Lethal Force by Trevor Scott

was on the phone?”
    Jake shook his head. “It’s better you don’t know that. Let’s just say I still have a few friends in high places. These folks did a back-trace on the signal from my phone to those who were tracking me. Then they started monitoring calls into their lines. They just heard from a call that linked back to Montana. They’ll have the location pinpointed soon.”
    Her eyes widened. “Umm. That’s not legal without a court order.”
    â€œYou see. . .I knew I shouldn’t have told you. And how do you know we don’t have a court order?”
    â€œI’m sorry. You’re right. Besides, I don’t have a problem listening in on, or tracking, criminals and terrorists.” Lori thought again, her mind seeming to spin. “Where do we go from here?”
    â€œWe go nowhere,” Jake said. “I go back to the gun shop and pick up some more rounds. Some crazy congresswoman shot the crap out of some stumps this morning.”
    â€œI had help. And then what?”
    â€œI need to find someplace safe to stash you.”
    â€œNo way. This is my concern. I need to talk with this man. See what he knows.”
    Jake protested with both hands. “I am not bringing you to a hostage extraction from a known murderer.”
    She stared at him with determination. “I’ll stay in the SUV.”
    He was going to regret this. But he also knew if he wanted to get any information from either the kidnapper or the scientist he needed to do this without the local police or wait for the FBI to show up. Jake kept visualizing the images of Ruby Ridge and Waco standoffs.
    They hung out at various places around town, getting frequent updates from the local police on how they still had not found the man who had killed one of their own and kidnapped the scientist. The best part, as far as Jake was concerned, was the fact that snow had continued to fall most of the day and now, with darkness coming fast, the white stuff was coming down like goose down at a pillow fight. The snow had grounded flights coming in or out of the Flathead Valley, including those by the FBI coming from Spokane and Billings. He didn’t need a bunch of Feds mucking up the works.
    Jake also changed his clothes from Patagonia Spring fishing wear to layered Montana Winter. Well, as much as he could with what he had in his backpack.
    Just as the sun, such as it was hiding behind the clouds and heavy snow, sunk behind the mountains to the west, he got a call from his contact with the location of the killer and the scientist.
    Now they sat in the Ford Explorer, the heater working to keep the snow from icing up the wipers.
    Jake got off the phone with his friends in high places and viewed the GPS link they had sent him.
    â€œAre you ready?” Lori asked him. She had been playing with her own phone for the past half hour, answering e-mails and listening to voice mails.
    â€œYeah,” Jake said. “We got a location.”
    â€œHow does this work? How do you know you can do this alone? What if there’s more than just one guy?”
    Good questions all, he thought. But he couldn’t let her know that he had gotten satellite thermal images of the house outside town, indicating one hostile on the first floor and a second person in the basement of the home. He guessed that would be the professor. “You’ll have to trust me,” he said. “Can you put your phone down for a second and take this?” He handed her his phone with the GPS enabled and ready for them to drive.
    â€œNo problem.” She looked at him with concern. “I’m sorry. I kind of have a hectic job, with people grabbing at me from all sides.”
    Jake put the Ford in gear and pulled out onto the frozen road. “I know. But you need to learn to focus on the task at hand. Your e-mail will still be there in the morning.” He came off far harsher than he’d planned. Maybe his own