“Get back here, Jack,” Troy yelled, pulling Ray around to the front of the van. “Get back here. Now!”
Jack obeyed his brother and bolted for the front of the van. Just as he turned the corner, another rifle shot blasted the night. The bullet blew past the van and caromed off the cemetery wall, pinging wickedly as it ricocheted off the stones and up into the air.
“Who was it?” Troy demanded again, this time pressing the barrel directly to Ray’s forehead. “I swear I’ll kill you if you don’t tell me.”
“Some Australian guy,” Ray babbled breathlessly. “He’s holed up in West Virginia, in some town called Harpers Ferry, I think. He’s got a lot of badass people with him. That’s what Kyle said.”
“Who’s Kyle?”
“My partner.”
“What’s the Australian’s angle in all this?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know. We were just supposed to deliver the boy and the woman. I swear I don’t know anymore than—”
“He’s moving again!” Jack yelled. Footsteps were crashing through the woods from the left. In a few seconds the person out there was going to have another shot at them.
“What’s the big picture?” Troy demanded again, hauling the kidnapper to the passenger side. “What’s the Australian doing?”
“I don’t know, I swear.”
Another bullet blasted past Jack just as he darted around the front right corner of the van to the passenger side. “Ask him where Karen is. Damn it, Troy, come on!”
“What’s going on in Harpers Ferry?” Troy hissed, ignoring Jack. “Tell me!”
The next bullet from the woods shattered the driver’s side window.
“Jesus Christ,” Jack muttered as he ducked instinctively. “We’re gonna get killed out here.”
Turning the tables on the shooter in the woods suddenly seemed like the best option — the only option. So he sprinted along the passenger side of the van, away from the cemetery and toward the woods.
Jack broke from behind the van, running as fast as he could, expecting at any moment to take a bullet for the second time today before he reached the tree line, which was thirty yards in front of him. If he could reach the trees, he just might have a chance to take the shooter down from close range.
He dove the last few yards into the woods, tumbled head over heels once, scrambled to his knees, crawled behind the trunk of a large elm, and gazed up the tree line toward the general area where the last bullet had exploded from. The moon had reappeared from behind the clouds, and now he had a decent view of the open ground between the van and the forest. If anyone ran for the van he’d see him.
Above the sounds of Troy yelling at the kidnapper, footsteps crashing across dead leaves reached Jack’s ears. They were off to the left, deeper in the woods, slowly receding.
Jack headed deeper into the forest, dodging tree trunks as they loomed in front of him. He made his way along quickly but warily, both hands clasped tightly around the Glock’s handle as the gun’s barrel led him through the forest. Even as he was whipped in the face by the low branches of smaller trees, he kept track of the other person’s progress, intensely focused on all sights and sounds. Praying the entire time that only one other person was out here, because if there was a third enemy in this battle, he could be walking straight into an ambush.
The footsteps stopped suddenly — and an instant later, so did Jack. He stood statue-like among the trees, holding his breath as he strained to pick up any clue, visual or audible. It was so quiet out here — no sounds from the van, either. The other person could be a hundred feet away — or behind the next tree. He had no idea.
Shouts from the direction of the van broke the stillness. He recognized Troy’s voice, and then a gunshot exploded from the same direction.
Jack took a quick step that way, but then footsteps began crashing through the forest off to his left again. He turned and followed the footsteps, skirting trees, trying to stay with whoever was running ahead of him, making certain those footsteps ahead of him kept going, making certain he wasn’t mistaking his footsteps for the ones he was chasing so he wouldn’t run straight into that ambush.
Twenty yards ahead an engine roared to life, and then taillights and headlights flashed on. Jack raced for the lights and the sound of the engine, breaking through a thick line of sticker bushes with a painful shout and then out onto a dirt road. He sprinted for the lights until he was so close to the vehicle that he recognized the silhouette as an Explorer.
The back tires spun wildly in the dirt as the driver jammed the accelerator to the floor, spattering Jack with a shrapnel cloud of mud and pebbles as he closed in on the back bumper. The truck dove into a huge pothole as it fishtailed forward and then hit a rock coming out of the chasm, sending the vehicle flying into the air and crazily to one side.
Someone in the back shrieked as the Explorer dropped back down and careened ahead.
It was Karen. The shriek had been faint, but Jack would have recognized her voice anywhere. It was her — no question.
“Karen, Karen, I’m coming. Hold on, sweetheart!”
He dodged several more potholes and raced up the passenger side of the truck as the engine revved loudly and the tires spun. He was almost to the back door, his fingers were only inches from the handle, when the driver veered sharply to the right, hitting him and sending him flying into the underbrush paralleling both sides of the dirt road.
By the time Jack had torn himself out of the sticker bushes and staggered back to the road, the Explorer was forty yards down the dirt lane and racing away.
Shane Maddux stole along the driveway and through the darkness toward the cabin he and Bill Jensen had been holed up in for the last nine months. He’d parked his jeep back up the gravel lane, about halfway to the main road, because something didn’t feel right. And over the years, Maddux had learned to trust his gut unfailingly.
As he neared the log structure, he realized his instinct had been correct — again. A light was on in his bedroom, and though the blind was down, he could clearly make out a figure moving around in there.
He pulled his gun from his belt, moved through the shadows to the back of the cabin, and slid his key soundlessly into the lock.
A few steps inside and the scent of wood smoke he loved about the place rushed to his nostrils. A turn to the left, seven more paces down a narrow hallway, and he reached his closed bedroom door.
Maddux hesitated for a few moments, listening, and then burst into his bedroom. Bill wheeled around, throwing his hands in the air as Maddux aimed the gun straight at him. Bill had been leaning over the bed, studying a notepad that he’d removed from a small, open safe that was on Maddux’s bed beside the notepad. Maddux had kept that safe hidden in an alcove of his closet, covered by blankets.
“What are you doing?” Maddux demanded.
Bill nodded solemnly down at the notepad. “This is over the top, Shane, even for you.”
“How did you open the safe? Who gave you the combination?”
“No one gave me anything. It wasn’t hard to figure out the digits. I entered one-eight-three-seven. That’s R-C-7. It opened right up when I did.” Bill shook his head as he brought his hands slowly down to his sides. “I never thought you’d be so predictable.”
“You just made a very big mistake, Bill. Now I have to kill you. Now I have to—”
The bullet blew through Maddux’s chest, tearing apart one lung and part of his heart as the single hollow-point round exploded on impact.
Maddux collapsed to the floor, and Bill was on him in an instant, grabbing the pistol and ripping it from his clenched, white-knuckled fingers. “Get out of here,” he muttered over his shoulder.