His answer was a ragged, shallow gasp. His head rolled sideways.
“Shit!” I took off my own seat belt and twisted in the seat, keeping my gun in my right hand. Leaning across Joe, I peered out of his shattered window, up at the road. I saw nothing but a glistening curtain of rain. They’d be on their way, though. I couldn’t imagine that the crash would have killed the car’s occupants, and if they could move, they’d come down here to make sure their task was complete.
I lunged over the center console and into the backseat. There were bullet holes through the door, and the back windows were broken. This entire side of the car had been riddled with gunfire. Joe’s demand to be in the driver’s seat when we’d left the office was the only reason I hadn’t taken the shots instead of him. I didn’t waste time trying to open the door, but just rolled onto my back and kicked at the remnants of the window, knocking the jagged glass away. Then I braced my hands—one still wrapped around the butt of the Glock—against the seat and pushed my legs through the window. A piece of glass raked across my ass, but then I had my feet on the ground and twisted my torso out of the car.
For a moment I paused, leaning against the side of the car and looking up at the road. I could see the wrecked sedan now, crumpled against the far side of the bridge, and I heard a bang. Someone closing a door, or kicking one open. I spun and grabbed the handle of Joe’s door. It had been shot up, but it was intact and should open. When I tugged, though, it stuck. I reached through the broken window, ready to try to pull him out of it, but then I saw the lock was down. I pulled it up and tried the door again. This time it opened.
The door immediately began to swing shut because of the angle we were on, but I got my hip in front of it. Then I slid the Glock back into its holster and put both arms around Joe. He groaned when I lifted him, but I couldn’t take the time to worry about being gentle.
Lurching backward, I got his upper body out of the car. His knees hit the edge of the steering wheel and stuck, though. He shifted, kicking weakly against the seat, and then he was free, falling out of the car and onto the hill. I set him down as gently as possible, then let the door swing shut. There was more noise from the wreck on the bridge, and when I looked up, I saw a man moving through the rain.
I got my gun back in my right hand, then wrapped my left arm around Joe. He wasn’t heavy, maybe 170 at best, and I could drag him easy enough with one arm. His blood ran over my biceps as I pulled him, and he let out a gasp of agony. Slipping and stumbling down the muddy decline, I pushed us into the trees. As soon as I’d heard the door open up on the bridge, I’d known there was no point in attempting to use the car as shelter, or in trying to find a secure position around the trees. The guys on the road had automatic weapons. If they were in good enough condition to climb out of the car, they’d be in good enough condition to sit at the top of the hill and strafe us until there was nothing left for them to worry about.
We had to get into the river.
CHAPTER 26
The rain was still pouring down, turning Joe’s blood from crimson to pink as it flowed over my arm and slid down his jacket. His heels plowed furrows through the mud as I pulled him toward the river. Behind us, a burst of gunfire opened up, shredding the Taurus. The sound was tremendous, so loud I wanted to drop Joe and cover my ears. There was nothing discreet about this hit; the men on the hill cared about nothing other than the efficiency of their murder attempt.
The muddy bank was slippery, and the river shallow close to it, maybe three feet deep at best. The only deep water here would be in the pool out in the center, where the current was strongest, but any attempt to hide in the river was going to be suicide. They’d stand at the top of the bridge and fire down on us. Our best chance—only chance—was to use the bridge against them, get directly beneath it and force them to come down to the bank to have a shot at us.
I lowered Joe onto the bank, dropped to one knee, and turned to face the bridge. Then I fired six shots as quickly as I could get them off, shooting up at the car. I couldn’t see the gunmen, so I had little hope of hitting them, but I wanted them to hesitate as long as possible before crossing to the other side of the bridge where they’d have a clear shot at us. We needed every precious second if we were going to stay alive.
As soon as I got the shots off, I dropped to the ground beside Joe, pressing my cheek against the mud. It was a good decision. Hardly had I gotten prone before another burst of automatic gunfire, long and sustained, tore through the trees above us, blasting bark loose and shredding the leaves. When it was done, I counted off five seconds of silence before I sat up again. I put the Glock back in the holster but didn’t fasten it, then turned and lifted Joe in both arms. His face was ashen, but he grimaced and hissed between clenched teeth when I lifted him. It was as good a sign as I could hope for. You have to be alive to feel agony.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “But I don’t know another way to do this.”
That said, I used my heels to push us both off the bank and into the river. It was a clumsy way to enter the water, but we needed to stay low. I moved in a sort of backward shuffle, crablike, holding Joe with one arm and using my heels and free hand to push down the river bottom, staying in the shallow end close to the bank. I’d gone only ten feet when I sank into a pool, the water rising dramatically without warning, and Joe floated free from my grasp. I tried to kick my way back to the surface, but by the time I made it, he was several feet away, out in the deeper water, and sinking. I floundered toward him, going with the current, my soaked clothing and shoes dragging me down. My hand found his jacket. I heaved him upward and rolled onto my back, using my legs to kick against the soft bottom, and one arm to pull. I rolled Joe so he was on his back, too, his mouth and nose clear, and then I concentrated only on keeping him above water as I struggled for the bridge.
The torrential rain had the river rushing faster than normal, but it was still wide and sluggish here, the current lazy, and that meant it took a hell of a lot of effort just to get us under the bridge. We passed under the shadow of it just as gunfire riddled the trees where we’d been before. Joe wasn’t even attempting to kick or use his arms. He simply floated along, kept above water only by my efforts. That troubled me, and not just because his dead weight was making my struggle more difficult. Faced with disaster, instinct forces you to respond. You fight to stay alive, to the absolute limits of your physical ability. Joe’s complete lack of effort told me he was close to dead.
Gunfire again. This time I could hear only the reports, no sounds of impact. That meant they were shooting into the water. I’d pulled us back to the same side as we’d started from, and now I regretted that. When they realized we’d gone under the bridge, they’d make their way down the bank, and this side offered an easier approach. The opposite bank was much steeper, lined with trees and heavy underbrush, and coming down it would be difficult. After a moment of hesitation, I decided I had to try to get us across while they were still up on the bridge.
I pushed my heels hard off the river bottom and sent us back into the current, using my free arm in long, sweeping strokes. Halfway across, the water deepened so that I could no longer touch the bottom, and the strength of the current took me by surprise. What had seemed like such a sluggish water flow had some real power, and with Joe limiting my mobility, I was having trouble fighting it. If we got swept out from under the bridge and into the open on the other side, the decision to move for the other bank would become fatal.