Gant lifted his left leg, grabbed the slim knife out of the ankle sheath with his left hand. He slammed the point into Payne’s throat and was rewarded with a spray of blood that completely blinded him. Payne went to his knees, the prosthetic hand pulling Gant down also. As Payne fell over backward dead, the hand still maintained the same pressure, the mechanical sensors receiving no change in nerve messages from the dead arm it was attached.
Gant floundered about like a dying fish, jammed the knife into the mechanical hand, trying to cut something.
Then it all went dark.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Back us off,” Neeley ordered the pilots. The barrel of the .50 caliber machinegun was red hot. The steeple was now nothing more than an abbreviated stump on the top of the church itself.
“Gant?” she called out on the tactical frequency. “Gant? Do you hear me, damn it?”
There was no reply. She looked at Golden. “Contact Finley.”
“Hammer this is Falcon.”
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill this bitch right now?” Finley snarled in reply.
“Because you still want Paul Roberts and Cranston,” Golden said.
“Fuck Cranston. That was Forten’s thing. And you just appear to have made mince meat of him.”
“What about Payne?” Golden asked.
“What about him?”
“Doesn’t he want Cranston?”
There was a moment of silence.
“Cranston and Roberts. Right on main street. Then you back that fucking chopper away or your girl ends up like Forten.”
Neeley nodded when Golden looked at her. “All right,” Golden said. “We’re coming in.”
“Gant?” Neeley called out on the tactical frequency. “Where the hell are you?”
Someone was tearing at his throat. That was the first conscious thought Gant had. He tried to reach up and defend himself, but whoever it was, batted his hands away and kept jerking his throat from side to side.
Then suddenly he felt nothing on his throat and blessed oxygen pouring in as he gasped for breath.
Gant blinked, blinded by the light, only seeing a silhouette over him. A person. Long hair. He shook his head, ears ringing as his brain tried to come back up to speed.
A half-naked girl. Dirty, grimy, haggard. And in her hands was the prosthesis that had been choking Gant. It all came rushing back to him as he took deep, steady breaths. He sat up and stared at the girl, who stared back at him with a half-wild look in her eyes.
Gant unbuckled his combat harness and pulled off his fatigue shirt and offered it to her. She eyed it warily for a second, then took it and slipped it over her shoulders.
And then she began to cry. Huge wracking sobs.
Gant reached forward and pulled her into his chest. “It’ll be all right, Emily,” he whispered, even though he knew it was a lie.
“Gant?” Neeley glanced at Golden and Bailey who were as mystified by Gant’s last transmission as she was. “You ok?”
“Emily’s with me,” Gant said in a hoarse voice.
“Pull up,” Neeley yelled to the pilot as they were about to touch down on main street.
The chopper shuddered as the pilot gave it power. They swooped over the destroyed steeple and Neeley could see spatters of blood and what appeared to a severed arm among the ruins.
“What the hell are you doing?” Finley’s voice came over the FM freq.
Golden raised her eyebrows at Neeley, indicating she wasn’t sure how to reply. Neeley switched her transmit frequency to the same one Golden was on. “The game has changed, asshole.”
“Who the fuck is this?” Finley demanded.
“There’s a fifty-fifty chance I’m the person who is going to kill you,” Neeley said.
“I’ve got the girl. Back off. Give me Roberts and Cranston.”
“You got nothing,” Neeley said.
“Give them to me or she dies now,” Finley warned.
“Let me check with my partner.” Then she turned off the transmitter.
Gant had his breath back although it hurt to talk. Emily Cranston was still crying, wrapped in his shirt, her arms tight across her chest. He was scanning the immediate area, knowing they still had Finley out there somewhere. He’d heard Neeley’s exchange with the man over the tactical frequency and considered the situation.
“Where did they have you?” Gant asked Emily.
She sniffled and raised her head up slightly. “The water tower by the rail tracks. Inside.”
Gant remembered seeing it on his way down. He had no doubt that Finley was somewhere relatively close to the tower.
“How did you get out?” he asked.
“I used my bra wire to undo the shackle, then my shoe and shirt to climb over the top, then I climbed the ladder down. I saw you pass by with your parachute and followed.”
Gant stared at the girl, amazed at what she had accomplished. He keyed the radio to talk to Neeley. “I’ve got Emily and she’s ok. She was being held in the old water tank near the railroad tracks. Do you see it?”
“Roger that.”
“I bet Finley is somewhere close to there,” Gant said. “I got a suggestion.”
“Go ahead.”
The only expression Bailey showed when Neeley relayed Gant’s suggestion was a slight rise in his eyebrows, then he nodded. “All right.”
Bailey turned to Cranston and Roberts. “Finley is out there. He was holding your daughter in the old water tower. We’ve taken out Forten and Payne.” He leaned over and opened a plastic case and removed two pistols. “You get these. Then you take out Finley.”
Neeley reached over and cut the men’s flex cuffs after ordering the chopper to set down on the near side of town at the end of the main street. “Finley,” she said into the boom mike.
“I’m waiting.”
“We’re dropping Roberts and Cranston off at the end of main street. Let the girl go.”
“When I see them,” Finley said. “And I want you and that chopper and fucking machinegun to back way off.”
“No problem,” Neeley said.
The Blackhawk’s wheels touched down and Bailey gestured for the two to get off. As soon as they were out, he tossed the guns out and the chopper took off once more.
“Stay here,” Gant told Emily. They were in the back store room of what used to be a diner. They’d heard the chopper come in relatively close and Gant had considered taking her to it, but decided against it as it appeared Finley still thought she was in the water tower and that was a big advantage.
Emily nodded and sat down in an old rickety chair. Gant went through the open door to the front part of the store, staying in the shadows. He then crawled over to one of the booths and slid in, peering out the window. He could see Roberts and Cranston standing in the main street arguing, pistols in their hands.
Gant could well imagine what the fight was about: Roberts would want to save himself and Cranston would want to save Emily and face down the man behind her kidnapping.
The arguing ended when a voice yelled down the street. “This way.”
Gant twisted his head, but he couldn’t see who had called out, although he knew it had to be Finley. Glancing back, he could see Cranston and Roberts split up, one to each side of the street, keeping close to the buildings, weapons at the ready as they headed down toward the rail line at the end of the street.
“That’s far enough.”
Gant turned his head to the right and saw a man standing in the middle of the street, a sub-machinegun in one hand, a small black box in his other.