The loud report was a starter pistol for Jack—he was off to the races. As he ran he saw a spray of red from the exit wound in Thomas's back and heard Alicia scream. Then another shot, half as loud as Baker's, as Thomas's pistol went off. Kemel grunted and clutched his abdomen. Thomas and the Arab hit the floor about the same time.
Jack ducked past the one called Kenny and grabbed his Tec-9 before he could bring it to bear. The assault pistol fired a line of slugs through the ceiling as Jack tried to wrench it away, but the merc had the strap wrapped around his forearm like a good soldier and it wouldn't come free. Jack had to settle for putting him down with an elbow to the face.
And then Jack was through the door, cutting hard to the left and heading down the slope for the trees. The path to the Taurus was off to his right across the clearing, but all that open space would make him an easy target. The trees were closer down the slope. They'd provide cover as he worked his way around to the car.
The clouds had thickened overhead, darkening the afternoon sky. He remembered that this was one of the shortest days of the year. The light would be fading fast. And that could only help him.
More gunfire behind him, and another scream from Alicia. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw Yoshio pop through the door going full tilt, his arms and legs pumping wildly as he veered toward Jack. And his empty hands showed he'd had as much luck as Jack in capturing a weapon.
Jack reached the trees then and had to slow because of the underbrush and the branches. He put the six-inch trunk of an oak between the cabin and himself and stopped. Crouching in the brush, he looked back. Yoshio was almost down the slope to the trees—the guy was fast—when the merc called Barlowe leaped through the door and started firing.
"Come on," Jack whispered as Yoshio began weaving left and right. "Come on!"
And then Yoshio let out a short, sharp cry and went down, clutching his thigh. But still he kept crawling toward the trees. Baker and Kenny joined Barlowe as he caught up to Yoshio and planted a boot in his back, pinning him to the ground.
Jack watched Baker give some orders. Barlowe and Kenny split, one to the right, the other left.
Good move, Jack thought. These guys were experienced. Kenny's heading would cut Jack off from the car while Barlowe circled around to get behind him.
Jack held his ground, watching Baker who remained behind with Yoshio. He saw him say something to the prone man, then bend and position his pistol about an inch from the back of Yoshio's head.
Jack pounded back the urge to shout, to charge—he was too far away to do any good. He heard a 9mm crack! and saw Yoshio's body jerk, spasm, then lie still.
Jack closed his eyes and swallowed, then took a deep breath and opened them. Yoshio's body lay facedown where he'd fallen, and Baker was walking back toward the cabin like a gardener who'd just pulled an annoying weed and left it lying on the lawn.
Jack had kind of liked Yoshio, even though he'd only spoken to him that one time in the car. Some sort of kinship there; he thought they'd both sensed it. But Yoshio was no innocent bystander. He was a killer by his own admission. And he'd known the risks.
But still… the way Baker had seemed to relish that head shot…
Okay, Jack thought. Now we know the rules of the game.
And from what he'd gathered from Baker's comments back in the cabin, a bullet through the brain might be a blessing compared to what the mercenaries wanted to do to him if they caught him.
The prospect of capture was like a clump of these cold wet leaves slapped between his shoulder blades. Bad enough to have two well-armed goons after him anywhere, but out here, in the woods… this was about as far from his home turf as he could get. What did he know about the great outdoors? He'd never even been a Cub Scout.
One thing Jack knew: He had to move.
To his right he heard Barlowe crashing through the underbrush. Jack sensed the contempt behind all that racket: I've got a cool assault pistol with thirty-two rounds in its clip, and the jerk I'm after ain't got dick. So why bother with sneaking around? I'll make as much noise as I can and flush him out like a pheasant. Then I cut him down and drag his carcass back home.
Keeping low, Jack took advantage of all the noise and began making his own way through the brush, moving away but on an angle he figured would eventually intersect Barlowe's path. He wished it were summer, or spring at least—with all this growth in bloom, it would be a cinch to hide until nightfall evened the odds a little. At least his sweater was mostly brown, but the light blue of his jeans wasn't exactly an earth tone. With everything bare like this, sooner or later—probably sooner—they'd spot him.
His foot caught on a vine, and he fell, landing on a slim path through the brush. He had a close-up view of its packed soil, pocked with hoofprints. Jack knew next to nothing about hunting, but he'd lay odds this was some sort of deer trail. He disengaged his foot from the tough, flaky-barked vine strands—the underbrush was laced with the wiry stuff—and got to his feet. The path seemed to head in the same general direction he was going, so he followed it.
The trail allowed him to move faster. He stopped every so often to get a fix on Barlowe's racket, and figured the merc ought to be crossing the deer trail soon himself. Would Barlowe be able to resist the path of least resistance? Jack doubted it.
Which meant he should set up somewhere along here.
7.
"Broadcast power, huh?"
Alicia watched Baker from her spot in the corner by the filing cabinets as he paced up and down before the banks of electronic equipment.
He'd wanted to know what it did—"What is all this shit, anyway?" as he put it—and she'd told him. Why not? She didn't care who knew. She just wanted to keep him distracted from her, and herself distracted from the bodies on the blood-spattered floor.
Thomas was gone. So quickly. One moment he'd been standing there talking, the next he was dead. She tried to dredge up some grief, but could find none. Compassion… where was her compassion for someone who shared half her genes, even if it was the wrong half?
Gone. Like Thomas. And what did genes mean anyway? Why should you care for a poor excuse for a human being just because you share some genetic material?
But even Thomas deserved better than to be shot down like a dog.
"Wireless electricity," Baker said, rubbing his jaw. "Christ, that's got to be worth—"
A moan snapped Alicia's attention to the floor. The Arab, the one Thomas had called Kemel, was moving, curling into a fetal position as he clutched his bloody abdomen.
"Please," Kemel moaned, his voice barely above a whisper. "I must have a doctor."
Baker waggled his pistol at Alicia and then the Arab. "You're a doctor, right? Fix him."
"With what? He needs a hospital."
"Check him, dammit!"
"All right."
Alicia stepped over to Kemel and knelt beside him. From this angle, she could see Thomas's gun on the floor next to his body. Baker couldn't see it from where he stood. But it was far beyond Alicia's reach. Still, it was good to know it was there.
She stiffened as she saw one of Thomas's hands open and close. She glanced at his face and saw his eyes open, stare unseeingly for a moment, then close again.
Still alive, she thought, but not for much longer.
The Arab cried out when Alicia tried to roll him onto his back, so she was forced to examine him on his side. Gingerly—all her experience with infectious diseases screamed warning at the very possibility of contacting blood—she pulled his hands away from his wound. She saw the hole in the crimson wetness of his shirtfront, saw the blood oozing from it, caught the fecal odor.
Her mind ran the probabilities: perforated intestine, internal bleeding but aortic and renal arteries probably intact or he'd be dead by now. And there was absolutely nothing she could do to help him.