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“I don’t know. I was working in the camp when all of a sudden my arm felt like it had been ripped from its socket. I only heard the shot after the bullet hit me.”
“Long gun,” Bell said. “Rifle. And then?”
“I grabbed your pistol and took cover here. When I tried to peer outside, the gunman fired again right away.”
“So, we’re pinned down. When did this happen?” Even as he was talking, Bell worked open the nuts holding his helmet to the suit’s collar.
“Not long after you entered the mine. I’d say no more than five minutes.”
Holding firmly onto his pistol, Bell dropped to his hands and knees, effectively hiding himself in the swift current. He made it to the mine entrance and anchored himself as best he could so water boiled around him like he was a boulder in a stream. He scanned the surrounding mountains and focused in on those places that he considered ideal for a sniper to cover the mine. He soon spotted movement at one of them. It was a good hundred and twenty yards away, and the gunman would be firing downslope. Not the easiest shot to make. A gust must have pushed the bullet just off enough so it hit Tony’s shoulder and not his heart, which was certainly the assassin’s target.
Bell considered his options. They were limited. Wait until nightfall and sneak out in the dark. But Tony was in no shape to sneak and very well might be dead by then. Option B was to hunt the shooter himself. Going up against a rifle while carrying only a pistol in somewhat open terrain made option B as unpalatable as option A, but there really wasn’t a third option.
He started pushing himself back against the current, moving slowly so he wouldn’t alert the sniper, when Bell noticed something out of the ordinary at their camp. Tony said he was working when he was shot. Bell recalled him readying the booster charges and laying them in a wooden box. The log he’d used as a seat was right where it had always been, but the box was nowhere to be seen.
Bell’s heart seemed to swell inside his chest cavity as an overdose of adrenaline spurted into his bloodstream. The gunman need only keep them pinned long enough for his accomplice to finish rigging the explosives they’d planted the day before. His helmet dangled past his waist from its hose. He hastily threw it over his head as he strained to get back to the bench where Tony lay sprawled. He tightened only a couple of the nuts to secure the helmet. He grabbed the Englishman and bodily rolled him into the freezing water.
Tony cried out in pain.
Bell ignored the other man’s agony. “Take a deep breath.”
“What?” His face was awash in confusion.
“Breath. Deep. Now.”
No sooner had Tony filled his lungs than Bell dunked him underwater, holding on to him so they were chest to chest, and then he let the current grab them both like leaves in a gutter.
They burst out of the mine in a flash. Bell knew his back was showing above the surface but hoped that such an unusual sight would keep the assassin confused long enough for them to get clear. Instead of shooting at them, he fired two unaimed shots in rapid order. A signal to his partner. Seconds later, the area above the entrance to the Little Angel Mine erupted like the granite rock was no more solid than a bubble breaking the surface of a lake. Tons of rock were lifted into the air and then came crashing back down, grinding and gnashing, collapsing in a smoky, dusty storm.
A house-sized chunk of the mountain slid down to engulf the mine entrance and stanch the flow of water with one final tsunami-like surge. Pelted by rocks and debris, Bell and Tony suddenly accelerated in the channel the water had cut over the past week as it wended out of the hills. They twisted and tumbled, Tony’s bad shoulder doubtlessly taking additional punishment, but they presented such a chaotic target that the gunman couldn’t get a bead on them.
Bell clutched the Englishman as tightly as possible, finally taking a moment to poke his head out of the water to see how far they’d come. They’d almost overshot their target. The stream made a sharp bend around some rocks too big to dislodge. They were almost there. Bell braced, and as soon as he felt the stream’s flow begin to turn to his right, he stood, still holding Tony Wickersham, and let momentum throw them from the water and over the rocks and into a shallow depression behind them. The maneuver had been so sudden that the shooter fired seconds after Isaac and Tony had landed safely in the boulders’ shadow. A pair of bullets hit one of the stones and ricocheted harmlessly away.
It took a moment to straighten Tony’s limbs and see that he was still breathing, though no a
mount of shaking or prodding roused the man from unconsciousness. Bell worked his way out of the rebreather mask and shucked all his bulky gear, much of it smashed by their headlong tumble. His concern was Wickersham. Without proper heat and a change out of his wet clothes, the man would be dead soon, even without the fresh blood oozing from his ravaged shoulder.
The only thing Bell could do now is hunt the gunman and his accomplice and then tend to Tony’s needs. He checked the .45’s magazine and saw he had six rounds. Tony must have laid down some cover fire for himself as he escaped into the Little Angel. He crawled backward, away from the boulder redoubt and out of the sniper’s line of sight.
Bell liked neither his choices nor his odds, but he never hesitated. He followed the shallow curve around the hillside. There was no place to holster his weapon, so he carried it as he moved. He balanced speed with stealth, thinking about Tony lying in a ditch in wet, freezing clothes. There at least remained a little warmth from the sun.
The ground was mostly crushed mine waste, so it was exceptionally sharp and jagged. Soon Bell’s suit was in tatters, and the palms of his hands bled and his knees felt like someone had smashed each with a sledgehammer. In time, he reached a point where he was shielded from the sniper’s position by the natural slope of the land and he got to his feet and started climbing the steep hillside. He made certain each footfall was precise so he wouldn’t dislodge loose rocks and cause a mini avalanche and blow his approach.
Bell, aware of his surroundings, eyeballed a gulley entrance that merged with his own and considered the possibility of the accomplice trudging in the same direction to meet his partner.
And it happened.
The man rounded the corner, walking like someone who hadn’t a care in the world because he hadn’t seen his quarry emerge from the mine. He hadn’t heard the two shots either because he’d stood so close to the blast his ears still rang.
With people willing to protect the secret of the Little Angel disaster, Bell was in a position to need questions answered. Bell had the pistol up and the sights centered on a crease between the man’s eyebrows. He had the drop on the guy. “Freeze.”
The man jumped at the sound of Bell’s voice and went ashen when he realized his predicament. For some reason, he looked behind himself and up the hill.
“Hands up.” Bell emphasized the order by flicking his pistol’s barrel up and down.
Just as his hands went up, a second man emerged from the gulley. He was large, with a shaved head, and he reminded Bell of a circus strongman but without the charm. There was an aura of menace about him.
The man had his gun cradled low across his hips and wasted no time raising it. He twisted to bring the barrel to bear on Isaac Bell. Bell shifted his aim and fired a fraction too quick and missed, but the rifleman reconsidered his plan. He leapt back out of sight and then fired. But he wasn’t aiming at Bell. His bullet hit the first man, his accomplice and partner, just to the left of his spine in line with the heart. The round emerged, the man thrown forward a good five feet by the impact of the heavy copper bullet.
