I’m not a superspy.
Misha pointed to her front pocket from about ten feet away. “Do you know what it means to have your gun imprint? No? It is what you have going on there. Your pants show the outline of a pistol. I must have missed it in the dark when you were at the door of the truck.” He laughed in a good-natured way, though she was humiliated by the mistake.
The two men in the black coats stayed by the Billings sign.
“After you two go into town, you and I are even, lady. Do you understand?”
Grace exhaled in surprise. “What?”
Misha lowered his gun. “I said I am letting you go. Get through this blockade and go into town. We will not follow you. Yet.”
“Are you serious?” Asher asked.
The Russian took a couple of steps toward Asher. “Petteri Tikkanen is relentless. He says he has not killed my family yet, but I need to confirm. His jobs for me have changed in the last week; I do not like contracting my skills for someone who uses family as hostage.”
“Neither do we,” Asher replied.
Misha gave Asher a serious look like he was about to say something to him, but then he shifted toward her. “I know this does not make any sense, but you saved my life twice, so I needed to balance out. I gave you help with the ropes as return number one. I am letting you go right now as return number two. The next time we run into each other, it will not be possible for me to offer another.”
She couldn’t believe him, as much as she wanted to. “But you didn’t have to do any of this. You certainly didn’t have to get my cars through.”
“I know. That woman Tessa was very kind to me. Took care of me on the drive here. I wanted to make sure she got to safety.” He looked behind him. “I did not see her truck.”
Grace weighed the pros and cons of lying to him. Would he end up killing her if she told the truth? Would knowing he’d opened the roadblock for nothing change his thoughts on doing the kind act? In the end, even knowing he was a bad guy, she felt compelled to tell the truth. “She’s dead. She got into an accident up on the mountain. Not long after you switched cars.”
Misha seemed surprised. “I hope you do not think I had anything to do with it.”
“Not unless you dropped a car from the cliff at the exact time she was below it.” Grace’s voice dropped, thinking about their senseless deaths.
“I could not work that out—” he started to say.
“I was kidding,” she huffed.
“Well, consider it on the house. Also…” He pulled out her phone and tossed it to her. “This is to prove this is not personal.”
She caught it, unsure what to say or how to feel. It sure seemed personal when the man was shooting real bullets at her, or shooting that police officer, but getting her phone back was proof of a tiny glint of humanity. “Thanks.”
“Go, but do not linger in Billings. If Tikkanen still has my family under threat, I will be forced to hunt you down.” He pointed to the men by the sign. “As you can see, I have reinforcements for next time. I assure you, it will not go your way.”
“What will you tell them about this meeting?” It was her turn to point to the two waiting men. “Won’t they know what you’re doing and tell on you?”
Misha smiled. The burn on his face and neck glowed an angry red. “There are people I trust, and people I do not. In my line of work, it is a rare thing to find those you trust, but when you do, you keep them close.” He waved her to move. “Get out!”
She turned for her truck but stopped a few steps later. It killed her to have to say it, but a little courtesy could go a long way. That’s what her dad would have said. “Thank you for this. I hope your family is okay, even if it means you’ll have to come after us. I’m trying to get back to my family, too.”
The Russian halted but didn’t turn around. “I listened to your phone messages; had to be sure you did not call someone about me. Also, I changed your ringtone. I hope you can forgive.” He then gave a half-wave and walked toward his friends.
When she hopped in the front seat, she was on her phone even before putting the truck in gear. It didn’t concern her in the least if the guy had listened to her messages or messed with her kitty ringer. There was one voicemail in the system, and she was positive it was from the person who called as Misha confiscated her device. The number was one she didn’t recognize, but the area code was from western Kentucky.
Hiya, Grace. It’s me. I was really hoping I’d catch up with you, rather than talking on your machine, but you know Mom and I don’t have cell phones, so I’ve borrowed this one from a friend. All I wanted to say is… All I wanted to say was, thanks to your warning, we got to safety last night. It passed overhead, heading to the south, I think. Anyway…your mother and I love you very much. Please be safe wherever you are. I’m on the way to you right this second.
I’ll talk to you as soon as I can. Love you.
“They’re okay!” she gushed to Asher. She checked if there were other messages, but it was the only one. “Oh, Asher, I’ve been holding in this terrible feeling all day that my parents were in trouble. I guess it was all just a dream brought on by our own problems. Thank God!”
“Billings, here we come,” he replied in an equally upbeat voice.
She used her pointer finger to beckon him to lean over the center console.
Then, relieved beyond words, she kissed him.
Cairo, IL
Ezra glanced over to the wraparound bench seat next to his captain’s chair. It had been barely forty-eight hours since Susan last lounged there. He sometimes let her drive, but she claimed to prefer to relax in the sun rather than pilot the boat. If she’d been with him at that moment, he was certain she would give him the helm, too.
He leaned into the steering wheel as he went into the trough of a huge wave. As they neared the tumultuous waters, the current seemed to pick up and become more unpredictable. When he hit the bottom of the wave, the bow hit an orange kayak tumbling under the water. It was only visible for a second, then was lost in the waves.
“We’ve got about five hundred yards of leeway!” he shouted to Butch. “It’s going to be close!” The big three-hundred-fifty-horsepower Suzuki motor was overkill for his pleasure boat, but he’d bought it in case he wanted to do some water skiing with Susan and Grace. He reflected on how that decision years ago made a difference in his current predicament. Still, as much as it howled through the roving currents, its noise was almost completely drowned out by the waterfall-like roar of the two merging rivers ahead of them.
The front of the pontoons left the water briefly as he came up the next wave. When they slapped back down, he’d made some progress going north, but he was entering the conflict zone where the two waterways came together. It was the worst in the middle, where the water flew into the sky, though it remained rough going in a line to the north, like a zipper, where the weaker side currents also slammed into each other.
In seconds, he ran into the crosscurrent coming at him from the Mississippi River. The engine whined when the stern came out of the water, but the prop dug in and shot the boat forward as he made it over the crease. His depth finder beeped warnings it was too shallow; the device usually showed the natural contours of the river bottom, but now it showed a flat rectangle.
“We’re over a building!” he screamed, knowing there was nothing he could do to avoid it. Below, in the murky brown water, he saw hints of a building’s roof. The remains of the town of Cairo were down there.
Butch wasn’t able to do much beyond hold on to the deck, though he also kept a grip on his rifle and both backpacks. When they hit the next wave, the boat hopped, sending Butch and the stuff at least two feet off the deck. Ezra kept hold of the wheel, so he didn’t fly as far. The boat crashed into the next trough, worrying him he’d hit a roof; his heart dipped down into his legs.
“Oof,” he exhaled as his chest hit the steering wheel.
The spires of water were what he imagined at Niagara Falls. The
spray blew in the wind, soaking him and every inch of the boat. At the same time, a wave jumped into the left front corner of the decking, crumpling the light metal railing. Bigger waves loomed to his left as he sped around the edge of the worst part of the two colliding rivers. Still nowhere near safe, he angled the boat up a wave at a diagonal, so he could then shoot down and away from the more violent chop.
“We’re dead,” Butch remarked. He’d peeked his head up in time to see six or seven barges laden with coal approaching at about a hundred yards in front of them. The floating ones were lashed to three or four trailing barges, though they’d taken on water and appeared to be sinking. The whole mess spun toward the turbulence, though the sunken portion was going to be closest to their pontoon boat.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be close. Got to cut it close,” Ezra croaked.
When he neared, it became obvious there were other barges behind the half-sunken row. It must have been a long fleet of barges before some of them sank; the rear ones had tipped out most of their coal, but they struck Cairo’s buildings and houses in the deep water, sending more debris to the surface.
There was no way to go all the way around it. If he went to the left, he’d probably get consumed by the hungry fountain of the river. If he tried to go right, he risked hitting all the parts of Cairo shooting to the surface. The only way was across the half-submerged middle.
We’re going for it.
The lead row of barges got sucked into the thrashing water jets, churning garbage pile, and roiling spray of dead trees. Sounds like gunshots resonated from the lashing ropes holding the containers together; the first row split apart as they went into the vortex. Broken or not, the front barges rose up on the mammoth waves, pulling the train of cargo containers with it. The middle began to shoot out of the water, signaling he was out of time.
“Now!” he shouted.
Before the middle rose too high, he sped the pontoon over the back ends of the first two bulk hauler ships. The turbulence was almost as bad as being inside the colliding rivers, but he skillfully piloted over the ups and downs. As he reached the third submerged boat, it quickly rose toward the surface as it, too, reached the edge of the destruction.
He held his breath as he waited for the prop to catch on the emerging metal giant.
The left pontoon made contact with the back of the barge, tipping his boat to the right. For a couple long seconds, he did his best stunt driver impression, riding the right pontoon and leaning to the left in a futile effort to stabilize. However, before the boat tipped over, the waves and current pushed him back down. The left pontoon slammed the water, causing him and Butch to both yell out in pain with the impact.
They were clear.
Ezra looked back at the passing fleet of barges. As he assumed, the first rows of floating barges were dragging more rows behind them, despite being underwater. Those submerged rows sped by, like dead fish spinning on a string. Pieces of Cairo splashed out of the water behind them as the barges tore the structures apart.
“We’re going to make it!” he exclaimed, once he was certain they weren’t going to hit those remaining barges or get sucked into the deadly water feature.
Ezra had used the river currents to fling the boat around the edge of the dangerous meeting point, but he didn’t want to risk losing his momentum on the far side of it. He jammed the wheel to the right, taking his chances at cruising upriver on the Mississippi. He had to bob and weave his way through the multitude of boats, barges, and other debris in the new waterway, but was able to shift to the far western side, where it was closer to calm.
As soon as Ezra pulled back on the RPMs, Butch looked up. “I knew all along we’d make it.”
“Ha!” Ezra replied, happy Butch recovered his mood, though still recovering his own frayed nerves. “That makes one of us.”
“Gotta pretend, E-Z. You drove us like a boss. Had me fooled.”
Ezra coaxed the pontoon boat toward shore and pulled under a tall cottonwood tree in what had previously been the front yard of a big farmhouse. Many of its leaves had been blown off, and the pattern of broken windows and other trees near the house suggested a blast had come from the east, which was the direction of Paducah.
After tying a rope around the tree and making absolutely, positively, one-hundred-percent certain the boat wasn’t going to be dragged downriver, he looked back from where they’d come. The churn of water and spray reminded him of a Godzilla movie. It could have been a great monster flailing around in the waves, grabbing barges and spitting them out. Even from a couple of miles away, the roaring waters resonated in his lungs.
He took a moment to pray. “Thanks, Suze. I know you were the one who talked to the Big Man and brought back our boat. You’ve saved our lives, no doubt about it.”
“Amen,” Butch added, finally sitting up on the seat, instead of below it.
Ezra wasn’t done with his prayer. “If it’s not too much trouble, maybe you could stick with us as we get our daughter. I think our run-ins with danger are far from over.”
“Amen to that, too,” Butch added without irony. “You saved my life again, E-Z. I’m never going to be able to repay you at this rate.”
He chuckled, content to let go of some of his bottled-up stress. “We’ve got a long way to go. I’m sure you’ll get your chance if our luck continues to be this bad.”
“So, we’re for sure not going back?” Butch asked with surprise.
“Not unless you want to fight the great watery beast one more time.” He pointed to the middle of the river. “I sure don’t. And, I hate to admit it, but we’re going to have to bail on those dirt bikers. I truly hope they get home without us; they seemed pretty resourceful. Maybe they sped by the roadblock before anyone could stop them…”
Butch had almost caught his breath. “Well, you may have cured me of my fear of water. If we have to stay on this thing for a while, I think I can hack it. I don’t want to brag, but I can get over my fears pretty fast.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing right now? Bragging?” He recognized it for what it was. Bragging to bolster his confidence. The cocky young man no more wanted to be on the boat than he wanted to get kicked in the face, but he was toughing it out.
“No, bragging about it would be me offering to drive the boat myself. However, after what I just saw, I’d say you’ve got a handle on piloting. Will the boat make it to Yellowstone—to your daughter?”
Over the years, he’d looked at a lot of river maps. There was one summer he and Susan had thought to take a few weeks and drive their boat all over the Midwestern rivers, such as the Ohio and Mississippi. During their research, he joked to his wife they could take the pontoon boat all the way to Montana. The rivers ran deep enough for the pontoons all the way up to that part of the country. It would put them a few miles from Yellowstone before the water finally got too shallow. Of course, getting fuel for a thousand miles of travel would be expensive, which was why he never suggested it.
“Affirmative,” he said, mimicking the ex-soldier’s formal response. “It can make it as far as we need.”
Butch got up on shaky legs and looked over the side. “What’s this tub called?”
He’d always thought the boat was too small to have a name assigned to it, though there was no reason not to give it one now. In his heart, he knew it had to be named for the love of his life. The loves of his life. After a short pause, he tossed it out there. “I’m going to call her Susan’s Grace.”
“That’s a nice name. Do you need a crew?” Butch added with curiosity. “I can change your oil or walk the perimeter as security for you.”
“I could use your help for both. It’s going to be a long journey. Sure you want to ride with me?” It would be nice to have a competent helper for the reasons he mentioned, but he’d also come to like the young man. They’d both lost loved ones and though he wasn’t going to say it openly, Butch’s youthful enthusiasm and braggadocio had kept him going since he’d left the familiarity of
his subdivision.
Butch pulled his black cowboy hat out of his pack and slapped it on his head. When he had it how he wanted, he saluted. “Count me in, sir.”
He shook with the big man, sealing the deal.
“Don’t call me sir,” he joked.
Both of them laughed merrily, as if relieved to know what came next.
They had a plan to find his daughter.
###
IMPACT Book 3
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Impact (Book 2): Bounce Page 20
