“No.” Her alternative suggestion came so fast that he knew she’d been trying to come up with a plan.
“I could go out and pretend to surrender. While they’re focused on me, you could circle around in back of them.”
He thought about the dangerous plan for a couple of seconds. If he didn’t care about her, it was a reasonable approach. Instead, he said, “No.”
“Why not?”
“You could get killed or captured.”
“I could anyway.”
He gave a harsh laugh. “Yeah. But you’ve got a better chance of getting away if you stick with me.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Get out the back and head for the river.” He looked at her purse. “Leave that here.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know how those guys got here. They didn’t follow directly behind us. I was checking for a tail, but your brother could have put a transponder in your purse. Was he alone with it at any time?”
“When I was changing my clothes.” She swallowed hard and laid the pocketbook on the counter. “I wasn’t thinking about anything like that.”
He went back and took a remote controller from the drawer where he’d gotten the goggles. At the side window again, he noted the position of the invaders, then pointed the device toward the front yard and pushed several buttons. Along the driveway and across the lawn, small explosions erupted.
“Surprise,” he muttered as he saw rocks and dirt fly into the air, along with one of the men who had been too close to one of the detonation points. He came down hard, while the other invaders ducked for cover in the tall grass and shrubbery.
Shane didn’t wait to find out how many of the bad guys he’d put out of commission. At this point, his goal was to slow them down enough to give himself and Elena a little more time to get the hell out of there.
He pulled his gun as he hustled her to the back of the house. There was no back door as such, but a large window had been designed to serve the same purpose. He looked out, sweeping the gun in a semicircle, not sure if any of the thugs had circled the house. In the moonlight, he saw no one.
“Looks like we’re okay, but wait until I make sure it’s safe,” he whispered as he pulled up the sash. He exited quickly, waiting for a bullet to slam into him, but apparently nobody had covered this side of the house, perhaps because there was no back door. After dropping a couple of feet to the ground, he turned and motioned for her to follow. Elena climbed out, wavering on her feet as she hit the ground. He caught her in his arms and steadied her.
He moved to the corner of the house, then pushed the buttons on the controller again—creating more explosions in the yard, this time on the back side of the property. He didn’t shoot because that would alert the men that he and Elena were out of the house.
As he waited for rocks and dirt to stop falling, he heard cursing, then low voices discussing what to do. The men didn’t know if he had more charges planted and where they were. In fact, there weren’t any more hidden land mines between them and the invaders.
While the invaders were regrouping, he led Elena down the path to the dock.
There was another gate where the pier met the land. He opened it, then closed it behind them as she followed him down the dock to a waiting speedboat.
He ushered her across the gap between the dock and the boat. “Get down.”
As she crouched in the rocking craft, he untied the mooring line, then moved to the front of the vessel and pressed the starter. The motor sprang to life, and they pulled away from the pier. But more shots came from the bank and also from out on the water.
Too bad. Apparently the attackers had been ready for an escape attempt from the rear of the property and had gotten at least one boat into position before mounting the attack on the safe house.
“We can’t get away,” Elena gasped as she saw the other boat closing on them with more speed than their own craft could muster.
“Can you swim?” Shane asked.
“Yes.”
“Okay, then. We’re going into the water,” he said. “Head for the left shoreline, where we came from.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll head the boat across the river. If we’re lucky, they’ll think we kept going, crashed into the bank, and got out on that side.”
He slowed the boat’s speed. “Go.”
Without any argument, she did as he asked, sliding over the side into the water. As soon as she was off the craft, he increased the speed again, heading for the far shore. When he was halfway across the river, he bailed out, hitting the water hard as the boat continued its wild ride through the dark water. Hopefully it wasn’t going to crash into anyone out for a midnight cruise.
Clear of the boat, he dove and swam underwater for several yards, then came up and struck out for the shore opposite where the boat had been headed.
He could hear more than one group of searchers in the water, circling around and shouting to each other. One craft followed the speedboat and the other stayed in position near where he’d gone over the side, ready to shoot if the men spotted him.
Diving again, he continued for the shore where they’d come from. When he surfaced, he didn’t see Elena, and he couldn’t call out to her. Maybe he wasn’t going to find her.
That thought make his chest tighten painfully. After taking Arnold Blake’s phone out of his pocket and dropping it toward the bottom in the river, he kept swimming toward the bank, following the same method of keeping mostly underwater. Finally his feet touched the muddy bottom, and he crouched low as he waded ashore.
Elena had learned to swim at the neighborhood pool when she was in grade school. It was another skill she’d thought of as “American.” But now she was thankful she’d insisted on lessons.
She ducked below the surface, striking out for the shore where they’d come from. When she needed air, she surfaced, looking around for the men who had come after them. It seemed like the chase had passed her by, but she was still cautious as she made for the edge of the river. When her feet finally touched the bottom, she crouched low, staying near the surface of the water, moving along the shoreline, and wondering where Shane was going to come up. Teeth gritted, she struggled to stay calm.
But that was difficult when she considered Shane’s dangerous maneuver. And the men chasing them. Men who had shown they would shoot first and ask questions later.
When her brother had come to her, he’d said he was in trouble. At the time, she hadn’t really understood how much trouble. She’d thought he might be exaggerating his predicament. Now she knew that the truth was far worse than she could have imagined. Alesandro was in a terrible spot, and she had to figure out how to help him—without betraying Shane. She’d put him in the middle of her problems, and she had to help him break free. Or them, actually, because she couldn’t kid herself. She was way out of her league.
Frustrated, Shane searched the water’s edge. Elena had bailed out first. Hopefully she had already reached the shore, but which way would she go? Downstream made sense because it was easier to move in that direction, and he didn’t think she’d head back toward the safe house that had only offered the illusion of safety.
“Good move coming down here,” he muttered to himself. He’d thought that putting distance between them and S&D would buy them some time. It hadn’t, and now they were in the river.
He looked back, seeing the boats in the water searching for him and Elena. Sometimes he still heard voices, but not close enough for him to make out what they were saying.
Trying to get out of their range, he kept heading downstream, keeping to the shoreline. Sometimes it was reinforced with barriers of large rocks to hold the soil in place. And sometimes there were marshy areas with cattails and other reeds.