by H. L. Wegley
“No … you can't … don't understand.” Deep breaths chopped apart his words.
Her words weren’t going to stop him. She pounded on his shoulder. “Please. Put me down, now.”
“No.” He ignored her blows and ran even faster.
Julia gasped when a tat, tat, tat sounded in the distance. The smell of pitch burned her nostrils as bullets pruned a pine branch to the left of her head.
That was impossible. How could they get within shooting range? No one could match the pace Steve set.
Steve veered to the right and entered the darkness of a dense forest canopy. He also slowed as trees blocked the dim light from the crescent moon in the western sky.
“They’ve got … night vision goggles … got to avoid … visual contact.”
They emerged from the stand of timber and found another old timber access road. It ran along the contours of the mountain instead of up it.
Steve leaped onto the road and began an all-out sprint.
“Steve, please. You're killing yourself.”
No reply. Only the sound of his feet pounding the ground on an old road, hardly more than a trail.
Steve pivoted hard and turned left, heading straight up the mountain at a pace that was insane.
His body jerked and his muscles spasmed with every breath.
Julia's cheeks were wet. Some of her tears had dropped onto Steve's neck.
His arms tightened around her. “Are you okay?”
Her voice was gone, so she nodded. How stupid. He couldn't see her nod.
Steve had said he loved her, but that was when their death was almost certain. Now he was proving his love, killing himself for her.
Julia tried to wipe her eyes and runny nose, but only managed to smear tears and mucous on Steve's neck.
After sprinting uphill for at least a full minute, Steve’s pace slowed. He continued at a jog straight up the mountainside, following what looked like a dry stream bed.
“So, you are human after all.”
Steve coughed out something that might have been a laugh.
Julia relaxed in the arms of this superhuman, determined to save her even if his heart burst in the process. Steve’s power and sheer determination, all to save her, drove away her last vestiges of fear.
She stopped trying to persuade Steve to do anything. He would do whatever he intended. There was no stopping this man. And she felt safe though, two minutes earlier, enough bullets to fill an M4’s magazine had zipped past her head.
Steve's ascent slowed, though she sensed he willed it not to. Even Steve, the nearest thing to superman she had ever seen, had his limits.
She turned her head and peered into the night sky in front of them. The ground had leveled. They had reached the top of the first ridge that Jeff described.
Steve had run the mountain carrying her, and she loved him for caring that much. But she wasn’t supposed to love a man with a job description that included killing people. So much had happened so quickly that she would have to sort it all out later.
Steve slowed to a stop, gasping for breath. But he wouldn’t put her down.
The vegetation ended. Was this a clearing, or a road?
She looked down at the moonlit ground. It was a road. They had reached the road Jeff said would take them to the rendezvous point.
“Steve, put me down. I can walk.”
“Where do you hurt, Julia? The truth.” His face against the night sky was a dark shadow, but she could feel his gaze bore into her.
Did he still believe she had some kind of injury? Why was he so persistent? “The only thing that hurts is my head. But it's okay.”
Steve's breathing was controlled now, no longer gasping. “But it's not okay. Are you bleeding from your eyes, nose, ears or … anywhere?”
“I don't think so.”
“Then what’s all over my neck?”
She was not going to tell him that she wiped her nose on his neck or even that she had cried there. “Well, it isn't blood.”
“Do you feel like you're getting weaker?”
“No, but you obviously are. Why all these questions?”
“Julia, you were standing only a few yards from a thermobaric blast. A big one. That kind of blast can suck the air out of your lungs, destroying them, rip your internal organs loose, perforate your gut, and a lot of other things I'm not going to describe.”
“Steve, I jumped into the ditch before the explosion. I hit my head on the ground because I lost my balance when something hit me in the back.”
“That something hitting you in the back was the overpressure of the blast.”
“But I was falling into the ditch when it happened. My arms stung a little, afterward, and I had a dull headache from toppling forward onto my head.”
“So your back was turned to the flash?”
She nodded.
He slowly lowered her to the ground, setting her on her feet. “Can you stand?”
“Of course.”
“Let me see your arms.” Steve rubbed the backside of her upper arms. “Does that hurt?”
It did sting a little. “No more than a mild sunburn.”
“And you can see okay?”
“Steve, I'm fine. I'm strong. I can run. Do you want to see me?” She gasped as a green light moved across Steve’s shirt. “Steve, a green—”
Steve slapped a hand over her eyes and rolled her to the ground.
“What are you—”
Tat, tat, tat sounded somewhere in the distance.
Hannan's men had seen them. Forget the first rendezvous point.
He pulled her behind a stump at the edge of the road. “Are your eyes okay, Julia? Tell me.”
“I already said they were.”
“That laser sight is a 200 megawatt beam. It will fry your eyes, instantly.”
Steve's paranoia had become really annoying. “Fried by thermal bears, fried by little green lights. I'm not fried, Steve. I'm fine. I'm not getting weaker, but you are. So, I'm not letting you carry me.”
He pulled her to her feet but still held on to her, supporting most of her weight. “Is your broken wrist okay?”
“It’s fine.”
Steve heaved a blast of air. “We need to go. They know where we are, so we have to go to Bolan Peak, but we don't want them to know that. Let me carry you for about thirty yards, to cover our tracks. Then I'll put you down. I promise.”
So he finally believed her. She leaned into Steve's outstretched arms.
He scooped her up and pulled her to his chest
Julia Weiss was safe here, pressed against the pounding heart of a powerful warrior, someone who loved her. For the moment, all her fear and horror of the past flowed away, leaving only peace.
Steve turned down the road toward the rendezvous point and walked that direction a few steps, then backtracked and stepped off the road onto some rocks. He picked his way carefully down the mountainside for another minute, then set Julia on her feet. “They’ll be coming over the ridge in a couple of minutes. Lock hands around wrists with me … your good hand. Try not to leave a trail for them. Take it easy and let me support you. Let's go.”
Jeff had said they must lose these men before going up Bolan peak. If not … they had made no plan for that contingency. But she trusted Steve.
Julia followed him as he pulled her silently down the mountainside toward a black valley below. Hopefully, a place where Hannan’s soldiers wouldn't realize they had gone, a place where they could hide. It might be thirty-six hours before Jeff, Allie, and the others picked them up.
The overwhelming sense of peace she’d had in Steve’s arms had come in like the ocean tide, but the tide was ebbing. Her old fears returned and with them came thoughts of the many ways she might die on this mountain.
At least the men chasing them wouldn't have thermal bears. Well, she didn’t think they would. From her glimpse of the launchers and rockets, they looked too heavy for the men to carry while they chased Steve and her into the mountains. But they
had little green lights that could burn your eyes out and who knew what other instruments of killing and maiming these monsters carried with them.
Julia shoved their pursuers out of her mind and focused on her steps as she clung to Steve's hand. She scampered down the mountain, trying to keep her balance, and praying they would both be alive in thirty-six hours.
Chapter 13
Running down the mountain with their hands locked on wrists, Steve struggled to maintain the right tension on Julia’s arm to keep her on her feet. He feared yanking too hard. He might dislocate her shoulder.
She didn’t seem overly protective of her injured wrist. The Velcro cast around her hand and forearm seemed to be doing its job, supporting the wrist with the cracked bone. It was an injury Steve had caused by dropping her off balance. He would not let her get hurt again.
A long shadowy object came into view. A rotting log. Steve adjusted his grip on Julia's wrist and hopped over it.
Julia's small hand tightened on his wrist as she followed him over the log.
He had heard nothing from the top of the ridge, had seen no lights and, thankfully, no more laser beams from guns. But their plans had been disrupted by the attack and the furious pursuit that had driven Steve and Julia up the mountain … and by the loss of Benjamin. Without Benjamin, there was no way Steve would leave the five civilians to help Captain Craig in DC.
He needed time to think, but also needed to keep moving. Steve flipped the switch that placed his mind on autopilot, divorcing the physical from the mental. His reflexes and instincts took over the physical descent of the mountain while he analyzed the facts and plotted the next series of moves for this ragtag army of six.
At some point in the next few days, they had to eliminate this detachment of Rangers Hannan had sicced onto them. With Benjamin likely dead, the odds of winning such a confrontation were worse than betting on a long shot in the Kentucky Derby.
But could Benjamin have survived? Steve replayed those crucial seconds from the time Benjamin leaped off the roof and ran into the house until the first incendiary blast. Ten or eleven seconds max. Almost enough time, but not quite. It would've taken luck or divine intervention to save him. If only…
A yank on Steve's arm almost pulled him down onto his back.
Two hands clamped on his wrist pulling with surprising strength. “Steve, you were headed straight for that tree. Are you okay?”
Apparently not as okay as he thought. “Yeah. I'm fine.” He turned toward Julia, her hands still locked onto his wrist.
“Did you hurt your broken wrist, pulling like that?”
The moonlight lit her hair through a hole in the forest canopy and silhouetted the contours of her face. “I’m fine. We have more important things than my wrist to worry about.”
Steve's memory filled in the shadowed places of her face, the light brown hair, soft brown eyes, and full lips. Beyond all that, Julia was a woman who considered herself weak. But she was as tough as women came. She had no idea how strong she really was. What she had just come through would turn most women into blubbering quivering pools of Jell-O, but she—
“Steve, what's wrong? What do you see? Please don't tell me there are more green lights or thermal bears.”
“Thermobaric. No, I don't see anything …” Nothing but you.
Her hands relaxed their grip on his wrist. “Oh…” She drew the casted hand to her mouth and stared at him in the dim light.
She had read his mind. A fool's mind. He should be concentrating on keeping her alive, not depending on her to keep him from planting his face in the trunk of a fir tree while he entertained thoughts entirely inappropriate for someone running for his life. “Thanks. I didn't see the tree.”
“And you were worried about my eyes being fried by little green lasers or thermal bears?”
“Thermobaric.”
“I know.”
“So what are thermal bears?”
“They’re those little cloth bears filled with rice, I think. You heat them in the microwave then put them in your bed to keep your feet warm. Calling the rockets thermal bears makes them not so scary.”
“Julia, they are scary, because—”
“You don't have to enumerate all the terrible things those bombs can do to a person's body. I get it, Steve. But, look. We’re off the mountain and down in the valley.”
“Yes. And we need this thick canopy for a while to lose the Hannanis.”
“Hannanis? Why do you keep calling them that?”
“It's a pun Craig created from a term used in Afghanistan combined with Hannan's name. We needed a slang term to call our enemy. Soldiers always do that—redcoats, rebs, kraut's, Charlie—some I won't repeat in the presence of a lady.”
“So now I’m a lady. What time is it?”
“Midnight. Zero hundred hours.”
“Midnight? I think it’s time to escort this lady home.”
“Home?”
“You know, to that lookout tower on the peak.”
Steve looked up at the black shape that blocked nearly half the stars in the sky. “Escort doesn't quite fit what we’re about to do.”
“Which is?”
“In the dark, with no trails to follow, as fast as we can, we’re going to climb 2,500 feet in the next four miles.”
She locked her good hand around his wrist. “Lead the way … as long as you promise not to run into any more trees.”
Was that a crooked smile on those full lips? It was too dark to tell. Besides, it was time to go.
Steve pulled Julia toward the edge of the stand of timber, but stopped when his sat phone buzzed, tickling his side. He dropped Julia’s hand and pulled out the blinking phone. “Let’s hope this is good news.” After unlocking the phone, it lit up and he read the text message.
All clear here. U didn’t show so moving to RV pt #2. See you in about 36h. Heard shots from mountain. Praying 4 U.
He replied with a K. “It says all clear, Julia.”
“Does that mean Benjamin, too?”
“I don’t know.” There was no reason to worry Julia about Benjamin, yet. “Come on. We need to keep moving. We’ve got a rendezvous to make in about thirty-six hours.”
A four-mile trek was, at best, a brisk one-hour walk on the level. But running up a forty-five-degree slope, would be two hours of torture.
Unsure how much time the climb had taken, Steve stopped below the rock cliff with the lookout on top. He looked at his G-Shock, bumped the light, and read 0135.
Impossible. He looked at Julia's dark silhouette, hands on her sides, breathing hard. She was incredible. “The last quarter mile, we just take the hidden path around the southwest side of the cliff and walk up the backside to the lookout. You ready, Julia?”
She turned away, scampered over the rocky ground to a cluster of scrubby bushes, and heaved. Once. Twice. She wasn't going to stop anytime soon.
Steve waited for her to return. He'd been where she was a time or two and didn't want to embarrass her.
A couple of minutes later, Julia walked his way, her casted hand gingerly rubbing her stomach, the other playing with strands of her hair. “I'm sorry, Steve. Guess I'm still out of shape after the Ebola. Any sign of the Hannanis?”
“No. But listen, Julia. I saw thirty women try to pass Ranger school. One did, with a whole lot of help. But none of them could have kept up with your climb up Bolan peak.”
Her head lifted, gaze locked on him. “You're just trying to make me feel better after—”
“After you had the dry heaves? No. You should feel good about what you did. The dry heaves—that’s from dehydration and lactic acid buildup. Only way to stop them is to make that run twice a week until they don’t come back.” Steve chuckled. “I heaved like that the first time I had to run two miles with a full pack on my back.”
“Enough about puking. I'm okay, now. Let's get to the lookout. Jeff said, in normal times, people rent this place during the summer. They leave bottled water and other
unused supplies for the next person.”
Steve took her hand and headed to the left at a brisk walk to circle the mammoth promontory crowning Bolan peak, protecting it like a castle with high walls. He prayed it would protect them like Jeff said it had protected Allie and him.
* * *
Julia followed Steve as he held her hand and led her over the rocky, barren ground. After they circled a rock outcropping, the ground flattened.
Ahead of them, a dark silhouette filled part of the starry sky. The lookout.
“Oh, Steve. This is beautiful.” She looked up at the stars, so bright it seemed that a person could reach out and hold them in their hand. And so many more than she could ever remember seeing, even in Eastern Oregon.
“No light pollution. At over 6,000 feet above sea level, the stars are a lot brighter. Unfortunately, enough brighter so night vision goggles can gather their light. They can see us from a mile away. Let's stay low while I figure out how to open the door underneath the tower.”
Steve moved underneath the lookout. With his six-foot-four frame, he reached the lock on the door without climbing the short ladder. “That was nice of the last occupant. They left it unlocked.” He pulled padlock from latch, pushed the door upward, and stepped up the ladder. Steve stuck his head inside the lookout. “It’s still warm from the sunlight coming through all the glass. And nobody’s home.”
“No one but us.” Julia climbed in behind Steve. The musty odor of old wood and the warm air left over from the day seemed familiar, almost like an African hut. With glass on all four sides, the inside was nearly as well-lit as the ground outside the lookout.
“Keep your head down, Julia. Their infrared sensors won't pick us up through the glass, but the light gathering component of their goggles might.”
“You don't see them, do you?”
“No.” Steve pulled out the NOD Benjamin had given him and scanned the mountains to the east. “But we've got to be cautious. We might be here for a while and we don't want any company.”
Julia laughed. “People on their honeymoon generally don't want company.”
Steve glanced her way.
