The Reluctant Warrior (Warriors Series Book 2) (42 page)

Bwana spotted the bottle first. It stood tall on the bonnet, glasses beside it.

They went closer, and Broker nodded approvingly when he saw the label, a Diamond Creek Gravelly Meadow Cabernet. He opened the bottle in silence, filled the six glasses, and they toasted in silence, taking turns to drink from the sixth.

They knew Zeb was watching them from somewhere.

The Warriors were complete.

Why not join the Warriors on their first outing in 
The Warrior
, Book One in the series

A man with no past

Nobody knows much about Zeb Carter. He doesn’t do romance, avoids friendships… and when asked about his work, says he is a security consultant.

A man on a mission

The ex-Special Forces operative has seen it all before. But when he witnesses barbaric acts in the Congo, he can’t simply walk away. Plagued by the scale of the unspeakable crimes and its victims, Zeb breaks the rules - both his own, and those whom he works for - by seeking his own brand of justice.

A man with no future

With a maverick intelligence analyst, Broker, along for the ride, Zeb finds himself up against an adversary who is more than a match for his skills.

From the rainforests of the Congo to the concrete jungle of New York, Zeb enters a shadowy world – a world where he alone is interested in justice. Everyone else wants the affair buried… and Zeb along with it.

Praise for The Warrior

What a ride — Christine Terrell, Goodreads

What a great book! It has been a long time since I have had a book keep me on the edge!

I believe Ty Patterson is the next up and coming thriller writer

The Warrior Rocks

Ty Patterson is now added to my favorites list

A must read!

Intense – No Better Way of Saying It

Zeb Is My Hero! If Only He Were Real

What an awesome book!

A real page turner!

 
Coming soon

The Warrior Code

Warriors Series, Book 3

by
Ty Patterson

Chapter 1

The sound of a vehicle sounded in the distance, grew closer, and then faded away, disappearing in the deep silence.

Zeb lay still in the deep shadow of the bough of a tree.

The night light had given up the battle to reach the ground, and his camp ‘fire’, a few feet away, was bathed in darkness. He had made a cold camp and had a pile of wood and sticks handy, in case he needed to light them.

He had been stalking a grizzly all day, a large female just under seven feet and over five hundred pounds easily.

He hadn’t seen a female bear this large, and when he’d spotted her snuffling for roots, he’d stopped and stared, forgetting momentarily that he was visible. Luckily he was downstream from the bear, and she didn’t notice him.

He’d followed her all day, her and her cubs, watching the cubs frolic as their mother searched for food. If he was honest with himself, he was following them to also test his stalking skills.

He was in Yellowstone National Park, a vastness of almost three thousand five hundred square miles spread across the three states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, and home to Old Faithful Geyser. A vastness that put man in proper perspective.

He’d done the touristy double-loop attractions and had palled quickly of being around people and had broken out to the southeast corner of the park, one of the most remote areas in the United States.

He’d parked his drive in an isolated spot, covered it, and had set off hiking, breaking away from the hiking trails.

He’d been there for over two weeks, making his way through the remotest parts of the park and hadn’t come across another human being, which suited him just fine.

Stalking the grizzly had brought him to where he was now.

Patches of shrub at chest level competed for air and sunlight while taller foliage ruled the skyline. There was ample undergrowth, which provided the bears with green fodder. There was a stream a klick away with the purest water and the best fish he’d had in a long while. The stream was half a mile away from a potholed track road through which the rare vehicle passed.

He’d felt the vehicle first before hearing it, its presence so unusual at that time of night that he’d stayed awake for some time trying to track its progress. The sound died about a mile away from him, and silence fell over the park.

He tried going back to sleep, but when that turned elusive, he gave up and decided to head to the stream for wildlife spotting.

He didn’t have much to pack, a bedroll, a backpack that contained all that he needed, which wasn’t much – water, rations, his guns, spare magazines, a Ka-Bar, binoculars, night vision glasses, and his sat phone. He checked his phone, not expecting any messages, and there were none. It was just past midnight when he set out.

A shot rang out.

He paused and peered through the darkness and saw nothing. He let the silence of the park become natural, and listened above it.

He thought he heard voices, but couldn’t be sure.

Another shot rang out.

He ran.

Dimly he thought,
I should mind my own business. But then life would be boring.

He became another shadow in the darkness of the park, moving from cover to cover, his feet rolling over the ground the way a panther’s did.

He hoped the bears hadn’t woken up and wouldn’t be as curious as he was. Luckily, they had been heading south, and he was heading in the other direction.

The US Army had stats for everything, and one of those stats was for various age groups running a mile. Six and a half minutes placed the runner in the top one percentile for that age group. There didn’t seem to be stats for running the remotest part of the park at night while at the same time keeping an eye out for grizzlies.

Zeb ran the mile in five minutes.

He heard the thrashing in the brush ahead, about two hundred feet away, before he heard the voices.

‘Stop shooting, Steve. You want to get everyone’s attention?’ a male voice cursed.

‘I’m trying to slow her down and scare her. Bitch. We should’ve killed her when we had the chance,’ another male panted.

‘You shit, all you had to do was bring her out of the back of the truck and to the open where we could question her. Now we have to chase her tail in the darkness.’

‘She kicked me in the nuts and took me by surprise. Once I get my hands on her–’

‘Shut up. Stop. Do we even know which direction she’s gone?’ the other hissed angrily.

Zeb drifted closer, a hundred feet away from them and could hear their harsh breathing as they tried to listen over themselves. It was too dark for him to make them out clearly, but they seemed to be about five feet seven in height, dressed in dark clothing. And out of shape.

He turned his attention to the woman they were chasing, and laid the map in his mind, calculated time and distances and visualized how it might have gone down.

Four hundred feet away was an open patch where a truck could come in, and he guessed that was where it was parked now. The woman had given the two pursuers the slip there and headed toward the denseness of the park.

Maybe two minutes of wrestling with the men, five minutes of running through the open patch… he turned a full circle and set out cautiously in the two o’clock direction.

He stopped every ten feet and listened, and at his third stop he felt her.

A presence at first, different from the surrounding park, and as he went closer, he could feel her moving softly away from all of them.

Her movement became faster as the pursuers stepped up their chase, and then she gave up the stealthy movement as the two pursuers heard her.

‘I can hear the bitch now,’ one of them grunted to the other.

‘Wait, we just want to talk to you,’ Steve called out.

That will make her stop.
Zeb almost laughed, but he didn’t do laughter
.

He was the middle angle of the triangle formed by the three moving parts, and he stepped it up, closing the gap on the woman.

Zeb had worked out three things about the men chasing the women.

They weren’t out to kill the woman. They might molest her, but not kill her. If they wanted to kill her, they’d have done that by now.

The one who had berated Steve was the leader of the two, though it was highly unlikely he was the one behind all this. The one who-was-not-Steve turned on a flashlight and aimed it ahead, trying to catch the woman in its glare.

The third was that these weren’t professionals. Pros didn’t fire needlessly nor did they attract attention in this manner. But that didn’t mean these guys were any less dangerous.

One moment the woman was fleeing in panic, darting rapid glances over her shoulder, and the next a hand was clamped firmly over her mouth and she was lifted in the air and carried sideways, twenty feet away, behind a dense thicket.

The pursuers didn’t see anything. All they heard was her rushing through the park and, the next moment, silence.

Zeb felt the woman draw a deep breath, and he squeezed, his hand an iron band around her waist, trapping her hands, and the other pressing deep against her mouth, not allowing her lips to move. The deeper she breathed, the tighter he squeezed, till she relaxed when she realized screaming wasn’t futile.

It was impossible.

He held her there, making sure her pale face wasn’t visible, and watched the flashlight disappear along with the soft thudding of the two men. He hoped they didn’t come across the bears. He didn’t want to be the one to clean up their remains in the park.

Three hours later, they were still there waiting silently and saw the flashlight come back, swinging in short movements, the anger and frustration in the two apparent in their tread.

He waited till he heard the vehicle start in the distance and drive away.

They’d be back in the daylight. He’d known hunters of their kind before.

‘Will you scream if I remove my hand?’ he asked the woman softly.

She kept stubbornly silent.

He waited patiently. He could outwait the Sphinx. After ten minutes he felt her nod.

He still didn’t remove his hand. ‘If you scream, chances are they’ll hear and come back, and then you’ll be in deeper trouble.’

She nodded again, and he removed his hand.

He stepped in front of her and looked at her closely for the first time.

She was a young woman, black or brown haired – too dark to make that out – and about five foot seven. She was slimly built, but he thought he could detect athleticism and muscle structure in her build.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘Who the hell are
you
?’ she countered, her voice trembling but strong.

‘I’m the man who saved you,’ he answered her simply.

She went silent for a long while.

‘I don’t know who I am.’

He waited for her to elaborate.

She said finally, in a small voice, ‘I’ve lost my memory.’