Butch caught his attention. “E-Z. Don’t look now, but they’re here.”
Ezra didn’t turn toward the bridge, which was about a hundred yards upriver. However, Curtis turned to see what Butch was talking about. “Yep, those are TKM trucks. Are you positive those are the guys who’ve been harassing you?”
“Yes,” he said, wishing Butch would finish up.
Curtis hiked his pants again, suggesting he needed a tighter belt. “You all have my word no one will harass you on the way out of my town. I’ll go up there and make sure. I guaran-dam-tee you it’s only a coincidence. They’re probably here to buy me an armored car.” He laughed, turned for his car, but halted.
The friendly sheriff glanced over to Haley. “I’m glad Josephine called me. She sounds like a real nice woman. You take care, okay?”
“I will,” Haley replied.
“Be careful up there,” Ezra cautioned.
“Don’t you worry about me. Worry about yourselves. Lots of debris floated by here two days ago. Something bad happened in KC. If you’re going that way, you’re bound for trouble.” He tipped his hat and strode for shore.
Butch finished fueling. Ezra ran into the tiny marina store and paid. By the time he started the motor, Curtis and his flashing lights were approaching the bridge.
Ezra had to talk loud over the motor. “We’ve got to leave while the getting is good. I hope those TKM thugs don’t hurt our new friend.”
Denver, CO
The call from Stricker had been a near-run thing, but his quick thinking had once again saved him from disaster. He went back to communicating with his teams around the nation, as well as the men working the streets below him. He was confident they could hold the line against corporate competition, treasure-hunting citizens, and an unreliable Denver police force.
A red light appeared on his phone, prompting him to use the intercom with his travel secretary. “Who is it this time?”
“Miss Nerio, Mr. Tikkanen.”
“Finally!” he replied. “I’ll take it.”
The woman spoke as soon as he opened the line. “Hello from Wyoming!”
She was supposed to track down Asher’s escape train as it left Denver, not go to another state. “I assume you have some good news for me?”
“I’m afraid it depends on what you consider good news. I’m sure one of your clods in security has told you about Misha Gagarin and his escape?”
“They have,” he said with expectation.
“Of course, you also figured out it was me who helped that terrible person get out. But it was for a good reason, I promise. I stopped you from killing him because I knew he would lead me directly to my targets. Misha has no allies here in this country. As predicted, he went right to his old quarry, probably thinking they would protect him.” Her laughter was shrill, as if it was much funnier than it actually was.
“I figured as much.” Backed into the corner, he had no choice but to pretend he already knew the woman would create such an elaborate plan.
“Well, I was spot on, as usual. Misha made his appearance. I disappeared him. I used one of your lovely helicopters to shred his Russian butt all the way back to Bryansk.”
“I guess I owe you thanks.”
“Not…quite…yet. I’m in the helicopter again, following the biggest, slowest escape vehicle they could have ever picked. I’m going to get around them, set up a proper greeting, and end this.”
“Why don’t you swoop in and kill them right now? Why the delay? You have a helicopter. They have a train!” He didn’t think she needed a schematic to explain it.
She hesitated. “There are, uh, considerations. I had a mechanical failure I didn’t want to mention. It would be embarrassing for TKM if your aircraft broke down while over the target. It wouldn’t make me feel very good, either.”
“Fine. Don’t contact me again until this is over. I’m sick of hearing nothing but excuses with those people!”
He slammed the phone down.
A second later, the red light came on again.
“If it’s Nerio, I don’t want to—”
The secretary interrupted. “It isn’t, sir. It’s Mr. Stricker.”
“Him again?” he said to himself. Louder, he spoke to the phone. “I’ll take it.”
“Hello, Mr. Stricker. To what do I owe this pleasure?” He was certain the threat of releasing those photos had put the man in his place.
“I’m afraid I have bad news. The president was not in the mood to entertain any delays for our offer. In fact,” Stricker gulped on the line, “he says if you don’t sign over one of the largest pieces in the next twenty-four hours, he’s going to demand two of them. And if you keep delaying, he’s tempted to take all of them.”
Petteri recognized he was in the worst possible place of a blackmailer. It would be a snap to order those photos released, and they would be on the worldwide networks in five minutes. The career of a powerful cabinet member would be over. However, from Petteri’s perspective, it would represent a loss of every ounce of leverage he’d carefully built up over the years. Stricker was merely a means to exert control over the President of the United States. He wasn’t willing to throw that away.
“This is an interesting turn of events, Mr. Stricker. I’ll get back to you with my answer before your deadline. Good day.”
He slammed the phone again.
His arm was getting sore from repeating the act.
Chapter 9
Somewhere in Southeastern Wyoming
The good news for Grace was her truck still worked, despite having new bullet holes in the rear compartment. The woman had sprayed the vehicle from her aircraft, but didn’t waste enough shells to put it out of commission. The bad news for her, however, was that she now rode in the same truck with Asher and the hitman once sent to kill her. He sat in the seat behind Asher, as if he wanted a clear view of her, the driver. They hadn’t said a word for the last hour.
She glanced sideways at Asher, hoping to think of something to say.
He looked back at her, appearing as trapped in the situation as she.
It was Misha who finally broke the silence. “Who is Alex Trebek?”
In their first meeting she’d told him she was with a guy named Alex Trebek; it was the first name she could think of in the tense moment. She turned to check if he was being serious. His cold blue eyes said he was.
Grace shifted to keep her own eyes on the road. “Mr. Trebek is a game show host. It’s called Jeopardy.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Misha replied. “And you thought you were in jeopardy when you met me. Makes lot of sense.”
She could have told him he was wrong. Her reason for saying the name had been totally random, as best she could remember. Maybe she’d watched the show recently. Maybe one of the park guests had said the name. However, it was easier to let him believe she’d been scared back then. Her mission at the moment was to convince him she wasn’t scared now, even though she was experiencing record levels of jeopardy as she drove with Misha toward a woman in a helicopter with a machine gun.
“I would have made an excellent game show host,” Asher mused. “I have the rakish good looks, telegenic hair, and I dress in the same nice suits as Mr. Trebek.”
She sent over a you-can’t-be-serious eyeroll.
“What?” he replied. “You don’t think I can pull it off?”
“I do not,” Misha said dryly.
“You don’t get a vote,” Asher snapped. “Besides, you hardly qualify as knowing how to dress well.”
In prior meetings, Misha had always been wearing a black suit with a TKM-blue tie, as if he wanted to dress to kill, but when he showed up in the drainage ditch, his casual blue shirt was torn and dirty, as if he’d been robbed on the street. He’d taken off his blue uniform top, leaving only his undershirt. However, since he’d been in the filthy wet pipe, the white shirt was still covered with earthy smears.
“Bah. Maybe on American television. In Russia, we—” Misha cut himse
lf off and pointed ahead. The two-lane road traveled very near the train tracks, as if there was one agreed-upon route across Wyoming. “There. That’s where we need to stop.”
She slowed. “Why there?”
“I will show you.”
They’d been driving long enough that the scenery was finally a bit different than the usual endless expanse of shamrock green. Now it was drier, with more hills, and a few exposed rock faces dotted with trees. There was still a lot of tall prairie grass, but the combination of trees and hills meant there were a lot of places to hide. Misha had pointed to a small hill next to the tracks, which was also close to the highway.
The prominent point was about fifty feet high and covered in saplings and high weeds almost to the top. When they got to the base of the hill, Misha directed her to park near a clump of trees and underbrush. He jumped out and started up without waiting for them.
“I guess we’re going up,” she remarked to Asher, who remained with her in the front seat.
“Or we could drive away,” he joked.
She thought about it, but was resigned that they didn’t have much choice. If they ditched him, there was no telling how he’d react. He might end up working with Nerio to attack the train anyway. It was better to have him on their side.
“Let’s see what his plan is.” She got out and followed the tall assassin.
They climbed to the summit of the rise. It appeared as if they were looking out at a postcard for Ireland, rather than Wyoming. The vibrant grass dressed up the gentle hills around them, and the two-lane highway and railroad tracks were the only two man-made objects in sight. Far out on the flat lands, the diesel engine chugged its way toward them.
“We have gotten in front of train, as I explained. From here, we watch to see if Nerio set up ambush.” He turned away from the train toward a more rugged section of hills behind them. “This spot would have given her an advantage to spot us coming for long way.”
“You expected to find her here?” Grace asked, gripping her rifle.
“Maybe,” he admitted. “I more expected her to fly away when she saw us arriving on road. But we did not flush her out.”
“Wait,” Asher interrupted.
She froze, as Asher was doing. It appeared like he was listening.
“Do you hear it?” Asher said, still straining to listen.
“A chopper,” Misha drawled.
As she concentrated, the wind brought in echoes of the thumping sounds of a helicopter’s rotors. In the context of where they were, she was positive it was Nerio.
“There!” Misha pointed far to the west. It was low to the ground, and almost at the edge of being audible, but she’d seen it appear for two or three seconds before it dipped below a distant hill.
“Was this a victory?” she asked, not sure if Misha had saved them.
The hitman remained stoic as he watched for the helicopter. “We must get back in truck. I will tell train what we saw.”
Misha pulled out the little radio he’d salvaged from his truck’s backpack. He’d given its partner to Robert the engineer, so they could communicate without needing the train to stop.
Grace pulled Asher away from Misha while he worked the radio. “Nothing about this feels right. I know the woman was trying to kill him and all, but Misha doesn’t act like he’s scared of walking into an attack and getting killed. He told us this could have been an ambush point after we were already here. Does that seem normal to you?”
Asher checked to make sure Misha couldn’t hear him. “I hate to say it, but you and I might be so far out of our element we might not recognize danger if it came up and bit us. This hill didn’t even register as a threat when I first saw it.”
It was even worse than she’d imagined. They were going into the hillier and rockier terrain of central Wyoming, much of which they saw from their perch. The woman in the helicopter could be waiting for them behind any of those outcroppings.
“We’re totally dependent on this guy to get us through, aren’t we?” she whispered.
Glasgow, MO
Ezra thought the men on the bridge were going to shoot at him, despite the presence of Officer Curtis and his flashing lights. He drove Susan’s Grace at idle speed, barely enough to make headway upriver. His thinking was that he wanted to give the policeman enough time to see the men and to be ready if they pulled out guns.
Two of the TKM guys hung over the edge and looked down. While he couldn’t see if they had weapons, he did recognize the handlebar mustache of one of them.
“It’s him,” Ezra whispered, while holding his rifle next to his seat. “From Bass Pro. It’s the guy who was pushing the cart of guns when we took them off his hands. He chased us over the highway…”
Butch and Haley held their weapons as well, though none of them pointed it up at the man, for fear of provoking a retaliatory strike.
“Are you sure? I thought we killed him along with his pals when we were by that smelly dumpster full of diapers.”
Ezra shuddered at the thought. There had been many TKM security guys in the gunfight, and he was fairly sure all of them were killed, but he couldn’t remember seeing the ’stache guy there. “I guess he’s the one who got away.”
The tall man casually waved and spoke down to them. “You people killed eight of my buddies. There will be a reckoning. You can’t hide under the cops’ skirts all the time.”
Ezra was sorely tempted to give him the finger or ignore him completely, but he didn’t want to risk pissing him off while the guy was in such a superior position. He flicked a curt salute toward the guy, then drove the boat under the bridge. Gradually, he gave it more gas, figuring the men weren’t going to shoot. Still, he veered left, toward the middle of the channel, so they wouldn’t be as easy to track from one side to the other.
None of the men bothered observing them as they put distance between themselves and the bridge. He sped up until he was doing fifty. However, when the river turned, and the bridge fell behind the trees, he immediately slowed Susan’s Grace down to thirty.
“What are you doing?” Haley said worriedly.
“I’m going at normal cruising speed.” He pulled out his map of Missouri and leaned to show her and Butch. “We’ve got about thirty miles to the next bridge, here, at a town called Miami. Notice how many roads are between there and the place we just left. The TKM bastards are going to beat us there no matter how fast I drive. We might even be forced to fuel up again. To save gas, we’re going to keep our speed low.”
“So, they’ll be ready for us,” Butch said seriously.
“It’s unavoidable at this point. We won’t have speed or surprise on our side.”
“Can we abandon the boat?” Haley asked.
Ezra scratched his head in thought. “I guess we could, but I’d really hate to go down that road. Unless you have a secret stash of money, I don’t think we could buy or even rent a car. This boat is our best shot at getting out west.”
The young woman seemed determined. “What about calling the police again? Call the army if we have to.”
He pointed to the map. “There isn’t a major town anywhere around. I’m not sure who we’d call. Even if we did, how would we explain who we are, why we’re on the water, and why we think we’re targets? I think Officer Curtis came down to the waterfront as a favor for Josephine. You could tell he didn’t believe there’d be trouble with TKM. The company seems to have hooks in law enforcement everywhere we go.”
“Then we’re on our own,” she lamented.
“Hey,” Butch said brightly to her, “don’t let yourself get down. E-Z and I have a few tricks up our sleeves. We won’t let anything happen to you.”
She smiled weakly. “Thanks.”
They drove for half an hour, each sitting in silence, until Butch pointed to a diamond-shaped river marker on the shore to their right. “Haley!” he barked, sending her six inches out of her seat. “This is a drill. Get out your rifle and shoot that sign!”
�
��Really?” she asked, fumbling with her weapon.
Butch mimicked her action, taking out his own rifle and aiming it toward the shore. “Like I’m doing. Safety off, aim, exhale, shoot.”
Butch popped off a round, causing Haley to jump again.
“Sorry,” she said, “I’m still not used to the loud noises.”
Ezra knew how she felt. No matter how many times he’d shot, and been shot at, each new crack of the gun did a number on his brain. His stomach clenched at hearing Butch’s rifle, as if it knew the stark bang represented incoming danger.
Haley knelt next to Butch and got her rifle ready. Butch had already checked it, primed the first round, and ensured it was good to go. She used the side railing as a support for the barrel and lined up her target, which was about a hundred and fifty yards away. When she fired, a spurt of water almost instantly shot up near the bank.
“Missing is normal,” Butch advised. “We’re bouncing around, so your aim won’t be perfect. Try to focus on the center point of the diamond. The bullet should still hit above or below and stay inside the sign. When you get a little more practice, I’ll show you what all the minute of angle dials are for on the scope.”
She pulled the trigger, sending up a puff of dirt close to the bottom of the sign.
“Better,” Butch said in a consoling tone, tapping Haley on the shoulder.
“It was,” she said with surprise. “I’m getting the hang of this.”
“Wait. Extend your arm and hold out your thumb so it covers the diamond shape.”
She did as instructed.
“Now, close your right eye. Does your thumb come off the target?”
Haley blinked a few times. “Yes. It isn’t pointing to the sign.”
“Do the same thing again. Hold your thumb in front of the sign with both eyes open. Then close your left eye. It doesn’t appear to move, does it?”
“No!” she exclaimed. “How is that possible?”
Impact Series Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 88
