnbow huddled under the drooping branches of a scraggly nine-bark bush freezing her ass off. Rain drizzled down the back of her neck.

  One item in the credit column—her packer boots, warm and waterproof, left some feeling in her toes. It seemed unnaturally cold for October until she remembered shivering in those lightweight costumes on trick or treat night as a kid.

  A small sigh sent a puff of air jetting out in front of her, steaming in the chill. One thing stayed the same. Halloween remained a time of ghoulies and ghosties and it was, at this point, not so far off from the witching hour. A pregnant vibe of tense waiting trembled in the air.

  The luminous dial of Lily’s watch showed the time as eleven-thirty, with the minute hand crawling toward midnight. As though to add even more atmosphere to the situation, a nocturnal bird cooed from the old cemetery on the hill above her, sounding almost human in its misery.

  She shivered, a goose walking over her grave. When the hell was anyone going to show up? Had their informant been wrong? He’d seemed sure of his facts two days ago, when the call came in. A loaded plane, he said, flying low and without a flight plan over the most desolate part of the Canadian/U.S. border where it crossed into Washington.

  After standing almost immobile for the better part of two hours, the coffee she drank before coming on duty cried for release. Trying to take her mind off the increasingly pressing need, she made plans for her next days off. First on the docket, take Heathen, her mustang, home for Grandpa to trim the mare’s feet and put on new shoes. Something to look forward to.

  Unfortunately, the slosh of waves lapping at the lakeshore not thirty feet away refused to let her ignore physical needs. How did some of the guys handle it? Pitt, her counterpart from the western side of the county, had been known to go six hours, sipping from the bottomless cup of coffee in his hand the whole time.

  Shifting from foot to foot, she reached for her zipper determined to squat when a crashing sound in the brush on the hill to her right stilled the motion. None of her team would make that much noise. They all knew better—or were supposed to. Something must be happening at long last.

  Bladder forgotten, she faded deeper into the shrubby nine-bark which, even this late in the season, was thick with leaves and desiccated flower-heads. Crud shattered into her hair. Excitement quickened her heart; her blood ran faster.

  The crashing turned into the sound of running footsteps. The person headed toward her seemed in a tearing hurry, skidding on rain-slicked pine needles and falling onto one knee not five feet from her hiding place. The size of the dimly seen body and a whispered curse told her the runner was a man. Picking himself up, he galloped on without spotting her.

  Releasing an indrawn breath, Lily took her hand from the Glock she carried tonight in a hip holster and cocked her head, listening with all senses alert. Lopez had stationed her nearest the landing, and within seconds she heard the runner’s footsteps thumping a hollowed cadence over the dock. A bump sounded, then the buzz of a little electric motor as the fourteen-foot fishing boat tied up there pulled away. In the distance, the hum of a small plane coming in low above the lake became audible.

  Her mom always used to say Lily had preternaturally acute hearing—and then a look of dread would fill her eyes. Mom never mentioned that other thing, though. Not after the first time. It took Lily years to figure out why. Probably lots of people could hear the things she did, but nobody could do the other.

  Even as the odd memory drifted in and right back out of her mind, Lily heard the plane, still unseen, begin circling. She bet a person with night-vision glasses was up there in it, searching the ground for anybody who shouldn’t be out on a night like this. Anybody like the DEA or Border Patrol. In other words, Lopez, Lily, and the rest of the team.

  Lopez’s voice murmured through the speaker in her ear. “Turnbow, you awake? Get ready. Pitt says the plane’s coming in to land. When I say go, go. No dragging along hiding behind the guys.”

  Anger flared along her nerves. Asshole! Lopez disliked having women in the department. In particular he resented having them along on an action like this one, and he truly hated having a female second-in-command. That wasn’t omniscience on her part. God knows his complaints had been loud enough for everyone to hear.

  Or maybe, not that she cared, he just hated Lily Turnbow. If so, the feelings were mutual and dated from their first meeting when he looked down at her and said, “Jesus, if we’ve got to fill our minority quota, couldn’t we at least have somebody full-sized?”

  So she wasn’t exactly a full-figured woman. So what? And minority quota? What was up with that?

  Lily eked out her reply, waiting almost long enough to make him speak again before she whispered into the mic, “The plane’s coming around to the north. Give it time to sit down. A small boat has gone out to meet it.”

  “Out of the north?” His raspy baritone shouted into her ear. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know these things, Turnbow?”

  What did he want to do, carry on a whole conversation? Maybe give away her position? Or was he accusing her of something. Hah! He wished.

  “The boat has one man in it,” she said, ignoring a question she suspected was rhetorical anyway. “There are more bodies stirring around on the hill above us. Looks like they’re going to come down through the cemetery. Let’em all get on the dock before you make your move. Stay quiet and wait until I give the word.”

  She could only imagine how much he hated the plane coming in on her side of the little bay. Now it became her job to call in the troops, since she had a better view than Pitt on the other side.

  Nevertheless, Lopez took the hint as the plane’s drone grew loud enough even he must have heard it. The plane itself remained invisible against the cloud-covered night sky, flying without lights while out on the lake the man in the boat uncapped a lantern and flashed a signal.

  “See that?” she asked.

  “Saw something.”

  She heard another voice talking to him before he said, “Okay. I’ve got it pegged.”

  Lily tracked the plane by sound as it flew in low over the point and landed a couple hundred yards away with a soft splash of its pontoons. The pilot must be an expert—or he’d done this several times before and knew the layout.

  “The plane’s down,” she murmured into the shoulder mic. “Wait.”

  Voices carry well over water. Distinct differences in tone and tempo i
dentified three men who didn’t seem too worried over the noise they were making. Grunts and curses spoke of heavy lifting as they emptied the plane of its cargo and packed it into the small boat. The area was private property, most of it belonging to some big developer out of Coeur d’Alene. The summer houses were empty at this time of year.

  The team’s DEA contingent assumed the cargo was B.C. bud or cocaine, smuggled into the U.S. from Canada; Homeland Security thought a new group of terrorists or illegal aliens sneaking into the country more likely. Border Patrol just wanted to protect U.S. citizens. If they didn’t find one or the other, they were in the sewer or, at best, wasting their time.

  Lily had no doubt they were on to something. Intuition shouted so.

  Soon, out on the lake the trolling motor started again, whining with strain as it pushed the fishing boat, riding low in the water, toward the dock. Even through the rain Lily could see the boat was overloaded, and instead of one man, it now carried three people and several bulky cartons. Her stomach clenched as the lantern flickered another signal before it went dark.

  “Get ready, guys,” she breathed, excitement building a knot in her own stomach. “They’ll dock in two minutes.”

  Hard on the heels of her warning, a couple more figures ghosted past her, hurrying onto the dock to join the people coming in. They stood silent, dark silhouettes against the water. Lily waited, her breathing shallow and even.

  A man in the boat said, “Catch the line,” and she saw one of the new arrivals reach for the rope. The engine cut off, the boat bumped against the wooden dock, and two of the figures in it clambered out to join the others. The final man started manhandling boxes.

  This looked like an opportune moment to round up the whole bunch.

  “Begin moving in now,” Lily said into her mic, and almost before the words were out of her mouth people began running toward the dock both from below her position and from the other side of the bay.

  Too fast. Too fast and too noisy. What the hell did Lopez think he was doing?

  Only because she knew his stakeout position, she saw him appear from inside a crumbling rock gazebo fifty feet farther down the beach; Pitt moved from under the trees thirty yards to her right up the hill. The DEA guy scooted out of an old car he’d broken into and used for cover—quite illegally, considering his situation. Another of his contingent, the guy guarding the agency’s black van a quarter mile up the road, could be heard pounding along on the pavement. He needed to put on his skates if he wanted to be in time for the capture.

  Lily started forward as Lopez hollered, “Everybody freeze. This is the United States Border Patrol speaking.”

  But her sharp ears heard something more. Someone else was still out there in the dark. Someone Lily couldn’t account for and whom she hadn’t heard until now. A curse and a clatter of metal signaled their trap had been sprung a few seconds early. Too late now to call the team back. Heart pounding, Lily turned to face the new threat in time to catch the flare of a powerful flashlight.

  She whispered into the speaker on her mic. “There’s another of them on the hill,” she told Lopez. “He’s signaling the plane. I’m going after him.”

  She could tell by the way Lopez gasped for air he was running and breathing hard. Out of shape loser.

  “Right. Don’t let him get away,” he choked.

  Lily shrugged out from under the clinging nine-bark branches. Unlike Lopez, she wasn’t out of shape. Excitement quickened her steps as she sped up the slope, the traction soles of her packer boots carrying her along the hill without much slippage. Up ahead, the signaler flashed code-like bursts of light. The plane had already come around and was revving up to get back in the air.

  She thought the spotter’s attention all on the plane, but though she was quiet as anyone could be while sloshing through mud, something—a small noise, a sense of movement—drew his attention. He directed a strong beam of light at her, catching her in it even as gunshots cracked from the dock area. A rattle of weaponry from the beach returned fire.

  “Shit!” Fumbling for the Glock, she ran. It seemed as though the person with the flashlight was deliberately showing his position.Deliberately! Realization of the danger made her dart out of the beam a fraction of a second before a bullet whipped past her head. Another followed her into the dark.

  In the stress of the moment, Lily forgot to unsnap the tab on her holster. And even when she remembered, the pistol managed to hang up. She tugged at it, at the same time bending her knees like a slalom skier and jigging the other way. The shooter missed twice more, muzzle flashes showing as he changed his position.

  Finally tearing the Glock from the holster, she aimed where her assailant had been. Although she had yet to fire a shot, as though the threat were enough she saw him retreating up through the graveyard, using the taller of the old stones as cover. But not complete cover. He seemed to be egging her on, trying to separate her from the rest of the force so to finish her off.

  Lily stumbled at that thought, then ran on. It took two to play cat and mouse. If she was on her own, well, so was he.

  Dodging behind the towering wing of an adult-sized angel monument, she stopped, taking time to ready her weapon and catch her breath. Down on the beach, Lopez hollered something in a language neither English nor Spanish. She couldn’t understand the words, but he sure in hell was saying it loud. The gunfire dwindled, then died. Lopez must’ve turned off his mic, too, because she couldn’t hear him through it anymore.

  Looked like she was the only one with an opponent still in action. Risking a peek around the marble angel, she glimpsed the man darting into a mausoleum near the cemetery gates. His light went out, leaving the night darker than before. Clearly, he planned on bushwhacking her, catching her from behind when she went past him. That didn’t fit with her plan.

  Backing away from the angel, she sought the dark like a hunting cat, grateful now for the rain. The patter as it hit the ground covered most of the small sounds she made creeping through the tangled grass matting the unkempt old graveyard. She approached the last few yards to his hideout on her hands and knees.

  Only one way led in or out of the mausoleum, the same low doorway the suspect had gone through. From an earlier, daylight scouting expedition over the ground, she knew no windows broke the walls of the plain stone box. She crept to the corner of the structure and stopped. Things might get a bit touchy now. Wait him out, or force his hand?

  Lopez decided her. “Turnbow. Can you hear me? Turnbow?” His voice came through her shoulder speaker loud enough to bounce off her eardrums.

  Idiot! She winced. Was he trying to get her killed? Anybody within twenty feet could hear him, let alone a mere six feet—all that separated her from the man inside the mausoleum. She knew when the man stirred, his feet shuffling the debris littering the floor inside. Dirt, gravel, rat crap and rotting leaves. She knew that from earlier, too.

  Lily not only ignored Lopez, she unclipped the mic and tossed it a few yards to her left where it landed feather-light in some sodden weeds. To hell with him. Let him yell. Maybe the racket would distract the man inside the structure long enough for her to get the drop on him. “Concentrate Turnbow,” she told herself.

  Flattening onto her stomach, she grimaced at the touch of cold mud. Instructors at training school said people nearly always shot high when someone came at them. They advised agents to go in on their bellies. This was her first opportunity to try the lesson out under genuine battle conditions. Fear prickled in her veins. She hoped to hell those instructors knew what they were talking about.

  Clenching the Glock in her right hand, she inched forward to the mausoleum’s doorway. Trusting the person inside couldn’t smell her fear or hear her heart pounding away like a hammer on steel, she slithered into the building through the ridge of sodden leaves glued to the step by dirt and the rain.

  She knew the instructors were right the moment the stale stench of a dank dirt floor rose up to meet her because the bullets from his
gun passed well over her head. One took a chunk out of the stone door jamb at about where her belly would’ve been had she come in on her feet.

  But they were wrong, too, because they hadn’t mentioned the enemy probably read from the same instruction book. Not only that,shehad forgotten the flashlight, which he snapped on and shone down at the floor, the glare momentarily blinding her. The beam followed as she rolled for cover. With another shot chasing her, she dived behind a rough stone altar in the center of the tiny room.

  She crashed hard against the corner of the altar. Pain zinged with agonizing ferocity, paralyzing her whole arm as her right elbow took the brunt of the blow. The pistol dropped from her nerveless fingers and skittered away into the dark. Despite herself, she cried out, earning another shot in her direction that kicked sharp little stone shards into the side of her face.

  Her chest felt filled to exploding as panic set in. He had her now. He must be wondering why she didn’t return fire, the uncertainty probably all that kept him from standing up and pumping shot after shot into her. It wouldn’t take long before he figured it out.

  Lily cowered behind the altar hoping for a little more time, hoping the guy would die of a heart attack, hoping he hadn’t seen what happened—and maybe he hadn’t, because the flashlight beam still shined a little high as he snapped off a couple more shots. They sparked off the stone, mercifully without lethal ricochet. The noise thundered in the confined space, wounding her sensitive ear drums.

  How many shots had that been? She snorted internally. Did it matter? The answer came as she heard the dry click of his semi-automatic hitting on empty.

  Yes. It mattered.

  Shaking in her muddy boots, she stood up, folded her hands together like there was a gun between them, and said, “Drop your weapon. You’re under arrest.” It was the biggest bluff sr ever heard of anyone running. If only it worked.

  There wasn’t time for her to see much of him. A medium-tall, skinny man wearing dark clothes and something on his head. One of those Arab kind of things, a scarf tied on with strings. Kaffiyeh. The word shot through her mind. And then the light flickered and went out.