“Go get your mama!” he said, knowing he was sending the dog to his death. “Get your mama, Cazador! Kill the motherfuckers!”
He smacked the big Chesapeake Bay retriever on the rump, and Oso took off up the slope. “I’m right behind you!”
The world began to spin again, and he fell over.
A short time later, a man screamed somewhere up over the rise. A few seconds after that, Oso let out a horrible cry of pain, and Gil experienced an adrenaline surge strong enough to bypass the scrambled circuitry in his brain. He shoved himself to his feet and drew his .45, scrambling clumsily up the trail.
73
Marie knew that Akram would eventually rape and kill her, so if she was going to survive, her only hope was to stall for time and pray that someone caught up to them.
She pretended to pass out and fell to the ground.
Akram didn’t waste any time playing her game. He delivered her another swift kick in the butt. “Get up!”
The blow hurt like hell, but she continued to feign unconsciousness.
“If you don’t get up,” he said calmly, “I’ll piss on your face.”
Marie certainly didn’t want that, but it was better than getting killed, so she continued to play opossum.
“Stupid bitch,” he muttered, reaching down to unzip his fly.
A dog snarled in the fog, and he turned just in time for Oso to slam into him full tilt, sinking his teeth into Akram’s groin and taking him to the ground, thrashing his head from side to side like a frenzied mako shark.
Akram screamed and stabbed at the furious animal’s head. The blade glanced off the dog’s skull, partially severing the ear, but Oso continued to thrash. Akram felt something pull free inside his scrotum, and he panicked, stabbing the dog again. This time the blade sank deep into the dog’s shoulder. Oso howled in pain and reeled away with the blade embedded to the hilt.
Akram rolled to his knees and reached to grab the TAC-50.
Too late, he saw Marie’s foot coming at his face. The toe of her boot caught him under the chin, and his head snapped back. He rolled over and caught her leg as she tried to kick him again, twisting her knee to bring her down and jumping up. He drew a Beretta from the holster at his side.
“Now I’m going to kill your fucking dog!”
“Machine gun — left flank!” a voice boomed through the fog at the top of the rise. “Kill anything that fuckin’ moves!”
Akram wheeled around, unable to see where the infrared binocular had fallen during his fight with the dog. Believing he might already be surrounded, he aimed the Berretta at Marie, but in the split second before pulling the trigger, he realized the report of the pistol would bring the enemy right down on his head, and he suddenly realized that he wasn’t yet ready to die for Allah. He holstered the weapon and grabbed up the TAC-50, taking off down the hill with one thought in mind: saving his hide. He gripped his groin as he ran to keep his injured testicles from jouncing around inside his trousers.
With the first signs of twilight now visible in the east, Gil appeared out of the fog gripping his 1911 pistol. He saw Marie sitting against a rock bound, gagged, and bleeding. He rushed to her side, pulling down the strip of cloth that held the gag in place and tossing her panties into the brush.
“Are you okay?”
“Thank God, you’re alive!” she sobbed, seeing the horrific wound to his head.
“Where are they, baby?”
“It’s just one. He took off down the trail. Cut me loose!”
Holding a small penlight in his teeth, he took a folding knife from his harness and carefully cut the bootlace from around her wrists. Her hands were purple and swollen.
“I can’t feel a thing,” she said, flexing her fingers. “I can barely move them.”
“They’re gonna hurt bad once the blood gets flowing.” He smoothed her hair back from her bloody, grime-covered face and kissed her.
“I’ll be back.”
“Forget him,” she said, grabbing his arm. “Help Oso. He’s over there in the scrub.”
Gil found Oso in the brush, lying on his side with the knife protruding from his shoulder. The dog was panting heavily, his heart was racing. Gil pulled the knife out slowly, and the dog whimpered, but once the blade was free, he rolled to his belly and got to his feet, holding the injured foreleg off the ground, licking Gil’s face, with his left ear hanging crookedly from the side of his head.
The sight of his battered wife and carved-up dog was enough to mitigate completely any and all ill effects the bullet had caused. Angrier than he’d been in his life, Gil stood and took an emergency flare from his harness, firing it into the air back toward the ranch. Then he pulled a strobe light from the same pouch and switched it on, setting it down on a rock.
“The team will be here soon. I’m goin’ after the cocksucker.”
“Don’t. He’s got that rifle.”
“I’ll shove it up his ass.”
“Where are the men you were shouting to?”
“There aren’t any.” He shrugged and smiled. “That was just an old Davy Crockett trick.” He crouched down to touch her face. “You gotta let me go kill this guy. He’s headed for the logging road, isn’t he?”
She nodded, touching his head wound, where she could see the white of his skull. “He said something about a truck.”
He got to his feet. “He’s takin’ the long way. I’ll get there ahead of him.”
She glanced down to see that a sizable chunk was missing from his boot. “What happened to your foot, baby?”
He grinned. “That little piggy went to market.”
74
By the time Akram stumbled from the trail and onto the logging road, he looked and felt like he’d just fought a running battle with a mountain lion. His face was torn and bleeding from crashing headlong through juniper thickets, and his injured testicles were throbbing. He ripped open the back door of a green Ford Excursion and tossed the TAC-50 onto the seat. He was reaching for the driver’s door a moment later when he realized that both tires were flat on that side of the vehicle. In disbelief, he looked over at the second truck to see that it had been disabled in the same fashion.
“Ain’t that a bitch?” Gil said, standing at the edge of the road twenty feet in front of the truck.
Akram looked up, shocked to see his enemy standing there in the dawning light bleeding from a head wound. He flexed the fingers of his gun hand, considering whether to go for the pistol, but he could see that Gil’s holster flap was loose, so he chose to wait, allowing the arrogant American time to make a mistake.
“I like seeing you bleed,” he said. “Your wife, she bleeds too. So does her mother.”
Gil stepped fully into the road. “Ever seen a Gary Cooper movie?”
Akram smirked and stood up straight, squaring himself to face Gil directly. “Even if you kill me, there will be another and another — always another until you and your wife are both dead.”
“Dog’s ass.”
Akram went for his pistol.
Gil jerked the 1911 and shot a hole through Akram’s wrist before he could even touch the Berretta.
Akram held his arm in shock, scarcely able to believe a human being could move so fast with such accuracy. He stood gaping at his left hand now dangling uselessly at the end of the radius bone, the end of the ulna shot completely away. His knees gave out, and he slumped against the fender of the Ford.
Gil came forward to take the Berretta from his hip, tossing it over his shoulder into the brush. He holstered the 1911 and stood looking at Akram, the heel of his hand resting on the butt. “I reckon you can guess what happens now.”