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She saw the fear in his eyes and said quickly, “Nothing much, don’t worry. Duke fixed me up.”
Duke said, “A rock shard speared her. I pulled it out. Now we need what’s left in the first-aid kit. Any alcohol?”
“No,” Jack said, “but we’ve got some more alcohol gauze pads. Hold still.” He cleaned the wound with a sterile gauze and water from his canteen. He heard her hiss, but she said nothing, made no other sound, only watched the bloody water run down onto the rocky ground. “Now, some antibiotic ointment and I’ll get you bandaged.”
When he was done, he studied her face a moment, then looked to Chief. “You guys need to stay here, hidden. Duke and I will track them.”
Wrong thing to say. “What? You want me to smack you in the head? Forget it, Jack. Chief is badly wounded, I’m not. I want to get these bastards as much as you do.”
Jack looked at Chief, who sighed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I can move, but I’d slow you down. I’ll be fine by myself. Know what I think? These people aren’t stupid. I don’t think they expected to kill all of us. They wanted to bring one of us down with a serious wound, force all of us to stop. So you guys have to move out now.”
Jack nodded. “And they targeted you. Like I said, if you hadn’t leaned down the instant they fired, you would have been gut-shot and that would have stopped us in our tracks.”
Duke said, “I still think they’re headed to Clover Bottom Creek Road, about two miles from here. There’s a private airstrip about five miles to the east of there. Now that they know we’re behind them, they’ll get someone here fast to pick them up and drive them to the airstrip. They could be in Virginia in under an hour.”
Jack said, “Then we don’t need to track them, we want to get to that road the fastest way you know.” Jack saw Chief was holding his side, breathing light, shallow breaths, in obvious pain. “Chief, we’ll be back as soon as we can.”
Chief didn’t like it, but his side hurt like a bitch and he knew he couldn’t keep up. “Duke, you need to make some calls on the run, get men to barricade Clover Bottom Creek Road. Go, guys; get those bastards for me.”
They left their backpacks with Chief, no more need for them now, and they would move much faster through the shrubs and the twisting terrain without the weight. The pain in Cam’s arm eased to a dull throb, one of the benefits of her adrenaline rush, as they hiked as quickly as they could through the rocky terrain.
Twenty minutes later, Jack stopped, raised his fist. They gathered around him to look through the trees down at Clover Bottom Creek Road.
27
They heard a car horn blast three times, then a moment later heard it screech to a halt. Jack yelled, “It’s their pickup! Let’s move!”
As they burst onto Clover Bottom Creek Road, they saw an old black Chevy Tahoe accelerating fast away from them. Jack ran to the middle of the road, Cam beside him, and fired at the back tires. A rear tire exploded, and the Tahoe jerked hard left, but the driver managed to straighten it out, now riding on a rim, the metal grating and sparking off the rocky dirt road.
They ran after it, still shooting, Jack shoving in another magazine until the Tahoe, lurching madly, pulled around a corner and disappeared from sight.
They ran around the bend to see the Tahoe stopped, facing two sheriffs’ Crown Vics blocking the road, four officers standing behind open doors for protection, guns in their hands.
Cam punched Jack in the arm, winced, gave him a big smile. “We’ve got them!”
They were nearly to the Tahoe when they heard a helicopter.
More police? No, Duke hadn’t called for air support. He heard one of the barricade cops shout, “The SUV is empty! Only the driver!”
They heard the helicopter setting down somewhere behind them. Jack shouted, “The truck’s a decoy!” and took off running back down the road, Cam and Duke behind him.
Jack rounded the curve, Cam on his heels as Manta Ray and his two keepers climbed into a helicopter that had landed in the middle of the road. The helicopter lifted off as the big man climbed in last, still standing on the skids.
The helicopter hovered, trying to remain steady enough for the big man to climb in, but he saw them, grabbed the doorframe, and fired. Bullets kicked up dirt inches from Jack’s feet. He yelled at Cam to take cover, took aim, and fired several rounds. Red bloomed on the big man’s shirt and the gun went flying, thudding onto the dirt road.
They watched him try to pull himself in with one arm through the helicopter doorway, saw the outline of someone trying to help him, but his hand was slippery with blood and he lost his hold. He tried to gain purchase on the helicopter skids, but again slipped off. In that instant, he looked down, arms flailing, and met Jack’s eyes. He fell, twisting and turning and screaming, forty feet to the dirt road. He landed hard and didn’t move. Cam’s stomach turned. She wouldn’t soon forget that sound. She looked up to see a woman leaning out of the helicopter staring down at them. Or at her dead partner, Cam didn’t know which.
Cam would swear she gave them a little wave as the helicopter flew away.
“She thinks she’s won,” Cam said, and kicked a rock with her boot. It sent a shaft of pain through her arm. She cupped her elbow, her Glock dangling from her fingers. Duke came running up. “The Tahoe driver waited until he spotted us, then he went into his act to get us out of the way.” He stopped dead in his tracks, stood perfectly still, staring at the dead man in the middle of the road. “That’s—bad.”
Jack’s hard voice brought him back. “Duke, what’s going on back there?”
Duke looked away from the body. “One of the sheriff’s deputies knows the guy in the Tahoe. His name is Clyde Chivers, a local. Said he was driving to McKee, that’s a very small town down the road, when three people came running out of the trees, stepped out onto the road, and started firing after him. They got one of his back tires, nearly totaled his Tahoe, and he could have been killed. He wants to sue you guys.”
Cam said, “Chivers was a tool. I’ll give my lucky Susan B. Anthony if they told him much, but still, he’s worth talking to. Let’s threaten to throw him in an FBI dungeon for fifty years.”
Jack nodded toward the dead keeper. “Let me see if he’s got any ID on him. Duke, is this the same sheriff we notified about the murdered hiker?”
