“Whoa there, old girl!” Mac looked at the dashboard instruments.
Lilburn, his concentration broken, looked up. “Problem?”
“Hope not. I thought I felt the engine give a bit of a hiccup, seemed like she was going to stop on me.”
Fifteen seconds passed then the same two keypad buttons were depressed once more from the pursuit car.
“Yep, there she goes again and I saw the engine light come on. Seems we lost power temporarily. As soon as we spot a place to pull off the road, I’ll take a look under the hood.”
Mac drove on, keeping a lookout for a safe spot to pull over. It came just under a mile later. Slowing down he turned the car into a graveled rest area located near a bend with a small, slow-flowing stream below. A picnic table sat underneath a high tin roof supported by timber poles. As Mac edged the car up to the table the motor stopped of its own accord and the vehicle came to an abrupt halt.
“Hell,” Mac said, as he placed the transmission in park and turned the key. “Nothing. Folks, I’m afraid to say the obvious, but we’ve come to a grinding halt. No power, nothing, not even a light showing on the dash.”
Lilburn turned around to Evangeline. “Good time to stretch our legs.”
Evangeline wandered over to the picnic table while Mac popped the hood, opened it up and peered into the engine bay. Lilburn stood beside Mac and watched as the older man poked and prodded a few wires. “Fuck, I wish I had my glasses! Matt, you see anything out of place?”
Lilburn copied Mac and placed both hands on the edge of the vehicle and perused over the hot motor. “Did you run out of gas?”
“No, I did not!” Mac was indignant, half expecting the wisecrack. “I filled up this morning. Besides, the electrical system seems to have shut down.”
“Hmm.” Lilburn pulled on a couple of wires.
“What do you think it is?”
“I think it’s not working.”
“Good, son… I see you know as much about cars as I do.”
The two men heard the crunching of gravel of an approaching vehicle. The light-blue car pulled up alongside them and came to a halt, the engine still running. The passenger’s window lowered. A man with a thick black mustache, tanned leathery skin and two slits for eyes spat out a wad of gum onto the gravel.
“Car trouble?”
Mac straightened himself. “Just a little. You know anything about engines?”
“Your lucky day. I fix things that go bad.” He placed a fresh wad of gum into his mouth and started chewing.
Lilburn watched the two strangers. Still leaning over the engine of the car he could see the two men. Both seemed cut from the same cloth, rough and tough. The driver, wearing a blue and white baseball cap, back to front, looked into his rear-vision mirror then out his side window — he seemed to be scanning the area — then opened his door. Lilburn saw an object in his hand. Shit!
“Mac! Look out!” He reached for his holstered weapon and had only managed to grab the grip as the man with the mustache thrust a machine gun out his window and sent a torrent of hot lead flying, which was then joined by automatic fire from the driver. McKenzie stood no chance as bullets ripped into his body, pulverizing flesh and bone. The impact sent him careering back into Lilburn, knocking him to the ground. The gunfire was incessant — bullets spraying through the air, hitting the sedan, the ground and Mac’s limp body, which jerked and spasmed.
Behind his human shield, Lilburn had been spared. Clawing, scraping, pulling, he maneuvered himself behind the car, away from the line of fire. He cocked the Sig 9 mm and thrust it forward under the vehicle’s chassis. The shoes and lower legs of the nearest attacker could be partially seen. Partial was good enough. The man dropped to the ground howling in pain, his machine gun clattering as it fell to the gravel. Lilburn could see the man’s eyes screwed up in agony, his lips pulled away from clenched teeth. Three 9 mm bullets from Lilburn shattered teeth and pulverized an eye. The back of the man’s head disappeared.
Evangeline screamed. She had been sitting at the picnic table with her eyes closed, her head back and drawing in the scent of the nearby water and forest. The initial gunfire startled her — she turned to see Mac’s horrifying death. Her brain didn’t even register Lilburn evading the hail of fire. Mac lay in a grotesque unnatural position. Bile rose and her internal organs heaved, and she bent over to vomit. Bullets cracked around her, splintering wood. Something locked onto her upper arm, dragging her to her feet.
“Move, move!”
Lilburn had hold of her with one hand, the other held the Sig and sent off a barrage of bullets in the direction of the cars. He had been counting his shots; ten fired, seven left. One enemy down, one covering behind the attacker’s car. Lilburn moved fast, pushing Evangeline ahead of him down a steep scrubby bank to the stream. Just as he was about to join her, a second vehicle came hurtling into the rest area. Gravel sprayed wildly as a grey SUV came to a halt, two further men entering the fray and peppering the ground beside Lilburn with bullets. This was no time to stand and fight. Lilburn jumped down the bank after Evangeline. He tripped and fell rolling over and over coming to rest in the stream. This time Evangeline helped him to his feet.
“Run for the trees!” Bullets sprayed the water around them sending up little fountains as the gunmen advanced. They left the knee-deep water behind, scrambling up an easy incline to where the tall trees crowded together. Lilburn shot wildly behind and upwards, providing life-saving covering fire. “Run, run, run!” The trees seemed to come at them from all directions, branches like stubborn bristles trying to trip them. Matt and Evangeline were forced to duck, weave, and jump. The gunfire from the bank across the river was intense, the barrage of lead blending into one god-almighty relentless noise. But while the odd bullet came uncomfortably close, none hit its intended mark.
“Keep going, don’t stop until I tell you.” Lilburn’s instructions were labored due to his heavy breathing, taking gulps of air into his lungs. Evangeline fell, tripping over a decaying branch. Lilburn pulled her to her feet, barely losing pace. The gunfire had stopped, the men seeing the futility of expending more ammunition. “OK, slow down. That’s it, breathe in deeply, through your nose and out through your mouth. Good girl. Keep walking in the same direction, don’t stop yet.” Evangeline in the lead, they made straight into the heart of the woodland, directly away from the killers. Lilburn acted as tail-end-charlie, watching, listening for any sign of their being followed. Luck appeared to be on their side. A few minutes into the thick cover he whispered, “Rest here.”
“My God, they killed Mac!” Evangeline’s chest heaved sucking in air.
Lilburn put a single finger up to his mouth. “Whisper.” He pulled out his cellphone. There was no time to let emotion take over, not now. “Lopez must have gotten word to someone.” His eyes darted from one object to the next. “Hopefully surveillance has it recorded. Christ knows why I wasn’t told. I need to phone Hall, let him know.” He looked down at the cell. The screen was black. He pressed the On button, just in case. “Shit!”
“Matt?”
“My phone’s screwed. It must have got dunked in the water. Have you got yours?”
“No, it’s in my handbag in the car.”
“Let’s move on. I noticed what looked like a quarry on our right just before we pulled up. Maybe five hundred yards. We’ll keep to this cover — so stick close to me. When I stop, you stop. OK?”
Evangeline nodded. Lilburn moved off at brisk walk, conserving energy, with Evangeline behind. With the gunfire over, the birds resumed their chatter, life and death an everyday event. Sunlight filtered down through the maples, oaks, white pine and hickory. Every so often, where the canopy above thinned, a small patch of the forest floor was bathed in light. The scent — earthy and totally devoid of human habitation — lingered. The environment was totally foreign to Evangeline, but not Lilburn. Every twenty or so yards, he stopped and listened, then it was every fifty yards. Lilburn stopped as he came across a stream. Most likely the same stream we scrambled across before. In the shadows he crouched down, waited and watched, then they crossed the cool, slow-moving water to regain the forest on the other side. Ahead he saw empty space where the tree line stopped; the quarry was nearby, a large open blot on the landscape, composed of raw earth and rocks.