Free Sea of Crises by Marty Steere Page B

his brother for a long moment. Finally, he nodded, turned and put an arm over Matt’s shoulder, and together they walked into the boisterous locker room.
    The echoes faded as Nate opened his eyes, and he was back in the quiet SUV, the silence broken only by the intermittent swish of the windshield wipers and the sound of tires on the wet pavement. Minutes passed.
    Matt finally broke the spell. “So this guy on the phone, you said he had a southern accent at one point?”
    Nate nodded.
    “There are lots of southern accents,” Matt said. “Can you be more specific? Was it a drawl, did it have a twang to it?”
    “Neither,” Nate replied. He re-played the conversation in his mind. “I don’t know if it means anything, but the first thought that came to mind was Hampton Roads.”
    As youngsters, the boys had moved around quite a bit. Their father, who was a naval aviator before joining the space program, had been stationed at different posts across the country. Nate spent part of the first grade attending a school in Norfolk, Virginia, where his father was assigned to a squadron at the nearby Naval Air Station. The soft southern accent of the man on the phone had conjured memories of the accents he’d heard during his time in Virginia.
    At the mention of Hampton Roads, Matt turned and looked at him quickly before returning his attention to the highway. Nate could see that he was working his jaw.
    “That mean something to you?” Nate asked.
    “Maybe.”
    Matt was again quiet for a long moment. He adjusted his hands on the wheel. It seemed to Nate as though he might be tightening his grip. Then he said, “If it’s who I think it is, we’re dealing with someone very dangerous. Not that the others aren’t. But this guy?” He paused. “He takes it to a whole new level.”
    “Who is he?”
    “His name is Raen. And there’s something wrong with him. Seriously wrong.”
    Nate had thought he couldn’t be more scared. But Matt’s words, and the way he said them, induced a terrifying chill. It took him a minute to find his voice.
    “Matt, what are we going to do?”
    “We’re going to follow through on your first instinct. Your gut told you we needed to go to Minneapolis, to see the Gale women?”
    Nate nodded, though it was more to himself.
    “It was a good instinct,” Matt said. “If those women have been told to keep their mouths shut, they obviously have something to say, something that we need to hear.
    “And now we need to get to them before they do. Before he does.”
    #
    Raen held out his palm and allowed the black stallion to sniff it. Then he reached back and patted the animal’s neck at the point where it met the withers. Sliding his hand up, he scratched along the neck. Nickering softly, the big animal lifted his head and stretched as if to offer encouragement.
    As a boy growing up on a farm in southwest Virginia, Raen had spent a great deal of time around horses. Of course, those had all been work animals, plugs for the most part. Nothing like this magnificent specimen.
    In the garage, Raen had found a bag of carrots. He pulled one now from his pocket and held it out with his other hand. The stallion took the treat gently, biting into it only after pulling his muzzle back safely from Raen’s fingers, the sign of a well-mannered, well-trained animal. Raen reached around with his other hand and scratched the far side of the neck. The horse lay his head softly on Raen’s shoulder, gratefully accepting the ministrations.
    Raen watched as Parker’s men carried equipment from the garage and loaded it into one of the Suburbans that had been driven around to the site. They had dismantled the computer setup concealed behind the garage workbench, as well as the one in the house and in the escape tunnel near the barn. It would all be taken to the nearest lab in Denver, where it would be analyzed in an attempt to glean information that would assist them in tracking down Marek. It was a waste of time, Raen