by Tate, Harley
Chapter Twelve
WALTER
Access Road
Truckee Mountain Hospital
Truckee, CA
3:00 p.m.
“The F-150 is doing the job.” Walter watched the truck in front of them scrape the road free of slush and ice. After some trial and error, Ben and Craig managed to lower the snowplow attached to the front end low enough to scrape most of the ice off the road. It wasn’t fast work, but it beat sliding off the road and into a ditch.
Larkin didn’t share Walter’s enthusiasm. “I’ll believe it when we get there in one piece.”
Walter exhaled and dipped his head low enough to catch sight of Brianna’s canary-yellow Jeep behind them. They were driving like a convoy. Ben and Craig in the lead, U-Haul with Larkin and Walter in the cab in the middle, and Brianna and Madison taking up the rear in the Jeep. Colt sat in the back of the U-Haul, sandwiched between boxes of medicine as a last line of defense.
“Even if we make it to Ben’s place, that doesn’t mean the medicine is safe.” Larkin glanced over at Walter. “We were attacked at the Cliftons’ and it’s more secluded than the Jacobsons’ farm.”
“You think we should store it somewhere else?”
Larkin shrugged. “I don’t know. But keeping it all in one place doesn’t sit well with me. I’d prefer to split it up.”
Walter saw the point and the two began brainstorming options for storage. While they talked, Ben’s F-150 cleared the road out of the commercial district, and onto Northwoods Boulevard. The U-Haul’s engine groaned as they began the ascent up the mountain.
Larkin pressed on the gas and ground his teeth together. “The rear tires are slipping.”
“Can you keep it on the road?”
“I sure as hell hope so.” He sat straighter in the seat. “Last thing I want to do is unload a bunch of medicine in the middle of a snowbank with this wind.”
Walter reached for the armrest and held on as Larkin eased the truck into a curve. As they came out of it, the F-150’s brake lights flashed three times as it came to a stop.
“What the—?” Larkin leaned closer to the windshield. “Please tell me that’s not what it looks like.”
Past Ben’s pickup, a collection of short, dark colored vehicles covered the road. Walter squinted. “Looks like snowmobiles.”
Larkin cursed. “We’re too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“The guy who killed John and shot Daniel; he drove a snowmobile.”
Walter’s heart picked up speed. “There’s a lot more than one.”
“No shit.” Larkin eased his foot off the gas. “What do we do?”
“Hit the brakes a few times to alert Brianna.” Walter leaned down to catch sight of his daughter and Brianna in the Jeep. As Larkin tapped the brakes, the Jeep slowed.
Walter turned to look out the windows. Pine trees lined the road as far as Walter could see to his left and right. Past the snowmobiles, he could make out the sign for a small ski hotel that used to serve tourists in the winter. It was too far away to reach. He clenched his fists. “Any way around them?”
Larkin shook his head. “Maybe in the Jeep. But they’re blocking the whole road. Even if I punched the gas and somehow made it onto the side, I wouldn’t get very far. The trees are too dense and the snow is too thick.”
Walter bent down and picked up the rifle off the floorboard. He checked to confirm it was loaded and ready to fire before handing it over to Larkin. “If you back up, can you get enough traction to get up to highway speed?”
“With the road curving like it does back there?” Larkin twisted around to confirm. “I’ll be lucky if I make it up to thirty before I tip the whole rig on its side.”
“Then we can’t ram them.” Walter picked up his own rifle and readied it. “We’ll have to shoot our way out.” He reached for the window crank when Larkin held up a hand.
“Hold on.”
Walter glanced up. The door to the F-150 stood open and Craig Jacobson was walking toward the roadblock. A man swung over the closest snowmobile’s seat and stood up before pulling off a black helmet. A rush of graying hair sprung up on his head and a thick beard covered his neck.
They were too far away to see much more, but the way he carried himself spoke of a hard life with tough choices. This wasn’t the man’s first standoff.
“How many are there?”
Walter attempted to count. “Hard to tell since the snowmobiles are all the same color. I’d say at least seven or eight. Maybe more.”
“I can’t see any weapons, can you?”
“Not clearly. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t loaded for war. Looks like they’re all outfitted in the same gear. Black snowmobile suits and helmets. Could have guns stashed in every pocket.”
“Or grenades.” Larkin shuddered. “This is bad. Real bad.”
Walter watched as Craig closed the distance between the F-150 and the lead snowmobile. He stopped ten feet in front of the only man from the roadblock to leave his rig. Walter cranked down the U-Haul window to try and hear their conversation. He couldn’t make out much.
“…get through.”
“…missing shipment… check it…”
“What are they talking about?” Larkin cranked his own window and a current of cold wind pushed through the cab.
“I can’t tell for sure. Something about a delivery.”
“That’s bull and everyone knows it. They want what’s in the back.”
“They aren’t going to get it.” Walter looked in the rearview. Brianna and Madison still sat in the Jeep, fifty feet or so behind the U-Haul. Steam billowed around the rear of the vehicle and Walter exhaled. If they needed to, the girls could get away.
Craig’s voice rose above the idling engine. “No way! Move!”
“Not good.” Larkin held the rifle in his lap and reached for a Glock he carried in an appendix holster.
Walter stuck his hand out the window and stuck his thumb down for a moment before bringing it back inside. He hoped Madison and Brianna caught it. They needed to know this was going south and that trouble could break out at any time.
Craig pointed at the road before throwing his arms up in the air. Larkin shifted the U-Haul into reverse.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting ready.” He glanced in the rearview. “If shooting breaks out, we need some distance between us and them.”
A horn honked and the heads of the men Walter could see on the snowmobiles turned toward the pickup. Ben Jacobson had slid over to the driver’s seat and shut the door. He honked the horn again.
Craig gestured again and shook his head before turning around. A single gunshot pierced the silence. Craig stumbled, one, two steps, before sliding to his knees. He clutched his chest and looked up, eyes pleading with his uncle and God and whoever else was out there to help him.
As the pickup truck’s door opened, Craig fell, face-first, onto the road.
“No!” Ben screamed as he rose up out of his seat.
Larkin turned to Walter. “It’s now or never.”
“Now.” Walter braced himself as Larkin punched the gas. The rear tires squealed and the back end shimmied. He hoped Colt had a safe place to hunker down back there.
Larkin steered with one hand as he craned his neck out the window to see behind the trailer. “Cover me!”
Walter propped the rifle on the open window and took aim. The U-Haul skittered back and forth. “Don’t hit the Jeep!”
“Don’t let me get shot!” Larkin turned the wheel as the U-Haul neared the Jeep.
A volley of shots rang out. Bullets slammed into the F-150 one after the other. Walter took aim. The U-Haul bounced all over the road, swerving left and right as Larkin struggled to maintain control.
“I can’t take a shot with you driving like that!”
“You try backing up a fourteen-foot truck down an icy hill for God’s sake!”
Walter checked on Brianna’s location.
“Stop when I say. Five, four, three, two, now!”
Larkin braked and the U-Haul slid to a stop alongside the Jeep. Walter glanced up at the snowmobiles. A hundred and fifty feet was still in range for most anything. They didn’t have much time.
Brianna rolled down her window. “What’s happening?”
“Craig’s been shot. Ben’s taking fire.”
“What do we do?”
“We’re going to keep backing up and see if we can make it all the way to the on-ramp for I-80.”
“And then what?”
“Hope it’s clear enough to outrun them. Snowmobiles can’t drive on a dry road.”
Engines revved and Walter jerked his head. “They’re coming!”
“What should we do?”
Walter hated what he was about to say with every fiber of his being, but they had to protect the medicine. He made eye contact with his daughter. “Try and give us cover. But as soon as we clear this curve, take off.”
Madison leaned over Brianna. “I love you, Dad!”
“Love you too, sweetheart. Stay safe. I’ll find you.”
Walter motioned to Larkin and he punched the gas. The U-Haul lurched into reverse as Madison propped a rifle on her door ledge. Walter sent up a prayer. If they couldn’t outrun the snowmobiles, none of them might make it out of this ambush alive.
Chapter Thirteen
MADISON
Northwoods Boulevard
Truckee, CA
4:00 p.m.
“We’re never going to be able to hold them!” Madison fired another shot at the nearest snowmobile. The driver was crouched behind the seat, gun of his own propped on the vinyl. “If we don’t get out of here, the Jeep’s going to be so shot full of holes, we won’t be able to drive it.”
Brianna fired a series of shots, taking aim at four men, one after the other. “We have to buy your dad and Larkin enough time to make it to the road.” She fired again and a man fell back into the snow. She whooped. “I got one!”
Madison gritted her teeth. Of all the crazy plans they’d thought up over the past year, this had to be one of the worst. The Jeep was a sitting duck out there with its bright yellow paint glinting in the winter sun. Even if they could navigate the snowy woods to their right, any one of the snowmobiles could follow.
“If we make it out of here alive, we’re giving this thing a makeover.”
“Are not! She’s gorgeous.”
“We’re a target.”
“Just means we need to eliminate the threat.” Brianna grabbed a full magazine off the seat and changed it out. “I’ve got two left. How about you?”
“Three.” Madison leaned over and took aim. As she fired off another shot, a smattering of bullets hit the Jeep in a wide arc. “What the hell are they firing?”
“A bunch of rifles is my guess.”
“They must have endless ammunition.”
A round pierced the windshield and lodged in the seat back where Brianna’s head would rest. It left an inch-wide hole and concentric splinters in the glass. It would never hold.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Madison twisted around in time to catch a snowmobile on the edge of her peripheral vision taking off, gunning for the tree line to Brianna’s left side. “On your left!”
Brianna swiveled and fired. She missed.
More shots hit the Jeep and the girls ducked behind the doors. After the shots faded, Madison risked a glance. “It’s gaining.”
Brianna rose up and fired again. The snow machine kept coming.
“We have to move, Brianna.”
“No. I can take him out.”
Another snowmobile pulled out from ahead. “There’s another one!” There were too many men and not enough cover. They would never survive sitting out on the road. Her heart hammered against her ribs. “We need to go! Now!”
“Where’s your dad?”
Madison turned around. “They’ve cleared the curve.”
“What about Ben?”
Madison turned back toward the F-150. Ben was nowhere to be seen. “I can’t get a visual. He could already be dead.”
“Or he’s trapped up there, using all his ammo to keep us alive.”
A bullet hit the Jeep’s door six inches below Madison’s face. “If we stay here, we won’t be for much longer.” Madison aimed at the snowmobile coming her way in the snowbank. As it rose over a hill of powder, she fired. The driver jerked back, left hand flying off the handlebar.
Hope filled her for a moment, but he shook off the shot and leaned back over. The realization hit her like the bullets pocking the Jeep. “I think they’re wearing vests.”
“Are you serious?” Brianna cursed and dropped the rifle on the seat. She shoved the Jeep into drive. “Try and cover me.”
Madison stuck her rifle out the window and fired a series of shots at the snowmobile gaining the most ground. The driver slowed and ducked as Brianna sprayed an arc of wet snow across the road. The tires slipped on the wet asphalt, but Brianna kept the four-by-four on the road until they reached the shoulder.
“Here we go!” She hit the snow bank and clumps of wet snow and ice flew in all directions. They cleared the worst of the hill and Brianna punched the gas, slipping and sliding all over the place until the thick tires dug into the forest floor beneath the snow.
Madison unhooked her seatbelt and clambered into the back seat with her gun. Two snowmobiles followed them into the trees. She kneeled on the rear seat and unzipped the rear window on the soft top before positioning the rifle in the opening. “I’ll keep shooting. Maybe we can slow them down.”
“Good. Because I have no idea where I’m going!”
While Brianna kept driving farther into the forest, Madison took aim. The Jeep hit a dip in the ground as she fired and the shot went high. She cursed and tried again. Wide left.
The Jeep slowed and the snowmobiles gained. She shouted back at Brianna. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t see more than ten or fifteen feet ahead. Too many trees and this busted windshield is giving me fits!”
Damn it. Madison sucked in a breath and tried to focus. She couldn’t let them overtake them or run them into a tree. She had to make the shot.
I can do this. She swallowed a thick wad of spit and fear and leaned over to bring the closest driver into her sights. Bulletproof vests meant she couldn’t aim for the big, squishy middle and the easy target. She had to shoot to kill.
Madison exhaled and fired a cluster of shots, pulling the trigger five times in a row. The last shot hit the driver in the head. He flew back, landing hard in the snow. The snowmobile kept coming, engine running, driverless. It slammed into a tree and flipped on its side.
The other driver swerved his rig around the crashed snowmobile and accelerated. He couldn’t have been more than thirty feet behind them.
Madison called to Brianna. “I got one!”
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t think so, but his snowmobile is in a tree.”
“What about the other one?”
She grimaced. “Gaining.” Madison leaned over and fired another series of shots. The snowmobile jerked and slowed for a moment before darting to the left. “I might have hit him, but he’s still coming.”
“Shoot him!”
“It’s not that easy.” Madison twisted to face the driver’s side of the Jeep. “He’s moved into the trees. He’s flanking us on your side.”
Brianna turned in the front seat. “I see him!”
Madison unzipped the side window and flecks of snow kicked up from the Jeep’s tires pelted her in the face. She leaned over and tried to aim, but the bits of flying snow and ice kept coming. Every time a needle of ice landed near her eye, she blinked. “I can’t get a shot. Too much kickback from the tires.”
“Could you shoot out the back?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll speed up and see if we can get ahead of him.”
Before Madison could object, Brianna punched the gas.
Madison fell onto the floorboard and her rifle clattered down on top of her. As she struggled to right herself, Brianna let out a shout.
“Hold on!”
Madison curled up into a ball as the Jeep lost traction on the passenger side. Two wheels came off the ground. Brianna screamed. The four-by-four slammed into something hard and unforgiving. Forward momentum threw Madison against Brianna’s seat and her head slammed into the door.
The entire rear of the vehicle lifted, propelled forward by the Jeep’s speed and velocity pre-crash. It hung in the air a moment, a few feet off the ground, before crashing back to earth. Madison bounced against the floorboard. Pain arced across her hip.
The world was still.
“Brianna?” Madison struggled to sit up. “Are you all right?”
Her best friend didn’t answer. Madison’s head pounded and her eyes couldn’t focus. She had to move. The last snowmobile driver was out there. “Brianna?”
Finally, a groan. “I’m here.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I think my leg is broken.”
Madison pressed her lips together. They would never be able to escape on foot now. She eased up to look out the rear driver’s-side window.
“Any sign of the asshole chasing us?”
“Not yet.” Madison maneuvered around the back seat of the Jeep, avoiding the contents that flew about in the crash, to retrieve her rifle. “He’s got to be watching us. What is he waiting for?”
“To see if we’re still alive is my guess.”
“Can you walk?”
Brianna grunted. “Not likely.”
“Then I have to flush him out.”
“No.” Brianna tried to twist in the seat, letting out a shout of pain before falling back. “You’ll be dead before you make it five feet.”
“We can’t just stay in here.”
“That’s exactly what we do. Eventually, curiosity will get the better of him and he’ll expose himself.”
“Then what?”
“We shoot him.” Brianna groaned and Madison eased through the two front seats. She gasped. Brianna’s leg wasn’t just broken. Her knee had swollen more than twice its normal size. It looked like a grapefruit sitting on top of her leg.
